I think you are approaching the problem wrong. I can't, ever, calculate as fast as a computer can. forget a modern computer, I can't calculate as fast as the oldest computers out there (and I'm betting you can't either). I have no doubt about your inability to beat computers at raw calculation speeds either (and if you could, more processors means you don't).
the problem is, when I play chess (or the coule times I've tried go), I don't sit there and randomly think of each and every move out there. inthe beginning of the game I don't think about taking my queen out and making 4 moves with her in a row and returning her to where she started.
according to the description, that ist he equivalent of what this computer is doing. monte carlo simulations of the game from current position and look for the move with the most winning nodes. but that is worthless if you can't build logic to ignore useless moves.
I am amazed at the number of possibilities a computer can look at in a second and astounded that something has the excess computational ability and memory to waste time considering such moves.
strong computer chess players stopped going at the game randomly and learned to score each position as it stood for strength. go computers still can't do that because people don't fully understand why one position is stronger than another (not always, but almost never in an algorithmic way). the need for such massive computational power simply implies we don't understand the dynamics of the game in a rational way (rather, we understand it on a more creative level).
you've got it wrong. Mill's tyranny of the majority is still just a belief system. if everyone in a society does not hold to that(or the vast majority) there is no reason for the laws of society to reflect that belief.
I'm not saying I would choose to live in that society, but I do know society changes to reflect the current people living in an area, not some historical ideal. There are societies built on that ideal and there are fully functional societies that reject the ideal. there is no reason why my statement is false because you have a certain viewpoint on what defines liberty.
now I"m not saying I don't hold the same viewpoint. but I think it's closed minded to expect a society's legal system to stagnate even while it's culture, population, and belief system change dramatically.
as his principle is broadly defined as "do as you will as long as it doesn't harm another person", even muslim law in the strictest sense can fit under such an umbrella. the problem , of course, is defining what is harm and how much of it is acceptable.
I never said Muslims don't believe in the Quran. I am simply stating that the old testament has just as outdated lines in it and no one assumes Jews or Christians believe in any of them except a few fundamentalists. If you are so narrow minded to have never had the discussion with Muslims, then it would explain why you don't know that most Muslims do not believe in the literal meaning of those lines.
You point to Muslims wanting a faith based tribunal to settle family disputes as an example and then don't talk about the fact that those extreme Jews and Catholics already are granted such a system. I see no reason why such a leniency should be afforded one religion and not another. I would say none are proper but I don't see why it's wrong for another religious minority to ask for the same allowances already given to some groups in a country.
In fact, I'm going to let you in on a little secret to broaden your intelligence. Most Muslims aren't suicide bombers. I know, it's hard to believe when you think all of them follow the Quran's literal word. But I'll let you in on another secret. The Quran isn't the only religious text and definitely is only the beginning of Islam.
Another major part of Islam for some is the Haditha. I have Muslim friends who believe in it's complete veracity, others who believe it is a collection of wives tales to scare children, and still others in between. But many of the social and religious restrictions placed on Muslims is derived from these texts, not the Quran. In fact, following the Quran strictly, it is perfectly ok to drink alcohol but it is considered against Islam. This lies in the cultural evolution of the middle east, not the religion.
I don't deny there are fundamentalists in Islam, but to be so ignorant to think that all Muslims share those beliefs is really staggering.
As to your lack of knowledge of the Hindu Caste system:
and a meaningful quote: The castes did not constitute a rigid description of the occupation or the social status of a group. Since British society was divided by class, the British attempted to equate the Indian caste system to their own social class system. They saw caste as an indicator of occupation, social standing, and intellectual ability.[30] Intentionally or unintentionally, the caste system became more rigid during the British Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during the ten year census and codified the system under their rule.
As to why Britain doesn't have a caste system but imposed a strict one, it has to do with their interpretation of local law. The mistakenly believed the laws of Manu were national laws even though it's precepts were only sporadically followed (and not at all in some areas) in India.
I hope you actually read the links. you may learn castes have nothing to do with ethnicity, skin color, or physical features. The entire system is purely based on the job you choose to do and traditionally, was not confining (i.e. what your father did set no requirements on your job). In fact, the Rig Vega speaks of a family where the mother is a farmer, the father is a merchant, and the son is a musician and nothing disparaging or inappropriate is said about this structure.
the people in india who bare discrimination are the Chandalas, a group traditionally not in the caste system at all. They were and are discriminated against but this is why india has some of the most pervasive affirmative action laws. In fact, when my parents were growing up, 60% of seats in the public medical colleges were held for military or lower caste families.
now I challenge you to show me a single criminal law in India which discriminates based on caste (and I'm not talking about some backwater tribal village, that would be like equating US law with the happenings in the cult Texas).
if you have set up your country such that 60% can create oppression, then it's your system. change it. it's that simple. if you want your system to better underscore the freedoms you believe in, change it.
if over 100 years you can't get a growing minority to share your values of freedom, then you have more fundamental problems than democracy. there is a fundamental problem with immigration and social policy in the country.
so what's your point? if in 100 years 99% of Europe are devout muslims, what's wrong with the majority in that country changing the laws to reflect the culture of the new society?
if the current culture that holds power wishes to retain it, they need to quit being such wimps and go out and forcefully integrate all the immigrants. it's not that hard, it's why you have public schools and forced diversity in those schools. those two things, along with attempts to diversity communities as best as possible rather than keeping minorities in isolation do wonders to integrate groups.
besides the fact that most religions have lines in them like your quote from the quran (that most modern people don't believe), your classification of the Vedas is just ignorant (I'm not saying this with spite, just as a statement).
