I've found the RossettaStone program to be very useful
I asked a RosettaStone employee about prices and he said for Portuguese there were 3 sets. The intro set was $200, as were the other two but if you bought all three at the same tyme they were only $300 or something like that. I thought that it was outrageous to spend that much to see if it works. Taking a class costs more sure but at least you can get help, which because of an injury caused disability I need.
there were probably 10 people out of a class of 80 who were not foreigners, presumably, Indian or South Asian.
South Dakota? Those Indians, were they India Indians or Sioux from one of the reservations?
It seems that companies are not that interested in searching the country to find American workers, but prefer to give the job to the first foreigner they come across and claim that there's no Americans to be had.
Businesses don't have to pay foreigners as much as American workers demand.
American workers will be just as successful when they have to compete with foreign workers.
Actually Americans are compeating against foreign workers, and because they demand more than foreigners they don't get as many jobs. While I don't like seeing workers, any worker, losing jobs especially because of offshore outsourcing or because of visa holders I'll also say they need to compeat more.
If I can get back in college, I'm on disability and couldn't afford to stay in college so I dropped out, I want to go to Brazil as part of a study abroad program. Before I can go though I need to take 2 years of Portuguese. I've thought about trying one of those programs like RosettaStone but I wonder how well they really are especially with pronunciation and writing.
Doesn't really matter... since a third party won't win this election.
A third party candidate won't win because people are always saying they won't so they won't vote for them. If everyone who says that did in fact vote for a third party then one could win.
Things aren't bad enough yet, and the people still believe the lies from R & D candidates.
This is all too true.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is still better at this point in time. Maybe that will change someday, but not yet.
Yea, I wasted my vote in the 2000 election. Instead of voting for who I wanted to vote for, because the polls were so close I specifically voted against Bush by selecting Gore. I didn't want a President Gross, er Gore, but a President Bush was, and is, worse. So I vowed to never vote for the least bad and just vote for the candidate who came the closest in their stands on the issues that matter to me to my position. I don't know why I didn't in 2000 because I did every election both before and after 2000. I've voted for Democrat, independent and Independent Party (both as there are candidates that run independent of any party and there's an Independent Party), Libertarian, Reform Party, and Republican candidates. Some lost and some won.
I think what would help, which neither Democrat nor the Republican Party would agree to because it's take their power away, would be to repeal Amendment 12. Originally all candidates ran for President. Each tyme the Electors, elected by the voters, in the Electoral College voted for President the candidate with the least votes was dropped from the ballot. Then they'd vote again until there were only 2 candidates left. The final vote who determine the President with the loser becoming the Vice President. However in 1804 an amendment was ratified which changed that, candidates instead ran as a team. The political parties didn't want to risk the president and vp being from different parties.
In my amendment I'd also add the election follow one of the Condorcet methods of voting. Voters rank candidates by preference with the voter's first pick getting the most points and second choice get less points. Third choice if one gets even less, and no points at all for candidates that are not voted for. All of the voter points are then added up and the one with the most points becomes President while the runner up becomes Vice President. And instead of paper ballots or most e-voting machines I'd use machines like those used in India which is fool proof and tamper resistant.
I don't know your exact age, but I know your about 10 years younger then me.
How do you know you are 10 years older than I am if you do not know my age? Are you making an ass of yourself again by assuming what my age is?
if energy costs what it does today because of all the subsidies, then without the subsidies, the alternative energy would cost that much more.
This and the following can qat least partially dealt with with increased efficiency. As you say cheap energy has made things cheap however with higher prices for energy manufact5uring and transportation will become more efficient. Back in the 1970s US auto makers said more fuel efficient couldn't be made, but during the fake oil embargo Japanese auto makers ate their lunch. Now while Detroit struggles Honda, Toyota, and other Japanese, as well as European auto makers are opening factories in the US. Yea, part of it is because local and state governments give them tax breaks and other subsidies I oppose to them, but they also build more efficient vehicles. The book "Natural Capitalism", which a writer for the "Economist" said was "Brimming with examples and anecdote, Natural Capitalism will exasperate some and excite others--but leave every reader with the hope that the old battle between business and the environment can reach a peaceful and constructive conclusion" is filled with examples and case studies of how businesses have been able to cut resources used whether energy or raw materials and cut their costs at the same tyme. Simply with the end of cheap energy we need to improve efficiency.
