Isn't this going to be a horribly innefficient use of power? Instead of directing current directly to the place it needs to be you are blasting unused energy into space.
If this gets popular, say every cell phone uses one of these, what is the total wasted energy? I bet it's huge.
The logical leap was probably manifest in my desire not to have a long post, like this one.
Last I checked, no lion owned a patent for "How to identify, kill, and eat aged wildebeasts," and yet somehow they are able to implement said concept and survive. Curious.
A lion is physically equipped to survive in the wilderness. It is specifically suited to be able to identify, kill, and eat aged wilderbeasts. The tools it needs to do this come automatically.
A man is (on average) useless alone in the wilderness. Strand a man in the jungle and you would see just how reliant on the mind a man is to survive. There are two scenarios: either the man has the training he needs to survive in that situation, or he doesn't. But he does have one advantage over the lion: he can reason. It may be possible, for men of some intellect and resolve, to figure out how to survive by using the environment around him to find food, build tools to kill prey, or set traps, build shelter, etc.
Only if he uses his mind can he possibly survive!
A lion doesn't need patents for its simple, savage life, and unless you suggest man live in that way you learn to appreciate the purpose of patents.
Patent and copyrights represent a pragmatic balance of power between creators and consumers, nothing more, nothing less. To the extent that they inhibit creators for borrowing from existing ideas, they can be problematic.
I agree. Which is why patents and copyrights die a short time after their creator. It is the right thing to do. But my parent was suggesting that there be no patents for this area of research - and I ventured to assume for anything based on his obvious hatred for business.
There are no first-principle metaphysical requirements for ownership of ideas to be exclusive, as the parent suggests.
There is only exclusive ownership, or there is no ownership at all. (look at a nasty divorce case for examples of this) But with an idea, an idea in your mind and an idea in my mind are identical ideas. They are indistinguishable. Two diamonds are distinguishable. You can put a stamp on them: diamond1 and diamond2. Now you can own diamond1 and I can own diamond2. You can't do that with an idea and therefore to have ownership of an idea at all it has to be exclusive.
If you come up with a genuinely new idea it is yours. A man has a right to the product of his mind. (see previous) You can do what you want with it. If you want to give it away, you do so. If you want to protect your right to profit from it, you do so. When you die, your ownership of your idea should die with you.
(The extra time after death (usually short) where copyrights are still maintained makes long-term investments more practical... but I think this gets complex)
1. A man has a right to his own life, and no man has a right to another man's. (i.e. no slavery) 2. A man must use his mind in order to survive.
Since survival is the process of maintaining life, it follows from these that a man must have the right to the products of his mind - the right to own property. The products of his mind are both material, likeusing his skills to produce goods, and non-material, such as discovering a useful new process in biotech.
The rightful purpose of the government is to protect a mans right to life, liberty, and property. To protect intellectual property, patent laws exist.
If you deny that men can own their ideas, then you deny that men can survive by ideas, and you deny the right of man to survive at all.
Perhaps they could learn from electronics used in particle physics experiments, which are operating in very high radiation environments (higher than space? I would guess so.) In many cases custom electronics are made where a commercial solution would be much cheaper, but just won't operate in that environment.
One thing I have overheard while working for a CERN LHC experiment is that the smaller chip fabrication processes are more rad-hard. (More resilient to single-event upset)
Who is more efficient at implementing and running a network? A telcom or the Layfayette Government?
The government isn't providing this service for free. Will it be fair to pay more, in a hidden way, for an inefficient service when the time comes? Fair because it comes from the benevolent government?
If this goes through, pay close attention to the books. $100 hammers aren't for the military only.
most of the local police couldn't be bothered
less about whether an immigrant's visa has
expired
In most Minnesota (small) towns, the local police can be bothered by just about anything. They seem rather bored and some will hassle you for what seems like no reason at all. Note I've found this is not the case in Minneapolis, where your original comparison may actually hold true.
