In any case, it is highly unlikely anyone could copyright the data. Copyright requires at least minimal creativity. Data produced automatically requires no creativity.
True, but the "minimal" creativity is extremely minimal. Meaning that if anyone did any selection or editing or massaging of the information in any way, it might pass the threshold.
I once asked my IP law prof if images captured by automated cameras (e.g. from toll booths) could be copyrighted, since there was no human involvement, and it was basically a purely mechanical process, devoid of creativity. He agreed with me in spirit, but said that even the act of installing a camera, or setting up an automated camera, would likely qualify as enough creativity in courts these days.
The camera installation and setup, like the creation of the software, requires creativity, at least in the design. I disagree with your prof in that the data produced afterwards fits the definition. Extrapolate from a simple turnstyle with a counter. Counting mechanically requires no creativity. Doing it electronically is no different in principle. More complex data, same answer, IMO.
In addition, works produced by the government (ie. by the public for their own good via their chosen representatives) cannot be copyrighted.
That only applies to works of the federal government. State laws vary. (An added caveat is that the federal government can acquire copyrighted works).
California code says the state can acquire copyright of works such as art and software. It also says data created must be disclosed upon request, just as any government document. I couldn't find whether there's a copyright associated with data.
If the data could be copyrighted, ownership would go to the creator of the data. That would be the city of SF, not the programmer. They created the data with the software they contracted him to produce for them, then they ran their software on their hardware, watching their mass transit movements and recording the results on their computers. The programmer could not own the data because he could not create it. He has no mass transit system with which to do so.
In any case, it is highly unlikely anyone could copyright the data. Copyright requires at least minimal creativity. Data produced automatically requires no creativity. In addition, works produced by the government (ie. by the public for their own good via their chosen representatives) cannot be copyrighted.
The programmers actions are likely to be considered by the court (unless he backs down very quickly) blackmail. These days, if the actions threaten public safety, they might even be considered terrorism. Under these charges, even if he backs down the damage is done and he might well be looking at many years in prison. The SF DA could file such charges to scare him as they often do with other charges. But terrorism charges tend to go all the way through once the process is started. To prevent others from trying this stunt, they may well do just this. And I hope they do.
The contract may have given him the right to use the data. There's no doubt it my mind that it did not give him sole use, much less state that he also had sole control over its use. There's no way the SF city attorneys would have allowed that in a contract.
Flowing sand has been considered as a model of hydrodynamics for quite some time. They were using it in studies of turbulence when I was at the Santa Fe Institute 10 years ago. One of the effects of turbulence is the formation of vorticies that persist for much longer than one would expect from the physical characteristics of the sand. The effect was noted and named "self-organizing criticality" 20 years ago http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1402-4896/1990/T33/001 . The result appears as though surface tension were involved but obviously that phenomenon doesn't apply.
I have to admit that dropping the camera to get their pictures is a neat hack.
Pack thermionic converters between the components. They'll help cool and recover some power from heat back to power. They can be on the board, or placed on a cover over it in such a way as to fit between the board components. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/electricity-1205.html
Three boards, stacked. Top, thermionics on the underside fitting between the main components, top side of the board is keyboard. Main in the middle, components top side. Bottom board, cram full of memory, below main board to keep it away from the heat. Vents underneath and through memory and main boards, so convection can feed heat to the top board.
Being close to the galactic plane now may or may not be a significant threat if the density wave theory were also correct. It may be that they need to coincide for there to be enough matter density to initiate an event.
Something I don't believe any of the references considered was that the sun and it's family constitute a minor arm of their own, a residual component of the galaxy they originated in before it collided with the Milky Way. It carries its own density of gasses which can be compressed and might be goaded into activity by any of the mechanisms mentioned as well as others such as happening upon a nearby chance supernova.
Another point not mentioned is whether our local stellar family is orbiting as regular as they plotted in TFA. I find it hard to believe that we don't have a significant orbital eccentricity. That'd definitely throw a wrench into the various relevant calculations.
Services and stability, yes. What little leanings they might have towards reduction in liberties they don't have the resources to enact. In general they're very people oriented - most national university programs are humanitarian in nature. They have specific requirements for 'rentistas' (foreigners who come there permanently but retain their citizenship), but the required monetary income isn't that large. Down side, you can't get a job that might go to a national. You'll need an immigration attorney that speaks Espanol. If you intend to take up citizenship, you'll need to speak it too. http://www.costaricalaw.com/legalnet/residency.html
In 1978 is was suggested that a galactic density wave, rather than passage through the arms, was responsible for the 140 My events. This wave, with a period 1/2 that of galactic rotation, eminates from the galactic core. http://www.springerlink.com/content/k1t6v868227t7403/
The solar system doesn't just orbit the galaxy. It oscillates up and down through the galactic plane with a period of 88 +/- 5 My. This too has been suggested as being involved in extinctions, since the galactic plane is denser than the regions outside it.
I'm glad they got a better galactic map, and I'm sure it shows what they say. But the arms themselves aren't the only things hypothesized to be involved.
The same people who, working with von Braun, gave us some fundamental and essential inventions, such as cryogenically (regenerative) cooled motor nozzles, when necessary resorted to outright hacks to get the job done. For instance the Saturn 1B was a collection of 8 Redstone missile tanks and motors clustered around a Titan tank. They went for whatever was the best combination of fastest, cheapest and most powerful. More important, they went for what made the best sense. Their focus was on getting the job done. In fact they solved more problems and developed more programs than were ever put into space. For instance, had the namesake of my UID been followed, Neil Armstrong would have been the first real space pilot, riding a winged craft into space then flying it to landing, 5 years before his Apollo flight and decades before the shuttle made this mission profile a reality.
One of the von Braun groups visions was to make the road to space a series of reusable and adaptable stepping stones rather than a series of one-shot spectaculars. Central to this philosophy was the development of orbital construction, refueling, scientific, telecommunications, command and control, permanently inhabited (through crew rotation) space stations. Their ideas, and similar ones from others, evolved over the years through a sort of intellectual genetic algorithm to give us the present ISS, a working model but as is unsuitable for the purposes they had in mind. They wanted, after all, to make it possible for us to get started on making it possible to do more and more things. As such their designs were far more generic and capable of adaptability. A collection of designs through the years can be seen at: http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/eurtions.htm http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/usstions.htm http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/sovtions.htm
Their plans were to get there for good, by means that made the most sense. Only when given the option of working only on fastest did they turn to building vehicles from existing hardware to carry out one-shot missions. They had no intention of doing anything by such-and-such a time, as that limited their options. They wanted a permanent presence that never had to back step and/or reinvent.
