The difference is that you cannot PROVE that eDockey intended the software for illegal purposes. And how the law is supposed to work (yeah, it is not how it works any more), we are supposed to give eDonkey every benifit of the doubt that they intended the service to be used legally, unless you provide solid evidence otherwise (tape recordings of conversations, emails, chat transcripts, personal notes).
This is nothing new. Neo-conservatives are basicly Communists who believe in god. And unfortunatly, there is noplace to defect to, because the far-right policies of the U.S. and the far-left policies of other countries are converging to be pretty much identical. Looks like Orwell was right.
No, YOU will never have to worry about losing rights or control. The idea of web-based apps is so that buisnesses, or the average person who will not be playing games, or editing music, or rendering graphics, can use a thin client to run applications.
The market will split into web-terminals for the average person, and workstations for people who play graphics heavy games, or run applications that need more processing power. Even the web based stuff, there will probably be an easy way to run a localhost web server or something if you don't want to run a remote server.
And, unlike the mainframe days when it was cost-prohibitive for a person to run their own mainframe, it is very cheap to run your own server.
I have had an xray/picture taken that was exactly the opposite (I forget what it was, it was my orthodontist who had the equipment... This was probably sometime in the late 80s, so at the time it was probably super high-tech)... I sat in one place, and the camera spun around my head.
So what you are saying, while modded funny, is not too outlandish. You could have a camera spinning around on a motor, and if the frame rate of the video was faster than the motion blur, and it could spin around fast enough to capture enough frames per second, what you are saying would probably work. (Although I would prefer some solid-state technique than to be spinning a camera at 200 rpms).
Back in the 90s dot com boom I saw a prototype camera for doing 360 degree panning quicktime static images that was essentially a camera pointed vertically, with an extreme almost spheroid "fisheye" lens. The image would be processed to change the distorted fisheye image into a panoramic 360 degree view (The only direction you could not pan in was down, because the camera was there. Obvously down is the least interesting direction for panning, although I suppose you could have mounted the camera upside down if the ground was important.). The prototype seemed to work fine.
Why can you do the same thing with video? Is it because processing a "fisheye" image is just too processing intensive for 30 frame a second HD video? Is the technique patented and so off limits for other companies? Is it that a video image is too low-res to do translations from a distorted fisheye without blurring? Why do it the elaborate way described in the article when the fisheye technique seems a whole lot simpler?
I saw the prototype in person, so unless the company was commiting outright fraud, I am pretty sure the fisheye thing works.
It doesn't matter what the bulk of the media do. The bulk of the media will always pander to the lowest common denominator, because that is the easiest way to make a profit in a free market. However, there are literally thousands (if not more), independent news sources in the U.S. who supply very accurate and fair news to a niche market.
With China-like restrictions, that would not be possible. It is the difference between a well-informed minority, and total-propoganda state.
No, it is still Socialism. It is not the fact that private companies are doing it that is the problem. It is the fact that the government is forcing it on people, and keeping it in a central government database that is a problem. It is government acting as a force of "social good" (as percieved by some) by ensuring "collective security" against the will of "selfish individuals" that is the central concept of this idea.
People already give their DNA to private companies voluntarily all the time... sometimes to research their geneology... sometimes to screen for potential diseases... sometimes to test for compatibility of organ transplants. All of this is OK because it is totally voluntary, and the people who are having it done are the people who are paying for it, and there is no centralized database (in fact, a private geneology DNA test a friend of mine took does not use a name, only an anonymous number, specificly to make sure that an identity is never associated with the DNA. When a private company does DNA test for paying customers, they are usually fanatical when it comes to privacy... unlike the government they can be sued and/or go out of buisness if they don't take privacy seriously).
If the government uses private companies (which there is absolutly no indication that they will do), it is simply pragmatic (private companies or universities will most likely do a better job and quicker job than government labs), or maybe a form of graft (giving primo contracts to big campaign contributors), and not any ideological commitment to capitalism. It is just pansy quasi-market third-way socialism as opposed to good-ol' hardcore old-school Marxist socialism.