The vedas call for a division of labor along what you are most suited to do. There is no call in any of the Vedas for racism against different groups. The Laws of Manu (manava dharmasastra) created the social stratification and put certain groups up for particularly harsh treatment. But, this was never seen as either a religious law or nationally guiding principal ( as many doubted it's veracity) until Europeans came to India. As the English rewrote laws, it uses the Dharmasastras as a guide even though historically, they never were.
Many of those caste rules set down in that book are contradictory to the core texts of Hinduism (Vedas, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita) and their ascendancy has little to due with Hinduism as compared to a power grab by people. Don't mix up cultural and religious precepts. It is similar to how Southerners used to point to the bible for race based slavery when it had never been interpreted as such before.
uh.... this is why copyright law was invented in the first place, because things we value could be copied freely thereby removing the incentive to create.
copyright law allows the free market to decide which types of art get funding(i.e. everyone gets to vote) rather than how it used to be, a few very wealthy patrons + the government determining a large body of artwork out there.
In the case of art works, the original has no value without some type of restriction of reproduction.
This, in the end, is just one of those funny verdicts that makes me think of Dr. Evil. Torrent Spy did break the law as it has already been interpreted. It would have taken a great case and no shady actions by them to pull off a victory(though it was possible). But then, who cares if it's a 110 mm dollar verdict or 1mm dollar verdict. The company doesn't have 7 figures of money... I doubt it has 6 figures of money even after taking into account the value of all it's assets. They have probably been draining most cash and assets to pay for lawyers for the last 2 years so the MPAA really gets absolutely nothing in the end.
The debate shouldn't be about what the courts ought to have done(the interpreted the law as is). The debate should be about what copyright law needs to be modified to in the 21st century. of course, as long as it remains just this easy to break copyright laws, I doubt anyone will expend the energy or political clout to tackle this issue. It's just not worth it for the vast majority of people. The RIAA has probably not even gotten around to suing 10,000 people. That is against probably 80 million people in the US committing infringement (and countless more around the world). Really, what kind of political movement can be started by 10,000 people who had to pay a 3k fine? We have bigger problems (really, we do in this country) to worry about what kind of fine you should pay for breaking a long standing law.
one problem with bare bones windows is that due to antitrust law suits, MS isn't allowed to include massive amounts of free software to do all the little things. That is considered anticompetitive.... I mean, they had to release a version without WMP for europe. imagine if they included a full cd/dvd burning suite, word processor, spreadsheet, image editor, etc. for free with windows?
everyone computer manufacturer realizes you are DOA without this stuff installed, which is why they do it for you. same with linux distros.
so they you are basically giving everyone else a leg up when you want nothing 'additional' installed. comparing apples to apples really means comparing the most likely way you get linux compared to the most likely way you get windows.
with itunes: 4 billion downloads = 4 billion tracks
with wal mart: 4 billion units sold = 4 billion *(% fo sales as singles) + 4 billion * (1 - % of sales as singles) * 10 (ish)
what's the percent?
does walmart release how many tracks it has sold? I never trust these numbers because they seem to be complete BS..
Re:For me, this story crossed a line. ATI excellen
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 4, Informative
have you done any fundamental looks at AMD's balance sheet, income statement, or CF statements? have you seen how the stock has performed over the last 2.5 years?it's stock has been in a precipitous downward spiral. If you were long AMD for the last 2 years, you have basically been crushed.
now, why is it down? well, look at their earnings. they have done pitiful. turns out in a slugout pricewar, intel can stay profitable while AMD is on the ropes. last year they lost money and continue to show no signs of recovering from their tech deficit they have again built against Intel. Now adays, the fastest AMD chip not on the market yet is slower than what intel already has at full production.
FYI: they last 166 million dollars last year. I'm not sure why this looks like manipulation as compared to just poor performance by the company without much of an end in sight.
oh, and my disclaimer: following my advice will hurt my long position in AMD.
but you've got a bad example. you will either die of AIDS or the treatment will kill you. there are few diseases like this. you may not like the results of having to treat your diabetes and you may choose to not do the treatment, but if you properly manage your weight, food, and exercise you can live a perfectly normal, healthy life without complications. Blindness, amputations, and organ failure are a result of NOT treating your diabetes. These same things for AIDS are a result of the TREATMENT itself. AIDS kills. we've just been able to extend the time horizon from 10 or 12 years to 20 to 25 years. we are not anywhere near a point where we can say the disease can be managed without causing complications for a regular person without other health problems.
we are at that level with diabetes. the problem with diabetes (and why we continue to see complications from teh disease) is people lacking the willpower to prevent diabetes (especially the far more common adult-onset) generally lack the will power to handle the treatment. Notice many people with childhood diabetes (I actually only know them by the old names, though now kids are so fat they get adult onset diabetes in alarming numbers, so substitute type I and type II if required) actually continue to live full lives with no side effects other than having to take insulin treatments.
This is, again , the real difference between other chronic diseases and people trying to lie to the world and call AIDS chronic. my bad knees are a chronic problem. I can live a completely normal life with minimal anti inflammatory treatments and some added care and my lifespan is not notably effected.
