I live in Japan; and let me just say, I do not want Japan re-arming into a wannabe military superpower so they can become the US's henchman in its future ill-conceived wars around the globe. I'd much rather Japan played a good, peaceful neighbour to China and Russia rather than an antagonistic bully like their "ally" across the ocean. It's much better for everyone that way.
Absolutely correct. In fact, I think you've only scratched the surface of how different the logic inherent in Japanese is, and how wildly opposite Japanese and English (or any other Indo-European language) are. (And yes, I do speak Japanese.)
"An automatic translator would need to somehow be able to conceptualize what a person is trying to speak about, which would require understanding the story being told and an ability to predict where they are going with it. This will require strong AI."
That is the key. Corpus-based sentence mapping might seem like a hopeful new approach in MT, but again I think it'll fail woefully when it comes to Japanese. Unlike translating between, say, English and Spanish, you can't even establish corresponding words, sentences, and grammatical structures much of the time between Japanese and English; and there's a lot of unspoken context that *must* be determined by a human or a smart AI.
That's pretty much what it would be like. Machine translation in general is an extremely difficult problem, and I don't expect to see decent Japanese-English translation software during my lifetime. Nothing less than true artificial intelligence will be required.
"Inflation encourages misinvestments, and leads to the boom/bust cycle. It's only better than a mild deflation only if you consider production to be better than consumption. But they're both equally important, so that a mild inflation is no better or worse than a mild deflation."
Not only that, but with unpredictable inflation of unbacked currencies, it's harder to make sound financial calculations. If the actual inflation rate is anywhere between 2% and 7% this year, how do you calculate whether an investment with a 5% return is making or losing you money?
Besides, the computer industry shows that gradually *declining* prices is a very robust economic model, excellent in promoting technological development while rapidly increasing the options and wealth of customers.
Yes, and he does it with political, financial, and military backing from George Bush --who is only opposed to tyranny and torture when it looks good on TV. If Fox and CNN actually covered the news, more people would know that.
I'm glad someone pointed that out. The Linimo, not the Shanghai line, was the world's first commercial maglev train, and it very much in operation at this time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a Slashdot blurb got its facts wrong, though.
(It's a point of pride as well, since I happen to live in Nagoya.)
What NBC and its advertisers fail to grasp is that if they made good commercials, and not boring preachy drivel, people would actually *want* to watch them -- and then they wouldn't need to charge money or add DRM. After all, look at how many people watch cool commercials for free when they get posted to YouTube and similar sites.
"Strangely USB2 also consumes more CPU then Firewire."
That's not so strange because one of the many ways Firewire is superior to USB is that each device has a hardware controller that negotiates data transfer over the bus independently of the CPU. USB, being a cheap-ass solution, relies on the CPU to do all that work, and is far more limited in a host of technical ways.
"if I sit down and program a new photo editing program, what fucking 'natural freedoms' am I denying you if I tell you that you cant have the fruits of my labour for free? "
There's no need to be offensive. What you tell me I can and cannot do with my own computer and Internet connection is irrelevant.
"To insist that you do is communism, you realise that right?"
You appear confused. Communism is a system that uses violent aggression to negate one's right to physical property. If you tell me what I may or may not do with the data on my own hard disk, and whom I may send that data to, that's closer to Communism. A non-belief in copyright is entirely peaceful and non-violent, the very opposite of Communism.
"What natural freedom do you have to get free Hollywood movies?"
Again you miss the point. Hollywood Studios have every right to keep their movies locked in a vault, instead of broadcasting them all over the place, if they don't want anything copied or shared. Ah, but they want special treatment from the government that will let them sell me a DVD, and then tell me what I can and cannot do with my own physical property -- the DVD.
"grow up."
I am grown up enough not engage in ad hominem attacks or replace logic with vulgarities. How about you?
*I* don't want state-sponsored entertainment. Copyright proponents do. However, they generally want to remove the *appearance* of the music/movie/publishing industry as being a benefactor of the state at the expense of the rest of us; so rather than relying on direct welfare, they choose to bolster their business model by taking away out natural freedoms (of which "fair use" is just a taste), and claiming their resulting windfall as "capitalism". (Far from it!)
