Um the motor might be cost competitive, but have you seen the price of batteries lately. So lets say that you actually manage to power the tractor for four hours with one batterypack, and each battery pack requires a 12 hr recharge. So you need six battery packs. Given that the cost of the batteries in a prius cost ~$2-3k and that the tractor is going to need at least 4-5x power you are now trying to talk a farmer into buying $48-72k worth of batteries (not counting the cost of electricity to actually power them).
Oh, and all my rough estimates are probably waay on the conservative side, so I could easily see the battery cost double or triple. Still think it is cost competative?
While the Mazda engine is subject to the limitations of the Otto cycle, it adds some new limitations of its own. It runs hot, has apex seals, and tends toward incomplete combustion.
The engine you linked to is interesting, the Brayton cycle is used in some land propulsion systems (mostly heavy military vehicles) using conventional turbine engines. I'm guessing that they are using rotary compressors and expanders to avoid high machining costs associated with fan-type compressors and turbines. I'm sure that some very smart people are working on the star rotor engine, but I wonder what would happen if they replaced at least the compressor with a fan.
Not that the McMaster motor is without problems of its own. It still needs seals, and operates (I think) in the diesel cycle. They also talk about using hydrogen to power their motor, I'm guessing that there are some insane compression ratios in that thing as currently designed, but it looks to me that the design of the McMaster motor is more flexible than either the Wankel or star rotor engines. I don't know all of the limitations, but I have to wonder if it might not be more economically viable if it ran on diesel.
I'm not an expert on any of this, but I try to stay relatively well informed, and my take is that it is almost exactly like the virus is trying different combinations until it finds the right one.
Random mutations happen, if a mutation does not make it extra contagious it dies out. On the other hand the one time it does become more virulent - hits the right combination so to speak - and becomes easily transferred human to human resulting it results in a pandemic.
Will it happen? I dunno, but it could.
There is an infinitely greater pool of "wrong" mutations; we don't care about those. The one time it gets it right we are in trouble.
Rotary engines and hybrids both fill a niche market and I think it is going to stay that way.
Rotary engines are neat, but aren't without their disadvantages. For starters take a look at the fuel economy of the RX-8, (18/24) the only other car on that list with fuel economy that low is the STI (which trounces the RX-8.) Secondly, rotary engines are always going to have emission problems. Don't get me wrong, Mazda's engine is a damn fine piece of machinery, but IIRC that thing burns HOT, especially at its ridiculous 9000 rpm redline; add that to the fact that there are problems with complete combustion and you have a nasty soup of NOxs, SOxs, and hydrocarbons. Not-exactly eco-friendly. What I've read about it basically says with extensive engineering refinements they barely squeaked it in under California's emissions standards.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great car, and I'd love to have a RX-8, but when I went to take one for a test drive I learned that the cockpit isn't well suited to people over about 5'10'' (I'm 6'3''.)
Hybrids - well there is a scam for you. The problem is, and will likely remain that batteries are EXPENSIVE. I saw an analysis of the Civic Hybrid that basically said for you to break even the price of gas would have to go up to about $8/gallon today, and stay there for the next eight years or so (numbers are from memory so allow +/- 75% error;), but you get the point.)
The only scam bigger than hybrids is the "Hydrogen economy," but that is a different rant.
For my money the future is small (>2L) turbo-diesel engines. Not the peppiest things in the world, but I suspect that people will care less about that as the price of fuel rises. Oh, and with a diesel engine we could smoothly transition to bio-diesel, which I'd bet on over batteries, hydrogen, or even ethanol.
Don't worry I'm not standing on a soap-box, I know that what I do isn't entirely right - but really I don't care. I'm not offering advice or recommendations. Honestly, I feel a little dirty no matter which way I procure my music.
The only thing that I'm trying to say is that I feel just a bit dirtier after paying for it.
I don't expect the RIAA to change even a little. Because even though my apathy might seem disgusting to a slashdotter, I can assure you that the people filling Sony's and BMG's coffers care a whole lot less than I do, and have adjusted their habits accordingly.
I both buy albums, and download music (illegally), and to tell you the truth, from a moral standpoint I feel worse about paying for it.
