I have got a few people to use linux this way even, I have outright refused to install a copy of windows for them without a valid key (not because I believe it is worth the licence cost by any means) but I am for one unwilling to break the law installing inferior software illegally, granted they were both people who used their computers not for games etc, one used it for their business accounts, letters etc and found openoffice on linux better than what they had, the other one just browsed the web and used e-mail and was more than happy with firefox anyway so they were kinda easy conversions. But the point is true, if the technical type people stopped aiding people to commit piracy and supported open source none pirate alternatives instead then it could go along way.
The only thing I notice about the RIAA document is how almost every one of their so called signs of an unauthorized recording also happen to be signs of a small independent artist who is not signed up with a large record company to produce their recordings, I have bought several CD's from such artists in the past that were produced using CD-R's, with home printed labels on paper etc etc.
Of course in the eyes of the RIAA these recordings are just as illegal, after all if they are not produced by one of their members it cannot possibly be legal right?
I've done similar myself with Sky+ boxes (They have a USB port on the back of them but the software does not allow them to be used for much) I modified the firmware on mine to allow it to be used for connection and control by the PC, including transferring recordings (decoded) to the PC. Granted I managed to brick two sky+ boxes while developing it, and 1 out of the 10 others I tried to upgrade for people to have the same functionality (although I made it clear this was a risk before attempting the process). But I am not going to sue sky over it, nor am I going to sue them if they change their system such that my modified firmware no longer works on their transmissions (they normally update automatically but naturally I disabled that given the modifications).
I just don't understand people complaining when they do such things and it goes wrong, none of these sort of procedures are simple or something one can do by accident, they are something you do deliberately and knowingly. It's fun to experiment, but the consequences are your own.
That is arguable, and nobody could complain about it if they did no matter how much they wanted something that was in the update, after all they were clearly informed that they would be violating their warranty by modifying the software, as such when they went ahead and did so anyway apple had absolutely 0 requirement to offer them further software support (which of course includes upgrades of any kind). I am sure someone would still start moaning but then I am sure the response would be a more resounding tough luck than there seams to be right now, if anything apple would have been acting to protect customers who tampered with the devices by refusing to allow upgrading.
Mobile phones are not the only ones using this tactic. VOIP providers are actually engaging in the same behavior in cases, when you take their offers of free/subsidized hardware generally of course and one is still free to go buy any VOIP compatible phone/adapter which is sold directly and use it on any carrier, having said that the same is the case with GSM compatible cell phones you are free to go out and buy unlocked GSM compatible cell phones if you wish.
Would be nice to see one thing change with mobile phones though, I would like to see more stores selling the devices which are available as handset only as such, and they are available nokia for instance will happily cell you a phone from their online store I believe, I can't think of a high street store near me that will sell you a handset as is though the problem here is the lack of the choice for those who want to walk into a store and buy a handset as is with mobiles, most computer stores sell unrestricted VOIP phones as hardware only so why not for mobile phones?
Why precisely does that make locking (at least in the current sense of it being none removable) a necessity, perhaps I am confused here but it seams to me you clearly mentioned that a contract was signed, a binding legal contract right? Seams to me there is a solution for subsidized phones, what would be wrong with have the following in the contract?
Termination Should the customer choose to terminate this contract before the end of the contract term of , a fee of will be applied at which time your unlocking code will be provided. The unlocking code will be released free of charge for terminations after the end of .
Now if that was the content of these contracts I would find it reasonable, they would simply be upholding their contractual rights via technological means without impairing the rights of the consumer, in many ways it would be like most of the agreements for new DSL service provision in the UK, generally if the user accepts a free activation (the telcos charge the ISP for this £60 for BT for instance) and/or free hardware many isp's will permit the user to leave before the twelve month contract period if they compensate the ISP for the cost of the subsidized activation and hardware (not all, but this is where reading the contract comes in). However after the end of the contract term one can migrate or terminate without cost, or having to jump through technological hoops that are protecting a contractual right which is no longer valid.
However I do not think that even a hardware subsidy should force someone into remaining with a carrier after the end of their agreed contract term or loose the use of the hardware (which remember the end customer has paid a share of as well, and has met the suppliers terms for their contribution to the cost).
