This reminds me of one of my mother's friends, who asked me in all seriousness why a child gate couldn't be made from force fields "you know, like on Star Trek". Ugh.
Maxim
The opinions are mine, but my company's pockets are deeper.
Anybody know how throttling is affected by mutliple people in the same house splitting their account? I'm on 1 disc at a time, while my wife is on 2. I send back very quickly, whereas she's a little slower.
Maxim
This sounds similar to some ideas I toyed around with in college for software distribution: a company witholds release until a certain amount of money has been collected (in escrow, of course) and then it's freeware. There are many thorny issues I could never solve, the biggest of which is people who don't bother to contribute and just wait for others and then steal a copy later. Not knowing exactly what you're going to get before yu pay is a toughie as well.
I just couldn't seem to make it work. Maybe somebody can think of mechanisms that eluded me.
I don't know much about the particulars of the BBC's operation, I guess I'll research it a bit. I suspect this would work for patents or any other type of intellectual property as well. If you remove the incentive to steal and still provide incentive to create, that pretty much kills the DRM issues.
I have thought about how to interface to other countries that didn't have the same system, and I guess it would have to be using the methods in place already. They stink, but until they could be brought on board, what other choice is there?
As far as it gaining traction, I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm thinking of writing an article for a business publication perhaps, but know nothing about such a process. Maybe if I can find someone who knows a congressman or something. Certainly no politics in my future - I'm an atheist and they can't get elected in the US.
I'm unclear how this would translate to music, for example. You can't be suggesting per-listener negotiations, so how does this work in practice? Paid by the music industry? Well, they'll care about making a return on their investment, so the DRM issure woudl still be there. I guess I simply don't get what you're trying to suggest. Could you flesh it out some?
You are correct about the gas tax, sorry about that. However, there are many other examples that prove my point (libraries, national defense, etc). The larger point is that coming up with a reasonable system to pay for really shouldn't be a major issue, as everyone will benefit from it.
As far as getting copies from your friend, it would still be in the interest of people to report that they are using the product so as to reward people who produce products they like. Sure, not every single instance may get reported, but that is, again, a very small detail.
Your third point seems flawed to me. As new products must be registered so people can download them, and a user's history will be known, the difference between upgrade and new user is easy to distinguish.
Your seperate point about people downloading things and then not using them is one that I have thought of as well. If it's all free, I'll get EVERYTHING! I suspect that since everything is operating within this environment, statistcis will easily avergae out such effects.
It would be nice if you guys could be a little more constructive and try to help come up with solutions to the fine details. Our current system is seriously flawed, for example. I just came up with this a couple of months ago, so cut me some slack for not having a complete write up ready for congress. Geez. Tough crowd.
To cover your points:
1) As far as exactly how the tax is levied, I believe that is irrelevant. Some people don't drive, yet they pay to upkeep the roads. It's a comparatively small detail.
2) As the goods are available free (well in a direct sense), there is no reason for your friends not to get it from the central source. In fact, they'd want to as it would reward the people whose products they enjoy.
3) You'd have to have a registered account to request goods, or else exactly that sort of inflation would occur.
I ask that you compare the problems with this system against the problems with the current one! hehe
Let's assume that safeguarding intellectual property is, in fact, impossible. Can we still come up with a system that rewards people for their efforts? I believe we can. Basically, an artist, programmer, or filmaker would give their product to a government agency (much like a national library) and that product would be available free to any citizen for the asking, except for the cost of manuals, etc. The artist would be paid a bountya ccording to how many people take delivery on their product, so he gets compensation. The revenue would come from the tax stream, again like libraries. Now before you start railing against creeping socialism, think this system through. Everyone would have the most productive, up-to-date software, older versions wouldn't need to be supported. Also, basically everybody indulges in one form of entertainment or another, so drawing from the tax base isn't unreasonable.
That makes sense. I used to do some work with mobile robots at Brown University's AI lab, and I found that the difficulties were all about sensors. Once you could turn the physical obstacles into data abstractions and once you knew where the robot was in relation to them, the algorithms were pretty darned easy. I used to walk around pretending that I only had the information available to the robot and see how I did, with human intelligence, at avoiding obstacles. Our vision system was very slow and took 3 seconds per frame, so I'd close my eyes and blink them open for an instant every three seconds. It was very hard. Moving slow helped a lot, of course. Of course we were running on a 486 back then...
I would say that the definition of what consitutes a planet would depend entirely on what such a definition is to be used for. I can't think of any decision that would hinge on a body's designation as a planet, so any system is as good as any other.
The simple truth is that hardware and software will always get faster and cheaper, so don't upgrade until there's something you need to do that your current syhstem just can't handle.
And then don't look at the adds for 2 months, or you'll wind up feeling bad! (:
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of one of my mother's friends, who asked me in all seriousness why a child gate couldn't be made from force fields "you know, like on Star Trek". Ugh.