By paying for music I am propping up an anachronistic distributing chain whose business practices I take issue with. Which, for me, is more of an issue than violating a business friendly law, or depriving the artist of the miniscule cut of the sale he'd be receiving.
For me something that is mutually beneficial would support both the artists and the consumer; paying for music ain't. I'd rather see no one pay for music and watch the record labels go down in flames (artists can still make money touring), so that when I do want to buy an album I can know that the artist is getting a reasonable cut of the sale.
pfft, not having been diagnosed with ADD I feel like the outsider.
Re:The problem of nerve impulse conduction
on
An Alternate Human
·
· Score: 1
Well mostly, I'd settle for redesigned knees, spines, and pelvises before we go crazy and start mesing with the plumbing.
And why limit yourself to things like tails and extra limbs? I want new senses. Sharks can sence EM fields, I'd like to do something like that. Or add a sense that hasn't evolved yet, like being able to sense velocity or thermal radiation.
Slowing down shipments might happen, but blockading Taiwan would be a military action, and it would be more effective and less risky to attack us economically, and let us flex the military muscle first.
A slowly escalating conflict would be in China's favor, slowing shipments, increasing price of goods, liquidizing US holdings a little bit (billions) at a time. Moving on Taiwan throws us into immediate heated conflict which keeps China from milking us for years.
Besides blockading Taiwan might crush the electronics market, but really that is small potatoes compared to what would happen if Walmart couldn't stock their shelves. No mobilization necessary to send us a big F_U.
As a culture the West generally likes to anthropomorphize anything that involves more than three people, which fits in beutifally with our refusal to accept responsibility.
Saying the buisness has to do it is to throw up our hands and declare it inevitable, the buisness can't be reasoned with, and surely there isn't some being with moral responsibilities dierecting its behavor.
Sometimes our over-zealous anthropomiphization can be useful, as in, "Lets see what the economy is doing today." But more often it is a dangerous, contrived way of deflecting morality, responsibility, and blame from actions that would not be acceptable if carried out by a human.
Some of my least favorite examples,
"The military (not general so-and-so) ordered a strike on a suspected military target"
"A bill was proposed today in the house (not by senator so-and-so) designed to stop terrorists (not fringe group x) from purchasing..."
(as reported on CNN) "Is the media spending to much time covering this story of the minute? Heres a four minute piece."
Yeah, only China has us by the economic balls. If push comes to shove China will start to cash in some of the trillions of US debt that it is sitting on, the dollar will plummet and the economy will generally do some very bad things.
The only possible responses are to sit there and take it, or launch a military counter strike, Does anyone really think there is an invasion plan for China that doesn't involve nuclear wepons?
The US is in no position to push China around, in spite of the massive superiority complex we've been cultivating for the past 175 years.
When my grandmother passes away my aunt inherited the house, which belonged to an older housing development. It is probably one of the older properties with deed restrictions (from the late '40s- early '50s). Anyhow, they recently discovered the deed, and one restriction in particular reads, "These premises shall not be inhabited by any person of color or chinaman unless employed in domestic service."
Ok creationism is bunk, but what is worse is people who think that FSM is ultimate evidence of this fact. FSMism is a subset of ID. Just because a subset of an idea is absurd doesn't say anything about the idea as a whole.
I find IDists repugnant, and while FSMism is a humourous back-lash it is not substantive. My favorite assinine FSM argument is that if evolution and ID need to share time then FSMism deserves equal time as well. People actually think this is a valid argument...
If ID were a subset if FSM it would mean something but it isn't and it can't be.
The two belief systems are not equally valid. You might make the case that FSMism and Christianity are equally valid, but ID is intentionally one level of abstraction away. ID is still creationism, and it is still crap, but most "Darwinists" are just as good at regurgitating poor arguments and examples as the creationists.
Why are you ignoring him again? Because by ignoring anyone that chooses to express a slightly different opinion than the one you hold the world becomes a happier place...
Feel free to replace some other differnt thinking chap with me.
Saying it harms you and the community may be unfounded assertion, but that is the argument none the less. The same argument is used in outlawing drugs. And yes it is possible and illegal for a woman to exploit another woman.
Obscenity is based on community values, because, as I've said, having consumption of obscene material damages community values. Child porn is illegal even if no money changes hands, so you're funding a criminal act argument goes out the window if you are giving the stuff away.
The reason that obscenity laws are important is because it isn't just wrong to make the material. If you are the producer you can easily be charged for child abuse, statutory rape, etc. It is also illegal to posses obscene material, and I think this is a good thing.
It is illegal to possess pictures that looks like child porn without regard to the actual age of the person in the photo. The making of the quasi-child porn is legal, the possesing of it is not.
Only you're wrong. By possesing simulated computer images (or artist renderings) of children in sex acts you can be prosecuted under obscenity laws. Not only that but you can be prosecuted for possesing pictures of real adults who look like they're under 18 under obscenity laws.
But for the love of god please recognize that obscenity laws only cover sex acts forbidden by law. Violence (of an non-sexual nature) can't be obscene. Neither can explosions, hate speech, policitcal speech, etc. So WTC is out.
The argument is that you are harming yourself and your community by viewing obscene material. Also by consuming child porn material you are part of a market that deals in the exploitation of children. Same story for sexualized rape/murder scences creating a market for the exploitation of women. The free market at its finest here.
This may or may not be a slippery slope, and it is my opinion that there is some dangerous ground here, but I think Miller defines obscenity pretty well and does a fair job of keeping us away from the point of no return.
I put that constitutional law part in there because it is important. The biggest problem with obsecenity laws previously was that gay porn could be considered obscene in states with sodomy laws. Since SCOTUS deemed that sodomy laws are unconstitutional gay porn is now legal.
Which is how it should work. There is constitutional (1st ammendment) protection that forbids, say foot-jobs, from being banned. Therefore, foot fetish material cannot fail the Miller test.
Furthermore your analysis of the Miller test is totally off base. The community has control over all three prongs of the test, but subject to appeal. The community gets to apply its standards, pass its laws, and its jurors decide whether the material has redeeming value (both prosecution and defense will present surveys and witnesses describing how the material measures up to the SLAPS test).
The states are checked in defining what sex is. Again see the supreme court ruling on sodomy laws.
If a law student hasn't learned to take notes that allow them to pass the class they deserve to fail.
If taking down every word the prof says allows them to lean the material - good for them.
If taking down every word hurts them, they should have learned a long time ago to do something else (I learned that in 7th grade IIRC.)
If the prof doesn't like laptops in the class for any reason that is also her perogative.
So I guess what I'm sayign is that I don't like her assertion that law students haven't figured out how to take notes, but it is her class and she should be able to run it as she sees fit.
It takes more than voilating the community standard to be considered obscene. It has to be a depiction of a sexual act specifically prohibited by (a constitutional) law.
IMO, the federal government isn't supporting bigotry in this case they are preserving community values, which presumably are important to said community. Therefore, by ignoring those values you are essentially damaging your community. Basically, the right of the community to foster what it thinks is a wholesome atmosphere trumps your right to do whatever the hell you want. Not only that, but you endorse the right of the community to make obscenity laws by living there.
Now if you'd go look at what it takes for something to be obscene under the current test you'll see that it takes some pretty freaky shit. Especially now that sodomy laws have been ruled unconstitutional. See the part about sexual acts specifically prohibited by law? The most common things that fit this definition are rape scenes, murder scenes, torture scenes, child porn, and in some cases bestiality. So Stern and the Soprano's are safe...unless they undergo a significant format shift.
The stickiest classification is torture because some S&M can be convincingly argued to be just that. As for the rest it doesn't take a back-woods community to condemn them.
Under most cases I'm all for expanding personal freedoms, but anyone who thinks that there aren't limits and trade-offs is deluding themselves. Back on topic, the question of which community is a big one. I'm going to say that material should be subject to the standards of the community it was created or sold in. My reasoning is that while it can be argued that the guy watching lots of rape films is damaging to the community manufacture and sale of rape films is a more serious threat.
