While I agree with you 100%, be prepared for anti-evolutionists who talk about micro-evolution vs macro-evolution. They rightfully argue that there is a big difference; micro-evolution is a population changing (e.g. a bacteria becoming resistant to a drug), whereas macro evolution is a species branching off from another.
A simple understanding of Darwinism makes it clear that the latter definition of evolution is critical to Darwin's theories. You can't simply point to changes in a specific population from the greater species - you need to show evidence that that population has become a distinct species "evolves" separately.
Apple and Microsoft display the same pattern - their products resembles beta for the first few months, and only become mature after a few years. Happened with the iPod, and all successful versions of Windows.
I never upgrade until the widespread opinion is the product is mature...
The issue then is whether the growth of e-mails is due to an increase in the number of users, or the number of e-mails per user. I would be inclined to guess that the first is much stronger of an effect than the latter (considering g-mail's explosive growth and no recent force that is encouraging people to write more e-mails). In that case, we would expect the number of spams per message to stay roughly constant, because the spammers would have new people to send each e-mail to.
Yes, their conclusion depends on some assumptions, but I can believe that those assumptions are at least partly true.
You lost *something*, but what is that something? Remember, you are in court, and the burden of proof is entirely on you. Lost sales is the easiest to argue, but will get you peanuts in most cases (probably somewhere around the amount of money you made on the plagiarized art). You could argue that it hurt your image, but that's a whole new complicated ballpark. My original intended point was that while this could be pursued in court, it won't simply because of the massive amount of trouble involved. Harvard may have good lawyers, but lawyers don't work for free.
150,000 dollars is simply a maximum, isn't it? To receive this sum, you still need to argue that the amount you set per infringement is realistic. The reason why we don't witness this is because it never goes to court.
Are you referring to the RIAA/MPAA? If so, what they do isn't really legal. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA#File-sharing_lawsuits): "In November, 2006, a Judge in a Brooklyn Federal court upheld the legal theory behind a defense claiming that the RIAA's damages theory -- which calls for aggregating statutory damages of $750 per song in its lawsuits -- is unconstitutional, since the record companies' actual damages are less than $0.70 per song."
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I was always under the impression that to convince a court to have one party pay another damages, you need to *prove* that you incurred those damages, in one form or another. The RIAA argues that it incurred statutory damages, and can therefore charge some insane amount per download; I don't know of many court cases were this was upheld, simply because the people who are being sued usually can't afford a proper defense. In this case, I think a bunch of lawyers can competently argue that they owe a few thousand bucks at most, which Harvard may decide is not worth the trouble or expense (that is my prediction).
I'm not a lawyer, but sue them for what? Don't you have to prove that you lost money when you are suing for damages? Clearly what the creationists did was illegal/immoral, but it seems like people are blowing this our of proportion. I think what will happen is the creationists will remove the video and "sort of" apologize for plagiarism - by sort of, I mean they'll blame some scapegoat who "didn't know better, and has been removed from the organization. "
To play devil's advocate, Microsoft could argue that if 95% of computers in the world run Windows, teaching kids Windows is quite valuable. I don't know about the developing world, but in the USA many jobs require some basic knowledge of Windows and Office.
What percentage of libraries/primary schools in the US have Linux installed on their public computers?
Sounds interesting, but is a map enough to understand the brain? I know in artificial neural networks, the actual structure isn't as important as the weights on the nodes. Will hitting the brain with electrons be enough to give us an understanding of these "weights", or just the connections between them?
Baltimore actually has a large poor white population, so I wasn't even thinking of race when I said "ignore Baltimore."
The reason why I say ignore Baltimore is that it's so unlike the rest of Maryland. It contains a small % of the population, but it still biases statistics when talking about policy, economy, etc. After moving from the suburbs of Maryland to Baltimore, I realized that Baltimore has problems that are very deeply rooted and unrelated to the rest of the state. Unlike most cities, Baltimore is not contained in a larger county, so it manages itself. Majority of the state lives in dense suburbia in the triangle from DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis, and most policy decisions made by the state are made with this area in mind.
