No, it's in the best interests of companies to make money. the assumption that the way they will do that is by making consumers happy is yours and yours alone.
And, as somebody who's worked in the recording/pro-audio field for years, I can safely say that fair use is of great concern to people outside slashdot. The musical, artistic, journalistic and legal communities are watching all these developments with various degrees of interest and consternation.
I feel like nobody understands how everybody will be affected once the last nail is in the coffin of fair use.
There are indeed two batteries. The last time I rode in a Prius, I accidentally covered some ventilation holes in the shelf behind the back seat with some paperwork.
In fifteen minutes, the car was non-operational.
Turns out the back battery is the one that does the electric motor, and it really doesn't like to get hot, ever. Removed the offending paperwork and it was back to normal almost right away.
...Product Liability. If smokers can succesfully sue cigarette companies when most people had a pretty good idea cigs weren't health food, how can a surviving relative of an electrocution victim (or an accident victim where the rescuers got electrocuted instead) *not* sue an automaker for placing high-power wires where the company had good reason to believe rescue workers would cut through? Would any automaker's legal team let themselves be placed in that kind of jeopardy?
"False. They don't "broadcast" anything. They're passive receivers. They are unpowered. They respond to radio stimulation. They no more "broadcast" a number than the money in my wallet is "broadcasting" serial numbers."
Well, if the RFID tag don't broadcast anything, how does the store get any information from it? My walkman is a receiver, it receives and does not transmit. Something that both receives and transmits is called a transceiver. A broadcast that takes place in reponse to an external trigger is still a broadcast.
So what you appear to be saying is that, after I purchase my items and leave the store, the tags will still work. Which is exactly what I was saying in the first place, thanks for supporting my position.
"The scanners used to detect the passive tags can only do so from a short distance "
Sure, for now. I remember handset-style 300 baud modems. I remember dot-matrix printers. I remember 7 inch floppy disks. I remember scholarly and scientific computer experts telling us we'd never need a hard drive bigger than 20 megs. Do you honestly think the current state of this technology is as far as it can go? That there won't be *any* further development of RFID once it's rolled out? (remember USB 1.0?)
These are all fairly obvious points I'm making.
"It is extremely technically impractical to build a scanner powerful enough to scan and detect items several dozen yards away"
And ten years ago it was extremely technically impracitcal to build an affordable 40 gig hard drive, or a camera that would fit into a pen. Whoops. Twenty years ago they all said magnetic resonance imaging was a pipe dream - I was one of the first test subjects. Today it's ubiquitous.
Ostensible (and temporary) technical difficulties are not a valid justification for doing something that's wrong. My rule of thumb is: If it's really convenient, it's probably immoral.
"Uncle Sam, if he were seriously interested, wouldn't waste time driving by your house with one of these massively powerful, imaginary scanners that can read all the tags in your house (while not getting confused with the tags answering from your neighbors' houses). He'd simply use the USAPATRIOT act to subpoena your bank records and see what you've bought."
Ah, but I have no bank account. I live in a cash economy. What say you to that? Also, you seriously think that an organization like the NSA is gonna use the same grade receivers walmart uses? If they've got basements full of Crays you can bet they're not using a retail-grade receiver.
Government abuse could take several other forms as well. My main concern is that we'll reach a point where RFID tags are taken as seriously as drivers licensces or state ID cards. I strongly resist any technology that could result in my false incrimination based on me putting on somebody else's shirt.
And, for the record, the patriot act is wrong, unconstitutional, and unamerican.
"People have always sought to dictate what people can and can't do in the privacy of their own homes. Witness the anti-sodomy laws that are still on the books in some places."
And witness the most conservative supreme court in history striking down those laws. I didn't say people didn't try to dictate the private behavior of others, I bemoaned the loss of the American mentality that resisted these efforts for centuries.
"Please explain to me how Wal-Mart tracking pallets thru its distribution channel affects "My Rights" or has any bearing on me as customer??"
It's not them tracking their merchendise through their DC's and stores that upset people - it's the fact that these transmitters are very small, very hard to remove, and will probably continue to broadcast long after you've purchased your items and left the store. Meaning, burglars looking for a house with lots of good stuff in it could drive by with a scanner to see what exactly you've got. Also means Uncle Sam could do the same thing to see if you've been buying anything controversial.
If they'd just decativate the tags before we left the store nobody would be complaining. Once upon a time it was a cherished American right that a man's home was his castle, and what he did behind closed doors was none of anybody's business, especially the government's.
"SIG:Slashdot: News for leftist, America-hating pussies. Stuff that matters to the tinfoil hat crowd."
Wow, sounds like you hate it here. Wonder why you keep reading?
Please exlain how something I purchased at a store belongs to somebody else. I'm not trying to pass it off as my own now, just make a few copies for some friends.
The logical exention of this is a EULA that comes with every CD saying that you don't really own it, and the record company can take it back whenever they want.
Does that really make sense? Could I open a store selling, say, engraved clocks, and put a disclaimer on the back of every clock that I had the right to come into your home and take it back if you pissed me off?
So, boys and girls, here's the lessons from the Reich - I mean right - wing for today, courtesy of yet another anonymous coward:
"Clear Channel declined to play the Dixie Chicks because of their stupid hate speech."
Lesson #1: Expressing your personal opinion is now "hate speech"! Never mind that pesky first amendment! You have no, I repeat no, rights to express your feelings or thoughts about an issue, especially in public, and especially about a politician. Politicians are annointed by divine right and are not in any way subject to the will of the people.
"remaining 92%"
I DARE you to cite your source for this statistic. I mean, what could you have to hide?
"hateful liars"
Lesson #2: If you volunteer a personal opinion, it can be declared as factually incorrect by anybody offended by it, regardless of facts. You are also fair game for ad hominem attacks.