A program that was actually meant to get us there and keep us there would follow their design philosophy and quite likely end up with many of the same steps. Permanent orbital construction and outfitting stations would make the most long term sense. Expensive to build and taking a long time, they'd at first seem to stifle those with the urge to GO. But the expense, spread over the great number of missions they'd make possible, create and support, would be far less than faster alternatives. Similarly, once these are mature, many more varied missions could be sent more often, eventually allowing the number of missions to surpass what would otherwise have been possible in the same time frame.
Kennedy's challenge to get to the moon allowed us to show ourselves what we could do, a valuable lesson, but not the basis for a future. von Braun's vision was more aligned with what were could become. Sadly, even Aldrin's vision falls short in most respects. However, in calling for an international consortium (rather than half partnered, half competing teams) he may be pointing to the sort of organization that might be able to carry out such a program.
Eventually even O'Neil type habitats could be built providing the same services as these earlier stepping stone stations, fulfilling yet another dream but in a rational manner. They'd be built only after learning how through building their predecessors. Similarly, from these stations permanent settlements could be sent out, but their permanence would quite likely be made possible through the creation of permanent infrastructure on tho
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. That's the professional organization and journal dedicated to the subject. The picture they paint is very different from that of a Wall Street analyst writing for TR, apparently in a backhanded attempt at promoting his book on the subject. From TFA: "Using electronic health records, in combination with data mining and search technology, would make this kind of analysis much easier." Would? Try has, and incorporates distributed archiving with fast retrieval, administrative and management analysis functions, billing, interfacing with all sort of outside agencies using their own formats, all conforming to stringent security requirements but capable of being examined by governmental oversight agencies.
For my MHA, I specialized in medical informatics. It was a huge field 20 years ago, and has grown more since then. The main hurdle for the industry as a whole is the fact that it's so diverse that there's no standardization and so enormous that none is likely to happen. And like any collection of commercial enterprises, the various entities are continually coming up with improvements, "improvements", lateral changes, and repairs to the FUBARs created by those.
While the industry as a whole is somewhat hobbled, the individual entities where records, treatment, billing and admin/management are required to perform with high proficiency (due in large part to liability) have adopted IT extensively and make good use of it. At my local clinic here in Appalachia there are as many support and admin people as there are doctors and nurses just to keep the IT based ball rolling, and virtually nothing happens that's not pushed through their in house net to at least 3 people. My main provider is the Veterans Administration, with an abysmal record of institutionalized foot dragging and bureaucratic quagmires. But they're heavily wired inside and connected to all other VA facilities outside by a network so extensive, complete and blazingly fast that it'd make any provider network proud and makes a mockery of the VA's constant insistence in almost every other area that it can't do this, can't afford that, and sorry that's not might job and I wouldn't do it if it was unless three people agreed to make me and figure the odds on three people agreeing on something in this place.
The delivery end of the industry is 18% of the US economy. That's a lot of industry to supply and support. At its present growth rate it'll double in 30 years. That means they'll need to be supplied in that time with as much as exists already, all the while continuing to support and upgrade all that presently exists. One skewed statistic that makes health care IT appear to lag is the fact that they spend 2% of their revenues on IT where banks spend 8%. Fine, but consider the fact that health care handles far more customers with the same infrastructure, and the supplies and equipment cost much more than in other industries, plus the fact that it has far more higher paid workers.
And the US$19Bn infusion from the Obama administration? That'd cover 14 months of IT spending in US hospitals. Entities smaller than hospitals, support agencies, suppliers, and the associated juggernauts of insurance and health related government agencies aren't included in that figure. Figure those in and the 19 billion will add about 30% to the amount expected to be spent in the next year on IT industry wide.
Health care is not slow to adopt IT. They love it and adopt all they can. IT can't keep up with health care. Not their fault, they do a great job trying, but it's like trying to keep track of all the pieces from an explosion in progress. How tough is it to keep up? Consider:
The gross national product of the US rose from $2Bn to $4Bn from 1951 to 1971. The US health care industry including all associated support, supply and financial control (ie. insurance) will grow from $2Bn to $4Bn from 2008 to 2015. Not the same "dollars", but it's still a doubling rate almost 3 times the US "golden era".
Another invention of computer science is spreading rapidly to the world at large. Genetic algorithms have been adopted by organic objects having the peculiar ability to temporarily operate on a self-organizing principle based on reverse entropy. They have been observed following this process in order to alter their nature, and one would assume to improve it, over time. This improvement to "life" is called "evolution", and in all but the simplest of these objects is carried out through the act of information recombination called "sex". Obviously computer science is responsible for the creation of these concepts, and "life" owes its nature to this field.
Another creation of computer science is to be investigated for its role in the creation of creation. The effect on hardware when confronted with an overpowering surge of energy is called a "bang". Computer science is to investigate how big of a bang would be required to result in reality.
In the beginning was the void. Computer Science looked across the face of the void and said "Let there be Bits." And there was Bits. And thus did Computer Science create all that is, and ever shall be, for ever and ever, End Of Line. Let us bow our heads and program.
But eventually they will lose enough cases and have no money to sue.
Quite right. They'll run it into the ground by selling off assets and stock to fund their inevitable crash and burn. At which point the lawyers, having bled the coffers dry by their now self-determined fees will simply bail. They don't want to run a software company, they want to collect legal fees.
Sounds like tinfoil tiara time, I know. But why else would they have arranged to get a piece of the pie in the case that the legal tide turned against them, discrediting the company and ruining its value except for assets on hand? They wanted a disposable flag to defend.
"... with the dangerous litigation spun off safely into a litigation troll."
Don't count on it. The deal with their lawyers for the lawsuits was, a cut of the winnings if they won, a cut of the company if they lost. They lost. The landsharks inherited big chunks of the bloody corpse. Just imagine them trying to keep from turning the company into a perpetual replay of the last couple years. They'd bust a vein with the effort. I say the company will become the lawyers' hammer for every nail worth suing.
Way too crowded. Commuting is a full time job with the stress level of combat aircraft flying. I suspect the Metro has saved many people from stress related illnesses and deaths.
Way too much poverty and crime way too close to everything else. Not knocking those directly affected, but it warps the brains of others. I did research at NIH. I had to travel across town to the VA hospital, through a very nasty part of town. I had no problems with the locals, but I did get accosted by one of DC's finest in a Metro station. He wanted to know when was the last time I sold heroin. No apology when he found out the truth.
