I don't dispute the importance of road safety.......
But what is it with the obsession with taking away motorists rights? They can be pulled over for any reason that the police might make up. The thrust of policy seems to be making their lives more miserable, encouraging congestion, raising prices to drive, lowering local speed limits etc.
And if you care about saving lives - why not care about the current NHS reforms which I am sure will mean a worse level of service for those who cannot afford private care. Undoubtedly people will die as a consequence.
People also die when they are homeless or don't have adequate access to housing - caused by draconian zoning policies (extreme green belt laws mean that you need to be very well off to buy a home in the south of the UK - now middle class people buy ex council flats.)
People die because of the war on drugs - why not deal with that?
Disabled people have a nasty habbit of dying especially when you cut their already miserly disability benefits.
People have short life expectancy when they are poor - why not deal with increasing income inequality?
Instead we overly obsess about the roads. Maybe it useful for governments because it distracts from more important issues.
Perhaps we need to mandate that in order to vote you need to take a test. We do the same for driving yet bad voting decisions are even more calamitous than bad driving.
1. Require voters to have taken and passed a comprehensive 3 hour exam. It would cover the US political system (with a local component), history, economics, international relations and war, law (constitutional, federal and state), science and engineering (including energy), healthcare, the environment, finance, business, transportation, social economic and racial factors, regulation, tax, criminal justice and cost benefit analysis. It would included questions where multiple areas impinged on one issue - eg energy where cost, poverty, national security, the economy and the environment all tugged in possibly differing directions and where any policy involved compromise between these competing priorities. And people would need to know that Row vs Wade was built on Griswold v. Connecticut where the Court found constitutional protection emitting from "penumbras" within several amendments to the Constitution. And they would need to know what median household income was currently and how it compared with 40 years ago.
2. Require that on the federal level, candidates for congress and the presidency take a series of exams in the above subjects. They would be difficult, challenging and would make certain that the candidate was intelligent, had wide critical thinking skills and had a wide knowledge base. They would assume a college background in all those areas and the exams would be similar in difficulty to the bar, the CPA, the Step 1 exam (taken in med school), the actuarial exams and cumulative exams in graduate school. I think this would attract a lot more engineers to congress - something, that would in my opinion greatly enhance our polity. And it would prevent someone like John McCain from running for office when he had never even sent an email.
3. Require retesting at age 50 and 75.
4. Require high schools to teach rigorous civics courses. They would cover not just the basics, but committees, sub-committees, lobbyists, zoning regulations, town committees, bylaws and ballot initiatives.
5. Provide regular synopses of state and federal budgets, laws and regulations that are being considered, and recent significant judicial decisions. This would provide a depth that would go beyond the New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico.
6. Incentive citizens to, actually read them. Tax breaks maybe? Cash? etc.
7. Mandate that citizens attend town meetings etc.
8. We need to replace the idea of the patriotic citizen being a flag waving nationalist with a citizen who is informed, cares about their community and country and votes. For example, when we are not at war, the ideal citizen does not 'serve' in the military, rather she/he 'serves' on a local sub-committee, reads and comments on prospective laws and regulations and takes the time to learn about mundane uses of intellectual property in agriculture.
There is also another reason why more people are not in the S&E field - the pay sucks! It has fallen in real terms since 2000 (and started falling before this recession). If you get a BS in math, chemistry, physics, bio or biochem you are lucky to start on more than 35K. Some lucky few might start on 40K. Even computer and chemical engineers have seen their pay dropping (yes of course they start on a lot more). I know a Chem E who had to take 50K in a high cost city.
S&E are very hard degrees. I bet if starting salaries were 60K for science and 90K for engineering lots of people would 'suddenly discover' that they loved science. And yes corporate America could afford to pay them. Since 2000 productivity has increased significantly and profits are at record highs.
When I hear people saying we need to encourage more people to do STEM - I am incredulous. The solution is very simple - raise salaries and people will run to it. [It's also why top MIT PhDs go into Wall Street - why make 90K with a PhD in science when you can make 350K on Wall Street.]
Thus "atheism" is by definition a metaphysical belief system (or at least a component of one), because it affirms at least one particular propositional statement about metaphysics. Defining atheism as a lack of a belief system is merely a convenient way of using weasel-words to avoid having to defend the propositional statements contained in one's position.
"The misuse of language induces evil in the soul" -Socrates
What about afairyism - the belief that fairies don't exist? Are those weasel-words or do I need to justify myself and defend my afairyism? Or agoblinism - the belief that fairies don't exist?
