You missed some important clauses in the Chinese constitution... such as:
Article 1 describes China as "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship" (emphasis mine)
Also, according to the NYT (quoting "Chinese legal experts"), in China "courts... usually do not test laws and government decisions for fidelity to the Constitution."
In China, the following are illegal: "to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters."
And then there is the very broad Article 51: "The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society, and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."
In my opinion the Chinese constitution is not a significant document, as it does not really guarantee any freedoms or rights to the Chinese people.
(Disclaimer/FYI: I'm American, my GF is Chinese. She and I have had some discussions of our political/legal systems, but she really has no interest in politics at all - AFAICT that is a result of her being raised in a state where it can be dangerous to have an interest in politics.)
It is suicidal for America to not tie very strong IP enforcement to its trade agreements with countries like China. Most of what we produce domestically is IP [...]
...which just goes to show you that our economy is based on a house of cards.
Seriously - an IP economy is inherently unstable, because it depends on the cooperation of everyone else (never mind that it also works better in a police state). So we strong-arm other nations to get their cooperation, but countries and people don't like having laws dictated to them via trade agreements. And for rapidly developing countries like China, it isn't in their best interest to have strict IP laws, which probably explains why this is only a "100 day" crackdown.
As modern wars go, the Revolutionary war wasn't all that bloody. The armies involved were typically composed of a few thousand (or perhaps low tens of thousands) of personnel, and the casualties were far lower than in the civil war.
To be clear: I was talking about morality in regards to actions carried out by an individual, not organized rebellion. Such action would be illegitimate in the absence of popular organized support.
Why not just apply the second amendment and remove the current administration?
What a load of crap. I've seen many posts recently which advocate that position, but it's pure BS. If you're advocating assassination of government officials, you must be crazy. Aside from the obvious problems of legality, morality, and ethical legitimacy of such action, it would probably only make things worse. The problem isn't just an individual in the administration. And it's not just the executive branch, either; aside from a few members, Congress has been completely spineless ever since 9/11. (There are a couple of congress-people who I greatly respect - Lois Capps, Russel Feingold - and some of the supreme court justices are pretty good.)
If you're advocating an organized revolution, well that's pretty silly also. The majority of public opinion may be that the administration is incompetent, but there's still ~ 1/3 who disagree. And even among the ~ 2/3 who disapprove, the vast majority are not violent in their disapproval. Anyway, unless you want a
very
bloody civil war, then revolution is out of the question unless something happens to turn public opinion violently and overwhelmingly against the government... and I don't see that happening.
In short, the 2nd amendment is not a desirable "solution" to political disagreements, nor is it practical.
I have mod points, but I'd rather reply to this...
The people in this country have something to say about the current state of things but have yet to act upon what the morals that govern them. They talk about how wrong the President is but yet they vote him into office again. They shout " I don't want my phone tapped," but they do it in the comfort of their home where they can't be arrested. They say "let us be moral and leaders of the free world," yet they think "a little bit of torture never hurt anyone as long as its in Cuba." And here we are - you and I paying our taxes and showing our teeth like its all okay.
Just what am I supposed to do? Go and protest at one of GWB's speeches and get arrested? How will that change anything? How will that help? Will my being in prison make other people more free?
I could perhaps donate a little money to the ACLU or EFF - I think they're great causes - but their court actions are subject to a judiciary which is increasingly neo-conservative (aka fascist).
AFAIK, the most effective thing I can do is vote for democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But everyone here at/. knows that recentelections were corrupt. I never voted for Bush in the first place, and that's true of approximately (or perhaps at least?) 50% of American voters. But the opinions of those voters are ignored by the present administration, and I suspect that some of their votes are ignored as well.
Personally, I believe that the current administration is led by criminals who should be impeached, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for a very long time. Their crimesaremanyandegregious. But what can I do about it? I'm not wealthy enough to buy a congresscritter.
So go ahead and mod me down or call me a troll because I don't care. Someone needs to tell America the truth and stand up for whats right. I'm moving to Maine...
Yeah, I'll bet you're going to move to another state just because of a slashdot story. Riiiiight...
It's plenty obvious why. They're designed to sell to car-hating greens. They're designed by car-hating greens.
No; currently available hybrids were designed by automobile companies. The Prius and Insight have similar (and slightly unusual) shapes in order to improve fuel efficiency by reducing the coefficient of drag - these two cars have the lowest Cd of any available car (0.26 and 0.25, respectively, whereas cars typically have Cd ~ 0.3).
And for the record, I like the way my Prius looks.
This method allows you to open up the aperture to get more light while retaining large depth of field.