If the original poster intended to talk about immigrants near DC instead of Baltimore, then this is all irrelevant anyway;)
I'm sorry, but you really don't understand Maryland's economy. Yes, Maryland has a liberal, progressive economy. It attracts smart, educated people with (at least a few) excellent school systems, several good Universities, and a lot of industry. Just the biotech companies near DC alone would make many states salivate.
I'll admit its proximity to DC helps, but not in the way you seem to think. Maryland has a thriving economy that is entirely irrelvant to taxes, real estate or federal hangouts. I honestly have no idea what you base your argument that the state would collapse without federal help. I would like to see you site some sources on your fairly extreme claims...
Because I think the GP post was referring to citizens of Baltimore when he said: "It's one more reason for those heavily dependent on government services to flock to and continue to live in the state..."
I was arguing that you have to ignore Baltimore, because most people from Baltimore were born and raised there - they really don't *flock* to Baltimore for handouts, a ridiculous statement. And, continuing to stay on topic, most citizens of Baltimore really are irrelvant to a tax on custom programming and IT.
Baltimore pays less of a role in the Maryland economy than you think. Its population is about a third of what you think it is, and it only serves to make Maryland look more poor than it is.
I think you exaggerate, Maryland is one of the wealthiest states in the country. Ignore Baltimore, and it really is near the top. Taxes don't attract anyone to Baltimore (most people who depend on the services there were born and raised in Baltimore). But strong school systems and good government services do attract people who contribute to the state.
Yes - taxes can hurt industry, but Maryland is doing great the way it is (ignoring Baltimore!)
The users demanded a less secure method because it was more convenient. They got what they asked for. Hushmail made it very clear in the process that they were giving up security, and the users still wanted it. We should be blaming the users for ruining Hushmail's reputation, not Hushmail for following the law.
Our discussion is in the context of something denser than air floating in air, so an object sitting on a desk is irrelvant...
Air has a certain density. Our theoretical object has a greater density. Gravity is constantly pushing both towards the Earth, with a force equal to mass*gravity. In this setting, gravity will do work on the object because it will move the object, thereby expending gravitational potential energy.
Why will gravity move the object? Because the denser-than-air object has a greater downward force than air, so it will displace the air to go below it. The reason why an object does not displace a desk, even if it more dense, is because the desk is held together by a strong electromagnetic force - ordinary atmospheric air is only held together at a molecular level, which easily slips through or around our object.
While I agree it may be *physically possible* to float in mid air without expending energy, it would require changing the properties of atmospheric air (or finding a way to stop air from being displaced by the denser object.) I'm guessing there is no proof that this is impossible, but there is no proof that it is possible either. In other words, it is an unanswered question; there may be a law waiting to be discovered that it is impossible.
But there is air pressure above you too, negating the air pressure below you.
We can keep sniping at each other like this, but can you give an example of *anything* that is heavier than air and can constantly overcome the force of gravity without expending energy?
Given a constant downward force, staying in the same position requires a constant upward force. That upward force requires energy, in some form.
When you go up stairs, you are storing potential energy, but it is not released because the building is supporting you. When you are floating (and heavier than air), energy is constantly being expended to overcome gravity, because nothing is supporting you from below.
The only reason why a helium balloon rises is because it is lighter than air - as it rises, its kinetic energy is depleted, and brining it back down would required energy.
The helium is still potential energy that has been stored in the Earth. You could think of an airplane as expending potential energy (fuel) to stay afloat.
To overcome the force of gravity, you need to expend energy that is proportional to the mass of what is afloat - either potential or kinetic.
Those companies, if they need the algorithms, should be sponsoring the teams because they can afford it. It's the people/companies that can't afford this kind of development that would really benefit from open source.
But it's not the product itself that would confuse a consumer, it's the box (unless a reasonable consumer is opening boxes at the store). Does the box trick the purchaser into thinking it is a controller for their Wii? From the gallery, we can't draw a conclusion. And if they are tricking people, you would think Walmart would voluntarily stop selling it to stop returns from people who bought it with/for their Wii.
