It will take a few well-televised prosecutions of some downloader scapegoats (who all believe themselves to be immune because "downloading" is not "breaking copyright") to put that to rest.
You honestly think that'd put it to rest? They've tried that (though with civil rather than criminal court), and it blew straight up in their faces. Even the RIAA, slow dinosaurs that they are, seemed to realize that their strategy of "making examples" of everyone from soldiers to Grandma was not exactly influencing public opinion in their favor.
You give a downloader or two a criminal conviction and jail time, you'll see hell raised on a scale that makes that look tame. And you'll see people once again go to more secure protocols.
When there's something that's desirable, non-scarce, and can be easily replicated by almost anyone with a machine that a large portion of the population have in their living rooms, you can't stop it from being replicated. Slow it a bit, maybe, but not stop it. We're well past the point where artificial scarcity could be enforced on that type of thing.
It's time to figure out what we're going to do now that we're past that point, and quit trying to pretend that we're not. Failing to acknowledge reality doesn't make it go away, but it generally does bring you into a spectacular high-speed collision with it.
...a cellphone left on continuously could represent as much as an oil tanker worth of energy usage. It also broadcasts EM waves everywhere -- if everybody in the world used their cellphones at the same time, imagine the impact.
Are you seriously that stupid? Or just trolling? Well, alright, I suppose I'll throw some nice troll food. Don't say I never did anything for you.
By some off the cuff calculations (with a little help from Wolfram Alpha), my 7.2 V, 3 Ah battery would equate to 21.6 Wh to fully charge, see here. Generally, leaving my cell phone on all day results in the battery draining about 20% to halfway, depending on how much I use it, by the time I go to bed. However, I'll be generous to your presumption here, and we'll presume for the sake of argument that when my phone goes on the charger before bed, I've totally exhausted the battery and it needs a full recharge.
So, let's presume I'm putting that full 21.6 watt hours into the phone every night. A barrel of oil contains 1.7 million watt hours. At that rate, my phone would have to be fully drained and recharged daily for a little over 78703 days, or 215.6 years, to consume one barrel of oil. Given that cellular phones were not quite invented yet in 1895, I kind of doubt that anyone's been charging their phone quite that much.
Isn't it nice to actually do the fucking math, instead of just parrot crap that you heard somewhere?
You really thought I meant what the "vendor" wants? I don't care. I mean what the -customer- wants.
And please don't presume to think your personal desires apply to everything. I really don't give two shits about what you put forth, and I don't think I'm at all the only one. Give me something interesting to work at and something new to learn over those anyday. I don't even like driving anymore that well. Give me a new Mercedes every two years, and I'll still generally ride my bike. Mercedes get caught in traffic jams as nicely as anything else.
If the "vendor's" highest priority isn't to deal fairly and ethically with other people, but rather to grab everything they can from everyone they can, I hope they get strung with every type of regulation you can imagine. I sure wouldn't want to deal with them on those terms without a great deal of regulation. Me, I prefer my life to be about more than hoarding crap.
And this kind of rent seeking behavior for things that should be getting done anyway, is the exact type of thing that leads to the regulations that will shortly be forthcoming here (hopefully, in this and many other scenarios).
It's amazing to me how many corporations fail to act with a fundamental level of decency and do the absolute minimum possible in terms of customer service and quality (or sell reasonable levels of those as a "premium service"), then howl and scream when people find that unacceptable and put regulations in place that require them to do what they should've been doing anyway. It amazes me more that anyone would defend that type of behavior.
If companies really want to stop hostility and regulation toward them, they should open a dialogue (a real one) with their customers, in terms of what they want, what they will pay to get it, what is negotiable, and what is not. Especially as choices become fewer and fewer, a lot of larger companies seem to think they can get away with anything and shrug off the loss of a few customers. At that point, the only option left is regulation. One way or another, the customer's going to be king, and you better treat him accordingly. Squeezing every nickel out you can is anything but.
No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
If you do something somewhere that it is not a crime, there is no "due process" to be convicted elsewhere, where it is one. If I do something that's legal in one state while in that state, I cannot be prosecuted by a different state where it is illegal unless I continue to do it within that state's borders. The same is true of "crimes" committed abroad, when said action is not a crime where it occurred.
The government travel advisory website makes it clear that when you visit another country, you are subject to their laws and can be prosecuted under them, even if what you did there would be perfectly legal here. The same, then, should seem to be true in reverse-if what you do is not against the law in country X, doing it there is not a crime, even if it would be a crime to do so while you were here.
No. Possession and distribution of a terrorist manual is an actual crime, not a thought crime. He's convicted for actions that he did, not thoughts that he had.
Convicting someone for possessing any book or source of information is a thoughtcrime law. There are any number of reasons one could possess a "terrorist manual". One could simply be curious as to what a "terrorist manual" might look like. One might want to look at why the terrorists are doing what they are doing, and what their common tactics are. One might want to become a terrorist. One might be very interested in working in counterterrorism law enforcement, but not have the resources to go to school for it yet or still be in the "general education" parts. One might simply want to inform oneself about a major issue in the world today from a primary source. Only one of those is a problematic motive.
Now, of course, once you start actually making weapons, that's quite a different story. So, "thought crime" may not apply well in this specific case. But if you can be arrested just for possession of the book, without possession of anything it tells you how to make, then yes, that is an arrest for thought crime. We have the right to read and be informed, and to know things. Even "bad" things. We just don't have the right to do bad things that harm others.