Are you as happy to personally support someone who wishes to watch TV all day?
There's a big difference between an artist and being a consumer of said art. I am opposed to supporting either one, at least with public funds. I can support those artists I like by buying their art, whether music or paintings. Actually I have bought and own some of Maija's paintings. I buy music from those I like as well as movies I like and don't download any, legal or not, not even from iTunes though it's on my Mac.
If they want to make their life around 'play or sing music, write, or be another artist' then they need to make that make money, one way or another.
They are, by creating art and trying to sell it.
I think the best way to look at it is purely in a cost effective manner. How much does society get today for effectively and artificially supporting certain parasitic members. Does the benefit outweigh the cost??
Who's the parasite? The person who wants to be paid for what they create, or the person that wants it free?
You are presupposing that there is no advancement without patents, that patents are beneficial to advancement rather than hindering it (and of course that there was no progress before patents).
Now where did I say anything about patents in my post? Or are you making an ass of yourself by assuming I support patents? If you search slashdot for posts on patents I made you will see I DO NOT support patents. And I have not made up my mind on copyrights, I generally don't like monopolies but believe artists should be able to make a living on their art if they can get people to buy it.
It's bad enough that more or less any government agency likely has access to ALL your data right now
Google has already refused a Justice Department order for data and I feel pretty confident they will refuse another order.
any talented hacker likely can GET access to it
You mean cracker, hacker is the wrong word.
Google could be SELLING your very personal data to the highest bidder
The best thing that Google has going for it is their reputation. If they start selling users' data that rep will go down the toilet.
Put in on a secure USB flash drive or something.
I use external drives as well as flash drives. I have, and lost, too much data to store it all on flash drives though. I have a Linux PC with 2 HDDs, the one it came with had Linux installed and I installed the second one for user files. That one is 750GB and 500GB is used now. However it was lost when the drive was reformatted, when I specifically told the tech who repaired it not to reformat or erase the data, I wish I had had an external drive to backup the data then.
Oh, and the only thing I use Google for is searching, I don't even use gmail.
Privacy in the coming age will be either a product for big companies, etc, or increasingly irrelevant as the web has shown (myspace/facebook generation).
Unfortunately too many people give up their privacy with facebook/myspace, gmail, and online data storage. They use these so they'll expect others to use them too. I haven't signed up with any of them though I may join Photo.net when I start a photo business. Otherwise I want to keep my data local, I use an external drive for backup. And I want to run my apps locally as well, and be able to take it with me so I got a laptop. the closest I may come to storing data online is if I use my Linux PC as a server and setup a VPN. Well, I also keep my email on my ISP's server.
You managed to talk trash like you know something about electric generation but you failed to mention how coal is somehow subsidized. You even managed to insert Bush and McCain in there.
I'm waiting for the Obama will save us all line. I actually think it is funny how people claim the army protects this
I find it funny, actually stupid, when people "ass"ume I support Obama. In fact as of now I'm voting for the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and during the last presidential election I supported Michael Badnarik. Actually since 1988 when Ron Paul ran for president as a Libertarian Party candidate I voted for the LP candidate except in 2000. As far as I'm concerned both Democrats and Republicans are half right and half wrong. Democrats what to control businesses whereas Republicans want to control people's lives, especially Christian Conservatives. And both are parties to the War on Drugs.
The bottom line is that prices are the way they are based on a history that stretches far beyond your age.
And how do you know how old I am? You can read minds? I doubt it as you "ass"umed I supported Obama.
Nothing unfair is going on here.
It is unfair when you have to compeat with an industry that receives government subsidies but you don't, or receive more than you do. I won't go over the rest because you're so good at reading minds to think I don't support a free market.
Where I take issue is with people saying "how DARE you interfere with my business model!" or "people should be able to do what they want with what they create".
I agree with the first part but not sure about the second part.
The problem is that people have got it into their heads that the only valid business model is to sell items at retail to consumers at a fixed price.
That has worked, with a few bumps, for years. Apple's iTunes is now one of if not the largest music retailers in the world. Walmart is the largest retailer, for now, and it's worked for them. Actually in the US people many have complained about how Walmart imports all that cheap stuff from China yet they continue to buy it and Walmart has opened a number of stores there as well so Chinese can afford the stuff as well.
