Are you sure that the amount of fuel necessary for a *fusion* powered drive (say something like an Ion drive or a VASIMR) to get 4 or 5 light years is impractical? There's an aweful lot of fusion energy available in a couple thousand pounds of Boron-11, or maybe Deuterium. Of course, we don't currently have a reactor which is relatively small and lightweight and which can also do p-11B (or D-D) fusion, but there is research going on right now on the Bussard Polywell reactor, to see if it might be viable. Anyhow, my point is, ignoring current reactor technology limits, but instead just looking at the energy potential of a fusion reaction, are you sure the fuel requirements are still impractical?
Is there a possibility that the ship can gather additional fuel (deuterium, perhaps - I don't think there's much Boron available in free space) from the Ort cloud or Interstellar Medium, en-route? Or, perhaps there might be Boron sources in asteroids/comets/dwarf planets where a ship could refuel?
"Assange maintains that 'the rest of the world's media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists is able to release more of that type of information [classified documents] than the rest of the world press combined.'"
In some specific regards he's right. He and his staff take on some personal risks of reprisals, but I think the reason he is doing what other sources of Journalism aren't, is that he *can*. Unfortunately, most of the world media is either State-controlled, or owned by for-profit corporations, which means in the first case that they aren't allowed to report such things, by the government which controls them, or in the second case, aren't as willing to take the risks, because it might hurt profits.
I think only a a relatively small, non-profit, or possibly, privately owned, organization can actually engage in such risky journalism, because they have basically nothing to lose (well, some of the staff could lose their personal property and/or go to jail).
Don't get me wrong, The Daily Show is great, but it's not really journalism - they don't break any stories, send reporters out into the field, etc. It's more editorial or commentary on the news. All of the new clips they show on the program come from other news sources.
What, wait, you're assuming every star system is only about 4 light years from it's neighbor *and* that every star system has a useful/suitable planetary type for the type of life that civilization is composed of? Sure, you might be able to cross the 4 light years to Alpha Centauri (or wherever), but is there gonna be a planet you can live on at the end of the trip?
I think your 'filter' is simply that in reality, the distance to the nearest suitable planet will usually be much greater than 4 light years. Granted, our technology is still developing, but it seems to me that it's a very hard engineering task to create a vessel which is suitable to contain life, and that will not degrade so much in 1000 or 2000 years (or whatever the travel time is) that everyone on board dies. Everything wears out, eventually. Although, I suppose in space, things might wear out a lot slower with no friction (well, there is the small matter of the Interstellar Medium abrading away at your hull like a sandblaster).
I'm not saying these aren't problems that can't be overcome, but 4 light years seems daunting enough - what if the nearest earth-like star is 100 light years away? 200?
I know this is gonna sound very much like 1970's sci fi, but planets don't last forever. If your Star was near to a cataclysmic change (like how Sol is supposed to change in approx 5 Billion Years, so that Earth will probably no longer be inhabitable), you might want to get off that rock before the whole species dies. However, planets have long enough lifespans that such 'forced emmigrations' wouldn't have to happen very frequently. But, to me that is the most logical reason to get off a planet. There's also, plausibly, the idea that a species makes its planet uninhabitable through it's own avarice (nuclear war, orbital bombardment, polution, something), although, one has to wonder if a species that does this to itself would really have the wherewithal to create colony ships before it's too late. That would require considerable forethought, and if such forethought is prevelant in the species, one would think they would have the foresight not to kill their own world in the first place.
I could see, theoretically, some religious group sending off colony ships to create their own 'utopia', much as some Europeans fled to the New World to flee persecution from other sects, and setup their own Theocracy where they could be the persecutors instead of the persecuted.
Here's why some of us still believe in a free market (though not completely Laissez Faire):
What makes you think the goverment will be any less corrupt than the corporations you rail against? What makes you think greedy people won't still game the system from within the government? What makes you think the governmnent beauracracy will be competent/good at the job?
In a market, you at least have the possibility of multiple different corporations competing against each other - so if you don't want to do business with Dell, you can go to some other computer seller.