Shouldn't we wait for some more specific information/evidence before we accuse Microsoft of bribery? If Mandriva stops short of this, perhaps we should too - after all, it's a serious charge.
I'm sure Microsoft had something to do with their decision, but *maybe* it simply came down to convincing Nigeria that its product was better. It sounds like they are giving Windows out for free, that may have impressed the Nigerian government, and does not constitute bribery.
That legislation could easily be bypassed by hardware vendors renting out the phones, very much like AT&T used to do. You no longer own the phone, you own a license to use it as long as you follow all the rules of that license.
Legislation is useless against immoral companies because they usually hire smart lawyers who are a step ahead of the congress. What the industry really needs is a competent competitor that reveals to the mass public how crappy the current phone situation is (Google?).
Funny, I was actually going to mention drugs, but decided not to because it's slightly off topic. It actually is a very good point, though. Creating different prices for drugs in different countries has the same purpose as software (there are slight differences -for one thing, if you don't provide cheap AIDS drugs to Africans, people will die).
But, yes, I am against Americans arbitraging drugs prices. What a lot of people don't know is that First World drug prices - especially in America - are high because we subsidize drugs for the rest of the world. Developing those AIDS cocktails that a lot of Africans use cost tens of billions of dollars in the USA. When an American pays for health insurance, he is indirectly paying for this R&D. There was an Economist article recently criticizing moderately wealthy countries, like Brazil, who were ignoring patents on drugs by offering generics. They made a good point - someone has to pay for the drugs that continues to increase the standard of living through the world. The drug industry has sort of become communist - the rich pay for the poor. This is a great thing IMO.
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While I agree with you 100%, be prepared for anti-evolutionists who talk about micro-evolution vs macro-evolution. They rightfully argue that there is a big difference; micro-evolution is a population changing (e.g. a bacteria becoming resistant to a drug), whereas macro evolution is a species branching off from another.
A simple understanding of Darwinism makes it clear that the latter definition of evolution is critical to Darwin's theories. You can't simply point to changes in a specific population from the greater species - you need to show evidence that that population has become a distinct species "evolves" separately.
Apple and Microsoft display the same pattern - their products resembles beta for the first few months, and only become mature after a few years. Happened with the iPod, and all successful versions of Windows.
I never upgrade until the widespread opinion is the product is mature...
About 20 seconds of searching led me to this:
http://www.ulib.org/cgi-bin/udlcgi/ULIBMetainfo.cgi?&barcode=820923
Looks like the full play to me
The issue then is whether the growth of e-mails is due to an increase in the number of users, or the number of e-mails per user. I would be inclined to guess that the first is much stronger of an effect than the latter (considering g-mail's explosive growth and no recent force that is encouraging people to write more e-mails). In that case, we would expect the number of spams per message to stay roughly constant, because the spammers would have new people to send each e-mail to.
Yes, their conclusion depends on some assumptions, but I can believe that those assumptions are at least partly true.
Cost of lost sale - 75 cents
Cost of lost sales from people you share the song to - $749.25
1+1=3
You lost *something*, but what is that something? Remember, you are in court, and the burden of proof is entirely on you. Lost sales is the easiest to argue, but will get you peanuts in most cases (probably somewhere around the amount of money you made on the plagiarized art). You could argue that it hurt your image, but that's a whole new complicated ballpark. My original intended point was that while this could be pursued in court, it won't simply because of the massive amount of trouble involved. Harvard may have good lawyers, but lawyers don't work for free.
150,000 dollars is simply a maximum, isn't it? To receive this sum, you still need to argue that the amount you set per infringement is realistic. The reason why we don't witness this is because it never goes to court.