"Hard work" is by definition something that cannot be stolen; but of course you knew you were using hyperbolewhen you wrote that, right?
Believers in copyright often tell me that artists, lawyers, and telephone book editors need to punish us for copying their precious data and ideas, otherwise all this cultural wealth will evaporate and disappear. I suggest that if these "artists" need society's support so much, put them on government welfare to do what they do and give the rest of us back our freedom to share ideas and culture with whomever we like, however we like.
Of course, copyright believers are aghast at the idea. Britney Spears might look like a failure if she discovered her singing was economically devoid of value and had to accept hand-outs or work for a living.
"...Warning: reading this warning in its entirety may cause eyestrain, fatigue, and temporary or permanent numbness of brain. For a detailed description of medical conditions resulting from extensive warnings, see Apple's full Warning Disclosure on Longwinded Warnings, page 207; as well as Apple's Statement Regarding Legal Culpability Due to Injury From Extended Exposure to Warnings, Warnings About Warnings, and Legal Statements About Exposure to Warnings Warnings, page 234."
Indeed, it's been known by type designers and typesetters for a long time how immersive reading works. It's a fairly complicated process, more so than this new "two-letters-at-a-time "discovery" suggests. Your fovea takes in the entire shape of a word while your parafovea sees the surrounding words, and in this manner your eye skips along, actually focussing on only a few spots per line of text.
In fact, for efficient (speed) reading, your eyes can be trained to reading an entire line in a single glance. The private school I attended had mandatory speed-reading classes, and I maxed out the tachistoscope (speed-reading machine) at 1,800 words per minute. At such a reading pace, there's little margin for eye movement; you simply scroll your eyes down the middle of a column of text.
Reminds me of when Yahoo forced me to downgrade my Flickr account to a Yahoo account. Naturally every permutation of ever single handle I've ever used was taken, and nothing with "Yahoo" in it was allowed. I ended up going with a homophonous variant, "yahuuarebastards".:)
I agree with your sentiments, but I think you're off on this statement:
"EVERYONE wants democracy, apart from the small group of people who currently have control, of course. But the majority of the population will ALWAYS support democracy AND self-determination."
Democracy, to me, is a mob and a bunch of corrupt politicians telling me how to live my life and how much of my own money I get to keep. Majoritarianism sucks. I'll take freedom over mob-rule any day.
I have a 3rd-gen iPod too (the iPod Photo), and I've really been holding out for a model that supports Firewire transfers again. I'm absent-minded, and syncing my iPod is the last thing I think of on my way out the door. With Firewire, it takes like 2 minutes.
Then again, if Apple produced an iPhone without the phone part, I'd be sorely tempted.
"First, he didn't have to show his receipt or open the bag containing **his** property for the Circuit City door monitor. Unless you are shopping in a membership store where you signed a contract allowing such searches they are **voluntary**"
I would add that even at a membership store, if consenting to searches were somehow in the contract (which I rather doubt due to legal concerns), they still couldn't force you to accede to a search. At best, they could escort you off the premises and revoke your membership.
I think you'll find that the last two world wars were devastating for human liberties, and the next one will most likely continue that trend. Just off the top of my head...
WWI: - led to the rise of fascist regimes across Europe and Communism in Russia. - initiated fiat money and restrictions one's right to earn money (income tax) in the US and Canada - led to occupation and irrational partitioning of the Middle East - created a political situation that made WWII inevitable - inspired the creation of chemical weaponry
WWII: - led to the rise of Communism, the Soviet Bloc, and Communist China - led to the Cold War, with proxy wars, revolutions, and oppression springing up throughout the Third World - led to the establishment of massive spy and policing agencies in the First and Second World, with little responsibility or oversight - led to further eroding of free-market money and personal financial rights - inspired the creation of nuclear weaponry
The oppression of the world today takes its shape from the world wars of the last century. We can only imagine the dystopia that would result from another.
"This is why I think copyright infringement should be up to the courts to investigate and prove or disprove as a criminal matter and NOT the plaintiff (corporations)."