Big Central Government forcibly collecting and retaining information on people for the "public good" and "collective security" is not Capitalism. It is Socialism. It is a centralized state putting the needs of the state (and hence, "the people", in socialist theory) above the "luxury" of privacy of the individual. Privacy is a false bourgeoisie concept, meaningless to the revolutionary proletariat.
Not only is this plan a socialist idea, it is textbook socialism straight out of the mind of Marx. The only thing new is that it is DNA information, as opposed to financial records, fingerprints, your personal contacts, and all the other things that socialists feel the state has the absolute right to know.
I know it is the habit of socialists to throw the term "Capitalism" on anything they don't without any regard to what the word means, but this is so stretching the term "capitalism" that it really makes the term meaningless.
The purpose of this software isn't to stop illegal file sharing, the purpose is to strengthen lawsuits.
Previously, people could defend themselves by saying "I had no idea what was happening on my computer", or "I didn't know I had pirated files", etc. Now, in the lawsuits, they will say "Well, you could have run our software program and been safe, but you chose not to".
Well, it doesn't tip off any anti-piracy organization if you have a firewall properly configured to only send out packets from software you authorize to do so!:)
In the United States, the Bill of Rights takes presidence over all other laws (at least that is how it is supposed to work, and until very recently how it worked)... so if there is any question of libel or slander laws being used to restrict free exercise of religion, freedom of speech or press, etc., the libel laws can not be enforced.
This is why Hustler magazine could publish a fake interview with religious leaders, and not put any mention that it was fake or humourous, and when sues the Supreme Court found it was totally acceptable because it was a form of free political expression.
Actually, it is not that people are oblivious to the massive increase in Federal power, it is that the massive increase in Federal power is justified in some context of social goal that people support.
Lets take for example, the "free speech zones" that you mentioned. Basicly, the government now has the power to limit free speech to certain regulated zones. This has been blasted most recently by the anti-war left (and the libertarians, but they are a tiny group and largely insignificant), who say it is a restriction on their right to protest the Iraq war, and a way to keep disenting views off camera when the president makes a speech etc, and is an example of right-wing facism (and for the most part, I agree with that opinion).
But do you know the history on how the laws came about that people could be forced into "free speech zones"? It began during the 80's and 90's and the "Pro-Life" movement. In an attempt to control "out of control" protestors outside abortion clinics, the left made a push for laws that would regulate protesters and restrict them to free-speech zones well away from abortion clinics. While people on the left now call the idea of regulated "free-speech zones" an example of "right-wing facism", during the 1990's the left was accusing anyone who didn't support restrictions on protest and the creation of "free-speech zones" as being "right wing facists". The restrictions on freedom of speech were presented as a "progressive policy" that was "nessicary to protect a woman's right to choose". It is not that people couldn't care about their right to protest, it was that they supported government regulation to further a "progressive social policy".
Also, this current talk of government regulation of political blogs comes from the idea of "Campaign Finance Reform"... it is justified as "nessicary government oversight" in order to make sure "large and powerful interests with lots of money don't manipulate the political process"... and so in order to make sure that people aren't being "manipulated" by blogs that might be fronts for powerful interests, blogs will need to be approved, controlled, and watched over by the federal government.
And then how do you feel about things like gun-control? (This question is not rhetorical). Most people who are outraged at things like restrictions on anti-war protests support agressive government restrictions, if not an outright ban, on guns - which all Americans have a constitutional right to own as much as they have a right to freedom of speech. So it is not that Americans are not concerned about the lose of their rights, but political interests who support a certain set of rights and freedoms, are totally willing to destroy the bill of rights and erode freedom on other issues. And unfortunatly, once they say it is OK to ignore the bill of rights on the parts of it they don't like, they make it acceptable to ignore all parts of the bill of rights.