If entertainment became more collaborative in nature, rather than produced and consumed, would that really be such a disaster? Would it be so terrible if entertainment consisted of local bands who played largely for the fun of it, who held day jobs and made a few dollars on the side playing at a bar on a Friday night?
I'm all for making your own entertainment. I used to play, a long tyme ago, the clarinet and I have a wood carved flute I want to learn to play. In college though my major was Computer Engineering I took dance and theatre classes as well. At the same tyme if you read through my posts on this subject I believe a person shouldn't also have to have a full time job doing something else when they want to play or sing music, write, or be another artist.
Would it be so terrible that we need to sacrifice all manner of civil liberties, we aren't allowed to tamper with our own computers
Elsewhere I've posted about liberty, civil, economic, and political. I don't know how many tymes I've quoted Benjamin Franklin's saying on liberty and safety, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The parent of my original post complained about not being able to make money creating single player games without copyright protection. I ask, so what? Either find some way to make money off this that doesn't rely on artificially restricting supply, or do something else and create games on the side. It may sound harsh, but does anyone really have a right to earn a good income in precisely the manner he or she desires?
Yes, it does sound harsh. What sounds harsher, at least to me, is there being no or little progress. While I believe there will still be progress with no patents, I haven't made up my mind about allowing or banning copyrights. I mention above that I was in college majoring in Computer Engineering, however a bad accident I had ended that. Now there's not much I can do because of my injury. I am hoping to get into photography though and copyrights may help me there.
*Note: On Slashdot you often see the statement that patents are a state sanctioned monopoly.
It's not just/.ers who call patents monopolies, economists and politicians do too. Monopolies: "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service". Patents give the owner exclusive control of the invention. "Economists, beginning with Adam Smith - a friend and teacher of James Watt - have carefully documented the problems of monopoly." This is about a patent. "The Patent Controversy in the XIXth Century" [doc]: "Whether justice required that society reward an inventor for his services; if so, was a patent (i.e. a temporary monopoly) the fairest means of reward?" From Findlaw: "What Do You Have When You Have a Patent and Is There Any Risk?"
"If granted, a patent gives you a 20-year monopoly on selling, using, making or importing the invention into the United States. Your patent gives you the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention in the United States."
So if I value my software at $1000 and somebody bids $1001 and wins, it goes into the public domain?
You can raise your bid to $1001, and then you start paying property tax on the $1001. If the proponents of the "intellectual property" mindset copyrights and patents to be on equal footing with real estate, then perhaps they should be taxed like real estate.
I spend a year writing something, and because I spent my tyme writing it and wasn't getting paid I can't afford that $1001. What then? Or I wrote it while working, and I was able to save $10,000 but someone else bids $50,000 knowing they could make $100,000.
If there were no patent law, no new drugs would be made. It costs many millions of dollars to find a new drug, prove it is safe and effective, find the proper dose, and get it approved. Without patent protection, a drug company would have no way to earn their money back. The argument is a strawman.
This argument is a strawman. To give an example the National Cancer Institute, NCI, a part of the NIH or National Institutes of Health and therefore a government funded organization, spent $183 million to develop Taxol as a cancer treatment. Research started in 1967. The NCI sold all rights for the data needed by the FDA to win drug approval in 1988 or '89 to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for $43 million, $140 million less than the NCI spent developing it. Based on BMS's Form 10-K for 2000 BMS made $1.5 billion in 2000 om sales of Taxol.
In music, I helped 3 bands (one who is now on an international tour, has had MTV coverage, and sells out a lot of shows) move away from copyright.
And how will performers be able to make a living when the only way to make money, touring for live shows, becomes too expensive? Or didn't you hear, travel is getting expensive.
Nobody's saying that abandoning copyright would make you, or any other particular person, better off -- that isn't the point here. For that matter, if the market turns away from single player games altogether (maybe everyone plays multi-player games on their cellphones or something), you're screwed anyway. Would you have the law restrict multiplayer games to protect your niche?
The Point is to encourage progress in the arts and science, which copyrights can do. Copyright should give you the opportunity to reap a financial reward, they don't guaranty that reward though. It's one thing to spend 1000s of hours to write a computer game and having an exclusive right to sell that game to those willing to pay, but it's different to spend those hours programming so someone who did not have the expense of creating the game take it and sell copies of it them self.