Way too expensive. Way way way. You could draw a series of concentric circles around DC by mapping how much the price of specific items is inflated. Buying stuff downtown is like buying it in an airport. If you're lucky you'll land a job that gives cost of living pay and other perks to offset the costs. I got an additional 70% on top of my NIH salary for cost of living, per diem, free Metro tickets, etc. But don't expect that for a regular IT job outside federal service.
Way too rude. Whether in the grocery store, at the gas station, in the mall, or anywhere, people are so self absorbed that they'll block your path and not move, or plow right through you, as if you aren't even there. For every apology I heard there, I saw 20 faces with eyes staring ahead and refusing to acknowledge others so strenuously that they didn't even blink as they sailed by.
Worst, those who IT serves tend to be so much more full of themselves than elsewhere that they treat any kind of support staff as second class denizens with horrible disfiguring contagious diseases. Within IT staffs (staves?) things seemed pretty peachy (I wasn't one, but I hung with them, and my wife was one of them). But the ungrateful goobs that munged their inbox by not deleting or archiving anything seemed to delight in trying to blame the IT people as well as trying to make it clear who was servant and who was served.
Up sides: Metro (yeah, they had an accident. Check their incident per million passenger mile figures). Bethesda restaurants: more different nationalities and cultures represented in food in venues large and small. Always spendy, usually worth it, often more interesting and real atmosphere (as opposed to contrived) than most anywhere else.
"... safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel."
When the original version of The Andromeda Strain aired on TV circa 1971, I packed a 12" B&W Zenith portable with a 12 V DC car cigarette lighter adapter into a friend's car and we set out watching it. He made it 2 blocks before hitting a curb. I tried and made it 1 block before doing the same. We then parked and watched the rest.
So they're right to be alarmed. They're just several decades late. But then, we knew it was stupid to try it. I suspect far more people these days wouldn't realize that unless the TV told them, and then many would still ignore it. I'd wish for natural selection to take its course with them, except it might do so head on with someone not deserving of the same fate.
Of course Fox News is reporting things even across the board, rather than engaging in yellow journalism. Their reputation is such that they don't need to research the grant itself or the ongoing project it stems from.
NIH has been funding AIDS related research for over 25 years. This includes behavioral research regarding risky behaviors such as unprotected sex. That's going to produce results long before any research into vaccines or cures.
The first question that comes to mind is how many saved lives would be worth US$432,500? The second is how much is the Kinsey Institute's time worth, keeping in mind it's going to pay the salaries of researchers, technicians and assistants for the duration? Along with that, consider that any research done under any academic umbrella ends up paying a significant cut off the top to the university. The amount varies, but I've had one university try to take 70% off the top.
Anyone that thinks they could do such things better for less are free to submit proposals to NIH. They make it very clear how to go about it. In order to be able to judge whether the amount quoted is unreasonable one would have to be able to evaluate such a proposal in its own terms, if not be qualified to put one together. I find it hard to believe that the person that Fox News calls "government watchdogs" (pluralizing being a perfectly allowable journalistic technique) is qualified to evaluate the text of the grant proposal to point out just what parts of it are wasteful, what parts are just overpriced, and what parts are reasonable, rather than pointing at the whole thing without reading any of it and making a sweeping claim.
As far as I can tell, this is simply a temper tantrum because the middle men are not getting their cut.
Almost. Swap in "in house attnorneys" for "middlemen" and you're a lot closer. Several such agencies are held hostage by attorneys claiming they have to pursue every tiny possible infringement. The fact is the decision is being made by those who stand to earn pay on action taken whether they win or lose.
How about I write and record a song with a chorus of "Fuck you ASCAP, lamest member of the mafIAA". Then I'll cut out the chorus, make it available as a ringtone. People can download it, others can hear it and notify ASCAP. If they choose to pursue, we can waste a great deal of their time and money before I decide it's public domain. If they choose not to, they'll be pursuing selectively, disproving their standing as supporting any song writers.
Man, does the new version of the editor spaz out when you re-edit. It even chewed up the text after copying it to desk top, closing the browser, reopening to the article, and pasting it back in from the text file.
The last paragraph referred to Yuri's Night, the annual party on the eve of Yuri Gagarin's flight.
The sentence that over wrote the first sentence of that paragraph belonged above, and referred to sticking with smaller model rockets.
This footnote is being moved to a headnote. This is written from a male standpoint and references females. Female geeks, take it to heart, as this activity would put you in with male geeks at a 1:20 or so ratio. Same-gender oriented, do your own math.
I combine my need for a geek social life with my need to work with my hands, workshop style. Contradictory? No. I build and fly rockets. Model rockets, large model rockets, and high powered rockets. As they grow, it requires greater building skill, but also requires things like electronic altimeter controlled dual pyrotechnic ejection, the pyro being hand packed also. In high power rocketry there's also experimental rocketry, which just means making your own fuel, for the chemistry/pyroholic geek.
The social aspect comes from participating in a local rocketry group, in meetings and flying. As you get to high power, you can participate in a sense of competitiveness and go for size and power. (Present record is a 1/10 scale model Saturn V). You can do it like the steely eyed missile men and start with a desired flight profile then build the beast to fit it. I wanted to hear my own sonic boom, so I came up with a design via software that would do the job (there are several available for this, all under $100). I built a 9 foot, 6 pound monster that used very fast burning motors, a vertical dragster. It cracked Mach 1 at about 500 feet, the length helping to make it audible. Don't think that didn't earn me geek points with the folks at the flying field (the same field SpaceX tested early motors at; it's still littered with rusting pieces; more geek relation).
Most rocketry groups fly at least once a month, some as often as 4. Some areas may have more than one group close enough to participate in. You can find them at National Association of Rocketry http://nar.org/ and Tripoli Rocketry Association http://tripoli.org/ .
You can spend as little or as much on this as you want. Some regular, long time rocketers stick with the smaller model rockets (http://yurisnight.net/ . Fairly evenly gender balanced, and very geek-attractive should you find a female that's at least somewhat interested in a geek and geekish things.
Sorry, the new editor is a bit wonky. It lost the bottom portion of my post after a re-edit. Anyway, to respond:
The instances I'm familiar with are in scientific pubication. You're required to use full disclosure by the journals. There have been instances of lack of disclosure resulting in disciplinary action as scientific fraud. The legal actions were outside the venue of the journals, so yes, it can be a legal requirement. Modify that with the fact that only the worst get that treatment, with lesser infractions being handled in house with the publisher, work site, etc.