And can't you find somebody more coherent to parrot than Ann Coulter? People are getting sick of your loaded (and inaccurate) phrases like "hateful liars" because you're overusing them. Time to ask the brain bug for five new catchphrases to replace the ones you've worn threadbare in the corporate media. The ones like "sick", "depraved", "treasonous", etc etc. You did hear the memo got leaked about those five catchprases, right?
"No one with any conscience"
Lesson #3: The Reich - I mean right - wing is now the official arbiter of morality and conscience. How convenient, I won't have to do any of that pesky thinking!
"Clear Channel should be applauded for doing what it did"
Lesson #4: Learn to love Big Brother, and forget all about those pesky open and free debates. Every issue has only one side - Our Side, and you will accept it eventually, since all competing viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas will be squashed mercilessly before consumers have a chance to make an informed decision.
"exercising its First Amendment rights"
Lesson #5: Getting an artist blacklisted by an entire industry is free speech! In related news,
Lesson #6: Black is now white! Trust us!
"Just like if you run a BLOG, you should be applauded for refusing to paste links that you don't want in it. "
Yeah, the tiny little difference there is that my blog isn't a nationwide monopoly, and the content of my blog in no way affects anybody elses unless they so choose. ClearChannel is a defacto monopoly and everybody knows it. And they have blacklisted and will continue to blacklist artists whose politics were incorrect. Because that all this bullshit is - Reich-wing political correctness.
"You are lying again."
Um, half a million more people voted for the other guy. Half a *million*. 166 TIMES the number of people killed in the WTC attacks. One Hundred and Sixty Six times. Not an insignificant number. The fact that the GOP managed to circumvent to will of the people in no way changes the fact that this was wrong and immoral.
"The current Administration was elected the usual way."
The *usual* way is for the guy who gets MORE votes to assume the office. And before you get all smarmy with your electoral college nonsense, anwer me this: Does the DOI say "by the electoral college, of the electoral college, for the electoral college?" No. It says "by the PEOPLE, of the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE" so the votes that matter most are those of the PEOPLE.
"If anything is unamerican around here, it is refusing to recognize the authority of an elected President just because he does not share your ideology. "
I disagreed with various ideologies of Reagan, George the First, and Clinton - but I accepted their legitimacy since they just so happened to GET MORE VOTES. Stop pretending you don't understand the issue. Stop conflating King George the Second's illegitimacy with his politics - his illegitimacy stems from the simple fact that 166 times the number of people that were killed at the World Trade Center voted for the guy tha
All this talk of contracts is making me wonder why I didn't actually sign anything. Don't contracts have signatories? I don't remember agreeing to any of those conditions verbally either. I mean, I could take the $10 bill I'm going to use to get into the show with and write on the back "acceptance of this currency denotes agreement to give me your house, wife and car for free" - does that make it a "contract"?
Oh, that's right, I'm not ClearChannel, I can't write my own laws...
The fact of the matter is plagerism is as old as the written word. P2P didn't have anything to do with it, no matter how much you knee-jerkers wish it did.
Not necessarily. Depends on a) the quality of the board and PA; b) the size of the venue and PA (the larger the venue the more stuff gets put through the board, smaller venues can typically get away with only using a PA for vocals, keyboards, and a drum or two); c) the quality of the recorder; d) the location of the recorder; e) the shape of the venue; and about a million other things.
The last board recording my band did turned out to be just vocals and acoustic guitar... since the venue wasn't huge and we played loud, the drums made enough noise themselves that they didn't need to be miked, same for the amplifiers. So the only thing that even went through the PA were the things that didn't make enough noise themselves to fill up the room - vocals and acoustic guitar.
Where the hell in the US do you live, Alaska? My city's not huge (Milwaukee) and we've got a good half dozen of them, AM and FM, covering the following genres: News/talk, Urban, Soft AC, Country, Nostalgia, and Oldies (and what exactly is the difference between nostalgia and oldies?). The Urban station and the Country station here are two of the three most-listened to stations in the state. They also just happen to own the two largest venues in southeastern WI, the Marcus Ampitheatre and Alpine Valley. If you're running a tour the size of, say, Lollapalooza, and you can't get it in one of those two venues, your tour ain't coming to Wisconsin.
In fact ClearChannel's deathgrip over country music is so tight they were able to get the Dixie Chicks outright *banned* from radio for simply speaking their conscience. ClearChannel's deathgrip over AM talk radio is so tight that they were able to get Howard Stern (who may be the most popular syndicated talk-radio host in America, and is definately one of the top 3) pulled from radio stations nationwide almost instantly for speaking his conscience about the unelected administration currently in Washington. He could talk about breasts and foot fetishes and strippers all he wanted, but when he had the gall to speak ill of President Junior suddenly he was yanked. So much for free speech, not to mention the marketplace of ideas.
Both were blatent and unrepentant acts of the most anti-American, anti-free-speech, anti-democratic kind of hubris we've only begun to see the beginning of (thanks again deregulation! what a great idea you were!). ClearChannel is unAmerican, and it's owners should be severely and painfully punished, to say the least.
Plus, with all the concern here lately about artists getting compensated for their work, I'd be willing to bet that this policy a) endeared them to their fans (not like that was ever really a problem) and b) put a lot of butts in a lot of seats.
Just one more example of how not being a greedy corporate shithead can pay off big in the long haul. True American creativity at work - they made the consumers giddily happy while enlarging that same base, all by shunning the traditional I-own-it-wanna-fight-my-lawyers mentality so many people seem straightjacketed into in favor of an idea that actually made sense. History may remember the Dead as true business revolutionaries as the bootlegger-friendly trend builds...