I have yet to see any evidence to prove that the firmware upgrade had the intent to brick devices which had been modified, it is most certainly possible to release a software update for a product which is tested and works fine on the default software but may not be compatible with arbitrary software, especially when that software uses flaws, bugs or undocumented features in order to preform its function, this is not like this software used some kind of API apple provided for the purpose of writing third party software which they failed to ensure the new firmware was backwards compatible with. It seams to me that one is assuming facts not in evidence here and ignoring other realistic possible explanations for what occurred.
If someone begins tampering with things in ways beyond their design specifications then there is always an element of risk involved, the manufacturer sold the device designed for use with software specifically designed and tested for compatibility outside of that they are not responsible for anything that may occur. If anything it was rather foolish of the users who have bricked their phones to install new firmware without first ensuring that their own software modifications were still compatible.
Of course if there is absolute and certain proof that apple took deliberate action to render these devices unusable (like your car analogy) then I would completely agree they were in the wrong. However I don't see any proof of that, only suspicions and assumptions, effect does not prove the intent of an action.
I can just see people crushing them up and putting them into a gel cap or something, would still defeat the time release mechanism if any in the tablet and opioid are generally plenty active enough orally (granted not as quick to take effect as insufflation but would still work).
When will those coming up with all these ideas lean that nothing is going to stop people who willingly choose to enjoy drugs, every method they have come up with has ultimately been defeated in time, from messing with the pharmaceuticals by the addition of more toxic drugs (Acetaminophen etc, which is in fact not such a great idea for chronic use either, like for example in a patient with long term pain) which can be removed by something as simple as a cold water extraction
Mind you, they can always rely on modern philosophy of prohibition, that worked so well the first time right? and unsurprisingly works just a badly this time round. How ridiculous is it to have a law which creates crime across areas well beyond the scope of the law itself from burglary to murder, all in an attempt to stop a few people choosing a drug which doesn't fit a ridiculous narrow view of what is "acceptable" or are considered "dangerous" like alcohol and tobacco don't kill people. The idiocy would be funny if the effects were not so devastating on the economy and society in general.
Well in the UK VAT currently stands at 17.5%
Income Tax:
Starting rate 10% £0 - £2,150
Basic rate 22% £2,151 - £33,300
Higher rate 40% over £33,300
Fuel tax adds currently up to be 81.5% of the total cost of fuel (~540%)
I had to get the fuel tax figures by google as I don't have a car so I didn't know them off the top of my head (I could afford to buy a car fairly easily if I wanted it to sit on the drive hoping one day I could afford to fuel it)
I do not think that the current system of copper pair POTS telephony prohibits the availability of a reliable 911 service, lets say everything did come through one fibre optic cable (TV, Phone, Internet) and you thus only had an IP address (or several) for your single fibre optic connection, and you use a device attached to that network to dial 911 (or the emergency service number in your respective country) that information would still pass through that fibre to the provider of that fibre optic connection, they would know precisely whom that IP address was allocated to at that moment in time, along with their name and address, so surely it would not be any massive technological hurdle to forward that information on to the emergency services control centre with the IP address, thus when the operator receives the call their system could display the name and address of the originating IP which is I believe much the same thing that happens now with a phone number. I really don't see the problem here, or am I missing something?
Just a question here, but why 16 years? where is that number derived from?
The only analysis I have seen which attempts to mathematically derive the optimum copyright term is this one which states the optimum is 14 years, and in fact is related to the costs of producing both originals (manuscripts and authorised copies etc) and copies (unauthorised) in the sense that as those costs drop so does the optimum copyright term in general.
It says from future revenues, revenues are the gross income (sales and any other none sales incomes they may have also). So unless I am mistaken it is the significantly larger sum as (revenue > profit) where (profit = revenue - costs)
If I am not mistaken from what I have read the disastrous prohibition law on alcohol was repealed at least in part due to increasing numbers of juries refusing to convict on crimes related to the alcohol control laws possibly up to 60% of the time [1]. Of course the fact that juries these days are not allowed to be informed of their right of Jury Nullification, one could argue that it is in fact a duty, given that the power of Jury Nullification provides a check on the state where unjust laws are made, of course the likelihood is that refusing to allow juries to be made aware of this right is precisely because of the fact it limits the power of the state to enforce unjust laws.
