This is exactly what patents *should* be used for: secure rewards for innovators who take the risk of bringing out a future-leading product.
Bullshit. This is showing how patents can be used to be retard innovation & prevent the spread of technology. If society wants the benefits of creativity and innovation, then it should figure out a system to pay for that kind of stuff up front - not allow private individuals and organizations the power to stop their competitors from doing their own development.
As long as you don't have the kind of family/friends/neighbors who take everything you give them without feeling any sort of reciprocity (and who might even think you're a fool for giving with no strings).
To be fair, scientists have just as much qualification to speak on the existence of God as any other human being on the planet: zero, since nobody on the planet has any basis for believing in the existence of God other than they really, really, really want God to exist. It's just that most scientists choose not to make claims about things they don't have any observational evidence for (at least the honest scientists don't).
I don't need a fancy invisible god to see that human beings are more valuable to human beings than cockroaches.
Dunno about that - if we were all starving to death, and cockroaches were the only available food, my personal conclusion would be that cockroaches (food) would be more valuable to me than other humans (competition for food). (I suppose in that scenario, other humans would probably become more valuable as food than cockroaches, so maybe my counterexample isn't very good either - as well as being disgusting.)
So has anyone ever gathered enough mass in a single place to have a detectable or measurable effect on gravity?
Yes: the Cavendish experiment. I vaguely remember doing a variation of this experiment in a high-school physics class, although in retrospect I doubt the experiment was controlled enough for stuff like electrostatics or air-dynamics to be meaningful. It has been performed properly enough for people to be pretty confident about its experimental results (at least in the Newtonian realm of gravity).
Surely if that was the case, you would weigh different on top of a mountain verses being in the deepest above water Vally.
You do (or at least a standardized weight does), and it has been measured.
There are also experiments based on monitoring the orbit of satellites very closely which use the variations in the satellites' orbits from expected "perfect" orbits to determine how much gravitational influence the Earth is exerting on the satellite at each moment (which can be translated into rough ideas of the density map of the Earth.)
Personally I would like to see mandatory tests ever 7-10 years and every 3 after you reach 65.
At the very least, they should have some driving simulators at the DMV with common driving situations, so they can test your common sense & basic reflexes in standard ways without endangering either property or lives.
It also helps a lot if you can tilt your rearview mirrors so you can see objects on the ground near your tires (like the curb or parking lines). I believe some of the luxury-mobiles do this automatically.
A metaphor is relevant only if the attributes of the metaphor have the same sort of relationships to each other as to the concept you are trying to simplify. Countries aren't like birds. Political ideologies aren't like wings. Therefore your attempt at metaphor is a complete failure.
No. If it is against the law, that means only that it is illegal. That doesn't mean the law is "right". The semantics are important, since many people will not understand that there is something wrong with the law if they confuse what is illegal with what is morally wrong.
I don't think you're quite getting the concept of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience, by definition, involves breaking the law, hopefully in a way that shows that the law is "unjust".
I'm not saying anything about whether this applies to the Pirate Bay's actions; I'm just saying that your understanding of civil disobedience is incorrect.
That's like saying that humans don't mind being killed, because it's easy to make more humans (and there are already so many other humans in case you need an instant replacement). If AIs have any sort of individualistic survival urge at all, they won't be happy that a species as irrational has humans will have the ability to pull their plugs.
Dunno, you've got a cite for that? I read that Limbo was Dante's attempt to relieve non-baptized innocents from the punishment of Hell, but I wasn't aware that his "solution" was anything other than his own fiction.
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Bullshit. This is showing how patents can be used to be retard innovation & prevent the spread of technology. If society wants the benefits of creativity and innovation, then it should figure out a system to pay for that kind of stuff up front - not allow private individuals and organizations the power to stop their competitors from doing their own development.
More like:
Robber: *Bang*, you're dead.
Gun: lies uselessly by gun-owner's side.
I will fight to the death for the right to wear short-sleeve shirts and tank-tops.
As long as you don't have the kind of family/friends/neighbors who take everything you give them without feeling any sort of reciprocity (and who might even think you're a fool for giving with no strings).
Those are the magnetic poles that have been shifting, not the physical "spinning-like-a-top" poles.
To be fair, scientists have just as much qualification to speak on the existence of God as any other human being on the planet: zero, since nobody on the planet has any basis for believing in the existence of God other than they really, really, really want God to exist. It's just that most scientists choose not to make claims about things they don't have any observational evidence for (at least the honest scientists don't).
Dunno about that - if we were all starving to death, and cockroaches were the only available food, my personal conclusion would be that cockroaches (food) would be more valuable to me than other humans (competition for food). (I suppose in that scenario, other humans would probably become more valuable as food than cockroaches, so maybe my counterexample isn't very good either - as well as being disgusting.)
Yes: the Cavendish experiment. I vaguely remember doing a variation of this experiment in a high-school physics class, although in retrospect I doubt the experiment was controlled enough for stuff like electrostatics or air-dynamics to be meaningful. It has been performed properly enough for people to be pretty confident about its experimental results (at least in the Newtonian realm of gravity).
You do (or at least a standardized weight does), and it has been measured.
There are also experiments based on monitoring the orbit of satellites very closely which use the variations in the satellites' orbits from expected "perfect" orbits to determine how much gravitational influence the Earth is exerting on the satellite at each moment (which can be translated into rough ideas of the density map of the Earth.)
At the very least, they should have some driving simulators at the DMV with common driving situations, so they can test your common sense & basic reflexes in standard ways without endangering either property or lives.
It also helps a lot if you can tilt your rearview mirrors so you can see objects on the ground near your tires (like the curb or parking lines). I believe some of the luxury-mobiles do this automatically.
Except that it's impossible to censor only the one without having the means to censor the other.
Use a cheap hardware router to insulate your machine from the net while installing all security updates.
Why not a short copyright period, like twenty years after publication?
A metaphor is relevant only if the attributes of the metaphor have the same sort of relationships to each other as to the concept you are trying to simplify.
Countries aren't like birds. Political ideologies aren't like wings. Therefore your attempt at metaphor is a complete failure.
Is that anything like a Quatloo? I can't find anyone who will take those things :-(
No. If it is against the law, that means only that it is illegal. That doesn't mean the law is "right". The semantics are important, since many people will not understand that there is something wrong with the law if they confuse what is illegal with what is morally wrong.
Just because it's the law doesn't make it right, either.
I don't think you're quite getting the concept of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience, by definition, involves breaking the law, hopefully in a way that shows that the law is "unjust".
I'm not saying anything about whether this applies to the Pirate Bay's actions; I'm just saying that your understanding of civil disobedience is incorrect.
That's like saying that humans don't mind being killed, because it's easy to make more humans (and there are already so many other humans in case you need an instant replacement). If AIs have any sort of individualistic survival urge at all, they won't be happy that a species as irrational has humans will have the ability to pull their plugs.
Learn how to use anonymous proxies?
You mean you don't have a photocopy of the mayor's license plate pasted over your own? I thought everyone already did that...
Now figure out how to do that without step #1...
"Approval" voting is a little easier to explain to people, while still having a lot of the beneficial behaviors of IRV.
Dunno, you've got a cite for that? I read that Limbo was Dante's attempt to relieve non-baptized innocents from the punishment of Hell, but I wasn't aware that his "solution" was anything other than his own fiction.
And once you get out, you wonder why you haven't heard anything except ringing in your ears...