Aids is a death sentence. you just have to pick your time horizon. people who have been on antiretrovirals for 15 years are now feeling the effects of basically putting a poison in your body daily for so long. they have severe medical problems that are very expensive to treat and find themselves unable to function. 40 year olds look like they are 65 and have health problems on a similar scale.
it's just when you die of kidney failure at 45 have 18 years on the drugs, we don't say AIDS killed you, but that is hiding the issue that still exists.
do you actually believe that Universities won't get their funding? what imagination land are you living in. you are actually implying that school won't capitulate. it turns out, when you talk to administrators, they don't give a flying f*** if their students want to download music and would prefer they don't because it costs them real bandwidth. Most schools will happily oblige after lobbying congress to say they will gladly comply with this law as long as the MPAA and RIAA can provide them with said software to police their networks(and of course, extra funding for the computational power required + a bit more).
everyone seems to think this doom and gloom scenario of universities holding out for the little guy, protecting our rights to pirate music and keeping things in a civil court of law, but that just doesn't happen. your desire to listen to britney spears ranks about 1000th on the list of a regular administrator, right above whether to use sporks or spoons and forks in the cafeteria.
Now, why do they not care a lick about this? because their job is to actually give people an education, not an internet connection.
"I'm certainly not going to be a happy camper if I have to switch to a Mac or Linux system full-time, yet that is exactly where this scatterbrained company seems to be sending me."
and actually, it's singular in the text you quoted before. quoting you: ---
"I'm certainly not going to be a happy camper if I have to switch to a Mac or Linux system full-time, yet that is exactly where this scatterbrained company seems to be sending me."
Why would that be so bad? As someone who uses all 3 operating systems daily (XP, not Vista), this new iMac way outshines the rest. What a dork. If MS is that bad than stop using it.
the scatterbrained company is MS. MS is screwing up so baddly because it is scatterbrained that at some point in the near future, mac/linux may actually be better than windows.
it's the closest I can get to. so following these points, the most I can see people paying for windows in 50$. I've seen several other quotes online that MS charges Dell 25 to 50$ but with the bloatware they throw on, the actual cost to Dell is significantly less. It's not something where we can see the total contracts to value it, but my gut says these numbers are roughly right. Notice I am drawing a line between what I pay and how much money goes into the pockets of MS. I have no doubt these are two very different numbers.
I think the discussion should be framed purely around where copyrights should be. Are current tenors too long and do we penalize too sharply for violations. Is it in any way a method of securing income for an artist for a limited time. Along with this is how binding we want copyrights to be as a society. I don't have a problem with record labels taking part in this discussion and frankly, they seem to be the only ones that care to(engage in the discussion) and I think the actions of our government are showing that. But there is no reason I see why a book should be treated different from a movie or a song.
here is my issue with your radiohead argument. I realize now in a rush (i'm at work in another country so I basically do this on breaks) I failed miserably in pointing out why they are a terrible example.
The fact that people paid DOES NOT mean people are paying for music due to quality or ease of use. They are paying out of CHARITY. There are huge write ups about this going on in economics about what it means for the future of the music market. If those 40% of fans were paying for ease of use or quality, then some minimum price would have sufficed. But they had the option to pay 0 and chose to give money to the band out of whatever (the warm fuzzy feeling of helping a band, sticking it to the labels, whatever you want to call it). If it's the warm fuzzy feeling, it goes really well in line with charity. This implies something about the charitable work of certain fans, but less so about the market paying for an item.
I'm not going to say that charity is easy to define any further than the nebulous paragraph above, but I've never read anything that really helps quantify it.
As to CD sales at a concert, if I have been told correctly, when you are signed to a label those are not part of concert revenues but rather, CD revenues which go into the same machine as sales at wal-mart. This is why I lump that into cd sales rather than concert revenues. I could very well be wrong and if you have a site to point to with drafts of basic contracts, I'd like to see it out of curiosity.
As to windows, all I can say is I know a grand total of 4 people that have ever paid 300$ for windows. The other 400 or so paid about 25 dollars(or got it free depending on how you look at it) and it was legal. The false idea that most users are stuck between paying 300$ to upgrade windows or do without is false and does not represent the vast majority of how people get an OS. Traditionally, your choice was to pay 300$ to upgrade, to buy a new computer and either have it be a Mac or a PC (or do without); it was never just a choice between 300$ for the OS or changing systems. but again, this is neither here nor there.
I'm out of time, so I understand this post is a bit thin on good content and heavy on rambling.....
completely agreed. but the question about the government granted monopoly is a question of US economic policy and piracy either becomes a non-issue or some level of illegal depending on how we resolve that issue.
you're right, downloading has shown that there is large demand at a price of 0. whoopie, that doesn't help a company in any way shape or form figure out what is the correct way to do business. it simply states that if you make your product available for free, people will buy it. I submit radiohead did well for the same reason charities can get money: people felt like they ought to give them some cash for their work. this does not mean radiohead 10 years ago would have seen anywhere near that level(if they were starting today, that is) and 2.40$ is a legitimate amount they could demand from any record company for their cd's.
that a popular band finds fans loyal enough to pay them is equivalent of me bringing up metallica as a band against piracy : NEITHER are in any way average. Both are incredibly popular bands that can do just fine. I only personally know 2 artists(successfully making a career in music) and I can say both turn most of their money by sales of cd's after small scale concerts. they earn just barely enough to do concerts.
the market is simple: any way buyers and sellers come together and can communicate through actions the prices they are willing to deal at. piracy is NOT the market because it lacks 1/2 the equation: the seller.