Yes, others can stir up trouble, even wrongly. They can do so now. Don't expect the numbers to change just because an oversight agency gets involved. In fact, with a parallel to publishing, if say NFS is invovled, they'll look at the source of the complaint besides the alleged offender. Accusations that are simply incorrect are forgiven, The few that are intended to cause problems are found out and discredited. The FTC has been good enough in most other areas that you can expect them to remain neutral and investigate all sides.
Some agencies may be so poorly set up to handle things that they'd require an attorney be involved from the get go. In the situations being described here, the information to be investigated would either be prima facie and public, requiring no discovery, or else be a demand (at worst) for information regarding a relationship not disclosed. They'd require a description of such from the original, but would require an independent confirmation from the other agent. Answering their questions on paper, with attached invoices, etc. if necessary, should be all that's required.
People handle much worse from the IRS by themselves. The FTC's requirements are much easier to understand. The actions required to prevent most accusations and deflect the few others is not an unreasonable burden.
Of course all that applies to the tiny minority of blogs that their owners consider important enough to defend. Most have far less monetary and ego investment and could simply disappear then reappear in a new guise.
The numbers given don't carry the same weight when put into the broader context of user reality.
The amount of true HD material is tiny compared to the vast amount of material available. Hardware for HD disks gets used to simply store more regular material. Which HD disk format is used is irrelevant.
Many users convert and compress for storage. Where AVI package dominated before (often a movie stored in 700 MB), MKV format is growing in popularity for HD compression (~ 2 GB for a movie). Even the commercial Xvid variant DivX is including MKV format in their new software. There are over 100 million home and handheld devices sold with DivX capabilty and these can be used to read HD material compressed to either DivX (actually most any AVI) or MKV format. Again, which HD format makes no difference, if one is used at all. As long as material stays smaller than a single standard DVD, adoption of HD formats is stifled and ratios don't reflect much more than current price and previous purchase.
Which particular HD format gets adopted by producers only impacts those whose main activity is obtaining material on original media. More get it elsewhere, and far more material is available than the little bit on HD disks that is actually HD material (ie, they're releasing material on HD formats that aren't capable ot making use of the format).
Just an aside to the editors: this is not science.
The health care industry is presently 1/6th of the US economy. Without significant changes it will double in 30 years to 1/3 of the economy. Its size is due to the involvement of the government sanctioned Ponzi schemes and cash flow tidal pools known as insurance companies. Contrary to the report generated by the government that is being used as the rationale for the "improvements" in the health care industry, forcing the insurance companies to take on even more will result in more and faster growth. By 2040 health care would be around half of the US economy.
A government run operation that competes with the commercial enterprises won't improve things. We already have that in Medicare/Medicaid. The mandated low payments and customary federal employees' gross mismanagement only result in more costs passed to patients and insurance companies as well as denial of services as more providers opt out of accepting these. The growth of these programs has resulted in increases in taxation without concominant increases in service. With growth unchecked, and with the demographic bubble of baby boomers draining it outnumbering the younger work force, by 2040 it will require the younger people to have 2 full time jobs just to pay the taxes that keep those programs afloat.
The US pays more now for health care than most others, without better results or satisfaction. This will only get worse as the present system grows, and will get worse still if it is forced to grow even faster. The only rational solution is to remove the middleman carcinoma from the health care industry. That is, get rid of insurance and mandate reduction in the artificially inflated medical care costs that they promote.
My advice is to drop any insurance and keep the money. If you need care, either get the same rate from a provider they offer to insurance, or if they refuse, get care and don't pay. Become medically indigent. That will help cause the present system to collapse, the sooner the better, the later the greater damage to the rest of the economy. That advice came to me from the professor and hospital administrator teaching history and systems of the health care industry for my master's in health care administration. He also told us that by the time we got our degrees that we may not have jobs, and even if we do, we probably won't retire from the same industry, since the present system is not sustainable. For me this became academic, because by the time I graduated I realized I had too much conscience to be able to hold peoples' health hostage with a protection racket.
On a more recent note, if you think insurance companies are the sort of responsible entities to be tasked with self-oversight and watching out for your best interests, look back a week or so in the news and find out how many of those companies have invested how many millions of dollars in tobacco companies. That only looks like conflict of interest. Their real interest is in handling your money when you get sick, so they'd just as soon you get sicker sooner, so in this instance they are being entirely responsible to those to who they exist to be most responsible to -- their shareholders.
Trying to fix this problem by requiring those responsible for the problem to take an even greater role is simply shooting the economy in the foot. I have to drive 70 miles one way to get medical treatment at the closest Veterans Administration facility, and do so several time a month. And I'm glad to, so that I don't have to participate in the travesty called the health care "industry". God love the care givers, they deserve all respect, but God damn the "industry" that helps create the problems it makes money from supposedly solving.
Will any culturally British games get support, or just the ones they're proud of? Here's some more ideas following "Some Ideas" by 4D6963 (933028) above:
Thanksgiving: Fighting For Your Holiday. An edutainment/historic recreation. Carry out the plan of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, extra points for recovering and eating roasted corn from the site. "In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that, "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."
How about a multi-game framework called Global Domination, with specific scenario files such as "East India Company" and "Hudson's Bay Company"? Invade, subdue and colonize. Impose a colonial government in the form of a commercial enterprise. Try to come up with improvements on some of the quintessentially British techniques and tactics from history, such as slavery, sanctioned if not imposed drug addiction, and requiring proof of indigenous people killed in the form of strips of scalp with hair ripped from their skulls. See how long you can maintain control before the inevitable collapse of the Empire eventually leads to nostalgic recreations in the form of "culturally British" computer games.
Flamebait? This? No, this is response. The original is flamebait. One person's "cultural" is another's "racist". The "British" aspect just happens to make it very easy to flip that conceptual card.
I'd take that phrase of yours and apply it as broadly as possible. To the greatest extent possible make sure that all laws are written so that they apply equally and explicitly to digital and otherwise. There is nothing fundamental about digital that requires different rights, protections, etc. Given the chance to segregate digital from other concerns, many politicians and law enforcement people will treat them differently even when it's not warranted. Some times this is through ignorance, some times pleading ignorance as an excuse for foot dragging, etc. Likewise, they can seek much greater damages for digital copies than for analog or hard copies of the same work or otherwise prosecute some things differently when the fundamental infraction doesn't differ. Rights and laws are too important to be tied to any technology, stone tablets or data clouds.
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In any case, it is highly unlikely anyone could copyright the data. Copyright requires at least minimal creativity. Data produced automatically requires no creativity.
True, but the "minimal" creativity is extremely minimal. Meaning that if anyone did any selection or editing or massaging of the information in any way, it might pass the threshold.