FYI, Someone who has a problem with the drug laws in sweeden or any other country is not necessarily a drug user or "Pro Drug", there are numerous other reasons why drug laws based on prohibition are inherently flawed laws, including the obvious fact that in a free market where there is a demand and willingness to pay high prices someone will step in to supply it, that organised crime in itself creates far more harm to society than the drugs themselves ever could, and that high prices leave addicts in a situation where they are are forced to commit crimes to afford prices inflated by up to 3000% of the costs of production, transport even seizure. That is before anyone even looks at the human rights perspective that one has the right to harm themselves as much as they like provided they do not force harm onto anyone else, one has to remember here that even suicide is legal in most places of the world (although it was outlawed in some places that since repealed that law). Anyway end of that rant, there is plenty of discussion on this topic on sites like this if anyone is interested.
On topic, It seams to me that the facts supporting the merits of a copyright law as it currently stands are quite lacking, especially the often used shout of **AA that "Infringement harms content producers"/"Infringement costs the content producers x millions of dollars a year" etc, it seams to me that these arguments are based on a logical fallacy, namely that persons who commit Infringement would have purchased the information were an Infringing copy not available, which is clearly false, sometimes people who obtain an infringing copy would simply not access the information at all were it not available.
I read an article which suggested that the optimal copyright term is 14 years, there is only one reason I can think of where copyright really would be needed and that would be for example to prevent a person call them alice who has written a manuscript for a book, they show the manuscript to bob who is a publisher, bob copies the manuscript then returns the original to alice refusing to publish the book, however bob then publishes the manuscript in his name not giving any compensation to alice. Although it seams to me that such could be dealt with through the use of a Non-Disclosure Agreement or similar instead of by copyright law.
Other than that I do not really see the need for the copyrighting of information especially music, theatre plays, movies, all three have a valid revenue stream through performance (provision of a service, ie is more than simply information). Even from software money could be made without copyright by the provision of services to users (technical support, online services etc), or by the provision of other materials (physical media, manuals, packaged sets including media/manuals and/or other items). Books obviously have the potential to earn money through sales of physical books. I have heard some argue that physical media sales without copyright could be dented by counterfeit goods, but to the best of my knowledge counterfeiting would violate other laws, trade descriptions for one (namely in this case deceiving buyers into believing the product they are buying was a product of another company).
If this does mean that the amount of money made by content producers decreases then that would simply prove that the free market disagrees with the producers assessment of value, and if that is the case then the law should definitely not be used to artificially inflate the market price of goods, if it were used to this end then it would be no different that price-fixing which is illegal under the anti-trust laws of most every country.
Or, perhaps if the suit were not skin tight the air inside with the evaporated sweat ie H2O(g) could be drawn into a pack of some kind on the back and into the condenser unit mounted externally on the back of the suit and then the heated H2O(l) produced could be cooled perhaps through a radiator on the rear of such a backpack type device. Of course power for the condenser would be needed, but a device that produced the power for the condenser from the normal energy created by a person walking could perhaps power that.
And yes, it does not defy thermodynamics to move more heat energy than the energy used by the device, because heat dissipates on its own, one only needs to expend energy to optimise the thermal gradient in some way to increase the thermal transfer while using comparatively little energy.
The human body to some degrees uses a system to decrease its own requirements for heating energy, the limbs have a large radiation area and cause a fair amount of the bodies heat radiation (Generally in most climates humans evolved in we are warmer than our surroundings) the limbs however can usually survive a little more temperature changes than our core organs (especially the brain) thus the blood vessels running into the limbs run very close to those running out of the organs producing a counter current flow, warming the blood returning to the core and cooling the blood entering the limb (which I understand is the basic concept behind a heat exchanger they use is some modern eco buildings to provide an input of fresh air while minimising heat loss unless I am mistaken, and also unless I am wrong these devices consume moderate energy relative to the amount of heat energy they transfer) thus the reason why such a system evolved in so many species in biology, and got adapted to human technology, because it works and the benefits (energy saved) outweigh the costs (energy spent).
Of course I may be misunderstanding the concepts especially as I admit to not being familiar with the "Dune" you refer to.
The only other way would be some form of active heat pump in a pack on the back of the unit, perhaps a thermoelectric cooler or something, I have no idea what the energy requirements for such a unit would be however or weather it would be practical to produce such a device and a suitable store of electrical energy for a practical length of time whilst keeping the unit within reasonable weight limits for a person to carry it and still be able to work.
Unless the energy needed would be alot less than I imagine it would be then batteries would most likely be too heavy, perhaps some method could be found to utilise the energy output of the person inside to either fully power or supplement the energy needs of the cooling device, perhaps something which generates some of the energy from movement would help, given also that heat output tends to be at its highest when the body is preforming work than when it is at rest.
