But they aren't going to miss the CD, they will miss the sale of that CD.
If I walk out of a store with a CD that I didn't pay for, then the store has lost a sale. If I walk into a store and copy the CD with a portable CD copier, then the CD is still in the store and can be purchased by someone else. The music store is only losing a sale in this instance if I have the means to buy the CD, want to buy the CD at the sale price, don't know anywhere else to get the CD cheaper (friend, used store, etc), and don't buy the CD only because I now have a free copy. Are we on the same wavelength here?
Certainly it doesn't deprive them of a sale. It deprives them of having their expectation to be compensated for their work being satisfied. Just like if your employer decided not to pay you for the last two weeks work doesn't deprive you of money, it just deprives you of having your expectation of being compensated for your work being satisfied.
You're right- I don't understand what you're saying. I completely agree that if your employer doesn't pay you for work you've already done, then he's broken a contract (work for money), which is theft in spirit if not in letter. I just don't see how it's relevant to copyright infringement, because no artist is given a contract saying that X number of their albums WILL be bought by consumers, whereas any employee has a contract stating that X hours worked equals Y dollars in paycheck.
Businesses and people who offer services or products are not concerned with being deprived of things, it's being deprived of the sale of the thing.
Under your definition, it seems like I'm "stealing" from a music store if I tape record a song from the radio and don't feel the need to buy the CD later. They're being deprived of a sale either way, right?
Needless to say, I don't agree with this reasoning. When I copy a music file, I gain music but the music company doesn't lose anything physical at all, despite their claims to being deprived of a potential sale. This is a purely hypothetical loss on their part, based on the assumption that if I couldn't get the music via mininova, that I'd have no choice but to buy it at full price, in which case they've lost the sticker price of the CD. I think this reasoning is flawed for several reasons:
(1): Some music I would buy for $5 or listen to if it's free, but I wouldn't pay $20 for the CD. In some instances, music that I would pirate I would not buy, even if I was unable to obtain the music through P2P networks. This means that in a situation like this, the music company is only "losing" the amount of money that I would actually pay for the music. The problem is that the RIAA is treating their product as though it's a commodity, like it's water... and we have no choice but to either buy it from them, steal it, or die of thirst.
(2): I could just as easily buy the CD from a friend or from a store that sells used CDs, in which case the RIAA has lost nothing.
In short, I believe that you are correct that being deprived of a sale constitutes stealing, especially in the cases you mentioned. What I'm disputing is that copyright infringement necessarily deprives anyone of a sale.
I have never found a really good explanation for this: How do we know a blackhole truly has an infinite density, and not just so incredibly dense that it, in fact, has a stronger gravity than even light can escape? My mind has a difficult time with something becoming infinitely small. I can understand it becoming so tight that there is no space between the smallest particles, but cannot fathom something smaller than that.
Good question. Short answer: we don't know.
Long answer: According to the General Theory of Relativity, black holes have all their mass contained in a geometric point called the "singularity". This singularity is surrounded by a finite-sized spherical boundary called the "event horizon" which is defined as the locus of points where not even light can escape the gravity of the singularity. Because nothing (that we know of) can travel fast than light, the event horizon is a seemingly impenetrable barrier to any investigation of the singularity itself.
So we're unlikely to view a singularity directly and measure its size. On the other hand, most physicists are convinced that the General Relativistic description of the singularity as a literal geometric point most be wrong. They believe this because very small objects are governed by quantum mechanics, and a new theory (which does not exist yet) called "Quantum Gravity" must take over at densities like those found in singularities.
I'm generally a fairly skeptical chap, and it took a long time to even convince me that event horizons exist. For the longest time, all "proofs" of black holes basically said "here is something that is more dense than a neutron star, and since the ONLY THING more dense than a neutron star is a black hole, this object must be a black hole." I was never really convinced that there weren't other objects denser than neutron stars that didn't actually have event horizons, so this argument never swayed me. These recent observations seem to conclusively prove that event horizons exist, but singularities are an entirely different matter. We'll have to wait for the final word on that subject...
My point is that, if the DRM is good enough and the files with DRM are the only surviving examples of the work in question, then there won't be any feasible way to release the work into the public domain. Now, this may seem like a paranoid concern because all existing DRM is easily broken, but I'm concerned about what would happen if the kind of draconian, pevasive DRM legislation I mentioned in my original post comes into existence. In that case, it seems like copyright would, in practical terms if not in law, be extended indefinitely.
In some instances, music that I would pirate I would not buy, even if I was unable to obtain the music through P2P networks.
Oh, so it's ok if you steal as long as it's something you wouldn't have bought normally? I mean, I don't usually buy Ferraris, but I guess by your standards it's perfectly fine if I find one on the street hotwire and steal it, right? It's not like I would have bought a Ferrari anyway.
Look, regardless of WHY you pirate (and I don't really give a shit WHY a man commits a crime, just THAT he does), it doesn't change the fact that you are stealing the material. You can't justify that in any rational way.
No, I obviously don't think it's okay to hotwire a Ferrari. Read my original statement regarding the precise difference between stealing and copyright infringement. I'll paraphrase myself, though: "stealing is an action with two relevant parties, a perpetrator that gains something tangible, and an unwilling victim that loses something tangible." If I hotwire a Ferrari, then someone on the street loses a Ferrari while I gain one, which means I "stole" it by the very definition I gave earlier. Perhaps I was somehow unclear about this, though, in which case I'm sorry for the confusion.
If you read my earlier statement carefully, you'll notice that my point wasn't to justify copyright infringement. In fact, my exact words were "I'm definitely not saying that I think all copyright infringement is okay". My point was that the RIAA claim that each downloaded album constitutes exactly $X loss through piracy is false, therefore there is no tangible loss, therefore piracy technically isn't stealing. If you want to show that a downloaded album does represent a tangible loss on the part of the RIAA, you'd have to first convince me why the arguments I laid out in parts (a) and (b) of my last post aren't valid.
Of course, this entire discussion hinges on the precise definition of the word "steal". I proposed my definition so that I could explain why I didn't think your use of the word was correct, but you gave a different definition of "steal": when you take something that doesn't belong to you without permission you're stealing". My main problem with your definition is that it seems to equate actions which I view as fundamentally different. For example, under your definition, if Bob walks into a bookstore and walks out with a book without paying for it then he's "stolen" it. If Joe walks into the store, whips out his digital camera and takes pictures of each page of a book, then he's "stolen" the book. Don't these two actions seem different to you? In one case the bookstore loses a physical object, and in the other case they don't. I'm not attempting to morally justify Joe's actions, all I'm saying is that they're qualitatively different than Bob's actions, and therefore need to be described with a different word for clarity's sake.