I'm not saying I care if record companies go out of business. I frankly don't really care if every musician goes broke because I download their music. But I am very aware that my actions state a simple fact: I have choices between paying 0 and x$ after deciding I would like to consume, even if I value the object at 10*x, I will still pay 0$. I have heard many people talk about this mythical third option of just not consuming, but the fact that the downloading scene is so massive and vibrant(probably rivaling record sales in a given year) leads me to believe that overall music consumption is UP, not down in the last few years. So either music is better now than it used to be, or it's just as good and the massive price discount of 0 really helps boost demand. or somewhere in between. or music is worse and free is just that damn attractive. it's hard to say which given how dynamic the market is.
but I do know that without a functioning price mechanism(one where you do without or consume at a price that is agreeable) you cannot argue the market is actually communicating much meaningful info. Do I think the days of the cd are over? definitely. You couldn't pay me to buy a cd. you also couldn't ever make me agree to pay for a low quality download. and now that I have the torrents, it's doubtful you'll get me to pay for any music at all.
as to your questions about MS having the tech to lock down their product: They didn't. If you believe that, then you'll have to explain to me how, now when they are trying, they are failing just as miserably (as is every other company attempting to do it). yeah, yeah, I know it was rhetorical, but it begs the question. I don't expect an answer, I understand it's extremely complex.
a few points: I've never once seen a 14 year old tithe any real amount of money to any war chest of a corporation. It's always those kids who looked forward to playing tiny sums into the chest that became the big consumers later. The danger is if the 14 year old learns and gets confortable with bit torrent, he will NEVER have any reason to pay for music again.
I've seen people who can't figure out how to install a program(any program) learn to use bit torrent in under 20 minutes. It's amazing what a financial incentive can do. So 20 minutes and you will never have to pay for music again... and it's better quality than any online store even comes close to offering.
mix tapes are not in any way equivalent to what I can do now. If my girlfriend burns me a cd of 10 songs I like to listen to in my car, it's trivial. If I download the entire garth brooks, michael jackson, beatles, alan jackson, and 3 more artists COMPLETE works in 1 night, it's a different story. It's hard to compare the losses between the two. I have no reason, ever, to pay for any of this music outside of a warm feeling of supporting an artist. Concerts are not an equivalent form of paid work for an artist and it's ignorant to think it is. paid for distribution of music allows for everyone who likes an artist to enjoy music and support an artist (as a career) even when they are limited geographically for one of many reasons (including a lack of density of fans to actually make money at each concert).
The problem with downloading is it completely distorts the market. The market works because if there is a product people want, the market can reach a price where it clears. But the key method in which the market communicates information is by a price. All we currently know is that 20$ is too much and 0$ has lots of demand. Well guess what? it doesn't take a genius to see that people will consume your product for FREE. And when 0$ as a reliable option exists, no price you set will communicate real information from the markets. For all we know, if free downloading didn't exist, maybe 20$ would be the level CD's would continue to clear at and now, the only benefit of paying for music is ease of distribution. It means the market has real problems pricing the value of music to the consumer and coming to a proper level.
there are amazing benefits! I'm a huge fan of a very very simple system: a flat tax + deduction at source + tax all income the same + file IF you want to claim deductions
this simplifies taxes by a great deal. you don't even have to have a flat tax if you tax different types of income differently, but that just makes the code unfair/biased towards certain income streams.
I make decent money, but for me to file my taxes, I HAVE to hire a professional (or this time around, learn the tax codes for Japan, the US, and England). Japan in the only tax code I can file in a simple and straight forward manner. The US is completely convoluted crap. I would happily pay 1 or 2k more in taxes each year if I just had a lfat tax that was deducted at source and didn't require filing. It would save massive amounts of time and money (filing for me costs upwards of 4k, so I would reasonably pay 1/2 of that out to the govt to just get out of doing it because it still entails tons of work by me).
The deductions you are allowed to claim by filing can be written however you want, but make them extremely limited (for example, a refund at year end for incomes below x amount, making the amount liable to household members), etc. This would be like the AMT, which is how we should move the entire US tax system over to (at which point, you could greatly reduce the tax level it imposes and gain tons from simplicity).
not really, I use virus to apply to all malware(except spyware) that you can get.
when you are talking about spreading a virus via email, you are almost universally(now adays) talking about a trojan, but that is irrelevant to whether or not the population of users outside of windows is ever high enough to allow such a virus/trojan to spread.
how many viruses do you know of that have brought down windows servers? I've worked with windows and linux servers and they are both rock solid and basically impenetrable. Servers may be the nicer target, but windows or linux, they are incredibly hard to attack. you seem to mistake the point that the points he raises are perfectly applicable to the DESKTOP market. and he is right. I've watched mac users try and run executables... they just happen to be built for windows so they are safe(that's called obscurity, not superior engineering).
I've never had my windows machine try to magically execute an attachment. I've never had my mac or linux boxes try to either. But ALL THREE will try to execute an attachment that I double click on and tell it to. It just happens that I have to watch carefully for windows because it's the only system with the install base to actually allow a virus to propagate.
Just so you know, I do not do any type of OS programming so for me, it's how the system performs, not some obscure knowledge of OS design that makes me choose which is more reliable. Linux and Macs may be engineered better, but I doubt it. They seem to just come with more options turned off that I have to go turn on rather than the other way around. This may mean better security for a newb, but there isn't much of a reason for me to care one way or the other.