Americans are very concerned about the emerging facist state. The trouble is, the two main parties and the two dominant political viewpoints (right wing and left wing facism) are both facist.
Because how are you going to pay for pamphlets, radio commercials, tv commericals? How are you going to pay to travel around the country to make speeches? How are you going to pay for your website bill? All of this stuff is expensive.
A limit on the money you can spend or accept in donations is a limit on freedom of speech.
When the government says that a party can only accept $1000 donation per person per year, that is great for the two mega-giant political parties who have millions of memebers. But if I am starting a new party, and I get together with 20 other people to start the organization, our organization is limited in resources to $20,000 a year, by law. Now, tell me, how exactly is our party supposed to compete with the two big parties when limited to $20,000 year? (and doesn't just include money... if a person advertises us on a blog, if a person allows us to stay at their house for free when we are traveling the country, if someone lends us PA equipment so we can make a speech, we have to calculate the value of that, and it is counted against that $20,000.)
Essentially, in election time, any speech that is not endorced by one of the two big parties, is illegal. And this is all done using "capaign finance" laws.
Come on. I mean people want the government to regulate how much media a company can own or produce... they want the government to regulate how much money political parties can spend on advertisement... they want the government to regulate against information that might be considered offensive, obsene, or hateful...
People are absolutly in love with total government control... until, of course, the government starts to control something that is valuable to them. Then people get all upset.
So now, the bloggers, the majority of whome tend to overwelming support total government regulation and control of just about everything, now have to live with government regulation of their own stuff. They couldn't care when small buisnesses were getting sued and people were going bankrupt and losing everything they own because their bathroom door was 1/4 inch too narrow and didn't meet government regulations for handicap accessability. They couln't care that small parties like the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party are given a perpetual handicap in elections, because limits on capaign donation mean that the political parties will small numbers can not advertize or accept large donations to compete with the big parties. These people could not care the nearly impossible processes people need to go through to own a gun because of gun-control regulation. They could care less about poor people in most major cities where you need to pay at least $40,000 in licences and fees to cover government regulation, thereby making buisness ownership beyond the means of the average person.
They insisted that government regulation was nessicary, that only the government could be trusted with power, that only the government is the legit organization to control just about everything. Now blogs will be regulated like everything else. Deal with it. This is the inevitable end result of your own philosophy. If you are against this regulation, it is because "you are a puppet of big corporporations trying to control everything", that is the standard arguement you used against anyone who didn't support government regulation on everything else.
Stop this whining about the Constitution and Freedom of Speech. Most of you hate the constitution, and freedom of speech... you are only bringing these things up now that you are being effected.
Re:I'm Disappointed in Fellow Contributors
on
The Slurpee at 40
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Our germaphobia is making us weak. Healthy exposure to dirt, filth, and germs helps build a strong immune system.:)
So long as rats aren't pooping plauge or hanta virus into the Slurpees, I think humanity will survive.
I would be much more worried about the sugar causing tooth decay, or diabetes, or obecity, than I would be worried about germs from the thing.
Re:Open Source Vehicles
on
VW Goes USB
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There are legal restrictions on this.
For example, the electronics in your car are set to make sure your car maintains a certain amount of fuel efficency or emissions.
If you were allowed to tweak the values in those electronics, you might choose better performance over fuel efficency and low emissions.
So long as things like fuel efficency, emissions, etc. are regulated by the government, there is no way a car company is ever going to willingly let you mess with your engine settings. They could get into a lot of trouble if a download from the internet could allow people to radicly alter those things from what is listen on the sticker when you purchase the car.
Government control and individual choice are not compatible.
A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.
