A law telling telemarketers that they cannot speak to you is unconstitutional.
No, a law telling telemarketers that they can't speak is unconstitutional. A law which says that they can't speak to ME, after I have clearly indicated that I am not interested in listening to them by signing up for the do-not-call list, is just fine.
Nah, it's just that AOL's IP interface sucks so bad, that anyone running P2P using AOL has such a low bandwidth rating that they don't show up on the RIAA's monitoring services.
I think that the fact that they don't shows that they have a very real committment to property rights
If they had a real commitment to copyrights, then they wouldn't approve of passing legislation which allows the recording industry to control what people do with their own proprety. Oh wait, you're talking about that imaginary construct "intellectual property". Never mind.
I'm not really sure what the end result of all this hurrying and efficiency is really for.
Sometimes the hurry is for its own sake. For myself, I'm an acknowledged information junkie. If my senses & brain are not stimulated to a minimum threshhold value, I inevitably get sleepy and go into "zombie" mode, where I am not very alert & not feeling very much emotionally.
So, unless I'm deliberately looking for ways to relax, I look at ways to stimulate myself as much as possible (listening to music while coding, etc). Heck, even my relaxation methods usually involve finding a nice natural environment, and opening up all my senses to the environment as much as possible (but trying to shut off my thinking processes).
I've got a short lifetime to enjoy everything, and I intend to enjoy everything that I possibly can to its fullest. I can go slow when I'm dead.
Heh; I took a class in college once called "technical speaking", supposedly to help me get a little more comfortable with speaking in front of a small audience of technical colleagues.
I did, and still have stage fright, but I discovered that if I channeled a lot of my nervousness (and any caffeine) into speaking quickly (but clearly), people paid much closer attention to what I was saying.
Of course, it also helped if I had studied the subject so obsessively, that I could handle any questions or comments without requiring the use of my brain (which was usually fried by the stage fright at that point).
Oh, bullshit. The more likely scenario in a no-patent situation is that 10 different companies try to beat each other to the market, and you end up with cheap solar cells and a bunch of companies barely making a profit.
As an off-topic, one of the basic effects of _real_ capitalism: if a company is making too much profit, that means there isn't enough competition in that market yet.
Heh - we never got that kind of service when I was working on a Tandem "fault-tolerant" mainframe. Of course, that might've been because the mainframe failed so often that it wasn't worth their while.
It was kind of sad, really - one of the paired "fault-tolerant" CPUs would fail, then (because the system was overloaded), we would watch all of the CPUs fail, one after the other, just like a set of dominos.
This was supposedly a 24x7xyear system. I _hated_ carrying that beeper:(
Tell your dad to make sure that the examiners can't get to the "patent approval" desk without being forced to use the "prior art search" library. It might not stop them from approving dumb patents, but maybe it will slow them down a bit.
I mean, they're probably the only people that need millions of gigabyte+ files floating around thousands of machines
Actually, since it's designed for lots of hardware which is expected to die regularly, I wonder if any of the technology could be applied to P2P networks?
judicial precedent is overidden by an act of Congress
Actually, judicial precedent can override acts of Congress _if_ the Judiciary branch can argue successfully that their decision can be directly implied due to the wording of the Constitution. In other words, if the Judiciary decides that it is necessary that certain restrictions _must_ be placed on the government in order to meet requirements stated by the Constitution (e.g., Miranda rights warnings), then the only thing that the Congress/executive can legally do to counteract such a decision is to change the Constitution (or replace enough judges in the Supreme Court until they agree in ideology wih the legislative/execute branches).
Morally, the FBI is made up of citizens who, as important members of our society, _should_ be upholding our rights, regardless of what the law actually says.
Unfortunately, they seem to have adopted the Bush/Ashcroft attitude that "rights" can be safely ignored if they get in the way of making their job easier.
It's this kind of attitude which is setting up law enforcement in a hostile position relative to the society they are supposed to be protecting.
Then they shouldn't have a problem proving it without eviscerating the First Amendment.
Re:Imagine RFID type tags in bullets
on
NYT on RFID
·
· Score: 1
It would be a lot easier to tell who originally bought the ammunition for homicides, even if they didn't do any killing.
