I went to school in the 1960s. At the time, the Government was funding teaching of basic nuclear chemistry and physics in schools in the belief that there would be a need for a large supply of nuclear engineers. Fusion was thought to be about 20 years away.
So did I. At the time, they believed we needed to do some serious research into nuclear energy and engineering to see what all was there and develop it.
The reason is dirt simple. In the 60s, people didn't have a clue about the problems that needed to be solved. Because high energy plasmas and superconducting magnets didn't exist, there was no way of knowing how difficult confinement was going to be.
They wanted to know what it would take to do the job. They knew it was possible every time they looked out the window. They just didn't know how to do it in their own backyards.
Or, more likely, his gadget infringes the hell outta a couple hundred patents and he doesn't have the cash to defend himself in court for that 'spark of genius' required by the Patent Office.
but safety aside small reactors are not very efficient or cheap
- yes, and the early computers weren't efficient or cheap. We need innovation in this area obviously, it won't come as long as governments are standing in the way of people trying to improve in this industry.
I dunno bout you, but I don't trust my neighbor to build a nuclear reactor in his back yard. YOUR neighbors might be PhDs in physics, but mine is a hillbilly. Duct tape is not nuclear-rated AFIK.
To get investors, you need to have a pitch. To make a successful pitch, you need money to buy the PR flacks. This is just him scamming the cash to buy the PR flacks to buy the influence to get the government grants to buy the campaign contributions to get the funding to do his studies. Rinse and repeat, it makes a great career.
Oh, ok. So if I vote with my wallet and don't support rap yodelling, they'll come pick my pocket anyway and make me support rap yodelling?
What's the criteria on this? Do I need to just own a tv, computer, or a radio? Or would a current account with my local power monopoly do?
When I was a kid back in the Stone Age, back when we still hunted dinosaurs from the backs of our '57 Chevys, we tipped for good service. Tips were optional, not manditory. If the person gave shitty service, no tip. This was understood by everybody, nobody fored tips from you.
Be my guest. Dunno what good it'd do ya. Why not protest down at City Hall or the local Federal buiding? Oh, yeah, they'll arrest you for creating a public nuisance. The charges might not stick, but you'll be off the streets and out of their hair for a minute.
Um, yeah, it does. Hydrogen fuses into helium. It also releases neutrons.
Ordinary combustion has water as a waste product. The ratio of water to the total of all the waste products of combustion depends on how much carbon is present, and how much the combustion is compressed. Camp fires produce carbon dioxide & water. Automobiles produce carbon monoxide, various nitreous compounds, and minimal water.
Kinda reminds me of the joke about the drunk looking for his car keyes in a dark parking lot. He lost them somewhere in the dark, but was looking under a street light cause the light was better there.
Personally, I don't see the need for a DHS. Just arm every citizen & educate them on the usage of their weapons. Just have the cops come over to clean up the mess when they're done.
Russians were an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union. There were plenty of non-Russians to fill the gulag with. Remember, they killed 30 million of their own during World War 2, compared with the 11 million Daffy 'Dolph killed.
Unconstitutional, of course (violated the protestor's right to freedom of assembly at the place they wanted to assembe at), but highly effective. Got the protesters away from the action and away from the camera where they could be ignored and/or beaten into a pulp.
Actually, it is possible (and indeed quite easy!) to be overly paranoid. For example, when you start comparing the DHS to an organization that routinely executed dissidents, that's being too paranoid.
When the government has created an end run around the Constitiution & habeas corpus, the proper question is, "Are we paranoid enough?"
Gitmo is still in business. Extreme rendition is a fact of life. And what with the US trying to extradite a UK citizen from the UK for trial in the US for something that happened in the UK, when the government of the UK refused to prosecute him for said 'crime', I think we all need to ask that question.
Trying to fix this via piracy prevention seems just hopeless as well as ethically dubious.
But it will create jobs, just like the War on X's did. Granted, not nice jobs, but jobs nonetheless.
One way might be to simply collect tips - people put money in the jar if they enjoyed the work. If that on it's own doesn't bring in sufficient funds, then the tip jar could be augmented with a culture flat rate. E.g. you pay a fixed amount every month for media consumption and the content producer additionally receives the tip jar multiplied by a certain factor.
EVERYBODY pays this??? Why should I subsidise, oh, I dunno, rap yodelling? You wanna listen to rap yodelling, no problem, but let it be on YOUR dime.