Maxim
The opinions are mine, but my company's pockets are deeper.
Actually, that's a fairly standard business practice: don't enter markets you have no chance of success in. Maxim
Of course, so has fossil fuel energy.
Well, if made faster, be darned useful as a storage element which would be both super dense and low power. Maxim
I'm sure he's kept chained with golden handcuffs. I wouldn't mind such a deal.
Anybody know how throttling is affected by mutliple people in the same house splitting their account? I'm on 1 disc at a time, while my wife is on 2. I send back very quickly, whereas she's a little slower. Maxim
This sounds similar to some ideas I toyed around with in college for software distribution: a company witholds release until a certain amount of money has been collected (in escrow, of course) and then it's freeware. There are many thorny issues I could never solve, the biggest of which is people who don't bother to contribute and just wait for others and then steal a copy later. Not knowing exactly what you're going to get before yu pay is a toughie as well. I just couldn't seem to make it work. Maybe somebody can think of mechanisms that eluded me.
I don't know much about the particulars of the BBC's operation, I guess I'll research it a bit. I suspect this would work for patents or any other type of intellectual property as well. If you remove the incentive to steal and still provide incentive to create, that pretty much kills the DRM issues. I have thought about how to interface to other countries that didn't have the same system, and I guess it would have to be using the methods in place already. They stink, but until they could be brought on board, what other choice is there? As far as it gaining traction, I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm thinking of writing an article for a business publication perhaps, but know nothing about such a process. Maybe if I can find someone who knows a congressman or something. Certainly no politics in my future - I'm an atheist and they can't get elected in the US.
I'm unclear how this would translate to music, for example. You can't be suggesting per-listener negotiations, so how does this work in practice? Paid by the music industry? Well, they'll care about making a return on their investment, so the DRM issure woudl still be there. I guess I simply don't get what you're trying to suggest. Could you flesh it out some?
You are correct about the gas tax, sorry about that. However, there are many other examples that prove my point (libraries, national defense, etc). The larger point is that coming up with a reasonable system to pay for really shouldn't be a major issue, as everyone will benefit from it. As far as getting copies from your friend, it would still be in the interest of people to report that they are using the product so as to reward people who produce products they like. Sure, not every single instance may get reported, but that is, again, a very small detail. Your third point seems flawed to me. As new products must be registered so people can download them, and a user's history will be known, the difference between upgrade and new user is easy to distinguish. Your seperate point about people downloading things and then not using them is one that I have thought of as well. If it's all free, I'll get EVERYTHING! I suspect that since everything is operating within this environment, statistcis will easily avergae out such effects. It would be nice if you guys could be a little more constructive and try to help come up with solutions to the fine details. Our current system is seriously flawed, for example. I just came up with this a couple of months ago, so cut me some slack for not having a complete write up ready for congress. Geez. Tough crowd.
To cover your points: 1) As far as exactly how the tax is levied, I believe that is irrelevant. Some people don't drive, yet they pay to upkeep the roads. It's a comparatively small detail. 2) As the goods are available free (well in a direct sense), there is no reason for your friends not to get it from the central source. In fact, they'd want to as it would reward the people whose products they enjoy. 3) You'd have to have a registered account to request goods, or else exactly that sort of inflation would occur. I ask that you compare the problems with this system against the problems with the current one! hehe
Let's assume that safeguarding intellectual property is, in fact, impossible. Can we still come up with a system that rewards people for their efforts? I believe we can. Basically, an artist, programmer, or filmaker would give their product to a government agency (much like a national library) and that product would be available free to any citizen for the asking, except for the cost of manuals, etc. The artist would be paid a bountya ccording to how many people take delivery on their product, so he gets compensation. The revenue would come from the tax stream, again like libraries. Now before you start railing against creeping socialism, think this system through. Everyone would have the most productive, up-to-date software, older versions wouldn't need to be supported. Also, basically everybody indulges in one form of entertainment or another, so drawing from the tax base isn't unreasonable.
That makes sense. I used to do some work with mobile robots at Brown University's AI lab, and I found that the difficulties were all about sensors. Once you could turn the physical obstacles into data abstractions and once you knew where the robot was in relation to them, the algorithms were pretty darned easy. I used to walk around pretending that I only had the information available to the robot and see how I did, with human intelligence, at avoiding obstacles. Our vision system was very slow and took 3 seconds per frame, so I'd close my eyes and blink them open for an instant every three seconds. It was very hard. Moving slow helped a lot, of course. Of course we were running on a 486 back then...
I would say that the definition of what consitutes a planet would depend entirely on what such a definition is to be used for. I can't think of any decision that would hinge on a body's designation as a planet, so any system is as good as any other.
The simple truth is that hardware and software will always get faster and cheaper, so don't upgrade until there's something you need to do that your current syhstem just can't handle. And then don't look at the adds for 2 months, or you'll wind up feeling bad! (: