At the point of being redundant, this is again because the DVD is priced at the optimal point on the supply/demand curve -- and not based on the cost of the plastics or even the production costs.
Okay... so when people stop buying CDs in droves (often while citing the price of CDs relative to other goods in their lives), what does that have to say about the location of the current price of CDs on their supply-demand curve?
How much longer until people like you accept that your argument is invalid?
I never said that I did think torture was a good policy. I was simply disputing the GP's assertion that short-term information is rarely useful. From the discussions I've had with soldiers and what I've read about military intelligence, he couldn't be farther from the truth. If we're going to discuss policy, we should at least be honest about the issue instead of resorting to platitudes and carte blanch assertions, that's all I'm saying. Honestly speaking torture, done intelligently, probably is effective and would often yield life-saving information.
Now, that being said, I don't think that, as a general policy torture should be accepted. First of all, I don't think it is morally justifiable. Neither Iraq or Afghanistan are wars of survival. Secondly, as an under-manned occupying force, one of our main goals should be to put forth a positive public image. Any tactical advantage we might gain from torture is probably severely outweighed by the strategic consequences of such a policy. Lastly, I wouldn't trust this administration to effectively carry such a sensitive policy competently. In fact, they've already proven that they're incapable of it. One of the main contributing factors for the Abu Ghraib incident is that they tasked civilian translators with little to no training and no accountability to interrogate detainees. And then they act as if they had no idea how abuse could have occurred.
The US has had the gloves off for years, so to speak,
Hah. Hardly. The United States has been quite restrained with respect to what it's capable of. In historical terms, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been lukewarm and inviting to resistance.
I suspect that one day, when the U.S. has receded from its current position of dominance in the world that some of the main detractors of the United States will look back and yearn for the days of "U.S. oppression and abuse." Or do you think that countries like China, Iran, or Russia are capable of better?
I'll start with your ridiculous hypothetical. Very few situations manifest themselves such that information is needed from a captive immediately in order to save lives.
Maybe at Guantanamo, but you can bet in Iraq or Afghanistan that information about impending IED attacks or resistance leadership movements can very much save lives. I agree that the oft-cited ticking time-bomb nuke scenario is a bit far-fetched, but that doesn't mean the entire premise of the argument is invalid.
I seem to remember invading most other countries, overthrowing their government and putting their leaders on trial (and replacing any judge whom disagreed with our interpretation of the evidence) for not meeting our standards of moral behavior.
Poor Sadadam... he wasn't a bad person, he was just misunderstood!
And before you come back with "but Saddam was killing his own people" he killed people who were actively planning to rebel against the Iraqi government (at least according to the best intelligence they had at the time). The US has does the same or worse.
How did this get modded insightful? Honestly, who thinks this ridiculous hyperbole is even remotely true? Since when has the United States gassed entire towns of its own people? Since when has the United States established rape rooms for political dissidents? Since when have the leaders of the U.S. whipped men to death, randomly cut off the hands of innocent people or forced some victims to run off the tops of buildings? (And in case anyone even thinks of denying this, here's the video, starring U'day Hussein. For God sakes it was so common they even allowed it to be filmed.)
Few things in this world infuriate me more than this kind of moral relativism crap. Is the United States perfect? Most certainly not. Why does this fact make some people jump to the opposite conclusion that the U.S. is the worst country in the world or that other countries shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes against humanity?
What exactly is randomness? The term is a little fuzzy.
I was hoping to be brief because it gets complicated. It's not uniform randomness because the frequency of crossover events is less likely for loci that are closer to the centromere and more likely as one moves outward. Similarly, some areas of a given chromosome cannot successfully crossover because the resulting combination happens within the coding/promoting/regulating section of an important gene and is, thus, lethal. This affects the distribution of closely located non-coding sections. As for insertions/deletions/base-mismatches, again, not all mutations are equal. Even in non-coding regions a mutation could be lethal if it interferes with the regulation, promotion, or coding of an important gene. Additionally, interspersed repetitive DNA moves in clumps and does not insert in a uniform fashion for similar reasons as before. Also, near the ends of the chromosomes telomeres are added by telomerase proteins. But, other than that (and probably a couple other exceptions I'm forgetting), the distribution is indeed random with different combinations having no known impact upon phenotype.
Can I mathematically model this? Nope, not my cup of tea. =P Have others? For the most part, yes. You must understand that before the paradigm shift in genetics we know as the "neodarwinian synthesis" scientists were, by and large, unable to empirically test their hypotheses. They therefore resorted to theoretical mathematical models and simulations to experiment. Some of it wasn't right, and it wasn't perfect by any means. But much of these studies (and their conclusions) are still remarkably relevant. And, though it doesn't make the headlines of pop-science magazines there is still active research and progress into the statistical nature of genetic variance. Check out Tajima's D, it's on exactly what we're talking about and was discovered in the mid 90's.
If you're truly interested in this matter, I suggest you audit a class on population genetics or, better yet, evolutionary genetics as either will go in far depth. detail, and accuracy than I ever could.
How do you know what the shuffling around means? You talk as if it's unimportant "junk" being shuffled around, but do you really know that? Also shuffle words around, I can. Talk like Yoda and still make sense people can. And hvae you aslo cmoe aorscs taht niootn that scrambled text is still easily read as long as only the middle letters of the words are mixed up? Also, by the available tests, coherent meaningful data that has been compressed well is indistinguishable from uniformly distributed randomness, but it is not random however random it looks.
Believe me when I say that I sincerely do appreciate your attempt at providing an interdisciplinary viewpoint, but I believe your hypothesis that at least parts of the non-coding regions of DNA are actually some form of fault-tolerant compressed data is a bit of a stretch. I don't think you realize exactly how variable genotypes within populations of the same species are. Furthermore, I think you'd have a great deal of explaining to do when it comes to the identical activity of proteins in organisms with drastically different non-coding sequences or "software" as you liken it. Just how much fault tolerance can there be? You'd also have to explain why it appears that natural selection does not act on these regions of DNA. If these regions of DNA have such a significant impact on the life and development of organisms, why wouldn't they be conserved and propagated in the same manner as genes or other known important regions?
I'll be the first to join you in saying that "junk DNA" term is misleading and inaccurate term. But even if that is the case, one shouldn't make the mistake of jumping to the opposite conclusion that these sequences harbor some mystical, higher-order properties.
Whenever I read something like this, I get a reminder how poor is biologists' comprehension of Computer Science, Information Theory, and languages.
Be careful here--you might just show your own ignorance. "Biologists" is a very broad term that covers a vast array of topics. Sure, ecology might not require much knowledge of computers and information theory, but such things are required reading for fields like molecular biology or modern genetics.
First, evolution would weed that sort of thing out in a hurry. Two organisms with genes that achieve the exact same thing, but one has a more efficient encoding? No contest!
Not necessarily. Sure, that may be the case for single-celled organisms that rapidly reproduce, whose selective forces dictate sheer metabolic efficiency, but for multi-cellular organisms, like mammals, there's good reasons to believe that that simply isn't true.
Evolution isn't like a programmer. It isn't some transcendental force guiding a species to some aesthetically "perfect" design. The result of natural selection frequently isn't the "best" solution but rather whatever happens to work. In fact, many times adaptations based upon the selective pressures of the present are, in time, ultimately maladaptive for the species. A classic example of this is the trait for the disease sickle-cell anemia in humans which originally served to offer slight resistance to malaria but otherwise causes health problems and even death.
A more efficient genome doesn't necessarily mean greater fitness. Consider the following example. For a large multi-cellular organism, which do you think has more reproductive/survival significance: (1) a mutation that deletes a few bases of non-coding DNA OR (2) a mutation that brightens a metabolically-wasteful, colorful marking that attracts mates?
Second, ever tried compressing a DNA sequence? They don't compress very well! Meaning, they don't have much redundancy.
OR that they are mostly random. The current model of DNA/genetics states that most of the DNA in the human genome is non-coding, not (significantly) subject to evolution. As such, it gets shuffled around (i.e. randomized) during cross-over events and mutations. That being the case, one wouldn't expect it to be very redundant or compress very well.
Third, why this obsession with zeroing in on a magic gene that causes X? Do they think the language of DNA is context free? Defects could indeed be expected to have no context, but for the rest-- which genes determine a person's blood type? Eye color? Skin color? Going about that task by trying to find the magic gene for something like that is like a person who never learned to read trying to figure out the plot of a book by trying to recognize patterns of letters.
In short, because that's what's easiest. A holistic approach to genomics research like you're describing is not currently technologically, academically or economically feasible for a myriad of reasons. The science just is not there yet.
As an aside, I suspect we'll start to see a more integrated approach to genomics once the relatively low-hanging fruit of the one-gene --> one-protein research lines are throughly covered. However, I wouldn't expect such things to happen in our lifetimes given the difficulty of that aforementioned task and the sheer profitability of more conventional approaches. But what do I know? I'm "just a biologist." =P
Most creationists, on the other hand, are defending the One True Religion. They already know The Truth, and simply pick and choose arguments from creationist websites to attempt to defend that Truth. This kind of backwards reasoning (arrive at conclusion first, find supporting facts later) is so alien to scientists that they simply can't handle it. I'm not sure I could, for that matter.
You're absolutely right. And the troubling thing about it all is that often, even after having their arguments completely blown out of the water, many "young Earth" creationists on the internet will simply abandon debate with knowledgeable individuals altogether and go to another post or forum spouting the same non-sense as if it were undisputed fact. It's very strange.
My only explanation for this behavior is that these individuals either: (1) avoid, if at all possible, knowledgeable people/sources out of some fear of having their faith shaken (2) only read or hear what they want to out of out of the academics they are arguing with* or (3) are knowingly engaged in some kind of Public Relations campaign whose real goal clearly isn't productive discussion but simply deception of the general populace on the issue of human origin (among other things).
For me, the last possibility, while admittedly the least likely is, however, the most intriguing. I think it'd be very interesting if someone were to track down and interview some of the more stubborn and out-spoken ID/creationism debaters if only to discover what motivates them and what connections they have to each other.
-Grym
* This was the basis, by the way, for my tongue-in-cheek post earlier. I have to say I think I got you. =P
As an aside, it's very heart-warming for me to read your post. I can't help but hope that you keep up the good fight here on slashdot. It's so great to see a nice, young Christian like yourself spreading the Good News of ID. Keep up the good work!!!1111
Just think about games--I don't usually get too far into games anymore because I don't want to spend half an hour memorizing the keys.
Might I recommend the Nostromo Speedpad 52. The 16 keys on it are fully programmable and it automatically changes key assignments depending on which program you're using. Since I got mine about 3 years ago I haven't gone back. It's great. When I get a new game, I just assign the keys to places on the speedpad as I see fit and never worry about it again.
When you consider that it also has extensive macroing capabilities and a pricetag of about 40 dollars, there's no reason not to have one as a computer gamer.
Because if they didn't, little bills like these might sneak through and become law.
Congressmen introduce bills and addendums like this for the same reason that an insect lays a million eggs: it only takes one. Which act is more disgusting, however is anybody's guess.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
We have laws for attempted murder, rape, and arson so why not laws for attempted piracy. It sounds like a great idea to me and anyone who does not support it is nothing more than a criminal trying to justify criminal behaviors and activities.
People need to understand that business as usual simply isn't possible anymore. We are all the benefactors of a technological revolution that has changed the rules, and there's no going back. The limited distribution and reproduction of ideas is a thing of the past. It's well past time for us to adjust our thinking and business models accordingly. Those supporting the intellectual property regime are fighting the tides, and make no mistake: they will lose. It's only a matter of time.
In the meantime, however, all laws like this will do is promote government waste and potentially victimize millions of upstanding citizens. It would be tragic if this were to come to pass.
You do realize that a program is just a number too. Anything digital is.
Yeah, but a program is not only by orders of magnitude much longer but also executable.
The latter part is the most important because that distinction is what makes programs tools and.txt files simply data. Think about it, you wouldn't consider a.txt file written about how to disable DVD encryption to be a "tool that circumvents DRM," but most people would agree that a compiled binary of DeCSS would be.
My point is that this data is being conflated as constituting a tool for circumvention when it is very clearly, by itself, just a number.
When that number represents a cryptographic key to circumvent DRM.
Does it? Because to me it just looks like a number. I just said "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" out loud, why isn't the HD-DVD in my hand decrypting itself? Weird... the DRM is still there, completely un-circumvented. So, how could I have broken any law? Why should this post get censored and be applicable to DMCA takedown provisions?
Without a program (which I have not linked and which does not include the key with it), this number is not able to circumvent anything. How could it? It is literally a random number.
Look, I'm not saying that I like the law. I'm just trying to shed some light on what's going on here.
I'm not suggesting that you do like it. In fact, I have yet to meet a single knowledgeable person that I have discussed this issue with who does feel comfortable with the provisions and implications of the DMCA. (So much for "By the people, for the people.") Maybe that's just my personal experience, though. Surely someone out there not profiting hand-over-fist from the law has to like it. Though, I must admit the thought that there's a pro-DMCA voting bloc out there somewhere is hilarious.
Regardless, I think I understand what's going on, and the fact is I don't like it. It seems to me to be just another instance where the DMCA takedown provisions are being (ab)used to limit speech which certain groups find inconvenient or embarrassing, and that's why I find it so infuriating. What makes me even more upset is that nobody from our government is stepping in to stop this (in my mind, clear) violation of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
How can a non-executable, single string of numbers constitute a tool for circumvention?
Let's extend this thought. Let's say I make a cryptographic system to protect my copyrighted slashdot postings (my precious, precious postings...) and let's say that I choose the key to be 00 00 00 03. By extension of your logic, would I then be able to submit DMCA takedown notices on pages containing the number 3? Can I sue anyone that dares include the number 3 in their website, blog, and so on? Why not? Why couldn't I? The number 3 would be a tool for circumvention of my copyright protection mechanism, would it not?
The absolute free pass that the content industry gets in both logic and the law is repugnant.
Anyone else find it ridiculous that we're seeing all the reports of how oppressive Iran is to it's people? WHO CARES? Honestly. If the people there didn't like it, and were fed up, they'd fix it. I'm seeing this as a preamble to invasion/attack.
Get everyone talking about how horribly oppressive the government is so they don't feel so bad about blitzing them.
What would you suggest? Should we completely ignore the societal warning signs within Iran? Should news agencies not report such incidents or should we just not care when they do? Oh... I know! Maybe we could just report the GOOD NEWS from Iran, like when they build a new school or when another raped woman is stoned--you know.. happy things.
It would be nice if the world worked that way. Indeed life would be much simpler if we could just ignore governments across the world as they became more and more aggressive and unaccountable. Unfortunately, the world is not so insular. If there's any lesson that EVER came from the events leading up to World War II, it's that blind Isolationism only gets people killed--by the millions.
Iran is a major power within the middle east and its influence is only increasing due to our bumblers in Washington. We can't afford to make the mistake of ignoring what's happening there, no matter how much fun it might be to indulge our imaginations and pretend that this and all the other bad news coming out of Iran is part of an elaborate CIA "psyOp."
Show me a laser printer that can, scan, copy, print photos, fax and duplex with a price tag of only $300 and ink refills you can buy in a local retailer. It's simply not possible.
Oh... and that printer is fully Mac compatible. Remember that Mac special $100 discount off of a printer deal? Yeah, this will work with that.
Hands down, (based on it's stated features/pricing) this is the perfect printer for home users. Not only does it have the convenience of an all-in-one printer but it's much cheaper per page than a traditional inkjet. I've actually done quite a bit research recently with the intent to buy a laser printer for the reason you said and because I like the fact that laser printed ink doesn't smear. When I came upon this printer, I simply couldn't justify going laser. Ever since, I've been waiting patiently it to come out.
What teen today uses a land-line? Good luck doing a reverse-lookup on a mobile phone.
It can only be assumed once someone has done this that the exposed person was a girl, and that she will be stalked, kidnapped, beaten, raped, and killed.
...
Why would you just assume that? That's ridiculous. Even if one were able to obtain a teen's home address, how does that constitute some all-powerful knowledge over their existence and safety? Why don't we just ban listings in phonebooks for individuals with children? You know.. just to be safe?
I don't think the safe harbor provisions of the dmca would apply to you. The majority of ISPs' AUPs forbid "re-sharing" or re-selling of a subscriber's internet connection. You are a customer, not an ISP.
If you have an account with an ISP that permits you to re-sell the internet access, then you could claim safe harbor. Indeed, the riaa would be left sending you letters for ip-to-user translations.
Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but what does the ISP's service agreement have to do with the actual crime of copyright infringement? I just don't see how it follows. There are two sepearate and distinct grievances being conflated into one. First, the customer breaching his ISP's service agreement, and then an unrelated passerby infringing on a completely separate company's copyright.
So, for example: Person X infringes upon person Y's copyright, but because person Z is not properly following a private contract between him and his ISP, person Z is now guilty of X's crime? Am I missing something? It's like saying A = B, and C = D, so A=D. A very important step is missing.