I didn't address that point because I don't think that an industry whose profits are based on the assumption that their customers are too stupid or lazy to examine alternatives is on solid ground, financially speaking.
So now you're just concerned about the RIAA's bottom line? The only reason you bring it up is because you think maybe their financial footing might break loose under them? Very noble of you.
You're right: I could give a swollen rat's ass about the RIAA's bottom line. My concern is that if the RIAA depends on DRM which has security holes to protect their products, then at some point it will be cracked en masse and their profits will disappear. Given that the RIAA is such a financial heavyweight, they would likely try to recover by lobbying the government to enact more draconian DRM legislation. This does concern me- very much so.
(Thanks for the insult, by the way. I actually buy video games, ther
Read my statement in the original post. The 95% includes:
1) The people who don't know about the crack and are happy paying for a copy
2) The people who do know about the crack, but would rather pay for a copy
3) The people who do know about the crack, but don't know how to apply it. (i.e. mod chips, or other cracks that take quite a bit of technical knowledge.)
The 5% is just the people who want to steal it, have the know-how to steal it, and actually go through with stealing it. Obviously, it's just a rough guess number, but I wager the RIAA/MPAA/video game industry have much more accurate figures.
(1) I think it's grammatically incorrect to use the word "steal" in this context, the right phrase is "commit copyright infringement". For example, I think we can both agree on a situation which does constitute "stealing". If I "steal" a CD by taking it from a store without paying for it, I gain a CD while the store loses a CD which it could have sold for cash to a more honest person. Note that there are two parties to an act of "stealing" and one loses while the other gains. When I copy a music file, I gain music but the music company doesn't lose anything physical at all, despite their claims to profits "lost" through filesharing. This is a purely hypothetical loss on their part, based on the assumption that if I couldn't get the music via mininova, that I'd have no choice but to buy it at full price, in which case they've lost the sticker price of the CD. I think this reasoning is flawed for several reasons:
(a): Some music I would buy for $5 or listen to if it's free, but I wouldn't pay $20 for the CD. In some instances, music that I would pirate I would not buy, even if I was unable to obtain the music through P2P networks. This means that in a situation like this, the music company is only "losing" the amount of money that I would actually pay for the music. The problem is that the RIAA is treating their product as though it's a commodity, like it's water... and we have no choice but to either buy it from them, steal it, or die of thirst.
(b): I could just as easily buy the CD from a friend or from a store that sells used CDs, in which case the RIAA has lost nothing.
This is why I think it's not correct to confuse copyright infringement with stealing. Stealing applies to situations in which the victim experiences a real, tangible loss. In the case of copyright infringement, determining what the music company loses when a file is copied is virtually impossible without knowing exactly how much the pirate was willing to pay, and whether or not the pirate knew of any place to obtain the CD legally secondhand. I'm definitely not saying that I think all copyright infringement is okay- if you read my original post you'll see that I support a limited form of copyright. I'm just saying that "stealing" and "copyright infringement" are two different ideas that shouldn't be confused. I apologize if it sounds like I'm splitting hairs, but I strongly believe that agreeing to definitions is the foundation to any civilized, productive debate.
(2) Yes, I realize that you included "ignorance" along with "morality" in your list of reasons that DRM doesn't have to be perfect to be effective. I didn't address that point because I don't think that an industry whose profits are based on the assumption that their customers are too stupid or lazy to examine alternatives is on solid ground, financially speaking. It might be true that P2P is a "poweruser" phenomenon today, but as computers and high speed connections become more prevalent that elitism will quickly vanish.
(snip) (2): I'll be honest here: it's free, and I'm a cheapskate. (snip)
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. I don't need to read the rest. It's buried deep in your statement, but there the truth comes out.
Since you didn't read the rest, I'll paste the relevant portion here so you ca
Regardless, as I've argued, it still doesn't matter if everyone *can* get the crack instantly as long as 95% of people don't use the crack for whatever reason. The DRM still works. The whole Darknet thing isn't going to "take down" DRM, it's just an annoyance that has to be accounted for by the media companies.
Based on the explosive growth of P2P networks, do you really think that 95% of people would voluntarily pay for content that they could get for free? I don't think people are that ethical- I know I'm not. If the crack is available anywhere in the world, it will be a trivial matter to distribute it in an undetectable fashion to everyone who wants it. I think the only way this could be prevented is for the government to take drastic and draconian steps (see how I didn't use the word Orw$%^ian there?) to prevent ANY private, encrypted communication from taking place. And that's EXACTLY what I'm scared is going to happen.
No, it's called "nostalgia." Movies, games, and music have always been that way. You're just forgetting the 10,000 Pac-Man knock-offs, the 200 Doom knock-offs, the 50 Final Fantasy knock-offs and remembering only the good and original games. I'm sick of this "quality is worse" crap wasn't treated as a fact by Slashdot instead of just an opinion by grumpy aging programmers.
You've probably got a point here. Strike the word "modern" from my earlier statement. I stand by this revised statement which says, in essence, that lots of mediocre films and music and games are mediocre because the primary objective is profit. I'll give you my favorite example: movies based on games and games based on movies. I think these exist solely because some marketing shrub says "Hey, look at all the people who liked movie/game X. Let's make a game/movie based on X and take advantage of that market." Now, perhaps this is just my subjective opinion, but I think these crossovers usually suck huge, hairy donkey balls.
On the other hand, this is really just a tangent to my original point, which is that DRM poses a lethal threat to our (mostly, and increasingly less so) free society.
Nevertheless, I must stress that I'm not anti-DRM because I want to download free music and TV shows and movies. Granted, I do that, but that's mainly because there is no legal way for me to obtain DRM-free media at a reasonable cost.
Right, you and the other 20,000 people on Slashdot. "I'm pirating not because I just want stuff for free, but because there's no legal way for me to get it! Because, in my delusional world, DVDs, CDs, cable and satellite TV don't exist!" Christ. You're not fooling anybody.
First of all, I can't speak for 20,000 people. I can only speak for myself.
Secondly, you seem to be responding as though I'd said something like "I'm pirating not because I just want stuff for free, but because there's no legal way for me to get it!". If you look closely at the phrase you quoted, you'll notice that my statement was subtly, but crucially different.