You could say that we all have to justify our lack of belief in an plethora of false idea.
Or of course you let common sense kick in and say that I don't have to justify not believing in things that lack supporting evidence.
The irony is that saying "Defining atheism as a lack of a belief system is merely a convenient way of using weasel-words to avoid having to defend the propositional statements contained in one's position" is in itself a form of weasel-words that end up making someone who is saying something that is quite rational seem irrational.
And for anyone who thinks this guy is legit - why won't he just publicly reveal his so called discoveries? He could then patent them and make a fortune. Our IP laws are stronger than ever.
What I find interesting is that it's never mentioned much in the mainstream media. It's not mentioned in the presidential debates. And I don't understand why unions, Americans for Tax reform and builders associations support it. Our current extreme IP inhibits economic growth (which is why tax reforms should be against it) and helps to bolster income inequality (which is why unions and builders associations should oppose it).
I understand that this this is the ONE issue that CNN, MSNBC and FOX all agree on. Because they all are part of media companies that want ever stronger IP to bolster their profits. The whole subject is censored.
So many of my so called 'informed' friends aren't aware of it and they say IP is boring. My god - what are we to do!
Being an engineer is about learning how to solve problems. 'Asking Slashdot' is about getting other people to solve your problems.
If you want to be an engineer, you had better learn how to start solving your own problems, or answering questions like the one you posed, by yourself.
The act of asking a question shows you want to learn, understand that someone else may have the answer and are willing to listen. This is how science and engineering work. To suggest that asking a question is a problem is ludicrous.
And btw, a book and a website are just efficient consolidations of (often but not always) one person's knowledge - it's really no different conceptually than asking a question.
IMHO the guy is a royal jerk. Was it offensive what he did? Yes! Rude? Yes! Immoral? Yes! But it is his right.
The laws in the UK say otherwise. He pleaded guilty at a trial to a criminal charge and has been punished.
Just because he did it on the internet is irrelevant.
Just because 'the law' takes away a civil right does not make it right or just. Some human rights such as freedom of speech are inalienable.
The whole point of freedom of speech is the freedom to say something that someone else doesn't want heard. Even in North Korea you are 'free' to say how you love the regime. Regulating speech just because it's offensive is repugnant to the values of a free society.
How far would you reference 'the law'. Would it be ok if people got jailed for 18 weeks for saying to someone else that they were a 'dickhead'? Should all rudeness be a criminal offense? Would you say that being locked up for opposing a dictator is just a matter of disobeying the law and being punished? Or would you agree that 'the law' has limits and is not absolute and that it does not always merit being obeyed or being referenced as some kind authority. ind authority.
When autos drive slower they consume less fuel, which means that not only are those cyclists reducing their own carbon footprint, they are reducing the footprint of the drivers as well.
That depends on the speed. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, most cars’ fuel efficiency peaks at between 35 to 60 mph. [http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml]
A car going 10 miles behind a cyclist at 13 mph will consume about 75% more gas than one traversing the same distance at 35 mph. In addition the resulting traffic jam may cause many cars to be delayed further multiplying the effect. That makes cyclists, when they delay traffic, an environmental hazard.
The reason Apple is going after the Galaxy Tab is that a vary rare event has occurred - they actually have a competitor producing a product which is as good or better than Apple's product.
CFLs have safety issues that its advocates ignore:
1. If individuals are exposed to the light produced by some single-envelope compact fluorescent lamps for long periods of time at distances of less than 20 cm, it could lead to ultraviolet exposures approaching the current workplace limit set to protect workers from skin and retinal damage.
2. Most CFLs contain 3–5 mg of mercury per bulb. Over a period of a few years an average family is likely to break at least 2 or 3 of them. And then they get exposed.
3. If you have kids - god help you. The mercury exposure for them even once is incredibly dangerous.
4. How realistic is it to expect most households to 'properly' recycle them. Most will end up in municipal solid waste and will leak out their toxic content.
5. Some CFLs emit radio frequency radiation that can cause fatigue, dizziness, ringing in the ears, eyestrain and even migraines.
So then I guess the following people are all criminals and we certainly shouldn't respect them.
1. George Washington - committed treason. And it's still treason and criminal no matter how unjust the law. 2. Abraham Lincoln - he abrogated the constitution during the civil war. 3. Any black slaves that ran away - they should have just 'stayed' I guess. 4. Alic Paul - and those other suffragists. Cause they should have asked more meekly for freedom and equality. 5. Rosa Parks - she was such a criminal sitting at the front of the bus. I guess all those in the civil rights movement should have been more meek. Cause we know that would have worked.