This immediately brings up three thoughts:
1.) If a person with an unrestricted wireless access point can be held responsible for not practicing due diligence in stopping a crime of copyright infringement, why couldn't the same be said for anyone with an "unsecured" copier, fax, telephone, or printer? Why is one person considered irresponsible and a facilitator of all sorts of nasty crimes (invariably involving child porn), and the other not?
2.) Since when does one need a license to freely distribute information? Isn't this a first amendment issue? I can understand why an ISP might be upset with a customer redistributing their service, and why that might lead to a termination of service or even private lawsuit. But why should the fact that you are breaking a private contract make you automatically liable? I suspect the answer is "because the lobbyists wrote the DMCA that way," but that still seems to be in violation of the first amendment in that some entities (namely, ISPs) have greater legal capacity for communication than everyone else. Isn't that a form of relative restriction on free speech and thus unconstitutional?
3.) If (1) is true and a customer can be considered irresponsible and a participant in the crime of copyright infringement because he or she failed to adequately secure their network, why shouldn't an ISP be held responsible for the presence of unsecured wireless networks as well? It would be trivial for an ISP to drive around and identify their customers with unsecured wireless access points, and yet, I have only in 5 years of following and being involved in the ISP industry heard of ONE case where that has ever happened. If the ISPs can't be bothered to protect their own networks, why joe sixpack? Why should responsibility for the task of ultimately securing the network fall solely onto the non-experts of the general public?
Not to invoke Godwin, but Hitler got to power through (ab)use of a democratic system. What is more, initially, he was seen by many as an ally against communism. Are you arguing that his regime should have been protected maybe?
Clearly not. Voting for the Nazi party was, in many ways, a vote of no-confidence in what had become (for various reasons) a paralytic democratic process. In fact, Hitler's entire platform was that he would dissolve the legislature once in power, and that's exactly what he did. Germany, after the takeover of the Nazi regime was about as far from a democratic nation as it could be. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a historian prepared to call it a democratic state at the point you're discussing.
Iran is maybe not a democracy to western standards, but is way more democratic then most of the Islamic world, yet its a member of the axis of evil according to the USA... The Palestinian territories have a verifiable democratic system even to western standards, how about them?
As much as I loathe the term "axis of evil", I think you're missing the important point of my post. The important metric is how legitimate and responsible a government is, but that's not to say that the only legitimate countries are democratic or that all (pseudo-)democratic governments are responsible. Palestine may be a legitimate democracy and maybe it is true that Hamas adequately represents the will of the Palestinian people, but that's where any academically honest comparisons end. How many Western countries can you name whose official government platform is the stated destruction of another state or whose major political party is, by most definitions, a terrorist organization? And don't get me started on Iran, agent-provocateur of the Apocalypse. They've been about as responsible as a smoker near a powder keg in the past few years with their insistence on obtaining nuclear weapons, promotion of instability and terrorism within Iraq, and outrageously provacative statements from their figurehead, President Ahmadinejad.
And yes, of course I do see the difference between say Israel and Sudan, no argument there, but BOTH should be dealt with, and if you don't deal with obvious and long standing issues because of protecting your friends then you also lose any right to demand that others are being dealt with. The actual severity of the issues is hardly relevant for that.
Why shouldn't the severity or context be relevant? The Sudanese government is committing ethnic genocide! Why should the third world's hatred of the Jewish people and--by proxy Israel--effectively mean that civilized people can't condemn even the most egregious of atrocities like what's going on in Sudan?
Hmm.. you mean like how the USA uses its veto every time any kind of punitive action against Israel is proposed? Pot, meet kettle.
Oh please. You're telling me that you don't see a difference between the U.S. exerting it's power to protect an allied--yet controversial (to put it lightly)--democratic country and tyrannical regimes voting reciprocally to protect each other? The former is politics (maybe even dirty politics), the latter is a sick joke that parades itself as "international justice."
As an aside, I've never understood why any and every member state, regardless of size or legitimacy gets an equal vote in the general assembly. It's madness. Democracy is a great (maybe even the best) framework for organizing and ruling people, but why and from where do people get this mistaken idea that a democratic system (like the general assembly) is an appropriate way for countries to interact with each other?
No, you should join [the ICC] and help it being a real platform for justice.
Call me cynical, but I honestly cannot imagine the U.N. being a true force for justice in its currently flawed and corrupt condition. Now, I'm not so cynical as to believe that the U.N serves no purpose and does no good, but at the same time, I agree with the United States' hesitancy to give sweeping, unchecked powers to a broken institution.
Question: What happens when Grandma's HD-DVD player stops working because her device's unique key has been identified by simple, old-fashioned brute force? How will the retailer she takes it to know that the problem is with the device if they revoke on the basis of individual units not models? And who pays to replace the player when/if that happens?
I strongly disagree. The origin of facts and assumptions should always be cited. If only to
Of course there is a limit to this. One needn't cite the fact that the world is round. Fortunately test for when citing is appropriate is simple: If you had use outside source to define a fact, cite its source. Problem solved, no interpretation required.
Drugs, prostitution, pornography, gay marriage, abortion--on these subjects conservatives are silent about the evils of big government. The environment, hate crimes, intelligent design, prayer in schools--on these subjects the conservatives wail as if liberty herself were being dismembered on the White House lawn whenever the government takes action.
So which is it? Libertarian or conservative?
While I agree that most conservatives are inconsistent (or hypocritical even) in their sense of moral outrage in politics, I think you're concluding with a false dilemma. Why, again, is it a choice between--basically--no government at all and a theocratic police state? Whatever happened to a balanced perspective?
Reasonable people can see the utility in regulating poisons (unregulated pollution, drugs, etc.), extremely deadly weapons (nuclear weapons, nerve gas, etc.), or public health risks (unregulated prostitution, medicine, etc.). Similarly, they can see the usefulness of ideals such as like personal liberty, freedom of speech, and justice for all. Why then is it so hard (or inconsistent) to believe that the ideal form of government might incorporate all of the above to varying extents?
