Seems to me that the RIAA doesn't need every ISP to join it in this fight anyway. As long as the RIAA can get some of the big ISPs involved, they might be able to get people to cut-down their downloading.
Anyway, I don't really understand what slashdoters want the RIAA to do exactly (well, other than curl up and die). It seems to me that the recording industry has hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. I think it's fairly obvious that a group watching it's life-blood sucked away by illegal downloading is going to get over-zealous in this fight. It seems like a very "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of a situation for them.
The only way to convince studios that DRM is an economically bad policy is for DRM-free games to sell more copies.
I would add that it would be even better if gamers would do this long-term (not simply as a method for 'teaching' game companies until DRM goes away). If game companies think that non-DRM titles are getting an artificial and short-term boost in sales because they don't contain DRM, then they might temporarily avoid DRM, but return to it as soon as gamers stop rewarding companies that don't use DRM. Further, as more games skip using DRM, the positive effect of "gamers supporting non-DRM titles" get diluted over more games - which lowers the benefit for any particular game.
Ubisoft is giving gamers the chance to demonstrate that DRM actually increases piracy.
Actually, there are already games out there without DRM. We don't need POP to prove a point. What are the piracy numbers for Stardocks games (Galactic Civilizations 1 & 2, Sins of a Solar Empire)? Also, "World of Goo" doesn't contain DRM. The developers recently claimed they have very high piracy rates. According to them, they had 90% piracy rates - in other words 9 pirates for every legitimate buyer. Unfortunately, I think their method for calculating piracy was flawed, so I don't believe those numbers. A better test would be to figure out how many downloads those games have had over BitTorrent.
As other people have pointed out, big brains are correlated with intelligence, although it's a bit complicated. If you were to plot total brain size and brain mass/body mass on a 2-dimensional table, you end up with humans in one corner of the table. There are obviously animals with larger brains (whales, elephants), and animals with better brain mass/body mass ratios (rats), but humans have a pretty good combination of both.
As for the article you link to, they make the claim that if brain mass is correlated with intelligence, then you should also claim that women and short people are dumber. Although, women and short people also have smaller bodies, which means their brain mass/body mass ratio may be equal or better than men. So, who knows what should be the prediction based on that. And, of course, the correlation is certainly not 1.0, so even if a brain mass/intelligence correlation exists, it's not that clear what conclusions you can draw from large/small brains.
As for neanderthals, their body mass was also larger than humans, so it's unclear whether they would actually be smarter.
Also, I happen to think that elephants and whales are probably pretty smart. Maybe not as smart as us, but if you take the animal world as a whole, I think the correlation is obvious and undeniable. The smartest animals on earth (humans, elephants, dolphins, apes, etc) have the largest brains on the planet. The only real outlier is birds. Parrots can be very smart - evolution apparently found a way to build a small intelligent brain while still allowing the animal to fly.
I also found this claim (also from your article) to be amusing: "Early humanoids had a less developed cerebral cortex and therefore could not attain what we commonly call conscious experience. The same could be said for modern apes and dolphins. An ape's brain could get bigger, but unless the cerebral cortex develops in a certain way, the ape will never achieve "thought"." Ha. It's funny in this essay that talks about debunking myths of brain size, that the author introduces his own unfounded beliefs about brains. Who's he to say that apes, dolphins, and early humans didn't have conscious experience? Apes are actually quite smart. They understand the fact that other creatures have brains and sets of beliefs. Apes can recognize their own reflection in a mirror.
"With respect to the question of brain size and intelligence, the most recent review I know of (there have been others) concerning the correlation between IQ and head size looked at 25 separate studies (going back to the turn of the century), comprising 39 independent normal samples (total N = 51,931; Wickett, et al. in press). They report that most correlations range between r =.10 to r =.30, with an n-weighted mean of r =.194. This is highly statistically significant, though head dimensions clearly do not explain very much of the variation in IQ.
