Bingo. That's the problem with any system like this-- how does the money get allocated?
So let's say every US man, woman, and child puts in $10 and you get something like $3 billion to distribute. Now what? Which bands does the money go to? All of them equally, and if so, how do you register as a "band" in order to get your cut? Or how does it get divided?
And does it only go to the 4 major record labels, or can indie labels get in on the action? If you let the indie labels in on the action, how do all the different indie labels plus the major companies negotiate a split of the money? If the major labels collude to make this deal while excluding independent labels, are there any legal anti-trust sort of issues involved? How do the labels split the money, and what portion goes to the band?
The whole thing just seems problematic to me. A better idea IMO would be a system where people were encouraged to contribute money to the particular bands that you like, and given safe/easy mechanisms to do so. Of course, the major record labels won't go for that because is lessens the need for major record labels.
I'd say it's past the uncanny valley. That's not to say that I can't tell it's fake. She looks a little fake. Something is wrong-- her face is too still or something. But she doesn't look like a zombie. She's not distractingly creepy. That's all they're really shooting for at the moment, right?
A client cert, stored on the computer, should NOT be considered one factor in a two factor scheme, because the client computer is far too easy to compromise.
Well insofar as the client is who you're trying to protect, if the client computer is compromised, then you're already f*$ked. From the client-end of things, it should be sufficient to know, "if I'm not already compromised, then I won't become compromised by doing this."
So client-end root certificates serve a very important function in the security system. If the client is good, and the trusted root server is giving good information, then the subsequent certs should all be good too. The problem here is what happens when the trusted root servers are giving bad information. The problem, in that case, is not that the scheme is bad, but that the trusted root servers are not doing their job because they aren't trustworthy.
Does he insert another girl into the pictures? I thought the idea was that he cropped his old girlfriend out, and then it's showing pictures he really did take with his new girlfriend.
If he's just cropping his old girlfriend out, then it's the same thing people have been doing for a hundred years with a pair of scissors.
Way to flame bait and make sweeping generalizations.
Maybe you meant to say, there is a very vocal group of apple users
that will not be ignored.... Less "bitch" in that...
I was somewhat hoping that it would be understood to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, particularly given that I go on to reveal that I'm an Apple customer with a 1st gen iPhone and Macbook. Stood in line for hours to get the iPhone on the first day.
But as part of that community, I'm saying we're a bunch of whiny bitches. Myself included. That's not to say that Apple machines don't have problems, but sometimes when you see a flood of complaints online that the new iPod model scratches too easily, you should take it with a grain of salt.
I wonder just how many of the problems we see with cell phones have to do with the way the carriers modify them?
Agreed. And how many of the usability problems are due to restrictions place on manufacturers by carriers?
But my original point was not "Motorola sucks!" I've used Motorola phones as my primary phone before, and I've been satisfied (though not quite happy) overall. But my original point was consumer electronics have loads of problems/bugs/glitches, but people seem to be more vocal about the problems they have with Apple products.
Yeah, I'm not dealing with RF performance. More with operation. So I see if it's a PITA to use, if it crashes a lot, if battery performance is bad, if sound quality is bad, etc. In my experience (which isn't quite limited, but also not quite extensive), Samsung and Nokia are better in those regards, and I've seen more problems with LG and Motorola. And it's not just bad batteries, though I've seen that more often with Motorola too, but I've gone through several Motorola phones that just turn themselves off, even when they still have battery power.
I was under the impression that Motorola's power problems (which I've seen on both GSM and CDMA) were virtually common knowledge, even though you don't see lots of complaints on the Internet about it. Just to round it out: Blackberries are also generally good, the couple of iPhones I've used have a few quirks but IMO other things more than make up for it.
My job actually involves (at times) testing things on various brands/models of mobile phones. There seems to be an ongoing problem with Motorola phones misreading the battery levels and randomly shutting off. Sometimes swapping batteries helps, and sometimes not. We've seen it from different models made in different years and purchased through different channels. Incidentally, many models also seem to have problems with their earpieces, making it hard to hear when using a Motorola phone.