Another good question is how it, being 100 Mbps, will hold up compared to 1000 Mbps solutions. Since you can get a decent Intel Gigabit NIC for four machines plus a Gigabit switch for the same price as this one card, that's definitely a valid question.
That's a good point. However, for most home users, I would suspect that it would. Simply because the bottleneck (or rate-determining step, if you will) isn't their internal network or even the router but rather their cable modem. Sure, a home gigabit network would be faster, but once it hit the router it'd all be the same, right? The advantage to QoS is that it affects both internal AND (outbound) external traffic. So, at least in my mind, this would mean that the killer NIC might actually out-perform a gigabit setup for most home users/applications Though, this probably wouldn't apply to those in college dorms or with fiber lines to their houses.
Scale. Like the difference between a musket and a machine gun.
Absolutely not. A hunting rifle is just as lethal as an assault rifle. In fact, the difference between the two is often simply appearance and marketing. But don't take my word for it. Watch this informative video on firearms, if you don't' believe me.
That is why we have police. If you live in constant fear then you are either paranoid or live in a horrible neighborhood that is riddled with guns.
I disagree. The reality of the situation is that police are incapable of preventing violent crimes before they occur, and only rarely are they able to disrupt crimes that are in progress. And that's not to be critical of law enforcement. A mugging, for instance, can happen in less than a minute. An average assault (judging by the fights I've seen) is probably somewhere around thirty to forty-five seconds, at most. How can you ever expect police to intervene or save you in that span of time? And even if they had the resources to, would you want to live in such a monitored and regulated police state?
You might take some pleasure in knowing that your killer will probably see jail time after you're already dead, but that notion hardly seems pleasing to me. I value my safety, health, and life. That is the reason why I keep a first aid kit, replace the batteries in my fire alarms, and--yes--legally own firearms, and I personally think there's nothing "paranoid" about that line of reasoning.
Everyone is a "responsible gun owner" until they commit a crime.
Now you're just being ridiculous. There are many irresponsible things you can do with a firearm that are not necessarily illegal. Here's a list of some:
Not securing firearms in households with children.
Not following basic gun safety rules (such as assuming the firearm is always loaded).
Not being familiar with the maintenance and use of the type of firearms one owns.
Drinking before or during hunting or sport shooting
Not everyone who owns a gun is a responsible gun owner, but at the same time, not all responsible gun owners are potentially violent criminals as you suggest.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay... so when people stop buying CDs in droves (often while citing the price of CDs relative to other goods in their lives), what does that have to say about the location of the current price of CDs on their supply-demand curve?
-Grym
I never said that I did think torture was a good policy. I was simply disputing the GP's assertion that short-term information is rarely useful. From the discussions I've had with soldiers and what I've read about military intelligence, he couldn't be farther from the truth. If we're going to discuss policy, we should at least be honest about the issue instead of resorting to platitudes and carte blanch assertions, that's all I'm saying. Honestly speaking torture, done intelligently, probably is effective and would often yield life-saving information.
Now, that being said, I don't think that, as a general policy torture should be accepted. First of all, I don't think it is morally justifiable. Neither Iraq or Afghanistan are wars of survival. Secondly, as an under-manned occupying force, one of our main goals should be to put forth a positive public image. Any tactical advantage we might gain from torture is probably severely outweighed by the strategic consequences of such a policy. Lastly, I wouldn't trust this administration to effectively carry such a sensitive policy competently. In fact, they've already proven that they're incapable of it. One of the main contributing factors for the Abu Ghraib incident is that they tasked civilian translators with little to no training and no accountability to interrogate detainees. And then they act as if they had no idea how abuse could have occurred.
Hah. Hardly. The United States has been quite restrained with respect to what it's capable of. In historical terms, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been lukewarm and inviting to resistance.
I suspect that one day, when the U.S. has receded from its current position of dominance in the world that some of the main detractors of the United States will look back and yearn for the days of "U.S. oppression and abuse." Or do you think that countries like China, Iran, or Russia are capable of better?
-Grym
Maybe at Guantanamo, but you can bet in Iraq or Afghanistan that information about impending IED attacks or resistance leadership movements can very much save lives. I agree that the oft-cited ticking time-bomb nuke scenario is a bit far-fetched, but that doesn't mean the entire premise of the argument is invalid.
Poor Sadadam... he wasn't a bad person, he was just misunderstood!
How did this get modded insightful? Honestly, who thinks this ridiculous hyperbole is even remotely true? Since when has the United States gassed entire towns of its own people? Since when has the United States established rape rooms for political dissidents? Since when have the leaders of the U.S. whipped men to death, randomly cut off the hands of innocent people or forced some victims to run off the tops of buildings? (And in case anyone even thinks of denying this, here's the video, starring U'day Hussein. For God sakes it was so common they even allowed it to be filmed.)
Few things in this world infuriate me more than this kind of moral relativism crap. Is the United States perfect? Most certainly not. Why does this fact make some people jump to the opposite conclusion that the U.S. is the worst country in the world or that other countries shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes against humanity?
-Grym
I was hoping to be brief because it gets complicated. It's not uniform randomness because the frequency of crossover events is less likely for loci that are closer to the centromere and more likely as one moves outward. Similarly, some areas of a given chromosome cannot successfully crossover because the resulting combination happens within the coding/promoting/regulating section of an important gene and is, thus, lethal. This affects the distribution of closely located non-coding sections. As for insertions/deletions/base-mismatches, again, not all mutations are equal. Even in non-coding regions a mutation could be lethal if it interferes with the regulation, promotion, or coding of an important gene. Additionally, interspersed repetitive DNA moves in clumps and does not insert in a uniform fashion for similar reasons as before. Also, near the ends of the chromosomes telomeres are added by telomerase proteins. But, other than that (and probably a couple other exceptions I'm forgetting), the distribution is indeed random with different combinations having no known impact upon phenotype.