Yes, but you lose resolution in the process. You could instead bin the pixels to get greater sensitivity, and simultaneously close down the aperture to get greater depth of field.
An alternative is using deconvolution to retrieve the focussed image from the defocussed one. You'd have to know the point spread function, which I think you should be able to derive from knowledge of the optics.
In general, that approach doesn't work. The out-of-focus parts of an image can't be recovered; there is a loss of information that can't be restored. Deconvolution is a nonlinear process and generally does not have a unique solution. And even if it did, the PSF for camera lenses varies dramatically with both focus and distance, and the photograph doesn't record the distance from the focal plane to the object seen at every pixel in the image.
I've been on match.com for a couple years now. I met some very nice women there, including my current gf (who is both very cute, and very smart). It took a lot of emails, and a long time, before I had much success. However... they don't tell you this, but when you contact someone, they censor your emails to remove contact information, in an attempt to force everyone to subscribe. Now, I understand their motivations, but the unfortunate side-effect is that a lot of women don't subscribe to the service; they can send a "wink" but they can't send email. So many times, I'd receive a wink and send an introductory email but never get a reply. I'm sure some of them simply weren't interested, but I have no doubt that many simply couldn't respond and weren't willing to subscribe. It was perplexing, until I learned about the censor and worked around it.
I think I managed to avoid the mental cases by posting a profile which is perhaps more serious than the norm... plus, I have pretty good intuition about people.
When I first learned of the censorship, I was pretty angry about it... I wonder if there is a possible class-action lawsuit there? Though probably not, as I'm sure their legal team has checked it out.
Match.com may have lots of "members" - but many of them can't or won't respond unless you know about (and work around) the censor. Also, a lot of their "members" are not active; and when you take your profile down, they keep it for a year.
Match.com is useful for meeting people if you live in a big city. But if you're not in the middle of a major metropolitan area, then the pickin's might be slim (but then again, maybe you like them slim!).
Re:Watch a little more closely ...
on
Deep in the Core
·
· Score: 2, Informative
How is the video not as it appears? You didn't expect the video to be in real time, did you?
Among non-crackpots, there is no longer much debate about whether or not black holes exist. The alternatives have either been ruled out observationally, or have serious problems on theoretical grounds.
Disclaimer: IAAA.
Gamma ray bursts are an area of active research; we now believe that they emit radiation along some polar axis, rather than isotropically in every direction. That probably accounts for the difference in distances you've seen quoted; for some fixed power level, an anisotropic GRB is dangerous from a greater distance if you happen to lie in the beam.
If talking on a cellphone while using a headset is so detrimental to driving safety, is it also a problem to be talking to someone in the passenger seat?
Yes, people don't like to pay for stuff they can get for free. And yes, large corporations and cartels have a stranglehold on intellectual property rights and legislation here in the US.
But the problem lies elsewhere.
There is a fundamental problem with copyright law applied to digital media. Copyright law is supposed to promote the arts, and in doing so, increase value for everybody -- artists and the public alike. It does this by granting a limited monopoly to the right of replication of the art. This encourages people to be creative.
(Note - IANAL, but I believe it should not allow artists or labels to "own" the music, just the right to copy and distribute the music. This is an important distinction; in the former case, the "owner" has many rights in addition to distribution.)
The problem is this: with modern technology distribution and replication are essentially free, but copyright law requires compensation for every copy, and publishers have kept that per-copy compensation relatively high. This generic problem applies to all kinds of information -- books, music, software, etc. It artificially restricts the amount of wealth produced.
In pre-internet days, there was substantial value in the physical product of books and CDs. The physical manifestation of the information is no longer necessary. That should have made prices decline, but mostly they haven't. Sure, buying an album through iTunes is cheaper than buying the CD, but the price difference is relatively small. And a lot of things (books, especially) simply are not available, or are only available in crippled DRM-encumbered formats.
Since media duplication and distribution is now cheap, it is easy to "create" a huge amount of wealth by giving everyone cheap (i.e. free) digital copies of any book or album they want. The drawback is that the artists and authors not compensated for these copies.
But really, should they be paid for every copy? If copyright is meant to benefit the public by promoting the arts, there must be a balance between compensating the artist and promoting dissemination of the art. In the past, the cost of physical media was at least comparable to the compensation, so this wasn't an issue. Now, the compensation is the only cost, and the balance is gone.
One possibility is to make digital copies "fair use." People will still buy CDs and books, and the authors can be compensated from sales of physical media. It obviously isn't a perfect solution, and I'm sure better schemes can be devised, but I think that the general idea has merit.
