Most of the designs I've seen to capture wind power also tend to kill birds. Probably no biggie if you're talking pigeons, but it probably doesn't look too good if you take out a few spotted owls.
Hmm...I think you're missing the point of the concept "monopoly".
Re:The buildings did move on impact
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Although expensive (the original buildings were $750 million in 1973), that would be a helluva symbolic gesture: "So you knocked them down. Well guess what, a couple years later, they're right back up again. Chew on that!"
Re:Yes, but I'll make an exception for airports.
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Well, if they up the security & the competence of the luggage handling, then I have no problem with checking in my usual carry-on luggage. The only reason I try to bring on everything that I'm going to use is because I've had too many episodes where my luggage has been misdirected, lost, or broken, and/or stuff has been stolen out of it (and you wouldn't believe what lengths many airlines will do to wiggle out of having to pay a claim).
Granted, after traveling a few times, I've got my week-long trip baggage down to a roll-on and a carry-on. I've seen other folks trying to bring on 4 or 5 full-size suit cases (usually a family who gives 2 suit cases to every kid:-).
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
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Why does everyone keep on saying that maintaining security requires loss of civil liberties?! That's only true when the mechanism for maintaining security is a highly centralized entity which hasn't been well-integrated into society - in other words, when the law enforcement community perceives itself as an entity separate from the society that it is supposed to be protecting, and that the society should just let them do their job & not get in the way.
If you want to maintain civil liberties, then your "law enforcement" needs the _ACTIVE_ support of the society. At the very least, if almost everyone in society trusted their law enforcement agents, then those agencies would find that people would tend to come forward to help those agents do their jobs. The agents would have the equivalent of a stakeout from every person's window, and willing witnesses in every location - but all with the goodwill of the populace, thus limiting the erosion of civil liberties.
I don't see this happening with the current law enforcement policies, especially with regard to the drug war (and pedophiles, and now probably terrorism). The law enforcement agencies regard themselves as autonomous from the general population, specializing in law enforcement, who have lost the trust of large chunks of the population they're supposed to be protecting, and who therefore perceive that the only way they can "do their job" (in a short-term way) is to reduce the effectiveness of those "civil liberties" which get in their way.
Of course, this kind of attitude only reinforces the distrust of the populace: a vicious cycle.
Well, as a knee-jerk reaction it sounds pretty good, but given the regular reports of passengers becoming at the best verbally abusive of the attendants, not to mention those passengers which become physically abusive, it probably wouldn't make the airline employees feel too safe. (Or that crying baby in the seat over, for that matter.)
If there was some kind of "rationality" or anger management test before you were allowed to carry a firearm, that might be interesting.
Gee, there's a bit of a difference between maintaining a military to keep your country from getting blown to bits, and maintaining the legal illusion of "intellectual property" so that some big companies can make lots of money. If you think about it, maybe you'll be able to figure out what that difference is.
Even if they did choose to spend that $7 billion on AIDS drugs instead of a military, it would be a helluva lot more effective if it was spent actually manufacturing & distributing those AIDS drugs, instead of being used to line the pockets of the drug companies.
Actually, I understood true Athiesm to be more like: "There is no God, and you can't prove that there is, so I'm right. So there." Which sounds very similar to attitude you ascribed to religion:-)
What you describe as athiesm, I call Skepticism: "There may or may not be (a) God(s) (or Goddess(es)), but unless you can come up with some test which will provide strong evidence either way, anything you conclude based on the existence or non-existence of such being(s) is pretty much meaningless."
Not the most graceful way of stating things, but pretty much decribes my views on the matter.
Unfortunately, the claims in a patent are not ANDed together - they are ORed. From my eavesdropping on patent discussions, I understand it's pretty standard to make the 1st claim of the patent the most general (trying to catch everything including the kitchen sink), with each succeeding claim more specific. That way, if someone challenges the claims in your patent, they have to work their way down invalidating each claim in the list until they reach a claim specific enough so that they can't invalidate it.
to collect from MS regarless of what their EULA says, then free software authors could theoretically face similar liablilities regardless of what the GPL says. It's just an observation.
They might get a little more leeway from the justice system just 'cause they're not charging anyone for the product.
You can't do that and still maintain the integrity of the Bill of Rights. To allow someone's rights to be violated by the government, and then to allow that to be used as evidence makes them meaningless.
I don't agree. That's like saying that punishing someone for suppressing free speech makes the Bill of Rights meaningless. I'd argue that allowing minor points of law to overrule the facts is a major factor in reducing the respect of the average citizen for the rationality of the law.
