that oil won't run out over night, as it gets more expensive, more and more financial resources will be put into alternative sources.
Except that developing those alternative sources won't happen overnight either. And what's more, technological development does not scale up indefinately as more money is spent on it - you can't blow a billion dollars at once and expect to get results. R&D takes time, testing takes time, and even when they're done, getting a developed tech to the marketplace takes a long time even when the demand is there for it.
Understand, I do think that the market will kick in when the oil prices get high enough. What I'm saying is that it may kick in too late. The best energy solutions are 30 years off or more. Simply dumping money into them at the last minute may not be enough.
To give an example, you've probably heard it said that fusion is always X years in the future (usually given as 30, sometimes 50). This is due to the fact that in the 1970's, fusion researchers and the press essentially said they could have a working fusion reactor by 2000. What people forget is that what the researchers actually said was prefaced "with adequate funding" - and they never got it.
Fusion research is expensive and time consuming, and almost entirely government funded. It's far and away the best alternative energy source out there, but if we want it in time to avert a massive energy crisis in the next few decades, we need to start spending the time and money on it now, not when we're looking at only a few years of time left. We can't afford to wait for the price of oil to force a market shift.
Bear in mind that billion are already going into alternative research. There may be NO alternative to oil. Which means everything will change.
Yes, that would mean we're essentially screwed. However, we already know there are possible oil alternatives, so that outcome seems unlikely. The problem is knowing that we could quit oil, and actually doing it, are two very different things.
It's like a smoker knowing on an intellectual level that he could quit, but lacking the willpower or motivation to do so. For that person, waiting until his health worsens isn't a good idea.
Just to clarify something - I'm Canadian. Here, the various brands of conservative don't include "republicans", and the self-described neocons are quite a different beast from the old-school conservatives (which we tend to label "Tories").
Old tories in Canadian politics are actually somewhat closer to the democrats in the US than they are the repubs. They're right of the middle, but not far right. The new conservatives (who describe themselves as neocons) are closer to American style republicans. Ergo, the tendancy here is to refer to "neocon politics/policies" when talking about both the repubs south of the border and Harper's party, at least in so far as the policies they both have in common.
It's entirely possible that you know the history of neoconservatism far better than I do, and that technically the republicans in America and the conservative party of Canada don't fit the bill. Words and meanings in politics get corrupted all the time - the liberal party here is the centerist one, and the NDP are the left wing. Likewise, the positioning of the two major American parties in the political spectrum has shifted repeatatly.
But the common usage of the word "neocon" today is in reference to that area of politics. And I have seen self-described neocons and self-described environmentalists engage is massive flamewars over topics like global warming, so I call them like I see them. YMMV.
I respectfully disagree. It is my understanding that whores provide a pleasurable service for money. Lawyers and record company executives, on the other hand, do the opposite - and then charge you for the priveledge.
Please don't impinge on the good name of whores:-)
While I'm not disagreeing with you on the whole "nuclear is better for the environment than fossil fuels" idea here, I gotta say, you'd have to be batshit fecking crazy to want to use Sr-90 as a fuel source.
This stuff will give youbone cancer. Not exactly what I'd want to put under the hood of every car in the world, especially when accidents are so common. Plus, there's the whole "spontainiously combusts in the open air" business.
I'd think you'd get better results using nuclear plants to generate hydrogen from water using high-temperature electrolysis - that way you centralize your nuclear waste and fuel. You wouldn't really want a mini-generator in every home or every car for the reasons listed above, but regulated and properly governed nuke plants have a solid safety record.
The problem with that of course is it's a huge overhaul of our transportation system.
The market tends to be a reactive, rather than proactive, solution. That makes it ideal for short term adaptation and blind effeciency, but terrible for problems that are urgent and require long term investment - and this is the latter.
What we need to do now is mostly R&D and prototype work. When and if those pan out, then the free market takes over; even a less than totally cheap solution can be competative if it has advantages otehr than price, and "green" marketing is exactly the sort of thing that can make up for the difference in price.
However, as is usually the case, the groundwork can't wait for the free market to take an interest. We won't get alternative fuels without someone doing research into possible sources and people building prototypes that might or might not work. There's no gain in that if you're a for-profit corporation. Money takes the path of least resistance; trying to get it to flow somewhere that's not conductive to profit is like trying to get a lightling strike on a street level object in manhattan.
It's beneficial already. We're funding corrupt regimes in oil rich countries, and tying our economic prosperity to people who are not our allies. Economic and geopolitical self-sufficiency is always a good idea.
Besides, even ignoring that, any technological advance worth developing has initial costs. The first generation of any tech takes more effort that the subsequent ones. The benefit of doing this sort of work now is that we'll need to do it eventually anyway, and the sooner we start, the sooner it'll pay off.