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I think you are approaching the problem wrong. I can't, ever, calculate as fast as a computer can. forget a modern computer, I can't calculate as fast as the oldest computers out there (and I'm betting you can't either). I have no doubt about your inability to beat computers at raw calculation speeds either (and if you could, more processors means you don't).
the problem is, when I play chess (or the coule times I've tried go), I don't sit there and randomly think of each and every move out there. inthe beginning of the game I don't think about taking my queen out and making 4 moves with her in a row and returning her to where she started.
according to the description, that ist he equivalent of what this computer is doing. monte carlo simulations of the game from current position and look for the move with the most winning nodes. but that is worthless if you can't build logic to ignore useless moves.
I am amazed at the number of possibilities a computer can look at in a second and astounded that something has the excess computational ability and memory to waste time considering such moves.
strong computer chess players stopped going at the game randomly and learned to score each position as it stood for strength. go computers still can't do that because people don't fully understand why one position is stronger than another (not always, but almost never in an algorithmic way). the need for such massive computational power simply implies we don't understand the dynamics of the game in a rational way (rather, we understand it on a more creative level).
you know, for a while I was wondering what orchestra instruments have to do with appropriateness of a book for teens
you've got it wrong. Mill's tyranny of the majority is still just a belief system. if everyone in a society does not hold to that(or the vast majority) there is no reason for the laws of society to reflect that belief.
I'm not saying I would choose to live in that society, but I do know society changes to reflect the current people living in an area, not some historical ideal. There are societies built on that ideal and there are fully functional societies that reject the ideal. there is no reason why my statement is false because you have a certain viewpoint on what defines liberty.
now I"m not saying I don't hold the same viewpoint. but I think it's closed minded to expect a society's legal system to stagnate even while it's culture, population, and belief system change dramatically.
as his principle is broadly defined as "do as you will as long as it doesn't harm another person", even muslim law in the strictest sense can fit under such an umbrella. the problem , of course, is defining what is harm and how much of it is acceptable.
I never said Muslims don't believe in the Quran. I am simply stating that the old testament has just as outdated lines in it and no one assumes Jews or Christians believe in any of them except a few fundamentalists. If you are so narrow minded to have never had the discussion with Muslims, then it would explain why you don't know that most Muslims do not believe in the literal meaning of those lines.
You point to Muslims wanting a faith based tribunal to settle family disputes as an example and then don't talk about the fact that those extreme Jews and Catholics already are granted such a system. I see no reason why such a leniency should be afforded one religion and not another. I would say none are proper but I don't see why it's wrong for another religious minority to ask for the same allowances already given to some groups in a country.
In fact, I'm going to let you in on a little secret to broaden your intelligence. Most Muslims aren't suicide bombers. I know, it's hard to believe when you think all of them follow the Quran's literal word. But I'll let you in on another secret. The Quran isn't the only religious text and definitely is only the beginning of Islam.
Another major part of Islam for some is the Haditha. I have Muslim friends who believe in it's complete veracity, others who believe it is a collection of wives tales to scare children, and still others in between. But many of the social and religious restrictions placed on Muslims is derived from these texts, not the Quran. In fact, following the Quran strictly, it is perfectly ok to drink alcohol but it is considered against Islam. This lies in the cultural evolution of the middle east, not the religion.
I don't deny there are fundamentalists in Islam, but to be so ignorant to think that all Muslims share those beliefs is really staggering.
As to your lack of knowledge of the Hindu Caste system:
the origin of some of the more disturbing parts of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manu_Smriti
The general overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_caste_system
and a meaningful quote:
The castes did not constitute a rigid description of the occupation or the social status of a group. Since British society was divided by class, the British attempted to equate the Indian caste system to their own social class system. They saw caste as an indicator of occupation, social standing, and intellectual ability.[30] Intentionally or unintentionally, the caste system became more rigid during the British Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during the ten year census and codified the system under their rule.
As to why Britain doesn't have a caste system but imposed a strict one, it has to do with their interpretation of local law. The mistakenly believed the laws of Manu were national laws even though it's precepts were only sporadically followed (and not at all in some areas) in India.
I hope you actually read the links. you may learn castes have nothing to do with ethnicity, skin color, or physical features. The entire system is purely based on the job you choose to do and traditionally, was not confining (i.e. what your father did set no requirements on your job). In fact, the Rig Vega speaks of a family where the mother is a farmer, the father is a merchant, and the son is a musician and nothing disparaging or inappropriate is said about this structure.
the people in india who bare discrimination are the Chandalas, a group traditionally not in the caste system at all. They were and are discriminated against but this is why india has some of the most pervasive affirmative action laws. In fact, when my parents were growing up, 60% of seats in the public medical colleges were held for military or lower caste families.
now I challenge you to show me a single criminal law in India which discriminates based on caste (and I'm not talking about some backwater tribal village, that would be like equating US law with the happenings in the cult Texas).
if you have set up your country such that 60% can create oppression, then it's your system. change it. it's that simple. if you want your system to better underscore the freedoms you believe in, change it.
if over 100 years you can't get a growing minority to share your values of freedom, then you have more fundamental problems than democracy. there is a fundamental problem with immigration and social policy in the country.
so what's your point? if in 100 years 99% of Europe are devout muslims, what's wrong with the majority in that country changing the laws to reflect the culture of the new society?
if the current culture that holds power wishes to retain it, they need to quit being such wimps and go out and forcefully integrate all the immigrants. it's not that hard, it's why you have public schools and forced diversity in those schools. those two things, along with attempts to diversity communities as best as possible rather than keeping minorities in isolation do wonders to integrate groups.
besides the fact that most religions have lines in them like your quote from the quran (that most modern people don't believe), your classification of the Vedas is just ignorant (I'm not saying this with spite, just as a statement).