I've gathered it's a bit of a known/accepted problem in the cell-phone industry, and nokia/samsung seem to be regarded as higher-quality (and my testing supports that).
I didn't think I was saying anything that people wouldn't already know, at least not for the most part.
Why not? Imagine you buy a book, and annotate it, then sell it on.
I'm sure that wouldn't even come up as an issue because it's innocuous. My understanding is that there are a couple of issues at play, but in general you can't change someone's work and then sell the changed version (either as the original work or as your own work). So I can't take your book, change the ending, and then distribute the modified version without a license.
So you're saying I have a complete right to make copies of software, so long as the copy is an "installation"?
Ok, so let's say I buy a single corporate copy of Windows, and then go around installing Windows on people's machines, charging $50 per install. And not paying Microsoft for the additional licenses.
Are you telling me that's fine and legal, and no one will stop me?
I think it is because it is a silly part of the license. What would you think if you pulled into a gas station and the attendant said "I'm sorry, we can't put gas into cars like yours." They aren't saying the gas won't work, it is just their choice to sell it only to certain car owners.
I know this isn't the exact same situation but I can walk into an Apple store and buy a copy of OS X and go home and install on it on a system that isn't Apple.
I don't think it is. It's a little more like: What would you think if Ford built a new kind of car running on a new form of gasoline, and then ran gas stations that sold this new form of gasoline to Ford owners at a discounted price (because it was being subsidized by their car sales). And then you show up in your Mazda demanding that they fill your tank, and they say, "Sorry, we only sell fuel to owners of this particular model of Ford."
I think suddenly it sounds a lot less ridiculous. But metaphors suck for these things. Gas and software aren't exactly the same thing.
It's fair compensation because it's what Apple charges.
If they want more money, they should charge more.
A seller's intent does not enter into it.
Yes, it does. Technically, legally, you still need some kind of license in order to install and operate software. We all might think that's unfortunate, but it's the law.
And that means that the seller is allowed (to some extent) to set the terms. Hell, Microsoft does it. They sell an OEM versions, upgrade versions, and full retail versions. And even if you buy the upgrade version, you're violating the license (and therefore the copyright) to use it unless you have an older version that qualifies you to use the upgrade version. If you download a trial version and then find a way to bypass the expiration, you're violating the copyright. Even if you download something that's free for non-commercial use, and you use it for commercial use, then you're violating the copyright.
Whether you'll ever be sued is a different issue. Whether you think it's fair is also a different issue. But the fact is that legally, in America at least, the seller of copyrighted works may have some level of control over how it's used. But under the law, Apple could definitely set different price points depending on whether it's for use on their own hardware.
The first case is pure copyright infringement - you can't just take a copy of someone else's copyright work and distribute (modified or unmodified) copies without falling foul of copyright law.
Yes, but you also can't take a copy of someone else's copyrighted work, make a modified copy, and then sell both the original and modified copy for the price of the original copy-- which is exactly what Psystar is doing in selling OSX pre-installed on their machines.
The thing is, it's not clear to me that the case hinges on the EULA. It clearly would if this were a case of Apple suing end-users who were installing OSX (after buying a copy) on non-Apple hardware. However, this is a case of a company selling (essentially) the OSX installation. So they are making a copy (to the hard drive) and then selling that copy. IANAL, but it seems like that's copying/distribution of copyrighted work without a license to do so. Seems like outright copyright infringement to me.
On the other hand, this "restore disk" may be an end-run around all that. If they stop offering pre-installation and sell you the hardware, a copy of OSX, and a restore disk that installs/patches OSX, then I don't see how Apple could sue them for copyright infringement. Unless, of course, this falls under some DMCA sort of thing where they'll be in trouble for providing a means to circumvent copy controls.
But then, if they go through all the trouble of creating a "restore disk", then I'm not sure what would stop people from pirating that restore disk and using it to install OSX on some other hardware vendor's product. It would be pretty ironic if they tried to use copy protection and copyright law to protect their restore disk.