Plus we have more resources available now. If we don't start until those resource dwindle, it'll be harder to get the mature version of the technology in time to avoid a recession. That's not even counting the environmental costs.
Actually, I'm in the "global warming is real, and worth worrying about" camp. Your flame was misdirected, and I can only assume that either you suffer from poor reading comprehension, or that you're so emotionally tied up in the issue that a few trigger words will send you flying off the handle.
The reason I left it out of my post was to avoid getting drawn into a debate. The usual arguement against doing anything to combat global warming is that doing so would be expensive. If I can show reasons for quitting oil that are economic, ie consequences that'll bite us in the ass whether the polar caps melt or not, then I can avoid any debate based on the costs of switching away from fossil fuels.
Any time someone brings up the greenhouse effect as an arguement for alternative energy, the debate over anthropic global warming re-erupts and the issues are forgotten about amidst the flames and political bullshit. Better to simply avoid that debate, leave it for the environmentalists and the neocons to fight it out, and focus on the other issues so that people understand why we need to quit fossil fuels. It isn't just a matter of the enviroment; relying on a dwindling fuel suppy to support our entire economy without looking for alternatives is moronic. We shouldn't have all our eggs in one basket.
What to quit smoking? Smoke all the cigarrettes in your current pack right now. After all, the more you smoke, the faster they run out, right?
I'll leave aside the global warming debate (which will only bring flames) and focus on the economic and technological side of things. Depending entirely on a problematic, finite fuel source and saying to ourselves that "we'll quit when it becomes neccesary, and not a moment sooner" is essentially procrastinating and pretending the problem isn't there.
The simple facts are: 1) We have a finite supply of easily tapped oil. We have larger, but still finite supplies of less easily extractable sources of oil (like tar sands). 2) Our demand for the aformentioned oil is increasing. 3) We have no oil eqivalents yet that can take it's place. Nuclear isn't good for small vehicles. Solar/wind/hydro/etc are good for local power generation and little else. Fuel cells require either hydrocarbons or cheap electricity. 3) We will need to find another source of fuel eventually, whether in 10 years or 50.
None of these are in dispute, right? Unlike global warming, there isn't even any debate in the oil industry, much less the scientific world. All of these facts are easily demonstrated.
Now given that, why on earth would we wait til we've used our exisitng oil supplies up? For one thing, we do use oil for a lot more than just fuel, so we don't want to run out too soon even if we do develop a non-fossil fuel alternative. For another, we already have the technology to start tackling this problem now, even if it'll take years to completely kick the habit.
Waiting until we're almost out is a recipe for disaster. It's akin to quiting smoking once you've started coughing up blood. What if it runs out on us and we're still 10 or 20 years away from having a viable plan B? Do you really think a massive economic recession in the future is better than a taking a few expensive steps in the right direction today?
Saying "use more oil, the more you use the quicker it runs out" is ridiculous and irrational. I honestly hope you were joking, but even if you are, I've seen plenty of other people express the same idea as a serious solution. Complacancy is an extremely bad idea when you can see a disaster coming.
And like I said, all of the above is true regardless of global warming or the environment.
It's also worth mentioning that methane is a greenhouse gas. It's actually worse than Co2 in this regard, though far less common and also less stable.
Since decomposing cow manure is going to emit methane whether we tap it for power or not (as will the cows themselves) it stands to reason that letting the methane go to waste is more of a greenhouse gas contributor than burning it. After all, the Co2 we release from combusting it will be resorbed by the plants the cows themselves eat, whereas the methane will not. And if we don't burn the stuff, it'll just end up in the atmosphere anyways.
And to think - I was this close to perfecting a power generator that ran on burning AOL CDs. It could've solved the energy crisis at a stroke........ah well, back to the drawing board. Maybe I can build one that runs on slasdot dupes.
Do you really mean this? Think about it for a second. If I do happen to modify my book, do I then not longer have the right to sell or give away that modified copy when I no longer want it? Are you relly OK with copyright operating like that?
Well, first off, I'm describing the law, not what I think is right. Try not to assume I'm saying things are perfect the way they are.
But "modify" is too broad here. If you were to create a derivative work (ie, a rewrite of a book) and resell that, then yes that would be illegal under current law. Bear in mind that this has nothing to do with money lost by the publisher and everything to do with the rights of the author, ergo arguements of "there is no financial harm" do not affect the wording of the law in any way. What's protected is the right of the creator to decide what is and is not included in their book.
Picture this. I buy a thousand hard copies of a book (novel) and I convert the book to digital text. I sell a thousand digital copies of that same book. I do not want to burn the hard copies as I like trees and I want to conserve (think green) so I give those hard copies back to the publisher so they can sell them to me or someone else again.