You will NEVER discourage government agents violating the Constitutional rights of citizens unless you then DENY them the rewards of the violation, ie, the illegal evidence that leads to a conviction.
Again, I disagree. You seem to think that government agents act irrationally. If penalties are properly chosen, you _will_ discourage most government agents from illegally gathering evidence. If they are confronted with the choice, then they will have to decide whether the destruction of their lives is worth putting their suspect behind bars. If they're looking at an organized crime leader directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands who will otherwise walk on a technicality, they might decide that it was worth it. And you won't have scumbags laughing with their high-priced lawyers scott-free on their way out of the court.
To the courts, there is no difference at ALL between illegally obtained evidence and false planted evidence, and that's the way it should be.
No, this is not the way it should be. There's a factual difference between illegally obtained evidence & false planted evidence, and this should be taken into account when determining someone's guilt.
The best way to discourage this practice is to BOTH disallow that evidence, AND to prosecute those responsible.
As long as the evidence is beyond question, there's no benefit to society to let a guilty-beyond-all-reasonable-doubt person go free. In fact, it's easy to argue that the current system lets the guilty person go free AND lets the illegal-evidence-gathering person remain in law enforcement and/or relatively unpunished. The best result for society is that the truly guilty be punished, in both cases.
Now, to prevent conflict of interest, I'd certainly agree that any agency responsible for monitoring & discouraging illegal-evidence gathering activities should be autonomous from the agency they are monitoring, and should have the legal authority to back up their duties, unlike the silly Citizen Review Boards & Internal Affairs departments which so many enforcement agencies use to cover their asses.
I dunno 'bout letting the truly-guilty go free (if there is no real doubt about the quality of the illegally-gathered evidence).
I always thought it might be a better idea to go ahead and use the evidence, but then go ahead and throw the book at all of the people who were responsible for collecting it illegally (at the very least blacklisting them from law enforcement, and with the possibility of jail time).
You'd only have to do that a few public times before most enforcers would only play by the book, unless they thought it was worth sacrificing themselves to take down somebody exceptionally bad for society.
Of course, there should be a special place in hell for those enforcers who make up evidence.
The way the US laws cover every aspect of life, the US attorney general is probably breaking half a dozen obscure laws just by sitting at his desk staring at a wall. Do you really expect somebody from another country to have a good idea of the obscure implications of US law when the people who live here don't have a clue about them either?
My guess is he made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that the US First Amendment means what it says, and that it would apply to him too. Too bad nobody told him that the First Amendment now only applies if you have more money than the people who want to shut you up.
While I might agree with the long-term goal of changing the copyright system, I don't think piracy is the way to fight the system.
There might not be any other way to get the system to change. As long as the people who are exploiting the system are making lots of money, they'll fight any attempt to change the system to a form where they can't - and because they're making lots of money, they have the resources to make such a fight really painful for their opponents. If you want to win, you need to cut off their revenue stream, and unauthorized copying is the most straightforward way of showing how ephemeral their "right to profit" really is.
However, pirates are not harming the lawmakers, but those authors who don't have other system to build upon.
I doubt the intent is to "hurt" the lawmakers (although I have a sudden mental vision of the RIAA filing suit against a Congresscritter for using Gnutella...nah, it'd never happen:-), just make it painfully obvious to the industry that society does not view their current business model as a legitimate good or service. If they're smart, they'll find an alternative.
As far as the authors are concerned, the only reason they don't have any alternatives is because the people running the system didn't WANT them to have any alternatives. When you've broken down the system, people will be able to find new alternatives, hopefully alternatives which give a little more direct control to the authors. (And for those who can't figure out how to make do with the new opportunities - well, they'd better read up on their Darwin!)
If this illegal copying causes less people to buy the book, it suddenly will no longer be feasible to write books, and people will be fully deprived of books.
Oh please, there'll still be plenty of content creation. There was plenty of content creation even when the means of distribution was a helluva lot tougher than it is now, and distribution to mass audiences is ridiculously easy nowadays.
The main difference is that individuals or entities won't be able to make HUGE amounts of money off a single piece of content - they'll either have to find sponsors and/or keep generating new content (i.e., providing a service) to make a continual revenue stream.
It's taking something that is not yours while depriving others of something they would otherwise have. In other words, it's stealing.
No, it's still not stealing. I'm sure the so-called "entrepreneurs" who want to be able to make money off legally-created monopolies on ideas want everyone to think that way, but it still doesn't make it true.
If somone earns some money, THEN you take it - THAT's stealing. You can't steal something which they didn't have in the first place.