If, on the other hand, you "replace all of the banks, insurance agents, and ratings agents with totally transparent branches of government," then you have granted a single entity (the government) with a monopoly. Don't think the government is doing a good job? Too bad, there's no one else to go to. Government decides to set interest rates at 20% on your home or business loan, because Congress has spent too much money on something else and needs to generate more revenue? Too bad, there's no one else to go to.
Monopolies are almost never a good thing (the one exception I can think of at the moment is the military - I'm pretty happy there's no private armies, navies, and air forces out there; but I can't really think of anything else where I want to see a monopoly).
"Third, the US market isn't ready for unsubsidized phones."
Actually, I'd phrase it that "the US Carriers aren't ready for unsubsidized phones".
Unsubsidized phones would be great in the U.S. if:
A) You could get a no-contract plan which was cheaper than the subsidized phone plan. B) You could take your phone to any carrier and it would 'just work' with all features.
As for part A, T-Mo is the only carrier offering this, and only started 6 months ago. I've wanted this for years, but the carriers love locking people in with contracts way too much. Part B is something the FCC dropped the ball on a decade ago, by not insisting on mobile telephony and digital data standards. I'm sorry, but a competitive market, IMO, trumps "innovation". For many companies like wireless carriers, "Innovation" is just a code-word for technological lock-in.
So, you have a situation where you have two 'competing' incompatible standards, CDMA and GSM, and even phones designed to the 'same' standard can't switch between networks very well (that is, you can't take a Sprint CDMA phone and activate it on the Verizon CDMA network, or vice versa), and AT&T and T-Mo, which both use GSM, are only compatible for basic voice and text messaging, but you can't, for example, use a T-Mobile smartphone at 3G speeds on the AT&T network, or vice-versa.
So, basically, without the possibility to activate your phone on a different carrier, and with no discount for purchasing a phone outright, why *would* anyone buy an unsubsidized phone? You'd just be paying the subsidy in your monthly bill, anyhow, without actually getting the benefit of the subsidy, in effect, paying twice.
I may be wrong, but I don't believe the article even suggests the Eddington limit is wrong, even now. The Eddington limit seems to say that when a star exceeds a certain mass, the amount of energy radiated from the star becomes so great that the star will begin gradually losing mass (absent some other source of additional mass being added to the star, such as the star merging with another star), until it reaches the Eddington limit, then it might attain a sort of equilibrium.
From my reading of the article, this has not been demonstrated to be wrong. They've just found a very young star which is much more massive than typical, but that doesn't mean the Eddington limit is wrong - it would only be wrong if the star is not losing mass.
Have many Drs. stuck around long? Chris Eccleston was only around for one series (shame, I had just warmed to him and really started to like him as The Doctor, and he goes and regenerates). Tennant was around longer, but only what, 3 series? If Matt Smith's been around for 2 series, and is working on a 3rd, I'd say his natural shelf-life is about up, isn't it?
Well, I'd be happy to give you 10,000 rupees and you give me 10,000 dollars. I mean, it's not important to know *which* currency you're dealing with, right? Right?
This got me to thinking. In a world where IPv6 provides an astronomical number of subnet blocks, what's to keep spammers and malware distributors from jumping from IP block to IP block the way they jump from domain to domain?
That article talks about the money the band pays their manager and lawyer. It's the *job* of the manager and lawyer to work in their bands best interest. Why are the managers and lawyers allowing their bands to enter into such horrible contracts?
The article, if that's true about how financing in the music industry works, is basically showing the record company 'double-dipping'. I mean, if they are just making me loans, fine, I'll take out a loan, and will repay it. But in that situation, I wouldn't give them the copyright (maybe use it as collateral to secure the loan), and I wouldn't give them royalties. I would pay back the loan, with interest.
If I'm giving them a cut of the royalties, then I shouldn't have to pay back the money they spend to produce and market the album. That, after all, is why I would be giving them a cut of the revenues. But to make every expense into a 'loan' which has to be repayed, then taking the lion's share of the revenue, that's just wrong.
