We have obscenity laws on the books, right now, that are being used to prosecute citizens of the U.S. for exercising their dear 1st amendment rights. We have "free speech zones" outside of which protest is illegal.
By comparison, some of the EU member states have laws against hate speech.
First, here's the 2004 list: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11716
2005 should be coming out soon. Comparing the 2002 and 2004, the US has improved some, some european countries are a bit worse than before. Then you have some EU countries that are way below the US.
Best I can say is this. I have yet to see a successful prosecution under those "obsenity" laws in the US, most of the laws being struck down as unconstitutional under the 1st amendment quite quickly. Notice that Larry Flint and Hugh Hefner, among others, are not in jail. The only ones I have heard of lately with this happening to generally deal with sites that have been accused of having either minors or kiddy porn on them. If you can provide a link on one that is about a straight porn site, please provide it, along with any reasons the FBI/DA are providing for the reason.
The EU states have, aside from hate speech you can include a chunk of things having to deal with WWII in germany that, while not hate speech directly, is hate speech related. One other thing that is interesting are their libel/slander laws. Burden of proof is put on the defendant not the plantif.
Back to the US, the "free speech zones" as you reference them is somewhat missleading. They are only setup during major events and used as a way to keep the events flowing smoothly. As has been said, you can say whatever you want, but you can't force people to listen. If someone rents out an area for use, they should be able to deny access to that area to anyone they want to. I'd put it in the same category as keeping abortion protesters a minimum distance away from abortion clinics (usually across the street). If we want to depate the pros and cons of them, that is one thing. But they are essentially set up to keep the protesters away from those who don't want them around them. I seem to recall Richard Stallman complaining a few weeks ago about being ejected from an airport where he tried to publicize something. The Hare Krishna group have been pretty much barred from airports for similar reasons. Here's something similar from the UK. I'd personally say that it is more a point of controlling access to an area in most cases rather than limiting free speech. However, the ones where there are permanent ones I would say are another matter. Basically I see temporary ones for special events as crowd control and permanent ones as problems. Again, we can discuss the pros and cons of them if you want.
The main reason according to the 2002 report that the US is "so low" is:
Arrests are often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court. Also, since the 11 September attacks, several journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines at some official buildings. (Different complaints for the 2004 report)
The first reason is debatable. I have no problem with ones similar to the "Pentagon Papers". I do have problems with ones similar to the revealing of undercover CIA agents or other things of a similar nature, especially when it can/does get people killed. In WWII reporters were revealing what our military was going to be doing and the germans were reading the papers to find out. That got a lot of people killed. Also, it was said during the gulf war that Sadam Husein didn't need inteligence ops, he just needed to watch CNN. Th
One final thing, global warming is supposed to lead to weaker/fewer hurricanes. Katrina was hardly a strong storm. It was only a category 4 when it hit. Also, if it gets too strong it will tear itself apart. I think there is an actuall uper limit to the strength of a hurricane.
Personally I think this means we should learn as much about the history of Mars and Venus (and for that matter, the Sun) as we can, to find out *what went wrong*.
This assumes that Venus and Mars were earthlike to begin with.
With Mars, most problems are said to be due to not enough gravity to hold onto an atmosphere forever. With Venus, well, never lost enough atmosphere or got too much of one. It's also much closer to the sun so it recieves a much larger amount of sunlight than Earth.
The single biggest growth industry in north america seems to be casinos, kind of proves that the population certainly doesn't understand statistical relavence.
When I was in Las Vegas in April I talked to some guys at the roulete table who were from the UK. Even though they lost a few hundred dollars, they just enjoyed playing the game. They weren't there to have fun they said, just to enjoy themselves.
But this comes back to one of the questions I first posed. If the US representatives are commited to protecting freedom of speech, and aren't only being reflexively territorial, they would surely be able to propose alternatives that will both protect freedom of speech, and remove the concern of some others that the US has some undefined control in the current set-up. Infrastructure and co-operation for international letters and phone-calls can be controlled by international committee (UPU and ITU respectively) without accusations of censorship, so why not DNS services too?
A well-supported international group with a robust constitution and a byzantine voting process could well be the best safeguard against "special interest" politicking!
Unfortunately, I'd say comparing the Postal Service and the Phone System to any part of the internet other than IP allocation and the hardware interface is comparing apples to oranges. the UPU and ITU both handle the physical methods of delivery. Not the information carried on them. The DNS services, among other things that seem to be under contention, are more about the information transmitted across it.