I think there are much better reasons to reject this concept than vague superstitions. Aren't privacy, bodily integrity, and freedom from surveillance good enough reasons?
I can always carry a GPS locator (that will only be turned on if I want to) if I'm going to the backcountry. Sure, I like having it in the event of emergency. But it only goes on if I flip the switch, and I would only do that if there were an emergency.
Many laws have various types of aggravating circumstances. Abuse of a position of authority in the commission of a crime actually is frequently considered to be one. "All are equal before the law" does not prohibit taking circumstances into account, or accounting for aggravating and mitigating factors in sentencing.
That being the case, the central problem is exactly the one you identified. If those in a position of authority never get prosecuted for their crimes at all, the question of what we would sentence them to if they were becomes rather moot.
As to this idiot, I hope if they pass his law they make him its first prosecution. It's the very definition of arrogance and believing you're above the law to commit the very crime you're trying to prohibit others from doing while writing the law to prohibit it.
It may not be totally harmless, but there's certainly nothing to show that it's more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, both of which you can buy at any convenience store.
That's quite aside from any other issues with those particular substances, especially alcohol. When's the last time you saw someone who was stoned deliberately start a brawl?
I generally figure, that when there is a conflict between two things any provider of anything says, whatever was said in a larger, more colorful, more intended to be publicly distributed, and/or glossier font or medium will prevail.
Advertising something, and saying in the fine print that you don't really mean what you say, should be considered false advertising. If you're limiting your service in any way (port blocking, protocol throttling, bandwidth cap...), you're not selling UNLIMITED!!!!!!!!!!! service, you're selling limited service. Either sell it as that or provide genuinely unlimited service. You can do either one, but you can't advertise one thing and deliver something less.
Not taking antibiotics and not being properly treated for a mental disorder are two ENTIRELY different things. Having an infection does not render you less capable of making rational decisions about your own treatment. Many mental illnesses do - and not just the way-out-there ones, either. Should those people get treatment? Of course. If it's unhealthy for their loved ones to be around them when they're not treated, should those loved ones do what's healthy for themselves? Of course. But saying that you're "disgusted" by something that is a god damned symptom of the illness in and of itself is disgusting.
Not every mental illness leaves one a raving lunatic incapable of any comprehension of reality, and despite how dramatic such cases are, they are actually a very small fraction. Most people who are mentally ill still have the capacity to understand that something is wrong and that treatment will help. I'm not talking about people who are totally out of touch with reality, as chances are that they are not receiving their treatment on a voluntary basis anyway.
But to say, as the grandparent did, that ANY woman who has this problem and is not fixing with through HBC is "negligent" is to completely ignore the fact that for some women it is not treatable or the treatment is worse for them than the condition.
You'll note that in what I said, I specifically acknowledged there are people for whom the treatment is not appropriate, and never restated or agreed with the "negligent" statement. Obviously, if the treatment is likely to kill you, you are hardly "negligent" for not taking it. But that's only true in a small fraction of cases.
Why is the male experience the default that women must try to match in your scenario? I would say that it's special fucking treatment for a man to expect the women in his life to ignore hormonal problems that he will never have to experience or try to ignore so that they can live up to his ideal. Why does he deserve for her to do that when he will never do it for her?
Why do some people seem to have this concept that men are emotionless robots? Sleep deprivation, stress, aging, life events, and, yes, hormones, can all have a tremendous impact on the male (and female, of course) psyche. Hormones are far from the only thing that can cause an adverse emotional state.
Certainly for me, I've had days where I've gotten up, or gotten home, and been in a tremendously foul mood for some reason. But I make myself aware of that, and make sure I vent to my fiance about whatever's wrong, and never vent on her. I do expect that of myself, and I certainly try to live up to it, because I care greatly about her. I don't expect anything of her that I would not and have not done for her.
She's done the same with me, whether what's getting to her is difficulty from her period or a bad day at work. I do acknowledge that some men do have a highly irrational fear of hearing anything remotely related to menstruation, and I don't understand why that is. It's one of thousands of totally natural biological processes that happen every day. But as far as what she does about trouble from it, she does the exact same-if it's got her feeling like hell, she'll say so, and I'll listen and do what I can to help her feel better. But I wouldn't accept her taking it out on me, any more then she'd accept me taking my bad days out on her. I don't think either of us should accept that, because it is not acceptable behavior.
Yes, there are probably women out there who use their periods as an excuse to act extra bitchy when they don't really need to. Just like there are men who use their wives' premenstrual touchiness as an excuse to cheat on her. Both are examples of unethical behavior. But if you really think that that's the norm instead of an anomaly, you should just go say a little prayer, or thank your lucky stars, or whatever you do that yo
Suppose I have a Kindle (or, say, one of the requisite apps on some other hardware platform), and I've bought a few books for it that I've noted and highlighted. Suppose, then, that I lose my Kindle. Or it gets run over by a bus. Or stolen. Or dunked in a hot tub. Or whatever.
All I have to do is procure/install a new Kindle, enter the appropriate account identification, and my books and notes are transferred to the new device.
And if you want that, that's fine. The problem is, I might be much more alright with the idea of my notes being lost, than I would be with them being shared with the world or even with Amazon. If it's an optional feature, available to those who are alright with using it, that's one thing. But as far as I know, you don't even have a way to turn this off, let alone an opt-in to turn it on. That makes it problematic.