Seriously, who signs such a contract? Who advises their client to sign such a contract? What are the lawyers getting paid for, anyhow?
What's sad is that we tolerate bad teachers all the way up to the college level.
I've had plenty of good instructors, but I've also had my share of professors who, while they might be brilliant in their field, at proving mathematics, or researching computer algorithms, or whatever, where not skilled or gifted teachers.
No, piracy might not directly hurt "the creative process", but for a lot of types of Art, the ambitions of the creator can only be realized with funding. Think of TV or movies- for most of us, even though we think 99% of TV programming and movies are utter rubbish, most of us have at least seen something in our lives which we really liked, maybe thought the show or movie even rose to the level of genius. Made us see the world in a slightly different way, or perhaps helped us feel better when we were in a funk, or just merely entertained us a lot.
TV shows can cost $1 Million or more per episode to produce (although, some types of shows can be considerably cheaper, like game shows). Movies can easily cost 10's of Millions or even $100 Million. Video games can cost millions to develop.
That money has to come from somewhere.
Currently, there's enough people willing to pay that there's still funding for such creative endeavors. But, I guarantee you that if piracy became very widespread, so that these more expensive types of Art to produce could no longer make a profit, funding would drop off a cliff, and much less Art would ever be able to be fully realized.
Look at, over the past few years, how many computer games have been console exclusives, not available on the PC, because the publishers just didn't feel it was worth the investment, because of piracy on the PC. No, Art will never stop being created in totality because of piracy, but that doesn't mean that piracy has no effect on Art. It's just really hard to say what Art was never made, what Art you never heard of, because piracy reduced the incentive for investment in creative works.
I'm not sure I understand how anyone ever ends up getting screwed by this? I mean, if this is known accounting practice, wouldn't every agent and lawyer in L.A. be saavy to this nonsense and work up contracts in such a way that they guarantee that they get paid?
What I really wonder, though, is does all this creative accounting deprive state/feds of tax revenue? I'd be rather upset if I, as a working person, have to pay my share of taxes, but rich movie studios could use creative accounting to report fraudulent losses and get out of paying their fair share.
Obviously, at the time of transaction, the CC info is needed to make the transaction, but why do they retain the info after that? Don't the credit card networks issue a transaction ID for every transaction? If, after a transaction, the hotel needs to do something like refund part or all of the charge (e.g. returning a deposit), it would seem like they should be able to do that with just the transaction ID. Is there something I'm missing?
This, it seems to me, applies to almost every merchant - retail, dining, entertainment, services, hotels, whatever. Why do they need to retain the info?
If the end-user is not responsible, and this all becomes the responsibility of the credit card networks and banks, then I suppose I don't care too much, but if this can end up adversely affecting the credit reports of the victims, then I think the credit card industry needs some reform, beginning with mandates that info not be retained by merchants. A hacker can't steal what isn't there (although, a hacker could still potentially capture the CC info in real-time at the moment of the transaction, but at least you've reduced stored-data attacks).
What is the resolution of the built-in clock on most PCs? An Atomic clock might have nanoscale resolution, but if a computer's clock only has microsecond resolution, then it stands to reason that you can only synch the computer to within 1 microsecond of accuracy, no?
There are many people in the U.S. (in particular, the current president) who would like to minimize nuclear weapons. I'm not sure we'll ever see a 'nuclear weapon free' world, but over the last twenty years, due to various treaties, the U.S. and Russia have both significantly reduced their weapon invetories. Yes, we still have a lot, but the trend is in the right direction.
The problem is, we can't just destroy all our nuclear weapons tomorrow, not when China, Russia, and other countries still have them. I don't think it's exactly hypocrisy for us to be in the process of getting rid of our nuclear weapons, and trying to keep additional countries from getting them (particularly countries like N. Korea and Iran, who's leaders aren't exactly paragon's of peace and tolerance - you have Iran and N.K. both kidnapping people outside, but near, their borders, then throwing them in prison, both Iran and N.K. have attacked foreign naval ships outside their territorial waters, both states are very oppressive of any dissent among their people).