Another problem is this. ICANN has been doing a decent enough job so far. I have yet to hear a decent proposal from the EU and UN on how to change it or a decent reason for why. Currently there are not enough problems to justify the change, and all the reasons the EU have given have been "The US might do X". I also don't trust anything this ill defined from the UN not to be subject to "special interest" politicking. If a decent proposal was put forward, then I might consider it. In the mean time with no proposal and only a "but they might abuse it" claim, no way.
Finally, do we really want any government oversite? What the US has done so far has been minimal. Largely it has been run by the corporations that own the backbones. Do we really want politicians making decisions? Looking over the current board they appear to have a lot of telecom experience. They also look to have come from many places around the globe. I see directors from various EU members, Mexico, Chille (I think), Japan, Africa, Malaysia, Australia and Brazil. Hardly a US dominated company. Currently it looks like they are an "international company" when considering the board membership, just without governments having direct control.
I suspect though that this is just a dick-size war, and we'll find out later on that it's really all posturing to show a position of strength for GATT negotiations.
I'll second the dick-size war when we are talking about US-EU. When talking about US-China or some other, I'd say control (dam anonymity on the internet kind of thing).
Is every solution that guarantees free speech dependent on ICANN remaining under US control?
When the solution is under the US or under the UN and free speech is the topic, I'd go for under the US. After all, China, Libya, Iran and other countries all just have great freedom of speech protection don't they. Even the EU is more restrictive than the US.
But who are the corporate winners? Call me a cynic, but I'm far too jaded to believe this is all one big "f*ck you" to the US. And I refuse to believe its about "control" when our control isn't the least bit restrictive.
In some countries, the problem IS that the US "isn't the least bit restrictive". Remember, there are some countries out there that don't have Freedom of Speech, Religion, Protest, Anonymity or many other things. Think of the Great Fire Wall of China for starters. Then there are those that also want to eliminate all the porn on the internet. So yes, I'd say it is about "control", or lack there of.
Someone's going to make bank off this. Politicians are puppets not puppetmasters.
Who profits?
Follow the money.
Only is some places are Politicians puppets, not all. Tell me Castro is a puppet, or that Stalin was one as well. Money isn't the end all of everything, "power" is. It's just that in some places, money can give power. At best, the only company I can think of to make some money off of this is Cisco, selling more hardware, but probably not as some countries are looking at implementing their own standards that are incompatible with what everyone else uses. Those who provide filtering technologies and fire walls stand to lose a great deal. No nead to filter if the nets are physically seperate. Those are just the major players I can think of.
Why do they still include a MIDI/Joystick connector on the back? If there was ever something to go on a breakout box/card, I would think it was that. Can you even buy a joystick that is not USB anymore, and even so why would you want to?
I'm not sure why they still put them on the lower cards. However, my 2 year old Audigy2 ZS doesn't have the MIDI/Joystick even on the breakout box.
. . . why does Creative still refuse to include an optical out on its sound cards?
Yes you can get the live drive, but on a media PC that's designed to be on show, it makes sense to have the digital outputs out the back, where they can be easily concealed.
My guess would be that they figure anyone who wants optical connections wants the pro-sumer quality live drive. Either that or they ran out of room on the card. Seriously, look at the back of the cards. Unless they remove something else, there doesn't apear to be room for any new connectors. Looks like they are treating the live drives as a breakout box.
Isn't a "popular collective" just another name for a government?
More or less, it can be a government, but also to what extent. Remember, that is the given deffinition for socialism and socialism is a form of government. So we are doing circular reasoning on that.
What was defined for Utilitarianism is essentially an Ethics System for determining what is the best course of action or the most ethical, not a means of Government.
In which case, what distinguishes socialism from any other form of government?
Differnces: Socialism is a form of Communism, the "Classless" society. In theory, this means everyone is perfectly equal. We don't have any of what has been carachterized in the western world as the "Rich class" "Middle class" "Poor class". To give a historical example, The Aristocracy and the Peasants, that later evolved into the Aristocracy, the Peasants, the Merchants and (in some cases and places) the Religion. A more recent example might be Indias Caste System. This is essentially what the Communist type governments are supposed to eliminate.
Socialism combines the Communist government theory and Economics. Essentially putting the entire government has full control of the economy. When doing this, the things that follow have generally been central planning and control of the economy by an individual or committee and Price Controls. Probably a few other things I am missing. One thing other thing that seems to be related is the creation of a "Welfare State" where certain people rely on the government for all their needs.