When I buy a device, and enter data on that device, I do not expect that data to then be going to third parties without my knowledge and consent. Now, if I am clearly notified (for example, by a popup the first time you enter a note asking if you want to turn on remote backups or not), that's one thing. But you don't just help yourself without asking me.
Well, it's not only his opinion. I'm disgusted by those who, despite being advised 15 times to do so by their doctor and 15 more times by the label, stop taking antibiotics after they "feel a little better" and don't complete the whole round. That's largely how drug resistant strains get made. That affects everyone, not just you. Refusing to cooperate with mental illness treatment is also problematic, and not only for you.
So, yes, if you have a condition that affects not only you but those around you, and it is treatable, get it the fuck treated and cooperate with the treatment. After 7 years or so with someone who turned out to have a personality disorder, and only halfway cooperated with the treatment on and off, and having to do that yo-yo until I finally had enough, I can tell you that otherwise you will make those around you miserable.
Now, of course, if the treatment is likely to cause you to throw a clot because of preexisting disorders, that's a totally different thing. That's true no matter what drug we're talking about. But if, as in the vast majority, there is no significant risk because of no preexisting problem, take it.
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe strongly in the integrity of the body, and that you have the right to refuse treatment. But others have the right to refuse to have anything to do with you if you do.
That, however, gets to my own suspicion-that "PMT" often means "I'm in a bad mood and want to get away with behaving badly". I can't tell you how often I'll see people who are perfectly capable of controlling themselves at work during the day, only to hear about what a holy terror they become once they go home. Obviously they are capable of controlling themselves, since they do after all retain a job. From there, it's just a copout-if you can control yourself, why wouldn't you above all do it with your loved ones?
You can call me misogynist, if you want to. I'm not, but I don't particularly care if you think otherwise. I believe strongly in equal rights for both genders-but exactly equal. No special favors, no special treatment, no monthly excuse for bad behavior. Men don't get those, so that can hardly be asserted as an "equal" right. It's not "misogynist" to think people of any gender should be held equally accountable for their decisions and behavior.
Of course, when you take a pastry from the bakery, in your hypothetical scenario, they are deprived of that pastry. If they have 100 pastries, and 99 get stolen, they have only one left to sell. The above analogy was far better, in that, just as with any type of copying, by cooking your own you are making copies of the pastry without depriving the bakery of the originals, even if it is a flawless copy of the bakery's recipe.
I'm sure the bakery would rather you not do that, or that it be illegal to get pastries in any way but buying from them. But that doesn't mean they should be able to prevent you from doing so, if you have the technical skill to make a perfect copy of their pastries without taking any from them.
The tangible representations of an FSM, such as a circuit board, can be patented, provided that they meet all other patent requirements (groundbreaking/not incremental, no prior art). The logic and mathematics behind it cannot be, since mathematical equations are not patentable no matter how brilliant they are. Software is just discrete math (and really, at its core, a compiled program can be represented by a single, though very large, number). A circuit board is a physical thing. You're trying to say they cannot be differentiated, since they can both be representations of an FSM. But they are different, because one is tangible and one is purely mathematical. Your question "Is an FSM an In re Bilski machine?" requires the question "That depends. Is its representation tangible or intangible?"
Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean it isn't an answer. My answer is, if something is physical and tangible, it is possibly patentable. If it can be implemented purely in mathematics or without tangibles, it is not patentable. If it's possible to do both ways, only the physical component or representation is possibly patentable, but the mathematical components are not. Representing an FSM is not the final question one needs to ask to determine if something is patentable or is a "machine". One needs to also evaluate if something is purely mathematical or requires specific tangible components.
I would also generally disagree with patenting a keyboard layout. Such an improvement would still be an incremental improvement to existing technology, not something groundbreaking. For patentability, we should be looking at things like the first electric typewriter, not just rearranging the keys.
I think the same applies here. Hardware acceleration is not a novel or groundbreaking concept, so that in itself is no cause for a patent.
But, let's presume for a moment you have come up with a chip design that does better hardware acceleration, rising to the level of patentability. Even then, if someone can, without using your machine, create the same effect in software, they are not violating your patent. Sure, your machine (be it a circuit board, car, or industrial system) is patentable, if it is groundbreaking and has no prior art, but that gives you the right to prevent people from doing things in that way using your machine. It does not prevent people doing the same thing by any means whatsoever.
Take, for example, a machine that produces widgets, which before were considered impossible or extremely unlikely to be machine reproducible. Can the inventor patent that machine? Sure. But he cannot, using that patent, stop the production by hand of those same widgets. Of course, that's different if the widget itself is patentable, but software is not a machine or tangible thing, and should not be.
So, sure, here, if the machine really is groundbreaking beyond being just another hardware accelerator, patent it. But that patent should still only apply to implementations using the machine, not to any implementation whatsoever of the machine's end products done using unpatented commodity hardware. If your machine's that integral of a component, and makes the process that much more efficient, people will pay the premium for it. If not-then not so groundbreaking after all, was it?
Hardware acceleration is hardly a novel concept that should be subject to any patents. Regardless, only the hardware portion should be patentable even if it were. If it can be reimplemented in software, it's software with a hardware acceleration component. That's not an earth shattering new technology, it's an existing technology being used for a new format. Like all gradual improvements making existing technology a bit better, that should not be patentable.