While it is true that the U.S. is the only nation to have ever attacked populations with Nuclear weapons, it's also true that we haven't done it in over 60 years - basically, no one who was in political power in the U.S. at the time of WWII is even alive anymore (well, there might be one or two old Senators left), and while the use of Nuclear weapons could be accomplished essentially in secret in WWII, I think you'll find that outside of the most extreme case, there is no political support for the use of Nuclear weapons in the U.S. - we all realize that a) it would invite M.A.D, and b) even if there were no M.A.D. risk, you just *don't* cause massive civilian casualties against an enemy 'just because you can'. (Although, I do worry that if it ever came to real, protracted war like WWII again, the use of Nuclear weapons wouldn't be entirely precluded if people thought it was the only way to end the war, as was the situation in WWII).
"It is true that the US has become particularly more vicious in the past 10 years, mostly due to religious fanatics taking over the US, much as they are taking over in other parts of the world. This is changing to the point where many extreme right conservative think our mix of nuclear weapons will be insufficient to defend against the modern random aggressors."
Oversimplify much? I'm no particular fan of G.W. Bush, or the war in Iraq. Afghanistan, I think, was unfortunately necessary, but certainly a continuing tragedy. My point is, while Christian conservatives have certainly had an impact on U.S. politics, to say that religious fanatics have taken over the US is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? G.W. Bush might have been an Evangelical, but the wars the U.S. engaged with weren't about trying to enforce a religion on anyone. They were, in the end, basically wars driven by fear, I think. The U.S. was attacked by true religious fanatics in a spectacular way that caused a lot of terror. I think, perhaps, the terrorists didn't forsee the real end-result of that terror. U.S. Foreign policy since 9/11 was, in my opinion, not driven primarily by creed, but simply by fear, by a desire to protect ourselves. I'm not saying that makes it right, but it does make the parent post wrong.
Yes, yes, I don't think the war in Iraq really had a substantial basis in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. They weren't really linked with Al Qaeda. But, the administration and much of the public (including what you call "religious fanatics") *perceived* a terror threat from Saddam. Even though there were no links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, there was a not entirely irrational or unfounded fear of Saddaam allying with terrorists. He is known to have supported the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who killed Israelis. Although it turned out he didn't have WMD at the time of the invasion, he had certainly been pursuing a nuclear program in the past, and had kicked out U.N. IAEA inspectors for a period of years. He was certainly no friend or lover of the U.S. in particular, or "The West" in general. He *had* used aweful weapons, like Chemical Weapons, against civilian populations (his own people, at that - certainly someone who would use terrible weapons against the civilians under his own rule would not blink an eye at using such weapons against foreign civilian targets, if given opportunity).
Were there other possibilities for dealing with Saddam instead of invasion - possibly. From what I've read about the history of the invasion, the Bush administration rushed things, jumped the gun. But that doesn't mean there wasn't any non-religious basis for the invasion.
While I think the war in Iraq may have been a mistake, I think people oversimplify things a lot, whether it's the "No Blood for Oil" crowd, who I think there is substantial evidence to show they are just wrong about presuming Iraq to be a war for oil, or people such as the parent post, who just say that the U.S. has been taken over by religious extremists (the Christian-right in the U.S. is predominantly nowhere near as extreme as the Islamist-extremist [I suppose you can probably find an extremely small number of examples (from my experience, it's not any statistically signifance proportion of U.S. Christian's) of Christian's who are almost as extreme as the Islamic global-jihadists, and in any case, the religious right was far from having complete control over U.S. politics or policy, though they were influential during the Bush years).
"he thinks he doesn't deserve the lion's share of the prize because there were others who contributed to his (their) achievement."
If that's the case, wouldn't the logical solution be to convince the prize committee to split the prize with the other mathematicians, to give them medals also, and to split the money between them?
As for the earthly indulgences thing, I guess I could see that, but that's also a problem easily dealt with. . . setup some sort of trust fund that only gives you a yearly stipend sufficient to cover his yearly expenses (rent on his mother's apartment, food, utilities, small allowance for clothes, etc).