It gets kind of hard to compare Socialism to other kinds of government due to the combination of Government and Economics in the deffinition. On the opposite side of the spectrum from the economics of Socialism is the Free-Market. Essentially no government control at all. On the government side... Well, it's kind of hard. In the current and previous versions of the Socialist Governments, (USSR), usually a small group of people or an idividual have had complete control of the governemnt. There were no general elections or anything similar. They have essentially been dictatorships run by either an individual or a committee. The selection of new members is carried out by existing members.
I certainly thought it was an enhanced attention to the good of society as a whole, and hence a decreased attention to individual rights (since the two are continually in conflict, as anyone who has been asked to turn his stereo down late at night can testify...)
Yes, it does seem that the rights of the individual are in complete conflict. Mostly this seems to be due to the need of the Communist style governments to have complete control over everything that goes on. One thing from your example, however. It is generally held that "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins". Hence, you can say anything you want but you can not force me to listen. Another way of looking at it is this, your right to listen to the radio ends when it violates someone elses right not to hear it. One solution would be for you to wear headphones.
Another thing on this. What is "good for society as a whole" is debatable. Some would say what is good for the individual is good for society. Hence anything that tramples on the rights of an individual harms society as a whole. Others would say that the good of society requires that some or all of the rights be eliminated. Most systems generally have a compromise of the two. People have the right to privacy unless X condition is met. In which case in the USA there are search warants and wire tap requests (also a form of warant). What constitutes the X condition is always moving. In the USSR no one had the right to privacy, which seemed to be the main reason behind the KGB. Anyone who disagreed with the system was generally arrested and "re-educated" at best. At worst?
Well, isn't socialism all about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few? In other words, the needs of society as a whole being more important than the rights of individuals?
That's not socialism, it's Utilitarianism. That which creates the most happiness.
Socialism (from Wiki):
Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that a society should exist in which popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production.
There is more defining both, but it is essentially Utilitarianism that has "needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few" A nice example from wiki: A surgeon has six patients: one needs a liver, one needs a pancreas, one needs a gall bladder, and two need kidneys. The sixth just came in to have his appendix removed. Should the surgeon kill the sixth man and pass his organs around to the others? Or, indeed, what would stop him from simply hunting down and slaughtering the first healthy man (the seventh) he comes across on the street, patient or non-patient? This would obviously violate the rights of the sixth/seventh man, but act utilitarianism seems to imply that, given a purely binary choice between (1) killing the man and distributing his organs or (2) not doing so and the other five dying, violating his rights is exactly what we ought to do.
P.S. I have to add that pausing to contemplate environmentally safe warfare is laughable; this is a classic case of wanting to treat the symptom instead of the disease.
I seem to recall greenpeace or some other evironmental organization wanting an environmental impact study on the US Navy using a section of a Puerto Rican island as their new bombing range.
And who has the capability to launch torpedoes? My educated guess is they are worried about China, but even our aging Los Angeles class attack boats far outstrip their old Soviet hardware.
The only other thing I can think about would be fast PT boat style torpedo-carriers, but even so, with all the firepower they have now, you think that a destroyer couldn't swat one of those away easily enough before it even got within range?
Aside from other ships as you mention, larger ships can launch torpedos (destroyers for one). Also, certain aircraft also have the capability of dropping torpedos into the water. As you mention WWII, it is worth pointing out that a number of planes that attacked Pearl Harbor droped torpedos to sink ships.
Uh, yeah. Good point. Because a sinking ship (full of people no less) has no environmental impact. If you don't care about the dead people, at least the diesel fuel? That works for you?
The USS Arizona sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor is still leaking diesel to this day. One of these days the rust is going to get to the metal enough to release a couple thousand (tens of thousands?) gallons all at once. Should be a study in what can happen when a ship does get hit with a torpedo.
Not only an oil slick, but also the nuclear fuel of the reactor of most modern US Navy ships. Who knows if the reactor would withstand the torpedo explosion. If there are any nuclear warheads onboard the same goes from them.
Currently the only modern US navy ships with reactors are the Carriers and the Subs. The last of the non-carrier surface ships to have a reactor was a destroyer or cruiser (whichever is larger) and either has been or is being decomisioned. However, carriers still cary fuel for other ships in the carrier group. As for the warheads, they probably will withstand the torpedo blast, assuming it is not too close to them. They can generally withstand a good impact, such as has been demonstrated when a few have hit the ground/water due to mid air accidents.
The big question is whether the reactors (yes, plural) could take the hit. Although, in modern warfare the goal is generally not to hit the ship with the torpedo directly, but to explode it underneath the keel. This causes a vacuum/air bubble underneath the keel causing it to break and cracking the ship in two. The ship sinks quicker this way and with fewer "hits".