I'll grant copyright terms are way out there, authors can't create anymore after they're dead, but if progress is the criteria, and it is, then copyrights fill the bill. Instead of lengthening copyright terms, they need to be shortened.
f the public can benefit more from limiting some of the choices authors can make with regard to their published work at least (e.g. they can't prevent used copies from being sold
Authors can't control a book once they've sold it as it is now. I can take all of my books and donate them if I want, I have donated a bunch already. It's called the First sale doctrine.
but let's leave it up to the individuals and groups to decide if they want to take that path.
So how do I avoid lawsuits from the individuals and groups who have decided not to take that path? What can a musician do to make sure that he doesn't accidentally copy part of a song that he had heard on the radio a decade ago?
That can be handled by shortening copyrights instead of eliminating them. Make copyrights 7 years, or 5. Even Open Source programmer rely on copyrights, even if it's called copyleft. Take a look and read the terms of the GPL, copyrights is the only thing that makes them legally enforcible.
No, HVDC isn't really any more costly than AC, and over long distances it loses less power even with loses due to inverters.
The problem is that we continue to use AC power.
Originally we used DC. Thomas Edison's power company in NYC was DC. It was only after Tesla pushed for AC, backed by Westinghouse, did AC become dominate. Edison even tried to electrocute an elephant in the War of Currents to discredit AC. Unfortunately the elephant was made to suffer by being electrocuted a number of tymes, Edison wasn't successful in killing the elephant at first. It wasn't until 2007 before all the DC power in NYC was changed to AC. However NYC's Subway system still runs on DC. And people who build their homes Off the Grid, and there are more and more people doing it, all use DC.
Solar power is a great advancement, but it simply cannot provide the energy needs of the country at this time. Supplemental use is good but the infrastructure needed to support wide scale solar use is simply too inefficient and expensive.
Therein lies the problem, I made the mistake myself in not talking about distributed power generation. Most people including you want the next big thing to solve everything. If instead of building large power plants and relying on the infrastructure of large powerlines transmission wouldn't be such a big problem. In California almost every building could have PVs installed on the roof providing some power. While Washington may not be a good place for solar, it's great for wind. And a 5 megawatt wind genie on 5 acres can provide power for a number of families and small businesses. With power generation closer to where it's used large powerlines aren't needed as much. Places like Boeing's factory in Seattle will need more power than the site can provide, but those place are few and far between each other.
Nano solar is also building another plant, in Germany, I think.
In Berlin.
In the US, it suddenly became necessary to suspend applications to build new solar plants for two years so that the environmental impact of new solar capacity could be studied and appropriate policy developed.
Only on federal land. However the BLM, Bureau of Land Management, reversed course.
Ideally you want the installation to last for 10 years or more without significant failures, though.
Solar PV panels tend to have warranties of 20, 25, even 30 years.
Often "thinner and cheaper" translates to "more easily broken" and "less reliable" - for example, when the units flex in high winds.
I wondered about this myself however I RTFA, I know this is/. and you're not supposed to read articles but I do. The panels are strengthened to withstand hail and high winds.
Solar power produced by utility sized power stations will only be built in places that already have a suitable transmission line. When solar panels and to a lesser extent, batteries become cheap enough, most solar power will be generated right where it is used, rather than being sent down a lossy transmission line for hundreds of miles.
This is why I support distributed power such as roof mounted solar PVs and wind genies where there are good sites. As I see it most people only look at large scale projects though. With only a few acres a 5 megawatt wind genie can be erected that can power a number of homes and small businesses.
The fallacy with your statement is that solar and wind aren't really competing with oil.
But they are. Have you ever heard of the electric car? Have you heard of Natural gas? Natural gas fuel many power plants in the US. But as T Boone Picken has announced, wind can replace those natural gas power plants. Though he doesn't say it so can solar. Then the natural gas can be used as fuel for vehicles.
Slashdot Mirror
I've found the RossettaStone program to be very useful
I asked a RosettaStone employee about prices and he said for Portuguese there were 3 sets. The intro set was $200, as were the other two but if you bought all three at the same tyme they were only $300 or something like that. I thought that it was outrageous to spend that much to see if it works. Taking a class costs more sure but at least you can get help, which because of an injury caused disability I need.
Falcon
there were probably 10 people out of a class of 80 who were not foreigners, presumably, Indian or South Asian.
South Dakota? Those Indians, were they India Indians or Sioux from one of the reservations?