I don't know, it's hard to admire someone for doing something without really understanding *why* they did it. Lot's of people on here seem to claim admiration for the guy, just because he turned down the money, but I see neither vice nor virtue in accepting or rejecting the money. It just is what it is, and it is puzzling.
$1 Million isn't what it used to be, but I'd still like to have it. I mean, if you got a Prof's Salary (and let's face it, if he chose to, this guy could have a *very* well salaried position at any University in the world he chose), he could have $1 Million, plus probably another 2 Million in salary over the course of 10 or 20 years. Instead, he turns down the 1 Million and *quits* the teaching position he had previously at a Russian university. Not sure how he plans to live on no salary and without taking the prize money.
My guess would be this has some kind of distance limit much shorter than 10Gb/s ethernet. I don't know much about electrical engineering, but it's my understanding that, generally, the shorter distance limit you allow, the greater bandwidth you can get with 'cheaper' parts (to an extent). Maybe they can get 10Gb/s, but with like a 6 foot limit or something, using 'cheap' parts?
Exactly my thoughts. $150k is a nice windfall - put some of it into a college fund for the kid, and the rest into an investment fund and let it get some interest.
But, a one-time Internet success does not a career make. You can't live off $150k for the rest of your life, and as the parent points out, it's unlikely the father will be able to reliably create additional Internet video revenue on that scale.
This sounds like another family heading down the path of "Balloon boy" - staging ever more elaborate stunts until they do something which either causes them to be arrested, sued, or simply have public opinion turn against them and they lose all marketability.
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Are you sure that the amount of fuel necessary for a *fusion* powered drive (say something like an Ion drive or a VASIMR) to get 4 or 5 light years is impractical? There's an aweful lot of fusion energy available in a couple thousand pounds of Boron-11, or maybe Deuterium. Of course, we don't currently have a reactor which is relatively small and lightweight and which can also do p-11B (or D-D) fusion, but there is research going on right now on the Bussard Polywell reactor, to see if it might be viable. Anyhow, my point is, ignoring current reactor technology limits, but instead just looking at the energy potential of a fusion reaction, are you sure the fuel requirements are still impractical?
Is there a possibility that the ship can gather additional fuel (deuterium, perhaps - I don't think there's much Boron available in free space) from the Ort cloud or Interstellar Medium, en-route? Or, perhaps there might be Boron sources in asteroids/comets/dwarf planets where a ship could refuel?
"Assange maintains that 'the rest of the world's media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists is able to release more of that type of information [classified documents] than the rest of the world press combined.'"
In some specific regards he's right. He and his staff take on some personal risks of reprisals, but I think the reason he is doing what other sources of Journalism aren't, is that he *can*. Unfortunately, most of the world media is either State-controlled, or owned by for-profit corporations, which means in the first case that they aren't allowed to report such things, by the government which controls them, or in the second case, aren't as willing to take the risks, because it might hurt profits.
I think only a a relatively small, non-profit, or possibly, privately owned, organization can actually engage in such risky journalism, because they have basically nothing to lose (well, some of the staff could lose their personal property and/or go to jail).
Don't get me wrong, The Daily Show is great, but it's not really journalism - they don't break any stories, send reporters out into the field, etc. It's more editorial or commentary on the news. All of the new clips they show on the program come from other news sources.
What, wait, you're assuming every star system is only about 4 light years from it's neighbor *and* that every star system has a useful/suitable planetary type for the type of life that civilization is composed of? Sure, you might be able to cross the 4 light years to Alpha Centauri (or wherever), but is there gonna be a planet you can live on at the end of the trip?
I think your 'filter' is simply that in reality, the distance to the nearest suitable planet will usually be much greater than 4 light years. Granted, our technology is still developing, but it seems to me that it's a very hard engineering task to create a vessel which is suitable to contain life, and that will not degrade so much in 1000 or 2000 years (or whatever the travel time is) that everyone on board dies. Everything wears out, eventually. Although, I suppose in space, things might wear out a lot slower with no friction (well, there is the small matter of the Interstellar Medium abrading away at your hull like a sandblaster).