What I actually said was that my opposition to DRM wasn't based on my desire to download free movies. I still stand by my earlier post, where I laid out 5 reasons why I'm opposed to DRM. Notice that nowhere in that list do I say "I want lots of free shit". This was not an oversight or an attempt to "fool anybody".
Right after that statement, I addressed my P2P network usage because you claimed that my opposition to DRM was based on my desire to download free movies, when in fact I'm pretty sure it's based on the reasons I outlined several posts up in this thread. I consider this to be a completely different topic, because it's possible to oppose DRM and never download anything, and it's possible to download gigs of material off mininova without caring (or even knowing) about DRM. In my opinion, opposition to DRM is a purely moral issue, while downloading movies is a more pragmatic dec
How so? My earlier statement seems identical to yours: copyright law allows for a finite period of time during which the works cannot be distributed freely. DRM enforces this restriction, but there is no feasible way (that I can think of, or that I've seen in proposed) for the files to be unlocked after the copyright ends, which results in indefinite copyright protection.
1) Stop saying "Orwellian." I read Slashdot a few minutes each day, and I probably end up seeing the word "Orwellian" about 40,000 times a week. Criminy.
Don't look at me, the gp started it.:)
2) (or over the emerging darknet) Huh?
I might have used that term incorrectly, but here's the start of wikipedia's entry for darknet: A Darknet is a private virtual network where users only connect to people they trust. Typically such networks are small, often with fewer than 10 users each. In its most general meaning, a Darknet can be any type of closed, private group of people communicating, but the name is most often used specifically for file sharing networks.
What I meant was that, despite a common belief that "most people can't crack this, so it's safe", it only really matters if *one* person can crack DRM, because that crack (or, equivalently, the un-DRM'd media that the crack produces) can (and will) be spread over the internet to everyone who wants it, and there's not a god damned thing any government/corporation can do about it. The Man can try to track us down, but each time they bring down a P2P network, we'll create a new one, more efficient and more untraceable than the last.
3) What about video game piracy? You might consider video games too locked-down, but I don't think anybody disputes that the DRM on Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube games is a bad thing. Without it, you'd end up with another Dreamcast-- a console that loses tons of sales because the games are easily-duplicated and ends up in the crapper. The only restriction Xbox/PS2/Gamecube DRM really institutes is "you can only play this game on the console it's published for with the disk it's shipped on," Is that "too strict?" Really?
This is a serious concern of mine, not just about video games, but about digital media in general. Namely, I believe that DRM is impossible to implement without serious negative consequences. Without DRM, how will media companies guarantee that their hard work will result in a profit, so that investors will give them money to make the next round of movies/games/music?
A naive answer would be to say that if you offer people high quality, unencrypted media at a reasonable cost, X% will take the high road and legitimately buy the product. While this is probably true, I doubt that the revenue (even at the pricing "sweet spot" where the price times the audience times the percentage of the audience that pays is maximized) would support anything remotely like today's huge media conglomerates.
On the other hand, is this really a bad idea? Maybe one reason that lots of modern movies, games and music are sequels or dismissed as "generic and uninspired", or "pandering to the lowest common denominator" is precisely because companies are making them for the sole purpose of generating a profit rather than for the love of the craft. Perhaps reducing the profit incentive would actually increase the quality of the media available, though admittedly at the loss of quantity.
What would this do to movies? Would it result in films with shitty special effects because of the lower budget? I doubt it- just download and watch "Star Wreck, In the Pirkinning". It's a free film made by a couple of guys in their basement in their spare time. Say what you want about the acting, the special effects are incredible.
Would music be worse? Audio recording equipment is expensive, certainly, but why couldn't a group of bands pool their resources and buy one kickass sound stage, then share it?
On the other hand, video games seem to require a huge investment of man hours... I think that the quality and quantity of games would actually suffer under a system like this. I'm not sure though.
Nevertheless, I must stress that I'm not anti-DRM because I want to download free music and TV shows and movies. Granted, I do that, but that's mainly because there is no legal way for me to obtain DRM-free media at a rea
I suppose my point is that DRM that isn't Orwellian is useless. There will never be such a thing as DRM that allows free use of material that can't be broken. Show me DRM that doesn't involve tactics that I've described above, and I'll show you a system that only annoys end users and presents only a minimal challenge to hackers. Once DRM is broken, even by one lone genius, the game is over for that format- the cracking program can be spread over the internet (or over the emerging darknet) and ordinary people can trade the resulting un-DRM'd files on their secure, encrypted, untraceable P2P system. The only way to stop this kind of digital piracy will be to get governments to pass restrictive laws regarding electronics, which is already happening...
In short, DRM without Orwellian tactics is useless from a corporate point of view. DRM with Orwellian tactics will destroy free society as we know it. I think we as a society have a choice- let digital content producers keep their business model and destroy our freedoms, or let the MPAA and RIAA wither away like the dinosaurs they are.
Re:Would some one please explain...
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The Day Against DRM
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· Score: 5, Insightful
You asked why some of us who support copyright do not support DRM. I support copyright, but my problems with DRM can be summed up as follows:
(1) DRM never expires. Ideally, copyright is a legal device used to enrich society, to encourage artists to create works based on the understanding that they will be able to profit from said works for a limited amount of time. After this time period expires, the creative works get released into the public domain. Unfortunately, DRM'd files don't do this- the music you bought on iTunes in 2003 will still be restricted in 3003.
(2) DRM will never work correctly without overly restrictive government controls. For example, let's assume that "Brand New Hyper DVD" format is completely uncrackable- the disks can never, EVER be decrypted and copied digitally. So what? Take your camcorder, aim it at the screen, and press record. Voila! Brand new copy without DRM. The only way to stop this would be to force all electronics manufacturers to include complicated measures to insure that they can't be used in this manner- but as we all know the next "DVD Jon" would show up in less than 2 days and crack these measures. The only way to fight this from a corporate/government standpoint would be to force all electronics capable of being used in this kind of pirating scheme to "phone home" on a regular basis to update their DRM software, and to BAN all older electronics without this "feature". See where this is going? Do you want to live in this society?
(3) DRM effectively turns your computer into a police snitch, working AGAINST you rather than for you. Just look at the Sony rootkit fiasco for an obvious example, or read up on the DMCA or broadcast flags or... you get the point.