Mind you, I'm a bit biased in this due to the number of military personel I know. I'm all for this defense system if it helps keep ships from being hit.
I would not let this device anywhere near an iPod. It would bulk erase the hard drive
From what I have seen of bulk erasers, they tend to be, well, bulky among other things. Usually the coil wires are 2 or 3 mm thick with only a few dozen windings, and they charge up to release a whole lot of emf at once, consuming a kilowatt or so. This would be a much lower power device only consuming a few watts at most. Also, I think that hard drives can protect against some "lower power" emf. Otherwise you wouldn't dare degauss a CRT near a computer.
"It's basically the concept of creating a magnetic field that goes parallel to the surface of the pad rather than out of the pad and this has many benefits," said Lily Cheng, chief executive officer and cofounder of the company, speaking at a news conference. "It enables us to deliver a very uniform output across the pad and enables us to make a receiver coil that is very thin."
Sounds like they are using a basic transformer here. Only difference is that they didn't build the two coils in one solid piece. Wonder how high they can keep the efficiency here.
On land you have flies and other carnivores, as well as the smell coming off the carcas. In the water you hide the smell thus keeping most animals in a 20 mile range from finding the carcas. Think similar reasons to why carnivores burry/cover with dirt a prey they can't finish in one sitting.
I actually agree, I believe the world community of scientists have said that there is a link between the increase in natural disasters/weather conditions and pollution.
Please read this link. The meteorologist that predicts hurricanes doubts this link and the ammount of how much humans have affected global warming.
Which departments? I suspect you're talking about the computer division, if only because DRM hurts the universality of the computer which might cut into computer sales. (This assumes Sony's computer department is behaving rationally. Clearly, that's not a sure bet.)
Not the computer division so much as the MP3 player and CD player divisions. And pretty much anything else associated with music playback on a different format than was originaly sold as opposed to music label side. Sorry, can't provide a source or link.
we have 1 short doc and 200+ years of case laws to dig through.
That's 1 short doc and 200+ years of sometimes conflictiong case law. But more on topic, at least we don't have the same complaint the EU constitution had.. Although, I did find it funny when I was reading the BBC website and came across one coment from a european that said, aside from being too long and complicated, it should start with "We the People..."
Last April, in MacIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission the US Supreme Court reaffirmed that the First Amendment protects the right to anonymous speech. Anonymity, the court reasoned, helps speech stay free. Focusing on political speech - the sort of speech that lies at the core of the First Amendment - the MacIntyre ruling stipulated that restrictions on anonymous political speech must be narrowly tailored and serve an over-riding state interest.
Earlier cases had already guaranteed that the right to anonymity reaches beyond political speech. In Talley v. California, the Supreme Court shot down a Los Angeles ordinance banning all types of anonymous pamphlets - political, commercial, or otherwise. The court explained that the "identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression."
Quote from: JOSEPH McINTYRE, executor of estate of MARGARET McINTYRE, deceased, PETITIONER v. OHIO ELECTIONS COMMISSION
Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind." Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60, 64 (1960). Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. [n.4] Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. [n.5] Accordingly, an author's decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
Quotes from: Talley v. California
Pamphlets and leaflets, it was pointed out, "have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty" 3 and enforcement of the Griffin ordinance "would restore the system of license and censorship in its baldest form."
Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all. The obnoxious press licensing law of England, which was also enforced on the Colonies was due in part to the knowledge that exposure of the names of printers, writers and distributors would lessen the circulation of literature critical of the government. The old seditious libel cases in England show the lengths to which government had to go to find out who was responsible for books that were obnoxious [362 U.S. 60, 65] to the rulers. John Lilburne was whipped, pilloried and fined for refusing to answer questions designed to get evidence to convict him or someone else for the secret distribution of books in England. Two Puritan Ministers, John Penry and John Udal, were sentenced to death on charges that they were responsible for writing, printing or publishing books. 6 Before the Revolutionary War colonial patriots frequently had to conceal their authorship or distribution of literature that easily could have brought down on them prosecutions by English-controlled courts. Along about that time the Letters of Junius were written and the identi
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We have obscenity laws on the books, right now, that are being used to prosecute citizens of the U.S. for exercising their dear 1st amendment rights. We have "free speech zones" outside of which protest is illegal. By comparison, some of the EU member states have laws against hate speech.
First, here's the 2004 list: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11716
2005 should be coming out soon. Comparing the 2002 and 2004, the US has improved some, some european countries are a bit worse than before. Then you have some EU countries that are way below the US.