Au contraire, if you check the fine print on your CD it specifically prohibits you from unauthorized "performances" of the songs contained therein. This goes for both live performances and broadcasts of the recordings, if you engage in either then you owe the copyright owners "mechanical royalties". And you are correct, ASCAP and BMI are two of the heavy hitters on the enforcement side. John Fogarty was the most famous example, in the 80's he was sued for playing his own songs live - turns out he didn't own them. This is also why the money bars collect at the door when a band is playing is called a "cover charge" - this is, theoretically, money that gets paid to ASCAP or one of it's cousins to compensate for the band playing "cover" songs that night. AFAIK there is no legal distinction between playing a song from a CD on the radio and performing it live, both are subject to "mechanical royalties".
Actually, the headliners usually sound better because, 9 times out of 10, the sound guy has either been told or already understands that part of his job is to make the headliners sound better, louder, and clearer. And he does just that.
I know because on several occasions I've been that sound guy, and had the owner/manager/promoter ask me specifically to make the opening band sound shitty, and offered to pay me more if I did. Go see that opening band headline their own show and you'll be amazed at how much better they can suddenly play.
"(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegally-- but I think we should avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement."
Well, I do believe in copying CD's. If they're gonna charge me 19.99 for a crappy album that I couldn't listen to beforehand and is 80% filler to buttress the radio hits, if they're gonna charge me $19.99 in spite of the multiple price-fixing they've been found guilty of, then, when I actually like the CD then yeah, I am gonna copy it for my friends. In my past experience, my friends wind up buying the CD if they like it, and that's with a full 16/44 copy, not some crappy mp3. Though my burner is so old, it's really a pain in the ass so you've gotta be a pretty good friend.
(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft," but I do believe in emotively abusing words like "information," "sharing," and "Copyright Enforcement Militia."
I don't see how anybody is abusing "sharing", that's exactly what we're doing. Giving voice to that which we think is worth other people knowing about. I don't know anybody that shares music that they don't like.
I don't see how anybody is abusing the word "information". Please elaborate.
And this is the first time I've heard "Copyright enforcement militia", and as much as it tugs at my heartstrings I prefer cartel.
"(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years."
Not true. As overpriced as CD have been found repeatedly in courts of law to be, people continue to buy them, and in increasing numbers. I believe that what drives piracy is the ClearChannel takeover of radio coupled with the consolidation of the "record industry" into two or three major monoliths, which led to the overwhelming proliferation of incredibly bad, bland, uninspired, uninteresting, untalented, demographically safe crap being promoted by Corporate Music. All people want is to hear good music again.
"(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even though most pirated works are recent releases."
It's hard to look at the history of copyright law and not see Disney et al's just-one-more-extention policy as a money grab. Copyright law was specifically written to allow copyrights to expire after a reasonable time to allow works of IP to enter into the public domain. These regulations were sound and just and were written for a reason.
"(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free advertising". I don't buy any of the music I download, of course--but lots of other people probably do."
I do believe that showing other people how good a certain artist is could possibly result in that person buying the CD. Sharing crappy, lossy MP3's is one way of showing them how good it is, just like radio used to be.
BUT. I have bought dozens of CD's that I liked the MP3's of. And I don't see why you feel the need to conflate the two unless you're afraid of your own argument's invalidity.
"(6) I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always rip off the artists. Artists support P2P, except the ones that don't (like Metallica), and they don't agree with me, hence they're greedy or their opinion doesn't count or something."
Wow, you really have a poor grasp on the situation. Let me rephrase for you: I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always have and always will rip off the artists. Some artists, usually those whose immediate financial future depends on the gratitude of Corporate Music, support P2P. Some artists, mostly those whose immediate financial furtures *do* depend on Corporate Music, don't support P2P, like
false logic again. Just because nobody *has* shown up to claim that yet doesn't mean they haven't been *able* to. There could well be people who've already pleaded out who seriously didn't do it, but were so terrified of fighting an entire industry and the costs of doing so that they figured it would be easier to make the payout. Just as there are lots of women who are raped who never report it, and victims of organized crime who pay protection money, etc etc. Next.
substantial my ass! 437 out of millions... about as substantial as the false morality your specious argument leans on like it ain't had it's v8. I don't have time to go through this again, just see the one entry i have on my blog, it's most of my arguement regards filesharing... open your mind...
"If it comes from a source that I think is credible,"
then you believe it. The word "belief" doesn't automatically invoke religion. I believe that when I go out into the parking lot my car will be sitting there because the battery is dead. I have no *proof* of this, my car could have been towed or stolen or destroyed. But I believe that it will be in the parking lot when I walk out the door. So far I'm batting 1000.
"A scientist *thinks* that the earth is round, because somebody else explained it and it makes sense."
OK, now I see the problem. You have a semantic hangup with the word "believe". Fine, use the word "think". It's the same thing. If you *think* something is true, then you believe it to be true. And if you believe something to be true, it's because you think that it's true. Christians *think* the Bible makes sense, this is the same thing as saying they believe it.
And let's not forget that the actual scientist thinks that the Earth is round because of measurements and observations he's made. You, having heard the scientist and found him credible, choose to *believe* what he is saying, since you didn't make these measurements and observations and have no first-hand scientific knowledge that would lead you to that conclusion independantly.
Face it man, a vast portion of who you are is what you've been told. When you were five, did you not cross the street without looking both ways because you had personally experimented and obtained unfavorable results - or did you *believe* your mother when she told you it was a bad idea? Did you personally try talking to the nice stranger in the trenchcoat with the candy and find out through personal experimentation that he was a child molestor - or did you *believe* your parents and teachers when they told you he was a sicko? We all hold that murder is wrong (hopefully) not because we've tried it and been dissatisfied with the results, but because other people who have been involved with actual murders tell us it tends to not work out too well, and we choose to *believe* them. We subscribe to the theory of relativity not because we've proved it ourselves - we *believe* Einstein.