Even if it were, however, software reimplementations should not be prevented. Since software, if the system worked properly, should not be patentable, it also should by definition be unable to violate a patent. Only copying a patentable machine with another machine could do so.
Since the Constitutional article also not only allows but requires that these rights be for "limited times", it is not creating a property right. It is allowing certain laws, only insofar as they advance a societal good ("to promote the progress of science and the useful arts"). Since the Constitution requires expropriation and is framing the issue as a societal, not individual, right, there is no property right here. If science and the arts would be best served by eliminating or shortening copyright and patent terms or narrowing their scope, the Constitution does not just allow this to be done-it requires it.
Look at the very different way in which the Constitution treats property rights, and you will quickly realize that copyrights and patents were never intended to be viewed as property.
That deprives the patent holders of at least some of the right to profit from their patent, which means that you get into the legal minefield of expropriation and just compensation.
While the popular term for copyrights and patents ("intellectual property") really muddies the waters, they are not property rights. In fact, the Constitution specifies that they must be expropriated, not just that they may be. The Constitution states that copyright and patent terms must be for a "limited time", and that they are solely to "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts". They are not a property right intended for the individual, they are intended to serve a societal good and to be limited in duration. If the greatest benefit to science and art would be to remove all patents and copyrights, the Constitution's clear statement of their only legitimate purpose would not only allow but demand that we do so.
I think the sheer complexity of this approach alone would have everything everywhere tied up in litigation for years. That alone is a mark against it.
Instead, let's use a simpler method, and take away patents from software, methods, or any other intangibles. That will take away the current minefield where almost any nontrivial software is technically in violation of a patent. And it would make sense.
A brilliant new design for a computer (or a piece of it) can be patented. (Note this means a quantum leap, not an incremental improvement). In the same vein, if you came up with a brilliant new design for a guitar, causing it to weigh 40% less and have a tone quality far better than anything on the market, you could patent that guitar design.
However, if you came up with some brilliant new chords that this guitar can play, you can't and shouldn't be able to patent those. Even if they're brilliant, even if you're the first to ever play them. You can copyright any songs you write with them, of course. But you can't keep someone else from using the same concept in their own songs.
Software is the same as the music. It is the unpatentable intangible played on the patentable tangible. You can copyright it, but you should not be able to stop someone from independently create something interoperable.
It's been mentioned to him before. He'll apologize, say he doesn't realize he's doing it, and then be right back at it not too long after.
I'm not sure if he's deliberately being a dick, or if it really just is that ingrained of a habit, but either way it's not worth making that big of a deal out of (really, the only next step at this point would be to get my boss or HR involved, and I've got more important things to worry about). If he's going to be inconsiderate, I'll do as little to help him as I can.
and i would like to add - don't make weird noises. if you do, keep them to a minimum. don't clear your throat every 30 seconds. don't clip your fingernails at your desk. little things like this go a long way.
I can't agree with this enough. I have a coworker who comes over to ask me for help periodically, and while over there, is constantly clicking a goddamn pen. I mean constantly, from the time he walks over to the time he leaves. The end result of this is that I give him very quick, superficial advice, so that he, and the pen, will go away.
And for God's sake, "Whistle while you work" may make Disney money, but it won't make you any. It carries a lot farther than you'd think, and I'm not interested in hearing just how tone deaf you are. We have several people who do that at my job, and it drives most of us nuts. You wouldn't bring in a flute and play it at your desk. Why would you try to do a poor imitation of it?
How valuable/powerful should a corporation be before it's controlled by the government "for the common good"? Is it the right (maybe you believe "duty") of government to punish those who have been successful enough to build a large corporation, by slowly removing the owner's property rights?
The issue of "punishment" is a straw man. It is the government's job to "provide for the common defense" against harm. Of course, we most often think of that responsibility being exercised in terms of maintaining a military to defend us in case of an invasion, and of course that is its most visible and dramatic manifestation. But it's not the only manifestation of that responsibility.
Corporations, by means of the volume of property they control and the diffusion of responsibility (well this decision was made by the Board, not by me!), can end up doing significant harm to the public. If a corporation is trying to profit by making a mess and leave the costs of cleaning it up on the public, it is absolutely the government's job to stop such antisocial and unacceptable behavior, just as it is the government's job to stop someone from "profiting" by running something that pollutes your home to unlivability in the home next door to you.
Regulation is not a "punishment". People (and corporations) shouldn't behave antisocially even in the absence of laws against it. But some people (and some corporations) still will. So, we have laws against driving drunk and rape and murder. We also have laws against paying fifty cents an hour, requiring unpaid overtime, and causing excessive pollution that you can't or won't clean up. You shouldn't do those things even if they were legal, because they are harmful to the society in which ultimately you have to live. But because some people (and most corporations) are immoral, we need to stop them by telling them they will be punished if they do such things.
Making a better society isn't a "punishment" for anyone. Regulation is, however, a way of reining in those who would be greedy and shortsighted in the short term at the expense of the long term sustainability of their society. It is unfortunate that such people exist at all. But they do.
Now in terms of the particular regulation being proposed here, that Wikimedia be banned from regulating what content it accepts, I don't support it. Competition genuinely exists here, and there are plenty of places you can upload sexually graphic images without going through Wikimedia. Regulation isn't necessary and wouldn't serve the public interest, in this case. It's not necessary to ensure that the public can speak freely. On the other hand, a regulation like net neutrality is.