[Hint: There is a reason to obey the law. And is does not always apply. There would be no modern civilization if no-one had broken the law, no industrial revolution and no Slashdot to post on. I think sometimes that the reasoning part of the cerebral cortex is switched off in some people when they blindly go on about always obeying the law. If the law is enough of an ass, it is the obeying of it that is repulsive and the word criminal in that context is meaningless.]
[Hint 2: Read the declaration of independence: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Our Founding fathers stated that when you decide to 'break the law' then it's necessary to explain why and explain that it is justified. If you don't accept this you really cannot be an American - you might as well go back to Britain.]
I agree that changes need to be made. However little changes in some countries will not do it. Greenhouse gas emissions (including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons and hydroflourocarbons) when taking into account deforestation (land use) mean that China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Iran, South Africa and Saudi Arabia account for approximately 50% of global emissions. Their share and absolute emissions are both rising.
Realistically, speaking limiting carbon emissions lowers GDP and wages and raises unemployment. What is the point of suffering these ailments if the rest of the world does not care? And what about in 10 years time when South America, Africa, the middle east, China and India (please note I am including more countries than I did above) will be responsible for for > 70% of the worlds emissions?
I am not saying that the developed world should do nothing. But unless it can persuade that rest of the world to join, the effort is pointless.
I don't dispute that their is some limit that we will approach a limit with respect to computing speed. What I don't see, is evidence for 'economic collapse' as a consequence. Surely there will always be a need for programmers? Maybe more so because efficient programming will yield greater speeds and you won't be able to rely on mediocre quality ones and lazily rely on hardware getting faster. Similarly speaking with 2011 hardware alone we are still are nowhere near reaching the full economic capabilities of the internet - that process could go on for decades alone.
I also would like to see someone suggest some model that would explain how dire economic consequences would ensue if computing speeds stopped advancing with some empirical evidence. Until then - all I hear is scare mongering.
But isn't that exactly the point - that the USA should not be stealing credit card numbers from visiting dignitaries in the first place? And this release of information will help prevent this sort of immoral thing from happening in the future.
I agree with the comment above and then some. I think Slashdot should cool it when it comes to the third world. When one lacks access to electricity, it's superfluous to talk about electronic devices. And very few people can afford any kind of electronic device - this being very ironic because those societies are very unequal (they have very high ginni coefficients) so that the elites are very wealthy even by Western standards and can easily afford laptops, plasma TVs and gaming devices galore. The problems of the third world revolve around authoritarian, unaccountable, inept and corrupt government. No nifty piece of tech will change that, only revolutions where people demand democratic accountability will - Egypt and Tunisia style.
I think it all boils down to price. You know a physical copy is expensive to print and deliver. So there is much less sticker shock. For virtual subscriptions you need internet access and a computer so you provide the delivery and pay for it. So at $150 - $200 a year (depending on the exchange rate) it's just a rip off.
On the other hand if The Times charged $25 - $35 a year I think a lot more people would consider it.
If there was sufficient sheet music available out of copyright in the public domain I highly doubt that this artist would be arguing with this teenager. Quite simply people who could not afford to pay would have other options. You cannot separate this cases from copyright law in general.
(If copyright law existed for 7-14 years with more reasonable fair use exceptions and this composer still had problems I would of course take an entirely different attitude.)
One last point. Even Jason Robert Brown is not so innocent. He first performed 'Songs for a New World' in 1995. (14 years are up on that.) He still collects royalties on that. Don't the people paying royalties for that in 2010 deserve their money back? Isn't he now the 'thief'? We cry wolf saying he is being ripped off when he is doing the same to others simultaneously.
Completely wrong. The fact that copying is free does not make it okay to copy. That was his point. He was discussing HIS property that was being taken without recompense. The fact that he still has a copy is irrelevant. Getting pendantic about his examples and coming up with completely incorrect strawmen is fudging the issue.
I love the fact that Slashdotters all say that the reason they steal stuff is because they support the artists, and want to protest the big corps. Here we have a real example of an artists struggling to make a living because his work is being stolen, and the comments attack him, revealing the truth, despite all the protestations to the contrary: the reality is hypocrisy, you use the corporations and other excuses to justify outright theft. When your excuses are stripped bare, as in this example, instead of reevaluating your position honestly, you instead attack the complainant.
I have always despised the MPAA and RIAA, but the comments on this article have done more to convince me that they may have a point than anything else in 10 years.