There are two sources of knowledge in the world - what you prove yourself to be true and what you accept from others to be true.
That's why, when asked a question to which one might not definately know the answer but is pretty sure, a common response is "I believe so", or "I believe not". Those are not inherently religious statements.
Anybody who tells anybody anything is either believed, disbelieved, or held in reserve judgement. (assuming they speak the same language, have the same mental capacity, blah blah blah).
Don't like the word? Don't use it. But it has a well-established meaning completely divorced from faith or religion. But hey, look it up yourself, don't *believe* me...
sure it does. Unless you wrote every whitepaper ever, you're *believing* what the scientists tell you. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but the fact is unless you did all the research and experimentation yourself you are believing the word of somebody else. And any real scientist would be the first to tell you science is far from infallible.
"Surely an all-loving, all-powerful God wouldn't tolerate suffering or evil"
You know I was unconvinced until you said "surely". That won me over right away. Not.
"Surely?" If you're so sure maybe you can explain why? My parents love me, that doesn't mean they don't let me make my own mistakes and learn from them. Because they love me, they understand that it's better for me to learn from my mistakes (and those of others) than to constantly bail me out every time I have a problem. They'll try and warn me beforehand, and offer advice on how to get myself out of the situation, but they won't do it for me. And this is precisely because of their love, not in spite of it. I hope you're not as unfamiliar with love as your post would make it appear. True unconditional love, from other people or from God, is something every human deserves to experience.
Plus your reasoning sucks. That's like saying, "because I can see a house across the street with no lights on they must have had their electricity cut off. *Surely* people with the power to turn the lights on wouldn't tolerate darkness, therefore the only alternative is that they're deadbeats who don't pay their bills". What if they're asleep? On vacation? Burning candles to save juice?
To coin a phrase, there is more in heaven and Earth than is accounted for in your barren philosophy, Horatio.
Evil is necessary because out of evil comes greater good. Evil is necessary because it can be a wonderful learning experience. Most importantly, evil is necessary because without it good would have nothing to define itself by - they are indivisble (and this is all stuff I learned from freakin Dr. Who before I ever found it in the Bible). Every coin has a head and a tail. Each needs the other to be what it is. Every oscillation goes both above the axis and below. Every breath is one inhalation, one exhalation. Every day consists of a waking period and a sleeping period. Tides go out, but they come back in. Every living organism feeds on the dead remains of other organisms. Is it "evil" that the original organism dies? No, it's nature, and nature is a double-edged sword (something the conservation of energy confirms). Balance and duality are the cornerstones of nature. And something tells me God understands this.
And yes, God does let evil happen. And yes, God does let evil happen because he loves us and wants us to learn from it. And if you find that inconvenient well, so do all the other 16-year-olds whining to their parents to bail them out. Think of everybody you've ever known who was rich to the point of having every single thing they wanted handed to them. I've known a few, and those are some of the stupidest, most boring people I've ever met. They are incapable of creative problem solving or critical thinking. They've never had to work, so they've never had to learn. Life is about learning, therefore life is about work. I don't know who told you life was easy, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Bible.
Would killing Adolf Hitler as an infant have been evil? Probably. Would it have been less evil than the holocaust? Undoubtedly. This is what people mean when they talk about God's will, and God moving in mysterious ways. There's a Big Picture out there, folks, but you gotta stop staring in the mirror every freakin second to see it. If the only alternatives are evil that is committed today versus much greater evil in the future, I'll take door #1.
Show me where in the Bible God promised you personally to make your every day a cakewalk. Show me where it's written in the Bible that God will make your boss reasonable, your wife her college weight, and those annoying back pains stop. Making your life a nice place to be is *your* job, not his. Giving you the *tools* and a little *help* to make your life a nice place to be is his job, and I think he's doing just fine.
I've heard a similar theory, only instead of the Mediterranean it was the Black Sea, and they found a lot of evidence that jibes nicely with the story of Noah's flood. I think it was on the Science Channel...
I agree completely with everything you just said. To extend this train of thought...
I personally believe that the more we learn about science/nature and the more we learn about God the more we'll find they're the same thing. I don't think God wants us to not use the brains he gave us. I also think that, as wonderful as the Bible is, God's not gonna give you the answers. It's not supposed to be that easy. He'll teach the class, and stay late with the slow students for extra help, and tell you which books to get for further instruction - what he does NOT do (IMHO) is give out the answer key to the test. He gave us brains to think with, and souls to judge when our brains weren't working right. And if we can't get by with those two tools then we might as well give up right now.
And it breaks my heart to see so many people choosing to be so closed-minded and closed-hearted. If there's one thing that science and the Bible agree on it's that we don't know it all and never will. It depresses me somethin fierce to see all these supposed "Christians" and ostensible "scientists" so obsessed with their preconceptions and shouting the other side down, which is not something we are instructed by the Bible or science to do. Science teaches that we should appraoch all problems with as much information and as few preconceptions as possible. Christianity teaches that you should appraoch disagreements with love and respect for the other point of view, and that you should love and embrace those you disagree with.
It seems like on both sides, about 99% of people involved in this "debate" have forgotton everything they claim to represent.
Disclaimer: I am a Unitarian Universalist. And yes, I'm a Christian one.
None, but how many insurance companies do you know that *don't* give discounted rates to businesses that institute new security measures? Install a burglar alarm and your insurance drops, install cameras and it drops some more, so I'm sure installing personal tracking devices will bring a similar rate reduction.
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No, it's in the best interests of companies to make money. the assumption that the way they will do that is by making consumers happy is yours and yours alone.
And, as somebody who's worked in the recording/pro-audio field for years, I can safely say that fair use is of great concern to people outside slashdot. The musical, artistic, journalistic and legal communities are watching all these developments with various degrees of interest and consternation.