Regulation should focus on areas where either there is only one company supplying a given service in a given area (and therefore it can abuse its position with near impunity), or where several companies are taking a given action as a bloc to ensure that the customer cannot choose against what they are doing. However, some activities, such as polluting, are always harmful even if competitors do exist, and must be stopped regardless. Regulation should certainly remain as light as it can possibly be to ensure public welfare, but it should be not one bit lighter.
I've got an Athlon XP 2100+ that serves as a general purpose test and data server, and a 900 MHz Athlon Thunderbird (yep, that old) that works as a file dump. Both have been in more or less continuous operation since I got them, and the only thing I've ever had to replace was the power supply on the 900 a few years ago.
That's quite aside from my 4 year old AMD laptop, which also still is kicking along quite well, or the AMD systems I've built over the years for others and are still doing fine. So I can tell you with assurance that the AMD systems in my experience have all lasted longer than "2-3 years", and in one case, coming up ten years now.
So when I went to build this system, did I go with a Phenom? I most certainly did. I've had very good experiences with AMD so far. Intel might be great too, but I've never had any type of speed problems with AMD chips, and they're half the cost. So I've really got no reason to try Intel anyway.
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You honestly think that'd put it to rest? They've tried that (though with civil rather than criminal court), and it blew straight up in their faces. Even the RIAA, slow dinosaurs that they are, seemed to realize that their strategy of "making examples" of everyone from soldiers to Grandma was not exactly influencing public opinion in their favor.
You give a downloader or two a criminal conviction and jail time, you'll see hell raised on a scale that makes that look tame. And you'll see people once again go to more secure protocols.
When there's something that's desirable, non-scarce, and can be easily replicated by almost anyone with a machine that a large portion of the population have in their living rooms, you can't stop it from being replicated. Slow it a bit, maybe, but not stop it. We're well past the point where artificial scarcity could be enforced on that type of thing.
It's time to figure out what we're going to do now that we're past that point, and quit trying to pretend that we're not. Failing to acknowledge reality doesn't make it go away, but it generally does bring you into a spectacular high-speed collision with it.
Are you seriously that stupid? Or just trolling? Well, alright, I suppose I'll throw some nice troll food. Don't say I never did anything for you.
By some off the cuff calculations (with a little help from Wolfram Alpha), my 7.2 V, 3 Ah battery would equate to 21.6 Wh to fully charge, see here. Generally, leaving my cell phone on all day results in the battery draining about 20% to halfway, depending on how much I use it, by the time I go to bed. However, I'll be generous to your presumption here, and we'll presume for the sake of argument that when my phone goes on the charger before bed, I've totally exhausted the battery and it needs a full recharge.
So, let's presume I'm putting that full 21.6 watt hours into the phone every night. A barrel of oil contains 1.7 million watt hours. At that rate, my phone would have to be fully drained and recharged daily for a little over 78703 days, or 215.6 years, to consume one barrel of oil. Given that cellular phones were not quite invented yet in 1895, I kind of doubt that anyone's been charging their phone quite that much.
Isn't it nice to actually do the fucking math, instead of just parrot crap that you heard somewhere?
You really thought I meant what the "vendor" wants? I don't care. I mean what the -customer- wants.
And please don't presume to think your personal desires apply to everything. I really don't give two shits about what you put forth, and I don't think I'm at all the only one. Give me something interesting to work at and something new to learn over those anyday. I don't even like driving anymore that well. Give me a new Mercedes every two years, and I'll still generally ride my bike. Mercedes get caught in traffic jams as nicely as anything else.
If the "vendor's" highest priority isn't to deal fairly and ethically with other people, but rather to grab everything they can from everyone they can, I hope they get strung with every type of regulation you can imagine. I sure wouldn't want to deal with them on those terms without a great deal of regulation. Me, I prefer my life to be about more than hoarding crap.
And this kind of rent seeking behavior for things that should be getting done anyway, is the exact type of thing that leads to the regulations that will shortly be forthcoming here (hopefully, in this and many other scenarios).
It's amazing to me how many corporations fail to act with a fundamental level of decency and do the absolute minimum possible in terms of customer service and quality (or sell reasonable levels of those as a "premium service"), then howl and scream when people find that unacceptable and put regulations in place that require them to do what they should've been doing anyway. It amazes me more that anyone would defend that type of behavior.
If companies really want to stop hostility and regulation toward them, they should open a dialogue (a real one) with their customers, in terms of what they want, what they will pay to get it, what is negotiable, and what is not. Especially as choices become fewer and fewer, a lot of larger companies seem to think they can get away with anything and shrug off the loss of a few customers. At that point, the only option left is regulation. One way or another, the customer's going to be king, and you better treat him accordingly. Squeezing every nickel out you can is anything but.
That would be this one:
If you do something somewhere that it is not a crime, there is no "due process" to be convicted elsewhere, where it is one. If I do something that's legal in one state while in that state, I cannot be prosecuted by a different state where it is illegal unless I continue to do it within that state's borders. The same is true of "crimes" committed abroad, when said action is not a crime where it occurred.
The government travel advisory website makes it clear that when you visit another country, you are subject to their laws and can be prosecuted under them, even if what you did there would be perfectly legal here. The same, then, should seem to be true in reverse-if what you do is not against the law in country X, doing it there is not a crime, even if it would be a crime to do so while you were here.