Under current law, you'd be more likely to get in trouble because it's hard to audit the service you provide. What's to say you didn't buy 100 copies of the book and reproduce 200 digitally? It's not like that's any harder to do. And the publisher could claim that you were depriving them of a potential digital market - see my comment about the law giving "first-dibs" on new markets to the original copyright holder.
Who says this is illegal?
The existing law, and more specifically the judge in this case.
Who says this should be illegal?
Not me. I'm not arguing for the validity of the law, I'm merely explaining what it says.
However, the creative side of copyright is arguably the most important. I have a problem with the whole **AA desire to control all means of distribution and stamp out "piracy", because I think it's a classic example of corporations going too far. They're within their rights, but they're using the law as a blunt instrument, and that bothers me.
This ruling is a bit different though, because it isn't some executive trying to maintain a stranglehold on their media; this is about the rights of the original creator (as opposed to the rights of the movie production company). Even if IP law was revised to what I would consider an "ideal", I'd still want to leave in provisions that protect the rights of the author/artist/whoever.
True, but I never claimed that anonymous people are inherently jerks as the AC did, ergo I see no hypocracy in my actions. Whereas I found the GP to be somewhat funny - blasting anonymous wiki editors/trolls while himself remaining anon. OTOH, he at least provided a citation, which is much more than most wiki vandals:-)
Also, within the limited confines of the/. community, I am not anonymous - I am known. I have karma, stated views, a posting history, etc; everything that is relevant to/. is accessable. The fact that the name I am known by is an internet pseudonym is hardly relevant here. The only thing I hide is my e-mail, and that's because the account I use for slashdot is meant to be spam free. There is a minor difference in accountability between logged in posters and ACs.
I think the distinction in your example is essentially a matter of who takes action - the owner of the media exercising his fair use rights or a middleman trying to tap a market.
If you have to employ someone with specialized skills in order to take advantage of fair use, but you do so purely with your own copy of the media (ie, brought your DVD to a shop where they edited out the naughty parts), then you're probably within your rights. In the US, the DMCA would get in the way, but we'll ignore that for now, as the discussion is centered on traditional copyright; most of us would agree that the DMCA is a crap piece of legislation paid for by lobbyists.
If, on the other hand, someone decides there's a market in altering DVDs and reselling them to you, the consumer, then that is different. Fair use only applies to your own property - you cannot violate copyright, resell the results and claim you were assisting the buyer in exercising his right to fair use. Partly this is based on the idea that the copyright holder has "first-dibs" on that market.
Additionally, in the case of a buyer seeking out alterations to his media in the name of fair use, the sale of the video has already happened; the buyer is the final customer, not the middle man. I don't know what status resale of the altered media would have, but that isn't strictly relevant here (as the resale market isn't the same as the first sale market legally).
To draw a comparison, I could use my (legitamate) MP3 collection in a game mod for my own use only; this would fall under fair use as both the mod tools and the tools for ripping a CD to MP3 are legal under copyright law.
However, I couldn't distribute the mod online with the copyright materials, since that would be outside fair use. Likewise, I couldn't even distribute the mod with the music if I included a bought and paid for copy of the CD I ripped it from. Altering and repackaging media isn't part of what we traditionally consider "fair use".
Going just by classical copyright, and not the DMCA (which doesn't apply outside the US), what would stop you from copying DVDs and altering them for your own use? Likewise, what would stop a 3rd party programmer from giving you the tools to automatically remove the naughty bits? These things would appear to fall under fair use.
This ruling would have held up under the pre-DMCA laws. It isn't primarily about circumvention, it's about redistribution and alteration without consent. The problem here was that the company was distributing "safe" copies for profit. While I tend to be strongly against the **AAs, I'm also in favour of the artist/author/director/whoever having the right to control over their works.
That right, which seems to be the more rational side of copyright, was what was breached here. If I give you a program I've coded freely, to alter as you see fit on the condition that you likewise make your alterations free, and you then breach that condition, then I have a right to be pissed.
If the DMCA didn't apply, the examples you cite would offer conservative parents a perfectly legal workaround. Fair use and all that. Even with the DMCA, I doubt anyone would favour suing them for removing content from their own copies.
It'd be more like you taking that book, photocopying it, with edits, and selling the altered version. And that is illegal - copying for your own use is fine, editing your own copy is fine, it's when your version is sold or distributed that you run into the law. Fair use essentially only extends as far as your own personal usage.
This particular case was something of a grey area (in part because they weren't costing the movie-makers money - ie they weren't like people selling bootleg DVDs), but it's the act of copying and redistribution that got them. Legally, they're in the same boat - slightly better off for not profiting at the MPAAs expense like the aforementioned bootleg DVD seller, but slightly worse off for having made alterations to their copied versions without the original author's consent.