Copyright becoming a criminal matter would be absolutely disastrous. You can be sure the RIAA and MPAA would be writing and purchasing the laws, and they'd probably even push for federal laws, where due process is largely absent.
Do you really want a country where someone's entire life can be destroyed, with jail sentences and a criminal record, because he or she shared a favourite song or TV show?
"And how, exactly, can you prove to a judge that John Smith actually distributed that file which reads 'John Smith'?"
In the US legal system, the burden of proof tends to fall on the person who doesn't a multimillion-dollar legal department at his disposal.
Besides, the RIAA prefers extortion to legal action. They just have to send you a letter stating one of your music files ended up on a filesharing network, and you can pony up a few grand or face the consequences. Heck, they don't even have to be telling the truth, they could simply send out form letters like that to people whom they've verified as purchasing music at some point and hope most people chicken out.
After all, given how many times they've targeted dead people and people without computers, it's clear that actually having any evidence against you is not a pre-requisite for getting one of their extortion letters.
"Now, you could buy solar panels at $5000 per kW (and 20 pounds). Assuming double efficiency is treble the price - you need $15,000 per square meter, so you'll pay $150,000 for solar on your car. Is it worth to drop your fuel consumption 50%? Or completely?"
This is the point where the central market planners jump in and shout that we should subsidize solar panels. But why does that solar panel cost $15,000 per square metre? Because of all the resources, energy, and labour consumed in producing it. Chances are those more than offset the gas you're not burning.
When the manufacturer can make panels efficiently enough to be more affordable than gasoline, it'll be because they're finally less wasteful and polluting overall.
A similar principle holds with recycling, by the way. In the instances where recycling actually saves on energy and raw materials, there is a cost savings as well, and the recycler will pay *you* for your bottles and cans. If the government has to make you do it, it's because the process is not cost-effective overall, and more waste is taking place in the recycling process than the recycling itself saves.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in Japan; and let me just say, I do not want Japan re-arming into a wannabe military superpower so they can become the US's henchman in its future ill-conceived wars around the globe. I'd much rather Japan played a good, peaceful neighbour to China and Russia rather than an antagonistic bully like their "ally" across the ocean. It's much better for everyone that way.
Absolutely correct. In fact, I think you've only scratched the surface of how different the logic inherent in Japanese is, and how wildly opposite Japanese and English (or any other Indo-European language) are. (And yes, I do speak Japanese.)
"An automatic translator would need to somehow be able to conceptualize what a person is trying to speak about, which would require understanding the story being told and an ability to predict where they are going with it. This will require strong AI."
That is the key. Corpus-based sentence mapping might seem like a hopeful new approach in MT, but again I think it'll fail woefully when it comes to Japanese. Unlike translating between, say, English and Spanish, you can't even establish corresponding words, sentences, and grammatical structures much of the time between Japanese and English; and there's a lot of unspoken context that *must* be determined by a human or a smart AI.
Dang ... that's a lot less obvious than one-click shopping. Well done, you've make the rejection rejectors' jobs that much easier!
That's pretty much what it would be like. Machine translation in general is an extremely difficult problem, and I don't expect to see decent Japanese-English translation software during my lifetime. Nothing less than true artificial intelligence will be required.
"Inflation encourages misinvestments, and leads to the boom/bust cycle. It's only better than a mild deflation only if you consider production to be better than consumption. But they're both equally important, so that a mild inflation is no better or worse than a mild deflation."
Not only that, but with unpredictable inflation of unbacked currencies, it's harder to make sound financial calculations. If the actual inflation rate is anywhere between 2% and 7% this year, how do you calculate whether an investment with a 5% return is making or losing you money?
Besides, the computer industry shows that gradually *declining* prices is a very robust economic model, excellent in promoting technological development while rapidly increasing the options and wealth of customers.
Yes, and he does it with political, financial, and military backing from George Bush --who is only opposed to tyranny and torture when it looks good on TV. If Fox and CNN actually covered the news, more people would know that.
I'm glad someone pointed that out. The Linimo, not the Shanghai line, was the world's first commercial maglev train, and it very much in operation at this time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a Slashdot blurb got its facts wrong, though.
(It's a point of pride as well, since I happen to live in Nagoya.)