Being a bigot who hates blacks, hispanics, and gays is one thing. Being a bigot who hates child pornographers and degredation of women is another.
No the problem isn't solved. Obsenity laws make see no difference between private and public obsenity. Having an obscene magazine in your home is just as illegal as having an obscene billboard (although there will doubtlessly be additional reprecussions for the billboard.)
Making it public by publishing it to the net only makes obsenity easier to find and prosecute.
Obscentiy in this case refers only to depictions of sexual material that is specifically forbidden by law (rape, torture, child porn etc.) It practice it is virtually only enforcable on images and video.
The radio being censored is a totally different debate surrounding the FCC and decency in broadcasting.
Dada is suggesting that the smut peddler isn't responsible for adhering to Salt Lake City's community standards because he's not doing any business there. All the business takes place in LA where he is charging your credit card.. Now if you choose to bring smut from LA to Salt Lake City the community standards are your problem.
It is my opinion that we aren't going to do much better than Miller, and the Supremes shouldn't strike it down. There is value in having obscenity laws, especially for cases like where the producers of child porn are outside of our sphere of influence. However, the internet does pose a largish problem to the community standards portion of Miller - and dada's solution is at least tenable.
Dada's solution isn't perfect though (IMO) if some seedy back alley of the net fails to measure up to Salt Lake's community standards should they have license to block it? (they tried...) Normally, the law should only be reactive, meaning that only once you've downloaded illicit material can you be charged under obscenity laws, the supplies existing outside your community can't be touched, and are readily available. In actuality this means that if the content is acceptable somewhere in the US it is acceptable anywhere since the government won't be able to gather evidence against the consumer of the obscene material.
Obscenity enforcement on the internet is between a rock and multiple hard places. The government can either adopt dada's solution and try to prosecute each obscenity viewer separately in their jurisdiction, or using the current M.O. and filing charges in a community most likely to return a conviction against the content producer, or redefining due process to allow for monitoring of the net so that people who violate community standards can be prosecuted, or allow communities to individually censor parts of the net that fail to meet their standards.
Now to complicate matters futher, try to offer a reasonable definition of community applied to the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Um the motor might be cost competitive, but have you seen the price of batteries lately. So lets say that you actually manage to power the tractor for four hours with one batterypack, and each battery pack requires a 12 hr recharge. So you need six battery packs. Given that the cost of the batteries in a prius cost ~$2-3k and that the tractor is going to need at least 4-5x power you are now trying to talk a farmer into buying $48-72k worth of batteries (not counting the cost of electricity to actually power them).
Oh, and all my rough estimates are probably waay on the conservative side, so I could easily see the battery cost double or triple. Still think it is cost competative?
Interesting link.
While the Mazda engine is subject to the limitations of the Otto cycle, it adds some new limitations of its own. It runs hot, has apex seals, and tends toward incomplete combustion.
The engine you linked to is interesting, the Brayton cycle is used in some land propulsion systems (mostly heavy military vehicles) using conventional turbine engines. I'm guessing that they are using rotary compressors and expanders to avoid high machining costs associated with fan-type compressors and turbines. I'm sure that some very smart people are working on the star rotor engine, but I wonder what would happen if they replaced at least the compressor with a fan.
If you think the star rotor is interesting check this out: http://www.mcmastermotor.com/concept.htm
Not that the McMaster motor is without problems of its own. It still needs seals, and operates (I think) in the diesel cycle. They also talk about using hydrogen to power their motor, I'm guessing that there are some insane compression ratios in that thing as currently designed, but it looks to me that the design of the McMaster motor is more flexible than either the Wankel or star rotor engines. I don't know all of the limitations, but I have to wonder if it might not be more economically viable if it ran on diesel.
I'm not an expert on any of this, but I try to stay relatively well informed, and my take is that it is almost exactly like the virus is trying different combinations until it finds the right one.
Random mutations happen, if a mutation does not make it extra contagious it dies out. On the other hand the one time it does become more virulent - hits the right combination so to speak - and becomes easily transferred human to human resulting it results in a pandemic.
Will it happen? I dunno, but it could.
