As a society, we make laws for the greater common good, to allow us to coexist without harming each other. The moment someone chooses to violate those laws, they should no longer expect to be protected by those same laws, should they? In other words, I don't see a problem with voluntary GPS tagging of criminals. On the other hand, if somebody is hell-bent on harming or killing somebody else, knowing that they violated a restraining order after the fact doesn't do much good, does it? The only way this can really prevent crimes is if it immediately notifies police (and perhaps the victim) when someone enters the "forbidden zone". Preventing such a device from transmitting for long enough to do your dirty deeds should be trivial, shouldn't it?
Huh? 1600 Playstation 3's should be pretty cheap in about a year... and I'm willing to bet somebody (like Sony) will attempt to make a supercomputer out of them, just for the publicity!
You can if you have friends in that other state that will let you use their address! For years Washington residents registered their cars in Oregon because the registration fee was much lower. And one of my college friends got pissed off because they towed his pickup in California, so he waited until the gate of the impound lot was open and drove it out, then asked his dad in Ohio to send him new Ohio plates for it...
Legally, yes, once you've been in the state for 30 days you are expected to have registered your car in that state. But I'm sure some people have been "just visiting" California for 10 or 20 years now...
If you beleive Microsoft or anybody when they claim to be acting for your best interests, well then, I've got nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you! Honest, it's in your best interests to buy it! Just think: you can put a toll booth on it and extract revenue from the thousands of people that cross over it every day!
More simply, patents and copyrights are goverment granted monopolies, and as such, have no connection whatsoever to "free market" capitalism. But then, if anybody beleives we actually have free markets in this country, I suggest they read the 5000-page US Customs Tariff Schedule...
- You give some gold to an alt Isn't this specifically prohibited in the TOS for most MMOGs? I know it is prohibited in RuneScape...
Giving away or lending gold does little to improve gameplay. Of the scenarios listed, only paying for services seems like a useful feature... can anybody think of a way to restrict in-game trade without eliminating the ability to pay for services? Or should you only be able to trade services for services? Note that restricting in-game trade also solves some problems with scammers, and lessens the effectiveness of corporations, thus favoring individual players over collectives. Since I only cooperate with other players when absolutely forced to, restricting trades to like value wouldn't bother me... with the exception that recently somebody noticed I needed a tool I couldn't afford to buy and couldn't craft myself, so he made one and gave it to me! Unfortunately, the mechanics I'm suggesting would pretty much prohibit such kind-hearted guestures...
Well, yes, but since this scheme might actually result in a net loss of revenue when everybody registers their automobiles in a different state, I don't think even California will touch it. In my recollection, the most competent employees working for the State of California all work for the Board of Equalization, which collects the taxes. They might point out that this system is slightly harder to enforce than anti-sodomy laws in San Francisco...
As the buyer of a hybrid, Oregon charged me an extra registration fee, to compensate for the lower gas taxes I would be paying! (They have since changed this policy.) What the powers that be are not taking into consideration is that wear and tear on roads goes up dramatically in proportion to vehicle weight; currently 95% of road wear is caused by semi trucks, which obviously do not pay 95% of road use fees. Fuel efficient cars cause much less wear and tear, charging them per mile is effectively taxing fuel efficient car owners in order to subsidize SUV users! That is the most anti-progressive tax imaginable!
There are obvious problems with pay-by-mile. If instituted only in California, residents will simply register their cars in another state. Also, the cost of installing the monitoring devices and the huge new bureaucracy to monitor them will most likely exceed any additional revenue generated. The gas tax is already the closest thing we have to a perfect tax, in that it comes closest to allocating costs based on actual use. Any changes could only lead to a worse system! (And yes, Oregon has also considered a mileage-based tax. But I don't beleive any state is stupid enough to actually implement such a hare-brained system.)
If trading of certain items harms the game playing experience, then game developers should just make those items non-tradeable, no? If buying gold outside the game is a problem, then isn't the obvious technical solution to implement some kind of "fair trade" mechanism that prohibits players from giving away gold without getting something of roughly comparable worth in return? In fact, this would also help prevent noobs from getting taken advantage of by scammers... all I'm saying is, try to fix the game mechanics first before bitching that the system can be taken advantage of by greedy asshats!
Maybe because Verizon agreed to cleanup the mess left behind by the massive fraud perpetrated by MCI when it was named WorldCom? Taking on that liability and handing each MCI exec a "get out of jail free" card is worth far more than stock shares...
right now probably 99% of P2P traffic is infringing use. And 99.5% of statistics are complete, made-up bullshit. Until you have facts backed up by scientific studies, you shouldn't be stating that P2P is mostly used copyright infringement. Isn't BitTorrent also used to distribute open source software?
Despite their public pronouncements, SCO's case against IBM seems to have evaporated down to a claim that IBM continued to distribute AIX after SCO revoked their Unix license. To which IBM is replying "You had no right to revoke our Unix license, you morons!" Did SCO actually have legitimate grounds for revoking the license, or is SCO going to get bitchslapped by the judge for revoking a license they had no right to revoke? It's beginning to look like SCO's legal strategy was concocted by an 8 year old kid! Doesn't making claims in press releases that cannot be substantiated in court invoke the ire of the SEC? SCO executives appear to be on the express train to federal prison. They made ridiculous unsubstatiated claims, and now they can't back down from those claims, because doing so would only be used as evidence that the whole thing was an ill-conceived "pump-and-dump" scheme in the first place! McBride's best case scenario now is that he drags the whole thing out long enough so that he dies before he gets sent to prison...