The vedas call for a division of labor along what you are most suited to do. There is no call in any of the Vedas for racism against different groups. The Laws of Manu (manava dharmasastra) created the social stratification and put certain groups up for particularly harsh treatment. But, this was never seen as either a religious law or nationally guiding principal ( as many doubted it's veracity) until Europeans came to India. As the English rewrote laws, it uses the Dharmasastras as a guide even though historically, they never were.
Many of those caste rules set down in that book are contradictory to the core texts of Hinduism (Vedas, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita) and their ascendancy has little to due with Hinduism as compared to a power grab by people. Don't mix up cultural and religious precepts. It is similar to how Southerners used to point to the bible for race based slavery when it had never been interpreted as such before.
uh.... this is why copyright law was invented in the first place, because things we value could be copied freely thereby removing the incentive to create.
copyright law allows the free market to decide which types of art get funding(i.e. everyone gets to vote) rather than how it used to be, a few very wealthy patrons + the government determining a large body of artwork out there.
In the case of art works, the original has no value without some type of restriction of reproduction.
This, in the end, is just one of those funny verdicts that makes me think of Dr. Evil. Torrent Spy did break the law as it has already been interpreted. It would have taken a great case and no shady actions by them to pull off a victory(though it was possible). But then, who cares if it's a 110 mm dollar verdict or 1mm dollar verdict. The company doesn't have 7 figures of money... I doubt it has 6 figures of money even after taking into account the value of all it's assets. They have probably been draining most cash and assets to pay for lawyers for the last 2 years so the MPAA really gets absolutely nothing in the end.
The debate shouldn't be about what the courts ought to have done(the interpreted the law as is). The debate should be about what copyright law needs to be modified to in the 21st century. of course, as long as it remains just this easy to break copyright laws, I doubt anyone will expend the energy or political clout to tackle this issue. It's just not worth it for the vast majority of people. The RIAA has probably not even gotten around to suing 10,000 people. That is against probably 80 million people in the US committing infringement (and countless more around the world). Really, what kind of political movement can be started by 10,000 people who had to pay a 3k fine? We have bigger problems (really, we do in this country) to worry about what kind of fine you should pay for breaking a long standing law.
one problem with bare bones windows is that due to antitrust law suits, MS isn't allowed to include massive amounts of free software to do all the little things. That is considered anticompetitive.... I mean, they had to release a version without WMP for europe. imagine if they included a full cd/dvd burning suite, word processor, spreadsheet, image editor, etc. for free with windows?
everyone computer manufacturer realizes you are DOA without this stuff installed, which is why they do it for you. same with linux distros.
so they you are basically giving everyone else a leg up when you want nothing 'additional' installed. comparing apples to apples really means comparing the most likely way you get linux compared to the most likely way you get windows.
I though it was windows, nuke'em forever....
honest question:
with itunes: 4 billion downloads = 4 billion tracks
with wal mart: 4 billion units sold = 4 billion *(% fo sales as singles) + 4 billion * (1 - % of sales as singles) * 10 (ish)
what's the percent?
does walmart release how many tracks it has sold? I never trust these numbers because they seem to be complete BS..
have you done any fundamental looks at AMD's balance sheet, income statement, or CF statements? have you seen how the stock has performed over the last 2.5 years?it's stock has been in a precipitous downward spiral. If you were long AMD for the last 2 years, you have basically been crushed.
now, why is it down? well, look at their earnings. they have done pitiful. turns out in a slugout pricewar, intel can stay profitable while AMD is on the ropes. last year they lost money and continue to show no signs of recovering from their tech deficit they have again built against Intel. Now adays, the fastest AMD chip not on the market yet is slower than what intel already has at full production.
FYI: they last 166 million dollars last year. I'm not sure why this looks like manipulation as compared to just poor performance by the company without much of an end in sight.
oh, and my disclaimer: following my advice will hurt my long position in AMD.
but you've got a bad example. you will either die of AIDS or the treatment will kill you. there are few diseases like this. you may not like the results of having to treat your diabetes and you may choose to not do the treatment, but if you properly manage your weight, food, and exercise you can live a perfectly normal, healthy life without complications. Blindness, amputations, and organ failure are a result of NOT treating your diabetes. These same things for AIDS are a result of the TREATMENT itself. AIDS kills. we've just been able to extend the time horizon from 10 or 12 years to 20 to 25 years. we are not anywhere near a point where we can say the disease can be managed without causing complications for a regular person without other health problems.
we are at that level with diabetes. the problem with diabetes (and why we continue to see complications from teh disease) is people lacking the willpower to prevent diabetes (especially the far more common adult-onset) generally lack the will power to handle the treatment. Notice many people with childhood diabetes (I actually only know them by the old names, though now kids are so fat they get adult onset diabetes in alarming numbers, so substitute type I and type II if required) actually continue to live full lives with no side effects other than having to take insulin treatments.
This is, again , the real difference between other chronic diseases and people trying to lie to the world and call AIDS chronic. my bad knees are a chronic problem. I can live a completely normal life with minimal anti inflammatory treatments and some added care and my lifespan is not notably effected.