(4) DRM adds an extra degree of complexity to playback, which constitutes another failure mode. A computer crash can often reduce a DRM'd music library to binary junk unless the user has been meticulous enough to save the mountain of data necessary to identify his/her computer as "the authorized playback device" of said music. Want to switch to a different computer, or swap out some hardware? Good luck- this will probably be interpreted as a "new computer" and your music won't play. Want to play your music on another device like your car stereo or your portable music player? You'd better hope the music vendor was "gracious" enough to bless you with that kind of "privilege".
(5) My fears of a world where DRM has taken over can best be summed up by the following short story. I'm TERRIFIED that this is exactly the type of world we will wake up to in, say, 2020 if things keep going the way they are...
1. Creationists such as myself would not call evolutionism a theory. I would call it a hypothesis; one that must be accepted by faith. Evolutionism is hopeful speculation founded upon naturalist philosophy. It is a Tower of Babel consisting of layers of bricks of faulty conclusions, each set of accepted fallacies giving rise to a new set of fallacies.
I find it curious that creationists routinely accuse scientists of believing in evolution based on faith (a word which, in an epistemological context, I take to mean "belief without, or against, evidence or reason"). Faith is precisely the difference between science and religion; the intellectual foundations of most religions are built on faith, whereas science is completely incompatible with faith. As a matter of fact, I consider the most insulting phrase in the English language to be "You're just taking that on faith." (but I realize it's nothing personal)
In the interest of brevity, I'll simply note that at the very least your claim is grammatically correct, which is all I was really talking about.
2. Speciation is a pillar of Biblical creationism.
The link you provided is essentially a rephrased version of the argument I mentioned regarding evolution of "kinds" of animals. For instance, from the link: "...present-day species representative of the 'dog kind'" This concept of a 'kind' seems to be defined with respect to some vague idea of information content: "The creationist assumes that real, substantive increases in information (that is, specifying for an increase in what might be called 'functional complexity') will never arise without intelligent cause."
This "information theoretic" objection seems to be more common in creationist literature in recent years. I find this baffling, because there are numerous examples of mutations adding information (as defined by the standard Shannon information/entropy definition).
At this point, I'm reminded of astrology apologists. Whenever confronted with direct evidence that double-blind studies don't support their pseudo-science, most astrologers respond by making their claims vaguer- and thus less susceptible to criticism. I believe that something similar is happening in creationism. The information argument is becoming more common precisely because it's so vague that it can't be directly countered without extensive, and very technical, discussion regarding the definition of "information".
3. Many (most?) Biblical creationists are not greatly enthused by the Intelligent Design movement. Some oppose it, although not actively.
I've never heard of this before. Do you have any references? For instance, do you have a link to a web page written by a creationist who outlines the reasons he dislikes Intelligent Design? I'm curious to see why there would be a disconnect between the two groups.
Odd and disappointing, yes. I was genuinely curious to see if I would get any intelligent rebuttals. Maybe it's because the post is so damn long, but brevity has never been one of my virtues.:)
You're right about energy transfer. A bullet bouncing off really DOES carry away its kinetic energy, rather than depositing it in the armor as heat or deformation or pressure waves. Momentum, on the other hand, is a different story...
Point #1: Momentum is a vector quantity. This means that a bullet approaching a person from the left and a bullet leaving said person, heading right, have totally different momentum vectors.
Point #2: In situations where outside forces can be ignored (such as a bullet impact), momentum is said to be "conserved". This means that any momentum change the bullet experiences has to be equal and opposite to the momentum change the person experiences. A bullet of mass "m" which is travelling to the right at speed "v" has momentum "mv" (taking the direction "right" to be positive). Similarly, the same bullet travelling to the left at speed "v" has momentum "-mv". Therefore, a bullet which ricochets off at its initial speed has TWICE the momentum change compared to a bullet which simply stops. As a result, the person has to experience double the momentum change as well.
This means that a ricochet imparts MORE momentum to the target than an embedded bullet would, which is (as another poster remarked) why solar sails are reflective.
I'm very disturbed at this ruling. It seems like the slippery slope we're riding on, that of trading freedom for security, is not going anywhere good. But, more than being disturbed, I'm confused about two things.
(1) Quote: "He also said Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which sought class-action status, had not shown that their own records had been provided to the government. As a result, they lacked standing to sue the government, he said."
Okay... this lawsuit is fundamentally about secret wiretapping, right? So how can the judge say "you don't KNOW that you were wiretapped, so you can't sue" with a straight face? _NO ONE_ knows whether or not they have been spied on. THAT'S THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT!
(2) How can the judge possibly say that "news reports amounted to speculation and in no way constituted official confirmation that phone records had been turned over." Isn't Bush getting in front of a podium and denouncing the liberal media for revealing state secrets enough of an "official confirmation"?
I'm partially bitching about the sorry state of affairs here in the USA, but I'm also asking a serious question: Is this shit for real? Is there anyone, anywhere, who wants to defend it? Seriously, I know there are some hard core conservatives here on slashdot. I'd actually like to see how some of you view this ruling... does ANYONE want to defend it?
3) Extreme Bug-eyed alien tamer. Unfriendly invaders might think twice before tangling with a species capable of focusing better than 100 Gigawatts of energy at inbound bogies.
I'm not too sure about that. Any spacecraft can defend against a laser weapon by making the hull a very good reflector- the maximum power that could hit the craft without damage would just be limited by how perfect the reflectivity could be. In fact, if your spacecraft had a smart deformable concave mirror on the front of it, you could actually reflect the beam back to the attacker. That's assuming, of course, that the beam is either turned on long enough for the mirror to adjust to the right concavity or that the target spacecraft had some advance warning about the placement of the laser's output coupler.
But more fundamentally, laser weapons can't penetrate very deeply into its target. The reason is that the beam vaporises the surface of the target, creating a reflective plasma that effectively shields the target from further damage.
I remember an old theory that the moon keeps Earth from boiling over by sweeping away much of the atmosphere over time. I wonder if this is still considered a significant factor?
I've heard the same thing... in science fiction novels. Larry Niven, I believe. It may be true, but I've never seen any comprehensive explanation of how this is supposed to occur. Does the atmosphere somehow leak away on geological timescales through the Lagrange points somehow? I've got no idea. Does anyone know?
This idea does appeal to me, though, because if true it adds another factor to the Drake equation for finding *earthlike* civilizations in the galaxy. According to the impactor theory of the moon's origin, the moon's creation was a very improbable event. Perhaps that's why we don't see any Dyson spheres- you not only need a planet in the liquid water region of a solar system, you need that planet to be whacked at a very particular angle to form a moon large enough to prevent a Venus from forming instead of an Earth.