Compare the true cost of shipping a package FedEx versus USPS. The USPS has not received any government subsidies for the last 20 years. True, the USPS pays no taxes, but then, neither does Microsoft. Where are you getting this data comparing the "true cost" of FedEx vs. USPS? Also, bear in mind that the USPS is required to deliver to EVERYONE, whereas FedEx does not deliver to remote or rural areas.
nothing the government gives you is free
Only if you actually pay your taxes! In other words, it is free if you earn your living from gambling, prostitution, drugs, or welfare...
Get together several times a day to trade id badges... and leave the staff wondering why the girls are going to the boy's restroom, etc.! They can require you to carry an ID, but can they enforce a requirement to carry YOUR OWN ID?
So, why aren't all the gun and ammo manufacturers deemed guilty of contributory murder? Lockpick manufactures held responsible for burgularies? Sorry, just because you provide the tools DOES NOT make you responsible for what somebody else chooses to do with them! (I think this is called the "Wernher Von Braun" defense;-)
Making a bomb should be legal, as long as you detonate on your own property and cause no damage to your neighbors. Harming others with a bomb is illegal just as harming others by beating them with a down pillow is illegal -- it's the harm caused, not the nature of the object that's important! (Yes, a threat to cause harm is also harm.)
You don't legally own the naked little boys, whom are presumably harmed by having naked pictures taken of them. Making pictures of virtual little boys that don't actually exist should be legal, because nobody is actually harmed by it (unless you beleive the unsubstantiated argument that viewing fictional representations of an act increases somebodies proclivity to commit said act.)
In the case of the copyrighted bits, unless downloading said bit actually decreases the probability of you or somebody else paying for those bits, then the copyright holder is not harmed in the least -- no harm, no foul.
By that same token, it is much harder to find and prosecute speeders than murderers (because there are so many of them), so the penalties for speeding should be much harsher?
I think you're missing the point here. There is really only one law: "Do no harm". All the rest is just codifying liquidated damages or penalties for doing harm. As such, the penalty should be comensurate with the actual damage done, not with the probability of actually getting caught. Unless you honestly beleive that when I cop catches you speeding, you should also have to pay for the thousands of people they didn't catch!
I've got a netgear wireless router. Beleive me I tried, but could find no way to get it to filter out the rogue DHCP server. (It doesn't seem to support MAC address filtering.) Recall that the whole point of DHCP is that your client is not supposed to care which server it is getting it's configuration from! DHCP implicitly assumes that there are no rogue DHCP servers...
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As a society, we make laws for the greater common good, to allow us to coexist without harming each other. The moment someone chooses to violate those laws, they should no longer expect to be protected by those same laws, should they? In other words, I don't see a problem with voluntary GPS tagging of criminals. On the other hand, if somebody is hell-bent on harming or killing somebody else, knowing that they violated a restraining order after the fact doesn't do much good, does it? The only way this can really prevent crimes is if it immediately notifies police (and perhaps the victim) when someone enters the "forbidden zone". Preventing such a device from transmitting for long enough to do your dirty deeds should be trivial, shouldn't it?
Huh? 1600 Playstation 3's should be pretty cheap in about a year... and I'm willing to bet somebody (like Sony) will attempt to make a supercomputer out of them, just for the publicity!
Legally, yes, once you've been in the state for 30 days you are expected to have registered your car in that state. But I'm sure some people have been "just visiting" California for 10 or 20 years now...
If you beleive Microsoft or anybody when they claim to be acting for your best interests, well then, I've got nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you! Honest, it's in your best interests to buy it! Just think: you can put a toll booth on it and extract revenue from the thousands of people that cross over it every day!
More simply, patents and copyrights are goverment granted monopolies, and as such, have no connection whatsoever to "free market" capitalism. But then, if anybody beleives we actually have free markets in this country, I suggest they read the 5000-page US Customs Tariff Schedule...
So, when will the M$ capitalists "sell us the rope with which to hang them"?
(Looks at M$ security advisories)
(Looks at FireFox usage statistics)
Hmmm.... perhaps they already have?
Giving away or lending gold does little to improve gameplay. Of the scenarios listed, only paying for services seems like a useful feature... can anybody think of a way to restrict in-game trade without eliminating the ability to pay for services? Or should you only be able to trade services for services? Note that restricting in-game trade also solves some problems with scammers, and lessens the effectiveness of corporations, thus favoring individual players over collectives. Since I only cooperate with other players when absolutely forced to, restricting trades to like value wouldn't bother me... with the exception that recently somebody noticed I needed a tool I couldn't afford to buy and couldn't craft myself, so he made one and gave it to me! Unfortunately, the mechanics I'm suggesting would pretty much prohibit such kind-hearted guestures...