What NBC and its advertisers fail to grasp is that if they made good commercials, and not boring preachy drivel, people would actually *want* to watch them -- and then they wouldn't need to charge money or add DRM. After all, look at how many people watch cool commercials for free when they get posted to YouTube and similar sites.
ISBN's are no one's "IP". They're frigging numbers! They're simply administered by the ISBN agency.
"Strangely USB2 also consumes more CPU then Firewire."
That's not so strange because one of the many ways Firewire is superior to USB is that each device has a hardware controller that negotiates data transfer over the bus independently of the CPU. USB, being a cheap-ass solution, relies on the CPU to do all that work, and is far more limited in a host of technical ways.
"if I sit down and program a new photo editing program, what fucking 'natural freedoms' am I denying you if I tell you that you cant have the fruits of my labour for free? "
There's no need to be offensive. What you tell me I can and cannot do with my own computer and Internet connection is irrelevant.
"To insist that you do is communism, you realise that right?"
You appear confused. Communism is a system that uses violent aggression to negate one's right to physical property. If you tell me what I may or may not do with the data on my own hard disk, and whom I may send that data to, that's closer to Communism. A non-belief in copyright is entirely peaceful and non-violent, the very opposite of Communism.
"What natural freedom do you have to get free Hollywood movies?"
Again you miss the point. Hollywood Studios have every right to keep their movies locked in a vault, instead of broadcasting them all over the place, if they don't want anything copied or shared. Ah, but they want special treatment from the government that will let them sell me a DVD, and then tell me what I can and cannot do with my own physical property -- the DVD.
"grow up."
I am grown up enough not engage in ad hominem attacks or replace logic with vulgarities. How about you?
You missed the irony in my comment.
*I* don't want state-sponsored entertainment. Copyright proponents do. However, they generally want to remove the *appearance* of the music/movie/publishing industry as being a benefactor of the state at the expense of the rest of us; so rather than relying on direct welfare, they choose to bolster their business model by taking away out natural freedoms (of which "fair use" is just a taste), and claiming their resulting windfall as "capitalism". (Far from it!)
"Hard work" is by definition something that cannot be stolen; but of course you knew you were using hyperbolewhen you wrote that, right?
Well written and well argued.
Believers in copyright often tell me that artists, lawyers, and telephone book editors need to punish us for copying their precious data and ideas, otherwise all this cultural wealth will evaporate and disappear. I suggest that if these "artists" need society's support so much, put them on government welfare to do what they do and give the rest of us back our freedom to share ideas and culture with whomever we like, however we like.
Of course, copyright believers are aghast at the idea. Britney Spears might look like a failure if she discovered her singing was economically devoid of value and had to accept hand-outs or work for a living.
"...Warning: reading this warning in its entirety may cause eyestrain, fatigue, and temporary or permanent numbness of brain. For a detailed description of medical conditions resulting from extensive warnings, see Apple's full Warning Disclosure on Longwinded Warnings, page 207; as well as Apple's Statement Regarding Legal Culpability Due to Injury From Extended Exposure to Warnings, Warnings About Warnings, and Legal Statements About Exposure to Warnings Warnings, page 234."
Indeed, it's been known by type designers and typesetters for a long time how immersive reading works. It's a fairly complicated process, more so than this new "two-letters-at-a-time "discovery" suggests. Your fovea takes in the entire shape of a word while your parafovea sees the surrounding words, and in this manner your eye skips along, actually focussing on only a few spots per line of text.
In fact, for efficient (speed) reading, your eyes can be trained to reading an entire line in a single glance. The private school I attended had mandatory speed-reading classes, and I maxed out the tachistoscope (speed-reading machine) at 1,800 words per minute. At such a reading pace, there's little margin for eye movement; you simply scroll your eyes down the middle of a column of text.
Reminds me of when Yahoo forced me to downgrade my Flickr account to a Yahoo account. Naturally every permutation of ever single handle I've ever used was taken, and nothing with "Yahoo" in it was allowed. I ended up going with a homophonous variant, "yahuuarebastards". :)
I agree with your sentiments, but I think you're off on this statement:
"EVERYONE wants democracy, apart from the small group of people who currently have control, of course. But the majority of the population will ALWAYS support democracy AND self-determination."