I'm not saying these aren't problems that can't be overcome, but 4 light years seems daunting enough - what if the nearest earth-like star is 100 light years away? 200?
I know this is gonna sound very much like 1970's sci fi, but planets don't last forever. If your Star was near to a cataclysmic change (like how Sol is supposed to change in approx 5 Billion Years, so that Earth will probably no longer be inhabitable), you might want to get off that rock before the whole species dies. However, planets have long enough lifespans that such 'forced emmigrations' wouldn't have to happen very frequently. But, to me that is the most logical reason to get off a planet. There's also, plausibly, the idea that a species makes its planet uninhabitable through it's own avarice (nuclear war, orbital bombardment, polution, something), although, one has to wonder if a species that does this to itself would really have the wherewithal to create colony ships before it's too late. That would require considerable forethought, and if such forethought is prevelant in the species, one would think they would have the foresight not to kill their own world in the first place.
I could see, theoretically, some religious group sending off colony ships to create their own 'utopia', much as some Europeans fled to the New World to flee persecution from other sects, and setup their own Theocracy where they could be the persecutors instead of the persecuted.
Here's why some of us still believe in a free market (though not completely Laissez Faire):
What makes you think the goverment will be any less corrupt than the corporations you rail against? What makes you think greedy people won't still game the system from within the government? What makes you think the governmnent beauracracy will be competent/good at the job?
In a market, you at least have the possibility of multiple different corporations competing against each other - so if you don't want to do business with Dell, you can go to some other computer seller.
If, on the other hand, you "replace all of the banks, insurance agents, and ratings agents with totally transparent branches of government," then you have granted a single entity (the government) with a monopoly. Don't think the government is doing a good job? Too bad, there's no one else to go to. Government decides to set interest rates at 20% on your home or business loan, because Congress has spent too much money on something else and needs to generate more revenue? Too bad, there's no one else to go to.
Monopolies are almost never a good thing (the one exception I can think of at the moment is the military - I'm pretty happy there's no private armies, navies, and air forces out there; but I can't really think of anything else where I want to see a monopoly).
"Third, the US market isn't ready for unsubsidized phones."
Actually, I'd phrase it that "the US Carriers aren't ready for unsubsidized phones".
Unsubsidized phones would be great in the U.S. if:
A) You could get a no-contract plan which was cheaper than the subsidized phone plan.
B) You could take your phone to any carrier and it would 'just work' with all features.
As for part A, T-Mo is the only carrier offering this, and only started 6 months ago. I've wanted this for years, but the carriers love locking people in with contracts way too much. Part B is something the FCC dropped the ball on a decade ago, by not insisting on mobile telephony and digital data standards. I'm sorry, but a competitive market, IMO, trumps "innovation". For many companies like wireless carriers, "Innovation" is just a code-word for technological lock-in.
So, you have a situation where you have two 'competing' incompatible standards, CDMA and GSM, and even phones designed to the 'same' standard can't switch between networks very well (that is, you can't take a Sprint CDMA phone and activate it on the Verizon CDMA network, or vice versa), and AT&T and T-Mo, which both use GSM, are only compatible for basic voice and text messaging, but you can't, for example, use a T-Mobile smartphone at 3G speeds on the AT&T network, or vice-versa.
So, basically, without the possibility to activate your phone on a different carrier, and with no discount for purchasing a phone outright, why *would* anyone buy an unsubsidized phone? You'd just be paying the subsidy in your monthly bill, anyhow, without actually getting the benefit of the subsidy, in effect, paying twice.
I may be wrong, but I don't believe the article even suggests the Eddington limit is wrong, even now. The Eddington limit seems to say that when a star exceeds a certain mass, the amount of energy radiated from the star becomes so great that the star will begin gradually losing mass (absent some other source of additional mass being added to the star, such as the star merging with another star), until it reaches the Eddington limit, then it might attain a sort of equilibrium.