Its worth noting that the moons of Mars are in much lower orbits than our moon, and mars has much less of an atmosphere than earth.
It's also worth noting that Mars' moons are TINY. Phoebos and Deimos are 22 and 12 km in diameter, respectively. They're utterly insignificant.
Compare that to the Moon, which is comparable to Earth in both diameter (27% of the earth's) and to a lesser extent mass (1.2% of the earth's). In fact, some astronomers consider the Earth-moon system to be a double planet because of this fact.
Unfortunately, due to the high density of the atmosphere on the surface of Venus, you wouldn't be able to see more than a couple of meters (in visible light, at least).
The same mechanism that makes the earth's sky blue (wavelength dependant scattering of light) would, on Venus, scatter visible light to a much higher degree due to the density of the atmosphere. You wouldn't be able to see very far unless you used false-color imaging from the infrared or perhaps microwave parts of the EM spectrum.
Bummer. But I can imagine an orbiting spacecraft with a nice high-res camera will give us a pretty nice view of those storms.
Yeah but you might need a nutritionist to know just how bad soybeans are for you. And by the way if you feed starving people you get (guess what?) more kids! What a nice endless cycle you propose to have.............
Welcome to the Hitler Youth Club. Pick up your free swastika and eugenics pamphlet next to the big poster that explains why we shouldn't feed those starving, mindless mud-people for fear of allowing them to breed.
I did a quick search for soybean oil and it was $8.99 (USD) for a single gallon (cheaper than the organics I saw). We're going to have to bring down the price of soybean oil first for this to be viable. I'm sure large scale production and consumption would help things along.
If the "50 mpg" estimate is based on actual real life road testing, rather than the artificially inflated numbers that hybrid cars carry, it's not that bad. This is roughly twice the mileage that most cars get, so either soybean oil would have to drop to "price of gas times 2" or the price of gas would have to rise to "price of soybean oil divided by 2". I rather think that both will happen, both because of economies of scale and because soybean oil is a renewable resource whereas petroleum isn't.
Now I also wonder what the emissions are like on these things... That is after all the other big concern.
Not really. The main reason that burning fossil fuels is bad for the environment is that the CO2 that's released during combustion has been locked in the earth in the form of petroleum for millions of years. It hasn't been a part of our ecosystem for a very long time, so burning fossil fuels actually constitutes a net increase in CO2. Burning soybean oil, on the other hand, may release CO2 and other harmful gases, but the point is that the CO2 released was scrubbed out of the atmosphere by the soybean plant when it was growing.
I hope that car doesn't have smelly gas like I do from soybeans
Yes, you got first post as far as I can tell without (gasp!) turning my filter off. But ten years from now, when you're running for president, someone's gonna find this confession and you'll be laughed out of the race.
I actually found a new set of cartoons on Ann Coulter's site. Yes, she's a frothing-at-the-mouth crazy person, but she hosts a set of the cartoons with the cartoonists' names on them. So, unless "Kurt" is a woman's name in Denmark, the person who drew the cartoon with the bomb is a *dude* with enormous *balls*.
Oh, and for any grammar freaks out there, I'm sorry for misusing the word "albeit". My bad. I promise I won't do it again.
Point taken. It does seem to make more sense to look at this controversy as the proverbial straw which broke the camel's back, rather than as a self-contained mess that only has to do with a small collection of cartoons.
And, yeah, I know how time consuming these debates can be. Despite the small criticisms I may have regarding your evaluation of the cartoons, I think your post is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale and increasingly uncivil discussion. You've done your part already just by presenting a reasonable argument from a Muslim point of view.
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Needless to say, I don't agree with this reasoning. When I copy a music file, I gain music but the music company doesn't lose anything physical at all, despite their claims to being deprived of a potential sale. This is a purely hypothetical loss on their part, based on the assumption that if I couldn't get the music via mininova, that I'd have no choice but to buy it at full price, in which case they've lost the sticker price of the CD. I think this reasoning is flawed for several reasons:
(1): Some music I would buy for $5 or listen to if it's free, but I wouldn't pay $20 for the CD. In some instances, music that I would pirate I would not buy, even if I was unable to obtain the music through P2P networks. This means that in a situation like this, the music company is only "losing" the amount of money that I would actually pay for the music. The problem is that the RIAA is treating their product as though it's a commodity, like it's water... and we have no choice but to either buy it from them, steal it, or die of thirst.
(2): I could just as easily buy the CD from a friend or from a store that sells used CDs, in which case the RIAA has lost nothing.
In short, I believe that you are correct that being deprived of a sale constitutes stealing, especially in the cases you mentioned. What I'm disputing is that copyright infringement necessarily deprives anyone of a sale.
Good question. Short answer: we don't know.
Long answer: According to the General Theory of Relativity, black holes have all their mass contained in a geometric point called the "singularity". This singularity is surrounded by a finite-sized spherical boundary called the "event horizon" which is defined as the locus of points where not even light can escape the gravity of the singularity. Because nothing (that we know of) can travel fast than light, the event horizon is a seemingly impenetrable barrier to any investigation of the singularity itself.
So we're unlikely to view a singularity directly and measure its size. On the other hand, most physicists are convinced that the General Relativistic description of the singularity as a literal geometric point most be wrong. They believe this because very small objects are governed by quantum mechanics, and a new theory (which does not exist yet) called "Quantum Gravity" must take over at densities like those found in singularities.
I'm generally a fairly skeptical chap, and it took a long time to even convince me that event horizons exist. For the longest time, all "proofs" of black holes basically said "here is something that is more dense than a neutron star, and since the ONLY THING more dense than a neutron star is a black hole, this object must be a black hole." I was never really convinced that there weren't other objects denser than neutron stars that didn't actually have event horizons, so this argument never swayed me. These recent observations seem to conclusively prove that event horizons exist, but singularities are an entirely different matter. We'll have to wait for the final word on that subject...
My point is that, if the DRM is good enough and the files with DRM are the only surviving examples of the work in question, then there won't be any feasible way to release the work into the public domain. Now, this may seem like a paranoid concern because all existing DRM is easily broken, but I'm concerned about what would happen if the kind of draconian, pevasive DRM legislation I mentioned in my original post comes into existence. In that case, it seems like copyright would, in practical terms if not in law, be extended indefinitely.