Or like in my case (as a publisher) by a user who happens to disagree with the content of your site and decides the best way to deal with that is to attack the revenue stream that is funding your hosting costs.
In this case the attack worked, prior to the attack I was averaging around 1,000 clicks per month legitimately and thus gaining reasonable revenues which paid for hosting, domain registration and various other services (such as occasional professional design services to help with certain things I am less skilled at), until one evening there is an extremely strong worded scathing comment written by some anonymous user, the next morning I wake up to discover 1,896 clicks in one night which all originated from the same IP as that comment (thanks google for giving that info), my account by this point had been blocked.
I immediately contacted google, explained the situations, provided server logs and other relevant info re the comment and the massive amount of traffic generated by that IP during the night on my own site including raw server logs of this general traffic also. Google then provided me with their statistical information on clicks in that time period not raw data however which I can understand on privacy grounds (it would have included legitimate users also, I had removed data not relating to the suspect IP in my own logs I sent out of respect for my legitimate users who had committed no crime which is what this amounts to). Their representative even agreed that it was quite clear to them this was a case of a click fraud attack aimed at causing my disqualification, however they would not even consider reinstatement even under any kind of trial basis which eventually lead to me being forced to abandon the site on financial grounds not being able to find another system able to generate such reasonable revenues that covered the costs, with acceptable ad formats which were not overly obtrusive.
So to suggest they do not take click fraud serious is not something I can believe, with a one strike and you are out no questions asked policy irrespective of evidence proving the publishers innocence when any click fraud of any description is detected by their system resulting in a lifetime ban from the scheme seams to me like extremely stringent anti click fraud policies to me, too stringent in reality when clear evidence of innocence on the part of the publisher and evidence the fraud was actually an attack on the publisher and their funding mechanism for their website with the intention of making it impossible to keep the website online is beyond unreasonable.
Not to mention the $612.45 in legitimate click revenues they withheld and and dropped into their own coffers which is in itself wrong in my opinion especially when they themselves agree that the publisher was the victim of a targeted attack they should have at least had the decency to settle the account for all the legitimate clicks.
There is a point at which biologists define a species as being a new species, it is the point at which two groups (of one ancestor) evolve to the point their genertic differences prohibit them from having fetile offspring if they were to attempt a mating between the two, think Horse + Donkey = Ass (Infertile), thus a Horse is not a Donkey and vice versa due to that fact although at some point they probably came from the same genetic ancestors in some way, something caused their gene pool to sperate.
I think in music maybe it also goes that some people may download things that they like and either buy that or in future consider buying other similar works, and I am pretty sure this would seriously dent the published figures of such as MPAA and RIAA if they were ever to include in their estimates some concept of the sales gains that pirates may have given them indirectly by enabling people to try the goods first.
And how much exactly do these companies throw away on some copy protection that lasts all of a week or so once it is applied to some released product, not saying the pircay does not take anything but they must burn even more money by writing basically useless and of course end user irritating copy protections that seam to have the effect of making life harder for legitimate software buyers and needlessly expensive for the software publishers, and do nothing to make it harder for the criminals at least not when some clever kid cracks your protection
I personally don't know where they get their idea that terrorists make their income from piracy, I might be more inclined to believe such a comment made about drugs myself than piracy, I would have thought the former was an alot more lucretive faster than piracy personally.
I guess that comment is just another scare tactic, I suppose they think that claiming links to terrorism may stop people buying pirate software.
I am of the thought that doing this will remove fear at the genetic level, effectivly removing the instinct not so much the ability to make a rational decision, if you lacked the instinct to detect hunger but were raised to eat 3 square meals a day you would learn to cope with the condition using a learned responce, a factor of higher intelligence. Of course this is not as effective as having the real instict.
Taking a view on a more realistic level which does exist people like myself and others with Autism/Aspergers Syndrome have a lack of the genetic pre defined instictive interpretations of reading emotion etc, however we learn to attempt to use rational thought to gain understanding of such things, not as good as having the instinctive method, having said that with emotion it is another story, applying logic and reasoning to emotional behaviours does not really work as emotion is by nature irrational.