More interestingly, 4 recent studies of this question for the first time derived estimates of brain size from high quality magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), instead of using external cranial dimensions. All 4 studies show much higher correlations: Willerman et al. (1991) report an estimated correlation of r =.35 (N = 40); Andreasen et al. (1993) found a correlation of r=.38 (N = 67); Raz et al (in press) found a correlation of r =.43 (N = 29); and Wickett et al
Rather than a little "no pain, no gain" argument that you do, I would suggest that organizers of the database find ways to protect the privacy of individuals contributing. It's not like making the subject's name public is terribly important or even useful. They want to connect the DNA to various attributes (diseases, etc), and adding a name isn't helpful in making those connections. So: hiding names would have no impact on the actual benefits of the study, and would maintain privacy. Yeah, I know that's in contradiction to "no pain, no gain", but not everything works that way.
Yeah, I know we're beating this one to death with examples of free-to-play business models. Hasn't Runescape ("approximately fifteen million active free accounts, over 136 million accounts created") been doing the same thing for years?
No, genetics is not like computer programming. (I studied both biology and computer science in college.) If they seem that similar, it's because human beings tend to describe and understand new things using concepts that they already know.
Anonymous coward is right: DNA fingerprinting doesn't store or show genetic sequences. It would be impossible to determine a person's exact genetics or genetically-based health problems based off of a DNA fingerprint.
"In order for extortion to work, money has to change hands. Money can be traced, easily..."
I don't know, but it seems to work for Nigerian scams (okay, they ask for you banking information), apartment scams (I'll send you a fake cashiers check, you "send me back" some of that money via Western Union), and also dating scams (I need money for a plane ticket to come see you). It seems to work in those cases.
OK, let's assume that they're right that all modern humans descend from a very small population, of about 2,000 people. It does not follow that the entire global population of H. sapiens was, at some time, 2,000 people. Perhaps there were 200,000 total, but only 1% of the people developed sophisticated technologies and cultures which allowed them to expand, eventually wiping out the remaining 99%. You still have a bottleneck, but your total population never goes below 200,000.
That could, theoretically, be possible, but it sounds unlikely. Your scenario says that a group of 2,000 slowly expands over many, many generations to become 200,000 and - throughout that entire time - they are completely exclusive in mating only with people inside their group. That just doesn't seem very likely.
In particular, if humans nearly went extinct 70,000 years ago, then shouldn't we expect to see that in the archeological evidence, with stone tools becoming less common for a period?
Stone tools that old are bound to be scarce anyway. Getting enough data-points to make that determination would be difficult.
On a completely different note, I would also suggest there's never been a better time to buy my flaming, radioactive razor-blade ball. It's the happy fun ball for the next generation. Fun for all ages!
"Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, has a much different point of view: the pirates don't matter.... ignore piracy"
Uh huh. I call BS. With his Galactic Civilizations II, they didn't use DRM. You know what they did do, however? They enticed users to own legitimate copies by limiting updates and bug fixes to those legitimate users. At that time, he argued that DRM could be cracked and was burdensome on legitimate users. But - by offering upgraded service to legitimate users, he was aiming to make sure pirates had a weaker experience of his game. Brad Wardell is *not* ignoring the pirates - he's got his own ideas about dealing with them, but "ignoring them" is not his strategy.
As a game developer, free open source software has helped me a great deal. For example, I use the following free software to create games (and I would be a lot further behind without them): NSIS (nullsoft install system), libpng (a library for reading png files), DirectX (for networking and voicechat), OpenGL (for graphics), OpenAL (for sound effects), Audacity (for altering sounds), 7zip (for backups), Subversion + TortoiseSVN (for source control), Filezilla (for uploads to my server), OpenOffice (for writing documents), KeePass (for managing all my passwords and accounts - many of them related to work).
You have to understand that we all stand on the shoulders of people before us. Sure, Alexey might be right that FOSS eliminates the lower level products that would exist, but the fact that I have FOSS means that I have lower costs and it helps me do the higher-level work. FOSS can help us get to a higher-level of software development.
His article was posted two weeks ago on boingboing and discussed quite a bit. I have to admit to being one of the detractors of his idea (which I think reduces artists and creators to beggars trying to eek out a living). I also think he talks too much in generalities, and that makes his ideas seem more persuasive. The minute you think about specific things (how does his ideas apply to X), his ideas often don't apply at all, or reduces the income from digital creations to pennies on the dollar. http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/02/kevin-kelly-better-t.html
(nod) Yes, I understand that you can't mod and post within the same article.
The big deal is that there is a great big precedent where information is blocked due to content.