Think about it. If the law says that the MPAA can sue filesharers, who aren't altering the movies they distribute, and aren't charging money for their unauthorized copies, then what is protecting the defendants here who are both altering and charging money?
Now, if you disagree with the idea that the MPAA should be able to sue over stuff like this, then that's another matter altogether. I don't like their lawyers and lawsuits either. But my point here is about what the law is, not what it should be.
Warning: Reactor core dump caused by Torpedo.exe. Program attempted to access Vent.shaft - shaft firewall failed due to firewall absence/deactivation. The system will shutdown in 10 seconds, any unsaved data and undestroyed planets will be lost/saved. Please contact a Dell customer service representative for details. Error number 517H-5p1T.
I have never once seen anyone blame either Repubs in general or Bush in particular for tidal waves. We're talking about seismic events here, which aren't affected in any way by human activity (though our vulnerability to them can be worsened by poor building standards and lack of planning or foresight). I could see this humour maybe working for the hurricane (where blame was placed on global warming), but the two events aren't similar.
I realize this is a joke, but who do you think you're mocking? Did anyone ever actually blamed Bush et all for the tsunami? If you have any credible source of someone actually blaming global warming or politicians for the disaster, then link it. No nutjobs either - I did say credible.
Until you do, you're just putting up a sarcastic strawman.
I'm pretty sure that the region they're covering with this system is more vulnerable than most. Nowhere else that I can think of has large populations that are near the mainland coast or on islands. There are a few other equally densely populated areas, and plenty of settled coastal regions, but the combination of both is rare. Remember that this is one of the most densely populated regions in the world - China is as bad or worse, but not as vulnerable to tidal waves.
Early warning systems in both southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent will do the most good. Rio is vulnerable to be sure, but a disaster there won't be as far reaching, or claim as many lives. Also, if we're talking natural disasters in central America, I'd worry more about hurricanes in the gulf of Mexico than tidal waves in the south Atlantic.
That being said, a global system is a good idea, assuming we could find the funding needed.
Realistically, many areas are gonna get hit hard no matter how much warning they get. There's not much you can do about flooding for example if there isn't anywhere nearby above sea level. I've heard it said that Bangladesh is a disaster waiting to happen because of exactly that sort of terrain and climate.
What you can do with tsunamis though is give the people who can react a chance to do something. Even fifteen minutes warning might save lives - enough time to get the hell away from the beach and seek shelter.
You're right that it won't be enough in far flung areas. But an imperfect system that will do some good is better than no system - better a cheap condom than none at all to draw a crude analogy...
What then? Just "don't buy from any of them", and do without any support at all?
The issue is not about what I, a computer geek (and therefor in the minority of computer users) can do. Why would I want a Dell machine in the first place? The issue is about what the average user will do.
When Joe Average is depending on call-in support and warranty repair for his prefab box when it breaks, then customer service is an issue. Additionally, customer service is entirely after the fact; you cannot know in advance whether a company will be good or bad in this area unless you are warned by someone you trust. Astroturf and people with chips on their shoulders ensure that the net is a bad source of information either way.
Therefor companies that provide bad support have already made their money and are trying to weasel out of their obligations. This means that saying "the market will correct iteself" is untrue - customers can't simply refuse to use bad customer service when the cost of that service was paid for when they bought the box.
Moreover, I can't think of many examples of Dell-type companies that provide good support; ergo the market cannot correct even if potential customers are warned about Dell, due to the fact that they lack alternatives. If your choice is between Dell and some other IBM clone box seller, both of which provide equally shitty customer service, then how exactly do you vote with your wallet?
Face it. The situation described in TFA is exactly the sort of scenario that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the free market to auto-correct.
And when all or most of the competing companies offer equally cruddy customer service? What then? Just "don't buy from any of them", and do without any support at all?
The market isn't some mystical force. It isn't sentient, and it doesn't make decisions, no matter how we sometimes anthropomorphasize it. It's a semi-rational human construct that behaves predictably - and it cannot magically "correct" itself if the circumstances don't allow it.
For market correction to occur spontainiously, there have to be a least two different choices facing a customer, and he has to have access to accurate information about what advantages and drawbacks each choice offers. If either the customer has no source of accurate information before making a purchasing decision, or if he doesn't have two different choices (two identical choices or only one choice are both possible reasons), then the market doesn't correct.
If you're getting bad support, you've already made a purchase, and the company has gotten your cash. You can avoid them in the future, and tell others to do so as well, but it is entirely possible for a company to get by on one time customers alone. You'd have to know that the company had crappy tech support before you bought their product - and where are you going to get that information? Maybe the only people you know who bought from them never used their tech support. Going online doesn't help either - too much whining one the one hand and too much astroturfing on the other.
And if you do know that company X has crappy support, then you still need a company Y to turn to that is better in this regard. If no such alternative exists (or is feasble for your circumstances), then there is nothing you can do.
