Making a copy of something does not deprive the content holder of anything unless you intend to sell it to undercut their profits. Distributing something on the internet for free gives the content holders free publicity and they still own the copy.
Well, first, distributing something for free could be considered selling it for $0.00, therefore you are undercutting their profits. But we'll put that aside for a moment.
I don't necessarily disagree with you--distributing free samples via the Internet is a good business strategy, much like giving free copies of songs to radio stations was a good strategy in the past. However, shouldn't the content holder have some say in this?
You go buy my CD with 6 tracks on it. You think tracks 3 and 5 are the best music you have ever heard and you decide that you will let everyone on the Internet download these tracks as a favor to promote my music. Someone else buys my CD and believe tracks 4 and 6 are the best music they have ever heard and do the same as you. Someone else buys my CD and believes tracks 1 and 5 are the best music they have ever heard and do the same as you.
So anyone can get 5/6th of the CD for free. Why buy the CD for that 1 song that, really, nobody seemed to like anyway?
If I create it, I should at least have some say in how it gets distributed. I might agree with distributing some songs for free via the Internet, but I might want to limit it to a couple of tracks. Since I created it, shouldn't I have the right to determine how it gets promoted, etc.?
Our atmosphere is 21% Oxygen, 78% Nitrogen, and 1% "Other Gasses." If our cars were to start spitting out oxygen instead of CO2, what would this do the mix?
I remember reading an article years ago talking about higher oxygen content in the atmosphere and it's effect on wildfires. So I wonder what might happen around, say, Los Angeles if all the cars that currently pump out CO2 started pumping out oxygen.
Of course, I hear that breathe pure oxygen is a good cure for hangovers. So there might be some benefits to a higher oxygen content...
I agree, though I think the ratings are a good thing in that they gave you probably a quick idea as to whether or not you should do the extra work.
If I had kids, I would have no problem with them seeing a 'G' rated movie. If my eight-year-old wanted to go see a 'PG' movie, I might at least check it out, where I wouldn't if my 13-year-old wanted to see it. If my 15-year-old kid wanted to see an 'R' rated movie, I'd want to see whether it was worth going with him.
The ratings system can give you a quick reference. No, it's not perfect and we can all come up with plenty of examples of it's imperfections.
So the idea is that, as an evil and suicidal terrorist, I'm going to hijack an airplane and run it into a tall building. Your solution is a "kill switch" which will turn off the engines.
Now then, how do I get around this problem? I don't hijack the airplane until we're at our highest altitude and fairly close to the target. Thus, I will be able to glide the airplane into my target.
Doing this has a few advantages in regards to the kill switch. First, by the time that the news has gone upslope to the people who are authorized to decide whether or not to engage the kill switch, the point is moot--I've already hit the building. If the kill switch is hit before I hit the building, that's fine, too. I'm near my target so even if I can't glide into the building, there are probably sufficient targets elsewhere that I can glide an airliner full of fuel into. Remember, if my target was a tall building, it's probably in a big city.
So your theory is that I, as an evil suicidal terrorist, will take over the cockpit, somebody hits the kill switch, and I say, "Gosh. I can't hit my 'primary target.' I think I'll glide to a landing and turn myself in"? Fat chance.
Handguns, rifles, and shotguns can be used to procure other weapons. If I have a knife and I manage to kill a soldier with a gun, I get his gun.
Artillery, cruise missiles, and attack helicopters are not known for their subtlety. If all the insurgents are hanging out in one place, it works pretty well. If they're mixed in with the general population? Not so much. Remember that killing a bunch of innocent civilians just ends up creating more insurgents.
If the army decides to move in, it will do so with howitzers, mobile rocket launchers and bomb-proof APCs. After the USAF has carpet-bombed the place. If armed and trained gunmen couldn't hold Tora Bora, where they had solid rock and deep caves, I really don't see what the local neighbourhood militia is going to be able to do from an appartment complex.