I guess that means killers would be stealing ammunition too, instead of just the guns. It would probably make good evidence to frame somebody - just steal a little bit of somebody's ammunition & shoot somebody else with it.
Really? When I reencode 30-minute animation episodes for NTSC/DVD, I end up with files about 500Mb each - and animation probably compresses better than most live-action. You must be losing a LOT of resolution in order to fit an hour-long live-action episode into a 300Mb file.
There will be no sales tax in Oregon. No way, no how. The only way the Oregon public will _ever_ let it happen, will be if they get rid of one of the other taxes (income or property) at the exact same time. Not "reduce" - get rid of. And this might be impossible, since the Oregon Constitution disallows more than one issue on the same measure at the same time.
Oregon legislators have tried to pass a sales tax at least 8 times in Oregon history, and such measures have always been overwhelmingly shot down.
No matter what rate the legislature says they'll set it at, or how many exceptions there are, the Oregon public (with good reason) just doesn't trust them to keep it low after they've got such a tax. It'll be a cold day in hell before Oregonians (of any party, or independents) allow a sales tax measure to pass, no matter how bad the budget is.
I bet they could use some of that 87 billion dollars
I bet they could've used some of that 87 billion dollars to hire more teachers. 87 billion will hire a LOT of teachers. Those teachers will spend that 87 billion. Businesses want to grow to meet that demand, businesses will want to hire trained people, teachers will train people, people get hired, people make money, people spend money, economy grows, etc.
Now where does most of that money when you spend it on a war? Building stuff to kill people? Into the bank accounts of people who are so rich that they don't really need any more money? With just enough "trickle-down" to give the so-called conservatives a few anecdotes to defend themselves?
I'm not really against your idea, I just can think of few ways of directly using $87 billion that I think would help our society more.
Yes, I read your post. I disagree with some of your assumptions. I highly doubt that most of any "industry first" product is, in fact, completely an industry first.
In most new products, there might be a few new ideas and perhaps an integration of many technologies in a way that hasn't been done before, but most of the elements of any product is just a reimplementation of technology which has already been done before.
It would save engineers a whole of time & effort for every project if they could just use whatever technology they could find & understand without having to worry about whether they're violating somebody's patent and/or how much it would cost to license even small technologies. Then they could concentrate their efforts solely on the part of the product which is really "new".
Have you wondered how much of the cost of all those examples you gave is because the engineers involved couldn't copy a solution that somebody else had already come up with and ended up having to implement a lot of their stuff from scratch?
If we're mainly talking about the ice caps as in the "floating" ice caps, then 90% of the ice is below water anyway.
Actually, only one of the ice caps is floating. The other (Antarctica) is a real continent covered in ice, and will definitely have effects on the sea levels (and salinity) if it all melts.
The Big Problem has always been: What type of technology will allow us to simultaneously protect a consumer's right to Fair Use while preventing him from illegally distributing the entertainment he has purchased? *Everybody* is working on this; if Sony is finally announcing some progress, my only question is "What took you so long?"
No, the big problem is: how much control do you want to let content owners have over their work after it has been distributed, in order to maximize its utility to the general society?
Please note that any benefit to the content owner is a side effect of the desire to generate content for the benefit of society. Allowing someone to control their work after they have distributed it is a _privilege_ allowed to creators by the society with the hopes that it will encourage them to continue to create interesting works that will benefit the society. If that control has been extended to the point where it is _hurting_ the society rather than benefiting it, then it is only common sense that the privilege should be restricted or even revoked. (Obviously, the determination of whether this point has been reached should probably not be left to major content owners alone.)
"Fair Use" is an attempt to put some limits on that control, to prevent abuse of that privilege. Attempts by content owners to destroy the concept of fair use represent an abuse of the privilege that has been granted to them, and are pretty much driven by greed.
Content owners don't have any "natural" right to control their creations once it has left their hands. It's a privilege that's granted to them by law, and they'd damn well be grateful they have it at all, instead of thinking that it's their right. The world would get on just fine without "intellectual property rights".
I don't have a link at the moment, but I've read that there was some evidence that _too_ much exercise will actually lower your maximum lifespan (by causing your body's metabolism to be higher than necessary).