How much ice is lost, and how much is normal amounts? "Scientists" claim something? ALL scientists are saying this? That is what the article seems to be saying. Who is funding their reasearch and could their be any incentive for them to come to certain conclusions? Aren't there any opposing viewpoints, or even a range of beliefs on the subject? They are "convinced" that is is a fact?... is "convinced" the word that the scientists used, because "convinced" is very different that "have strong evidence to suggest". And the "scientists" "fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming". Well, I fear Chupacabra, but it doesn't mean anything. "Fear" is not the basis of science.
This is Yellow Journalism, plain and simple. Pure sensationalist bullshit. I happen to believe in global warming, and there could very well be something to what "scientists" as the article describes it, are saying... but there is nothing in this article that in any way makes a reasoned case for it. Pure fear mongering crap. Fox-News style candy for your mind.
I think it is pretty clear it will only cover those areas that where there is normal telephone service. People at their remote weather stations in the northern tundra will most likely need to use satalite internet.:)
However, isn't a lot of the limits of WiFi caused by the radio signals being blocked by buildings or the landscape... or getting messed up by other radio signals? Shouldn't this mean that a normal WiFi station could cover a lot more area in say some barren northern tundra? Wouldn't the nature of most rural areas (lots of wide open spaces) make WiFi a lot cheaper for those areas?
Please remember, despite all the tinfoil hat fears, that this is not "Big Brother". No-one is being forced to accept this service, the government doesn't mandate this service, the company isn't reporting you to the police when you speed.
The thing that makes "Big Brother" so bad is that you don't have a choice. If you have a choice, it isn't survalence any more than your accountant, or doctor, or lawyer, who may have a great deal of personal information about you.
Now, if the government required all cars to have this service, it would be a different story all together.
The Guardian is one of the biggest perpetraters of bad science for a major newspaper.
And it is not only science. I have seen outright errors in Guardian articles that even the most basic first-level fact-checking (i.e. a Google search) should have found.
I mean, damn. It used to be you would just purchase Windows 95. Then they had the whole XP home and XP Pro thing (with anyone with more sophisticated computer needs than my Grandmother needing XP Pro). Now there are going to be seven versions (and anyone but the most casual user is going to have to spend a grand on the highest end version?).
Never mind that this goes totally against the principles of normal economics (i.e. the more people who buy something, the less the development cost per unit... and since development cost is the only real cost for software, making less-powerful versions of the software should actually be MORE EXPENSIVE since it requires more work/testing/etc.) But I guess normal economics do not apply when you are a monopoly.
And never mind that the new OS won't run on anything but high-end machines. And will be utterly crippled with DRM and bloated with a damn 3D vector interface.
Sorry Microsoft, if I am going to buy a high-end workstation, it is going to be a mac, and everything else is going to be running Linux or FreeBSD. I probably would have continued using Windows just out of habit and so I could run my old software, but for the money I save from buying the highest end Windows OS I should be able to save more money than I would using my old software.
I mean, is Microsoft activly trying to piss as many people off as possible? I realize that they are just trying to make money, and everyone is basicly selfish... but are they actually under the delusion that consumers are going to go along with this? Is the market for the computer illiterate novice really that big that they can alienate higher end users?
The U.N. World Health Organization did a study a few years ago and they put the death toll at several hundred. They said that the effects of Chernobal were highly sensationalized and exasurated at the time (and what they didn't say explicitly but could be read between the lines is that there just might have been a good dose of cold-war anti-Soviet propoganda involved).
For example, the case that is always mentioned of thyroid cancer. The way they determined the rate of thyroid cancer was they did an autopsy on people who died, and if they had any growths in their thyroid, they considered that a case of thyroid cancer (even if the person died of a heart attack, or was hit by a bus). If you did that kind of screening on people in North America, you would suddenly find thyroid cancer "rates" increasing by orders of magnitude (because most thyroid growths would never be discovered if you weren't especially looking for it... most will not turn into anything fatal in a persons life time).