Unless they come up with some developments in developing of artifical viruses desinged to replace the particular gene with the same mutation, this is how natural viruses take over a cell to produce viral agents from them
Slashdot Mirror
I have got a few people to use linux this way even, I have outright refused to install a copy of windows for them without a valid key (not because I believe it is worth the licence cost by any means) but I am for one unwilling to break the law installing inferior software illegally, granted they were both people who used their computers not for games etc, one used it for their business accounts, letters etc and found openoffice on linux better than what they had, the other one just browsed the web and used e-mail and was more than happy with firefox anyway so they were kinda easy conversions. But the point is true, if the technical type people stopped aiding people to commit piracy and supported open source none pirate alternatives instead then it could go along way.
Actually it is not just the UK, it is the EU restrictions on carry on luggage and effects all flights leaving from EU member states.
The only thing I notice about the RIAA document is how almost every one of their so called signs of an unauthorized recording also happen to be signs of a small independent artist who is not signed up with a large record company to produce their recordings, I have bought several CD's from such artists in the past that were produced using CD-R's, with home printed labels on paper etc etc.
Of course in the eyes of the RIAA these recordings are just as illegal, after all if they are not produced by one of their members it cannot possibly be legal right?
I've done similar myself with Sky+ boxes (They have a USB port on the back of them but the software does not allow them to be used for much) I modified the firmware on mine to allow it to be used for connection and control by the PC, including transferring recordings (decoded) to the PC. Granted I managed to brick two sky+ boxes while developing it, and 1 out of the 10 others I tried to upgrade for people to have the same functionality (although I made it clear this was a risk before attempting the process). But I am not going to sue sky over it, nor am I going to sue them if they change their system such that my modified firmware no longer works on their transmissions (they normally update automatically but naturally I disabled that given the modifications).
I just don't understand people complaining when they do such things and it goes wrong, none of these sort of procedures are simple or something one can do by accident, they are something you do deliberately and knowingly. It's fun to experiment, but the consequences are your own.
That is arguable, and nobody could complain about it if they did no matter how much they wanted something that was in the update, after all they were clearly informed that they would be violating their warranty by modifying the software, as such when they went ahead and did so anyway apple had absolutely 0 requirement to offer them further software support (which of course includes upgrades of any kind). I am sure someone would still start moaning but then I am sure the response would be a more resounding tough luck than there seams to be right now, if anything apple would have been acting to protect customers who tampered with the devices by refusing to allow upgrading.
Mobile phones are not the only ones using this tactic. VOIP providers are actually engaging in the same behavior in cases, when you take their offers of free/subsidized hardware generally of course and one is still free to go buy any VOIP compatible phone/adapter which is sold directly and use it on any carrier, having said that the same is the case with GSM compatible cell phones you are free to go out and buy unlocked GSM compatible cell phones if you wish.
Would be nice to see one thing change with mobile phones though, I would like to see more stores selling the devices which are available as handset only as such, and they are available nokia for instance will happily cell you a phone from their online store I believe, I can't think of a high street store near me that will sell you a handset as is though the problem here is the lack of the choice for those who want to walk into a store and buy a handset as is with mobiles, most computer stores sell unrestricted VOIP phones as hardware only so why not for mobile phones?
Why precisely does that make locking (at least in the current sense of it being none removable) a necessity, perhaps I am confused here but it seams to me you clearly mentioned that a contract was signed, a binding legal contract right? Seams to me there is a solution for subsidized phones, what would be wrong with have the following in the contract?
Termination
Should the customer choose to terminate this contract before the end of the contract term of , a fee of will be applied at which time your unlocking code will be provided. The unlocking code will be released free of charge for terminations after the end of .
Now if that was the content of these contracts I would find it reasonable, they would simply be upholding their contractual rights via technological means without impairing the rights of the consumer, in many ways it would be like most of the agreements for new DSL service provision in the UK, generally if the user accepts a free activation (the telcos charge the ISP for this £60 for BT for instance) and/or free hardware many isp's will permit the user to leave before the twelve month contract period if they compensate the ISP for the cost of the subsidized activation and hardware (not all, but this is where reading the contract comes in). However after the end of the contract term one can migrate or terminate without cost, or having to jump through technological hoops that are protecting a contractual right which is no longer valid.
However I do not think that even a hardware subsidy should force someone into remaining with a carrier after the end of their agreed contract term or loose the use of the hardware (which remember the end customer has paid a share of as well, and has met the suppliers terms for their contribution to the cost).