Best I can say is this. I have yet to see a successful prosecution under those "obsenity" laws in the US, most of the laws being struck down as unconstitutional under the 1st amendment quite quickly. Notice that Larry Flint and Hugh Hefner, among others, are not in jail. The only ones I have heard of lately with this happening to generally deal with sites that have been accused of having either minors or kiddy porn on them. If you can provide a link on one that is about a straight porn site, please provide it, along with any reasons the FBI/DA are providing for the reason.
The EU states have, aside from hate speech you can include a chunk of things having to deal with WWII in germany that, while not hate speech directly, is hate speech related. One other thing that is interesting are their libel/slander laws. Burden of proof is put on the defendant not the plantif.
Back to the US, the "free speech zones" as you reference them is somewhat missleading. They are only setup during major events and used as a way to keep the events flowing smoothly. As has been said, you can say whatever you want, but you can't force people to listen. If someone rents out an area for use, they should be able to deny access to that area to anyone they want to. I'd put it in the same category as keeping abortion protesters a minimum distance away from abortion clinics (usually across the street). If we want to depate the pros and cons of them, that is one thing. But they are essentially set up to keep the protesters away from those who don't want them around them. I seem to recall Richard Stallman complaining a few weeks ago about being ejected from an airport where he tried to publicize something. The Hare Krishna group have been pretty much barred from airports for similar reasons. Here's something similar from the UK. I'd personally say that it is more a point of controlling access to an area in most cases rather than limiting free speech. However, the ones where there are permanent ones I would say are another matter. Basically I see temporary ones for special events as crowd control and permanent ones as problems. Again, we can discuss the pros and cons of them if you want.
The main reason according to the 2002 report that the US is "so low" is:
Arrests are often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court. Also, since the 11 September attacks, several journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines at some official buildings. (Different complaints for the 2004 report)
The first reason is debatable. I have no problem with ones similar to the "Pentagon Papers". I do have problems with ones similar to the revealing of undercover CIA agents or other things of a similar nature, especially when it can/does get people killed. In WWII reporters were revealing what our military was going to be doing and the germans were reading the papers to find out. That got a lot of people killed. Also, it was said during the gulf war that Sadam Husein didn't need inteligence ops, he just needed to watch CNN. Th
Sorry for the second post, but just noticed one other thing you said.
6 &cid=13578513
If mars is getting warmer, then we lack enough variables to understand the equation.
The Suns energy output has been increasing over at least the past 30 years.
By 0.05% per decade. Referencing an earlier slashdot post
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16246
The output from the sun that hits the earth is 170,000 TW. Given that that has increased by 85TW/decade, that should be the explanation for at least part of the earths warming, and why mars is getting warmer as well. More heat into the system will result in the system getting warmer.
One final thing, global warming is supposed to lead to weaker/fewer hurricanes. Katrina was hardly a strong storm. It was only a category 4 when it hit. Also, if it gets too strong it will tear itself apart. I think there is an actuall uper limit to the strength of a hurricane.
Personally I think this means we should learn as much about the history of Mars and Venus (and for that matter, the Sun) as we can, to find out *what went wrong*.
This assumes that Venus and Mars were earthlike to begin with.
With Mars, most problems are said to be due to not enough gravity to hold onto an atmosphere forever. With Venus, well, never lost enough atmosphere or got too much of one. It's also much closer to the sun so it recieves a much larger amount of sunlight than Earth.
The single biggest growth industry in north america seems to be casinos, kind of proves that the population certainly doesn't understand statistical relavence.
When I was in Las Vegas in April I talked to some guys at the roulete table who were from the UK. Even though they lost a few hundred dollars, they just enjoyed playing the game. They weren't there to have fun they said, just to enjoy themselves.
That is exactly what was running through my head the last time I flew from Seattle to LA. Right Over St. Helens.
Seattle? I'd be more worried about Mount Rainier if I were you.
But this comes back to one of the questions I first posed. If the US representatives are commited to protecting freedom of speech, and aren't only being reflexively territorial, they would surely be able to propose alternatives that will both protect freedom of speech, and remove the concern of some others that the US has some undefined control in the current set-up. Infrastructure and co-operation for international letters and phone-calls can be controlled by international committee (UPU and ITU respectively) without accusations of censorship, so why not DNS services too? A well-supported international group with a robust constitution and a byzantine voting process could well be the best safeguard against "special interest" politicking!
Unfortunately, I'd say comparing the Postal Service and the Phone System to any part of the internet other than IP allocation and the hardware interface is comparing apples to oranges. the UPU and ITU both handle the physical methods of delivery. Not the information carried on them. The DNS services, among other things that seem to be under contention, are more about the information transmitted across it.