This industry over blows perceived threats of technology, just as it did with the VCR and the MP3 player. The solution is innovation, not legislation or litigation.
Innovation costs money. Litigation creates money, if they can collect.
In a nutshell, you're free to retell Sleeping Beauty to suit yourself and sell it and profit from it. Disney HAS raided the collective cultural heritage for ideas, but they don't OWN those ideas the way ideas are OWNED in software patents.
Derivitive works. PROVE you weren't influenced by Disney when you make your new Sleeping Beauty movie. Trust me, they can afford to field more lawyers than you. Derivitive works are covered under the copyright of the work you derived it from. The 'original copyright holder' owns it.
I'm thinking IPv4 will be around for a long time to come, for those of us on hardline internet. It's easier to block a range of IP addresses than it is to manually insert random IPv6 addresses. The US government will want to control access to the internet, thus, IPv4 is a Good Thing from the viewpoint of the US government and their corporate sponsors.
Take it up to the next level. You have an electric bill, therefore you supposedly have a tv set, radio, stereo, computer, etc. Regardless of whether you own said appliances, you will be accessed a certain premium for using them.
Only have books at home for entertainment? You must pay full cover price for them, regardless of whether you bought them new or used. Don't have the reciepts? Pay again, with interests and penalties.
Seriously, if they could figure out when a song gets stuck in your head, they'd try to figure out ways to charge you for every time you 'hear' it.
Don't copy their crap. Do something else. Make your own crap. Download Creative Commons crap. Support artists who aren't down with the RIAA.
They don't have any power if enough people stop don't buying their shit. Stop liking their shit more than you like justice. Get involved with other people online who create stuff outside of this greedy octopus.
Great ideas. Here's what's wrong with them, worst case scenario.
There are only a finite combination of notes playable on a scale, only so many ways they can be combined. Case in point, Vanilla Ice ripping off Queen, but I digress. There are also only so many stories to be told. Ever notice how all the 'high school kid' movies are all alike? It's the same story told over and over.
Disney has looted everybody's childhood all over the globe and made cartoons of their favorite legends and bedtime stories, all in the public domain. They then proceded to copyright everything they could to 'secure' what they considered to be 'their' intellectual property. They tend to have fairly litigious and agressive attorneys. How long until every concept, every plot idea, every characterisation is is locked away in a Disney vault guarded by rabid lawyers? And even if you come up with what you think is an original idea, can you afford an attorney to prove it against what Disney et al can field against you?
Now that's a scary thought. Eliminate the double jeopardy statutes & prosecute an 'offender' until he can no longer afford a decent attorney, then once more haul him in with an overworked public defender who gets pressured to plea him out.
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So did I. At the time, they believed we needed to do some serious research into nuclear energy and engineering to see what all was there and develop it.
They wanted to know what it would take to do the job. They knew it was possible every time they looked out the window. They just didn't know how to do it in their own backyards.
Or, more likely, his gadget infringes the hell outta a couple hundred patents and he doesn't have the cash to defend himself in court for that 'spark of genius' required by the Patent Office.
I dunno bout you, but I don't trust my neighbor to build a nuclear reactor in his back yard. YOUR neighbors might be PhDs in physics, but mine is a hillbilly. Duct tape is not nuclear-rated AFIK.
He does a helluva tuneup on my truck, though...
To get investors, you need to have a pitch. To make a successful pitch, you need money to buy the PR flacks. This is just him scamming the cash to buy the PR flacks to buy the influence to get the government grants to buy the campaign contributions to get the funding to do his studies. Rinse and repeat, it makes a great career.
What's the criteria on this? Do I need to just own a tv, computer, or a radio? Or would a current account with my local power monopoly do?
When I was a kid back in the Stone Age, back when we still hunted dinosaurs from the backs of our '57 Chevys, we tipped for good service. Tips were optional, not manditory. If the person gave shitty service, no tip. This was understood by everybody, nobody fored tips from you.
Be my guest. Dunno what good it'd do ya.
Why not protest down at City Hall or the local Federal buiding? Oh, yeah, they'll arrest you for creating a public nuisance. The charges might not stick, but you'll be off the streets and out of their hair for a minute.
Um, yeah, it does. Hydrogen fuses into helium. It also releases neutrons.