It seems that companies are not that interested in searching the country to find American workers, but prefer to give the job to the first foreigner they come across and claim that there's no Americans to be had.
Businesses don't have to pay foreigners as much as American workers demand.
American workers will be just as successful when they have to compete with foreign workers.
Actually Americans are compeating against foreign workers, and because they demand more than foreigners they don't get as many jobs. While I don't like seeing workers, any worker, losing jobs especially because of offshore outsourcing or because of visa holders I'll also say they need to compeat more.
Falcon (;-
If I can get back in college, I'm on disability and couldn't afford to stay in college so I dropped out, I want to go to Brazil as part of a study abroad program. Before I can go though I need to take 2 years of Portuguese. I've thought about trying one of those programs like RosettaStone but I wonder how well they really are especially with pronunciation and writing.
Falcon
Doesn't really matter... since a third party won't win this election.
A third party candidate won't win because people are always saying they won't so they won't vote for them. If everyone who says that did in fact vote for a third party then one could win.
Things aren't bad enough yet, and the people still believe the lies from R & D candidates.
This is all too true.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is still better at this point in time. Maybe that will change someday, but not yet.
Yea, I wasted my vote in the 2000 election. Instead of voting for who I wanted to vote for, because the polls were so close I specifically voted against Bush by selecting Gore. I didn't want a President Gross, er Gore, but a President Bush was, and is, worse. So I vowed to never vote for the least bad and just vote for the candidate who came the closest in their stands on the issues that matter to me to my position. I don't know why I didn't in 2000 because I did every election both before and after 2000. I've voted for Democrat, independent and Independent Party (both as there are candidates that run independent of any party and there's an Independent Party), Libertarian, Reform Party, and Republican candidates. Some lost and some won.
I think what would help, which neither Democrat nor the Republican Party would agree to because it's take their power away, would be to repeal Amendment 12. Originally all candidates ran for President. Each tyme the Electors, elected by the voters, in the Electoral College voted for President the candidate with the least votes was dropped from the ballot. Then they'd vote again until there were only 2 candidates left. The final vote who determine the President with the loser becoming the Vice President. However in 1804 an amendment was ratified which changed that, candidates instead ran as a team. The political parties didn't want to risk the president and vp being from different parties.
In my amendment I'd also add the election follow one of the Condorcet methods of voting. Voters rank candidates by preference with the voter's first pick getting the most points and second choice get less points. Third choice if one gets even less, and no points at all for candidates that are not voted for. All of the voter points are then added up and the one with the most points becomes President while the runner up becomes Vice President. And instead of paper ballots or most e-voting machines I'd use machines like those used in India which is fool proof and tamper resistant.
Falcon
I don't know your exact age, but I know your about 10 years younger then me.
How do you know you are 10 years older than I am if you do not know my age? Are you making an ass of yourself again by assuming what my age is?
if energy costs what it does today because of all the subsidies, then without the subsidies, the alternative energy would cost that much more.
This and the following can qat least partially dealt with with increased efficiency. As you say cheap energy has made things cheap however with higher prices for energy manufact5uring and transportation will become more efficient. Back in the 1970s US auto makers said more fuel efficient couldn't be made, but during the fake oil embargo Japanese auto makers ate their lunch. Now while Detroit struggles Honda, Toyota, and other Japanese, as well as European auto makers are opening factories in the US. Yea, part of it is because local and state governments give them tax breaks and other subsidies I oppose to them, but they also build more efficient vehicles. The book "Natural Capitalism", which a writer for the "Economist" said was "Brimming with examples and anecdote, Natural Capitalism will exasperate some and excite others--but leave every reader with the hope that the old battle between business and the environment can reach a peaceful and constructive conclusion" is filled with examples and case studies of how businesses have been able to cut resources used whether energy or raw materials and cut their costs at the same tyme. Simply with the end of cheap energy we need to improve efficiency.
Falcon
Are you as happy to personally support someone who wishes to watch TV all day?
There's a big difference between an artist and being a consumer of said art. I am opposed to supporting either one, at least with public funds. I can support those artists I like by buying their art, whether music or paintings. Actually I have bought and own some of Maija's paintings. I buy music from those I like as well as movies I like and don't download any, legal or not, not even from iTunes though it's on my Mac.
If they want to make their life around 'play or sing music, write, or be another artist' then they need to make that make money, one way or another.