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is that you cannot PROVE that eDockey intended the software for illegal purposes. And how the law is supposed to work (yeah, it is not how it works any more), we are supposed to give eDonkey every benifit of the doubt that they intended the service to be used legally, unless you provide solid evidence otherwise (tape recordings of conversations, emails, chat transcripts, personal notes).
I think it will work if there becomes some P2P standard like BitTorrent that becomes a part of web browsers.
Will anyone miss P2P if it goes away? I won't even notice
... You won't even notice if BitTorrent disapears? Or many types of internet computer games?
Um, music sharing software != P2P
True, but then there are Canadian content rules, censorship laws, language laws, etc., that are also a big problem to deal with.
They would be better off going to the Caymen Islands, or the other places that run the online casinos.
This is nothing new. Neo-conservatives are basicly Communists who believe in god. And unfortunatly, there is noplace to defect to, because the far-right policies of the U.S. and the far-left policies of other countries are converging to be pretty much identical. Looks like Orwell was right.
No, YOU will never have to worry about losing rights or control. The idea of web-based apps is so that buisnesses, or the average person who will not be playing games, or editing music, or rendering graphics, can use a thin client to run applications.
The market will split into web-terminals for the average person, and workstations for people who play graphics heavy games, or run applications that need more processing power. Even the web based stuff, there will probably be an easy way to run a localhost web server or something if you don't want to run a remote server.
And, unlike the mainframe days when it was cost-prohibitive for a person to run their own mainframe, it is very cheap to run your own server.
I have had an xray/picture taken that was exactly the opposite (I forget what it was, it was my orthodontist who had the equipment... This was probably sometime in the late 80s, so at the time it was probably super high-tech)... I sat in one place, and the camera spun around my head.
So what you are saying, while modded funny, is not too outlandish. You could have a camera spinning around on a motor, and if the frame rate of the video was faster than the motion blur, and it could spin around fast enough to capture enough frames per second, what you are saying would probably work. (Although I would prefer some solid-state technique than to be spinning a camera at 200 rpms).
Back in the 90s dot com boom I saw a prototype camera for doing 360 degree panning quicktime static images that was essentially a camera pointed vertically, with an extreme almost spheroid "fisheye" lens. The image would be processed to change the distorted fisheye image into a panoramic 360 degree view (The only direction you could not pan in was down, because the camera was there. Obvously down is the least interesting direction for panning, although I suppose you could have mounted the camera upside down if the ground was important.). The prototype seemed to work fine.
Why can you do the same thing with video? Is it because processing a "fisheye" image is just too processing intensive for 30 frame a second HD video? Is the technique patented and so off limits for other companies? Is it that a video image is too low-res to do translations from a distorted fisheye without blurring? Why do it the elaborate way described in the article when the fisheye technique seems a whole lot simpler?
I saw the prototype in person, so unless the company was commiting outright fraud, I am pretty sure the fisheye thing works.
It doesn't matter what the bulk of the media do. The bulk of the media will always pander to the lowest common denominator, because that is the easiest way to make a profit in a free market. However, there are literally thousands (if not more), independent news sources in the U.S. who supply very accurate and fair news to a niche market.
With China-like restrictions, that would not be possible. It is the difference between a well-informed minority, and total-propoganda state.
No, it is still Socialism. It is not the fact that private companies are doing it that is the problem. It is the fact that the government is forcing it on people, and keeping it in a central government database that is a problem. It is government acting as a force of "social good" (as percieved by some) by ensuring "collective security" against the will of "selfish individuals" that is the central concept of this idea.
People already give their DNA to private companies voluntarily all the time... sometimes to research their geneology... sometimes to screen for potential diseases... sometimes to test for compatibility of organ transplants. All of this is OK because it is totally voluntary, and the people who are having it done are the people who are paying for it, and there is no centralized database (in fact, a private geneology DNA test a friend of mine took does not use a name, only an anonymous number, specificly to make sure that an identity is never associated with the DNA. When a private company does DNA test for paying customers, they are usually fanatical when it comes to privacy... unlike the government they can be sued and/or go out of buisness if they don't take privacy seriously).