You call copying 'outright theft'. The concept of copyright is an abstraction. Its length and terms are very arbitrary and have historically varied from 7 to 100 years as have the its conditions. The basis for it is that it enables a societal good of an increase in creative works. So it's a law with a reason that does something very unusual. It takes away people's liberty much in the same way as requiring everyone's house in a neighborhood to be painted a specific color.
In the same way as violating such a zoning law in NOT vandalism similarly violating copyright law is not theft. If the law is in place where its reason d’être does not apply it can hardly be called immoral. There have been numerous studies showing that both the length and the terms of copyright are far too onerous. 7 - 14 years justifies the original purpose of copyright. No more. And the ridiculous extremes to which copyright is extended also need to be trimmed. In fact when the justification for copyright does not apply then preventing people from copying things is utterly tyrannical and evil.
So in fact if there is any thievery it is some person collecting fees on a work 45 years later after it was created. By forcing people to pay for something that they ought no longer to pay for (eg a Beetle's song) the artist/corporation is in fact doing the stealing. They just have legalized it by donating tones of money in campaign contributions to various politicians and have bought them off. Ooh and guess where that money came from - from regular folk being stolen from! And I hope you aren’t saying that it was theft to copy something after 50 years in 1960 when that legal. Or does the law determine theft so that if the terms of copyright get longer then what is ‘theft’ changes too? If copyright terms were lengthened to 10,000 years would copying an ancient Greek play also be theft?
Third, the process of copyright itself is full of abuses. You don't get to negotiate what to pay with each artist to play a song on the radio. No, it's fixed by statute. Ever heard of anti trust? Has it occurred to you that these set prices are too high? Or would you say that any price no matter how high is morally justifiable? What about the fact that if you stream it on internet radio it's way more money? Now that is really theft! Why after paying copyright fees to broadcast it on the radio must a hairdresser pay again to have a radio for their customers? They are double paying. How comes the copyright owners never admit this is theft? hmmm?
Finally by talking about how it’s so obvious that the use of copyrighted materials is theft you forget that there are other values that need also to be balanced. Just because you own a piece of land with a river running through it does not give you the right to pollute the river without limit similarly there are limits to the moral right of any intellectual property. People have a
Now that Starbucks has free wifi it should do better. I do wish though, that they would have comfy chairs. The hard wooden ones hurt my butt. Indie stores often have very comfy ones.
I also wish that Starbucks would use more variety in their color scheme. They all look the same and after a while it's quite boring. I hope they would consider having different stores in different colors.
This proposal was clearly written by people with households living on above $100,000. They forget about average Americans who live on far less. And I bet that some parents deemed to 'rich' to have it paid for by the school will slip through the net in the same way that financial aid for college screws the middle class.
Also the idea that you have to have a mac is crazy anyway. In the real world you are going to really need a PC. And all of this is also silly. Too many students lack basic math, reading, writing, critical thinking and basic knowledge about the world. And if you want to really help gifted kids why not concentrate on preparing them for more AP exams and giving them a shot at getting a 4 and 5 in them. That is going to help them far more in college. The whole laptop thing is a gimmick.
In the last few years as AT&T's customer base was expanding their capital spending actually went down. To claim they suffered because of an "onslaught of data usage" misses the point. They only had issues because they were too cheap to build a proper network to begin with.
I worry about this ever getting better. Airwave frequencies are auctioned off in such a way that it perpetually prevents further competition. The federal government does not insist that the wireless operators rent out their equipment to other competitors like in POTL - long distance. So the number of carriers will remain small indefinitely. Secondly, because these auctions command very high prices the carries have to charge users a fortune just to make back that money. Essentially it's a very high tax that all cell phone users have to pay.
Of course this issue could be solved by allowing more operators access to the spectrum and not auctioning it off. That would bring in a lot more competition as well as lowering the wireless companies fixed costs and enable us consumers to get lower prices.
There's a lot of things AT&T needs to improve on, but I don't think their coverage or technology is one of them. They just need to deliver what they're capable of more frequently.
Finally a voice of common sense.
It's also true that Verizon has outspent AT&T on investment in its wireless infrastructure over the last few years. AT&T's wireless network's capital expenditures from 2006 through September 2009 totaled $21.6 billion, versus $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Per subscriber: Verizon - $353, AT&T - $308
But despite this, Verizon's 'high speed service' is not real high speed. It's a shame that AT&T has been so stingy in its investment. But had the iPhone come out on Verizon it would have been a disaster with no real high speed anywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't dispute the importance of road safety.......