Don't be all that impressed with carpet bombing. Consider Cu Chi from the Vietnam war. Air power does not hold ground, all it does it keep the enemy's head down. Besides, if the rebels keep to centers of civilian population, they'll be safe from carpet bombing. The DOJ might blast the top few blocks of a tower, but they're going to think twice about killing a few hundred civilians to get an insurgent. As we learned in Vietnam and Iraq, killing lots of innocent people just creates more insurgents.
Remember the lessons of Iraq as well: Ultimately, you need boots on ground. And those boots can be sniped at, booby trapped, and killed.
You can buy cars with integrated microphones and bluetooth. Just call through the cell phone. GM offers Onstar, which is like that but instead uses their network (and you get charged extra for the calls) Okay, I may not be up on my latest hep new phone stuff. Heck, I still have a landline.
But isn't one of the theories behind things like VOIP is that calls can forward around easier. So I have one phone number and it doesn't matter if I'm in my car or at home? I don't need a separate phone and number for each?
Besides cheap phone calls, isn't that supposed to be one of the cool things about VOIP? Or have I missed something?
GPS systems can already get realtime traffic from satellite services such as XM and Sirius. There is also traffic information broadcast in FM freqs. I think the XM/Sirius ones require a subscription. Don't know about the FM ones.
Actually, I had an entertaining scheme many years ago. Essentially, the idea was that cars know how fast they're going and, with GPS, can make a pretty decent guess as to what road they are. Reporting that--obviously anonymously--to a central system which would combine that and other reports together to determine what the current speed is on the road you're on and report it to others.
It's one of those Napster things, of course. The more people who report, the better the information is, which encourages more people to report which gives better information, etc. How to kick-start it (and make money) was the question.
The advantage is that it doesn't require anybody to install sensors on the road. If you take surface streets, you'll know what traffic is like ahead of you.
Anyway, the point is that your car can send information out as well as receiving it. The examples you give all require somebody to actually generate a traffic report for where you live.
Heck, consider obvious things like reporting that your car has broken down or has had an accident to all the appropriate people.
Call your kids and have them do it. That's what they are for. This one I'd agree with, but I don't actually have kids. A better example might be ordering groceries/fast food on the way home.
I'd also like to point out one other thing from the link that you might have glossed over.
Heather Crowe worked for 40 years as a waitress in a restaurant--many times working 60 hour weeks.
So, no, I'm not surprised that she has a smoking-related illness and has never smoked a day in her life after spending all that time immersed in cigarette smoke.
Heck, I'll give you another anecdotal case: My former landlady had emphysema. She was in her 80s and had never touched a cigarette in her life. But she spent much of her life working for The Phone Company as an operator, sitting in a room with a bunch of other people who smoked. She quit to take care of her husband who was unable to walk and he smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day.
As a smoker, I actually have no problems banning smoking in workplaces--including restaurants, bars, airplanes, etc. People work there to make a living and they shouldn't have to choose between a job and their health.
However, there's a difference between being "bothered" and a risk to your health. For example, a city here in California has banned smoking on the sidewalk due to the health risks of second hand smoke, which is absurd considering even the anecdotal evidence of cases like Heather Crowe and my former landlady.
This is a very good point. The bits you want to keep are the disgustingly cute/embarrassing pictures and videos. These will come in handy when the kid becomes older.
"Do what I say or I'll show that embarrassing picture of you to your friends." Instant compliance.
It's also wonderful to use when they bring over boyfriends/girlfriends...
You see, in the analogy, his network is analogous to his house. You are entering his network by way of a router in much the same way that you entered his house.
The basic plan is for them to liquid their oil at the slowest (thus maximizing the price) rate possible, without causing people to get too hung up on alternative fuels, or crippling their consumers economies, resulting in less ability to affored fuel in the near future. And this is an important point.
The high price of gasoline will change the buying habits of Americans for the next decade.