From my reading of the article, this has not been demonstrated to be wrong. They've just found a very young star which is much more massive than typical, but that doesn't mean the Eddington limit is wrong - it would only be wrong if the star is not losing mass.
I'd just like to point out that this applies equally to the extreme ends of any ideology.
Because parody attempts to take any idea to an absurd extreme, it's difficult to distinguish parody from the extreme camp of any ideology.
Have many Drs. stuck around long? Chris Eccleston was only around for one series (shame, I had just warmed to him and really started to like him as The Doctor, and he goes and regenerates). Tennant was around longer, but only what, 3 series? If Matt Smith's been around for 2 series, and is working on a 3rd, I'd say his natural shelf-life is about up, isn't it?
Well, I'd be happy to give you 10,000 rupees and you give me 10,000 dollars. I mean, it's not important to know *which* currency you're dealing with, right? Right?
This got me to thinking. In a world where IPv6 provides an astronomical number of subnet blocks, what's to keep spammers and malware distributors from jumping from IP block to IP block the way they jump from domain to domain?
That article talks about the money the band pays their manager and lawyer. It's the *job* of the manager and lawyer to work in their bands best interest. Why are the managers and lawyers allowing their bands to enter into such horrible contracts?
The article, if that's true about how financing in the music industry works, is basically showing the record company 'double-dipping'. I mean, if they are just making me loans, fine, I'll take out a loan, and will repay it. But in that situation, I wouldn't give them the copyright (maybe use it as collateral to secure the loan), and I wouldn't give them royalties. I would pay back the loan, with interest.
If I'm giving them a cut of the royalties, then I shouldn't have to pay back the money they spend to produce and market the album. That, after all, is why I would be giving them a cut of the revenues. But to make every expense into a 'loan' which has to be repayed, then taking the lion's share of the revenue, that's just wrong.
Seriously, who signs such a contract? Who advises their client to sign such a contract? What are the lawyers getting paid for, anyhow?
"Censorship, as people object to it, is when someone else prevents you from seeing something they don't want you to see."
Or, more generally, when someone else (C) prevents or alters communication between two other people (or groups of people, etc).
If the government stops you from making a political speech, that's censorship.
If I choose not to spend time listening to you, that's not censorship.
You have a right to speak, but there's no right to be heard.
What's sad is that we tolerate bad teachers all the way up to the college level.
I've had plenty of good instructors, but I've also had my share of professors who, while they might be brilliant in their field, at proving mathematics, or researching computer algorithms, or whatever, where not skilled or gifted teachers.
No, piracy might not directly hurt "the creative process", but for a lot of types of Art, the ambitions of the creator can only be realized with funding. Think of TV or movies- for most of us, even though we think 99% of TV programming and movies are utter rubbish, most of us have at least seen something in our lives which we really liked, maybe thought the show or movie even rose to the level of genius. Made us see the world in a slightly different way, or perhaps helped us feel better when we were in a funk, or just merely entertained us a lot.
TV shows can cost $1 Million or more per episode to produce (although, some types of shows can be considerably cheaper, like game shows). Movies can easily cost 10's of Millions or even $100 Million. Video games can cost millions to develop.
That money has to come from somewhere.
Currently, there's enough people willing to pay that there's still funding for such creative endeavors. But, I guarantee you that if piracy became very widespread, so that these more expensive types of Art to produce could no longer make a profit, funding would drop off a cliff, and much less Art would ever be able to be fully realized.
Look at, over the past few years, how many computer games have been console exclusives, not available on the PC, because the publishers just didn't feel it was worth the investment, because of piracy on the PC. No, Art will never stop being created in totality because of piracy, but that doesn't mean that piracy has no effect on Art. It's just really hard to say what Art was never made, what Art you never heard of, because piracy reduced the incentive for investment in creative works.
I'm not sure I understand how anyone ever ends up getting screwed by this? I mean, if this is known accounting practice, wouldn't every agent and lawyer in L.A. be saavy to this nonsense and work up contracts in such a way that they guarantee that they get paid?