To be fair, lots of hardware vendors have various sorts of problems. I've certainly seen laptops from Dell and Compaq that have weird problem (crashing when you plug in peripherals, random reboots, etc.) that were caused by hardware defects and design flaws (which were admitted by their tech support). The two things that have gained Apple a particular reputation are:
Apple doesn't have much variation in their line, so (for example) there are only 4 distinct designs across their laptop product range right now. Therefore, if a design flaw or bad piece of hardware pops up in one of their designs, it's going to hit at least 1/4 of their laptops. Dell, on the other hand, has 50 bazillion obscurely different models, so that diversity may make any given problem less wide-spread.
Apple's users are a bunch of whiny bitches. Sorry, but really, they are. You know, the sort of people where, if they're carrying an iPod in their pocket for a couple months and that iPod gets scratched, then it's a "design flaw". Meanwhile, most models Motorola cell phones have had power issues for the past 10 years, and you hardly hear word one about it.
I mean, when you're getting lots of customer complaints, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a bad product. Sometimes it means that your customers have very high expectations. I myself have bought multiple first-gen Apple products (including the Macbook Pro and iPhone) and haven't found the failure rate to be particularly out of line with other companies. Sure, that's just anecdotal evidence, but I worked helpdesk jobs for years, including supporting Dell, HP, and Apple products, so I don't think my anecdotal evidence is completely worthless. And one of the things I learned during that time was that all hardware vendors will sell you an occasional lemon. The good vendors are the ones who will fix or replace that lemon without too much hassle.
In fact, by letting (and therefore FORCING) all competitors to get doped, we're just throwing our money at the big pharmas. Is that what a sports competition is about?
Also, by effectively forcing all the competitors to get doped in order to stay competitive, you're also effectively forcing everyone who wants to try out to do the same thing. On down the chain it goes. So essentially every kid with dreams of making it into the Olympics will be encouraged to resort to increasingly dangerous performance enhancements from the get-go.
There's just no reason to condone these sorts of practices. The summary says, "Before you dismiss the notion, consider what we're stuck with today â" a system designed to create a level playing field, protect athletes' health and set an example for children, that fails on all counts." I don't see how encouraging athletes to out-steroid each other is going to help.
If you buy into those sorts of things, then you may as well say, "What if we allowed people to murder each other without legal consequences? Before you dismiss the notion, consider what we're stuck with today-- a system designed to protect people, discourage violence, and punish the guilty, that fails on all counts. People murder other people and get away with it, while other people are falsely accused."
If we can't make money out of it, it's not worth existing.
Unfortunately, it's more like, "If we can't make money off of it, then it's worth spending a chunk of money to make sure it doesn't exist so that we can ensure it's not competing the the media we can make money from."
I've never understood why this is considered a viable excuse for being terrible. "Oh, this movie sucks, but it's ok. It's intended for kids."??
Not to call you specifically out for this, but we wouldn't accept this excuse in other things. "Oh, it's ok that this baby food isn't nutritious at all. It's just for babies." That wouldn't really fly, would it? Or, "Our school system is terrible, but that's ok because it's just for kids."
I understand that kids might be more easily fooled into thinking that a movie is going to be great than adults. I also understand that, as a parent, you can't be on constant guard and fighting every one of these battles. But in my opinion, the fact that it's for kids means that it really should be *good*. And it's not as though it's an impossible feat to make a good movie that's kid-appropriate. Pixar, for example, has been doing it for years.
Most of the reason I'm making a point of saying this is that Lucas seems to be making horrible and stupid movies on the idea that it's appropriate to make dumb, meaningless, brain-dead movies because morons and kids will really enjoy the cheap humor. Part of the reason Ep 1 was so awful was because it was "for the kids", but if I had kids, I wouldn't particularly want them to be watching that sort of crap. I'd almost rather that kids were watching good movies that had a little sex and violence than shitty movies with absolutely no value. A lot of times, the adult themes go over the kids' heads anyway, and there's not much harm done. But if you expose them to movies with any kind of value, then some of that value might sink in.
The diversity of mankind is based on the small failures here and there.