I feel like nobody understands how everybody will be affected once the last nail is in the coffin of fair use.
There are indeed two batteries. The last time I rode in a Prius, I accidentally covered some ventilation holes in the shelf behind the back seat with some paperwork.
In fifteen minutes, the car was non-operational.
Turns out the back battery is the one that does the electric motor, and it really doesn't like to get hot, ever. Removed the offending paperwork and it was back to normal almost right away.
...Product Liability. If smokers can succesfully sue cigarette companies when most people had a pretty good idea cigs weren't health food, how can a surviving relative of an electrocution victim (or an accident victim where the rescuers got electrocuted instead) *not* sue an automaker for placing high-power wires where the company had good reason to believe rescue workers would cut through? Would any automaker's legal team let themselves be placed in that kind of jeopardy?
"False. They don't "broadcast" anything. They're passive receivers. They are unpowered. They respond to radio stimulation. They no more "broadcast" a number than the money in my wallet is "broadcasting" serial numbers."
Well, if the RFID tag don't broadcast anything, how does the store get any information from it? My walkman is a receiver, it receives and does not transmit. Something that both receives and transmits is called a transceiver. A broadcast that takes place in reponse to an external trigger is still a broadcast.
So what you appear to be saying is that, after I purchase my items and leave the store, the tags will still work. Which is exactly what I was saying in the first place, thanks for supporting my position.
"The scanners used to detect the passive tags can only do so from a short distance "
Sure, for now. I remember handset-style 300 baud modems. I remember dot-matrix printers. I remember 7 inch floppy disks. I remember scholarly and scientific computer experts telling us we'd never need a hard drive bigger than 20 megs. Do you honestly think the current state of this technology is as far as it can go? That there won't be *any* further development of RFID once it's rolled out? (remember USB 1.0?)
These are all fairly obvious points I'm making.
"It is extremely technically impractical to build a scanner powerful enough to scan and detect items several dozen yards away"
And ten years ago it was extremely technically impracitcal to build an affordable 40 gig hard drive, or a camera that would fit into a pen. Whoops. Twenty years ago they all said magnetic resonance imaging was a pipe dream - I was one of the first test subjects. Today it's ubiquitous.
Ostensible (and temporary) technical difficulties are not a valid justification for doing something that's wrong. My rule of thumb is: If it's really convenient, it's probably immoral.
"Uncle Sam, if he were seriously interested, wouldn't waste time driving by your house with one of these massively powerful, imaginary scanners that can read all the tags in your house (while not getting confused with the tags answering from your neighbors' houses). He'd simply use the USAPATRIOT act to subpoena your bank records and see what you've bought."
Ah, but I have no bank account. I live in a cash economy. What say you to that? Also, you seriously think that an organization like the NSA is gonna use the same grade receivers walmart uses? If they've got basements full of Crays you can bet they're not using a retail-grade receiver.
Government abuse could take several other forms as well. My main concern is that we'll reach a point where RFID tags are taken as seriously as drivers licensces or state ID cards. I strongly resist any technology that could result in my false incrimination based on me putting on somebody else's shirt.
And, for the record, the patriot act is wrong, unconstitutional, and unamerican.
"People have always sought to dictate what people can and can't do in the privacy of their own homes. Witness the anti-sodomy laws that are still on the books in some places."
And witness the most conservative supreme court in history striking down those laws. I didn't say people didn't try to dictate the private behavior of others, I bemoaned the loss of the American mentality that resisted these efforts for centuries.
"Please explain to me how Wal-Mart tracking pallets thru its distribution channel affects "My Rights" or has any bearing on me as customer??"
It's not them tracking their merchendise through their DC's and stores that upset people - it's the fact that these transmitters are very small, very hard to remove, and will probably continue to broadcast long after you've purchased your items and left the store. Meaning, burglars looking for a house with lots of good stuff in it could drive by with a scanner to see what exactly you've got. Also means Uncle Sam could do the same thing to see if you've been buying anything controversial.
If they'd just decativate the tags before we left the store nobody would be complaining. Once upon a time it was a cherished American right that a man's home was his castle, and what he did behind closed doors was none of anybody's business, especially the government's.
"SIG:Slashdot: News for leftist, America-hating pussies. Stuff that matters to the tinfoil hat crowd."
Wow, sounds like you hate it here. Wonder why you keep reading?
when was the last time you paid a cover charge to eat at a restaurant?
when was the last time you paid a cover charge to enter into a venue where a band/musician/dj was not performing?
Please exlain how something I purchased at a store belongs to somebody else. I'm not trying to pass it off as my own now, just make a few copies for some friends.
The logical exention of this is a EULA that comes with every CD saying that you don't really own it, and the record company can take it back whenever they want.
Does that really make sense? Could I open a store selling, say, engraved clocks, and put a disclaimer on the back of every clock that I had the right to come into your home and take it back if you pissed me off?
So, boys and girls, here's the lessons from the Reich - I mean right - wing for today, courtesy of yet another anonymous coward:
"Clear Channel declined to play the Dixie Chicks because of their stupid hate speech."
Lesson #1: Expressing your personal opinion is now "hate speech"! Never mind that pesky first amendment! You have no, I repeat no, rights to express your feelings or thoughts about an issue, especially in public, and especially about a politician. Politicians are annointed by divine right and are not in any way subject to the will of the people.
"remaining 92%"
I DARE you to cite your source for this statistic. I mean, what could you have to hide?
"hateful liars"
Lesson #2: If you volunteer a personal opinion, it can be declared as factually incorrect by anybody offended by it, regardless of facts. You are also fair game for ad hominem attacks.