If the government uses private companies (which there is absolutly no indication that they will do), it is simply pragmatic (private companies or universities will most likely do a better job and quicker job than government labs), or maybe a form of graft (giving primo contracts to big campaign contributors), and not any ideological commitment to capitalism. It is just pansy quasi-market third-way socialism as opposed to good-ol' hardcore old-school Marxist socialism.
Big Central Government forcibly collecting and retaining information on people for the "public good" and "collective security" is not Capitalism. It is Socialism. It is a centralized state putting the needs of the state (and hence, "the people", in socialist theory) above the "luxury" of privacy of the individual. Privacy is a false bourgeoisie concept, meaningless to the revolutionary proletariat.
Not only is this plan a socialist idea, it is textbook socialism straight out of the mind of Marx. The only thing new is that it is DNA information, as opposed to financial records, fingerprints, your personal contacts, and all the other things that socialists feel the state has the absolute right to know.
I know it is the habit of socialists to throw the term "Capitalism" on anything they don't without any regard to what the word means, but this is so stretching the term "capitalism" that it really makes the term meaningless.
The purpose of this software isn't to stop illegal file sharing, the purpose is to strengthen lawsuits.
Previously, people could defend themselves by saying "I had no idea what was happening on my computer", or "I didn't know I had pirated files", etc. Now, in the lawsuits, they will say "Well, you could have run our software program and been safe, but you chose not to".
Well, it doesn't tip off any anti-piracy organization if you have a firewall properly configured to only send out packets from software you authorize to do so! :)
In the United States, the Bill of Rights takes presidence over all other laws (at least that is how it is supposed to work, and until very recently how it worked)... so if there is any question of libel or slander laws being used to restrict free exercise of religion, freedom of speech or press, etc., the libel laws can not be enforced.
This is why Hustler magazine could publish a fake interview with religious leaders, and not put any mention that it was fake or humourous, and when sues the Supreme Court found it was totally acceptable because it was a form of free political expression.
Actually, it is not that people are oblivious to the massive increase in Federal power, it is that the massive increase in Federal power is justified in some context of social goal that people support.
Lets take for example, the "free speech zones" that you mentioned. Basicly, the government now has the power to limit free speech to certain regulated zones. This has been blasted most recently by the anti-war left (and the libertarians, but they are a tiny group and largely insignificant), who say it is a restriction on their right to protest the Iraq war, and a way to keep disenting views off camera when the president makes a speech etc, and is an example of right-wing facism (and for the most part, I agree with that opinion).
But do you know the history on how the laws came about that people could be forced into "free speech zones"? It began during the 80's and 90's and the "Pro-Life" movement. In an attempt to control "out of control" protestors outside abortion clinics, the left made a push for laws that would regulate protesters and restrict them to free-speech zones well away from abortion clinics. While people on the left now call the idea of regulated "free-speech zones" an example of "right-wing facism", during the 1990's the left was accusing anyone who didn't support restrictions on protest and the creation of "free-speech zones" as being "right wing facists". The restrictions on freedom of speech were presented as a "progressive policy" that was "nessicary to protect a woman's right to choose". It is not that people couldn't care about their right to protest, it was that they supported government regulation to further a "progressive social policy".
Also, this current talk of government regulation of political blogs comes from the idea of "Campaign Finance Reform"... it is justified as "nessicary government oversight" in order to make sure "large and powerful interests with lots of money don't manipulate the political process"... and so in order to make sure that people aren't being "manipulated" by blogs that might be fronts for powerful interests, blogs will need to be approved, controlled, and watched over by the federal government.