Isn't that what a C&D letter does? When you shut down child-porn sites, aren't you doing it on the basis of content?
We often praise people who find ways to break past China and Saudi Arabia's forms of Internet censorship... why all the sudden do you cheer the same censorship in an EU member state?
That's because we have ideas about what should and shouldn't be allowed in society. When people break past China's or Saudi Arabia's ridiculous, oppressive laws, I cheer them because they are fighting against a corrupt system. Stealing digital content from their creators is not "fighting a corrupt system"; it's just "getting stuff without paying for it". You label it all under one term: "censorship", and I simply don't think all these different situations can be subsumed under one word and treated uniformly.
Let me put it this way: Western governments will put you in jail for theft. Saudi Arabia will put you in jail for preaching any religion other than Islam. Do you argue: "you support the people who Saudi Arabia puts in jail, but you condemn the people the United States puts in jail" - as if I'm guilty of some double-standard? Do you conclude that "putting people in jail is wrong"? No.
"Net censorship" which prevents theft of digital content (music, movies, software, etc, etc) is different than net censorship that is used to hide government crimes from their people. Just as putting someone in jail for believing the wrong religion is different than putting someone in jail for theft.
I don't poison a noisy neighborhood dog to get him quiet
Nobody's dead.
I go to the dog's owner and see about getting him to keep his animal quiet
And you think piratebay is just going to say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I won't let that happen again." Of course not. I recently read an interview with the creator of piratebay. What's his view on copyright? He said that people claim piratebay hates copyright, but that wasn't true at all - he says that piratebay simply doesn't care about copyright. He flat-out saying he doesn't care if copyrighted material is on there against the author's wishes. You know what else piratebay is working on? An anonymous system. Where's your cease and desist letter going now? Piratebay is aiding and abetting criminals - and they are doing whatever they can to aid them even more in the future.
Ha ha. Can't take a little bit of criticism without labelling me a troll? Sorry, I forgot I'm in the upside-down world of slashdot, where theft is praised, and people who disagree are buried by a mob of freeloading slackers. Long live getting something for nothing and shafting the creator!
For those who are stuck to comprehend an alternative way consider the ancient Chinese model where you pay the doctor when you are well. If you get sick you stop paying, thus the doctor has a motive to keep you in good health.
So, if you have a terminal disease that where your life can be prolonged, but your disease cannot be cured - then the Chinese doctor refuses to help because he'll never get paid? There are no cures for AIDS or diabetes. There are drug cocktails that can prolong life for AIDS patients significantly. And there are treatments that can prolong life for people with diabetes. And what about older patients - they have worse health to begin with, and are less likely to make a recovery. And cancer is often fatal. Geriatric and cancer patients would be a risky business, perhaps not worth their time - in those cases, doctors would have an incentive to work with younger patients and other diseases.
thus the doctor has a motive to keep you in good health.
Even if someone could conceivably create a cure or a vaccine for AIDS - it's not an individual doctor who's going to do it anyway; it's a drug company. For the most part, doctors' hands are tied when it comes to creating a cure for disease. And, I would argue, that doctors like to keep their patients in good health. Are you seriously claiming your general practitioner wants his patients to remain sick? Most doctors are overworked - the last thing they want is repeat customers when they've already got a long line of patients.
This enables the Pushdo author to limit distribution of any one of the [421 different] malware loads from infecting users located in a particular country, or provides the ability to target a specific country or countries with a specific payload.
I can't help but think a lot of malware creators will get rich in the 21st century when governments pay them to attack countries they are at war with - either destroying their computer infrastructure, or acting as spies.
Obviously, it's important for companies to become more aware of security. On the other hand, it will also provide lots of training material for criminals. I remember reading that some of the crime-detective shows have taught the criminals how they were getting caught, and criminals have started taking the exact precautions needed to avoid getting caught. (For example, using bleach to destroy their own DNA evidence, or putting a bunch of random cigarette butts in the ashtray of a car they had stolen - to create a bunch of false and confusing DNA traces.) The end result is that criminals have become a lot more savy. [sarcasm]But - you know - our entertainment and TV' companies profits outweigh any potential problems these TV programs cause.[/sarcasm]
Slashdot Mirror
Catch up with the times, QT 2.2 was released under LGPL. The license issue is no longer an issue and is old news.