The part that I'm not getting is, why do you want to call them "failures". That implies that there is some perfect human form that we're failing to live up to. And I guess that's a rather popular concept, but not particularly sensible, and very poorly supported.
More like there's a range of "normalcy", and then some outliers. Some of the outliers we deem to be advantageous and desirable, and some not. If an outlier is problematic and sufficiently far out from "normal", we call that a disease. When we have a method of bringing that outlier back into the range of "normal", we call that a cure.
But in all the possible permutations of "man", I don't see any reason to think that any form is "the right one" or even "correct". I don't see "failures" or "discards".
In robotics and AI there is often heated debate about what intelligence is. I believe that there is no clear link between intelligence and a physical form.
The study of intelligence extends a bit outside of robotics and AI, you know. And there, even in the broader study, there is a lot of debate. However, it's rare to find someone who thinks that physical form has no link to intelligence.
That's not to say that it's impossible for someone to have some sort of disease or malformation and still be intelligent. Saying that would be easily refuted by observation. However, it's clear that damaging the physical form of the brain can have effects on intelligence. It's also quite well-known and accepted that the level of exercise you get can have an effect on mental functions. Further, there are many who would argue (myself included) that the physical capabilities of a being *at the very least* have influence over the development of intelligence.
For example, I'll concede that Hawking is quite intelligent even while having extremely limited physical capabilities. However, this raises some very interesting questions: would he be equally intelligent if he had been afflicted with his current condition from birth? Is the capability of moving through the world and exercising your will a prerequisite for intelligence developing in the first place? Does Hawking's current condition affect his mental functions in some way now?
There is no deity responsible for this. What a reprehensible thought that an all powerful and all knowing deity would do this to people?
That doesn't seem too clear to me. It seems to disregard the possibility of an all-powerful deity who likes to keep things interesting. Maybe he likes to mix things up, keep us guessing. Maybe he likes to bring us down a notch now and then, and keep us humble. Or maybe all these "failures" aren't quite as defective as you like to think. None of us are capable of seeing all ends.
A random off-topic possibly-offensive example: I know some people who have argued that genetic homosexuality would be a defect, because there would be no evolutionary advantage to the trait-- it would be unlikely to be passed on. Ignoring for a second the questionability of using evolutionary fitness to determine morality, this also fails to take into account the complexity of evolution in social (pack) animals. I read an article not too long ago that suggested that incidence of homosexuality may be more frequent in crowded populations (even in animals), perhaps suggesting that it serves to diminish sexual competition among males in crowded situations.
Also, there are some studies which suggest that many "learning disabilities" aren't disabilities at all, but simply that people with those "disabilities" learn differently from the majority of the population. If we had tailored the education system to the "disabled" kids, then they would be very successful while the majority would appear to be "disabled".
Finally, in this case of the "genetic glitch" that prevents kids from learning, it's likely that this gene is very helpful in many ways. Learning too quickly, for example, could lead to disastrous results. Imagine if everyone stopped trying after the first failure. The first time I tried to read, I failed, so I learned it was a waste of time. The first time I tried to build a flying machine, I failed, and so I learned it was impossible. I wouldn't be surprised if it was, in fact, better for a group dynamic (small as a pack or big as China) to have some people who just never learn. I've known some people who probably have that "glitch" who manage to turn it into something semi-productive. They're just relentless.
Evidence? Historically Apple has shown a sometimes unhealthy obsession with controlling their own products, but I can't think of many examples where they've sabotaged anyone else's efforts. Plus, it would be much more difficult to pull the sorts of stunts that MS has, given that Apple has built many of their recent products around real standards and OSS.
Yeah, I'm just saying it's an issue of whether they're distorting the reality of what happened when they change the order of events. Like NBC might take a sport that has a big draw (women's beach volleyball?) and put it in prime-time even though it's really happening at 5am. Meanwhile, they might take something that they don't think as many people will watch and play it at 2pm, showing it hours before beach volleyball, in spite of the fact that it took place at 6am and therefore after beach volleyball.
And that seems fine to me, even if they're doing it to improve their ratings. Assuming there's no cross-over (some reason why it would be important to know the order of those events), it's probably not giving you any false impressions to watch them out of order.