Convicting someone for possessing any book or source of information is a thoughtcrime law. There are any number of reasons one could possess a "terrorist manual". One could simply be curious as to what a "terrorist manual" might look like. One might want to look at why the terrorists are doing what they are doing, and what their common tactics are. One might want to become a terrorist. One might be very interested in working in counterterrorism law enforcement, but not have the resources to go to school for it yet or still be in the "general education" parts. One might simply want to inform oneself about a major issue in the world today from a primary source. Only one of those is a problematic motive.
Now, of course, once you start actually making weapons, that's quite a different story. So, "thought crime" may not apply well in this specific case. But if you can be arrested just for possession of the book, without possession of anything it tells you how to make, then yes, that is an arrest for thought crime. We have the right to read and be informed, and to know things. Even "bad" things. We just don't have the right to do bad things that harm others.
I think there are much better reasons to reject this concept than vague superstitions. Aren't privacy, bodily integrity, and freedom from surveillance good enough reasons?
I can always carry a GPS locator (that will only be turned on if I want to) if I'm going to the backcountry. Sure, I like having it in the event of emergency. But it only goes on if I flip the switch, and I would only do that if there were an emergency.
Many laws have various types of aggravating circumstances. Abuse of a position of authority in the commission of a crime actually is frequently considered to be one. "All are equal before the law" does not prohibit taking circumstances into account, or accounting for aggravating and mitigating factors in sentencing.
That being the case, the central problem is exactly the one you identified. If those in a position of authority never get prosecuted for their crimes at all, the question of what we would sentence them to if they were becomes rather moot.
As to this idiot, I hope if they pass his law they make him its first prosecution. It's the very definition of arrogance and believing you're above the law to commit the very crime you're trying to prohibit others from doing while writing the law to prohibit it.
It may not be totally harmless, but there's certainly nothing to show that it's more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, both of which you can buy at any convenience store.
That's quite aside from any other issues with those particular substances, especially alcohol. When's the last time you saw someone who was stoned deliberately start a brawl?
I generally figure, that when there is a conflict between two things any provider of anything says, whatever was said in a larger, more colorful, more intended to be publicly distributed, and/or glossier font or medium will prevail.
Advertising something, and saying in the fine print that you don't really mean what you say, should be considered false advertising. If you're limiting your service in any way (port blocking, protocol throttling, bandwidth cap...), you're not selling UNLIMITED!!!!!!!!!!! service, you're selling limited service. Either sell it as that or provide genuinely unlimited service. You can do either one, but you can't advertise one thing and deliver something less.
Not every mental illness leaves one a raving lunatic incapable of any comprehension of reality, and despite how dramatic such cases are, they are actually a very small fraction. Most people who are mentally ill still have the capacity to understand that something is wrong and that treatment will help. I'm not talking about people who are totally out of touch with reality, as chances are that they are not receiving their treatment on a voluntary basis anyway.
You'll note that in what I said, I specifically acknowledged there are people for whom the treatment is not appropriate, and never restated or agreed with the "negligent" statement. Obviously, if the treatment is likely to kill you, you are hardly "negligent" for not taking it. But that's only true in a small fraction of cases.
Why do some people seem to have this concept that men are emotionless robots? Sleep deprivation, stress, aging, life events, and, yes, hormones, can all have a tremendous impact on the male (and female, of course) psyche. Hormones are far from the only thing that can cause an adverse emotional state.
Certainly for me, I've had days where I've gotten up, or gotten home, and been in a tremendously foul mood for some reason. But I make myself aware of that, and make sure I vent to my fiance about whatever's wrong, and never vent on her. I do expect that of myself, and I certainly try to live up to it, because I care greatly about her. I don't expect anything of her that I would not and have not done for her.
She's done the same with me, whether what's getting to her is difficulty from her period or a bad day at work. I do acknowledge that some men do have a highly irrational fear of hearing anything remotely related to menstruation, and I don't understand why that is. It's one of thousands of totally natural biological processes that happen every day. But as far as what she does about trouble from it, she does the exact same-if it's got her feeling like hell, she'll say so, and I'll listen and do what I can to help her feel better. But I wouldn't accept her taking it out on me, any more then she'd accept me taking my bad days out on her. I don't think either of us should accept that, because it is not acceptable behavior.
And if you want that, that's fine. The problem is, I might be much more alright with the idea of my notes being lost, than I would be with them being shared with the world or even with Amazon. If it's an optional feature, available to those who are alright with using it, that's one thing. But as far as I know, you don't even have a way to turn this off, let alone an opt-in to turn it on. That makes it problematic.
When I buy a device, and enter data on that device, I do not expect that data to then be going to third parties without my knowledge and consent. Now, if I am clearly notified (for example, by a popup the first time you enter a note asking if you want to turn on remote backups or not), that's one thing. But you don't just help yourself without asking me.
Well, it's not only his opinion. I'm disgusted by those who, despite being advised 15 times to do so by their doctor and 15 more times by the label, stop taking antibiotics after they "feel a little better" and don't complete the whole round. That's largely how drug resistant strains get made. That affects everyone, not just you. Refusing to cooperate with mental illness treatment is also problematic, and not only for you.
So, yes, if you have a condition that affects not only you but those around you, and it is treatable, get it the fuck treated and cooperate with the treatment. After 7 years or so with someone who turned out to have a personality disorder, and only halfway cooperated with the treatment on and off, and having to do that yo-yo until I finally had enough, I can tell you that otherwise you will make those around you miserable.