Democracy, to me, is a mob and a bunch of corrupt politicians telling me how to live my life and how much of my own money I get to keep. Majoritarianism sucks. I'll take freedom over mob-rule any day.
I have a 3rd-gen iPod too (the iPod Photo), and I've really been holding out for a model that supports Firewire transfers again. I'm absent-minded, and syncing my iPod is the last thing I think of on my way out the door. With Firewire, it takes like 2 minutes.
Then again, if Apple produced an iPhone without the phone part, I'd be sorely tempted.
"First, he didn't have to show his receipt or open the bag containing **his** property for the Circuit City door monitor. Unless you are shopping in a membership store where you signed a contract allowing such searches they are **voluntary**"
I would add that even at a membership store, if consenting to searches were somehow in the contract (which I rather doubt due to legal concerns), they still couldn't force you to accede to a search. At best, they could escort you off the premises and revoke your membership.
I think you'll find that the last two world wars were devastating for human liberties, and the next one will most likely continue that trend. Just off the top of my head...
WWI:
- led to the rise of fascist regimes across Europe and Communism in Russia.
- initiated fiat money and restrictions one's right to earn money (income tax) in the US and Canada
- led to occupation and irrational partitioning of the Middle East
- created a political situation that made WWII inevitable
- inspired the creation of chemical weaponry
WWII:
- led to the rise of Communism, the Soviet Bloc, and Communist China
- led to the Cold War, with proxy wars, revolutions, and oppression springing up throughout the Third World
- led to the establishment of massive spy and policing agencies in the First and Second World, with little responsibility or oversight
- led to further eroding of free-market money and personal financial rights
- inspired the creation of nuclear weaponry
The oppression of the world today takes its shape from the world wars of the last century. We can only imagine the dystopia that would result from another.
I humbly suggest 'RTFM' for any of the big Linux vendors. :)
Are "las citas obligatorias de los Simpsons" restricted to exclamations by Bumblebee Guy, I wonder?
Ay, un gato malodoro!
"This is why I think copyright infringement should be up to the courts to investigate and prove or disprove as a criminal matter and NOT the plaintiff (corporations)."
Copyright becoming a criminal matter would be absolutely disastrous. You can be sure the RIAA and MPAA would be writing and purchasing the laws, and they'd probably even push for federal laws, where due process is largely absent.
Do you really want a country where someone's entire life can be destroyed, with jail sentences and a criminal record, because he or she shared a favourite song or TV show?
"And how, exactly, can you prove to a judge that John Smith actually distributed that file which reads 'John Smith'?"
In the US legal system, the burden of proof tends to fall on the person who doesn't a multimillion-dollar legal department at his disposal.
Besides, the RIAA prefers extortion to legal action. They just have to send you a letter stating one of your music files ended up on a filesharing network, and you can pony up a few grand or face the consequences. Heck, they don't even have to be telling the truth, they could simply send out form letters like that to people whom they've verified as purchasing music at some point and hope most people chicken out.
After all, given how many times they've targeted dead people and people without computers, it's clear that actually having any evidence against you is not a pre-requisite for getting one of their extortion letters.
"Now, you could buy solar panels at $5000 per kW (and 20 pounds). Assuming double efficiency is treble the price - you need $15,000 per square meter, so you'll pay $150,000 for solar on your car. Is it worth to drop your fuel consumption 50%? Or completely?"
This is the point where the central market planners jump in and shout that we should subsidize solar panels. But why does that solar panel cost $15,000 per square metre? Because of all the resources, energy, and labour consumed in producing it. Chances are those more than offset the gas you're not burning.
When the manufacturer can make panels efficiently enough to be more affordable than gasoline, it'll be because they're finally less wasteful and polluting overall.
A similar principle holds with recycling, by the way. In the instances where recycling actually saves on energy and raw materials, there is a cost savings as well, and the recycler will pay *you* for your bottles and cans. If the government has to make you do it, it's because the process is not cost-effective overall, and more waste is taking place in the recycling process than the recycling itself saves.