While in Saskatchewan your children may be trying to obtain fakes for booze, in Minnesota our old-enough-to-die-in-war young adults sometimes go to Manitoba to have a legal night on the town 3 years early!
Also, there are other fakes that work just as well for getting booze in Minnesota. A lot of bars accept the temporary "yellow papers", which are pretty easy to obtain and augment... or so I've heard...
I had a theory like that too. I was interested in getting a site that was my own (uncommon) last name. I ran several whois searches over a few weeks while I thought about it. Then when I finally decided to buy it, it was gone.
It is now a redirect to seeq.com, and my family name is shamed:(
"The electoral college, while IMHO fairly broken, does at least guarantee that the votes of large expanses of farm country might have a chance of making a difference."
Large expanses... of land, not people. Why should someone from the farms have more voting power than someone from the city?
Also, it's not like the interests of the two demographics are mutually opposed. People in the city need to eat, you know.
If in Europe everyone had a Ferrari would you be complaining about how America was so far behind in automotive technology? I still consider broadband to be a luxury item.
Bad comparison. Physical object versus data flow. Any car can acheive the task of point A to point B, and even if the Ferrari is faster your speed is limited by laws and physics (for your safety). Data flow has no such restrictions, and everyone can benefit from increased capacity. And if this is indeed the Information Age, then bandwidth is the yardstick of progress for our time.
In some sense every advancement is a luxury over the previous methods, but luxury is a term that should be reserved for the absolutely frivolous.
But now that I think about it, if everyone in Europe had a car of the quality of the Ferrari, I would definately think America was behind in automotive technology. This hypothetical Europe must have some advanced production methods to make it affortable to all, or this hypothetical Europe has a much greater economy than America.
Why should one compare one's self to the worst? Your "be happy with what you already have" reasoning is not conductive to progress.
"Grog, why did you make that throwing spear? You should just be happy with the bludgeoning rocks we used before. The other tribes get along just fine with bludgeoning rocks."
1] Note the Panther kernel has support for 64 bit physical addressing so the system can utilize greater then 4 GBs of RAM (hardware wise supporting up to 16 GB of RAM) but it does not support 64 bit virtual addressing (what applications use) at this time.
Really? So the kernel can use 16 GB of RAM but the applications can't? Is there ever a situation where this is useful? When my mac boots up, the OS+whatever else is only using ~128/1024 MB of RAM. This is an honest question of what can possibly use "kernel" memory, if it is not an application!
I for one, say let's trust the people that we have put in positions of power (for the most part), and let them decide when to use this power.
Which people? You mean the CIA/FBI?
Did you vote to give them this power?
Did you vote to elect the people who have access to this power?
Did you even vote for the person that hired those people?
The beuracracy is thick. Who is in control? I certainly don't feel like I am.
Then why did you indicate as much in your original post?
I didn't like the explainations the parent received for his valid observation. The other reply, which contains "Nothing is ever proven in science", is perhaps even worse. There have been a fair number of stories displaying their evidence of water on mars. Eventually someone has to change their language, and say, "Yes, there was water on mars. What other explaination is there for all of this?" It's not "just the way it is". Eventually someone is going to be more clear about this.
But were some advanced alien race to descend upon us and give us detailed and plausible reasons why Copernicus was, in fact, quite mistaken about the whole Earth going around the sun thing, I hope I would at least try and listen to them, skeptically to be sure, however much it might contradict my existing beliefs.
And if someone were to come with another explaination that holds water, it has to be considered, I agree. You're always right -- unless you're wrong.
The statement "We can never really *know* anything" is more philosophical than practical, and while it may in fact be true it is not very useful.
Hmm. I think it would be very practical to know the answer to such a question. The correllaries of it would be profound. It's perhaps the one thing the alien race could teach us to contradict our knowledge from Copernicus. For now, I take my answer to it and make it an axiom. A lot follows from that.
Does the Earth "probably" go around the sun? Is earthly matter "probably" composed of atoms?
Yup. Probably. 99.9% probably, but probably nonetheless.