But what is it with the obsession with taking away motorists rights? They can be pulled over for any reason that the police might make up. The thrust of policy seems to be making their lives more miserable, encouraging congestion, raising prices to drive, lowering local speed limits etc.
And if you care about saving lives - why not care about the current NHS reforms which I am sure will mean a worse level of service for those who cannot afford private care. Undoubtedly people will die as a consequence.
People also die when they are homeless or don't have adequate access to housing - caused by draconian zoning policies (extreme green belt laws mean that you need to be very well off to buy a home in the south of the UK - now middle class people buy ex council flats.)
People die because of the war on drugs - why not deal with that?
Disabled people have a nasty habbit of dying especially when you cut their already miserly disability benefits.
People have short life expectancy when they are poor - why not deal with increasing income inequality?
Instead we overly obsess about the roads. Maybe it useful for governments because it distracts from more important issues.
Might I suggest a partial solution.
Perhaps we need to mandate that in order to vote you need to take a test. We do the same for driving yet bad voting decisions are even more calamitous than bad driving.
1. Require voters to have taken and passed a comprehensive 3 hour exam. It would cover the US political system (with a local component), history, economics, international relations and war, law (constitutional, federal and state), science and engineering (including energy), healthcare, the environment, finance, business, transportation, social economic and racial factors, regulation, tax, criminal justice and cost benefit analysis. It would included questions where multiple areas impinged on one issue - eg energy where cost, poverty, national security, the economy and the environment all tugged in possibly differing directions and where any policy involved compromise between these competing priorities. And people would need to know that Row vs Wade was built on Griswold v. Connecticut where the Court found constitutional protection emitting from "penumbras" within several amendments to the Constitution. And they would need to know what median household income was currently and how it compared with 40 years ago.
2. Require that on the federal level, candidates for congress and the presidency take a series of exams in the above subjects. They would be difficult, challenging and would make certain that the candidate was intelligent, had wide critical thinking skills and had a wide knowledge base. They would assume a college background in all those areas and the exams would be similar in difficulty to the bar, the CPA, the Step 1 exam (taken in med school), the actuarial exams and cumulative exams in graduate school. I think this would attract a lot more engineers to congress - something, that would in my opinion greatly enhance our polity. And it would prevent someone like John McCain from running for office when he had never even sent an email.
3. Require retesting at age 50 and 75.
4. Require high schools to teach rigorous civics courses. They would cover not just the basics, but committees, sub-committees, lobbyists, zoning regulations, town committees, bylaws and ballot initiatives.
5. Provide regular synopses of state and federal budgets, laws and regulations that are being considered, and recent significant judicial decisions. This would provide a depth that would go beyond the New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico.
6. Incentive citizens to, actually read them. Tax breaks maybe? Cash? etc.
7. Mandate that citizens attend town meetings etc.
8. We need to replace the idea of the patriotic citizen being a flag waving nationalist with a citizen who is informed, cares about their community and country and votes. For example, when we are not at war, the ideal citizen does not 'serve' in the military, rather she/he 'serves' on a local sub-committee, reads and comments on prospective laws and regulations and takes the time to learn about mundane uses of intellectual property in agriculture.
There is also another reason why more people are not in the S&E field - the pay sucks! It has fallen in real terms since 2000 (and started falling before this recession). If you get a BS in math, chemistry, physics, bio or biochem you are lucky to start on more than 35K. Some lucky few might start on 40K. Even computer and chemical engineers have seen their pay dropping (yes of course they start on a lot more). I know a Chem E who had to take 50K in a high cost city.
S&E are very hard degrees. I bet if starting salaries were 60K for science and 90K for engineering lots of people would 'suddenly discover' that they loved science. And yes corporate America could afford to pay them. Since 2000 productivity has increased significantly and profits are at record highs.
When I hear people saying we need to encourage more people to do STEM - I am incredulous. The solution is very simple - raise salaries and people will run to it. [It's also why top MIT PhDs go into Wall Street - why make 90K with a PhD in science when you can make 350K on Wall Street.]
Thus "atheism" is by definition a metaphysical belief system (or at least a component of one), because it affirms at least one particular propositional statement about metaphysics. Defining atheism as a lack of a belief system is merely a convenient way of using weasel-words to avoid having to defend the propositional statements contained in one's position.
"The misuse of language induces evil in the soul"
-Socrates
What about afairyism - the belief that fairies don't exist? Are those weasel-words or do I need to justify myself and defend my afairyism?
Or agoblinism - the belief that fairies don't exist?
You could say that we all have to justify our lack of belief in an plethora of false idea.