Can I mathematically model this? Nope, not my cup of tea. =P Have others? For the most part, yes. You must understand that before the paradigm shift in genetics we know as the "neodarwinian synthesis" scientists were, by and large, unable to empirically test their hypotheses. They therefore resorted to theoretical mathematical models and simulations to experiment. Some of it wasn't right, and it wasn't perfect by any means. But much of these studies (and their conclusions) are still remarkably relevant. And, though it doesn't make the headlines of pop-science magazines there is still active research and progress into the statistical nature of genetic variance. Check out Tajima's D, it's on exactly what we're talking about and was discovered in the mid 90's.
If you're truly interested in this matter, I suggest you audit a class on population genetics or, better yet, evolutionary genetics as either will go in far depth. detail, and accuracy than I ever could.
Believe me when I say that I sincerely do appreciate your attempt at providing an interdisciplinary viewpoint, but I believe your hypothesis that at least parts of the non-coding regions of DNA are actually some form of fault-tolerant compressed data is a bit of a stretch. I don't think you realize exactly how variable genotypes within populations of the same species are. Furthermore, I think you'd have a great deal of explaining to do when it comes to the identical activity of proteins in organisms with drastically different non-coding sequences or "software" as you liken it. Just how much fault tolerance can there be? You'd also have to explain why it appears that natural selection does not act on these regions of DNA. If these regions of DNA have such a significant impact on the life and development of organisms, why wouldn't they be conserved and propagated in the same manner as genes or other known important regions?
I'll be the first to join you in saying that "junk DNA" term is misleading and inaccurate term. But even if that is the case, one shouldn't make the mistake of jumping to the opposite conclusion that these sequences harbor some mystical, higher-order properties.
-Grym
Be careful here--you might just show your own ignorance. "Biologists" is a very broad term that covers a vast array of topics. Sure, ecology might not require much knowledge of computers and information theory, but such things are required reading for fields like molecular biology or modern genetics.
Not necessarily. Sure, that may be the case for single-celled organisms that rapidly reproduce, whose selective forces dictate sheer metabolic efficiency, but for multi-cellular organisms, like mammals, there's good reasons to believe that that simply isn't true.
Evolution isn't like a programmer. It isn't some transcendental force guiding a species to some aesthetically "perfect" design. The result of natural selection frequently isn't the "best" solution but rather whatever happens to work. In fact, many times adaptations based upon the selective pressures of the present are, in time, ultimately maladaptive for the species. A classic example of this is the trait for the disease sickle-cell anemia in humans which originally served to offer slight resistance to malaria but otherwise causes health problems and even death.
A more efficient genome doesn't necessarily mean greater fitness. Consider the following example. For a large multi-cellular organism, which do you think has more reproductive/survival significance: (1) a mutation that deletes a few bases of non-coding DNA OR (2) a mutation that brightens a metabolically-wasteful, colorful marking that attracts mates?
OR that they are mostly random. The current model of DNA/genetics states that most of the DNA in the human genome is non-coding, not (significantly) subject to evolution. As such, it gets shuffled around (i.e. randomized) during cross-over events and mutations. That being the case, one wouldn't expect it to be very redundant or compress very well.
In short, because that's what's easiest. A holistic approach to genomics research like you're describing is not currently technologically, academically or economically feasible for a myriad of reasons. The science just is not there yet.
As an aside, I suspect we'll start to see a more integrated approach to genomics once the relatively low-hanging fruit of the one-gene --> one-protein research lines are throughly covered. However, I wouldn't expect such things to happen in our lifetimes given the difficulty of that aforementioned task and the sheer profitability of more conventional approaches. But what do I know? I'm "just a biologist." =P
-Grym
You're absolutely right. And the troubling thing about it all is that often, even after having their arguments completely blown out of the water, many "young Earth" creationists on the internet will simply abandon debate with knowledgeable individuals altogether and go to another post or forum spouting the same non-sense as if it were undisputed fact. It's very strange.
My only explanation for this behavior is that these individuals either: (1) avoid, if at all possible, knowledgeable people/sources out of some fear of having their faith shaken (2) only read or hear what they want to out of out of the academics they are arguing with* or (3) are knowingly engaged in some kind of Public Relations campaign whose real goal clearly isn't productive discussion but simply deception of the general populace on the issue of human origin (among other things).
For me, the last possibility, while admittedly the least likely is, however, the most intriguing. I think it'd be very interesting if someone were to track down and interview some of the more stubborn and out-spoken ID/creationism debaters if only to discover what motivates them and what connections they have to each other.
-Grym
* This was the basis, by the way, for my tongue-in-cheek post earlier. I have to say I think I got you. =P
Excellent post.
Indeed it is.
As an aside, it's very heart-warming for me to read your post. I can't help but hope that you keep up the good fight here on slashdot. It's so great to see a nice, young Christian like yourself spreading the Good News of ID. Keep up the good work!!!1111
=pGrym
Might I recommend the Nostromo Speedpad 52. The 16 keys on it are fully programmable and it automatically changes key assignments depending on which program you're using. Since I got mine about 3 years ago I haven't gone back. It's great. When I get a new game, I just assign the keys to places on the speedpad as I see fit and never worry about it again.
When you consider that it also has extensive macroing capabilities and a pricetag of about 40 dollars, there's no reason not to have one as a computer gamer.
-Grym
Congressmen introduce bills and addendums like this for the same reason that an insect lays a million eggs: it only takes one. Which act is more disgusting, however is anybody's guess.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
-Edmund Burke
... words to live by.
-Grym
People need to understand that business as usual simply isn't possible anymore. We are all the benefactors of a technological revolution that has changed the rules, and there's no going back. The limited distribution and reproduction of ideas is a thing of the past. It's well past time for us to adjust our thinking and business models accordingly. Those supporting the intellectual property regime are fighting the tides, and make no mistake: they will lose. It's only a matter of time.