I have yet to see any evidence to prove that the firmware upgrade had the intent to brick devices which had been modified, it is most certainly possible to release a software update for a product which is tested and works fine on the default software but may not be compatible with arbitrary software, especially when that software uses flaws, bugs or undocumented features in order to preform its function, this is not like this software used some kind of API apple provided for the purpose of writing third party software which they failed to ensure the new firmware was backwards compatible with. It seams to me that one is assuming facts not in evidence here and ignoring other realistic possible explanations for what occurred.
If someone begins tampering with things in ways beyond their design specifications then there is always an element of risk involved, the manufacturer sold the device designed for use with software specifically designed and tested for compatibility outside of that they are not responsible for anything that may occur. If anything it was rather foolish of the users who have bricked their phones to install new firmware without first ensuring that their own software modifications were still compatible.
Of course if there is absolute and certain proof that apple took deliberate action to render these devices unusable (like your car analogy) then I would completely agree they were in the wrong. However I don't see any proof of that, only suspicions and assumptions, effect does not prove the intent of an action.
I can just see people crushing them up and putting them into a gel cap or something, would still defeat the time release mechanism if any in the tablet and opioid are generally plenty active enough orally (granted not as quick to take effect as insufflation but would still work).
When will those coming up with all these ideas lean that nothing is going to stop people who willingly choose to enjoy drugs, every method they have come up with has ultimately been defeated in time, from messing with the pharmaceuticals by the addition of more toxic drugs (Acetaminophen etc, which is in fact not such a great idea for chronic use either, like for example in a patient with long term pain) which can be removed by something as simple as a cold water extraction
Mind you, they can always rely on modern philosophy of prohibition, that worked so well the first time right? and unsurprisingly works just a badly this time round. How ridiculous is it to have a law which creates crime across areas well beyond the scope of the law itself from burglary to murder, all in an attempt to stop a few people choosing a drug which doesn't fit a ridiculous narrow view of what is "acceptable" or are considered "dangerous" like alcohol and tobacco don't kill people. The idiocy would be funny if the effects were not so devastating on the economy and society in general.
Err, sorry yes I did forget about that.
Well in the UK VAT currently stands at 17.5% Income Tax: Starting rate 10% £0 - £2,150 Basic rate 22% £2,151 - £33,300 Higher rate 40% over £33,300 Fuel tax adds currently up to be 81.5% of the total cost of fuel (~540%) I had to get the fuel tax figures by google as I don't have a car so I didn't know them off the top of my head (I could afford to buy a car fairly easily if I wanted it to sit on the drive hoping one day I could afford to fuel it)
I do not think that the current system of copper pair POTS telephony prohibits the availability of a reliable 911 service, lets say everything did come through one fibre optic cable (TV, Phone, Internet) and you thus only had an IP address (or several) for your single fibre optic connection, and you use a device attached to that network to dial 911 (or the emergency service number in your respective country) that information would still pass through that fibre to the provider of that fibre optic connection, they would know precisely whom that IP address was allocated to at that moment in time, along with their name and address, so surely it would not be any massive technological hurdle to forward that information on to the emergency services control centre with the IP address, thus when the operator receives the call their system could display the name and address of the originating IP which is I believe much the same thing that happens now with a phone number. I really don't see the problem here, or am I missing something?
Just a question here, but why 16 years? where is that number derived from? The only analysis I have seen which attempts to mathematically derive the optimum copyright term is this one which states the optimum is 14 years, and in fact is related to the costs of producing both originals (manuscripts and authorised copies etc) and copies (unauthorised) in the sense that as those costs drop so does the optimum copyright term in general.
It says from future revenues, revenues are the gross income (sales and any other none sales incomes they may have also). So unless I am mistaken it is the significantly larger sum as (revenue > profit) where (profit = revenue - costs)
If I am not mistaken from what I have read the disastrous prohibition law on alcohol was repealed at least in part due to increasing numbers of juries refusing to convict on crimes related to the alcohol control laws possibly up to 60% of the time [1]. Of course the fact that juries these days are not allowed to be informed of their right of Jury Nullification, one could argue that it is in fact a duty, given that the power of Jury Nullification provides a check on the state where unjust laws are made, of course the likelihood is that refusing to allow juries to be made aware of this right is precisely because of the fact it limits the power of the state to enforce unjust laws.