Or of course you let common sense kick in and say that I don't have to justify not believing in things that lack supporting evidence.
The irony is that saying "Defining atheism as a lack of a belief system is merely a convenient way of using weasel-words to avoid having to defend the propositional statements contained in one's position" is in itself a form of weasel-words that end up making someone who is saying something that is quite rational seem irrational.
And for anyone who thinks this guy is legit - why won't he just publicly reveal his so called discoveries? He could then patent them and make a fortune. Our IP laws are stronger than ever.
What I find interesting is that it's never mentioned much in the mainstream media. It's not mentioned in the presidential debates. And I don't understand why unions, Americans for Tax reform and builders associations support it. Our current extreme IP inhibits economic growth (which is why tax reforms should be against it) and helps to bolster income inequality (which is why unions and builders associations should oppose it).
I understand that this this is the ONE issue that CNN, MSNBC and FOX all agree on. Because they all are part of media companies that want ever stronger IP to bolster their profits. The whole subject is censored.
So many of my so called 'informed' friends aren't aware of it and they say IP is boring. My god - what are we to do!
Being an engineer is about learning how to solve problems.
'Asking Slashdot' is about getting other people to solve your problems.
If you want to be an engineer, you had better learn how to start solving your own problems, or answering questions like the one you posed, by yourself.
The act of asking a question shows you want to learn, understand that someone else may have the answer and are willing to listen. This is how science and engineering work. To suggest that asking a question is a problem is ludicrous.
And btw, a book and a website are just efficient consolidations of (often but not always) one person's knowledge - it's really no different conceptually than asking a question.
IMHO the guy is a royal jerk. Was it offensive what he did? Yes! Rude? Yes! Immoral? Yes! But it is his right.
The laws in the UK say otherwise. He pleaded guilty at a trial to a criminal charge and has been punished.
Just because he did it on the internet is irrelevant.
Just because 'the law' takes away a civil right does not make it right or just. Some human rights such as freedom of speech are inalienable.
The whole point of freedom of speech is the freedom to say something that someone else doesn't want heard. Even in North Korea you are 'free' to say how you love the regime. Regulating speech just because it's offensive is repugnant to the values of a free society.
How far would you reference 'the law'. Would it be ok if people got jailed for 18 weeks for saying to someone else that they were a 'dickhead'? Should all rudeness be a criminal offense? Would you say that being locked up for opposing a dictator is just a matter of disobeying the law and being punished? Or would you agree that 'the law' has limits and is not absolute and that it does not always merit being obeyed or being referenced as some kind authority.
ind authority.
When autos drive slower they consume less fuel, which means that not only are those cyclists reducing their own carbon footprint, they are reducing the footprint of the drivers as well.
That depends on the speed. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, most cars’ fuel efficiency peaks at between 35 to 60 mph. [http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml]
A car going 10 miles behind a cyclist at 13 mph will consume about 75% more gas than one traversing the same distance at 35 mph. In addition the resulting traffic jam may cause many cars to be delayed further multiplying the effect. That makes cyclists, when they delay traffic, an environmental hazard.
The reason Apple is going after the Galaxy Tab is that a vary rare event has occurred - they actually have a competitor producing a product which is as good or better than Apple's product.
CFLs have safety issues that its advocates ignore:
1. If individuals are exposed to the light produced by some single-envelope compact fluorescent lamps for long periods of time at distances of less than 20 cm, it could lead to ultraviolet exposures approaching the current workplace limit set to protect workers from skin and retinal damage.
2. Most CFLs contain 3–5 mg of mercury per bulb. Over a period of a few years an average family is likely to break at least 2 or 3 of them. And then they get exposed.
3. If you have kids - god help you. The mercury exposure for them even once is incredibly dangerous.
4. How realistic is it to expect most households to 'properly' recycle them. Most will end up in municipal solid waste and will leak out their toxic content.
5. Some CFLs emit radio frequency radiation that can cause fatigue, dizziness, ringing in the ears, eyestrain and even migraines.
So then I guess the following people are all criminals and we certainly shouldn't respect them.
1. George Washington - committed treason. And it's still treason and criminal no matter how unjust the law.
2. Abraham Lincoln - he abrogated the constitution during the civil war.
3. Any black slaves that ran away - they should have just 'stayed' I guess.
4. Alic Paul - and those other suffragists. Cause they should have asked more meekly for freedom and equality.
5. Rosa Parks - she was such a criminal sitting at the front of the bus. I guess all those in the civil rights movement should have been more meek. Cause we know that would have worked.