Well, yes, but since this scheme might actually result in a net loss of revenue when everybody registers their automobiles in a different state, I don't think even California will touch it. In my recollection, the most competent employees working for the State of California all work for the Board of Equalization, which collects the taxes. They might point out that this system is slightly harder to enforce than anti-sodomy laws in San Francisco...
How would that be any more difficult to enforce than a tax on miles driven?
While you're at it, why not just buy a diesel vehicle and run it on #2 heating oil, thus saving yourself the gasoline tax as well?
There are obvious problems with pay-by-mile. If instituted only in California, residents will simply register their cars in another state. Also, the cost of installing the monitoring devices and the huge new bureaucracy to monitor them will most likely exceed any additional revenue generated. The gas tax is already the closest thing we have to a perfect tax, in that it comes closest to allocating costs based on actual use. Any changes could only lead to a worse system! (And yes, Oregon has also considered a mileage-based tax. But I don't beleive any state is stupid enough to actually implement such a hare-brained system.)
If trading of certain items harms the game playing experience, then game developers should just make those items non-tradeable, no? If buying gold outside the game is a problem, then isn't the obvious technical solution to implement some kind of "fair trade" mechanism that prohibits players from giving away gold without getting something of roughly comparable worth in return? In fact, this would also help prevent noobs from getting taken advantage of by scammers... all I'm saying is, try to fix the game mechanics first before bitching that the system can be taken advantage of by greedy asshats!
Maybe because Verizon agreed to cleanup the mess left behind by the massive fraud perpetrated by MCI when it was named WorldCom? Taking on that liability and handing each MCI exec a "get out of jail free" card is worth far more than stock shares...
See!!! That bug is due to the viral nature of open source software, so pervasive that it has even made it's way into Microsoft code!
right now probably 99% of P2P traffic is infringing use. And 99.5% of statistics are complete, made-up bullshit. Until you have facts backed up by scientific studies, you shouldn't be stating that P2P is mostly used copyright infringement. Isn't BitTorrent also used to distribute open source software?
Despite their public pronouncements, SCO's case against IBM seems to have evaporated down to a claim that IBM continued to distribute AIX after SCO revoked their Unix license. To which IBM is replying "You had no right to revoke our Unix license, you morons!" Did SCO actually have legitimate grounds for revoking the license, or is SCO going to get bitchslapped by the judge for revoking a license they had no right to revoke? It's beginning to look like SCO's legal strategy was concocted by an 8 year old kid! Doesn't making claims in press releases that cannot be substantiated in court invoke the ire of the SEC? SCO executives appear to be on the express train to federal prison. They made ridiculous unsubstatiated claims, and now they can't back down from those claims, because doing so would only be used as evidence that the whole thing was an ill-conceived "pump-and-dump" scheme in the first place! McBride's best case scenario now is that he drags the whole thing out long enough so that he dies before he gets sent to prison...
Compare the true cost of shipping a package FedEx versus USPS. The USPS has not received any government subsidies for the last 20 years. True, the USPS pays no taxes, but then, neither does Microsoft. Where are you getting this data comparing the "true cost" of FedEx vs. USPS? Also, bear in mind that the USPS is required to deliver to EVERYONE, whereas FedEx does not deliver to remote or rural areas.
nothing the government gives you is free Only if you actually pay your taxes! In other words, it is free if you earn your living from gambling, prostitution, drugs, or welfare...
Get together several times a day to trade id badges... and leave the staff wondering why the girls are going to the boy's restroom, etc.! They can require you to carry an ID, but can they enforce a requirement to carry YOUR OWN ID?
Can we get rid of my boss? He keeps distracting me from reading slashdot!
So, why aren't all the gun and ammo manufacturers deemed guilty of contributory murder? Lockpick manufactures held responsible for burgularies? Sorry, just because you provide the tools DOES NOT make you responsible for what somebody else chooses to do with them! (I think this is called the "Wernher Von Braun" defense ;-)
You don't legally own the naked little boys, whom are presumably harmed by having naked pictures taken of them. Making pictures of virtual little boys that don't actually exist should be legal, because nobody is actually harmed by it (unless you beleive the unsubstantiated argument that viewing fictional representations of an act increases somebodies proclivity to commit said act.)
In the case of the copyrighted bits, unless downloading said bit actually decreases the probability of you or somebody else paying for those bits, then the copyright holder is not harmed in the least -- no harm, no foul.
I think you're missing the point here. There is really only one law: "Do no harm". All the rest is just codifying liquidated damages or penalties for doing harm. As such, the penalty should be comensurate with the actual damage done, not with the probability of actually getting caught. Unless you honestly beleive that when I cop catches you speeding, you should also have to pay for the thousands of people they didn't catch!
I've got a netgear wireless router. Beleive me I tried, but could find no way to get it to filter out the rogue DHCP server. (It doesn't seem to support MAC address filtering.) Recall that the whole point of DHCP is that your client is not supposed to care which server it is getting it's configuration from! DHCP implicitly assumes that there are no rogue DHCP servers...
Well, it would be just my luck to get in the space elevator right after some joker pushes all the buttons so that it stops at EVERY floor!