There is an infinitely greater pool of "wrong" mutations; we don't care about those. The one time it gets it right we are in trouble.
Rotary engines and hybrids both fill a niche market and I think it is going to stay that way.
;), but you get the point.)
Rotary engines are neat, but aren't without their disadvantages. For starters take a look at the fuel economy of the RX-8, (18/24) the only other car on that list with fuel economy that low is the STI (which trounces the RX-8.) Secondly, rotary engines are always going to have emission problems. Don't get me wrong, Mazda's engine is a damn fine piece of machinery, but IIRC that thing burns HOT, especially at its ridiculous 9000 rpm redline; add that to the fact that there are problems with complete combustion and you have a nasty soup of NOxs, SOxs, and hydrocarbons. Not-exactly eco-friendly. What I've read about it basically says with extensive engineering refinements they barely squeaked it in under California's emissions standards.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great car, and I'd love to have a RX-8, but when I went to take one for a test drive I learned that the cockpit isn't well suited to people over about 5'10'' (I'm 6'3''.)
Hybrids - well there is a scam for you. The problem is, and will likely remain that batteries are EXPENSIVE. I saw an analysis of the Civic Hybrid that basically said for you to break even the price of gas would have to go up to about $8/gallon today, and stay there for the next eight years or so (numbers are from memory so allow +/- 75% error
The only scam bigger than hybrids is the "Hydrogen economy," but that is a different rant.
For my money the future is small (>2L) turbo-diesel engines. Not the peppiest things in the world, but I suspect that people will care less about that as the price of fuel rises. Oh, and with a diesel engine we could smoothly transition to bio-diesel, which I'd bet on over batteries, hydrogen, or even ethanol.
Yeah I thought CSI was bad too, until I saw Bones...
Good God - at least CSI has a decent plot in some cases, Bones seems like it exists just to show the pretty special effect.
Yeah yeah, the thing is I'm not a zealot.
Don't worry I'm not standing on a soap-box, I know that what I do isn't entirely right - but really I don't care. I'm not offering advice or recommendations. Honestly, I feel a little dirty no matter which way I procure my music.
The only thing that I'm trying to say is that I feel just a bit dirtier after paying for it.
I don't expect the RIAA to change even a little. Because even though my apathy might seem disgusting to a slashdotter, I can assure you that the people filling Sony's and BMG's coffers care a whole lot less than I do, and have adjusted their habits accordingly.
I both buy albums, and download music (illegally), and to tell you the truth, from a moral standpoint I feel worse about paying for it.
By paying for music I am propping up an anachronistic distributing chain whose business practices I take issue with. Which, for me, is more of an issue than violating a business friendly law, or depriving the artist of the miniscule cut of the sale he'd be receiving.
For me something that is mutually beneficial would support both the artists and the consumer; paying for music ain't. I'd rather see no one pay for music and watch the record labels go down in flames (artists can still make money touring), so that when I do want to buy an album I can know that the artist is getting a reasonable cut of the sale.
pfft, not having been diagnosed with ADD I feel like the outsider.
Well mostly, I'd settle for redesigned knees, spines, and pelvises before we go crazy and start mesing with the plumbing.
And why limit yourself to things like tails and extra limbs? I want new senses. Sharks can sence EM fields, I'd like to do something like that. Or add a sense that hasn't evolved yet, like being able to sense velocity or thermal radiation.
Slowing down shipments might happen, but blockading Taiwan would be a military action, and it would be more effective and less risky to attack us economically, and let us flex the military muscle first.
A slowly escalating conflict would be in China's favor, slowing shipments, increasing price of goods, liquidizing US holdings a little bit (billions) at a time. Moving on Taiwan throws us into immediate heated conflict which keeps China from milking us for years.
Besides blockading Taiwan might crush the electronics market, but really that is small potatoes compared to what would happen if Walmart couldn't stock their shelves. No mobilization necessary to send us a big F_U.
Saying the buisness has to do it is to throw up our hands and declare it inevitable, the buisness can't be reasoned with, and surely there isn't some being with moral responsibilities dierecting its behavor.