I once asked my IP law prof if images captured by automated cameras (e.g. from toll booths) could be copyrighted, since there was no human involvement, and it was basically a purely mechanical process, devoid of creativity. He agreed with me in spirit, but said that even the act of installing a camera, or setting up an automated camera, would likely qualify as enough creativity in courts these days.
The camera installation and setup, like the creation of the software, requires creativity, at least in the design. I disagree with your prof in that the data produced afterwards fits the definition. Extrapolate from a simple turnstyle with a counter. Counting mechanically requires no creativity. Doing it electronically is no different in principle. More complex data, same answer, IMO.
In addition, works produced by the government (ie. by the public for their own good via their chosen representatives) cannot be copyrighted.
That only applies to works of the federal government. State laws vary. (An added caveat is that the federal government can acquire copyrighted works).
California code says the state can acquire copyright of works such as art and software. It also says data created must be disclosed upon request, just as any government document. I couldn't find whether there's a copyright associated with data.
If the data could be copyrighted, ownership would go to the creator of the data. That would be the city of SF, not the programmer. They created the data with the software they contracted him to produce for them, then they ran their software on their hardware, watching their mass transit movements and recording the results on their computers. The programmer could not own the data because he could not create it. He has no mass transit system with which to do so.
In any case, it is highly unlikely anyone could copyright the data. Copyright requires at least minimal creativity. Data produced automatically requires no creativity. In addition, works produced by the government (ie. by the public for their own good via their chosen representatives) cannot be copyrighted.
The programmers actions are likely to be considered by the court (unless he backs down very quickly) blackmail. These days, if the actions threaten public safety, they might even be considered terrorism. Under these charges, even if he backs down the damage is done and he might well be looking at many years in prison. The SF DA could file such charges to scare him as they often do with other charges. But terrorism charges tend to go all the way through once the process is started. To prevent others from trying this stunt, they may well do just this. And I hope they do.
The contract may have given him the right to use the data. There's no doubt it my mind that it did not give him sole use, much less state that he also had sole control over its use. There's no way the SF city attorneys would have allowed that in a contract.
Flowing sand has been considered as a model of hydrodynamics for quite some time. They were using it in studies of turbulence when I was at the Santa Fe Institute 10 years ago. One of the effects of turbulence is the formation of vorticies that persist for much longer than one would expect from the physical characteristics of the sand. The effect was noted and named "self-organizing criticality" 20 years ago http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1402-4896/1990/T33/001 . The result appears as though surface tension were involved but obviously that phenomenon doesn't apply.
I have to admit that dropping the camera to get their pictures is a neat hack.
Pack thermionic converters between the components. They'll help cool and recover some power from heat back to power. They can be on the board, or placed on a cover over it in such a way as to fit between the board components. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/electricity-1205.html
Build in parallel processing with 16 processors, 4 on each side of a 4D-cube, as in the Connection Machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine
Three boards, stacked. Top, thermionics on the underside fitting between the main components, top side of the board is keyboard. Main in the middle, components top side. Bottom board, cram full of memory, below main board to keep it away from the heat. Vents underneath and through memory and main boards, so convection can feed heat to the top board.
A very coherent and insightful reply. Thank you.
The original paper re: galactic plane crossing is available at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1851772 but it costs US$20.
Being close to the galactic plane now may or may not be a significant threat if the density wave theory were also correct. It may be that they need to coincide for there to be enough matter density to initiate an event.
Something I don't believe any of the references considered was that the sun and it's family constitute a minor arm of their own, a residual component of the galaxy they originated in before it collided with the Milky Way. It carries its own density of gasses which can be compressed and might be goaded into activity by any of the mechanisms mentioned as well as others such as happening upon a nearby chance supernova.
Another point not mentioned is whether our local stellar family is orbiting as regular as they plotted in TFA. I find it hard to believe that we don't have a significant orbital eccentricity. That'd definitely throw a wrench into the various relevant calculations.
Services and stability, yes. What little leanings they might have towards reduction in liberties they don't have the resources to enact. In general they're very people oriented - most national university programs are humanitarian in nature. They have specific requirements for 'rentistas' (foreigners who come there permanently but retain their citizenship), but the required monetary income isn't that large. Down side, you can't get a job that might go to a national. You'll need an immigration attorney that speaks Espanol. If you intend to take up citizenship, you'll need to speak it too.
http://www.costaricalaw.com/legalnet/residency.html
In 1978 is was suggested that a galactic density wave, rather than passage through the arms, was responsible for the 140 My events. This wave, with a period 1/2 that of galactic rotation, eminates from the galactic core. http://www.springerlink.com/content/k1t6v868227t7403/
The solar system doesn't just orbit the galaxy. It oscillates up and down through the galactic plane with a period of 88 +/- 5 My. This too has been suggested as being involved in extinctions, since the galactic plane is denser than the regions outside it.
I'm glad they got a better galactic map, and I'm sure it shows what they say. But the arms themselves aren't the only things hypothesized to be involved.
The same people who, working with von Braun, gave us some fundamental and essential inventions, such as cryogenically (regenerative) cooled motor nozzles, when necessary resorted to outright hacks to get the job done. For instance the Saturn 1B was a collection of 8 Redstone missile tanks and motors clustered around a Titan tank. They went for whatever was the best combination of fastest, cheapest and most powerful. More important, they went for what made the best sense. Their focus was on getting the job done. In fact they solved more problems and developed more programs than were ever put into space. For instance, had the namesake of my UID been followed, Neil Armstrong would have been the first real space pilot, riding a winged craft into space then flying it to landing, 5 years before his Apollo flight and decades before the shuttle made this mission profile a reality.
One of the von Braun groups visions was to make the road to space a series of reusable and adaptable stepping stones rather than a series of one-shot spectaculars. Central to this philosophy was the development of orbital construction, refueling, scientific, telecommunications, command and control, permanently inhabited (through crew rotation) space stations. Their ideas, and similar ones from others, evolved over the years through a sort of intellectual genetic algorithm to give us the present ISS, a working model but as is unsuitable for the purposes they had in mind. They wanted, after all, to make it possible for us to get started on making it possible to do more and more things. As such their designs were far more generic and capable of adaptability. A collection of designs through the years can be seen at:
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/eurtions.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/usstions.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/sovtions.htm
Their plans were to get there for good, by means that made the most sense. Only when given the option of working only on fastest did they turn to building vehicles from existing hardware to carry out one-shot missions. They had no intention of doing anything by such-and-such a time, as that limited their options. They wanted a permanent presence that never had to back step and /or reinvent.