They are, by creating art and trying to sell it.
I think the best way to look at it is purely in a cost effective manner. How much does society get today for effectively and artificially supporting certain parasitic members. Does the benefit outweigh the cost??
Who's the parasite? The person who wants to be paid for what they create, or the person that wants it free?
You are presupposing that there is no advancement without patents, that patents are beneficial to advancement rather than hindering it (and of course that there was no progress before patents).
Now where did I say anything about patents in my post? Or are you making an ass of yourself by assuming I support patents? If you search slashdot for posts on patents I made you will see I DO NOT support patents. And I have not made up my mind on copyrights, I generally don't like monopolies but believe artists should be able to make a living on their art if they can get people to buy it.
I'm ending this now.
Falcon
It's bad enough that more or less any government agency likely has access to ALL your data right now
Google has already refused a Justice Department order for data and I feel pretty confident they will refuse another order.
any talented hacker likely can GET access to it
You mean cracker, hacker is the wrong word.
Google could be SELLING your very personal data to the highest bidder
The best thing that Google has going for it is their reputation. If they start selling users' data that rep will go down the toilet.
Put in on a secure USB flash drive or something.
I use external drives as well as flash drives. I have, and lost, too much data to store it all on flash drives though. I have a Linux PC with 2 HDDs, the one it came with had Linux installed and I installed the second one for user files. That one is 750GB and 500GB is used now. However it was lost when the drive was reformatted, when I specifically told the tech who repaired it not to reformat or erase the data, I wish I had had an external drive to backup the data then.
Oh, and the only thing I use Google for is searching, I don't even use gmail.
Falcon
Privacy in the coming age will be either a product for big companies, etc, or increasingly irrelevant as the web has shown (myspace/facebook generation).
Unfortunately too many people give up their privacy with facebook/myspace, gmail, and online data storage. They use these so they'll expect others to use them too. I haven't signed up with any of them though I may join Photo.net when I start a photo business. Otherwise I want to keep my data local, I use an external drive for backup. And I want to run my apps locally as well, and be able to take it with me so I got a laptop. the closest I may come to storing data online is if I use my Linux PC as a server and setup a VPN. Well, I also keep my email on my ISP's server.
Falcon
You managed to talk trash like you know something about electric generation but you failed to mention how coal is somehow subsidized. You even managed to insert Bush and McCain in there.
Tax breaks are given for coal mining. And it's not just some environmental website saying that. Even the CATO Institute, a Libertarian think tank, says coal is subsidized. Bush has proposed subsidizing clean coal as well as nuclear power. McCain has pledged to provide $2billion for clean-coal.
I'm waiting for the Obama will save us all line. I actually think it is funny how people claim the army protects this
I find it funny, actually stupid, when people "ass"ume I support Obama. In fact as of now I'm voting for the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and during the last presidential election I supported Michael Badnarik. Actually since 1988 when Ron Paul ran for president as a Libertarian Party candidate I voted for the LP candidate except in 2000. As far as I'm concerned both Democrats and Republicans are half right and half wrong. Democrats what to control businesses whereas Republicans want to control people's lives, especially Christian Conservatives. And both are parties to the War on Drugs.
The bottom line is that prices are the way they are based on a history that stretches far beyond your age.
And how do you know how old I am? You can read minds? I doubt it as you "ass"umed I supported Obama.
Nothing unfair is going on here.
It is unfair when you have to compeat with an industry that receives government subsidies but you don't, or receive more than you do. I won't go over the rest because you're so good at reading minds to think I don't support a free market.
Falcon
Where I take issue is with people saying "how DARE you interfere with my business model!" or "people should be able to do what they want with what they create".
I agree with the first part but not sure about the second part.
The problem is that people have got it into their heads that the only valid business model is to sell items at retail to consumers at a fixed price.
That has worked, with a few bumps, for years. Apple's iTunes is now one of if not the largest music retailers in the world. Walmart is the largest retailer, for now, and it's worked for them. Actually in the US people many have complained about how Walmart imports all that cheap stuff from China yet they continue to buy it and Walmart has opened a number of stores there as well so Chinese can afford the stuff as well.
If entertainment became more collaborative in nature, rather than produced and consumed, would that really be such a disaster? Would it be so terrible if entertainment consisted of local bands who played largely for the fun of it, who held day jobs and made a few dollars on the side playing at a bar on a Friday night?