[Hint: There is a reason to obey the law. And is does not always apply. There would be no modern civilization if no-one had broken the law, no industrial revolution and no Slashdot to post on. I think sometimes that the reasoning part of the cerebral cortex is switched off in some people when they blindly go on about always obeying the law. If the law is enough of an ass, it is the obeying of it that is repulsive and the word criminal in that context is meaningless.]
[Hint 2: Read the declaration of independence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Our Founding fathers stated that when you decide to 'break the law' then it's necessary to explain why and explain that it is justified. If you don't accept this you really cannot be an American - you might as well go back to Britain.]
Small change now, or big change later ...
I agree that changes need to be made. However little changes in some countries will not do it. Greenhouse gas emissions (including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons and hydroflourocarbons) when taking into account deforestation (land use) mean that China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Iran, South Africa and Saudi Arabia account for approximately 50% of global emissions. Their share and absolute emissions are both rising.
Realistically, speaking limiting carbon emissions lowers GDP and wages and raises unemployment. What is the point of suffering these ailments if the rest of the world does not care? And what about in 10 years time when South America, Africa, the middle east, China and India (please note I am including more countries than I did above) will be responsible for for > 70% of the worlds emissions?
I am not saying that the developed world should do nothing. But unless it can persuade that rest of the world to join, the effort is pointless.
I don't dispute that their is some limit that we will approach a limit with respect to computing speed. What I don't see, is evidence for 'economic collapse' as a consequence. Surely there will always be a need for programmers? Maybe more so because efficient programming will yield greater speeds and you won't be able to rely on mediocre quality ones and lazily rely on hardware getting faster. Similarly speaking with 2011 hardware alone we are still are nowhere near reaching the full economic capabilities of the internet - that process could go on for decades alone.
I also would like to see someone suggest some model that would explain how dire economic consequences would ensue if computing speeds stopped advancing with some empirical evidence. Until then - all I hear is scare mongering.
But isn't that exactly the point - that the USA should not be stealing credit card numbers from visiting dignitaries in the first place? And this release of information will help prevent this sort of immoral thing from happening in the future.
I agree with the comment above and then some. I think Slashdot should cool it when it comes to the third world. When one lacks access to electricity, it's superfluous to talk about electronic devices. And very few people can afford any kind of electronic device - this being very ironic because those societies are very unequal (they have very high ginni coefficients) so that the elites are very wealthy even by Western standards and can easily afford laptops, plasma TVs and gaming devices galore. The problems of the third world revolve around authoritarian, unaccountable, inept and corrupt government. No nifty piece of tech will change that, only revolutions where people demand democratic accountability will - Egypt and Tunisia style.
Just clicked on it, Gave me a very good laugh after a very hard day. Go Meg! :)
I totally agree that he was awesome and it will be so sad if he goes. Can't they offer more money or something?
I think it all boils down to price. You know a physical copy is expensive to print and deliver. So there is much less sticker shock. For virtual subscriptions you need internet access and a computer so you provide the delivery and pay for it. So at $150 - $200 a year (depending on the exchange rate) it's just a rip off.
On the other hand if The Times charged $25 - $35 a year I think a lot more people would consider it.
If there was sufficient sheet music available out of copyright in the public domain I highly doubt that this artist would be arguing with this teenager. Quite simply people who could not afford to pay would have other options. You cannot separate this cases from copyright law in general.
(If copyright law existed for 7-14 years with more reasonable fair use exceptions and this composer still had problems I would of course take an entirely different attitude.)
One last point. Even Jason Robert Brown is not so innocent. He first performed 'Songs for a New World' in 1995. (14 years are up on that.) He still collects royalties on that. Don't the people paying royalties for that in 2010 deserve their money back? Isn't he now the 'thief'? We cry wolf saying he is being ripped off when he is doing the same to others simultaneously.
Completely wrong. The fact that copying is free does not make it okay to copy. That was his point. He was discussing HIS property that was being taken without recompense. The fact that he still has a copy is irrelevant. Getting pendantic about his examples and coming up with completely incorrect strawmen is fudging the issue.
I love the fact that Slashdotters all say that the reason they steal stuff is because they support the artists, and want to protest the big corps. Here we have a real example of an artists struggling to make a living because his work is being stolen, and the comments attack him, revealing the truth, despite all the protestations to the contrary: the reality is hypocrisy, you use the corporations and other excuses to justify outright theft. When your excuses are stripped bare, as in this example, instead of reevaluating your position honestly, you instead attack the complainant.
I have always despised the MPAA and RIAA, but the comments on this article have done more to convince me that they may have a point than anything else in 10 years.