A program that was actually meant to get us there and keep us there would follow their design philosophy and quite likely end up with many of the same steps. Permanent orbital construction and outfitting stations would make the most long term sense. Expensive to build and taking a long time, they'd at first seem to stifle those with the urge to GO. But the expense, spread over the great number of missions they'd make possible, create and support, would be far less than faster alternatives. Similarly, once these are mature, many more varied missions could be sent more often, eventually allowing the number of missions to surpass what would otherwise have been possible in the same time frame.
Kennedy's challenge to get to the moon allowed us to show ourselves what we could do, a valuable lesson, but not the basis for a future. von Braun's vision was more aligned with what were could become. Sadly, even Aldrin's vision falls short in most respects. However, in calling for an international consortium (rather than half partnered, half competing teams) he may be pointing to the sort of organization that might be able to carry out such a program.
Eventually even O'Neil type habitats could be built providing the same services as these earlier stepping stone stations, fulfilling yet another dream but in a rational manner. They'd be built only after learning how through building their predecessors. Similarly, from these stations permanent settlements could be sent out, but their permanence would quite likely be made possible through the creation of permanent infrastructure on tho
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. That's the professional organization and journal dedicated to the subject. The picture they paint is very different from that of a Wall Street analyst writing for TR, apparently in a backhanded attempt at promoting his book on the subject. From TFA: "Using electronic health records, in combination with data mining and search technology, would make this kind of analysis much easier." Would? Try has, and incorporates distributed archiving with fast retrieval, administrative and management analysis functions, billing, interfacing with all sort of outside agencies using their own formats, all conforming to stringent security requirements but capable of being examined by governmental oversight agencies.
For my MHA, I specialized in medical informatics. It was a huge field 20 years ago, and has grown more since then. The main hurdle for the industry as a whole is the fact that it's so diverse that there's no standardization and so enormous that none is likely to happen. And like any collection of commercial enterprises, the various entities are continually coming up with improvements, "improvements", lateral changes, and repairs to the FUBARs created by those.
While the industry as a whole is somewhat hobbled, the individual entities where records, treatment, billing and admin/management are required to perform with high proficiency (due in large part to liability) have adopted IT extensively and make good use of it. At my local clinic here in Appalachia there are as many support and admin people as there are doctors and nurses just to keep the IT based ball rolling, and virtually nothing happens that's not pushed through their in house net to at least 3 people. My main provider is the Veterans Administration, with an abysmal record of institutionalized foot dragging and bureaucratic quagmires. But they're heavily wired inside and connected to all other VA facilities outside by a network so extensive, complete and blazingly fast that it'd make any provider network proud and makes a mockery of the VA's constant insistence in almost every other area that it can't do this, can't afford that, and sorry that's not might job and I wouldn't do it if it was unless three people agreed to make me and figure the odds on three people agreeing on something in this place.
The delivery end of the industry is 18% of the US economy. That's a lot of industry to supply and support. At its present growth rate it'll double in 30 years. That means they'll need to be supplied in that time with as much as exists already, all the while continuing to support and upgrade all that presently exists. One skewed statistic that makes health care IT appear to lag is the fact that they spend 2% of their revenues on IT where banks spend 8%. Fine, but consider the fact that health care handles far more customers with the same infrastructure, and the supplies and equipment cost much more than in other industries, plus the fact that it has far more higher paid workers.
And the US$19Bn infusion from the Obama administration? That'd cover 14 months of IT spending in US hospitals. Entities smaller than hospitals, support agencies, suppliers, and the associated juggernauts of insurance and health related government agencies aren't included in that figure. Figure those in and the 19 billion will add about 30% to the amount expected to be spent in the next year on IT industry wide.
Health care is not slow to adopt IT. They love it and adopt all they can. IT can't keep up with health care. Not their fault, they do a great job trying, but it's like trying to keep track of all the pieces from an explosion in progress. How tough is it to keep up? Consider:
The gross national product of the US rose from $2Bn to $4Bn from 1951 to 1971. The US health care industry including all associated support, supply and financial control (ie. insurance) will grow from $2Bn to $4Bn from 2008 to 2015. Not the same "dollars", but it's still a doubling rate almost 3 times the US "golden era".
Another invention of computer science is spreading rapidly to the world at large. Genetic algorithms have been adopted by organic objects having the peculiar ability to temporarily operate on a self-organizing principle based on reverse entropy. They have been observed following this process in order to alter their nature, and one would assume to improve it, over time. This improvement to "life" is called "evolution", and in all but the simplest of these objects is carried out through the act of information recombination called "sex". Obviously computer science is responsible for the creation of these concepts, and "life" owes its nature to this field.
Another creation of computer science is to be investigated for its role in the creation of creation. The effect on hardware when confronted with an overpowering surge of energy is called a "bang". Computer science is to investigate how big of a bang would be required to result in reality.
In the beginning was the void. Computer Science looked across the face of the void and said "Let there be Bits." And there was Bits. And thus did Computer Science create all that is, and ever shall be, for ever and ever, End Of Line. Let us bow our heads and program.
But eventually they will lose enough cases and have no money to sue.
Quite right. They'll run it into the ground by selling off assets and stock to fund their inevitable crash and burn. At which point the lawyers, having bled the coffers dry by their now self-determined fees will simply bail. They don't want to run a software company, they want to collect legal fees.
Sounds like tinfoil tiara time, I know. But why else would they have arranged to get a piece of the pie in the case that the legal tide turned against them, discrediting the company and ruining its value except for assets on hand? They wanted a disposable flag to defend.
"... with the dangerous litigation spun off safely into a litigation troll."
Don't count on it. The deal with their lawyers for the lawsuits was, a cut of the winnings if they won, a cut of the company if they lost. They lost. The landsharks inherited big chunks of the bloody corpse. Just imagine them trying to keep from turning the company into a perpetual replay of the last couple years. They'd bust a vein with the effort. I say the company will become the lawyers' hammer for every nail worth suing.
Way too crowded. Commuting is a full time job with the stress level of combat aircraft flying. I suspect the Metro has saved many people from stress related illnesses and deaths.
Way too much poverty and crime way too close to everything else. Not knocking those directly affected, but it warps the brains of others. I did research at NIH. I had to travel across town to the VA hospital, through a very nasty part of town. I had no problems with the locals, but I did get accosted by one of DC's finest in a Metro station. He wanted to know when was the last time I sold heroin. No apology when he found out the truth.