I'm all for making your own entertainment. I used to play, a long tyme ago, the clarinet and I have a wood carved flute I want to learn to play. In college though my major was Computer Engineering I took dance and theatre classes as well. At the same tyme if you read through my posts on this subject I believe a person shouldn't also have to have a full time job doing something else when they want to play or sing music, write, or be another artist.
Would it be so terrible that we need to sacrifice all manner of civil liberties, we aren't allowed to tamper with our own computers
Elsewhere I've posted about liberty, civil, economic, and political. I don't know how many tymes I've quoted Benjamin Franklin's saying on liberty and safety, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The parent of my original post complained about not being able to make money creating single player games without copyright protection. I ask, so what? Either find some way to make money off this that doesn't rely on artificially restricting supply, or do something else and create games on the side. It may sound harsh, but does anyone really have a right to earn a good income in precisely the manner he or she desires?
Yes, it does sound harsh. What sounds harsher, at least to me, is there being no or little progress. While I believe there will still be progress with no patents, I haven't made up my mind about allowing or banning copyrights. I mention above that I was in college majoring in Computer Engineering, however a bad accident I had ended that. Now there's not much I can do because of my injury. I am hoping to get into photography though and copyrights may help me there.
Falcon
What have they written in the past 2000 years even worth translating into English, let alone learning Chinese for?!
Gunpower. Bruce Lee. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Ni how
Ni how ma?
Falcon
*Note: On Slashdot you often see the statement that patents are a state sanctioned monopoly.
It's not just /.ers who call patents monopolies, economists and politicians do too. Monopolies: "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service". Patents give the owner exclusive control of the invention. "Economists, beginning with Adam Smith - a friend and teacher of James Watt - have carefully documented the problems of monopoly." This is about a patent. "The Patent Controversy in the XIXth Century" [doc]: "Whether justice required that society reward an inventor for his services; if so, was a patent (i.e. a temporary monopoly) the fairest means of reward?" From Findlaw: "What Do You Have When You Have a Patent and Is There Any Risk?"
"If granted, a patent gives you a 20-year monopoly on selling, using, making or importing the invention into the United States. Your patent gives you the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention in the United States."
Falcon
So if I value my software at $1000 and somebody bids $1001 and wins, it goes into the public domain?
You can raise your bid to $1001, and then you start paying property tax on the $1001. If the proponents of the "intellectual property" mindset copyrights and patents to be on equal footing with real estate, then perhaps they should be taxed like real estate.
I spend a year writing something, and because I spent my tyme writing it and wasn't getting paid I can't afford that $1001. What then? Or I wrote it while working, and I was able to save $10,000 but someone else bids $50,000 knowing they could make $100,000.
Falcon
If there were no patent law, no new drugs would be made. It costs many millions of dollars to find a new drug, prove it is safe and effective, find the proper dose, and get it approved. Without patent protection, a drug company would have no way to earn their money back. The argument is a strawman.
This argument is a strawman. To give an example the National Cancer Institute, NCI, a part of the NIH or National Institutes of Health and therefore a government funded organization, spent $183 million to develop Taxol as a cancer treatment. Research started in 1967. The NCI sold all rights for the data needed by the FDA to win drug approval in 1988 or '89 to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for $43 million, $140 million less than the NCI spent developing it. Based on BMS's Form 10-K for 2000 BMS made $1.5 billion in 2000 om sales of Taxol.
It's also a strawman as "Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds".
Falcon
In music, I helped 3 bands (one who is now on an international tour, has had MTV coverage, and sells out a lot of shows) move away from copyright.
And how will performers be able to make a living when the only way to make money, touring for live shows, becomes too expensive? Or didn't you hear, travel is getting expensive.
Falcon
Nobody's saying that abandoning copyright would make you, or any other particular person, better off -- that isn't the point here. For that matter, if the market turns away from single player games altogether (maybe everyone plays multi-player games on their cellphones or something), you're screwed anyway. Would you have the law restrict multiplayer games to protect your niche?
The Point is to encourage progress in the arts and science, which copyrights can do. Copyright should give you the opportunity to reap a financial reward, they don't guaranty that reward though. It's one thing to spend 1000s of hours to write a computer game and having an exclusive right to sell that game to those willing to pay, but it's different to spend those hours programming so someone who did not have the expense of creating the game take it and sell copies of it them self.