And then how do you feel about things like gun-control? (This question is not rhetorical). Most people who are outraged at things like restrictions on anti-war protests support agressive government restrictions, if not an outright ban, on guns - which all Americans have a constitutional right to own as much as they have a right to freedom of speech. So it is not that Americans are not concerned about the lose of their rights, but political interests who support a certain set of rights and freedoms, are totally willing to destroy the bill of rights and erode freedom on other issues. And unfortunatly, once they say it is OK to ignore the bill of rights on the parts of it they don't like, they make it acceptable to ignore all parts of the bill of rights.
Americans are very concerned about the emerging facist state. The trouble is, the two main parties and the two dominant political viewpoints (right wing and left wing facism) are both facist.
Because how are you going to pay for pamphlets, radio commercials, tv commericals? How are you going to pay to travel around the country to make speeches? How are you going to pay for your website bill? All of this stuff is expensive.
A limit on the money you can spend or accept in donations is a limit on freedom of speech.
When the government says that a party can only accept $1000 donation per person per year, that is great for the two mega-giant political parties who have millions of memebers. But if I am starting a new party, and I get together with 20 other people to start the organization, our organization is limited in resources to $20,000 a year, by law. Now, tell me, how exactly is our party supposed to compete with the two big parties when limited to $20,000 year? (and doesn't just include money... if a person advertises us on a blog, if a person allows us to stay at their house for free when we are traveling the country, if someone lends us PA equipment so we can make a speech, we have to calculate the value of that, and it is counted against that $20,000.)
Essentially, in election time, any speech that is not endorced by one of the two big parties, is illegal. And this is all done using "capaign finance" laws.
Come on. I mean people want the government to regulate how much media a company can own or produce... they want the government to regulate how much money political parties can spend on advertisement... they want the government to regulate against information that might be considered offensive, obsene, or hateful...
People are absolutly in love with total government control... until, of course, the government starts to control something that is valuable to them. Then people get all upset.
So now, the bloggers, the majority of whome tend to overwelming support total government regulation and control of just about everything, now have to live with government regulation of their own stuff. They couldn't care when small buisnesses were getting sued and people were going bankrupt and losing everything they own because their bathroom door was 1/4 inch too narrow and didn't meet government regulations for handicap accessability. They couln't care that small parties like the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party are given a perpetual handicap in elections, because limits on capaign donation mean that the political parties will small numbers can not advertize or accept large donations to compete with the big parties. These people could not care the nearly impossible processes people need to go through to own a gun because of gun-control regulation. They could care less about poor people in most major cities where you need to pay at least $40,000 in licences and fees to cover government regulation, thereby making buisness ownership beyond the means of the average person.
They insisted that government regulation was nessicary, that only the government could be trusted with power, that only the government is the legit organization to control just about everything. Now blogs will be regulated like everything else. Deal with it. This is the inevitable end result of your own philosophy. If you are against this regulation, it is because "you are a puppet of big corporporations trying to control everything", that is the standard arguement you used against anyone who didn't support government regulation on everything else.
Stop this whining about the Constitution and Freedom of Speech. Most of you hate the constitution, and freedom of speech... you are only bringing these things up now that you are being effected.
Our germaphobia is making us weak. Healthy exposure to dirt, filth, and germs helps build a strong immune system. :)
So long as rats aren't pooping plauge or hanta virus into the Slurpees, I think humanity will survive.
I would be much more worried about the sugar causing tooth decay, or diabetes, or obecity, than I would be worried about germs from the thing.
There are legal restrictions on this.
For example, the electronics in your car are set to make sure your car maintains a certain amount of fuel efficency or emissions.
If you were allowed to tweak the values in those electronics, you might choose better performance over fuel efficency and low emissions.
So long as things like fuel efficency, emissions, etc. are regulated by the government, there is no way a car company is ever going to willingly let you mess with your engine settings. They could get into a lot of trouble if a download from the internet could allow people to radicly alter those things from what is listen on the sticker when you purchase the car.
Government control and individual choice are not compatible.
A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.