FYI, Someone who has a problem with the drug laws in sweeden or any other country is not necessarily a drug user or "Pro Drug", there are numerous other reasons why drug laws based on prohibition are inherently flawed laws, including the obvious fact that in a free market where there is a demand and willingness to pay high prices someone will step in to supply it, that organised crime in itself creates far more harm to society than the drugs themselves ever could, and that high prices leave addicts in a situation where they are are forced to commit crimes to afford prices inflated by up to 3000% of the costs of production, transport even seizure. That is before anyone even looks at the human rights perspective that one has the right to harm themselves as much as they like provided they do not force harm onto anyone else, one has to remember here that even suicide is legal in most places of the world (although it was outlawed in some places that since repealed that law). Anyway end of that rant, there is plenty of discussion on this topic on sites like this if anyone is interested.
On topic, It seams to me that the facts supporting the merits of a copyright law as it currently stands are quite lacking, especially the often used shout of **AA that "Infringement harms content producers"/"Infringement costs the content producers x millions of dollars a year" etc, it seams to me that these arguments are based on a logical fallacy, namely that persons who commit Infringement would have purchased the information were an Infringing copy not available, which is clearly false, sometimes people who obtain an infringing copy would simply not access the information at all were it not available.
I read an article which suggested that the optimal copyright term is 14 years, there is only one reason I can think of where copyright really would be needed and that would be for example to prevent a person call them alice who has written a manuscript for a book, they show the manuscript to bob who is a publisher, bob copies the manuscript then returns the original to alice refusing to publish the book, however bob then publishes the manuscript in his name not giving any compensation to alice. Although it seams to me that such could be dealt with through the use of a Non-Disclosure Agreement or similar instead of by copyright law.
Other than that I do not really see the need for the copyrighting of information especially music, theatre plays, movies, all three have a valid revenue stream through performance (provision of a service, ie is more than simply information). Even from software money could be made without copyright by the provision of services to users (technical support, online services etc), or by the provision of other materials (physical media, manuals, packaged sets including media/manuals and/or other items). Books obviously have the potential to earn money through sales of physical books. I have heard some argue that physical media sales without copyright could be dented by counterfeit goods, but to the best of my knowledge counterfeiting would violate other laws, trade descriptions for one (namely in this case deceiving buyers into believing the product they are buying was a product of another company).
If this does mean that the amount of money made by content producers decreases then that would simply prove that the free market disagrees with the producers assessment of value, and if that is the case then the law should definitely not be used to artificially inflate the market price of goods, if it were used to this end then it would be no different that price-fixing which is illegal under the anti-trust laws of most every country.
Or, perhaps if the suit were not skin tight the air inside with the evaporated sweat ie H2O(g) could be drawn into a pack of some kind on the back and into the condenser unit mounted externally on the back of the suit and then the heated H2O(l) produced could be cooled perhaps through a radiator on the rear of such a backpack type device. Of course power for the condenser would be needed, but a device that produced the power for the condenser from the normal energy created by a person walking could perhaps power that. And yes, it does not defy thermodynamics to move more heat energy than the energy used by the device, because heat dissipates on its own, one only needs to expend energy to optimise the thermal gradient in some way to increase the thermal transfer while using comparatively little energy. The human body to some degrees uses a system to decrease its own requirements for heating energy, the limbs have a large radiation area and cause a fair amount of the bodies heat radiation (Generally in most climates humans evolved in we are warmer than our surroundings) the limbs however can usually survive a little more temperature changes than our core organs (especially the brain) thus the blood vessels running into the limbs run very close to those running out of the organs producing a counter current flow, warming the blood returning to the core and cooling the blood entering the limb (which I understand is the basic concept behind a heat exchanger they use is some modern eco buildings to provide an input of fresh air while minimising heat loss unless I am mistaken, and also unless I am wrong these devices consume moderate energy relative to the amount of heat energy they transfer) thus the reason why such a system evolved in so many species in biology, and got adapted to human technology, because it works and the benefits (energy saved) outweigh the costs (energy spent). Of course I may be misunderstanding the concepts especially as I admit to not being familiar with the "Dune" you refer to.
The only other way would be some form of active heat pump in a pack on the back of the unit, perhaps a thermoelectric cooler or something, I have no idea what the energy requirements for such a unit would be however or weather it would be practical to produce such a device and a suitable store of electrical energy for a practical length of time whilst keeping the unit within reasonable weight limits for a person to carry it and still be able to work. Unless the energy needed would be alot less than I imagine it would be then batteries would most likely be too heavy, perhaps some method could be found to utilise the energy output of the person inside to either fully power or supplement the energy needs of the cooling device, perhaps something which generates some of the energy from movement would help, given also that heat output tends to be at its highest when the body is preforming work than when it is at rest.