No, I obviously don't think it's okay to hotwire a Ferrari. Read my original statement regarding the precise difference between stealing and copyright infringement. I'll paraphrase myself, though: "stealing is an action with two relevant parties, a perpetrator that gains something tangible, and an unwilling victim that loses something tangible." If I hotwire a Ferrari, then someone on the street loses a Ferrari while I gain one, which means I "stole" it by the very definition I gave earlier. Perhaps I was somehow unclear about this, though, in which case I'm sorry for the confusion.
If you read my earlier statement carefully, you'll notice that my point wasn't to justify copyright infringement. In fact, my exact words were "I'm definitely not saying that I think all copyright infringement is okay". My point was that the RIAA claim that each downloaded album constitutes exactly $X loss through piracy is false, therefore there is no tangible loss, therefore piracy technically isn't stealing. If you want to show that a downloaded album does represent a tangible loss on the part of the RIAA, you'd have to first convince me why the arguments I laid out in parts (a) and (b) of my last post aren't valid.
Of course, this entire discussion hinges on the precise definition of the word "steal". I proposed my definition so that I could explain why I didn't think your use of the word was correct, but you gave a different definition of "steal": when you take something that doesn't belong to you without permission you're stealing". My main problem with your definition is that it seems to equate actions which I view as fundamentally different. For example, under your definition, if Bob walks into a bookstore and walks out with a book without paying for it then he's "stolen" it. If Joe walks into the store, whips out his digital camera and takes pictures of each page of a book, then he's "stolen" the book. Don't these two actions seem different to you? In one case the bookstore loses a physical object, and in the other case they don't. I'm not attempting to morally justify Joe's actions, all I'm saying is that they're qualitatively different than Bob's actions, and therefore need to be described with a different word for clarity's sake.
You're right: I could give a swollen rat's ass about the RIAA's bottom line. My concern is that if the RIAA depends on DRM which has security holes to protect their products, then at some point it will be cracked en masse and their profits will disappear. Given that the RIAA is such a financial heavyweight, they would likely try to recover by lobbying the government to enact more draconian DRM legislation. This does concern me- very much so.
(1) I think it's grammatically incorrect to use the word "steal" in this context, the right phrase is "commit copyright infringement". For example, I think we can both agree on a situation which does constitute "stealing". If I "steal" a CD by taking it from a store without paying for it, I gain a CD while the store loses a CD which it could have sold for cash to a more honest person. Note that there are two parties to an act of "stealing" and one loses while the other gains. When I copy a music file, I gain music but the music company doesn't lose anything physical at all, despite their claims to profits "lost" through filesharing. This is a purely hypothetical loss on their part, based on the assumption that if I couldn't get the music via mininova, that I'd have no choice but to buy it at full price, in which case they've lost the sticker price of the CD. I think this reasoning is flawed for several reasons:
(a): Some music I would buy for $5 or listen to if it's free, but I wouldn't pay $20 for the CD. In some instances, music that I would pirate I would not buy, even if I was unable to obtain the music through P2P networks. This means that in a situation like this, the music company is only "losing" the amount of money that I would actually pay for the music. The problem is that the RIAA is treating their product as though it's a commodity, like it's water... and we have no choice but to either buy it from them, steal it, or die of thirst.
(b): I could just as easily buy the CD from a friend or from a store that sells used CDs, in which case the RIAA has lost nothing.
This is why I think it's not correct to confuse copyright infringement with stealing. Stealing applies to situations in which the victim experiences a real, tangible loss. In the case of copyright infringement, determining what the music company loses when a file is copied is virtually impossible without knowing exactly how much the pirate was willing to pay, and whether or not the pirate knew of any place to obtain the CD legally secondhand. I'm definitely not saying that I think all copyright infringement is okay- if you read my original post you'll see that I support a limited form of copyright. I'm just saying that "stealing" and "copyright infringement" are two different ideas that shouldn't be confused. I apologize if it sounds like I'm splitting hairs, but I strongly believe that agreeing to definitions is the foundation to any civilized, productive debate.
(2) Yes, I realize that you included "ignorance" along with "morality" in your list of reasons that DRM doesn't have to be perfect to be effective. I didn't address that point because I don't think that an industry whose profits are based on the assumption that their customers are too stupid or lazy to examine alternatives is on solid ground, financially speaking. It might be true that P2P is a "poweruser" phenomenon today, but as computers and high speed connections become more prevalent that elitism will quickly vanish.
Since you didn't read the rest, I'll paste the relevant portion here so you ca
Based on the explosive growth of P2P networks, do you really think that 95% of people would voluntarily pay for content that they could get for free? I don't think people are that ethical- I know I'm not. If the crack is available anywhere in the world, it will be a trivial matter to distribute it in an undetectable fashion to everyone who wants it. I think the only way this could be prevented is for the government to take drastic and draconian steps (see how I didn't use the word Orw$%^ian there?) to prevent ANY private, encrypted communication from taking place. And that's EXACTLY what I'm scared is going to happen.
You've probably got a point here. Strike the word "modern" from my earlier statement. I stand by this revised statement which says, in essence, that lots of mediocre films and music and games are mediocre because the primary objective is profit. I'll give you my favorite example: movies based on games and games based on movies. I think these exist solely because some marketing shrub says "Hey, look at all the people who liked movie/game X. Let's make a game/movie based on X and take advantage of that market." Now, perhaps this is just my subjective opinion, but I think these crossovers usually suck huge, hairy donkey balls.
On the other hand, this is really just a tangent to my original point, which is that DRM poses a lethal threat to our (mostly, and increasingly less so) free society.
First of all, I can't speak for 20,000 people. I can only speak for myself.
Secondly, you seem to be responding as though I'd said something like "I'm pirating not because I just want stuff for free, but because there's no legal way for me to get it!". If you look closely at the phrase you quoted, you'll notice that my statement was subtly, but crucially different.
What I actually said was that my opposition to DRM wasn't based on my desire to download free movies. I still stand by my earlier post, where I laid out 5 reasons why I'm opposed to DRM. Notice that nowhere in that list do I say "I want lots of free shit". This was not an oversight or an attempt to "fool anybody".
Right after that statement, I addressed my P2P network usage because you claimed that my opposition to DRM was based on my desire to download free movies, when in fact I'm pretty sure it's based on the reasons I outlined several posts up in this thread. I consider this to be a completely different topic, because it's possible to oppose DRM and never download anything, and it's possible to download gigs of material off mininova without caring (or even knowing) about DRM. In my opinion, opposition to DRM is a purely moral issue, while downloading movies is a more pragmatic dec
How so? My earlier statement seems identical to yours: copyright law allows for a finite period of time during which the works cannot be distributed freely. DRM enforces this restriction, but there is no feasible way (that I can think of, or that I've seen in proposed) for the files to be unlocked after the copyright ends, which results in indefinite copyright protection.