I'll grant copyright terms are way out there, authors can't create anymore after they're dead, but if progress is the criteria, and it is, then copyrights fill the bill. Instead of lengthening copyright terms, they need to be shortened.
Falcon
f the public can benefit more from limiting some of the choices authors can make with regard to their published work at least (e.g. they can't prevent used copies from being sold
Authors can't control a book once they've sold it as it is now. I can take all of my books and donate them if I want, I have donated a bunch already. It's called the First sale doctrine.
Falcon
but let's leave it up to the individuals and groups to decide if they want to take that path.
So how do I avoid lawsuits from the individuals and groups who have decided not to take that path? What can a musician do to make sure that he doesn't accidentally copy part of a song that he had heard on the radio a decade ago?
That can be handled by shortening copyrights instead of eliminating them. Make copyrights 7 years, or 5. Even Open Source programmer rely on copyrights, even if it's called copyleft. Take a look and read the terms of the GPL, copyrights is the only thing that makes them legally enforcible.
Falcon
The federal blocks were mostly for solar thermal, not solar PV.
It was solar thermal the government suspended the applications for though.
Solar PV is generally expensive and is generally being installed on rooftops or even on parking lots.
Gee, solar PVs can be installed where energy is needed. In California PVs can provide energy when it's most needed, while it's sunny out.
Falcon
No, HVDC isn't really any more costly than AC, and over long distances it loses less power even with loses due to inverters.
The problem is that we continue to use AC power.
Originally we used DC. Thomas Edison's power company in NYC was DC. It was only after Tesla pushed for AC, backed by Westinghouse, did AC become dominate. Edison even tried to electrocute an elephant in the War of Currents to discredit AC. Unfortunately the elephant was made to suffer by being electrocuted a number of tymes, Edison wasn't successful in killing the elephant at first. It wasn't until 2007 before all the DC power in NYC was changed to AC. However NYC's Subway system still runs on DC. And people who build their homes Off the Grid, and there are more and more people doing it, all use DC.
Solar power is a great advancement, but it simply cannot provide the energy needs of the country at this time. Supplemental use is good but the infrastructure needed to support wide scale solar use is simply too inefficient and expensive.
Therein lies the problem, I made the mistake myself in not talking about distributed power generation. Most people including you want the next big thing to solve everything. If instead of building large power plants and relying on the infrastructure of large powerlines transmission wouldn't be such a big problem. In California almost every building could have PVs installed on the roof providing some power. While Washington may not be a good place for solar, it's great for wind. And a 5 megawatt wind genie on 5 acres can provide power for a number of families and small businesses. With power generation closer to where it's used large powerlines aren't needed as much. Places like Boeing's factory in Seattle will need more power than the site can provide, but those place are few and far between each other.
Falcon
Nano solar is also building another plant, in Germany, I think.
In Berlin.
In the US, it suddenly became necessary to suspend applications to build new solar plants for two years so that the environmental impact of new solar capacity could be studied and appropriate policy developed.
Only on federal land. However the BLM, Bureau of Land Management, reversed course.
Falcon
Which solar cell company was it, does anyone know?
NanoSolar.
Falcon
Ideally you want the installation to last for 10 years or more without significant failures, though.
Solar PV panels tend to have warranties of 20, 25, even 30 years.
Often "thinner and cheaper" translates to "more easily broken" and "less reliable" - for example, when the units flex in high winds.
I wondered about this myself however I RTFA, I know this is /. and you're not supposed to read articles but I do. The panels are strengthened to withstand hail and high winds.
Falcon
Solar power produced by utility sized power stations will only be built in places that already have a suitable transmission line. When solar panels and to a lesser extent, batteries become cheap enough, most solar power will be generated right where it is used, rather than being sent down a lossy transmission line for hundreds of miles.
This is why I support distributed power such as roof mounted solar PVs and wind genies where there are good sites. As I see it most people only look at large scale projects though. With only a few acres a 5 megawatt wind genie can be erected that can power a number of homes and small businesses.
Falcon
The fallacy with your statement is that solar and wind aren't really competing with oil.
But they are. Have you ever heard of the electric car? Have you heard of Natural gas? Natural gas fuel many power plants in the US. But as T Boone Picken has announced, wind can replace those natural gas power plants. Though he doesn't say it so can solar. Then the natural gas can be used as fuel for vehicles.
Falcon