In the meantime, however, all laws like this will do is promote government waste and potentially victimize millions of upstanding citizens. It would be tragic if this were to come to pass.
-Grym
Yeah, but a program is not only by orders of magnitude much longer but also executable.
The latter part is the most important because that distinction is what makes programs tools and .txt files simply data. Think about it, you wouldn't consider a .txt file written about how to disable DVD encryption to be a "tool that circumvents DRM," but most people would agree that a compiled binary of DeCSS would be.
My point is that this data is being conflated as constituting a tool for circumvention when it is very clearly, by itself, just a number.
-Grym
Does it? Because to me it just looks like a number. I just said "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" out loud, why isn't the HD-DVD in my hand decrypting itself? Weird... the DRM is still there, completely un-circumvented. So, how could I have broken any law? Why should this post get censored and be applicable to DMCA takedown provisions?
Without a program (which I have not linked and which does not include the key with it), this number is not able to circumvent anything. How could it? It is literally a random number.
I'm not suggesting that you do like it. In fact, I have yet to meet a single knowledgeable person that I have discussed this issue with who does feel comfortable with the provisions and implications of the DMCA. (So much for "By the people, for the people.") Maybe that's just my personal experience, though. Surely someone out there not profiting hand-over-fist from the law has to like it. Though, I must admit the thought that there's a pro-DMCA voting bloc out there somewhere is hilarious.
Regardless, I think I understand what's going on, and the fact is I don't like it. It seems to me to be just another instance where the DMCA takedown provisions are being (ab)used to limit speech which certain groups find inconvenient or embarrassing, and that's why I find it so infuriating. What makes me even more upset is that nobody from our government is stepping in to stop this (in my mind, clear) violation of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
-Grym
How can a non-executable, single string of numbers constitute a tool for circumvention?
Let's extend this thought. Let's say I make a cryptographic system to protect my copyrighted slashdot postings (my precious, precious postings...) and let's say that I choose the key to be 00 00 00 03. By extension of your logic, would I then be able to submit DMCA takedown notices on pages containing the number 3? Can I sue anyone that dares include the number 3 in their website, blog, and so on? Why not? Why couldn't I? The number 3 would be a tool for circumvention of my copyright protection mechanism, would it not?
The absolute free pass that the content industry gets in both logic and the law is repugnant.
hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
-Grym
What would you suggest? Should we completely ignore the societal warning signs within Iran? Should news agencies not report such incidents or should we just not care when they do? Oh... I know! Maybe we could just report the GOOD NEWS from Iran, like when they build a new school or when another raped woman is stoned--you know.. happy things.
It would be nice if the world worked that way. Indeed life would be much simpler if we could just ignore governments across the world as they became more and more aggressive and unaccountable. Unfortunately, the world is not so insular. If there's any lesson that EVER came from the events leading up to World War II, it's that blind Isolationism only gets people killed--by the millions.
Iran is a major power within the middle east and its influence is only increasing due to our bumblers in Washington. We can't afford to make the mistake of ignoring what's happening there, no matter how much fun it might be to indulge our imaginations and pretend that this and all the other bad news coming out of Iran is part of an elaborate CIA "psyOp."
-Grym
Kodak Easyshare 5500
Show me a laser printer that can, scan, copy, print photos, fax and duplex with a price tag of only $300 and ink refills you can buy in a local retailer. It's simply not possible.
Oh... and that printer is fully Mac compatible. Remember that Mac special $100 discount off of a printer deal? Yeah, this will work with that.
Hands down, (based on it's stated features/pricing) this is the perfect printer for home users. Not only does it have the convenience of an all-in-one printer but it's much cheaper per page than a traditional inkjet. I've actually done quite a bit research recently with the intent to buy a laser printer for the reason you said and because I like the fact that laser printed ink doesn't smear. When I came upon this printer, I simply couldn't justify going laser. Ever since, I've been waiting patiently it to come out.
-Grym
Yeah that 16GB Truecrypt volume with only 5 MBs of word documents in it don't look the slightest bit suspicious.
-Grym
What teen today uses a land-line? Good luck doing a reverse-lookup on a mobile phone.
...
Why would you just assume that? That's ridiculous. Even if one were able to obtain a teen's home address, how does that constitute some all-powerful knowledge over their existence and safety? Why don't we just ban listings in phonebooks for individuals with children? You know.. just to be safe?
-Grym
Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but what does the ISP's service agreement have to do with the actual crime of copyright infringement? I just don't see how it follows. There are two sepearate and distinct grievances being conflated into one. First, the customer breaching his ISP's service agreement, and then an unrelated passerby infringing on a completely separate company's copyright.
So, for example: Person X infringes upon person Y's copyright, but because person Z is not properly following a private contract between him and his ISP, person Z is now guilty of X's crime? Am I missing something? It's like saying A = B, and C = D, so A=D. A very important step is missing.
This immediately brings up three thoughts:
1.) If a person with an unrestricted wireless access point can be held responsible for not practicing due diligence in stopping a crime of copyright infringement, why couldn't the same be said for anyone with an "unsecured" copier, fax, telephone, or printer? Why is one person considered irresponsible and a facilitator of all sorts of nasty crimes (invariably involving child porn), and the other not?
2.) Since when does one need a license to freely distribute information? Isn't this a first amendment issue? I can understand why an ISP might be upset with a customer redistributing their service, and why that might lead to a termination of service or even private lawsuit. But why should the fact that you are breaking a private contract make you automatically liable? I suspect the answer is "because the lobbyists wrote the DMCA that way," but that still seems to be in violation of the first amendment in that some entities (namely, ISPs) have greater legal capacity for communication than everyone else. Isn't that a form of relative restriction on free speech and thus unconstitutional?