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Bingo. That's the problem with any system like this-- how does the money get allocated?
So let's say every US man, woman, and child puts in $10 and you get something like $3 billion to distribute. Now what? Which bands does the money go to? All of them equally, and if so, how do you register as a "band" in order to get your cut? Or how does it get divided?
And does it only go to the 4 major record labels, or can indie labels get in on the action? If you let the indie labels in on the action, how do all the different indie labels plus the major companies negotiate a split of the money? If the major labels collude to make this deal while excluding independent labels, are there any legal anti-trust sort of issues involved? How do the labels split the money, and what portion goes to the band?
The whole thing just seems problematic to me. A better idea IMO would be a system where people were encouraged to contribute money to the particular bands that you like, and given safe/easy mechanisms to do so. Of course, the major record labels won't go for that because is lessens the need for major record labels.
I'd say it's past the uncanny valley. That's not to say that I can't tell it's fake. She looks a little fake. Something is wrong-- her face is too still or something. But she doesn't look like a zombie. She's not distractingly creepy. That's all they're really shooting for at the moment, right?
A client cert, stored on the computer, should NOT be considered one factor in a two factor scheme, because the client computer is far too easy to compromise.
Well insofar as the client is who you're trying to protect, if the client computer is compromised, then you're already f*$ked. From the client-end of things, it should be sufficient to know, "if I'm not already compromised, then I won't become compromised by doing this."
So client-end root certificates serve a very important function in the security system. If the client is good, and the trusted root server is giving good information, then the subsequent certs should all be good too. The problem here is what happens when the trusted root servers are giving bad information. The problem, in that case, is not that the scheme is bad, but that the trusted root servers are not doing their job because they aren't trustworthy.
Does he insert another girl into the pictures? I thought the idea was that he cropped his old girlfriend out, and then it's showing pictures he really did take with his new girlfriend.
If he's just cropping his old girlfriend out, then it's the same thing people have been doing for a hundred years with a pair of scissors.
Apple's users are a bunch of whiny bitches.
Way to flame bait and make sweeping generalizations. Maybe you meant to say, there is a very vocal group of apple users that will not be ignored.... Less "bitch" in that...
I was somewhat hoping that it would be understood to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, particularly given that I go on to reveal that I'm an Apple customer with a 1st gen iPhone and Macbook. Stood in line for hours to get the iPhone on the first day.
But as part of that community, I'm saying we're a bunch of whiny bitches. Myself included. That's not to say that Apple machines don't have problems, but sometimes when you see a flood of complaints online that the new iPod model scratches too easily, you should take it with a grain of salt.
I wonder just how many of the problems we see with cell phones have to do with the way the carriers modify them?
Agreed. And how many of the usability problems are due to restrictions place on manufacturers by carriers?
But my original point was not "Motorola sucks!" I've used Motorola phones as my primary phone before, and I've been satisfied (though not quite happy) overall. But my original point was consumer electronics have loads of problems/bugs/glitches, but people seem to be more vocal about the problems they have with Apple products.
Yeah, I'm not dealing with RF performance. More with operation. So I see if it's a PITA to use, if it crashes a lot, if battery performance is bad, if sound quality is bad, etc. In my experience (which isn't quite limited, but also not quite extensive), Samsung and Nokia are better in those regards, and I've seen more problems with LG and Motorola. And it's not just bad batteries, though I've seen that more often with Motorola too, but I've gone through several Motorola phones that just turn themselves off, even when they still have battery power.
I was under the impression that Motorola's power problems (which I've seen on both GSM and CDMA) were virtually common knowledge, even though you don't see lots of complaints on the Internet about it. Just to round it out: Blackberries are also generally good, the couple of iPhones I've used have a few quirks but IMO other things more than make up for it.
Yeah, I read it, but it doesn't change things. You still can't just go around copying/installing software without a license.