How much ice is lost, and how much is normal amounts? "Scientists" claim something? ALL scientists are saying this? That is what the article seems to be saying. Who is funding their reasearch and could their be any incentive for them to come to certain conclusions? Aren't there any opposing viewpoints, or even a range of beliefs on the subject? They are "convinced" that is is a fact?... is "convinced" the word that the scientists used, because "convinced" is very different that "have strong evidence to suggest". And the "scientists" "fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming". Well, I fear Chupacabra, but it doesn't mean anything. "Fear" is not the basis of science.
This is Yellow Journalism, plain and simple. Pure sensationalist bullshit. I happen to believe in global warming, and there could very well be something to what "scientists" as the article describes it, are saying... but there is nothing in this article that in any way makes a reasoned case for it. Pure fear mongering crap. Fox-News style candy for your mind.
I think it is pretty clear it will only cover those areas that where there is normal telephone service. People at their remote weather stations in the northern tundra will most likely need to use satalite internet. :)
However, isn't a lot of the limits of WiFi caused by the radio signals being blocked by buildings or the landscape... or getting messed up by other radio signals? Shouldn't this mean that a normal WiFi station could cover a lot more area in say some barren northern tundra? Wouldn't the nature of most rural areas (lots of wide open spaces) make WiFi a lot cheaper for those areas?
Please remember, despite all the tinfoil hat fears, that this is not "Big Brother". No-one is being forced to accept this service, the government doesn't mandate this service, the company isn't reporting you to the police when you speed.
The thing that makes "Big Brother" so bad is that you don't have a choice. If you have a choice, it isn't survalence any more than your accountant, or doctor, or lawyer, who may have a great deal of personal information about you.
Now, if the government required all cars to have this service, it would be a different story all together.
The Guardian is one of the biggest perpetraters of bad science for a major newspaper.
And it is not only science. I have seen outright errors in Guardian articles that even the most basic first-level fact-checking (i.e. a Google search) should have found.
I mean, damn. It used to be you would just purchase Windows 95. Then they had the whole XP home and XP Pro thing (with anyone with more sophisticated computer needs than my Grandmother needing XP Pro). Now there are going to be seven versions (and anyone but the most casual user is going to have to spend a grand on the highest end version?).
Never mind that this goes totally against the principles of normal economics (i.e. the more people who buy something, the less the development cost per unit... and since development cost is the only real cost for software, making less-powerful versions of the software should actually be MORE EXPENSIVE since it requires more work/testing/etc.) But I guess normal economics do not apply when you are a monopoly.
And never mind that the new OS won't run on anything but high-end machines. And will be utterly crippled with DRM and bloated with a damn 3D vector interface.
Sorry Microsoft, if I am going to buy a high-end workstation, it is going to be a mac, and everything else is going to be running Linux or FreeBSD. I probably would have continued using Windows just out of habit and so I could run my old software, but for the money I save from buying the highest end Windows OS I should be able to save more money than I would using my old software.
I mean, is Microsoft activly trying to piss as many people off as possible? I realize that they are just trying to make money, and everyone is basicly selfish... but are they actually under the delusion that consumers are going to go along with this? Is the market for the computer illiterate novice really that big that they can alienate higher end users?
The U.N. World Health Organization did a study a few years ago and they put the death toll at several hundred. They said that the effects of Chernobal were highly sensationalized and exasurated at the time (and what they didn't say explicitly but could be read between the lines is that there just might have been a good dose of cold-war anti-Soviet propoganda involved).
For example, the case that is always mentioned of thyroid cancer. The way they determined the rate of thyroid cancer was they did an autopsy on people who died, and if they had any growths in their thyroid, they considered that a case of thyroid cancer (even if the person died of a heart attack, or was hit by a bus). If you did that kind of screening on people in North America, you would suddenly find thyroid cancer "rates" increasing by orders of magnitude (because most thyroid growths would never be discovered if you weren't especially looking for it... most will not turn into anything fatal in a persons life time).