Supposedly, the way to live the longest (barring accident and/or disease) is by living with a severely-calorie restricted diet, and with a minimal amount of exercise (just enough to keep your body from atrophying). This will keep your body's metabolism at its lowest possible levels, supposedly lengthening your lifespan.
On the other hand, who the hell would want a life like that?
I said "socially-beneficial" in my comment. I don't consider just handing money to people socially-beneficial (sorry for not making that clear). I was thinking more along the lines of paying them for working and/or training, but not for not doing anything.
Slashdot Mirror
No, a law telling telemarketers that they can't speak is unconstitutional. A law which says that they can't speak to ME, after I have clearly indicated that I am not interested in listening to them by signing up for the do-not-call list, is just fine.
Nah, it's just that AOL's IP interface sucks so bad, that anyone running P2P using AOL has such a low bandwidth rating that they don't show up on the RIAA's monitoring services.
Argh! I meant property!
If they had a real commitment to copyrights, then they wouldn't approve of passing legislation which allows the recording industry to control what people do with their own proprety. Oh wait, you're talking about that imaginary construct "intellectual property". Never mind.
Sometimes the hurry is for its own sake. For myself, I'm an acknowledged information junkie. If my senses & brain are not stimulated to a minimum threshhold value, I inevitably get sleepy and go into "zombie" mode, where I am not very alert & not feeling very much emotionally.
So, unless I'm deliberately looking for ways to relax, I look at ways to stimulate myself as much as possible (listening to music while coding, etc). Heck, even my relaxation methods usually involve finding a nice natural environment, and opening up all my senses to the environment as much as possible (but trying to shut off my thinking processes).
I've got a short lifetime to enjoy everything, and I intend to enjoy everything that I possibly can to its fullest. I can go slow when I'm dead.
Heh; I took a class in college once called "technical speaking", supposedly to help me get a little more comfortable with speaking in front of a small audience of technical colleagues.
I did, and still have stage fright, but I discovered that if I channeled a lot of my nervousness (and any caffeine) into speaking quickly (but clearly), people paid much closer attention to what I was saying.
Of course, it also helped if I had studied the subject so obsessively, that I could handle any questions or comments without requiring the use of my brain (which was usually fried by the stage fright at that point).
Oh, bullshit. The more likely scenario in a no-patent situation is that 10 different companies try to beat each other to the market, and you end up with cheap solar cells and a bunch of companies barely making a profit.
As an off-topic, one of the basic effects of _real_ capitalism: if a company is making too much profit, that means there isn't enough competition in that market yet.
Heh - we never got that kind of service when I was working on a Tandem "fault-tolerant" mainframe. Of course, that might've been because the mainframe failed so often that it wasn't worth their while.
:(
It was kind of sad, really - one of the paired "fault-tolerant" CPUs would fail, then (because the system was overloaded), we would watch all of the CPUs fail, one after the other, just like a set of dominos.
This was supposedly a 24x7xyear system. I _hated_ carrying that beeper
Tell your dad to make sure that the examiners can't get to the "patent approval" desk without being forced to use the "prior art search" library. It might not stop them from approving dumb patents, but maybe it will slow them down a bit.
Actually, since it's designed for lots of hardware which is expected to die regularly, I wonder if any of the technology could be applied to P2P networks?
Actually, judicial precedent can override acts of Congress _if_ the Judiciary branch can argue successfully that their decision can be directly implied due to the wording of the Constitution. In other words, if the Judiciary decides that it is necessary that certain restrictions _must_ be placed on the government in order to meet requirements stated by the Constitution (e.g., Miranda rights warnings), then the only thing that the Congress/executive can legally do to counteract such a decision is to change the Constitution (or replace enough judges in the Supreme Court until they agree in ideology wih the legislative/execute branches).
Morally, the FBI is made up of citizens who, as important members of our society, _should_ be upholding our rights, regardless of what the law actually says.
Unfortunately, they seem to have adopted the Bush/Ashcroft attitude that "rights" can be safely ignored if they get in the way of making their job easier.
It's this kind of attitude which is setting up law enforcement in a hostile position relative to the society they are supposed to be protecting.
Then they shouldn't have a problem proving it without eviscerating the First Amendment.
I guess that means killers would be stealing ammunition too, instead of just the guns. It would probably make good evidence to frame somebody - just steal a little bit of somebody's ammunition & shoot somebody else with it.