And can't you find somebody more coherent to parrot than Ann Coulter? People are getting sick of your loaded (and inaccurate) phrases like "hateful liars" because you're overusing them. Time to ask the brain bug for five new catchphrases to replace the ones you've worn threadbare in the corporate media. The ones like "sick", "depraved", "treasonous", etc etc. You did hear the memo got leaked about those five catchprases, right?
"No one with any conscience"
Lesson #3: The Reich - I mean right - wing is now the official arbiter of morality and conscience. How convenient, I won't have to do any of that pesky thinking!
"Clear Channel should be applauded for doing what it did"
Lesson #4: Learn to love Big Brother, and forget all about those pesky open and free debates. Every issue has only one side - Our Side, and you will accept it eventually, since all competing viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas will be squashed mercilessly before consumers have a chance to make an informed decision.
"exercising its First Amendment rights"
Lesson #5: Getting an artist blacklisted by an entire industry is free speech! In related news,
Lesson #6: Black is now white! Trust us!
"Just like if you run a BLOG, you should be applauded for refusing to paste links that you don't want in it. "
Yeah, the tiny little difference there is that my blog isn't a nationwide monopoly, and the content of my blog in no way affects anybody elses unless they so choose. ClearChannel is a defacto monopoly and everybody knows it. And they have blacklisted and will continue to blacklist artists whose politics were incorrect. Because that all this bullshit is - Reich-wing political correctness.
"You are lying again."
Um, half a million more people voted for the other guy. Half a *million*. 166 TIMES the number of people killed in the WTC attacks. One Hundred and Sixty Six times. Not an insignificant number. The fact that the GOP managed to circumvent to will of the people in no way changes the fact that this was wrong and immoral.
"The current Administration was elected the usual way."
The *usual* way is for the guy who gets MORE votes to assume the office. And before you get all smarmy with your electoral college nonsense, anwer me this: Does the DOI say "by the electoral college, of the electoral college, for the electoral college?" No. It says "by the PEOPLE, of the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE" so the votes that matter most are those of the PEOPLE.
"If anything is unamerican around here, it is refusing to recognize the authority of an elected President just because he does not share your ideology. "
I disagreed with various ideologies of Reagan, George the First, and Clinton - but I accepted their legitimacy since they just so happened to GET MORE VOTES. Stop pretending you don't understand the issue. Stop conflating King George the Second's illegitimacy with his politics - his illegitimacy stems from the simple fact that 166 times the number of people that were killed at the World Trade Center voted for the guy tha
All this talk of contracts is making me wonder why I didn't actually sign anything. Don't contracts have signatories? I don't remember agreeing to any of those conditions verbally either. I mean, I could take the $10 bill I'm going to use to get into the show with and write on the back "acceptance of this currency denotes agreement to give me your house, wife and car for free" - does that make it a "contract"?
Oh, that's right, I'm not ClearChannel, I can't write my own laws...
Hell, people can't write their own front-page newspaper articles . Why not blame this on filesharing too?
The fact of the matter is plagerism is as old as the written word. P2P didn't have anything to do with it, no matter how much you knee-jerkers wish it did.
Not necessarily. Depends on a) the quality of the board and PA; b) the size of the venue and PA (the larger the venue the more stuff gets put through the board, smaller venues can typically get away with only using a PA for vocals, keyboards, and a drum or two); c) the quality of the recorder; d) the location of the recorder; e) the shape of the venue; and about a million other things.
The last board recording my band did turned out to be just vocals and acoustic guitar... since the venue wasn't huge and we played loud, the drums made enough noise themselves that they didn't need to be miked, same for the amplifiers. So the only thing that even went through the PA were the things that didn't make enough noise themselves to fill up the room - vocals and acoustic guitar.
"recording their shoes"
Don't tell me that was why that old guy in the corner, holding his shoe up to the speaker, looked familiar...
[cue "get smart" theme]
I asked you not to tell me that!
Where the hell in the US do you live, Alaska? My city's not huge (Milwaukee) and we've got a good half dozen of them, AM and FM, covering the following genres: News/talk, Urban, Soft AC, Country, Nostalgia, and Oldies (and what exactly is the difference between nostalgia and oldies?). The Urban station and the Country station here are two of the three most-listened to stations in the state. They also just happen to own the two largest venues in southeastern WI, the Marcus Ampitheatre and Alpine Valley. If you're running a tour the size of, say, Lollapalooza, and you can't get it in one of those two venues, your tour ain't coming to Wisconsin.
In fact ClearChannel's deathgrip over country music is so tight they were able to get the Dixie Chicks outright *banned* from radio for simply speaking their conscience. ClearChannel's deathgrip over AM talk radio is so tight that they were able to get Howard Stern (who may be the most popular syndicated talk-radio host in America, and is definately one of the top 3) pulled from radio stations nationwide almost instantly for speaking his conscience about the unelected administration currently in Washington. He could talk about breasts and foot fetishes and strippers all he wanted, but when he had the gall to speak ill of President Junior suddenly he was yanked. So much for free speech, not to mention the marketplace of ideas.
Both were blatent and unrepentant acts of the most anti-American, anti-free-speech, anti-democratic kind of hubris we've only begun to see the beginning of (thanks again deregulation! what a great idea you were!). ClearChannel is unAmerican, and it's owners should be severely and painfully punished, to say the least.
Plus, with all the concern here lately about artists getting compensated for their work, I'd be willing to bet that this policy a) endeared them to their fans (not like that was ever really a problem) and b) put a lot of butts in a lot of seats.
Just one more example of how not being a greedy corporate shithead can pay off big in the long haul. True American creativity at work - they made the consumers giddily happy while enlarging that same base, all by shunning the traditional I-own-it-wanna-fight-my-lawyers mentality so many people seem straightjacketed into in favor of an idea that actually made sense. History may remember the Dead as true business revolutionaries as the bootlegger-friendly trend builds...