Another problem is this. ICANN has been doing a decent enough job so far. I have yet to hear a decent proposal from the EU and UN on how to change it or a decent reason for why. Currently there are not enough problems to justify the change, and all the reasons the EU have given have been "The US might do X". I also don't trust anything this ill defined from the UN not to be subject to "special interest" politicking. If a decent proposal was put forward, then I might consider it. In the mean time with no proposal and only a "but they might abuse it" claim, no way.
Finally, do we really want any government oversite? What the US has done so far has been minimal. Largely it has been run by the corporations that own the backbones. Do we really want politicians making decisions? Looking over the current board they appear to have a lot of telecom experience. They also look to have come from many places around the globe. I see directors from various EU members, Mexico, Chille (I think), Japan, Africa, Malaysia, Australia and Brazil. Hardly a US dominated company. Currently it looks like they are an "international company" when considering the board membership, just without governments having direct control.
I suspect though that this is just a dick-size war, and we'll find out later on that it's really all posturing to show a position of strength for GATT negotiations.
I'll second the dick-size war when we are talking about US-EU. When talking about US-China or some other, I'd say control (dam anonymity on the internet kind of thing).
Is every solution that guarantees free speech dependent on ICANN remaining under US control?
When the solution is under the US or under the UN and free speech is the topic, I'd go for under the US. After all, China, Libya, Iran and other countries all just have great freedom of speech protection don't they. Even the EU is more restrictive than the US.
But who are the corporate winners? Call me a cynic, but I'm far too jaded to believe this is all one big "f*ck you" to the US. And I refuse to believe its about "control" when our control isn't the least bit restrictive.
In some countries, the problem IS that the US "isn't the least bit restrictive". Remember, there are some countries out there that don't have Freedom of Speech, Religion, Protest, Anonymity or many other things. Think of the Great Fire Wall of China for starters. Then there are those that also want to eliminate all the porn on the internet. So yes, I'd say it is about "control", or lack there of.
Someone's going to make bank off this. Politicians are puppets not puppetmasters. Who profits? Follow the money.
Only is some places are Politicians puppets, not all. Tell me Castro is a puppet, or that Stalin was one as well. Money isn't the end all of everything, "power" is. It's just that in some places, money can give power. At best, the only company I can think of to make some money off of this is Cisco, selling more hardware, but probably not as some countries are looking at implementing their own standards that are incompatible with what everyone else uses. Those who provide filtering technologies and fire walls stand to lose a great deal. No nead to filter if the nets are physically seperate. Those are just the major players I can think of.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bclee/lens.html /. last year. This is the one that came to my mind when reading this title.
Covered on
Why do they still include a MIDI/Joystick connector on the back? If there was ever something to go on a breakout box/card, I would think it was that. Can you even buy a joystick that is not USB anymore, and even so why would you want to?
I'm not sure why they still put them on the lower cards. However, my 2 year old Audigy2 ZS doesn't have the MIDI/Joystick even on the breakout box.
. . . why does Creative still refuse to include an optical out on its sound cards? Yes you can get the live drive, but on a media PC that's designed to be on show, it makes sense to have the digital outputs out the back, where they can be easily concealed.
My guess would be that they figure anyone who wants optical connections wants the pro-sumer quality live drive. Either that or they ran out of room on the card. Seriously, look at the back of the cards. Unless they remove something else, there doesn't apear to be room for any new connectors. Looks like they are treating the live drives as a breakout box.
Isn't a "popular collective" just another name for a government?
More or less, it can be a government, but also to what extent. Remember, that is the given deffinition for socialism and socialism is a form of government. So we are doing circular reasoning on that.
What was defined for Utilitarianism is essentially an Ethics System for determining what is the best course of action or the most ethical, not a means of Government.
In which case, what distinguishes socialism from any other form of government?
Differnces: Socialism is a form of Communism, the "Classless" society. In theory, this means everyone is perfectly equal. We don't have any of what has been carachterized in the western world as the "Rich class" "Middle class" "Poor class". To give a historical example, The Aristocracy and the Peasants, that later evolved into the Aristocracy, the Peasants, the Merchants and (in some cases and places) the Religion. A more recent example might be Indias Caste System. This is essentially what the Communist type governments are supposed to eliminate.
Socialism combines the Communist government theory and Economics. Essentially putting the entire government has full control of the economy. When doing this, the things that follow have generally been central planning and control of the economy by an individual or committee and Price Controls. Probably a few other things I am missing. One thing other thing that seems to be related is the creation of a "Welfare State" where certain people rely on the government for all their needs.