Free market capitalism is not a panacea. It's better than the alternatives, granted, but it does have drawbacks - and one of those drawbacks is the damage lack of accurate information and choice can do to customers.
Also, the person you replied to said that misbehaving corporations need to be "punished", right? Isn't that exactly what the free market correcting itself is supposed to be about? Ie, people voting with their wallets, and leaving bad companies in favour of better ones.
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Understand, I do think that the market will kick in when the oil prices get high enough. What I'm saying is that it may kick in too late. The best energy solutions are 30 years off or more. Simply dumping money into them at the last minute may not be enough.
To give an example, you've probably heard it said that fusion is always X years in the future (usually given as 30, sometimes 50). This is due to the fact that in the 1970's, fusion researchers and the press essentially said they could have a working fusion reactor by 2000. What people forget is that what the researchers actually said was prefaced "with adequate funding" - and they never got it.
Fusion research is expensive and time consuming, and almost entirely government funded. It's far and away the best alternative energy source out there, but if we want it in time to avert a massive energy crisis in the next few decades, we need to start spending the time and money on it now, not when we're looking at only a few years of time left. We can't afford to wait for the price of oil to force a market shift.
Yes, that would mean we're essentially screwed. However, we already know there are possible oil alternatives, so that outcome seems unlikely. The problem is knowing that we could quit oil, and actually doing it, are two very different things.
It's like a smoker knowing on an intellectual level that he could quit, but lacking the willpower or motivation to do so. For that person, waiting until his health worsens isn't a good idea.
Just to clarify something - I'm Canadian. Here, the various brands of conservative don't include "republicans", and the self-described neocons are quite a different beast from the old-school conservatives (which we tend to label "Tories").
Old tories in Canadian politics are actually somewhat closer to the democrats in the US than they are the repubs. They're right of the middle, but not far right. The new conservatives (who describe themselves as neocons) are closer to American style republicans. Ergo, the tendancy here is to refer to "neocon politics/policies" when talking about both the repubs south of the border and Harper's party, at least in so far as the policies they both have in common.
It's entirely possible that you know the history of neoconservatism far better than I do, and that technically the republicans in America and the conservative party of Canada don't fit the bill. Words and meanings in politics get corrupted all the time - the liberal party here is the centerist one, and the NDP are the left wing. Likewise, the positioning of the two major American parties in the political spectrum has shifted repeatatly.
But the common usage of the word "neocon" today is in reference to that area of politics. And I have seen self-described neocons and self-described environmentalists engage is massive flamewars over topics like global warming, so I call them like I see them. YMMV.
Please don't impinge on the good name of whores
While I'm not disagreeing with you on the whole "nuclear is better for the environment than fossil fuels" idea here, I gotta say, you'd have to be batshit fecking crazy to want to use Sr-90 as a fuel source.
This stuff will give you bone cancer . Not exactly what I'd want to put under the hood of every car in the world, especially when accidents are so common. Plus, there's the whole "spontainiously combusts in the open air" business.
I'd think you'd get better results using nuclear plants to generate hydrogen from water using high-temperature electrolysis - that way you centralize your nuclear waste and fuel. You wouldn't really want a mini-generator in every home or every car for the reasons listed above, but regulated and properly governed nuke plants have a solid safety record.
The problem with that of course is it's a huge overhaul of our transportation system.
The market tends to be a reactive, rather than proactive, solution. That makes it ideal for short term adaptation and blind effeciency, but terrible for problems that are urgent and require long term investment - and this is the latter.
What we need to do now is mostly R&D and prototype work. When and if those pan out, then the free market takes over; even a less than totally cheap solution can be competative if it has advantages otehr than price, and "green" marketing is exactly the sort of thing that can make up for the difference in price.
However, as is usually the case, the groundwork can't wait for the free market to take an interest. We won't get alternative fuels without someone doing research into possible sources and people building prototypes that might or might not work. There's no gain in that if you're a for-profit corporation. Money takes the path of least resistance; trying to get it to flow somewhere that's not conductive to profit is like trying to get a lightling strike on a street level object in manhattan.
It's beneficial already. We're funding corrupt regimes in oil rich countries, and tying our economic prosperity to people who are not our allies. Economic and geopolitical self-sufficiency is always a good idea.
Besides, even ignoring that, any technological advance worth developing has initial costs. The first generation of any tech takes more effort that the subsequent ones. The benefit of doing this sort of work now is that we'll need to do it eventually anyway, and the sooner we start, the sooner it'll pay off.
Plus we have more resources available now. If we don't start until those resource dwindle, it'll be harder to get the mature version of the technology in time to avoid a recession. That's not even counting the environmental costs.