Don't look at me, the gp started it. :)
2) (or over the emerging darknet) Huh?
I might have used that term incorrectly, but here's the start of wikipedia's entry for darknet: A Darknet is a private virtual network where users only connect to people they trust. Typically such networks are small, often with fewer than 10 users each. In its most general meaning, a Darknet can be any type of closed, private group of people communicating, but the name is most often used specifically for file sharing networks.
What I meant was that, despite a common belief that "most people can't crack this, so it's safe", it only really matters if *one* person can crack DRM, because that crack (or, equivalently, the un-DRM'd media that the crack produces) can (and will) be spread over the internet to everyone who wants it, and there's not a god damned thing any government/corporation can do about it. The Man can try to track us down, but each time they bring down a P2P network, we'll create a new one, more efficient and more untraceable than the last.
3) What about video game piracy? You might consider video games too locked-down, but I don't think anybody disputes that the DRM on Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube games is a bad thing. Without it, you'd end up with another Dreamcast-- a console that loses tons of sales because the games are easily-duplicated and ends up in the crapper. The only restriction Xbox/PS2/Gamecube DRM really institutes is "you can only play this game on the console it's published for with the disk it's shipped on," Is that "too strict?" Really?
This is a serious concern of mine, not just about video games, but about digital media in general. Namely, I believe that DRM is impossible to implement without serious negative consequences. Without DRM, how will media companies guarantee that their hard work will result in a profit, so that investors will give them money to make the next round of movies/games/music?
A naive answer would be to say that if you offer people high quality, unencrypted media at a reasonable cost, X% will take the high road and legitimately buy the product. While this is probably true, I doubt that the revenue (even at the pricing "sweet spot" where the price times the audience times the percentage of the audience that pays is maximized) would support anything remotely like today's huge media conglomerates.
On the other hand, is this really a bad idea? Maybe one reason that lots of modern movies, games and music are sequels or dismissed as "generic and uninspired", or "pandering to the lowest common denominator" is precisely because companies are making them for the sole purpose of generating a profit rather than for the love of the craft. Perhaps reducing the profit incentive would actually increase the quality of the media available, though admittedly at the loss of quantity.
What would this do to movies? Would it result in films with shitty special effects because of the lower budget? I doubt it- just download and watch "Star Wreck, In the Pirkinning". It's a free film made by a couple of guys in their basement in their spare time. Say what you want about the acting, the special effects are incredible.
Would music be worse? Audio recording equipment is expensive, certainly, but why couldn't a group of bands pool their resources and buy one kickass sound stage, then share it?
On the other hand, video games seem to require a huge investment of man hours... I think that the quality and quantity of games would actually suffer under a system like this. I'm not sure though.
Nevertheless, I must stress that I'm not anti-DRM because I want to download free music and TV shows and movies. Granted, I do that, but that's mainly because there is no legal way for me to obtain DRM-free media at a rea
In short, DRM without Orwellian tactics is useless from a corporate point of view. DRM with Orwellian tactics will destroy free society as we know it. I think we as a society have a choice- let digital content producers keep their business model and destroy our freedoms, or let the MPAA and RIAA wither away like the dinosaurs they are.
(1) DRM never expires. Ideally, copyright is a legal device used to enrich society, to encourage artists to create works based on the understanding that they will be able to profit from said works for a limited amount of time. After this time period expires, the creative works get released into the public domain. Unfortunately, DRM'd files don't do this- the music you bought on iTunes in 2003 will still be restricted in 3003.
(2) DRM will never work correctly without overly restrictive government controls. For example, let's assume that "Brand New Hyper DVD" format is completely uncrackable- the disks can never, EVER be decrypted and copied digitally. So what? Take your camcorder, aim it at the screen, and press record. Voila! Brand new copy without DRM. The only way to stop this would be to force all electronics manufacturers to include complicated measures to insure that they can't be used in this manner- but as we all know the next "DVD Jon" would show up in less than 2 days and crack these measures. The only way to fight this from a corporate/government standpoint would be to force all electronics capable of being used in this kind of pirating scheme to "phone home" on a regular basis to update their DRM software, and to BAN all older electronics without this "feature". See where this is going? Do you want to live in this society?
(3) DRM effectively turns your computer into a police snitch, working AGAINST you rather than for you. Just look at the Sony rootkit fiasco for an obvious example, or read up on the DMCA or broadcast flags or... you get the point.
(4) DRM adds an extra degree of complexity to playback, which constitutes another failure mode. A computer crash can often reduce a DRM'd music library to binary junk unless the user has been meticulous enough to save the mountain of data necessary to identify his/her computer as "the authorized playback device" of said music. Want to switch to a different computer, or swap out some hardware? Good luck- this will probably be interpreted as a "new computer" and your music won't play. Want to play your music on another device like your car stereo or your portable music player? You'd better hope the music vendor was "gracious" enough to bless you with that kind of "privilege".
(5) My fears of a world where DRM has taken over can best be summed up by the following short story. I'm TERRIFIED that this is exactly the type of world we will wake up to in, say, 2020 if things keep going the way they are...
I find it curious that creationists routinely accuse scientists of believing in evolution based on faith (a word which, in an epistemological context, I take to mean "belief without, or against, evidence or reason"). Faith is precisely the difference between science and religion; the intellectual foundations of most religions are built on faith, whereas science is completely incompatible with faith. As a matter of fact, I consider the most insulting phrase in the English language to be "You're just taking that on faith." (but I realize it's nothing personal)
In the interest of brevity, I'll simply note that at the very least your claim is grammatically correct, which is all I was really talking about.
2. Speciation is a pillar of Biblical creationism.
The link you provided is essentially a rephrased version of the argument I mentioned regarding evolution of "kinds" of animals. For instance, from the link: "...present-day species representative of the 'dog kind'" This concept of a 'kind' seems to be defined with respect to some vague idea of information content: "The creationist assumes that real, substantive increases in information (that is, specifying for an increase in what might be called 'functional complexity') will never arise without intelligent cause."
This "information theoretic" objection seems to be more common in creationist literature in recent years. I find this baffling, because there are numerous examples of mutations adding information (as defined by the standard Shannon information/entropy definition).