Alright, explain to me to me why and how you wouldn't take these two scientific discoveries as absolute fact.
You can't make assertions in science, or real life, really. Lessons learned from religion. Science is about probability. We can only make educated guesses what that probability is, whether it approaches certainty, impossibility, or somewhere in between.
And when it approaches certainty, there's no word for that? "Certainty" isn't real? Is the Universe an amorphous mess, that can shift and change for no reason at any moment?
Especially when you are dealing with geologic events that happened billions of years ago. "Based upon what we know now..." What we know tomorrow could change everything.
True. My problem isn't with this specific instance, where the information really is new and sparse. I have a problem with your philosophy that we can just never know. If you can't know, why try? Really, explain it to me.
it appears that your ego can't handle the fact that your pathetic, temporary self won't KNOW things, and know them for certain, but thems the breaks. You might be too weak to admit your own infallibility, but good scientists aren't.
And it appears you are too eager to scream your infallability from the mountain tops, in the hopes that the whole of mankind can share your dismal views.
Riddle me this, how can you be certain that nothing is certain? Or is there just a 99.9% chance that nothing is certain?
To the parent: Bullshit. To the grandparent: I also noticed this.
What is science if not looking for the truth? What is this fear of claiming the truth when you know it?
Does the Earth "probably" go around the sun? Is earthly matter "probably" composed of atoms?
Talking about the future is one thing, this is talking about the past. Either mars did have liquid water on its surface, or it didn't. Black and white. Binary. It is the job of the scientist to discover the fact, and when he finds it he should say so clearly, and list his evidence.
I have a feeling all this language comes from that Kantian I-can-never-know-anything bullshit. Nothing is ever proven in science? If you believe that, then why bother? Or perhaps people are trying desperately to never be wrong, by never really saying anything, building up their entire worldview on a foundation of "maybe".
Regardless of what the law says, cops EXPECT you to cooperate with them and also to have ID with you. On a road trip to Woodstock 99 (Minneapolis to Rome, NY) we were pulled over in Ohio. My freind, a passenger, did not have ID. The cop was like, "what do you mean you don't have ID? You could be anyone, a fugitive or something". My friend gave him a shrug an his name, but the cop was upset he didn't have ID. It was totally stupid.
I don't believe IDs should be required of a person. The government needs to keep out of our lives.
Slashdot Mirror
So why not just kill yourself and do the Earth a favor?
Oh, I suppose humanity is a cancer...EXCEPT YOU.
Hey! What's up Ayn?
OTOH, I am happy to state that you're an idiot.
Now why would that make you happy?
Isn't this going to be a horribly innefficient use of power? Instead of directing current directly to the place it needs to be you are blasting unused energy into space.
If this gets popular, say every cell phone uses one of these, what is the total wasted energy? I bet it's huge.
What? Do you expect everyone on Earth to go to every other place on Earth so that they know what they are talking about?
I'm sorry, I think heresay (news) is about the best most people can practically do.
If you think people are getting it wrong, correct them, don't tell them to get on a plane.
The logical leap was probably manifest in my desire not to have a long post, like this one.
Last I checked, no lion owned a patent for "How to identify, kill, and eat aged wildebeasts," and yet somehow they are able to implement said concept and survive. Curious.
A lion is physically equipped to survive in the wilderness. It is specifically suited to be able to identify, kill, and eat aged wilderbeasts. The tools it needs to do this come automatically.
A man is (on average) useless alone in the wilderness. Strand a man in the jungle and you would see just how reliant on the mind a man is to survive. There are two scenarios: either the man has the training he needs to survive in that situation, or he doesn't. But he does have one advantage over the lion: he can reason. It may be possible, for men of some intellect and resolve, to figure out how to survive by using the environment around him to find food, build tools to kill prey, or set traps, build shelter, etc.
Only if he uses his mind can he possibly survive!
A lion doesn't need patents for its simple, savage life, and unless you suggest man live in that way you learn to appreciate the purpose of patents.