Actually, I'm expecting this kind of tech to increase the opportunities for the right kind of actors - when the technology becomes such that they can link motion capture to these virtual "puppets", then actors & actresses will no longer be constrained by their bodies to play certain parts - they will be allowed to play whatever part they can adapt their speech & body language to.
Not only that, but they should be able to play those parts remotely, and in virtual environments, so people can be actors/actresses w/o ever leaving their basement, and they don't have to worry about the "casting couch" situations:-)
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I wonder if this stuff could be used to make "flat ribbon"-style speakers better & cheaper?
Most of the designs I've seen to capture wind power also tend to kill birds. Probably no biggie if you're talking pigeons, but it probably doesn't look too good if you take out a few spotted owls.
Hmm...I think you're missing the point of the concept "monopoly".
Although expensive (the original buildings were $750 million in 1973), that would be a helluva symbolic gesture: "So you knocked them down. Well guess what, a couple years later, they're right back up again. Chew on that!"
Well, if they up the security & the competence of the luggage handling, then I have no problem with checking in my usual carry-on luggage. The only reason I try to bring on everything that I'm going to use is because I've had too many episodes where my luggage has been misdirected, lost, or broken, and/or stuff has been stolen out of it (and you wouldn't believe what lengths many airlines will do to wiggle out of having to pay a claim).
:-).
Granted, after traveling a few times, I've got my week-long trip baggage down to a roll-on and a carry-on. I've seen other folks trying to bring on 4 or 5 full-size suit cases (usually a family who gives 2 suit cases to every kid
If you want to maintain civil liberties, then your "law enforcement" needs the _ACTIVE_ support of the society. At the very least, if almost everyone in society trusted their law enforcement agents, then those agencies would find that people would tend to come forward to help those agents do their jobs. The agents would have the equivalent of a stakeout from every person's window, and willing witnesses in every location - but all with the goodwill of the populace, thus limiting the erosion of civil liberties.
I don't see this happening with the current law enforcement policies, especially with regard to the drug war (and pedophiles, and now probably terrorism). The law enforcement agencies regard themselves as autonomous from the general population, specializing in law enforcement, who have lost the trust of large chunks of the population they're supposed to be protecting, and who therefore perceive that the only way they can "do their job" (in a short-term way) is to reduce the effectiveness of those "civil liberties" which get in their way.
Of course, this kind of attitude only reinforces the distrust of the populace: a vicious cycle.
Well, as a knee-jerk reaction it sounds pretty good, but given the regular reports of passengers becoming at the best verbally abusive of the attendants, not to mention those passengers which become physically abusive, it probably wouldn't make the airline employees feel too safe. (Or that crying baby in the seat over, for that matter.)
If there was some kind of "rationality" or anger management test before you were allowed to carry a firearm, that might be interesting.
Gee, there's a bit of a difference between maintaining a military to keep your country from getting blown to bits, and maintaining the legal illusion of "intellectual property" so that some big companies can make lots of money. If you think about it, maybe you'll be able to figure out what that difference is.
Even if they did choose to spend that $7 billion on AIDS drugs instead of a military, it would be a helluva lot more effective if it was spent actually manufacturing & distributing those AIDS drugs, instead of being used to line the pockets of the drug companies.
Actually, I understood true Athiesm to be more like: "There is no God, and you can't prove that there is, so I'm right. So there." Which sounds very similar to attitude you ascribed to religion :-)
What you describe as athiesm, I call Skepticism: "There may or may not be (a) God(s) (or Goddess(es)), but unless you can come up with some test which will provide strong evidence either way, anything you conclude based on the existence or non-existence of such being(s) is pretty much meaningless."
Not the most graceful way of stating things, but pretty much decribes my views on the matter.
Unfortunately, the claims in a patent are not ANDed together - they are ORed. From my eavesdropping on patent discussions, I understand it's pretty standard to make the 1st claim of the patent the most general (trying to catch everything including the kitchen sink), with each succeeding claim more specific. That way, if someone challenges the claims in your patent, they have to work their way down invalidating each claim in the list until they reach a claim specific enough so that they can't invalidate it.
Actually, I think that applies to encryption/decryption utilities (hardware and/or software), not an actual encrypted document itself.
Actually, Microsoft might be the only entity who can legally do this.
They might get a little more leeway from the justice system just 'cause they're not charging anyone for the product.
You're comparing cocaine smuggling with giving a talk about decrypting something?
I don't agree. That's like saying that punishing someone for suppressing free speech makes the Bill of Rights meaningless. I'd argue that allowing minor points of law to overrule the facts is a major factor in reducing the respect of the average citizen for the rationality of the law.