See http://www.bizreport.com/2006/11/riaa_under_fire_for_750_lawsuits_over_70_cent_songs.html
Are you referring to the RIAA/MPAA? If so, what they do isn't really legal. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA#File-sharing_lawsuits):
"In November, 2006, a Judge in a Brooklyn Federal court upheld the legal theory behind a defense claiming that the RIAA's damages theory -- which calls for aggregating statutory damages of $750 per song in its lawsuits -- is unconstitutional, since the record companies' actual damages are less than $0.70 per song."
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I was always under the impression that to convince a court to have one party pay another damages, you need to *prove* that you incurred those damages, in one form or another. The RIAA argues that it incurred statutory damages, and can therefore charge some insane amount per download; I don't know of many court cases were this was upheld, simply because the people who are being sued usually can't afford a proper defense. In this case, I think a bunch of lawyers can competently argue that they owe a few thousand bucks at most, which Harvard may decide is not worth the trouble or expense (that is my prediction).
I'm not a lawyer, but sue them for what? Don't you have to prove that you lost money when you are suing for damages? Clearly what the creationists did was illegal/immoral, but it seems like people are blowing this our of proportion. I think what will happen is the creationists will remove the video and "sort of" apologize for plagiarism - by sort of, I mean they'll blame some scapegoat who "didn't know better, and has been removed from the organization. "
To play devil's advocate, Microsoft could argue that if 95% of computers in the world run Windows, teaching kids Windows is quite valuable. I don't know about the developing world, but in the USA many jobs require some basic knowledge of Windows and Office.
What percentage of libraries/primary schools in the US have Linux installed on their public computers?
Sounds interesting, but is a map enough to understand the brain? I know in artificial neural networks, the actual structure isn't as important as the weights on the nodes. Will hitting the brain with electrons be enough to give us an understanding of these "weights", or just the connections between them?
Baltimore actually has a large poor white population, so I wasn't even thinking of race when I said "ignore Baltimore."
;)
The reason why I say ignore Baltimore is that it's so unlike the rest of Maryland. It contains a small % of the population, but it still biases statistics when talking about policy, economy, etc. After moving from the suburbs of Maryland to Baltimore, I realized that Baltimore has problems that are very deeply rooted and unrelated to the rest of the state. Unlike most cities, Baltimore is not contained in a larger county, so it manages itself. Majority of the state lives in dense suburbia in the triangle from DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis, and most policy decisions made by the state are made with this area in mind.
If the original poster intended to talk about immigrants near DC instead of Baltimore, then this is all irrelevant anyway
I'm sorry, but you really don't understand Maryland's economy. Yes, Maryland has a liberal, progressive economy. It attracts smart, educated people with (at least a few) excellent school systems, several good Universities, and a lot of industry. Just the biotech companies near DC alone would make many states salivate.
I'll admit its proximity to DC helps, but not in the way you seem to think. Maryland has a thriving economy that is entirely irrelvant to taxes, real estate or federal hangouts. I honestly have no idea what you base your argument that the state would collapse without federal help. I would like to see you site some sources on your fairly extreme claims...
Because I think the GP post was referring to citizens of Baltimore when he said:
"It's one more reason for those heavily dependent on government services to flock to and continue to live in the state..."
I was arguing that you have to ignore Baltimore, because most people from Baltimore were born and raised there - they really don't *flock* to Baltimore for handouts, a ridiculous statement. And, continuing to stay on topic, most citizens of Baltimore really are irrelvant to a tax on custom programming and IT.
Baltimore pays less of a role in the Maryland economy than you think. Its population is about a third of what you think it is, and it only serves to make Maryland look more poor than it is.
I think you exaggerate, Maryland is one of the wealthiest states in the country. Ignore Baltimore, and it really is near the top. Taxes don't attract anyone to Baltimore (most people who depend on the services there were born and raised in Baltimore). But strong school systems and good government services do attract people who contribute to the state.
Yes - taxes can hurt industry, but Maryland is doing great the way it is (ignoring Baltimore!)
The users demanded a less secure method because it was more convenient. They got what they asked for. Hushmail made it very clear in the process that they were giving up security, and the users still wanted it. We should be blaming the users for ruining Hushmail's reputation, not Hushmail for following the law.