Patent and copyrights represent a pragmatic balance of power between creators and consumers, nothing more, nothing less. To the extent that they inhibit creators for borrowing from existing ideas, they can be problematic.
I agree. Which is why patents and copyrights die a short time after their creator. It is the right thing to do. But my parent was suggesting that there be no patents for this area of research - and I ventured to assume for anything based on his obvious hatred for business.There are no first-principle metaphysical requirements for ownership of ideas to be exclusive, as the parent suggests.
There is only exclusive ownership, or there is no ownership at all. (look at a nasty divorce case for examples of this) But with an idea, an idea in your mind and an idea in my mind are identical ideas. They are indistinguishable. Two diamonds are distinguishable. You can put a stamp on them: diamond1 and diamond2. Now you can own diamond1 and I can own diamond2. You can't do that with an idea and therefore to have ownership of an idea at all it has to be exclusive.
If you come up with a genuinely new idea it is yours. A man has a right to the product of his mind. (see previous) You can do what you want with it. If you want to give it away, you do so. If you want to protect your right to profit from it, you do so. When you die, your ownership of your idea should die with you.
(The extra time after death (usually short) where copyrights are still maintained makes long-term investments more practical ... but I think this gets complex)
1. A man has a right to his own life, and no man has a right to another man's. (i.e. no slavery)
2. A man must use his mind in order to survive.
Since survival is the process of maintaining life, it follows from these that a man must have the right to the products of his mind - the right to own property. The products of his mind are both material, likeusing his skills to produce goods, and non-material, such as discovering a useful new process in biotech.
The rightful purpose of the government is to protect a mans right to life, liberty, and property. To protect intellectual property, patent laws exist.
If you deny that men can own their ideas, then you deny that men can survive by ideas, and you deny the right of man to survive at all.
Perhaps they could learn from electronics used in particle physics experiments, which are operating in very high radiation environments (higher than space? I would guess so.) In many cases custom electronics are made where a commercial solution would be much cheaper, but just won't operate in that environment.
One thing I have overheard while working for a CERN LHC experiment is that the smaller chip fabrication processes are more rad-hard. (More resilient to single-event upset)
Wasn't one of the defining factors of the original G5 release that it was 64-bit? "World's First 64-bit desktop", etc.
If they released a non-64-bit, non-IBM processor under the G5 name, the name would be truly meaningless.
Who is more efficient at implementing and running a network? A telcom or the Layfayette Government?
The government isn't providing this service for free. Will it be fair to pay more, in a hidden way, for an inefficient service when the time comes? Fair because it comes from the benevolent government?
If this goes through, pay close attention to the books. $100 hammers aren't for the military only.
If Minnesota is anything like the Metro DC area
ummmm.... I think there may be some differences :/
most of the local police couldn't be bothered less about whether an immigrant's visa has expired
In most Minnesota (small) towns, the local police can be bothered by just about anything. They seem rather bored and some will hassle you for what seems like no reason at all. Note I've found this is not the case in Minneapolis, where your original comparison may actually hold true.
While in Saskatchewan your children may be trying to obtain fakes for booze, in Minnesota our old-enough-to-die-in-war young adults sometimes go to Manitoba to have a legal night on the town 3 years early!
Also, there are other fakes that work just as well for getting booze in Minnesota. A lot of bars accept the temporary "yellow papers", which are pretty easy to obtain and augment... or so I've heard...
I had a theory like that too. I was interested in getting a site that was my own (uncommon) last name. I ran several whois searches over a few weeks while I thought about it. Then when I finally decided to buy it, it was gone.
:(
It is now a redirect to seeq.com, and my family name is shamed
Large expanses... of land, not people. Why should someone from the farms have more voting power than someone from the city?
Also, it's not like the interests of the two demographics are mutually opposed. People in the city need to eat, you know.
Actually, I'm from the US, and I still had no idea what this is about.
Could you at least put the subject of the article somewhere in the description?
Sure, I agree with RTFA, if I can determine it is worthwhile...