My job actually involves (at times) testing things on various brands/models of mobile phones. There seems to be an ongoing problem with Motorola phones misreading the battery levels and randomly shutting off. Sometimes swapping batteries helps, and sometimes not. We've seen it from different models made in different years and purchased through different channels. Incidentally, many models also seem to have problems with their earpieces, making it hard to hear when using a Motorola phone.
I've gathered it's a bit of a known/accepted problem in the cell-phone industry, and nokia/samsung seem to be regarded as higher-quality (and my testing supports that).
I didn't think I was saying anything that people wouldn't already know, at least not for the most part.
Why not? Imagine you buy a book, and annotate it, then sell it on.
I'm sure that wouldn't even come up as an issue because it's innocuous. My understanding is that there are a couple of issues at play, but in general you can't change someone's work and then sell the changed version (either as the original work or as your own work). So I can't take your book, change the ending, and then distribute the modified version without a license.
So you're saying I have a complete right to make copies of software, so long as the copy is an "installation"?
Ok, so let's say I buy a single corporate copy of Windows, and then go around installing Windows on people's machines, charging $50 per install. And not paying Microsoft for the additional licenses.
Are you telling me that's fine and legal, and no one will stop me?
I think it is because it is a silly part of the license. What would you think if you pulled into a gas station and the attendant said "I'm sorry, we can't put gas into cars like yours." They aren't saying the gas won't work, it is just their choice to sell it only to certain car owners.
I know this isn't the exact same situation but I can walk into an Apple store and buy a copy of OS X and go home and install on it on a system that isn't Apple.
I don't think it is. It's a little more like: What would you think if Ford built a new kind of car running on a new form of gasoline, and then ran gas stations that sold this new form of gasoline to Ford owners at a discounted price (because it was being subsidized by their car sales). And then you show up in your Mazda demanding that they fill your tank, and they say, "Sorry, we only sell fuel to owners of this particular model of Ford."
I think suddenly it sounds a lot less ridiculous. But metaphors suck for these things. Gas and software aren't exactly the same thing.
Hmmm... right. So then why isn't Psystar just installing Darwin on their computers and avoiding this whole mess?
It's fair compensation because it's what Apple charges.
If they want more money, they should charge more.
A seller's intent does not enter into it.
Yes, it does. Technically, legally, you still need some kind of license in order to install and operate software. We all might think that's unfortunate, but it's the law.
And that means that the seller is allowed (to some extent) to set the terms. Hell, Microsoft does it. They sell an OEM versions, upgrade versions, and full retail versions. And even if you buy the upgrade version, you're violating the license (and therefore the copyright) to use it unless you have an older version that qualifies you to use the upgrade version. If you download a trial version and then find a way to bypass the expiration, you're violating the copyright. Even if you download something that's free for non-commercial use, and you use it for commercial use, then you're violating the copyright.
Whether you'll ever be sued is a different issue. Whether you think it's fair is also a different issue. But the fact is that legally, in America at least, the seller of copyrighted works may have some level of control over how it's used. But under the law, Apple could definitely set different price points depending on whether it's for use on their own hardware.
The first case is pure copyright infringement - you can't just take a copy of someone else's copyright work and distribute (modified or unmodified) copies without falling foul of copyright law.
Yes, but you also can't take a copy of someone else's copyrighted work, make a modified copy, and then sell both the original and modified copy for the price of the original copy-- which is exactly what Psystar is doing in selling OSX pre-installed on their machines.
The thing is, it's not clear to me that the case hinges on the EULA. It clearly would if this were a case of Apple suing end-users who were installing OSX (after buying a copy) on non-Apple hardware. However, this is a case of a company selling (essentially) the OSX installation. So they are making a copy (to the hard drive) and then selling that copy. IANAL, but it seems like that's copying/distribution of copyrighted work without a license to do so. Seems like outright copyright infringement to me.
On the other hand, this "restore disk" may be an end-run around all that. If they stop offering pre-installation and sell you the hardware, a copy of OSX, and a restore disk that installs/patches OSX, then I don't see how Apple could sue them for copyright infringement. Unless, of course, this falls under some DMCA sort of thing where they'll be in trouble for providing a means to circumvent copy controls.