Or like in my case (as a publisher) by a user who happens to disagree with the content of your site and decides the best way to deal with that is to attack the revenue stream that is funding your hosting costs.
In this case the attack worked, prior to the attack I was averaging around 1,000 clicks per month legitimately and thus gaining reasonable revenues which paid for hosting, domain registration and various other services (such as occasional professional design services to help with certain things I am less skilled at), until one evening there is an extremely strong worded scathing comment written by some anonymous user, the next morning I wake up to discover 1,896 clicks in one night which all originated from the same IP as that comment (thanks google for giving that info), my account by this point had been blocked.
I immediately contacted google, explained the situations, provided server logs and other relevant info re the comment and the massive amount of traffic generated by that IP during the night on my own site including raw server logs of this general traffic also. Google then provided me with their statistical information on clicks in that time period not raw data however which I can understand on privacy grounds (it would have included legitimate users also, I had removed data not relating to the suspect IP in my own logs I sent out of respect for my legitimate users who had committed no crime which is what this amounts to). Their representative even agreed that it was quite clear to them this was a case of a click fraud attack aimed at causing my disqualification, however they would not even consider reinstatement even under any kind of trial basis which eventually lead to me being forced to abandon the site on financial grounds not being able to find another system able to generate such reasonable revenues that covered the costs, with acceptable ad formats which were not overly obtrusive.
So to suggest they do not take click fraud serious is not something I can believe, with a one strike and you are out no questions asked policy irrespective of evidence proving the publishers innocence when any click fraud of any description is detected by their system resulting in a lifetime ban from the scheme seams to me like extremely stringent anti click fraud policies to me, too stringent in reality when clear evidence of innocence on the part of the publisher and evidence the fraud was actually an attack on the publisher and their funding mechanism for their website with the intention of making it impossible to keep the website online is beyond unreasonable.
Not to mention the $612.45 in legitimate click revenues they withheld and and dropped into their own coffers which is in itself wrong in my opinion especially when they themselves agree that the publisher was the victim of a targeted attack they should have at least had the decency to settle the account for all the legitimate clicks.
There is a point at which biologists define a species as being a new species, it is the point at which two groups (of one ancestor) evolve to the point their genertic differences prohibit them from having fetile offspring if they were to attempt a mating between the two, think Horse + Donkey = Ass (Infertile), thus a Horse is not a Donkey and vice versa due to that fact although at some point they probably came from the same genetic ancestors in some way, something caused their gene pool to sperate.
I think in music maybe it also goes that some people may download things that they like and either buy that or in future consider buying other similar works, and I am pretty sure this would seriously dent the published figures of such as MPAA and RIAA if they were ever to include in their estimates some concept of the sales gains that pirates may have given them indirectly by enabling people to try the goods first.
And how much exactly do these companies throw away on some copy protection that lasts all of a week or so once it is applied to some released product, not saying the pircay does not take anything but they must burn even more money by writing basically useless and of course end user irritating copy protections that seam to have the effect of making life harder for legitimate software buyers and needlessly expensive for the software publishers, and do nothing to make it harder for the criminals at least not when some clever kid cracks your protection
I personally don't know where they get their idea that terrorists make their income from piracy, I might be more inclined to believe such a comment made about drugs myself than piracy, I would have thought the former was an alot more lucretive faster than piracy personally.
I guess that comment is just another scare tactic, I suppose they think that claiming links to terrorism may stop people buying pirate software.
I am of the thought that doing this will remove fear at the genetic level, effectivly removing the instinct not so much the ability to make a rational decision, if you lacked the instinct to detect hunger but were raised to eat 3 square meals a day you would learn to cope with the condition using a learned responce, a factor of higher intelligence. Of course this is not as effective as having the real instict. Taking a view on a more realistic level which does exist people like myself and others with Autism/Aspergers Syndrome have a lack of the genetic pre defined instictive interpretations of reading emotion etc, however we learn to attempt to use rational thought to gain understanding of such things, not as good as having the instinctive method, having said that with emotion it is another story, applying logic and reasoning to emotional behaviours does not really work as emotion is by nature irrational.
Unless they come up with some developments in developing of artifical viruses desinged to replace the particular gene with the same mutation, this is how natural viruses take over a cell to produce viral agents from them