It gets kind of hard to compare Socialism to other kinds of government due to the combination of Government and Economics in the deffinition. On the opposite side of the spectrum from the economics of Socialism is the Free-Market. Essentially no government control at all. On the government side... Well, it's kind of hard. In the current and previous versions of the Socialist Governments, (USSR), usually a small group of people or an idividual have had complete control of the governemnt. There were no general elections or anything similar. They have essentially been dictatorships run by either an individual or a committee. The selection of new members is carried out by existing members.
I certainly thought it was an enhanced attention to the good of society as a whole, and hence a decreased attention to individual rights (since the two are continually in conflict, as anyone who has been asked to turn his stereo down late at night can testify...)
Yes, it does seem that the rights of the individual are in complete conflict. Mostly this seems to be due to the need of the Communist style governments to have complete control over everything that goes on. One thing from your example, however. It is generally held that "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins". Hence, you can say anything you want but you can not force me to listen. Another way of looking at it is this, your right to listen to the radio ends when it violates someone elses right not to hear it. One solution would be for you to wear headphones.
Another thing on this. What is "good for society as a whole" is debatable. Some would say what is good for the individual is good for society. Hence anything that tramples on the rights of an individual harms society as a whole. Others would say that the good of society requires that some or all of the rights be eliminated. Most systems generally have a compromise of the two. People have the right to privacy unless X condition is met. In which case in the USA there are search warants and wire tap requests (also a form of warant). What constitutes the X condition is always moving. In the USSR no one had the right to privacy, which seemed to be the main reason behind the KGB. Anyone who disagreed with the system was generally arrested and "re-educated" at best. At worst?
Well, isn't socialism all about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few? In other words, the needs of society as a whole being more important than the rights of individuals?
That's not socialism, it's Utilitarianism. That which creates the most happiness.
Socialism (from Wiki):
Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that a society should exist in which popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production.
There is more defining both, but it is essentially Utilitarianism that has "needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few" A nice example from wiki:
A surgeon has six patients: one needs a liver, one needs a pancreas, one needs a gall bladder, and two need kidneys. The sixth just came in to have his appendix removed. Should the surgeon kill the sixth man and pass his organs around to the others? Or, indeed, what would stop him from simply hunting down and slaughtering the first healthy man (the seventh) he comes across on the street, patient or non-patient? This would obviously violate the rights of the sixth/seventh man, but act utilitarianism seems to imply that, given a purely binary choice between (1) killing the man and distributing his organs or (2) not doing so and the other five dying, violating his rights is exactly what we ought to do.
P.S. I have to add that pausing to contemplate environmentally safe warfare is laughable; this is a classic case of wanting to treat the symptom instead of the disease.
I seem to recall greenpeace or some other evironmental organization wanting an environmental impact study on the US Navy using a section of a Puerto Rican island as their new bombing range.
And who has the capability to launch torpedoes? My educated guess is they are worried about China, but even our aging Los Angeles class attack boats far outstrip their old Soviet hardware. The only other thing I can think about would be fast PT boat style torpedo-carriers, but even so, with all the firepower they have now, you think that a destroyer couldn't swat one of those away easily enough before it even got within range?
Aside from other ships as you mention, larger ships can launch torpedos (destroyers for one). Also, certain aircraft also have the capability of dropping torpedos into the water. As you mention WWII, it is worth pointing out that a number of planes that attacked Pearl Harbor droped torpedos to sink ships.
Uh, yeah. Good point. Because a sinking ship (full of people no less) has no environmental impact. If you don't care about the dead people, at least the diesel fuel? That works for you?
The USS Arizona sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor is still leaking diesel to this day. One of these days the rust is going to get to the metal enough to release a couple thousand (tens of thousands?) gallons all at once. Should be a study in what can happen when a ship does get hit with a torpedo.
Not only an oil slick, but also the nuclear fuel of the reactor of most modern US Navy ships. Who knows if the reactor would withstand the torpedo explosion. If there are any nuclear warheads onboard the same goes from them.
Currently the only modern US navy ships with reactors are the Carriers and the Subs. The last of the non-carrier surface ships to have a reactor was a destroyer or cruiser (whichever is larger) and either has been or is being decomisioned. However, carriers still cary fuel for other ships in the carrier group. As for the warheads, they probably will withstand the torpedo blast, assuming it is not too close to them. They can generally withstand a good impact, such as has been demonstrated when a few have hit the ground/water due to mid air accidents.