Think of it this way: If the price of gasoline dropped to $1.50 per gallon tomorrow, would those people who bought hybrid cars just turn them in and go buy a gas guzzling SUV? At the very least, they'll probably stick with their hybrid for another 3-5 years.
Most people I know with hybrids have no complaints with them. When they do go buy another car, they might consider another hybrid. Think the people who own SUVs and are currently getting burned will consider buying another SUV when it comes time to buy a new car?
The OPEC people have a tough balancing act. Make oil too high and (a) people use less and (b) start looking for alternatives which will put OPEC out of business. Make oil too low and they make less money on what is a finite resource.
Sorry, my mistake. I should have put a sarcasm marker on it.
"How many people want music that can only be played from the Internet?" is the point. In theory, all of our "stuff" will be moving over to the Internet, right? So why would I care whether my music can be "downloaded" to my iPod when I can just access it from my cell phone and play it via the Internet.
In theory, someday we'll have the Internet wherever we are--like, say, on our cellphones. Then we'll be able to play music off the Internet wherever we are.
Actually, the photos are in color. Mars is black and white. The color pictures you see of Mars are actually "false color", meaning that there is no color there whatsoever and NASA just added it so people looking at the pictures on their TVs or the Internet wouldn't be confused.
Whether justified or not, there are plenty of people who worry about "What could go wrong" launching large amounts of atomic materials into space.
However, there's less concern about it on the moon. Build appropriate equipment on the moon and you can create plutonium there. You can launch it from there without as much concern over it crashing/expoding and polluting the atmosphere.
Astronauts are still limited to the tools shipped to conduct experiments. True. That said, most of the tools have already been designed. A garden-variety pick will work just as well on Mars as it does on Earth. Conversely, a vehicle would have to be designed to travel to a rock and pick at it.
You're not getting a discount. You're getting a rebate. So you're still paying the full price, it's just that you'll get some money back at some point in the future--60 days, to be precise.
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There's a lot of people starving and doing nothing all over the world. Let's feed them and put them to work planting trees [...]
To quote George Carlin:
"Pay them welfare people to fill in the Bering Strait and charge them indians a buck-a-head to go home. It's a good sound business solution."
Making a copy of something does not deprive the content holder of anything unless you intend to sell it to undercut their profits. Distributing something on the internet for free gives the content holders free publicity and they still own the copy.
Well, first, distributing something for free could be considered selling it for $0.00, therefore you are undercutting their profits. But we'll put that aside for a moment.
I don't necessarily disagree with you--distributing free samples via the Internet is a good business strategy, much like giving free copies of songs to radio stations was a good strategy in the past. However, shouldn't the content holder have some say in this?
You go buy my CD with 6 tracks on it. You think tracks 3 and 5 are the best music you have ever heard and you decide that you will let everyone on the Internet download these tracks as a favor to promote my music. Someone else buys my CD and believe tracks 4 and 6 are the best music they have ever heard and do the same as you. Someone else buys my CD and believes tracks 1 and 5 are the best music they have ever heard and do the same as you.
So anyone can get 5/6th of the CD for free. Why buy the CD for that 1 song that, really, nobody seemed to like anyway?
If I create it, I should at least have some say in how it gets distributed. I might agree with distributing some songs for free via the Internet, but I might want to limit it to a couple of tracks. Since I created it, shouldn't I have the right to determine how it gets promoted, etc.?
One thing I've often been curious about.
Our atmosphere is 21% Oxygen, 78% Nitrogen, and 1% "Other Gasses." If our cars were to start spitting out oxygen instead of CO2, what would this do the mix?
I remember reading an article years ago talking about higher oxygen content in the atmosphere and it's effect on wildfires. So I wonder what might happen around, say, Los Angeles if all the cars that currently pump out CO2 started pumping out oxygen.
Of course, I hear that breathe pure oxygen is a good cure for hangovers. So there might be some benefits to a higher oxygen content...
I laughed, I cried, it was better than "Cats!"...
I agree, though I think the ratings are a good thing in that they gave you probably a quick idea as to whether or not you should do the extra work.