But then, if they go through all the trouble of creating a "restore disk", then I'm not sure what would stop people from pirating that restore disk and using it to install OSX on some other hardware vendor's product. It would be pretty ironic if they tried to use copy protection and copyright law to protect their restore disk.
To be fair, lots of hardware vendors have various sorts of problems. I've certainly seen laptops from Dell and Compaq that have weird problem (crashing when you plug in peripherals, random reboots, etc.) that were caused by hardware defects and design flaws (which were admitted by their tech support). The two things that have gained Apple a particular reputation are:
I mean, when you're getting lots of customer complaints, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a bad product. Sometimes it means that your customers have very high expectations. I myself have bought multiple first-gen Apple products (including the Macbook Pro and iPhone) and haven't found the failure rate to be particularly out of line with other companies. Sure, that's just anecdotal evidence, but I worked helpdesk jobs for years, including supporting Dell, HP, and Apple products, so I don't think my anecdotal evidence is completely worthless. And one of the things I learned during that time was that all hardware vendors will sell you an occasional lemon. The good vendors are the ones who will fix or replace that lemon without too much hassle.
In fact, by letting (and therefore FORCING) all competitors to get doped, we're just throwing our money at the big pharmas. Is that what a sports competition is about?
Also, by effectively forcing all the competitors to get doped in order to stay competitive, you're also effectively forcing everyone who wants to try out to do the same thing. On down the chain it goes. So essentially every kid with dreams of making it into the Olympics will be encouraged to resort to increasingly dangerous performance enhancements from the get-go.
There's just no reason to condone these sorts of practices. The summary says, "Before you dismiss the notion, consider what we're stuck with today â" a system designed to create a level playing field, protect athletes' health and set an example for children, that fails on all counts." I don't see how encouraging athletes to out-steroid each other is going to help.
If you buy into those sorts of things, then you may as well say, "What if we allowed people to murder each other without legal consequences? Before you dismiss the notion, consider what we're stuck with today-- a system designed to protect people, discourage violence, and punish the guilty, that fails on all counts. People murder other people and get away with it, while other people are falsely accused."
If we can't make money out of it, it's not worth existing.
Unfortunately, it's more like, "If we can't make money off of it, then it's worth spending a chunk of money to make sure it doesn't exist so that we can ensure it's not competing the the media we can make money from."
I think this one is indeed more for kids.
I've never understood why this is considered a viable excuse for being terrible. "Oh, this movie sucks, but it's ok. It's intended for kids."??
Not to call you specifically out for this, but we wouldn't accept this excuse in other things. "Oh, it's ok that this baby food isn't nutritious at all. It's just for babies." That wouldn't really fly, would it? Or, "Our school system is terrible, but that's ok because it's just for kids."
I understand that kids might be more easily fooled into thinking that a movie is going to be great than adults. I also understand that, as a parent, you can't be on constant guard and fighting every one of these battles. But in my opinion, the fact that it's for kids means that it really should be *good*. And it's not as though it's an impossible feat to make a good movie that's kid-appropriate. Pixar, for example, has been doing it for years.
Most of the reason I'm making a point of saying this is that Lucas seems to be making horrible and stupid movies on the idea that it's appropriate to make dumb, meaningless, brain-dead movies because morons and kids will really enjoy the cheap humor. Part of the reason Ep 1 was so awful was because it was "for the kids", but if I had kids, I wouldn't particularly want them to be watching that sort of crap. I'd almost rather that kids were watching good movies that had a little sex and violence than shitty movies with absolutely no value. A lot of times, the adult themes go over the kids' heads anyway, and there's not much harm done. But if you expose them to movies with any kind of value, then some of that value might sink in.
The diversity of mankind is based on the small failures here and there.
The part that I'm not getting is, why do you want to call them "failures". That implies that there is some perfect human form that we're failing to live up to. And I guess that's a rather popular concept, but not particularly sensible, and very poorly supported.
More like there's a range of "normalcy", and then some outliers. Some of the outliers we deem to be advantageous and desirable, and some not. If an outlier is problematic and sufficiently far out from "normal", we call that a disease. When we have a method of bringing that outlier back into the range of "normal", we call that a cure.