The big question is whether the reactors (yes, plural) could take the hit. Although, in modern warfare the goal is generally not to hit the ship with the torpedo directly, but to explode it underneath the keel. This causes a vacuum/air bubble underneath the keel causing it to break and cracking the ship in two. The ship sinks quicker this way and with fewer "hits".
Mind you, I'm a bit biased in this due to the number of military personel I know. I'm all for this defense system if it helps keep ships from being hit.
I would not let this device anywhere near an iPod. It would bulk erase the hard drive
From what I have seen of bulk erasers, they tend to be, well, bulky among other things. Usually the coil wires are 2 or 3 mm thick with only a few dozen windings, and they charge up to release a whole lot of emf at once, consuming a kilowatt or so. This would be a much lower power device only consuming a few watts at most. Also, I think that hard drives can protect against some "lower power" emf. Otherwise you wouldn't dare degauss a CRT near a computer.
"It's basically the concept of creating a magnetic field that goes parallel to the surface of the pad rather than out of the pad and this has many benefits," said Lily Cheng, chief executive officer and cofounder of the company, speaking at a news conference. "It enables us to deliver a very uniform output across the pad and enables us to make a receiver coil that is very thin."
Sounds like they are using a basic transformer here. Only difference is that they didn't build the two coils in one solid piece. Wonder how high they can keep the efficiency here.
On land you have flies and other carnivores, as well as the smell coming off the carcas. In the water you hide the smell thus keeping most animals in a 20 mile range from finding the carcas. Think similar reasons to why carnivores burry/cover with dirt a prey they can't finish in one sitting.
I actually agree, I believe the world community of scientists have said that there is a link between the increase in natural disasters/weather conditions and pollution.
Please read this link. The meteorologist that predicts hurricanes doubts this link and the ammount of how much humans have affected global warming.
Which departments? I suspect you're talking about the computer division, if only because DRM hurts the universality of the computer which might cut into computer sales. (This assumes Sony's computer department is behaving rationally. Clearly, that's not a sure bet.)
Not the computer division so much as the MP3 player and CD player divisions. And pretty much anything else associated with music playback on a different format than was originaly sold as opposed to music label side. Sorry, can't provide a source or link.
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I think we know who is going to decide the war and why.
we have 1 short doc and 200+ years of case laws to dig through.
That's 1 short doc and 200+ years of sometimes conflictiong case law. But more on topic, at least we don't have the same complaint the EU constitution had.. Although, I did find it funny when I was reading the BBC website and came across one coment from a european that said, aside from being too long and complicated, it should start with "We the People..."
Last April, in MacIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission the US Supreme Court reaffirmed that the First Amendment protects the right to anonymous speech. Anonymity, the court reasoned, helps speech stay free. Focusing on political speech - the sort of speech that lies at the core of the First Amendment - the MacIntyre ruling stipulated that restrictions on anonymous political speech must be narrowly tailored and serve an over-riding state interest.
Earlier cases had already guaranteed that the right to anonymity reaches beyond political speech. In Talley v. California, the Supreme Court shot down a Los Angeles ordinance banning all types of anonymous pamphlets - political, commercial, or otherwise. The court explained that the "identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression."
Above sources are from wired.
JOSEPH McINTYRE, executor of estate of MARGARET McINTYRE, deceased, PETITIONER v. OHIO ELECTIONS COMMISSION
In Talley v. California
Quote from: JOSEPH McINTYRE, executor of estate of MARGARET McINTYRE, deceased, PETITIONER v. OHIO ELECTIONS COMMISSION
Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind." Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60, 64 (1960). Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. [n.4] Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. [n.5] Accordingly, an author's decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
Quotes from: Talley v. California
Pamphlets and leaflets, it was pointed out, "have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty" 3 and enforcement of the Griffin ordinance "would restore the system of license and censorship in its baldest form."
Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all. The obnoxious press licensing law of England, which was also enforced on the Colonies was due in part to the knowledge that exposure of the names of printers, writers and distributors would lessen the circulation of literature critical of the government. The old seditious libel cases in England show the lengths to which government had to go to find out who was responsible for books that were obnoxious [362 U.S. 60, 65] to the rulers. John Lilburne was whipped, pilloried and fined for refusing to answer questions designed to get evidence to convict him or someone else for the secret distribution of books in England. Two Puritan Ministers, John Penry and John Udal, were sentenced to death on charges that they were responsible for writing, printing or publishing books. 6 Before the Revolutionary War colonial patriots frequently had to conceal their authorship or distribution of literature that easily could have brought down on them prosecutions by English-controlled courts. Along about that time the Letters of Junius were written and the identi