Bad comparison. Physical object versus data flow. Any car can acheive the task of point A to point B, and even if the Ferrari is faster your speed is limited by laws and physics (for your safety). Data flow has no such restrictions, and everyone can benefit from increased capacity. And if this is indeed the Information Age, then bandwidth is the yardstick of progress for our time.
In some sense every advancement is a luxury over the previous methods, but luxury is a term that should be reserved for the absolutely frivolous.
But now that I think about it, if everyone in Europe had a car of the quality of the Ferrari, I would definately think America was behind in automotive technology. This hypothetical Europe must have some advanced production methods to make it affortable to all, or this hypothetical Europe has a much greater economy than America.
Why should one compare one's self to the worst? Your "be happy with what you already have" reasoning is not conductive to progress.
"Grog, why did you make that throwing spear? You should just be happy with the bludgeoning rocks we used before. The other tribes get along just fine with bludgeoning rocks."
Really? So the kernel can use 16 GB of RAM but the applications can't? Is there ever a situation where this is useful? When my mac boots up, the OS+whatever else is only using ~128/1024 MB of RAM. This is an honest question of what can possibly use "kernel" memory, if it is not an application!
Which people? You mean the CIA/FBI? Did you vote to give them this power? Did you vote to elect the people who have access to this power? Did you even vote for the person that hired those people?
The beuracracy is thick. Who is in control? I certainly don't feel like I am.
I didn't like the explainations the parent received for his valid observation. The other reply, which contains "Nothing is ever proven in science", is perhaps even worse. There have been a fair number of stories displaying their evidence of water on mars. Eventually someone has to change their language, and say, "Yes, there was water on mars. What other explaination is there for all of this?" It's not "just the way it is". Eventually someone is going to be more clear about this.
And if someone were to come with another explaination that holds water, it has to be considered, I agree. You're always right -- unless you're wrong.
Hmm. I think it would be very practical to know the answer to such a question. The correllaries of it would be profound. It's perhaps the one thing the alien race could teach us to contradict our knowledge from Copernicus. For now, I take my answer to it and make it an axiom. A lot follows from that.
Alright, explain to me to me why and how you wouldn't take these two scientific discoveries as absolute fact.
And when it approaches certainty, there's no word for that? "Certainty" isn't real? Is the Universe an amorphous mess, that can shift and change for no reason at any moment?
True. My problem isn't with this specific instance, where the information really is new and sparse. I have a problem with your philosophy that we can just never know. If you can't know, why try? Really, explain it to me.
And it appears you are too eager to scream your infallability from the mountain tops, in the hopes that the whole of mankind can share your dismal views.
Riddle me this, how can you be certain that nothing is certain? Or is there just a 99.9% chance that nothing is certain?
To the parent: Bullshit. To the grandparent: I also noticed this.
What is science if not looking for the truth? What is this fear of claiming the truth when you know it?
Does the Earth "probably" go around the sun? Is earthly matter "probably" composed of atoms?
Talking about the future is one thing, this is talking about the past. Either mars did have liquid water on its surface, or it didn't. Black and white. Binary. It is the job of the scientist to discover the fact, and when he finds it he should say so clearly, and list his evidence.
I have a feeling all this language comes from that Kantian I-can-never-know-anything bullshit. Nothing is ever proven in science? If you believe that, then why bother? Or perhaps people are trying desperately to never be wrong, by never really saying anything, building up their entire worldview on a foundation of "maybe".
He was too tired to even bother making it valid HTML. Just about though...
Regardless of what the law says, cops EXPECT you to cooperate with them and also to have ID with you. On a road trip to Woodstock 99 (Minneapolis to Rome, NY) we were pulled over in Ohio. My freind, a passenger, did not have ID. The cop was like, "what do you mean you don't have ID? You could be anyone, a fugitive or something". My friend gave him a shrug an his name, but the cop was upset he didn't have ID. It was totally stupid.
I don't believe IDs should be required of a person. The government needs to keep out of our lives.