Again, I disagree. You seem to think that government agents act irrationally. If penalties are properly chosen, you _will_ discourage most government agents from illegally gathering evidence. If they are confronted with the choice, then they will have to decide whether the destruction of their lives is worth putting their suspect behind bars. If they're looking at an organized crime leader directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands who will otherwise walk on a technicality, they might decide that it was worth it. And you won't have scumbags laughing with their high-priced lawyers scott-free on their way out of the court.
No, this is not the way it should be. There's a factual difference between illegally obtained evidence & false planted evidence, and this should be taken into account when determining someone's guilt.
As long as the evidence is beyond question, there's no benefit to society to let a guilty-beyond-all-reasonable-doubt person go free. In fact, it's easy to argue that the current system lets the guilty person go free AND lets the illegal-evidence-gathering person remain in law enforcement and/or relatively unpunished. The best result for society is that the truly guilty be punished, in both cases.
Now, to prevent conflict of interest, I'd certainly agree that any agency responsible for monitoring & discouraging illegal-evidence gathering activities should be autonomous from the agency they are monitoring, and should have the legal authority to back up their duties, unlike the silly Citizen Review Boards & Internal Affairs departments which so many enforcement agencies use to cover their asses.
I dunno 'bout letting the truly-guilty go free (if there is no real doubt about the quality of the illegally-gathered evidence).
I always thought it might be a better idea to go ahead and use the evidence, but then go ahead and throw the book at all of the people who were responsible for collecting it illegally (at the very least blacklisting them from law enforcement, and with the possibility of jail time).
You'd only have to do that a few public times before most enforcers would only play by the book, unless they thought it was worth sacrificing themselves to take down somebody exceptionally bad for society.
Of course, there should be a special place in hell for those enforcers who make up evidence.
Damn, some of these guys ought to be submitted to the Junkyard Wars guys as possible "experts".
The way the US laws cover every aspect of life, the US attorney general is probably breaking half a dozen obscure laws just by sitting at his desk staring at a wall. Do you really expect somebody from another country to have a good idea of the obscure implications of US law when the people who live here don't have a clue about them either?
My guess is he made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that the US First Amendment means what it says, and that it would apply to him too. Too bad nobody told him that the First Amendment now only applies if you have more money than the people who want to shut you up.
There might not be any other way to get the system to change. As long as the people who are exploiting the system are making lots of money, they'll fight any attempt to change the system to a form where they can't - and because they're making lots of money, they have the resources to make such a fight really painful for their opponents. If you want to win, you need to cut off their revenue stream, and unauthorized copying is the most straightforward way of showing how ephemeral their "right to profit" really is.
I doubt the intent is to "hurt" the lawmakers (although I have a sudden mental vision of the RIAA filing suit against a Congresscritter for using Gnutella...nah, it'd never happen :-), just make it painfully obvious to the industry that society does not view their current business model as a legitimate good or service. If they're smart, they'll find an alternative.
As far as the authors are concerned, the only reason they don't have any alternatives is because the people running the system didn't WANT them to have any alternatives. When you've broken down the system, people will be able to find new alternatives, hopefully alternatives which give a little more direct control to the authors. (And for those who can't figure out how to make do with the new opportunities - well, they'd better read up on their Darwin!)
Oh please, there'll still be plenty of content creation. There was plenty of content creation even when the means of distribution was a helluva lot tougher than it is now, and distribution to mass audiences is ridiculously easy nowadays.
The main difference is that individuals or entities won't be able to make HUGE amounts of money off a single piece of content - they'll either have to find sponsors and/or keep generating new content (i.e., providing a service) to make a continual revenue stream.
No, it's still not stealing. I'm sure the so-called "entrepreneurs" who want to be able to make money off legally-created monopolies on ideas want everyone to think that way, but it still doesn't make it true.
If somone earns some money, THEN you take it - THAT's stealing. You can't steal something which they didn't have in the first place.
And you keep "missing" the point that copying something is NOT stealing - it's COPYING. It's illegal, yes, but it's illegal COPYING.
Or more surfaces.
Actually, I'm expecting this kind of tech to increase the opportunities for the right kind of actors - when the technology becomes such that they can link motion capture to these virtual "puppets", then actors & actresses will no longer be constrained by their bodies to play certain parts - they will be allowed to play whatever part they can adapt their speech & body language to.
:-)
Not only that, but they should be able to play those parts remotely, and in virtual environments, so people can be actors/actresses w/o ever leaving their basement, and they don't have to worry about the "casting couch" situations
No problem - then you just say that he's so good, you can't afford him anymore & fire his ass :-)
Unless you can get EVERYONE to wear this stuff, you'll just be making yourself stand out & will be more likely to get close, human surveillance.