Do you have a source for that? All the links I've found on google say that isn't true. For example:
"Qt 2.2 To Be Released Under the GPL" http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/180/
"Qt 2.2 Released under the GPL" http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/qt.php
Seems to me that the RIAA doesn't need every ISP to join it in this fight anyway. As long as the RIAA can get some of the big ISPs involved, they might be able to get people to cut-down their downloading.
Anyway, I don't really understand what slashdoters want the RIAA to do exactly (well, other than curl up and die). It seems to me that the recording industry has hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. I think it's fairly obvious that a group watching it's life-blood sucked away by illegal downloading is going to get over-zealous in this fight. It seems like a very "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of a situation for them.
The only way to convince studios that DRM is an economically bad policy is for DRM-free games to sell more copies.
I would add that it would be even better if gamers would do this long-term (not simply as a method for 'teaching' game companies until DRM goes away). If game companies think that non-DRM titles are getting an artificial and short-term boost in sales because they don't contain DRM, then they might temporarily avoid DRM, but return to it as soon as gamers stop rewarding companies that don't use DRM. Further, as more games skip using DRM, the positive effect of "gamers supporting non-DRM titles" get diluted over more games - which lowers the benefit for any particular game.
Ubisoft is giving gamers the chance to demonstrate that DRM actually increases piracy.
Actually, there are already games out there without DRM. We don't need POP to prove a point. What are the piracy numbers for Stardocks games (Galactic Civilizations 1 & 2, Sins of a Solar Empire)? Also, "World of Goo" doesn't contain DRM. The developers recently claimed they have very high piracy rates. According to them, they had 90% piracy rates - in other words 9 pirates for every legitimate buyer. Unfortunately, I think their method for calculating piracy was flawed, so I don't believe those numbers. A better test would be to figure out how many downloads those games have had over BitTorrent.
As for the article you link to, they make the claim that if brain mass is correlated with intelligence, then you should also claim that women and short people are dumber. Although, women and short people also have smaller bodies, which means their brain mass/body mass ratio may be equal or better than men. So, who knows what should be the prediction based on that. And, of course, the correlation is certainly not 1.0, so even if a brain mass/intelligence correlation exists, it's not that clear what conclusions you can draw from large/small brains.
As for neanderthals, their body mass was also larger than humans, so it's unclear whether they would actually be smarter.
Also, I happen to think that elephants and whales are probably pretty smart. Maybe not as smart as us, but if you take the animal world as a whole, I think the correlation is obvious and undeniable. The smartest animals on earth (humans, elephants, dolphins, apes, etc) have the largest brains on the planet. The only real outlier is birds. Parrots can be very smart - evolution apparently found a way to build a small intelligent brain while still allowing the animal to fly.
I also found this claim (also from your article) to be amusing: "Early humanoids had a less developed cerebral cortex and therefore could not attain what we commonly call conscious experience. The same could be said for modern apes and dolphins. An ape's brain could get bigger, but unless the cerebral cortex develops in a certain way, the ape will never achieve "thought"." Ha. It's funny in this essay that talks about debunking myths of brain size, that the author introduces his own unfounded beliefs about brains. Who's he to say that apes, dolphins, and early humans didn't have conscious experience? Apes are actually quite smart. They understand the fact that other creatures have brains and sets of beliefs. Apes can recognize their own reflection in a mirror.
Rather than a little "no pain, no gain" argument that you do, I would suggest that organizers of the database find ways to protect the privacy of individuals contributing. It's not like making the subject's name public is terribly important or even useful. They want to connect the DNA to various attributes (diseases, etc), and adding a name isn't helpful in making those connections. So: hiding names would have no impact on the actual benefits of the study, and would maintain privacy. Yeah, I know that's in contradiction to "no pain, no gain", but not everything works that way.
Yeah, I know we're beating this one to death with examples of free-to-play business models. Hasn't Runescape ("approximately fifteen million active free accounts, over 136 million accounts created") been doing the same thing for years?
Moderation in everything you do. I believe these words of wisdom are mentioned in the Psalms as well.
Actually, it was Aristotle or Andria Terence who first came up with this idea, and it was paraphrased two hundred years later in the New Testament. (I point this out only to help religious people understand that there is wisdom outside of their holy books.)