Sometimes our over-zealous anthropomiphization can be useful, as in, "Lets see what the economy is doing today." But more often it is a dangerous, contrived way of deflecting morality, responsibility, and blame from actions that would not be acceptable if carried out by a human.
Some of my least favorite examples,
Yeah, only China has us by the economic balls. If push comes to shove China will start to cash in some of the trillions of US debt that it is sitting on, the dollar will plummet and the economy will generally do some very bad things.
The only possible responses are to sit there and take it, or launch a military counter strike, Does anyone really think there is an invasion plan for China that doesn't involve nuclear wepons?
The US is in no position to push China around, in spite of the massive superiority complex we've been cultivating for the past 175 years.
When my grandmother passes away my aunt inherited the house, which belonged to an older housing development. It is probably one of the older properties with deed restrictions (from the late '40s- early '50s). Anyhow, they recently discovered the deed, and one restriction in particular reads, "These premises shall not be inhabited by any person of color or chinaman unless employed in domestic service."
Ok creationism is bunk, but what is worse is people who think that FSM is ultimate evidence of this fact. FSMism is a subset of ID. Just because a subset of an idea is absurd doesn't say anything about the idea as a whole.
I find IDists repugnant, and while FSMism is a humourous back-lash it is not substantive. My favorite assinine FSM argument is that if evolution and ID need to share time then FSMism deserves equal time as well. People actually think this is a valid argument...
If ID were a subset if FSM it would mean something but it isn't and it can't be.
The two belief systems are not equally valid. You might make the case that FSMism and Christianity are equally valid, but ID is intentionally one level of abstraction away. ID is still creationism, and it is still crap, but most "Darwinists" are just as good at regurgitating poor arguments and examples as the creationists.
Why are you ignoring him again? Because by ignoring anyone that chooses to express a slightly different opinion than the one you hold the world becomes a happier place...
Feel free to replace some other differnt thinking chap with me.
Saying it harms you and the community may be unfounded assertion, but that is the argument none the less. The same argument is used in outlawing drugs. And yes it is possible and illegal for a woman to exploit another woman.
Obscenity is based on community values, because, as I've said, having consumption of obscene material damages community values. Child porn is illegal even if no money changes hands, so you're funding a criminal act argument goes out the window if you are giving the stuff away.
The reason that obscenity laws are important is because it isn't just wrong to make the material. If you are the producer you can easily be charged for child abuse, statutory rape, etc. It is also illegal to posses obscene material, and I think this is a good thing.
It is illegal to possess pictures that looks like child porn without regard to the actual age of the person in the photo. The making of the quasi-child porn is legal, the possesing of it is not.
Only you're wrong. By possesing simulated computer images (or artist renderings) of children in sex acts you can be prosecuted under obscenity laws. Not only that but you can be prosecuted for possesing pictures of real adults who look like they're under 18 under obscenity laws.
But for the love of god please recognize that obscenity laws only cover sex acts forbidden by law. Violence (of an non-sexual nature) can't be obscene. Neither can explosions, hate speech, policitcal speech, etc. So WTC is out.
The argument is that you are harming yourself and your community by viewing obscene material. Also by consuming child porn material you are part of a market that deals in the exploitation of children. Same story for sexualized rape/murder scences creating a market for the exploitation of women. The free market at its finest here.
This may or may not be a slippery slope, and it is my opinion that there is some dangerous ground here, but I think Miller defines obscenity pretty well and does a fair job of keeping us away from the point of no return.
I put that constitutional law part in there because it is important. The biggest problem with obsecenity laws previously was that gay porn could be considered obscene in states with sodomy laws. Since SCOTUS deemed that sodomy laws are unconstitutional gay porn is now legal.
Which is how it should work. There is constitutional (1st ammendment) protection that forbids, say foot-jobs, from being banned. Therefore, foot fetish material cannot fail the Miller test.
Furthermore your analysis of the Miller test is totally off base. The community has control over all three prongs of the test, but subject to appeal. The community gets to apply its standards, pass its laws, and its jurors decide whether the material has redeeming value (both prosecution and defense will present surveys and witnesses describing how the material measures up to the SLAPS test).