Actually, I'm in the "global warming is real, and worth worrying about" camp. Your flame was misdirected, and I can only assume that either you suffer from poor reading comprehension, or that you're so emotionally tied up in the issue that a few trigger words will send you flying off the handle.
The reason I left it out of my post was to avoid getting drawn into a debate. The usual arguement against doing anything to combat global warming is that doing so would be expensive. If I can show reasons for quitting oil that are economic, ie consequences that'll bite us in the ass whether the polar caps melt or not, then I can avoid any debate based on the costs of switching away from fossil fuels.
Any time someone brings up the greenhouse effect as an arguement for alternative energy, the debate over anthropic global warming re-erupts and the issues are forgotten about amidst the flames and political bullshit. Better to simply avoid that debate, leave it for the environmentalists and the neocons to fight it out, and focus on the other issues so that people understand why we need to quit fossil fuels. It isn't just a matter of the enviroment; relying on a dwindling fuel suppy to support our entire economy without looking for alternatives is moronic. We shouldn't have all our eggs in one basket.
We're raising the terror alert level to Brown :-P
What to quit smoking? Smoke all the cigarrettes in your current pack right now. After all, the more you smoke, the faster they run out, right?
I'll leave aside the global warming debate (which will only bring flames) and focus on the economic and technological side of things. Depending entirely on a problematic, finite fuel source and saying to ourselves that "we'll quit when it becomes neccesary, and not a moment sooner" is essentially procrastinating and pretending the problem isn't there.
The simple facts are:
1) We have a finite supply of easily tapped oil. We have larger, but still finite supplies of less easily extractable sources of oil (like tar sands).
2) Our demand for the aformentioned oil is increasing.
3) We have no oil eqivalents yet that can take it's place. Nuclear isn't good for small vehicles. Solar/wind/hydro/etc are good for local power generation and little else. Fuel cells require either hydrocarbons or cheap electricity.
3) We will need to find another source of fuel eventually, whether in 10 years or 50.
None of these are in dispute, right? Unlike global warming, there isn't even any debate in the oil industry, much less the scientific world. All of these facts are easily demonstrated.
Now given that, why on earth would we wait til we've used our exisitng oil supplies up? For one thing, we do use oil for a lot more than just fuel, so we don't want to run out too soon even if we do develop a non-fossil fuel alternative. For another, we already have the technology to start tackling this problem now, even if it'll take years to completely kick the habit.
Waiting until we're almost out is a recipe for disaster. It's akin to quiting smoking once you've started coughing up blood. What if it runs out on us and we're still 10 or 20 years away from having a viable plan B? Do you really think a massive economic recession in the future is better than a taking a few expensive steps in the right direction today?
Saying "use more oil, the more you use the quicker it runs out" is ridiculous and irrational. I honestly hope you were joking, but even if you are, I've seen plenty of other people express the same idea as a serious solution. Complacancy is an extremely bad idea when you can see a disaster coming.
And like I said, all of the above is true regardless of global warming or the environment.
It's also worth mentioning that methane is a greenhouse gas. It's actually worse than Co2 in this regard, though far less common and also less stable.
Since decomposing cow manure is going to emit methane whether we tap it for power or not (as will the cows themselves) it stands to reason that letting the methane go to waste is more of a greenhouse gas contributor than burning it. After all, the Co2 we release from combusting it will be resorbed by the plants the cows themselves eat, whereas the methane will not. And if we don't burn the stuff, it'll just end up in the atmosphere anyways.
I call BS. This is a complete load of manure.
And to think - I was this close to perfecting a power generator that ran on burning AOL CDs. It could've solved the energy crisis at a stroke.... ....ah well, back to the drawing board. Maybe I can build one that runs on slasdot dupes.
Damnit that goes too far! You're a cruel human being. I wouldn't subject a dog to that level of torture, much less a human.
:-P
In the name of human rights, they should not be forced to watch Biodome any more than twice!
Well, first off, I'm describing the law, not what I think is right. Try not to assume I'm saying things are perfect the way they are.
But "modify" is too broad here. If you were to create a derivative work (ie, a rewrite of a book) and resell that, then yes that would be illegal under current law. Bear in mind that this has nothing to do with money lost by the publisher and everything to do with the rights of the author, ergo arguements of "there is no financial harm" do not affect the wording of the law in any way. What's protected is the right of the creator to decide what is and is not included in their book.
Under current law, you'd be more likely to get in trouble because it's hard to audit the service you provide. What's to say you didn't buy 100 copies of the book and reproduce 200 digitally? It's not like that's any harder to do. And the publisher could claim that you were depriving them of a potential digital market - see my comment about the law giving "first-dibs" on new markets to the original copyright holder.
The existing law, and more specifically the judge in this case.
Not me. I'm not arguing for the validity of the law, I'm merely explaining what it says.