3.) If (1) is true and a customer can be considered irresponsible and a participant in the crime of copyright infringement because he or she failed to adequately secure their network, why shouldn't an ISP be held responsible for the presence of unsecured wireless networks as well? It would be trivial for an ISP to drive around and identify their customers with unsecured wireless access points, and yet, I have only in 5 years of following and being involved in the ISP industry heard of ONE case where that has ever happened. If the ISPs can't be bothered to protect their own networks, why joe sixpack? Why should responsibility for the task of ultimately securing the network fall solely onto the non-experts of the general public?
-Grym
Clearly not. Voting for the Nazi party was, in many ways, a vote of no-confidence in what had become (for various reasons) a paralytic democratic process. In fact, Hitler's entire platform was that he would dissolve the legislature once in power, and that's exactly what he did. Germany, after the takeover of the Nazi regime was about as far from a democratic nation as it could be. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a historian prepared to call it a democratic state at the point you're discussing.
As much as I loathe the term "axis of evil", I think you're missing the important point of my post. The important metric is how legitimate and responsible a government is, but that's not to say that the only legitimate countries are democratic or that all (pseudo-)democratic governments are responsible. Palestine may be a legitimate democracy and maybe it is true that Hamas adequately represents the will of the Palestinian people, but that's where any academically honest comparisons end. How many Western countries can you name whose official government platform is the stated destruction of another state or whose major political party is, by most definitions, a terrorist organization? And don't get me started on Iran, agent-provocateur of the Apocalypse. They've been about as responsible as a smoker near a powder keg in the past few years with their insistence on obtaining nuclear weapons, promotion of instability and terrorism within Iraq, and outrageously provacative statements from their figurehead, President Ahmadinejad.
Why shouldn't the severity or context be relevant? The Sudanese government is committing ethnic genocide! Why should the third world's hatred of the Jewish people and--by proxy Israel--effectively mean that civilized people can't condemn even the most egregious of atrocities like what's going on in Sudan?
-Grym
Oh please. You're telling me that you don't see a difference between the U.S. exerting it's power to protect an allied--yet controversial (to put it lightly)--democratic country and tyrannical regimes voting reciprocally to protect each other? The former is politics (maybe even dirty politics), the latter is a sick joke that parades itself as "international justice."
As an aside, I've never understood why any and every member state, regardless of size or legitimacy gets an equal vote in the general assembly. It's madness. Democracy is a great (maybe even the best) framework for organizing and ruling people, but why and from where do people get this mistaken idea that a democratic system (like the general assembly) is an appropriate way for countries to interact with each other?
Call me cynical, but I honestly cannot imagine the U.N. being a true force for justice in its currently flawed and corrupt condition. Now, I'm not so cynical as to believe that the U.N serves no purpose and does no good, but at the same time, I agree with the United States' hesitancy to give sweeping, unchecked powers to a broken institution.
-Grym
Question: What happens when Grandma's HD-DVD player stops working because her device's unique key has been identified by simple, old-fashioned brute force? How will the retailer she takes it to know that the problem is with the device if they revoke on the basis of individual units not models? And who pays to replace the player when/if that happens?
-Grym
I strongly disagree. The origin of facts and assumptions should always be cited. If only to
Of course there is a limit to this. One needn't cite the fact that the world is round. Fortunately test for when citing is appropriate is simple: If you had use outside source to define a fact, cite its source. Problem solved, no interpretation required.
-Grym
While I agree that most conservatives are inconsistent (or hypocritical even) in their sense of moral outrage in politics, I think you're concluding with a false dilemma. Why, again, is it a choice between--basically--no government at all and a theocratic police state? Whatever happened to a balanced perspective?
Reasonable people can see the utility in regulating poisons (unregulated pollution, drugs, etc.), extremely deadly weapons (nuclear weapons, nerve gas, etc.), or public health risks (unregulated prostitution, medicine, etc.). Similarly, they can see the usefulness of ideals such as like personal liberty, freedom of speech, and justice for all. Why then is it so hard (or inconsistent) to believe that the ideal form of government might incorporate all of the above to varying extents?
-Grym
That's a good point. However, for most home users, I would suspect that it would. Simply because the bottleneck (or rate-determining step, if you will) isn't their internal network or even the router but rather their cable modem. Sure, a home gigabit network would be faster, but once it hit the router it'd all be the same, right? The advantage to QoS is that it affects both internal AND (outbound) external traffic. So, at least in my mind, this would mean that the killer NIC might actually out-perform a gigabit setup for most home users/applications Though, this probably wouldn't apply to those in college dorms or with fiber lines to their houses.
-Grym
Absolutely not. A hunting rifle is just as lethal as an assault rifle. In fact, the difference between the two is often simply appearance and marketing. But don't take my word for it. Watch this informative video on firearms, if you don't' believe me.
I disagree. The reality of the situation is that police are incapable of preventing violent crimes before they occur, and only rarely are they able to disrupt crimes that are in progress. And that's not to be critical of law enforcement. A mugging, for instance, can happen in less than a minute. An average assault (judging by the fights I've seen) is probably somewhere around thirty to forty-five seconds, at most. How can you ever expect police to intervene or save you in that span of time? And even if they had the resources to, would you want to live in such a monitored and regulated police state?
You might take some pleasure in knowing that your killer will probably see jail time after you're already dead, but that notion hardly seems pleasing to me. I value my safety, health, and life. That is the reason why I keep a first aid kit, replace the batteries in my fire alarms, and--yes--legally own firearms, and I personally think there's nothing "paranoid" about that line of reasoning.
Now you're just being ridiculous. There are many irresponsible things you can do with a firearm that are not necessarily illegal. Here's a list of some:
Not everyone who owns a gun is a responsible gun owner, but at the same time, not all responsible gun owners are potentially violent criminals as you suggest.
-Grym