The states are checked in defining what sex is. Again see the supreme court ruling on sodomy laws.
If a law student hasn't learned to take notes that allow them to pass the class they deserve to fail.
If taking down every word the prof says allows them to lean the material - good for them.
If taking down every word hurts them, they should have learned a long time ago to do something else (I learned that in 7th grade IIRC.)
If the prof doesn't like laptops in the class for any reason that is also her perogative.
So I guess what I'm sayign is that I don't like her assertion that law students haven't figured out how to take notes, but it is her class and she should be able to run it as she sees fit.
Yes that child porn is illeagal is a damn shame...
It takes more than voilating the community standard to be considered obscene. It has to be a depiction of a sexual act specifically prohibited by (a constitutional) law.
IMO, the federal government isn't supporting bigotry in this case they are preserving community values, which presumably are important to said community. Therefore, by ignoring those values you are essentially damaging your community. Basically, the right of the community to foster what it thinks is a wholesome atmosphere trumps your right to do whatever the hell you want. Not only that, but you endorse the right of the community to make obscenity laws by living there.
...unless they undergo a significant format shift.
Now if you'd go look at what it takes for something to be obscene under the current test you'll see that it takes some pretty freaky shit. Especially now that sodomy laws have been ruled unconstitutional. See the part about sexual acts specifically prohibited by law? The most common things that fit this definition are rape scenes, murder scenes, torture scenes, child porn, and in some cases bestiality. So Stern and the Soprano's are safe
The stickiest classification is torture because some S&M can be convincingly argued to be just that. As for the rest it doesn't take a back-woods community to condemn them.
Under most cases I'm all for expanding personal freedoms, but anyone who thinks that there aren't limits and trade-offs is deluding themselves. Back on topic, the question of which community is a big one. I'm going to say that material should be subject to the standards of the community it was created or sold in. My reasoning is that while it can be argued that the guy watching lots of rape films is damaging to the community manufacture and sale of rape films is a more serious threat.
Being a bigot who hates blacks, hispanics, and gays is one thing. Being a bigot who hates child pornographers and degredation of women is another.
No the problem isn't solved. Obsenity laws make see no difference between private and public obsenity. Having an obscene magazine in your home is just as illegal as having an obscene billboard (although there will doubtlessly be additional reprecussions for the billboard.)
Making it public by publishing it to the net only makes obsenity easier to find and prosecute.
Obscentiy in this case refers only to depictions of sexual material that is specifically forbidden by law (rape, torture, child porn etc.) It practice it is virtually only enforcable on images and video.
The radio being censored is a totally different debate surrounding the FCC and decency in broadcasting.
He's not missing the point; you are ignoring it.
Dada is suggesting that the smut peddler isn't responsible for adhering to Salt Lake City's community standards because he's not doing any business there. All the business takes place in LA where he is charging your credit card.. Now if you choose to bring smut from LA to Salt Lake City the community standards are your problem.
It is my opinion that we aren't going to do much better than Miller, and the Supremes shouldn't strike it down. There is value in having obscenity laws, especially for cases like where the producers of child porn are outside of our sphere of influence. However, the internet does pose a largish problem to the community standards portion of Miller - and dada's solution is at least tenable.
Dada's solution isn't perfect though (IMO) if some seedy back alley of the net fails to measure up to Salt Lake's community standards should they have license to block it? (they tried...) Normally, the law should only be reactive, meaning that only once you've downloaded illicit material can you be charged under obscenity laws, the supplies existing outside your community can't be touched, and are readily available. In actuality this means that if the content is acceptable somewhere in the US it is acceptable anywhere since the government won't be able to gather evidence against the consumer of the obscene material.
Obscenity enforcement on the internet is between a rock and multiple hard places. The government can either adopt dada's solution and try to prosecute each obscenity viewer separately in their jurisdiction, or using the current M.O. and filing charges in a community most likely to return a conviction against the content producer, or redefining due process to allow for monitoring of the net so that people who violate community standards can be prosecuted, or allow communities to individually censor parts of the net that fail to meet their standards.
Now to complicate matters futher, try to offer a reasonable definition of community applied to the internet.