However, the creative side of copyright is arguably the most important. I have a problem with the whole **AA desire to control all means of distribution and stamp out "piracy", because I think it's a classic example of corporations going too far. They're within their rights, but they're using the law as a blunt instrument, and that bothers me.
This ruling is a bit different though, because it isn't some executive trying to maintain a stranglehold on their media; this is about the rights of the original creator (as opposed to the rights of the movie production company). Even if IP law was revised to what I would consider an "ideal", I'd still want to leave in provisions that protect the rights of the author/artist/whoever.
True, but I never claimed that anonymous people are inherently jerks as the AC did, ergo I see no hypocracy in my actions. Whereas I found the GP to be somewhat funny - blasting anonymous wiki editors/trolls while himself remaining anon. OTOH, he at least provided a citation, which is much more than most wiki vandals :-)
/. community, I am not anonymous - I am known. I have karma, stated views, a posting history, etc; everything that is relevant to /. is accessable. The fact that the name I am known by is an internet pseudonym is hardly relevant here. The only thing I hide is my e-mail, and that's because the account I use for slashdot is meant to be spam free. There is a minor difference in accountability between logged in posters and ACs.
Also, within the limited confines of the
Posted by: Anonymous Coward
I think the distinction in your example is essentially a matter of who takes action - the owner of the media exercising his fair use rights or a middleman trying to tap a market.
If you have to employ someone with specialized skills in order to take advantage of fair use, but you do so purely with your own copy of the media (ie, brought your DVD to a shop where they edited out the naughty parts), then you're probably within your rights. In the US, the DMCA would get in the way, but we'll ignore that for now, as the discussion is centered on traditional copyright; most of us would agree that the DMCA is a crap piece of legislation paid for by lobbyists.
If, on the other hand, someone decides there's a market in altering DVDs and reselling them to you, the consumer, then that is different. Fair use only applies to your own property - you cannot violate copyright, resell the results and claim you were assisting the buyer in exercising his right to fair use. Partly this is based on the idea that the copyright holder has "first-dibs" on that market.
Additionally, in the case of a buyer seeking out alterations to his media in the name of fair use, the sale of the video has already happened; the buyer is the final customer, not the middle man. I don't know what status resale of the altered media would have, but that isn't strictly relevant here (as the resale market isn't the same as the first sale market legally).
To draw a comparison, I could use my (legitamate) MP3 collection in a game mod for my own use only; this would fall under fair use as both the mod tools and the tools for ripping a CD to MP3 are legal under copyright law.
However, I couldn't distribute the mod online with the copyright materials, since that would be outside fair use. Likewise, I couldn't even distribute the mod with the music if I included a bought and paid for copy of the CD I ripped it from. Altering and repackaging media isn't part of what we traditionally consider "fair use".
Going just by classical copyright, and not the DMCA (which doesn't apply outside the US), what would stop you from copying DVDs and altering them for your own use? Likewise, what would stop a 3rd party programmer from giving you the tools to automatically remove the naughty bits? These things would appear to fall under fair use.
This ruling would have held up under the pre-DMCA laws. It isn't primarily about circumvention, it's about redistribution and alteration without consent. The problem here was that the company was distributing "safe" copies for profit. While I tend to be strongly against the **AAs, I'm also in favour of the artist/author/director/whoever having the right to control over their works.
That right, which seems to be the more rational side of copyright, was what was breached here. If I give you a program I've coded freely, to alter as you see fit on the condition that you likewise make your alterations free, and you then breach that condition, then I have a right to be pissed.
If the DMCA didn't apply, the examples you cite would offer conservative parents a perfectly legal workaround. Fair use and all that. Even with the DMCA, I doubt anyone would favour suing them for removing content from their own copies.
It'd be more like you taking that book, photocopying it, with edits, and selling the altered version. And that is illegal - copying for your own use is fine, editing your own copy is fine, it's when your version is sold or distributed that you run into the law. Fair use essentially only extends as far as your own personal usage.
This particular case was something of a grey area (in part because they weren't costing the movie-makers money - ie they weren't like people selling bootleg DVDs), but it's the act of copying and redistribution that got them. Legally, they're in the same boat - slightly better off for not profiting at the MPAAs expense like the aforementioned bootleg DVD seller, but slightly worse off for having made alterations to their copied versions without the original author's consent.
Think about it. If the law says that the MPAA can sue filesharers, who aren't altering the movies they distribute, and aren't charging money for their unauthorized copies, then what is protecting the defendants here who are both altering and charging money?
Now, if you disagree with the idea that the MPAA should be able to sue over stuff like this, then that's another matter altogether. I don't like their lawyers and lawsuits either. But my point here is about what the law is, not what it should be.