Too bad their music sucked.
Au contraire, if you check the fine print on your CD it specifically prohibits you from unauthorized "performances" of the songs contained therein. This goes for both live performances and broadcasts of the recordings, if you engage in either then you owe the copyright owners "mechanical royalties". And you are correct, ASCAP and BMI are two of the heavy hitters on the enforcement side. John Fogarty was the most famous example, in the 80's he was sued for playing his own songs live - turns out he didn't own them. This is also why the money bars collect at the door when a band is playing is called a "cover charge" - this is, theoretically, money that gets paid to ASCAP or one of it's cousins to compensate for the band playing "cover" songs that night. AFAIK there is no legal distinction between playing a song from a CD on the radio and performing it live, both are subject to "mechanical royalties".
I could be wrong.
Actually, the headliners usually sound better because, 9 times out of 10, the sound guy has either been told or already understands that part of his job is to make the headliners sound better, louder, and clearer. And he does just that.
I know because on several occasions I've been that sound guy, and had the owner/manager/promoter ask me specifically to make the opening band sound shitty, and offered to pay me more if I did. Go see that opening band headline their own show and you'll be amazed at how much better they can suddenly play.
well, here's my $.02
"(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegally-- but I think we should avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement."
Well, I do believe in copying CD's. If they're gonna charge me 19.99 for a crappy album that I couldn't listen to beforehand and is 80% filler to buttress the radio hits, if they're gonna charge me $19.99 in spite of the multiple price-fixing they've been found guilty of, then, when I actually like the CD then yeah, I am gonna copy it for my friends. In my past experience, my friends wind up buying the CD if they like it, and that's with a full 16/44 copy, not some crappy mp3. Though my burner is so old, it's really a pain in the ass so you've gotta be a pretty good friend.
(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft," but I do believe in emotively abusing words like "information," "sharing," and "Copyright Enforcement Militia."
I don't see how anybody is abusing "sharing", that's exactly what we're doing. Giving voice to that which we think is worth other people knowing about. I don't know anybody that shares music that they don't like.
I don't see how anybody is abusing the word "information". Please elaborate.
And this is the first time I've heard "Copyright enforcement militia", and as much as it tugs at my heartstrings I prefer cartel.
"(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years."
Not true. As overpriced as CD have been found repeatedly in courts of law to be, people continue to buy them, and in increasing numbers. I believe that what drives piracy is the ClearChannel takeover of radio coupled with the consolidation of the "record industry" into two or three major monoliths, which led to the overwhelming proliferation of incredibly bad, bland, uninspired, uninteresting, untalented, demographically safe crap being promoted by Corporate Music. All people want is to hear good music again.
"(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even though most pirated works are recent releases."
It's hard to look at the history of copyright law and not see Disney et al's just-one-more-extention policy as a money grab. Copyright law was specifically written to allow copyrights to expire after a reasonable time to allow works of IP to enter into the public domain. These regulations were sound and just and were written for a reason.
"(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free advertising". I don't buy any of the music I download, of course--but lots of other people probably do."
I do believe that showing other people how good a certain artist is could possibly result in that person buying the CD. Sharing crappy, lossy MP3's is one way of showing them how good it is, just like radio used to be.
BUT. I have bought dozens of CD's that I liked the MP3's of. And I don't see why you feel the need to conflate the two unless you're afraid of your own argument's invalidity.
"(6) I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always rip off the artists. Artists support P2P, except the ones that don't (like Metallica), and they don't agree with me, hence they're greedy or their opinion doesn't count or something."
Wow, you really have a poor grasp on the situation. Let me rephrase for you: I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always have and always will rip off the artists. Some artists, usually those whose immediate financial future depends on the gratitude of Corporate Music, support P2P. Some artists, mostly those whose immediate financial furtures *do* depend on Corporate Music, don't support P2P, like
false logic again. Just because nobody *has* shown up to claim that yet doesn't mean they haven't been *able* to. There could well be people who've already pleaded out who seriously didn't do it, but were so terrified of fighting an entire industry and the costs of doing so that they figured it would be easier to make the payout. Just as there are lots of women who are raped who never report it, and victims of organized crime who pay protection money, etc etc. Next.
substantial my ass! 437 out of millions... about as substantial as the false morality your specious argument leans on like it ain't had it's v8. I don't have time to go through this again, just see the one entry i have on my blog, it's most of my arguement regards filesharing... open your mind...
"If it comes from a source that I think is credible,"
then you believe it. The word "belief" doesn't automatically invoke religion. I believe that when I go out into the parking lot my car will be sitting there because the battery is dead. I have no *proof* of this, my car could have been towed or stolen or destroyed. But I believe that it will be in the parking lot when I walk out the door. So far I'm batting 1000.
"A scientist *thinks* that the earth is round, because somebody else explained it and it makes sense."
OK, now I see the problem. You have a semantic hangup with the word "believe". Fine, use the word "think". It's the same thing. If you *think* something is true, then you believe it to be true. And if you believe something to be true, it's because you think that it's true. Christians *think* the Bible makes sense, this is the same thing as saying they believe it.
And let's not forget that the actual scientist thinks that the Earth is round because of measurements and observations he's made. You, having heard the scientist and found him credible, choose to *believe* what he is saying, since you didn't make these measurements and observations and have no first-hand scientific knowledge that would lead you to that conclusion independantly.
Face it man, a vast portion of who you are is what you've been told. When you were five, did you not cross the street without looking both ways because you had personally experimented and obtained unfavorable results - or did you *believe* your mother when she told you it was a bad idea? Did you personally try talking to the nice stranger in the trenchcoat with the candy and find out through personal experimentation that he was a child molestor - or did you *believe* your parents and teachers when they told you he was a sicko? We all hold that murder is wrong (hopefully) not because we've tried it and been dissatisfied with the results, but because other people who have been involved with actual murders tell us it tends to not work out too well, and we choose to *believe* them. We subscribe to the theory of relativity not because we've proved it ourselves - we *believe* Einstein.