You call copying 'outright theft'. The concept of copyright is an abstraction. Its length and terms are very arbitrary and have historically varied from 7 to 100 years as have the its conditions. The basis for it is that it enables a societal good of an increase in creative works. So it's a law with a reason that does something very unusual. It takes away people's liberty much in the same way as requiring everyone's house in a neighborhood to be painted a specific color.
In the same way as violating such a zoning law in NOT vandalism similarly violating copyright law is not theft. If the law is in place where its reason d’être does not apply it can hardly be called immoral. There have been numerous studies showing that both the length and the terms of copyright are far too onerous. 7 - 14 years justifies the original purpose of copyright. No more. And the ridiculous extremes to which copyright is extended also need to be trimmed. In fact when the justification for copyright does not apply then preventing people from copying things is utterly tyrannical and evil.
So in fact if there is any thievery it is some person collecting fees on a work 45 years later after it was created. By forcing people to pay for something that they ought no longer to pay for (eg a Beetle's song) the artist/corporation is in fact doing the stealing. They just have legalized it by donating tones of money in campaign contributions to various politicians and have bought them off. Ooh and guess where that money came from - from regular folk being stolen from! And I hope you aren’t saying that it was theft to copy something after 50 years in 1960 when that legal. Or does the law determine theft so that if the terms of copyright get longer then what is ‘theft’ changes too? If copyright terms were lengthened to 10,000 years would copying an ancient Greek play also be theft?
Third, the process of copyright itself is full of abuses. You don't get to negotiate what to pay with each artist to play a song on the radio. No, it's fixed by statute. Ever heard of anti trust? Has it occurred to you that these set prices are too high? Or would you say that any price no matter how high is morally justifiable? What about the fact that if you stream it on internet radio it's way more money? Now that is really theft! Why after paying copyright fees to broadcast it on the radio must a hairdresser pay again to have a radio for their customers? They are double paying. How comes the copyright owners never admit this is theft? hmmm?
Finally by talking about how it’s so obvious that the use of copyrighted materials is theft you forget that there are other values that need also to be balanced. Just because you own a piece of land with a river running through it does not give you the right to pollute the river without limit similarly there are limits to the moral right of any intellectual property. People have a
Now that Starbucks has free wifi it should do better. I do wish though, that they would have comfy chairs. The hard wooden ones hurt my butt. Indie stores often have very comfy ones.
I also wish that Starbucks would use more variety in their color scheme. They all look the same and after a while it's quite boring. I hope they would consider having different stores in different colors.
This proposal was clearly written by people with households living on above $100,000. They forget about average Americans who live on far less. And I bet that some parents deemed to 'rich' to have it paid for by the school will slip through the net in the same way that financial aid for college screws the middle class.
Also the idea that you have to have a mac is crazy anyway. In the real world you are going to really need a PC. And all of this is also silly. Too many students lack basic math, reading, writing, critical thinking and basic knowledge about the world. And if you want to really help gifted kids why not concentrate on preparing them for more AP exams and giving them a shot at getting a 4 and 5 in them. That is going to help them far more in college. The whole laptop thing is a gimmick.
In the last few years as AT&T's customer base was expanding their capital spending actually went down. To claim they suffered because of an "onslaught of data usage" misses the point. They only had issues because they were too cheap to build a proper network to begin with.
I worry about this ever getting better. Airwave frequencies are auctioned off in such a way that it perpetually prevents further competition. The federal government does not insist that the wireless operators rent out their equipment to other competitors like in POTL - long distance. So the number of carriers will remain small indefinitely. Secondly, because these auctions command very high prices the carries have to charge users a fortune just to make back that money. Essentially it's a very high tax that all cell phone users have to pay.
Of course this issue could be solved by allowing more operators access to the spectrum and not auctioning it off. That would bring in a lot more competition as well as lowering the wireless companies fixed costs and enable us consumers to get lower prices.
There's a lot of things AT&T needs to improve on, but I don't think their coverage or technology is one of them. They just need to deliver what they're capable of more frequently.
Finally a voice of common sense.
It's also true that Verizon has outspent AT&T on investment in its wireless infrastructure over the last few years. AT&T's wireless network's capital expenditures from 2006 through September 2009 totaled $21.6 billion, versus $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Per subscriber: Verizon - $353, AT&T - $308
But despite this, Verizon's 'high speed service' is not real high speed. It's a shame that AT&T has been so stingy in its investment. But had the iPhone come out on Verizon it would have been a disaster with no real high speed anywhere.