But in all the possible permutations of "man", I don't see any reason to think that any form is "the right one" or even "correct". I don't see "failures" or "discards".
In robotics and AI there is often heated debate about what intelligence is. I believe that there is no clear link between intelligence and a physical form.
The study of intelligence extends a bit outside of robotics and AI, you know. And there, even in the broader study, there is a lot of debate. However, it's rare to find someone who thinks that physical form has no link to intelligence.
That's not to say that it's impossible for someone to have some sort of disease or malformation and still be intelligent. Saying that would be easily refuted by observation. However, it's clear that damaging the physical form of the brain can have effects on intelligence. It's also quite well-known and accepted that the level of exercise you get can have an effect on mental functions. Further, there are many who would argue (myself included) that the physical capabilities of a being *at the very least* have influence over the development of intelligence.
For example, I'll concede that Hawking is quite intelligent even while having extremely limited physical capabilities. However, this raises some very interesting questions: would he be equally intelligent if he had been afflicted with his current condition from birth? Is the capability of moving through the world and exercising your will a prerequisite for intelligence developing in the first place? Does Hawking's current condition affect his mental functions in some way now?
I'm glad someone else posted that correction. It struck me too, but didn't want to be the spelling police on that one.
There is no deity responsible for this. What a reprehensible thought that an all powerful and all knowing deity would do this to people?
That doesn't seem too clear to me. It seems to disregard the possibility of an all-powerful deity who likes to keep things interesting. Maybe he likes to mix things up, keep us guessing. Maybe he likes to bring us down a notch now and then, and keep us humble. Or maybe all these "failures" aren't quite as defective as you like to think. None of us are capable of seeing all ends.
A random off-topic possibly-offensive example: I know some people who have argued that genetic homosexuality would be a defect, because there would be no evolutionary advantage to the trait-- it would be unlikely to be passed on. Ignoring for a second the questionability of using evolutionary fitness to determine morality, this also fails to take into account the complexity of evolution in social (pack) animals. I read an article not too long ago that suggested that incidence of homosexuality may be more frequent in crowded populations (even in animals), perhaps suggesting that it serves to diminish sexual competition among males in crowded situations.
Also, there are some studies which suggest that many "learning disabilities" aren't disabilities at all, but simply that people with those "disabilities" learn differently from the majority of the population. If we had tailored the education system to the "disabled" kids, then they would be very successful while the majority would appear to be "disabled".
Finally, in this case of the "genetic glitch" that prevents kids from learning, it's likely that this gene is very helpful in many ways. Learning too quickly, for example, could lead to disastrous results. Imagine if everyone stopped trying after the first failure. The first time I tried to read, I failed, so I learned it was a waste of time. The first time I tried to build a flying machine, I failed, and so I learned it was impossible. I wouldn't be surprised if it was, in fact, better for a group dynamic (small as a pack or big as China) to have some people who just never learn. I've known some people who probably have that "glitch" who manage to turn it into something semi-productive. They're just relentless.
The "I Am Rich" app hasn't been blacklisted or had its certificate revoked AFAIK. They just stopped selling it.
So yeah, we're just talking about removing it from iTMS.
Evidence? Historically Apple has shown a sometimes unhealthy obsession with controlling their own products, but I can't think of many examples where they've sabotaged anyone else's efforts. Plus, it would be much more difficult to pull the sorts of stunts that MS has, given that Apple has built many of their recent products around real standards and OSS.
Yeah, I'm just saying it's an issue of whether they're distorting the reality of what happened when they change the order of events. Like NBC might take a sport that has a big draw (women's beach volleyball?) and put it in prime-time even though it's really happening at 5am. Meanwhile, they might take something that they don't think as many people will watch and play it at 2pm, showing it hours before beach volleyball, in spite of the fact that it took place at 6am and therefore after beach volleyball.
And that seems fine to me, even if they're doing it to improve their ratings. Assuming there's no cross-over (some reason why it would be important to know the order of those events), it's probably not giving you any false impressions to watch them out of order.