Now, of course, if the treatment is likely to cause you to throw a clot because of preexisting disorders, that's a totally different thing. That's true no matter what drug we're talking about. But if, as in the vast majority, there is no significant risk because of no preexisting problem, take it.
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe strongly in the integrity of the body, and that you have the right to refuse treatment. But others have the right to refuse to have anything to do with you if you do.
That, however, gets to my own suspicion-that "PMT" often means "I'm in a bad mood and want to get away with behaving badly". I can't tell you how often I'll see people who are perfectly capable of controlling themselves at work during the day, only to hear about what a holy terror they become once they go home. Obviously they are capable of controlling themselves, since they do after all retain a job. From there, it's just a copout-if you can control yourself, why wouldn't you above all do it with your loved ones?
You can call me misogynist, if you want to. I'm not, but I don't particularly care if you think otherwise. I believe strongly in equal rights for both genders-but exactly equal. No special favors, no special treatment, no monthly excuse for bad behavior. Men don't get those, so that can hardly be asserted as an "equal" right. It's not "misogynist" to think people of any gender should be held equally accountable for their decisions and behavior.
Yes, private companies without government regulation do great at safety and protecting public health.
Read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle at some point. It's a glowing testimonial as to how well that worked in the food industry.
Of course, when you take a pastry from the bakery, in your hypothetical scenario, they are deprived of that pastry. If they have 100 pastries, and 99 get stolen, they have only one left to sell. The above analogy was far better, in that, just as with any type of copying, by cooking your own you are making copies of the pastry without depriving the bakery of the originals, even if it is a flawless copy of the bakery's recipe.
I'm sure the bakery would rather you not do that, or that it be illegal to get pastries in any way but buying from them. But that doesn't mean they should be able to prevent you from doing so, if you have the technical skill to make a perfect copy of their pastries without taking any from them.
Yes, it does. But let me try to simplify it:
The tangible representations of an FSM, such as a circuit board, can be patented, provided that they meet all other patent requirements (groundbreaking/not incremental, no prior art). The logic and mathematics behind it cannot be, since mathematical equations are not patentable no matter how brilliant they are. Software is just discrete math (and really, at its core, a compiled program can be represented by a single, though very large, number). A circuit board is a physical thing. You're trying to say they cannot be differentiated, since they can both be representations of an FSM. But they are different, because one is tangible and one is purely mathematical. Your question "Is an FSM an In re Bilski machine?" requires the question "That depends. Is its representation tangible or intangible?"
Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean it isn't an answer. My answer is, if something is physical and tangible, it is possibly patentable. If it can be implemented purely in mathematics or without tangibles, it is not patentable. If it's possible to do both ways, only the physical component or representation is possibly patentable, but the mathematical components are not. Representing an FSM is not the final question one needs to ask to determine if something is patentable or is a "machine". One needs to also evaluate if something is purely mathematical or requires specific tangible components.
I would also generally disagree with patenting a keyboard layout. Such an improvement would still be an incremental improvement to existing technology, not something groundbreaking. For patentability, we should be looking at things like the first electric typewriter, not just rearranging the keys.
I think the same applies here. Hardware acceleration is not a novel or groundbreaking concept, so that in itself is no cause for a patent.
But, let's presume for a moment you have come up with a chip design that does better hardware acceleration, rising to the level of patentability. Even then, if someone can, without using your machine, create the same effect in software, they are not violating your patent. Sure, your machine (be it a circuit board, car, or industrial system) is patentable, if it is groundbreaking and has no prior art, but that gives you the right to prevent people from doing things in that way using your machine. It does not prevent people doing the same thing by any means whatsoever.
Take, for example, a machine that produces widgets, which before were considered impossible or extremely unlikely to be machine reproducible. Can the inventor patent that machine? Sure. But he cannot, using that patent, stop the production by hand of those same widgets. Of course, that's different if the widget itself is patentable, but software is not a machine or tangible thing, and should not be.
So, sure, here, if the machine really is groundbreaking beyond being just another hardware accelerator, patent it. But that patent should still only apply to implementations using the machine, not to any implementation whatsoever of the machine's end products done using unpatented commodity hardware. If your machine's that integral of a component, and makes the process that much more efficient, people will pay the premium for it. If not-then not so groundbreaking after all, was it?
Hardware acceleration is hardly a novel concept that should be subject to any patents. Regardless, only the hardware portion should be patentable even if it were. If it can be reimplemented in software, it's software with a hardware acceleration component. That's not an earth shattering new technology, it's an existing technology being used for a new format. Like all gradual improvements making existing technology a bit better, that should not be patentable.
Even if it were, however, software reimplementations should not be prevented. Since software, if the system worked properly, should not be patentable, it also should by definition be unable to violate a patent. Only copying a patentable machine with another machine could do so.
Since the Constitutional article also not only allows but requires that these rights be for "limited times", it is not creating a property right. It is allowing certain laws, only insofar as they advance a societal good ("to promote the progress of science and the useful arts"). Since the Constitution requires expropriation and is framing the issue as a societal, not individual, right, there is no property right here. If science and the arts would be best served by eliminating or shortening copyright and patent terms or narrowing their scope, the Constitution does not just allow this to be done-it requires it.
Look at the very different way in which the Constitution treats property rights, and you will quickly realize that copyrights and patents were never intended to be viewed as property.