Copyright should benefit the public. Its purpose is to do so by granting limited compensation to artists and authors. However, the public can also benefit from cheap, free information flow. That was not technically possible before the internet, but it is possible now. Current copyright prevents that free flow and reproduction of data, and that does not benefit the public.
Actually, what you own is a license consisting of certain legal rights derived from Microsoft's copyright in the Windows code, together with the technological ability to use the code with your computer in the exercise of those rights. (Similarly, when you buy a movie on a Region 1 DVD, you acquire a license to view it at your home in the United States or Canada, and the technological ability to play the DVD in those countries but not others.)
Does anyone else find this disturbing? Since when do companies have the right to tell us what we can do with our software, or in which countries we can view movies? Of course the DMCA has clauses for access control, and the impetus for that was corporate lobbying. But I don't understand the legal basis for this; why do the courts allow copyright owners to control how their products may be used?
Slashdot Mirror
You missed some important clauses in the Chinese constitution... such as:
Article 1 describes China as "a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship" (emphasis mine)
Also, according to the NYT (quoting "Chinese legal experts"), in China "courts... usually do not test laws and government decisions for fidelity to the Constitution."
In China, the following are illegal: "to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters."
(All of this from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Constitution)
And then there is the very broad Article 51: "The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society, and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."
http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ch00000_.html
In my opinion the Chinese constitution is not a significant document, as it does not really guarantee any freedoms or rights to the Chinese people.
(Disclaimer/FYI: I'm American, my GF is Chinese. She and I have had some discussions of our political/legal systems, but she really has no interest in politics at all - AFAICT that is a result of her being raised in a state where it can be dangerous to have an interest in politics.)
As modern wars go, the Revolutionary war wasn't all that bloody. The armies involved were typically composed of a few thousand (or perhaps low tens of thousands) of personnel, and the casualties were far lower than in the civil war. To be clear: I was talking about morality in regards to actions carried out by an individual, not organized rebellion. Such action would be illegitimate in the absence of popular organized support.
What a load of crap. I've seen many posts recently which advocate that position, but it's pure BS. If you're advocating assassination of government officials, you must be crazy. Aside from the obvious problems of legality, morality, and ethical legitimacy of such action, it would probably only make things worse. The problem isn't just an individual in the administration. And it's not just the executive branch, either; aside from a few members, Congress has been completely spineless ever since 9/11. (There are a couple of congress-people who I greatly respect - Lois Capps, Russel Feingold - and some of the supreme court justices are pretty good.)
If you're advocating an organized revolution, well that's pretty silly also. The majority of public opinion may be that the administration is incompetent, but there's still ~ 1/3 who disagree. And even among the ~ 2/3 who disapprove, the vast majority are not violent in their disapproval. Anyway, unless you want a
- very
bloody civil war, then revolution is out of the question unless something happens to turn public opinion violently and overwhelmingly against the government... and I don't see that happening. In short, the 2nd amendment is not a desirable "solution" to political disagreements, nor is it practical.I have mod points, but I'd rather reply to this...
/. knows that recent elections were corrupt. I never voted for Bush in the first place, and that's true of approximately (or perhaps at least?) 50% of American voters. But the opinions of those voters are ignored by the present administration, and I suspect that some of their votes are ignored as well.
The people in this country have something to say about the current state of things but have yet to act upon what the morals that govern them. They talk about how wrong the President is but yet they vote him into office again. They shout " I don't want my phone tapped," but they do it in the comfort of their home where they can't be arrested. They say "let us be moral and leaders of the free world," yet they think "a little bit of torture never hurt anyone as long as its in Cuba." And here we are - you and I paying our taxes and showing our teeth like its all okay.
Just what am I supposed to do? Go and protest at one of GWB's speeches and get arrested? How will that change anything? How will that help? Will my being in prison make other people more free?
I could perhaps donate a little money to the ACLU or EFF - I think they're great causes - but their court actions are subject to a judiciary which is increasingly neo-conservative (aka fascist).
AFAIK, the most effective thing I can do is vote for democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But everyone here at
Personally, I believe that the current administration is led by criminals who should be impeached, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for a very long time. Their crimes are many and egregious. But what can I do about it? I'm not wealthy enough to buy a congresscritter.
So go ahead and mod me down or call me a troll because I don't care. Someone needs to tell America the truth and stand up for whats right. I'm moving to Maine...
Yeah, I'll bet you're going to move to another state just because of a slashdot story. Riiiiight...
They don't have to. It's a civil case, so the standards are lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt" for determining guilt.
There was a reporter watching and taking notes as he was searched by the TSA. I wonder how he would have fared if he were alone?