At this point, I'm reminded of astrology apologists. Whenever confronted with direct evidence that double-blind studies don't support their pseudo-science, most astrologers respond by making their claims vaguer- and thus less susceptible to criticism. I believe that something similar is happening in creationism. The information argument is becoming more common precisely because it's so vague that it can't be directly countered without extensive, and very technical, discussion regarding the definition of "information".
3. Many (most?) Biblical creationists are not greatly enthused by the Intelligent Design movement. Some oppose it, although not actively.
I've never heard of this before. Do you have any references? For instance, do you have a link to a web page written by a creationist who outlines the reasons he dislikes Intelligent Design? I'm curious to see why there would be a disconnect between the two groups.
Odd and disappointing, yes. I was genuinely curious to see if I would get any intelligent rebuttals. Maybe it's because the post is so damn long, but brevity has never been one of my virtues. :)
Point #1: Momentum is a vector quantity. This means that a bullet approaching a person from the left and a bullet leaving said person, heading right, have totally different momentum vectors.
Point #2: In situations where outside forces can be ignored (such as a bullet impact), momentum is said to be "conserved". This means that any momentum change the bullet experiences has to be equal and opposite to the momentum change the person experiences. A bullet of mass "m" which is travelling to the right at speed "v" has momentum "mv" (taking the direction "right" to be positive). Similarly, the same bullet travelling to the left at speed "v" has momentum "-mv". Therefore, a bullet which ricochets off at its initial speed has TWICE the momentum change compared to a bullet which simply stops. As a result, the person has to experience double the momentum change as well.
This means that a ricochet imparts MORE momentum to the target than an embedded bullet would, which is (as another poster remarked) why solar sails are reflective.
My bad. You're right.
(1) Quote: "He also said Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which sought class-action status, had not shown that their own records had been provided to the government. As a result, they lacked standing to sue the government, he said."
Okay... this lawsuit is fundamentally about secret wiretapping, right? So how can the judge say "you don't KNOW that you were wiretapped, so you can't sue" with a straight face? _NO ONE_ knows whether or not they have been spied on. THAT'S THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT!
(2) How can the judge possibly say that "news reports amounted to speculation and in no way constituted official confirmation that phone records had been turned over." Isn't Bush getting in front of a podium and denouncing the liberal media for revealing state secrets enough of an "official confirmation"?
I'm partially bitching about the sorry state of affairs here in the USA, but I'm also asking a serious question: Is this shit for real? Is there anyone, anywhere, who wants to defend it? Seriously, I know there are some hard core conservatives here on slashdot. I'd actually like to see how some of you view this ruling... does ANYONE want to defend it?
I'm not too sure about that. Any spacecraft can defend against a laser weapon by making the hull a very good reflector- the maximum power that could hit the craft without damage would just be limited by how perfect the reflectivity could be. In fact, if your spacecraft had a smart deformable concave mirror on the front of it, you could actually reflect the beam back to the attacker. That's assuming, of course, that the beam is either turned on long enough for the mirror to adjust to the right concavity or that the target spacecraft had some advance warning about the placement of the laser's output coupler.
But more fundamentally, laser weapons can't penetrate very deeply into its target. The reason is that the beam vaporises the surface of the target, creating a reflective plasma that effectively shields the target from further damage.
I've heard the same thing... in science fiction novels. Larry Niven, I believe. It may be true, but I've never seen any comprehensive explanation of how this is supposed to occur. Does the atmosphere somehow leak away on geological timescales through the Lagrange points somehow? I've got no idea. Does anyone know?
This idea does appeal to me, though, because if true it adds another factor to the Drake equation for finding *earthlike* civilizations in the galaxy. According to the impactor theory of the moon's origin, the moon's creation was a very improbable event. Perhaps that's why we don't see any Dyson spheres- you not only need a planet in the liquid water region of a solar system, you need that planet to be whacked at a very particular angle to form a moon large enough to prevent a Venus from forming instead of an Earth.
Its worth noting that the moons of Mars are in much lower orbits than our moon, and mars has much less of an atmosphere than earth.
It's also worth noting that Mars' moons are TINY. Phoebos and Deimos are 22 and 12 km in diameter, respectively. They're utterly insignificant.
Compare that to the Moon, which is comparable to Earth in both diameter (27% of the earth's) and to a lesser extent mass (1.2% of the earth's). In fact, some astronomers consider the Earth-moon system to be a double planet because of this fact.
The same mechanism that makes the earth's sky blue (wavelength dependant scattering of light) would, on Venus, scatter visible light to a much higher degree due to the density of the atmosphere. You wouldn't be able to see very far unless you used false-color imaging from the infrared or perhaps microwave parts of the EM spectrum.
Bummer. But I can imagine an orbiting spacecraft with a nice high-res camera will give us a pretty nice view of those storms.
Welcome to the Hitler Youth Club. Pick up your free swastika and eugenics pamphlet next to the big poster that explains why we shouldn't feed those starving, mindless mud-people for fear of allowing them to breed.
If the "50 mpg" estimate is based on actual real life road testing, rather than the artificially inflated numbers that hybrid cars carry, it's not that bad. This is roughly twice the mileage that most cars get, so either soybean oil would have to drop to "price of gas times 2" or the price of gas would have to rise to "price of soybean oil divided by 2". I rather think that both will happen, both because of economies of scale and because soybean oil is a renewable resource whereas petroleum isn't.
Now I also wonder what the emissions are like on these things... That is after all the other big concern.
Not really. The main reason that burning fossil fuels is bad for the environment is that the CO2 that's released during combustion has been locked in the earth in the form of petroleum for millions of years. It hasn't been a part of our ecosystem for a very long time, so burning fossil fuels actually constitutes a net increase in CO2. Burning soybean oil, on the other hand, may release CO2 and other harmful gases, but the point is that the CO2 released was scrubbed out of the atmosphere by the soybean plant when it was growing.
Yes, you got first post as far as I can tell without (gasp!) turning my filter off. But ten years from now, when you're running for president, someone's gonna find this confession and you'll be laughed out of the race.
Was it worth it?
I have a feeling that I can already fit a huge "number of downloaded human personalities of porn stars" on my USB flash drive.
Oh, and for any grammar freaks out there, I'm sorry for misusing the word "albeit". My bad. I promise I won't do it again.
And, yeah, I know how time consuming these debates can be. Despite the small criticisms I may have regarding your evaluation of the cartoons, I think your post is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale and increasingly uncivil discussion. You've done your part already just by presenting a reasonable argument from a Muslim point of view.
Cheers - Khayman80.