While the popular term for copyrights and patents ("intellectual property") really muddies the waters, they are not property rights. In fact, the Constitution specifies that they must be expropriated, not just that they may be. The Constitution states that copyright and patent terms must be for a "limited time", and that they are solely to "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts". They are not a property right intended for the individual, they are intended to serve a societal good and to be limited in duration. If the greatest benefit to science and art would be to remove all patents and copyrights, the Constitution's clear statement of their only legitimate purpose would not only allow but demand that we do so.
I think the sheer complexity of this approach alone would have everything everywhere tied up in litigation for years. That alone is a mark against it.
Instead, let's use a simpler method, and take away patents from software, methods, or any other intangibles. That will take away the current minefield where almost any nontrivial software is technically in violation of a patent. And it would make sense.
A brilliant new design for a computer (or a piece of it) can be patented. (Note this means a quantum leap, not an incremental improvement). In the same vein, if you came up with a brilliant new design for a guitar, causing it to weigh 40% less and have a tone quality far better than anything on the market, you could patent that guitar design.
However, if you came up with some brilliant new chords that this guitar can play, you can't and shouldn't be able to patent those. Even if they're brilliant, even if you're the first to ever play them. You can copyright any songs you write with them, of course. But you can't keep someone else from using the same concept in their own songs.
Software is the same as the music. It is the unpatentable intangible played on the patentable tangible. You can copyright it, but you should not be able to stop someone from independently create something interoperable.
It's been mentioned to him before. He'll apologize, say he doesn't realize he's doing it, and then be right back at it not too long after.
I'm not sure if he's deliberately being a dick, or if it really just is that ingrained of a habit, but either way it's not worth making that big of a deal out of (really, the only next step at this point would be to get my boss or HR involved, and I've got more important things to worry about). If he's going to be inconsiderate, I'll do as little to help him as I can.
I can't agree with this enough. I have a coworker who comes over to ask me for help periodically, and while over there, is constantly clicking a goddamn pen. I mean constantly, from the time he walks over to the time he leaves. The end result of this is that I give him very quick, superficial advice, so that he, and the pen, will go away.
And for God's sake, "Whistle while you work" may make Disney money, but it won't make you any. It carries a lot farther than you'd think, and I'm not interested in hearing just how tone deaf you are. We have several people who do that at my job, and it drives most of us nuts. You wouldn't bring in a flute and play it at your desk. Why would you try to do a poor imitation of it?
The issue of "punishment" is a straw man. It is the government's job to "provide for the common defense" against harm. Of course, we most often think of that responsibility being exercised in terms of maintaining a military to defend us in case of an invasion, and of course that is its most visible and dramatic manifestation. But it's not the only manifestation of that responsibility.
Corporations, by means of the volume of property they control and the diffusion of responsibility (well this decision was made by the Board, not by me!), can end up doing significant harm to the public. If a corporation is trying to profit by making a mess and leave the costs of cleaning it up on the public, it is absolutely the government's job to stop such antisocial and unacceptable behavior, just as it is the government's job to stop someone from "profiting" by running something that pollutes your home to unlivability in the home next door to you.
Regulation is not a "punishment". People (and corporations) shouldn't behave antisocially even in the absence of laws against it. But some people (and some corporations) still will. So, we have laws against driving drunk and rape and murder. We also have laws against paying fifty cents an hour, requiring unpaid overtime, and causing excessive pollution that you can't or won't clean up. You shouldn't do those things even if they were legal, because they are harmful to the society in which ultimately you have to live. But because some people (and most corporations) are immoral, we need to stop them by telling them they will be punished if they do such things.
Making a better society isn't a "punishment" for anyone. Regulation is, however, a way of reining in those who would be greedy and shortsighted in the short term at the expense of the long term sustainability of their society. It is unfortunate that such people exist at all. But they do.
Now in terms of the particular regulation being proposed here, that Wikimedia be banned from regulating what content it accepts, I don't support it. Competition genuinely exists here, and there are plenty of places you can upload sexually graphic images without going through Wikimedia. Regulation isn't necessary and wouldn't serve the public interest, in this case. It's not necessary to ensure that the public can speak freely. On the other hand, a regulation like net neutrality is.
Regulation should focus on areas where either there is only one company supplying a given service in a given area (and therefore it can abuse its position with near impunity), or where several companies are taking a given action as a bloc to ensure that the customer cannot choose against what they are doing. However, some activities, such as polluting, are always harmful even if competitors do exist, and must be stopped regardless. Regulation should certainly remain as light as it can possibly be to ensure public welfare, but it should be not one bit lighter.
I've got an Athlon XP 2100+ that serves as a general purpose test and data server, and a 900 MHz Athlon Thunderbird (yep, that old) that works as a file dump. Both have been in more or less continuous operation since I got them, and the only thing I've ever had to replace was the power supply on the 900 a few years ago.
That's quite aside from my 4 year old AMD laptop, which also still is kicking along quite well, or the AMD systems I've built over the years for others and are still doing fine. So I can tell you with assurance that the AMD systems in my experience have all lasted longer than "2-3 years", and in one case, coming up ten years now.
So when I went to build this system, did I go with a Phenom? I most certainly did. I've had very good experiences with AMD so far. Intel might be great too, but I've never had any type of speed problems with AMD chips, and they're half the cost. So I've really got no reason to try Intel anyway.