Really? When I reencode 30-minute animation episodes for NTSC/DVD, I end up with files about 500Mb each - and animation probably compresses better than most live-action. You must be losing a LOT of resolution in order to fit an hour-long live-action episode into a 300Mb file.
Take out the battery?
There will be no sales tax in Oregon. No way, no how. The only way the Oregon public will _ever_ let it happen, will be if they get rid of one of the other taxes (income or property) at the exact same time. Not "reduce" - get rid of. And this might be impossible, since the Oregon Constitution disallows more than one issue on the same measure at the same time.
Oregon legislators have tried to pass a sales tax at least 8 times in Oregon history, and such measures have always been overwhelmingly shot down.
No matter what rate the legislature says they'll set it at, or how many exceptions there are, the Oregon public (with good reason) just doesn't trust them to keep it low after they've got such a tax. It'll be a cold day in hell before Oregonians (of any party, or independents) allow a sales tax measure to pass, no matter how bad the budget is.
I bet they could've used some of that 87 billion dollars to hire more teachers. 87 billion will hire a LOT of teachers. Those teachers will spend that 87 billion. Businesses want to grow to meet that demand, businesses will want to hire trained people, teachers will train people, people get hired, people make money, people spend money, economy grows, etc.
Now where does most of that money when you spend it on a war? Building stuff to kill people? Into the bank accounts of people who are so rich that they don't really need any more money? With just enough "trickle-down" to give the so-called conservatives a few anecdotes to defend themselves?
I'm not really against your idea, I just can think of few ways of directly using $87 billion that I think would help our society more.
Yes, I read your post. I disagree with some of your assumptions. I highly doubt that most of any "industry first" product is, in fact, completely an industry first.
In most new products, there might be a few new ideas and perhaps an integration of many technologies in a way that hasn't been done before, but most of the elements of any product is just a reimplementation of technology which has already been done before.
It would save engineers a whole of time & effort for every project if they could just use whatever technology they could find & understand without having to worry about whether they're violating somebody's patent and/or how much it would cost to license even small technologies. Then they could concentrate their efforts solely on the part of the product which is really "new".
Have you wondered how much of the cost of all those examples you gave is because the engineers involved couldn't copy a solution that somebody else had already come up with and ended up having to implement a lot of their stuff from scratch?
They were (are?) classified as "munitions", not WMDs.
Actually, only one of the ice caps is floating. The other (Antarctica) is a real continent covered in ice, and will definitely have effects on the sea levels (and salinity) if it all melts.
No, the big problem is: how much control do you want to let content owners have over their work after it has been distributed, in order to maximize its utility to the general society?
Please note that any benefit to the content owner is a side effect of the desire to generate content for the benefit of society. Allowing someone to control their work after they have distributed it is a _privilege_ allowed to creators by the society with the hopes that it will encourage them to continue to create interesting works that will benefit the society. If that control has been extended to the point where it is _hurting_ the society rather than benefiting it, then it is only common sense that the privilege should be restricted or even revoked. (Obviously, the determination of whether this point has been reached should probably not be left to major content owners alone.)
"Fair Use" is an attempt to put some limits on that control, to prevent abuse of that privilege. Attempts by content owners to destroy the concept of fair use represent an abuse of the privilege that has been granted to them, and are pretty much driven by greed.
Content owners don't have any "natural" right to control their creations once it has left their hands. It's a privilege that's granted to them by law, and they'd damn well be grateful they have it at all, instead of thinking that it's their right. The world would get on just fine without "intellectual property rights".
I don't have a link at the moment, but I've read that there was some evidence that _too_ much exercise will actually lower your maximum lifespan (by causing your body's metabolism to be higher than necessary).
Supposedly, the way to live the longest (barring accident and/or disease) is by living with a severely-calorie restricted diet, and with a minimal amount of exercise (just enough to keep your body from atrophying). This will keep your body's metabolism at its lowest possible levels, supposedly lengthening your lifespan.
On the other hand, who the hell would want a life like that?
I said "socially-beneficial" in my comment. I don't consider just handing money to people socially-beneficial (sorry for not making that clear). I was thinking more along the lines of paying them for working and/or training, but not for not doing anything.