Our discussion is in the context of something denser than air floating in air, so an object sitting on a desk is irrelvant...
Air has a certain density. Our theoretical object has a greater density. Gravity is constantly pushing both towards the Earth, with a force equal to mass*gravity. In this setting, gravity will do work on the object because it will move the object, thereby expending gravitational potential energy.
Why will gravity move the object? Because the denser-than-air object has a greater downward force than air, so it will displace the air to go below it. The reason why an object does not displace a desk, even if it more dense, is because the desk is held together by a strong electromagnetic force - ordinary atmospheric air is only held together at a molecular level, which easily slips through or around our object.
While I agree it may be *physically possible* to float in mid air without expending energy, it would require changing the properties of atmospheric air (or finding a way to stop air from being displaced by the denser object.) I'm guessing there is no proof that this is impossible, but there is no proof that it is possible either. In other words, it is an unanswered question; there may be a law waiting to be discovered that it is impossible.
But there is air pressure above you too, negating the air pressure below you.
We can keep sniping at each other like this, but can you give an example of *anything* that is heavier than air and can constantly overcome the force of gravity without expending energy?
Given a constant downward force, staying in the same position requires a constant upward force. That upward force requires energy, in some form.
When you go up stairs, you are storing potential energy, but it is not released because the building is supporting you. When you are floating (and heavier than air), energy is constantly being expended to overcome gravity, because nothing is supporting you from below.
The only reason why a helium balloon rises is because it is lighter than air - as it rises, its kinetic energy is depleted, and brining it back down would required energy.
The helium is still potential energy that has been stored in the Earth. You could think of an airplane as expending potential energy (fuel) to stay afloat.
To overcome the force of gravity, you need to expend energy that is proportional to the mass of what is afloat - either potential or kinetic.
Those companies, if they need the algorithms, should be sponsoring the teams because they can afford it. It's the people/companies that can't afford this kind of development that would really benefit from open source.
But it's not the product itself that would confuse a consumer, it's the box (unless a reasonable consumer is opening boxes at the store). Does the box trick the purchaser into thinking it is a controller for their Wii? From the gallery, we can't draw a conclusion. And if they are tricking people, you would think Walmart would voluntarily stop selling it to stop returns from people who bought it with/for their Wii.
Shouldn't we wait for some more specific information/evidence before we accuse Microsoft of bribery? If Mandriva stops short of this, perhaps we should too - after all, it's a serious charge.
I'm sure Microsoft had something to do with their decision, but *maybe* it simply came down to convincing Nigeria that its product was better. It sounds like they are giving Windows out for free, that may have impressed the Nigerian government, and does not constitute bribery.
That legislation could easily be bypassed by hardware vendors renting out the phones, very much like AT&T used to do. You no longer own the phone, you own a license to use it as long as you follow all the rules of that license.
Legislation is useless against immoral companies because they usually hire smart lawyers who are a step ahead of the congress. What the industry really needs is a competent competitor that reveals to the mass public how crappy the current phone situation is (Google?).
Funny, I was actually going to mention drugs, but decided not to because it's slightly off topic. It actually is a very good point, though. Creating different prices for drugs in different countries has the same purpose as software (there are slight differences -for one thing, if you don't provide cheap AIDS drugs to Africans, people will die).
But, yes, I am against Americans arbitraging drugs prices. What a lot of people don't know is that First World drug prices - especially in America - are high because we subsidize drugs for the rest of the world. Developing those AIDS cocktails that a lot of Africans use cost tens of billions of dollars in the USA. When an American pays for health insurance, he is indirectly paying for this R&D. There was an Economist article recently criticizing moderately wealthy countries, like Brazil, who were ignoring patents on drugs by offering generics. They made a good point - someone has to pay for the drugs that continues to increase the standard of living through the world. The drug industry has sort of become communist - the rich pay for the poor. This is a great thing IMO.