Aids is a death sentence. you just have to pick your time horizon. people who have been on antiretrovirals for 15 years are now feeling the effects of basically putting a poison in your body daily for so long. they have severe medical problems that are very expensive to treat and find themselves unable to function. 40 year olds look like they are 65 and have health problems on a similar scale. it's just when you die of kidney failure at 45 have 18 years on the drugs, we don't say AIDS killed you, but that is hiding the issue that still exists.
do you actually believe that Universities won't get their funding? what imagination land are you living in. you are actually implying that school won't capitulate. it turns out, when you talk to administrators, they don't give a flying f*** if their students want to download music and would prefer they don't because it costs them real bandwidth. Most schools will happily oblige after lobbying congress to say they will gladly comply with this law as long as the MPAA and RIAA can provide them with said software to police their networks(and of course, extra funding for the computational power required + a bit more).
everyone seems to think this doom and gloom scenario of universities holding out for the little guy, protecting our rights to pirate music and keeping things in a civil court of law, but that just doesn't happen. your desire to listen to britney spears ranks about 1000th on the list of a regular administrator, right above whether to use sporks or spoons and forks in the cafeteria.
Now, why do they not care a lick about this? because their job is to actually give people an education, not an internet connection.
you've misread it:
exact quote:
"I'm certainly not going to be a happy camper if I have to switch to a Mac or Linux system full-time, yet that is exactly where this scatterbrained company seems to be sending me."
and actually, it's singular in the text you quoted before. quoting you:
---
"I'm certainly not going to be a happy camper if I have to switch to a Mac or Linux system full-time, yet that is exactly where this scatterbrained company seems to be sending me."
Why would that be so bad? As someone who uses all 3 operating systems daily (XP, not Vista), this new iMac way outshines the rest. What a dork. If MS is that bad than stop using it.
----
so I'm guessing it does make sense to you then?
the scatterbrained company is MS. MS is screwing up so baddly because it is scatterbrained that at some point in the near future, mac/linux may actually be better than windows.
I like your ideas but I have no time to respond.
just this for the cost of windows to manufacturers:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=118
it's the closest I can get to. so following these points, the most I can see people paying for windows in 50$. I've seen several other quotes online that MS charges Dell 25 to 50$ but with the bloatware they throw on, the actual cost to Dell is significantly less. It's not something where we can see the total contracts to value it, but my gut says these numbers are roughly right. Notice I am drawing a line between what I pay and how much money goes into the pockets of MS. I have no doubt these are two very different numbers.
I think the discussion should be framed purely around where copyrights should be. Are current tenors too long and do we penalize too sharply for violations. Is it in any way a method of securing income for an artist for a limited time. Along with this is how binding we want copyrights to be as a society. I don't have a problem with record labels taking part in this discussion and frankly, they seem to be the only ones that care to(engage in the discussion) and I think the actions of our government are showing that. But there is no reason I see why a book should be treated different from a movie or a song.
here is my issue with your radiohead argument. I realize now in a rush (i'm at work in another country so I basically do this on breaks) I failed miserably in pointing out why they are a terrible example.
The fact that people paid DOES NOT mean people are paying for music due to quality or ease of use. They are paying out of CHARITY. There are huge write ups about this going on in economics about what it means for the future of the music market. If those 40% of fans were paying for ease of use or quality, then some minimum price would have sufficed. But they had the option to pay 0 and chose to give money to the band out of whatever (the warm fuzzy feeling of helping a band, sticking it to the labels, whatever you want to call it). If it's the warm fuzzy feeling, it goes really well in line with charity. This implies something about the charitable work of certain fans, but less so about the market paying for an item.
I'm not going to say that charity is easy to define any further than the nebulous paragraph above, but I've never read anything that really helps quantify it.
As to CD sales at a concert, if I have been told correctly, when you are signed to a label those are not part of concert revenues but rather, CD revenues which go into the same machine as sales at wal-mart. This is why I lump that into cd sales rather than concert revenues. I could very well be wrong and if you have a site to point to with drafts of basic contracts, I'd like to see it out of curiosity.
As to windows, all I can say is I know a grand total of 4 people that have ever paid 300$ for windows. The other 400 or so paid about 25 dollars(or got it free depending on how you look at it) and it was legal. The false idea that most users are stuck between paying 300$ to upgrade windows or do without is false and does not represent the vast majority of how people get an OS. Traditionally, your choice was to pay 300$ to upgrade, to buy a new computer and either have it be a Mac or a PC (or do without); it was never just a choice between 300$ for the OS or changing systems. but again, this is neither here nor there.
I'm out of time, so I understand this post is a bit thin on good content and heavy on rambling.....
completely agreed. but the question about the government granted monopoly is a question of US economic policy and piracy either becomes a non-issue or some level of illegal depending on how we resolve that issue.
you're right, downloading has shown that there is large demand at a price of 0. whoopie, that doesn't help a company in any way shape or form figure out what is the correct way to do business. it simply states that if you make your product available for free, people will buy it. I submit radiohead did well for the same reason charities can get money: people felt like they ought to give them some cash for their work. this does not mean radiohead 10 years ago would have seen anywhere near that level(if they were starting today, that is) and 2.40$ is a legitimate amount they could demand from any record company for their cd's.
that a popular band finds fans loyal enough to pay them is equivalent of me bringing up metallica as a band against piracy : NEITHER are in any way average. Both are incredibly popular bands that can do just fine. I only personally know 2 artists(successfully making a career in music) and I can say both turn most of their money by sales of cd's after small scale concerts. they earn just barely enough to do concerts.
the market is simple: any way buyers and sellers come together and can communicate through actions the prices they are willing to deal at. piracy is NOT the market because it lacks 1/2 the equation: the seller.