I've been on match.com for a couple years now. I met some very nice women there, including my current gf (who is both very cute, and very smart). It took a lot of emails, and a long time, before I had much success. However... they don't tell you this, but when you contact someone, they censor your emails to remove contact information, in an attempt to force everyone to subscribe. Now, I understand their motivations, but the unfortunate side-effect is that a lot of women don't subscribe to the service; they can send a "wink" but they can't send email. So many times, I'd receive a wink and send an introductory email but never get a reply. I'm sure some of them simply weren't interested, but I have no doubt that many simply couldn't respond and weren't willing to subscribe. It was perplexing, until I learned about the censor and worked around it.
I think I managed to avoid the mental cases by posting a profile which is perhaps more serious than the norm... plus, I have pretty good intuition about people.
When I first learned of the censorship, I was pretty angry about it... I wonder if there is a possible class-action lawsuit there? Though probably not, as I'm sure their legal team has checked it out.
Match.com may have lots of "members" - but many of them can't or won't respond unless you know about (and work around) the censor. Also, a lot of their "members" are not active; and when you take your profile down, they keep it for a year.
Match.com is useful for meeting people if you live in a big city. But if you're not in the middle of a major metropolitan area, then the pickin's might be slim (but then again, maybe you like them slim!).
There are much more precise mass estimates than that... here is a good one, from: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bi bcode=2005ApJ...620..744G&db_key=AST&data_type=HTM L&format=&high=421632d27a04011
M_BH = (3.7 +/- 0.2) × 10^6 (Ro/8kpc)^3 M*
Where Ro is the distance to the galactic center, and M* is the mass of the sun.
How is the video not as it appears? You didn't expect the video to be in real time, did you? Among non-crackpots, there is no longer much debate about whether or not black holes exist. The alternatives have either been ruled out observationally, or have serious problems on theoretical grounds. Disclaimer: IAAA.
Those who "know what they're talking about" will understand that:
- NASA funding is being redirected away from science and toward flimsy "national pride" missions (ISS, the moon and Mars).
- JWST is not a replacement for HST. At the moment there is no replacement for HST on the drawing board.
- HST is one of the most productive science projects NASA has ever had.
So explain to me again, why do the "informed" people think HST should not be serviced?
Gamma ray bursts are an area of active research; we now believe that they emit radiation along some polar axis, rather than isotropically in every direction. That probably accounts for the difference in distances you've seen quoted; for some fixed power level, an anisotropic GRB is dangerous from a greater distance if you happen to lie in the beam.
If talking on a cellphone while using a headset is so detrimental to driving safety, is it also a problem to be talking to someone in the passenger seat?
But the problem lies elsewhere.
There is a fundamental problem with copyright law applied to digital media. Copyright law is supposed to promote the arts, and in doing so, increase value for everybody -- artists and the public alike. It does this by granting a limited monopoly to the right of replication of the art. This encourages people to be creative.
(Note - IANAL, but I believe it should not allow artists or labels to "own" the music, just the right to copy and distribute the music. This is an important distinction; in the former case, the "owner" has many rights in addition to distribution.)
The problem is this: with modern technology distribution and replication are essentially free, but copyright law requires compensation for every copy, and publishers have kept that per-copy compensation relatively high. This generic problem applies to all kinds of information -- books, music, software, etc. It artificially restricts the amount of wealth produced.
In pre-internet days, there was substantial value in the physical product of books and CDs. The physical manifestation of the information is no longer necessary. That should have made prices decline, but mostly they haven't. Sure, buying an album through iTunes is cheaper than buying the CD, but the price difference is relatively small. And a lot of things (books, especially) simply are not available, or are only available in crippled DRM-encumbered formats.
Since media duplication and distribution is now cheap, it is easy to "create" a huge amount of wealth by giving everyone cheap (i.e. free) digital copies of any book or album they want. The drawback is that the artists and authors not compensated for these copies.
But really, should they be paid for every copy? If copyright is meant to benefit the public by promoting the arts, there must be a balance between compensating the artist and promoting dissemination of the art. In the past, the cost of physical media was at least comparable to the compensation, so this wasn't an issue. Now, the compensation is the only cost, and the balance is gone.
One possibility is to make digital copies "fair use." People will still buy CDs and books, and the authors can be compensated from sales of physical media. It obviously isn't a perfect solution, and I'm sure better schemes can be devised, but I think that the general idea has merit.
Copyright should benefit the public. Its purpose is to do so by granting limited compensation to artists and authors. However, the public can also benefit from cheap, free information flow. That was not technically possible before the internet, but it is possible now. Current copyright prevents that free flow and reproduction of data, and that does not benefit the public.