Ordinary combustion has water as a waste product. The ratio of water to the total of all the waste products of combustion depends on how much carbon is present, and how much the combustion is compressed. Camp fires produce carbon dioxide & water. Automobiles produce carbon monoxide, various nitreous compounds, and minimal water.
Kinda reminds me of the joke about the drunk looking for his car keyes in a dark parking lot. He lost them somewhere in the dark, but was looking under a street light cause the light was better there.
Personally, I don't see the need for a DHS. Just arm every citizen & educate them on the usage of their weapons. Just have the cops come over to clean up the mess when they're done.
Bad citizen!! BAD citizen!!! Report immediately to Gitmo!
What are you afraid of? They have the best healthcare in the US at Gitmo. Free, too...
There are those who think 9/11 was our Kristallnacht.
A little materials science sure scared the hell outta the powers that be, didn't it? BTW, Leonid, we miss you over in CN.
I was commenting on the parent.
Russians were an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union. There were plenty of non-Russians to fill the gulag with. Remember, they killed 30 million of their own during World War 2, compared with the 11 million Daffy 'Dolph killed.
Guess SOPA isn't gonna work so well now, is it?
Three words. 'Free Speech Zone'.
Unconstitutional, of course (violated the protestor's right to freedom of assembly at the place they wanted to assembe at), but highly effective. Got the protesters away from the action and away from the camera where they could be ignored and/or beaten into a pulp.
When the government has created an end run around the Constitiution & habeas corpus, the proper question is, "Are we paranoid enough?"
Gitmo is still in business. Extreme rendition is a fact of life. And what with the US trying to extradite a UK citizen from the UK for trial in the US for something that happened in the UK, when the government of the UK refused to prosecute him for said 'crime', I think we all need to ask that question.
But it will create jobs, just like the War on X's did. Granted, not nice jobs, but jobs nonetheless.
EVERYBODY pays this??? Why should I subsidise, oh, I dunno, rap yodelling? You wanna listen to rap yodelling, no problem, but let it be on YOUR dime.
Innovation costs money. Litigation creates money, if they can collect.
Derivitive works. PROVE you weren't influenced by Disney when you make your new Sleeping Beauty movie. Trust me, they can afford to field more lawyers than you. Derivitive works are covered under the copyright of the work you derived it from. The 'original copyright holder' owns it.
Love to scam one of these puppies up when the price drops to a couple K. Especially if it has a 'write mode' as well.
Think 'gene hacking' as the next 'nerd' occupation...
I'm thinking IPv4 will be around for a long time to come, for those of us on hardline internet. It's easier to block a range of IP addresses than it is to manually insert random IPv6 addresses. The US government will want to control access to the internet, thus, IPv4 is a Good Thing from the viewpoint of the US government and their corporate sponsors.
Take it up to the next level. You have an electric bill, therefore you supposedly have a tv set, radio, stereo, computer, etc. Regardless of whether you own said appliances, you will be accessed a certain premium for using them.
Only have books at home for entertainment? You must pay full cover price for them, regardless of whether you bought them new or used. Don't have the reciepts? Pay again, with interests and penalties.
Seriously, if they could figure out when a song gets stuck in your head, they'd try to figure out ways to charge you for every time you 'hear' it.
So you think mebbe all that Japanese tentacle porn might be political commentary?
Makes as much sense as a lot of what hits the 'puppet theatre' lately...
The corporations that financed his election campaign.
Great ideas. Here's what's wrong with them, worst case scenario.
There are only a finite combination of notes playable on a scale, only so many ways they can be combined. Case in point, Vanilla Ice ripping off Queen, but I digress. There are also only so many stories to be told. Ever notice how all the 'high school kid' movies are all alike? It's the same story told over and over.
Disney has looted everybody's childhood all over the globe and made cartoons of their favorite legends and bedtime stories, all in the public domain. They then proceded to copyright everything they could to 'secure' what they considered to be 'their' intellectual property. They tend to have fairly litigious and agressive attorneys. How long until every concept, every plot idea, every characterisation is is locked away in a Disney vault guarded by rabid lawyers? And even if you come up with what you think is an original idea, can you afford an attorney to prove it against what Disney et al can field against you?
Now that's a scary thought. Eliminate the double jeopardy statutes & prosecute an 'offender' until he can no longer afford a decent attorney, then once more haul him in with an overworked public defender who gets pressured to plea him out.