If I had kids, I would have no problem with them seeing a 'G' rated movie. If my eight-year-old wanted to go see a 'PG' movie, I might at least check it out, where I wouldn't if my 13-year-old wanted to see it. If my 15-year-old kid wanted to see an 'R' rated movie, I'd want to see whether it was worth going with him.
The ratings system can give you a quick reference. No, it's not perfect and we can all come up with plenty of examples of it's imperfections.
Wait a sec. Let me get this straight.
So the idea is that, as an evil and suicidal terrorist, I'm going to hijack an airplane and run it into a tall building. Your solution is a "kill switch" which will turn off the engines.
Now then, how do I get around this problem? I don't hijack the airplane until we're at our highest altitude and fairly close to the target. Thus, I will be able to glide the airplane into my target.
Doing this has a few advantages in regards to the kill switch. First, by the time that the news has gone upslope to the people who are authorized to decide whether or not to engage the kill switch, the point is moot--I've already hit the building. If the kill switch is hit before I hit the building, that's fine, too. I'm near my target so even if I can't glide into the building, there are probably sufficient targets elsewhere that I can glide an airliner full of fuel into. Remember, if my target was a tall building, it's probably in a big city.
So your theory is that I, as an evil suicidal terrorist, will take over the cockpit, somebody hits the kill switch, and I say, "Gosh. I can't hit my 'primary target.' I think I'll glide to a landing and turn myself in"? Fat chance.
Handguns, rifles, and shotguns can be used to procure other weapons. If I have a knife and I manage to kill a soldier with a gun, I get his gun.
Artillery, cruise missiles, and attack helicopters are not known for their subtlety. If all the insurgents are hanging out in one place, it works pretty well. If they're mixed in with the general population? Not so much. Remember that killing a bunch of innocent civilians just ends up creating more insurgents.
If the army decides to move in, it will do so with howitzers, mobile rocket launchers and bomb-proof APCs. After the USAF has carpet-bombed the place. If armed and trained gunmen couldn't hold Tora Bora, where they had solid rock and deep caves, I really don't see what the local neighbourhood militia is going to be able to do from an appartment complex.
Don't be all that impressed with carpet bombing. Consider Cu Chi from the Vietnam war. Air power does not hold ground, all it does it keep the enemy's head down. Besides, if the rebels keep to centers of civilian population, they'll be safe from carpet bombing. The DOJ might blast the top few blocks of a tower, but they're going to think twice about killing a few hundred civilians to get an insurgent. As we learned in Vietnam and Iraq, killing lots of innocent people just creates more insurgents.
Remember the lessons of Iraq as well: Ultimately, you need boots on ground. And those boots can be sniped at, booby trapped, and killed.
But isn't one of the theories behind things like VOIP is that calls can forward around easier. So I have one phone number and it doesn't matter if I'm in my car or at home? I don't need a separate phone and number for each?
Besides cheap phone calls, isn't that supposed to be one of the cool things about VOIP? Or have I missed something?
GPS systems can already get realtime traffic from satellite services such as XM and Sirius. There is also traffic information broadcast in FM freqs. I think the XM/Sirius ones require a subscription. Don't know about the FM ones.Actually, I had an entertaining scheme many years ago. Essentially, the idea was that cars know how fast they're going and, with GPS, can make a pretty decent guess as to what road they are. Reporting that--obviously anonymously--to a central system which would combine that and other reports together to determine what the current speed is on the road you're on and report it to others.
It's one of those Napster things, of course. The more people who report, the better the information is, which encourages more people to report which gives better information, etc. How to kick-start it (and make money) was the question.
The advantage is that it doesn't require anybody to install sensors on the road. If you take surface streets, you'll know what traffic is like ahead of you.
Anyway, the point is that your car can send information out as well as receiving it. The examples you give all require somebody to actually generate a traffic report for where you live.