I'm not saying I care if record companies go out of business. I frankly don't really care if every musician goes broke because I download their music. But I am very aware that my actions state a simple fact: I have choices between paying 0 and x$ after deciding I would like to consume, even if I value the object at 10*x, I will still pay 0$. I have heard many people talk about this mythical third option of just not consuming, but the fact that the downloading scene is so massive and vibrant(probably rivaling record sales in a given year) leads me to believe that overall music consumption is UP, not down in the last few years. So either music is better now than it used to be, or it's just as good and the massive price discount of 0 really helps boost demand. or somewhere in between. or music is worse and free is just that damn attractive. it's hard to say which given how dynamic the market is.
but I do know that without a functioning price mechanism(one where you do without or consume at a price that is agreeable) you cannot argue the market is actually communicating much meaningful info. Do I think the days of the cd are over? definitely. You couldn't pay me to buy a cd. you also couldn't ever make me agree to pay for a low quality download. and now that I have the torrents, it's doubtful you'll get me to pay for any music at all.
as to your questions about MS having the tech to lock down their product: They didn't. If you believe that, then you'll have to explain to me how, now when they are trying, they are failing just as miserably (as is every other company attempting to do it). yeah, yeah, I know it was rhetorical, but it begs the question. I don't expect an answer, I understand it's extremely complex.
a few points:
I've never once seen a 14 year old tithe any real amount of money to any war chest of a corporation. It's always those kids who looked forward to playing tiny sums into the chest that became the big consumers later. The danger is if the 14 year old learns and gets confortable with bit torrent, he will NEVER have any reason to pay for music again.
I've seen people who can't figure out how to install a program(any program) learn to use bit torrent in under 20 minutes. It's amazing what a financial incentive can do. So 20 minutes and you will never have to pay for music again... and it's better quality than any online store even comes close to offering.
mix tapes are not in any way equivalent to what I can do now. If my girlfriend burns me a cd of 10 songs I like to listen to in my car, it's trivial. If I download the entire garth brooks, michael jackson, beatles, alan jackson, and 3 more artists COMPLETE works in 1 night, it's a different story. It's hard to compare the losses between the two. I have no reason, ever, to pay for any of this music outside of a warm feeling of supporting an artist. Concerts are not an equivalent form of paid work for an artist and it's ignorant to think it is. paid for distribution of music allows for everyone who likes an artist to enjoy music and support an artist (as a career) even when they are limited geographically for one of many reasons (including a lack of density of fans to actually make money at each concert).
The problem with downloading is it completely distorts the market. The market works because if there is a product people want, the market can reach a price where it clears. But the key method in which the market communicates information is by a price. All we currently know is that 20$ is too much and 0$ has lots of demand. Well guess what? it doesn't take a genius to see that people will consume your product for FREE. And when 0$ as a reliable option exists, no price you set will communicate real information from the markets. For all we know, if free downloading didn't exist, maybe 20$ would be the level CD's would continue to clear at and now, the only benefit of paying for music is ease of distribution. It means the market has real problems pricing the value of music to the consumer and coming to a proper level.
there are amazing benefits! I'm a huge fan of a very very simple system:
a flat tax + deduction at source + tax all income the same + file IF you want to claim deductions
this simplifies taxes by a great deal. you don't even have to have a flat tax if you tax different types of income differently, but that just makes the code unfair/biased towards certain income streams.
I make decent money, but for me to file my taxes, I HAVE to hire a professional (or this time around, learn the tax codes for Japan, the US, and England). Japan in the only tax code I can file in a simple and straight forward manner. The US is completely convoluted crap. I would happily pay 1 or 2k more in taxes each year if I just had a lfat tax that was deducted at source and didn't require filing. It would save massive amounts of time and money (filing for me costs upwards of 4k, so I would reasonably pay 1/2 of that out to the govt to just get out of doing it because it still entails tons of work by me).
The deductions you are allowed to claim by filing can be written however you want, but make them extremely limited (for example, a refund at year end for incomes below x amount, making the amount liable to household members), etc. This would be like the AMT, which is how we should move the entire US tax system over to (at which point, you could greatly reduce the tax level it imposes and gain tons from simplicity).
not really, I use virus to apply to all malware(except spyware) that you can get.
when you are talking about spreading a virus via email, you are almost universally(now adays) talking about a trojan, but that is irrelevant to whether or not the population of users outside of windows is ever high enough to allow such a virus/trojan to spread.
how many viruses do you know of that have brought down windows servers? I've worked with windows and linux servers and they are both rock solid and basically impenetrable. Servers may be the nicer target, but windows or linux, they are incredibly hard to attack. you seem to mistake the point that the points he raises are perfectly applicable to the DESKTOP market. and he is right. I've watched mac users try and run executables... they just happen to be built for windows so they are safe(that's called obscurity, not superior engineering).
I've never had my windows machine try to magically execute an attachment. I've never had my mac or linux boxes try to either. But ALL THREE will try to execute an attachment that I double click on and tell it to. It just happens that I have to watch carefully for windows because it's the only system with the install base to actually allow a virus to propagate.
Just so you know, I do not do any type of OS programming so for me, it's how the system performs, not some obscure knowledge of OS design that makes me choose which is more reliable. Linux and Macs may be engineered better, but I doubt it. They seem to just come with more options turned off that I have to go turn on rather than the other way around. This may mean better security for a newb, but there isn't much of a reason for me to care one way or the other.