Way too expensive. Way way way. You could draw a series of concentric circles around DC by mapping how much the price of specific items is inflated. Buying stuff downtown is like buying it in an airport. If you're lucky you'll land a job that gives cost of living pay and other perks to offset the costs. I got an additional 70% on top of my NIH salary for cost of living, per diem, free Metro tickets, etc. But don't expect that for a regular IT job outside federal service.
Way too rude. Whether in the grocery store, at the gas station, in the mall, or anywhere, people are so self absorbed that they'll block your path and not move, or plow right through you, as if you aren't even there. For every apology I heard there, I saw 20 faces with eyes staring ahead and refusing to acknowledge others so strenuously that they didn't even blink as they sailed by.
Worst, those who IT serves tend to be so much more full of themselves than elsewhere that they treat any kind of support staff as second class denizens with horrible disfiguring contagious diseases. Within IT staffs (staves?) things seemed pretty peachy (I wasn't one, but I hung with them, and my wife was one of them). But the ungrateful goobs that munged their inbox by not deleting or archiving anything seemed to delight in trying to blame the IT people as well as trying to make it clear who was servant and who was served.
Up sides: Metro (yeah, they had an accident. Check their incident per million passenger mile figures). Bethesda restaurants: more different nationalities and cultures represented in food in venues large and small. Always spendy, usually worth it, often more interesting and real atmosphere (as opposed to contrived) than most anywhere else.
"... safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel."
When the original version of The Andromeda Strain aired on TV circa 1971, I packed a 12" B&W Zenith portable with a 12 V DC car cigarette lighter adapter into a friend's car and we set out watching it. He made it 2 blocks before hitting a curb. I tried and made it 1 block before doing the same. We then parked and watched the rest.
So they're right to be alarmed. They're just several decades late. But then, we knew it was stupid to try it. I suspect far more people these days wouldn't realize that unless the TV told them, and then many would still ignore it. I'd wish for natural selection to take its course with them, except it might do so head on with someone not deserving of the same fate.
Of course Fox News is reporting things even across the board, rather than engaging in yellow journalism. Their reputation is such that they don't need to research the grant itself or the ongoing project it stems from.
NIH has been funding AIDS related research for over 25 years. This includes behavioral research regarding risky behaviors such as unprotected sex. That's going to produce results long before any research into vaccines or cures.
The first question that comes to mind is how many saved lives would be worth US$432,500? The second is how much is the Kinsey Institute's time worth, keeping in mind it's going to pay the salaries of researchers, technicians and assistants for the duration? Along with that, consider that any research done under any academic umbrella ends up paying a significant cut off the top to the university. The amount varies, but I've had one university try to take 70% off the top.
Anyone that thinks they could do such things better for less are free to submit proposals to NIH. They make it very clear how to go about it. In order to be able to judge whether the amount quoted is unreasonable one would have to be able to evaluate such a proposal in its own terms, if not be qualified to put one together. I find it hard to believe that the person that Fox News calls "government watchdogs" (pluralizing being a perfectly allowable journalistic technique) is qualified to evaluate the text of the grant proposal to point out just what parts of it are wasteful, what parts are just overpriced, and what parts are reasonable, rather than pointing at the whole thing without reading any of it and making a sweeping claim.
As far as I can tell, this is simply a temper tantrum because the middle men are not getting their cut.
Almost. Swap in "in house attnorneys" for "middlemen" and you're a lot closer. Several such agencies are held hostage by attorneys claiming they have to pursue every tiny possible infringement. The fact is the decision is being made by those who stand to earn pay on action taken whether they win or lose.
How about I write and record a song with a chorus of "Fuck you ASCAP, lamest member of the mafIAA". Then I'll cut out the chorus, make it available as a ringtone. People can download it, others can hear it and notify ASCAP. If they choose to pursue, we can waste a great deal of their time and money before I decide it's public domain. If they choose not to, they'll be pursuing selectively, disproving their standing as supporting any song writers.
Man, does the new version of the editor spaz out when you re-edit. It even chewed up the text after copying it to desk top, closing the browser, reopening to the article, and pasting it back in from the text file.
The last paragraph referred to Yuri's Night, the annual party on the eve of Yuri Gagarin's flight.
The sentence that over wrote the first sentence of that paragraph belonged above, and referred to sticking with smaller model rockets.
This footnote is being moved to a headnote. This is written from a male standpoint and references females. Female geeks, take it to heart, as this activity would put you in with male geeks at a 1:20 or so ratio. Same-gender oriented, do your own math.
I combine my need for a geek social life with my need to work with my hands, workshop style. Contradictory? No. I build and fly rockets. Model rockets, large model rockets, and high powered rockets. As they grow, it requires greater building skill, but also requires things like electronic altimeter controlled dual pyrotechnic ejection, the pyro being hand packed also. In high power rocketry there's also experimental rocketry, which just means making your own fuel, for the chemistry/pyroholic geek.
The social aspect comes from participating in a local rocketry group, in meetings and flying. As you get to high power, you can participate in a sense of competitiveness and go for size and power. (Present record is a 1/10 scale model Saturn V). You can do it like the steely eyed missile men and start with a desired flight profile then build the beast to fit it. I wanted to hear my own sonic boom, so I came up with a design via software that would do the job (there are several available for this, all under $100). I built a 9 foot, 6 pound monster that used very fast burning motors, a vertical dragster. It cracked Mach 1 at about 500 feet, the length helping to make it audible. Don't think that didn't earn me geek points with the folks at the flying field (the same field SpaceX tested early motors at; it's still littered with rusting pieces; more geek relation).
Most rocketry groups fly at least once a month, some as often as 4. Some areas may have more than one group close enough to participate in. You can find them at National Association of Rocketry http://nar.org/ and Tripoli Rocketry Association http://tripoli.org/ .
You can spend as little or as much on this as you want. Some regular, long time rocketers stick with the smaller model rockets (http://yurisnight.net/ . Fairly evenly gender balanced, and very geek-attractive should you find a female that's at least somewhat interested in a geek and geekish things.
Sorry, the new editor is a bit wonky. It lost the bottom portion of my post after a re-edit. Anyway, to respond:
The instances I'm familiar with are in scientific pubication. You're required to use full disclosure by the journals. There have been instances of lack of disclosure resulting in disciplinary action as scientific fraud. The legal actions were outside the venue of the journals, so yes, it can be a legal requirement. Modify that with the fact that only the worst get that treatment, with lesser infractions being handled in house with the publisher, work site, etc.