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/sayings.html#moderation
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/24302.html
No, genetics is not like computer programming. (I studied both biology and computer science in college.) If they seem that similar, it's because human beings tend to describe and understand new things using concepts that they already know.
Anonymous coward is right: DNA fingerprinting doesn't store or show genetic sequences. It would be impossible to determine a person's exact genetics or genetically-based health problems based off of a DNA fingerprint.
Now...which politician will speak out in favor of wiping out aging?
Wait! Wait! I know the answer to that! The ones who don't believe in heaven, and the ones who know they're going to hell.
"In order for extortion to work, money has to change hands. Money can be traced, easily..."
I don't know, but it seems to work for Nigerian scams (okay, they ask for you banking information), apartment scams (I'll send you a fake cashiers check, you "send me back" some of that money via Western Union), and also dating scams (I need money for a plane ticket to come see you). It seems to work in those cases.
OK, let's assume that they're right that all modern humans descend from a very small population, of about 2,000 people. It does not follow that the entire global population of H. sapiens was, at some time, 2,000 people. Perhaps there were 200,000 total, but only 1% of the people developed sophisticated technologies and cultures which allowed them to expand, eventually wiping out the remaining 99%. You still have a bottleneck, but your total population never goes below 200,000.
That could, theoretically, be possible, but it sounds unlikely. Your scenario says that a group of 2,000 slowly expands over many, many generations to become 200,000 and - throughout that entire time - they are completely exclusive in mating only with people inside their group. That just doesn't seem very likely.
In particular, if humans nearly went extinct 70,000 years ago, then shouldn't we expect to see that in the archeological evidence, with stone tools becoming less common for a period?
Stone tools that old are bound to be scarce anyway. Getting enough data-points to make that determination would be difficult.
I give my 100% approval to this report.
On a completely different note, I would also suggest there's never been a better time to buy my flaming, radioactive razor-blade ball. It's the happy fun ball for the next generation. Fun for all ages!
"Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, has a much different point of view: the pirates don't matter.... ignore piracy"
Uh huh. I call BS. With his Galactic Civilizations II, they didn't use DRM. You know what they did do, however? They enticed users to own legitimate copies by limiting updates and bug fixes to those legitimate users. At that time, he argued that DRM could be cracked and was burdensome on legitimate users. But - by offering upgraded service to legitimate users, he was aiming to make sure pirates had a weaker experience of his game. Brad Wardell is *not* ignoring the pirates - he's got his own ideas about dealing with them, but "ignoring them" is not his strategy.
As a game developer, free open source software has helped me a great deal. For example, I use the following free software to create games (and I would be a lot further behind without them): NSIS (nullsoft install system), libpng (a library for reading png files), DirectX (for networking and voicechat), OpenGL (for graphics), OpenAL (for sound effects), Audacity (for altering sounds), 7zip (for backups), Subversion + TortoiseSVN (for source control), Filezilla (for uploads to my server), OpenOffice (for writing documents), KeePass (for managing all my passwords and accounts - many of them related to work).
You have to understand that we all stand on the shoulders of people before us. Sure, Alexey might be right that FOSS eliminates the lower level products that would exist, but the fact that I have FOSS means that I have lower costs and it helps me do the higher-level work. FOSS can help us get to a higher-level of software development.
I'm sure this will explain why the evil twin is evil. It's an amazing breakthrough in the field of soap opera science!
His article was posted two weeks ago on boingboing and discussed quite a bit. I have to admit to being one of the detractors of his idea (which I think reduces artists and creators to beggars trying to eek out a living). I also think he talks too much in generalities, and that makes his ideas seem more persuasive. The minute you think about specific things (how does his ideas apply to X), his ideas often don't apply at all, or reduces the income from digital creations to pennies on the dollar.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/02/kevin-kelly-better-t.html
Well, FWIW, it wasn't me who modded ye.
(nod) Yes, I understand that you can't mod and post within the same article.
The big deal is that there is a great big precedent where information is blocked due to content.
Isn't that what a C&D letter does? When you shut down child-porn sites, aren't you doing it on the basis of content?