Heck, consider obvious things like reporting that your car has broken down or has had an accident to all the appropriate people.
Call your kids and have them do it. That's what they are for. This one I'd agree with, but I don't actually have kids. A better example might be ordering groceries/fast food on the way home.Just as an aside, remember the 9/11 Investigations where Bush and Cheney agreed to talk to the commission, but not under oath? Now you know why.
I'd also like to point out one other thing from the link that you might have glossed over.
Heather Crowe worked for 40 years as a waitress in a restaurant--many times working 60 hour weeks.
So, no, I'm not surprised that she has a smoking-related illness and has never smoked a day in her life after spending all that time immersed in cigarette smoke.
Heck, I'll give you another anecdotal case: My former landlady had emphysema. She was in her 80s and had never touched a cigarette in her life. But she spent much of her life working for The Phone Company as an operator, sitting in a room with a bunch of other people who smoked. She quit to take care of her husband who was unable to walk and he smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day.
As a smoker, I actually have no problems banning smoking in workplaces--including restaurants, bars, airplanes, etc. People work there to make a living and they shouldn't have to choose between a job and their health.
However, there's a difference between being "bothered" and a risk to your health. For example, a city here in California has banned smoking on the sidewalk due to the health risks of second hand smoke, which is absurd considering even the anecdotal evidence of cases like Heather Crowe and my former landlady.
This is a very good point. The bits you want to keep are the disgustingly cute/embarrassing pictures and videos. These will come in handy when the kid becomes older.
"Do what I say or I'll show that embarrassing picture of you to your friends." Instant compliance.
It's also wonderful to use when they bring over boyfriends/girlfriends...
Not entirely.
You see, in the analogy, his network is analogous to his house. You are entering his network by way of a router in much the same way that you entered his house.
Hey! Cheap meds!
You see this in Los Angeles. It keeps gaps in between cars entering the freeway making it easier to merge left and right and keep traffic moving.
Or, to put it more simply, you'll have money coming out the wazoo.
The high price of gasoline will change the buying habits of Americans for the next decade.
Think of it this way: If the price of gasoline dropped to $1.50 per gallon tomorrow, would those people who bought hybrid cars just turn them in and go buy a gas guzzling SUV? At the very least, they'll probably stick with their hybrid for another 3-5 years.
Most people I know with hybrids have no complaints with them. When they do go buy another car, they might consider another hybrid. Think the people who own SUVs and are currently getting burned will consider buying another SUV when it comes time to buy a new car?
The OPEC people have a tough balancing act. Make oil too high and (a) people use less and (b) start looking for alternatives which will put OPEC out of business. Make oil too low and they make less money on what is a finite resource.
Sorry, my mistake. I should have put a sarcasm marker on it.
"How many people want music that can only be played from the Internet?" is the point. In theory, all of our "stuff" will be moving over to the Internet, right? So why would I care whether my music can be "downloaded" to my iPod when I can just access it from my cell phone and play it via the Internet.
In theory, someday we'll have the Internet wherever we are--like, say, on our cellphones. Then we'll be able to play music off the Internet wherever we are.
Actually, the photos are in color. Mars is black and white. The color pictures you see of Mars are actually "false color", meaning that there is no color there whatsoever and NASA just added it so people looking at the pictures on their TVs or the Internet wouldn't be confused.
It's the same principle as colorizing old movies.
The other issue is the will to use it.
Whether justified or not, there are plenty of people who worry about "What could go wrong" launching large amounts of atomic materials into space.
However, there's less concern about it on the moon. Build appropriate equipment on the moon and you can create plutonium there. You can launch it from there without as much concern over it crashing/expoding and polluting the atmosphere.
Not a bad idea, until you see how it works.
You're not getting a discount. You're getting a rebate. So you're still paying the full price, it's just that you'll get some money back at some point in the future--60 days, to be precise.
Sounds like a movie...
I read recently--wish I could find the article--that Microsoft had 3% of the MP3 Player market and SanDisk had 11%.