Yes, others can stir up trouble, even wrongly. They can do so now. Don't expect the numbers to change just because an oversight agency gets involved. In fact, with a parallel to publishing, if say NFS is invovled, they'll look at the source of the complaint besides the alleged offender. Accusations that are simply incorrect are forgiven, The few that are intended to cause problems are found out and discredited. The FTC has been good enough in most other areas that you can expect them to remain neutral and investigate all sides.
Some agencies may be so poorly set up to handle things that they'd require an attorney be involved from the get go. In the situations being described here, the information to be investigated would either be prima facie and public, requiring no discovery, or else be a demand (at worst) for information regarding a relationship not disclosed. They'd require a description of such from the original, but would require an independent confirmation from the other agent. Answering their questions on paper, with attached invoices, etc. if necessary, should be all that's required.
People handle much worse from the IRS by themselves. The FTC's requirements are much easier to understand. The actions required to prevent most accusations and deflect the few others is not an unreasonable burden.
Of course all that applies to the tiny minority of blogs that their owners consider important enough to defend. Most have far less monetary and ego investment and could simply disappear then reappear in a new guise.
Full disclosure is a common practice elsewhere and doesn't result in the negative consequences TFA claims people are worried about.
1. Post a disclaimer when you're referencing something that you have no involvement with.
2. Post an admission when you get something from someone you're writing about.
The numbers given don't carry the same weight when put into the broader context of user reality.
The amount of true HD material is tiny compared to the vast amount of material available. Hardware for HD disks gets used to simply store more regular material. Which HD disk format is used is irrelevant.
Many users convert and compress for storage. Where AVI package dominated before (often a movie stored in 700 MB), MKV format is growing in popularity for HD compression (~ 2 GB for a movie). Even the commercial Xvid variant DivX is including MKV format in their new software. There are over 100 million home and handheld devices sold with DivX capabilty and these can be used to read HD material compressed to either DivX (actually most any AVI) or MKV format. Again, which HD format makes no difference, if one is used at all. As long as material stays smaller than a single standard DVD, adoption of HD formats is stifled and ratios don't reflect much more than current price and previous purchase.
Which particular HD format gets adopted by producers only impacts those whose main activity is obtaining material on original media. More get it elsewhere, and far more material is available than the little bit on HD disks that is actually HD material (ie, they're releasing material on HD formats that aren't capable ot making use of the format).
Just an aside to the editors: this is not science.
The health care industry is presently 1/6th of the US economy. Without significant changes it will double in 30 years to 1/3 of the economy. Its size is due to the involvement of the government sanctioned Ponzi schemes and cash flow tidal pools known as insurance companies. Contrary to the report generated by the government that is being used as the rationale for the "improvements" in the health care industry, forcing the insurance companies to take on even more will result in more and faster growth. By 2040 health care would be around half of the US economy.
A government run operation that competes with the commercial enterprises won't improve things. We already have that in Medicare/Medicaid. The mandated low payments and customary federal employees' gross mismanagement only result in more costs passed to patients and insurance companies as well as denial of services as more providers opt out of accepting these. The growth of these programs has resulted in increases in taxation without concominant increases in service. With growth unchecked, and with the demographic bubble of baby boomers draining it outnumbering the younger work force, by 2040 it will require the younger people to have 2 full time jobs just to pay the taxes that keep those programs afloat.
The US pays more now for health care than most others, without better results or satisfaction. This will only get worse as the present system grows, and will get worse still if it is forced to grow even faster. The only rational solution is to remove the middleman carcinoma from the health care industry. That is, get rid of insurance and mandate reduction in the artificially inflated medical care costs that they promote.
My advice is to drop any insurance and keep the money. If you need care, either get the same rate from a provider they offer to insurance, or if they refuse, get care and don't pay. Become medically indigent. That will help cause the present system to collapse, the sooner the better, the later the greater damage to the rest of the economy. That advice came to me from the professor and hospital administrator teaching history and systems of the health care industry for my master's in health care administration. He also told us that by the time we got our degrees that we may not have jobs, and even if we do, we probably won't retire from the same industry, since the present system is not sustainable. For me this became academic, because by the time I graduated I realized I had too much conscience to be able to hold peoples' health hostage with a protection racket.
On a more recent note, if you think insurance companies are the sort of responsible entities to be tasked with self-oversight and watching out for your best interests, look back a week or so in the news and find out how many of those companies have invested how many millions of dollars in tobacco companies. That only looks like conflict of interest. Their real interest is in handling your money when you get sick, so they'd just as soon you get sicker sooner, so in this instance they are being entirely responsible to those to who they exist to be most responsible to -- their shareholders.
Trying to fix this problem by requiring those responsible for the problem to take an even greater role is simply shooting the economy in the foot. I have to drive 70 miles one way to get medical treatment at the closest Veterans Administration facility, and do so several time a month. And I'm glad to, so that I don't have to participate in the travesty called the health care "industry". God love the care givers, they deserve all respect, but God damn the "industry" that helps create the problems it makes money from supposedly solving.
Will any culturally British games get support, or just the ones they're proud of? Here's some more ideas following "Some Ideas" by 4D6963 (933028) above:
Jallianwala Bagh: 1st person/team shoot-em-up. Can you improve on the score reported in history books? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
Thanksgiving: Fighting For Your Holiday. An edutainment/historic recreation. Carry out the plan of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, extra points for recovering and eating roasted corn from the site. "In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that, "This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."
How about a multi-game framework called Global Domination, with specific scenario files such as "East India Company" and "Hudson's Bay Company"? Invade, subdue and colonize. Impose a colonial government in the form of a commercial enterprise. Try to come up with improvements on some of the quintessentially British techniques and tactics from history, such as slavery, sanctioned if not imposed drug addiction, and requiring proof of indigenous people killed in the form of strips of scalp with hair ripped from their skulls. See how long you can maintain control before the inevitable collapse of the Empire eventually leads to nostalgic recreations in the form of "culturally British" computer games.
Flamebait? This? No, this is response. The original is flamebait. One person's "cultural" is another's "racist". The "British" aspect just happens to make it very easy to flip that conceptual card.
I'd take that phrase of yours and apply it as broadly as possible. To the greatest extent possible make sure that all laws are written so that they apply equally and explicitly to digital and otherwise. There is nothing fundamental about digital that requires different rights, protections, etc. Given the chance to segregate digital from other concerns, many politicians and law enforcement people will treat them differently even when it's not warranted. Some times this is through ignorance, some times pleading ignorance as an excuse for foot dragging, etc. Likewise, they can seek much greater damages for digital copies than for analog or hard copies of the same work or otherwise prosecute some things differently when the fundamental infraction doesn't differ. Rights and laws are too important to be tied to any technology, stone tablets or data clouds.