We often praise people who find ways to break past China and Saudi Arabia's forms of Internet censorship... why all the sudden do you cheer the same censorship in an EU member state?
That's because we have ideas about what should and shouldn't be allowed in society. When people break past China's or Saudi Arabia's ridiculous, oppressive laws, I cheer them because they are fighting against a corrupt system. Stealing digital content from their creators is not "fighting a corrupt system"; it's just "getting stuff without paying for it". You label it all under one term: "censorship", and I simply don't think all these different situations can be subsumed under one word and treated uniformly.
Let me put it this way: Western governments will put you in jail for theft. Saudi Arabia will put you in jail for preaching any religion other than Islam. Do you argue: "you support the people who Saudi Arabia puts in jail, but you condemn the people the United States puts in jail" - as if I'm guilty of some double-standard? Do you conclude that "putting people in jail is wrong"? No.
"Net censorship" which prevents theft of digital content (music, movies, software, etc, etc) is different than net censorship that is used to hide government crimes from their people. Just as putting someone in jail for believing the wrong religion is different than putting someone in jail for theft.
I don't poison a noisy neighborhood dog to get him quiet
Nobody's dead.
I go to the dog's owner and see about getting him to keep his animal quiet
And you think piratebay is just going to say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I won't let that happen again." Of course not. I recently read an interview with the creator of piratebay. What's his view on copyright? He said that people claim piratebay hates copyright, but that wasn't true at all - he says that piratebay simply doesn't care about copyright. He flat-out saying he doesn't care if copyrighted material is on there against the author's wishes. You know what else piratebay is working on? An anonymous system. Where's your cease and desist letter going now? Piratebay is aiding and abetting criminals - and they are doing whatever they can to aid them even more in the future.
Ha ha. Can't take a little bit of criticism without labelling me a troll? Sorry, I forgot I'm in the upside-down world of slashdot, where theft is praised, and people who disagree are buried by a mob of freeloading slackers. Long live getting something for nothing and shafting the creator!
And by "stick by their principles", you mean "facilitate the theft of other people's hard work?"
For those who are stuck to comprehend an alternative way consider the ancient Chinese model where you pay the doctor when you are well. If you get sick you stop paying, thus the doctor has a motive to keep you in good health.
So, if you have a terminal disease that where your life can be prolonged, but your disease cannot be cured - then the Chinese doctor refuses to help because he'll never get paid? There are no cures for AIDS or diabetes. There are drug cocktails that can prolong life for AIDS patients significantly. And there are treatments that can prolong life for people with diabetes. And what about older patients - they have worse health to begin with, and are less likely to make a recovery. And cancer is often fatal. Geriatric and cancer patients would be a risky business, perhaps not worth their time - in those cases, doctors would have an incentive to work with younger patients and other diseases.
thus the doctor has a motive to keep you in good health.
Even if someone could conceivably create a cure or a vaccine for AIDS - it's not an individual doctor who's going to do it anyway; it's a drug company. For the most part, doctors' hands are tied when it comes to creating a cure for disease. And, I would argue, that doctors like to keep their patients in good health. Are you seriously claiming your general practitioner wants his patients to remain sick? Most doctors are overworked - the last thing they want is repeat customers when they've already got a long line of patients.
This enables the Pushdo author to limit distribution of any one of the [421 different] malware loads from infecting users located in a particular country, or provides the ability to target a specific country or countries with a specific payload.
I can't help but think a lot of malware creators will get rich in the 21st century when governments pay them to attack countries they are at war with - either destroying their computer infrastructure, or acting as spies.
Via's code names are almost always biblical:
* Luke
* Esther
* Nehemiah
I'm still looking forward to the Satan and Whore of Babylon chipsets.
Obviously, it's important for companies to become more aware of security. On the other hand, it will also provide lots of training material for criminals. I remember reading that some of the crime-detective shows have taught the criminals how they were getting caught, and criminals have started taking the exact precautions needed to avoid getting caught. (For example, using bleach to destroy their own DNA evidence, or putting a bunch of random cigarette butts in the ashtray of a car they had stolen - to create a bunch of false and confusing DNA traces.) The end result is that criminals have become a lot more savy. [sarcasm]But - you know - our entertainment and TV' companies profits outweigh any potential problems these TV programs cause.[/sarcasm]