(Seen on a BSOD)
Warning: Reactor core dump caused by Torpedo.exe. Program attempted to access Vent.shaft - shaft firewall failed due to firewall absence/deactivation. The system will shutdown in 10 seconds, any unsaved data and undestroyed planets will be lost/saved. Please contact a Dell customer service representative for details. Error number 517H-5p1T.
I have never once seen anyone blame either Repubs in general or Bush in particular for tidal waves. We're talking about seismic events here, which aren't affected in any way by human activity (though our vulnerability to them can be worsened by poor building standards and lack of planning or foresight). I could see this humour maybe working for the hurricane (where blame was placed on global warming), but the two events aren't similar.
I realize this is a joke, but who do you think you're mocking? Did anyone ever actually blamed Bush et all for the tsunami? If you have any credible source of someone actually blaming global warming or politicians for the disaster, then link it. No nutjobs either - I did say credible.
Until you do, you're just putting up a sarcastic strawman.
I'm pretty sure that the region they're covering with this system is more vulnerable than most. Nowhere else that I can think of has large populations that are near the mainland coast or on islands. There are a few other equally densely populated areas, and plenty of settled coastal regions, but the combination of both is rare. Remember that this is one of the most densely populated regions in the world - China is as bad or worse, but not as vulnerable to tidal waves.
Early warning systems in both southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent will do the most good. Rio is vulnerable to be sure, but a disaster there won't be as far reaching, or claim as many lives. Also, if we're talking natural disasters in central America, I'd worry more about hurricanes in the gulf of Mexico than tidal waves in the south Atlantic.
That being said, a global system is a good idea, assuming we could find the funding needed.
Realistically, many areas are gonna get hit hard no matter how much warning they get. There's not much you can do about flooding for example if there isn't anywhere nearby above sea level. I've heard it said that Bangladesh is a disaster waiting to happen because of exactly that sort of terrain and climate.
What you can do with tsunamis though is give the people who can react a chance to do something. Even fifteen minutes warning might save lives - enough time to get the hell away from the beach and seek shelter.
You're right that it won't be enough in far flung areas. But an imperfect system that will do some good is better than no system - better a cheap condom than none at all to draw a crude analogy...
The issue is not about what I, a computer geek (and therefor in the minority of computer users) can do. Why would I want a Dell machine in the first place? The issue is about what the average user will do.
When Joe Average is depending on call-in support and warranty repair for his prefab box when it breaks, then customer service is an issue. Additionally, customer service is entirely after the fact; you cannot know in advance whether a company will be good or bad in this area unless you are warned by someone you trust. Astroturf and people with chips on their shoulders ensure that the net is a bad source of information either way.
Therefor companies that provide bad support have already made their money and are trying to weasel out of their obligations. This means that saying "the market will correct iteself" is untrue - customers can't simply refuse to use bad customer service when the cost of that service was paid for when they bought the box.
Moreover, I can't think of many examples of Dell-type companies that provide good support; ergo the market cannot correct even if potential customers are warned about Dell, due to the fact that they lack alternatives. If your choice is between Dell and some other IBM clone box seller, both of which provide equally shitty customer service, then how exactly do you vote with your wallet?
Face it. The situation described in TFA is exactly the sort of scenario that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the free market to auto-correct.
And when all or most of the competing companies offer equally cruddy customer service? What then? Just "don't buy from any of them", and do without any support at all?
The market isn't some mystical force. It isn't sentient, and it doesn't make decisions, no matter how we sometimes anthropomorphasize it. It's a semi-rational human construct that behaves predictably - and it cannot magically "correct" itself if the circumstances don't allow it.
For market correction to occur spontainiously, there have to be a least two different choices facing a customer, and he has to have access to accurate information about what advantages and drawbacks each choice offers. If either the customer has no source of accurate information before making a purchasing decision, or if he doesn't have two different choices (two identical choices or only one choice are both possible reasons), then the market doesn't correct.
If you're getting bad support, you've already made a purchase, and the company has gotten your cash. You can avoid them in the future, and tell others to do so as well, but it is entirely possible for a company to get by on one time customers alone. You'd have to know that the company had crappy tech support before you bought their product - and where are you going to get that information? Maybe the only people you know who bought from them never used their tech support. Going online doesn't help either - too much whining one the one hand and too much astroturfing on the other.
And if you do know that company X has crappy support, then you still need a company Y to turn to that is better in this regard. If no such alternative exists (or is feasble for your circumstances), then there is nothing you can do.
Free market capitalism is not a panacea. It's better than the alternatives, granted, but it does have drawbacks - and one of those drawbacks is the damage lack of accurate information and choice can do to customers.
Also, the person you replied to said that misbehaving corporations need to be "punished", right? Isn't that exactly what the free market correcting itself is supposed to be about? Ie, people voting with their wallets, and leaving bad companies in favour of better ones.