There are two sources of knowledge in the world - what you prove yourself to be true and what you accept from others to be true.
That's why, when asked a question to which one might not definately know the answer but is pretty sure, a common response is "I believe so", or "I believe not". Those are not inherently religious statements.
Anybody who tells anybody anything is either believed, disbelieved, or held in reserve judgement. (assuming they speak the same language, have the same mental capacity, blah blah blah).
Don't like the word? Don't use it. But it has a well-established meaning completely divorced from faith or religion. But hey, look it up yourself, don't *believe* me...
sure it does. Unless you wrote every whitepaper ever, you're *believing* what the scientists tell you. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but the fact is unless you did all the research and experimentation yourself you are believing the word of somebody else. And any real scientist would be the first to tell you science is far from infallible.
"Surely an all-loving, all-powerful God wouldn't tolerate suffering or evil"
You know I was unconvinced until you said "surely". That won me over right away. Not.
"Surely?" If you're so sure maybe you can explain why? My parents love me, that doesn't mean they don't let me make my own mistakes and learn from them. Because they love me, they understand that it's better for me to learn from my mistakes (and those of others) than to constantly bail me out every time I have a problem. They'll try and warn me beforehand, and offer advice on how to get myself out of the situation, but they won't do it for me. And this is precisely because of their love, not in spite of it. I hope you're not as unfamiliar with love as your post would make it appear. True unconditional love, from other people or from God, is something every human deserves to experience.
Plus your reasoning sucks. That's like saying, "because I can see a house across the street with no lights on they must have had their electricity cut off. *Surely* people with the power to turn the lights on wouldn't tolerate darkness, therefore the only alternative is that they're deadbeats who don't pay their bills". What if they're asleep? On vacation? Burning candles to save juice?
To coin a phrase, there is more in heaven and Earth than is accounted for in your barren philosophy, Horatio.
Evil is necessary because out of evil comes greater good. Evil is necessary because it can be a wonderful learning experience. Most importantly, evil is necessary because without it good would have nothing to define itself by - they are indivisble (and this is all stuff I learned from freakin Dr. Who before I ever found it in the Bible). Every coin has a head and a tail. Each needs the other to be what it is. Every oscillation goes both above the axis and below. Every breath is one inhalation, one exhalation. Every day consists of a waking period and a sleeping period. Tides go out, but they come back in. Every living organism feeds on the dead remains of other organisms. Is it "evil" that the original organism dies? No, it's nature, and nature is a double-edged sword (something the conservation of energy confirms). Balance and duality are the cornerstones of nature. And something tells me God understands this.
And yes, God does let evil happen. And yes, God does let evil happen because he loves us and wants us to learn from it. And if you find that inconvenient well, so do all the other 16-year-olds whining to their parents to bail them out. Think of everybody you've ever known who was rich to the point of having every single thing they wanted handed to them. I've known a few, and those are some of the stupidest, most boring people I've ever met. They are incapable of creative problem solving or critical thinking. They've never had to work, so they've never had to learn. Life is about learning, therefore life is about work. I don't know who told you life was easy, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Bible.
Would killing Adolf Hitler as an infant have been evil? Probably. Would it have been less evil than the holocaust? Undoubtedly. This is what people mean when they talk about God's will, and God moving in mysterious ways. There's a Big Picture out there, folks, but you gotta stop staring in the mirror every freakin second to see it. If the only alternatives are evil that is committed today versus much greater evil in the future, I'll take door #1.
Show me where in the Bible God promised you personally to make your every day a cakewalk. Show me where it's written in the Bible that God will make your boss reasonable, your wife her college weight, and those annoying back pains stop. Making your life a nice place to be is *your* job, not his. Giving you the *tools* and a little *help* to make your life a nice place to be is his job, and I think he's doing just fine.
I've heard a similar theory, only instead of the Mediterranean it was the Black Sea, and they found a lot of evidence that jibes nicely with the story of Noah's flood. I think it was on the Science Channel...
I agree completely with everything you just said. To extend this train of thought...
I personally believe that the more we learn about science/nature and the more we learn about God the more we'll find they're the same thing. I don't think God wants us to not use the brains he gave us. I also think that, as wonderful as the Bible is, God's not gonna give you the answers. It's not supposed to be that easy. He'll teach the class, and stay late with the slow students for extra help, and tell you which books to get for further instruction - what he does NOT do (IMHO) is give out the answer key to the test. He gave us brains to think with, and souls to judge when our brains weren't working right. And if we can't get by with those two tools then we might as well give up right now.
And it breaks my heart to see so many people choosing to be so closed-minded and closed-hearted. If there's one thing that science and the Bible agree on it's that we don't know it all and never will. It depresses me somethin fierce to see all these supposed "Christians" and ostensible "scientists" so obsessed with their preconceptions and shouting the other side down, which is not something we are instructed by the Bible or science to do. Science teaches that we should appraoch all problems with as much information and as few preconceptions as possible. Christianity teaches that you should appraoch disagreements with love and respect for the other point of view, and that you should love and embrace those you disagree with.
It seems like on both sides, about 99% of people involved in this "debate" have forgotton everything they claim to represent.
Disclaimer: I am a Unitarian Universalist. And yes, I'm a Christian one.
None, but how many insurance companies do you know that *don't* give discounted rates to businesses that institute new security measures? Install a burglar alarm and your insurance drops, install cameras and it drops some more, so I'm sure installing personal tracking devices will bring a similar rate reduction.