What I really wonder, though, is does all this creative accounting deprive state/feds of tax revenue? I'd be rather upset if I, as a working person, have to pay my share of taxes, but rich movie studios could use creative accounting to report fraudulent losses and get out of paying their fair share.
Obviously, at the time of transaction, the CC info is needed to make the transaction, but why do they retain the info after that? Don't the credit card networks issue a transaction ID for every transaction? If, after a transaction, the hotel needs to do something like refund part or all of the charge (e.g. returning a deposit), it would seem like they should be able to do that with just the transaction ID. Is there something I'm missing?
This, it seems to me, applies to almost every merchant - retail, dining, entertainment, services, hotels, whatever. Why do they need to retain the info?
If the end-user is not responsible, and this all becomes the responsibility of the credit card networks and banks, then I suppose I don't care too much, but if this can end up adversely affecting the credit reports of the victims, then I think the credit card industry needs some reform, beginning with mandates that info not be retained by merchants. A hacker can't steal what isn't there (although, a hacker could still potentially capture the CC info in real-time at the moment of the transaction, but at least you've reduced stored-data attacks).
What is the resolution of the built-in clock on most PCs? An Atomic clock might have nanoscale resolution, but if a computer's clock only has microsecond resolution, then it stands to reason that you can only synch the computer to within 1 microsecond of accuracy, no?
There are many people in the U.S. (in particular, the current president) who would like to minimize nuclear weapons. I'm not sure we'll ever see a 'nuclear weapon free' world, but over the last twenty years, due to various treaties, the U.S. and Russia have both significantly reduced their weapon invetories. Yes, we still have a lot, but the trend is in the right direction.
The problem is, we can't just destroy all our nuclear weapons tomorrow, not when China, Russia, and other countries still have them. I don't think it's exactly hypocrisy for us to be in the process of getting rid of our nuclear weapons, and trying to keep additional countries from getting them (particularly countries like N. Korea and Iran, who's leaders aren't exactly paragon's of peace and tolerance - you have Iran and N.K. both kidnapping people outside, but near, their borders, then throwing them in prison, both Iran and N.K. have attacked foreign naval ships outside their territorial waters, both states are very oppressive of any dissent among their people).
While it is true that the U.S. is the only nation to have ever attacked populations with Nuclear weapons, it's also true that we haven't done it in over 60 years - basically, no one who was in political power in the U.S. at the time of WWII is even alive anymore (well, there might be one or two old Senators left), and while the use of Nuclear weapons could be accomplished essentially in secret in WWII, I think you'll find that outside of the most extreme case, there is no political support for the use of Nuclear weapons in the U.S. - we all realize that a) it would invite M.A.D, and b) even if there were no M.A.D. risk, you just *don't* cause massive civilian casualties against an enemy 'just because you can'. (Although, I do worry that if it ever came to real, protracted war like WWII again, the use of Nuclear weapons wouldn't be entirely precluded if people thought it was the only way to end the war, as was the situation in WWII).
"It is true that the US has become particularly more vicious in the past 10 years, mostly due to religious fanatics taking over the US, much as they are taking over in other parts of the world. This is changing to the point where many extreme right conservative think our mix of nuclear weapons will be insufficient to defend against the modern random aggressors."
Oversimplify much? I'm no particular fan of G.W. Bush, or the war in Iraq. Afghanistan, I think, was unfortunately necessary, but certainly a continuing tragedy. My point is, while Christian conservatives have certainly had an impact on U.S. politics, to say that religious fanatics have taken over the US is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? G.W. Bush might have been an Evangelical, but the wars the U.S. engaged with weren't about trying to enforce a religion on anyone. They were, in the end, basically wars driven by fear, I think. The U.S. was attacked by true religious fanatics in a spectacular way that caused a lot of terror. I think, perhaps, the terrorists didn't forsee the real end-result of that terror. U.S. Foreign policy since 9/11 was, in my opinion, not driven primarily by creed, but simply by fear, by a desire to protect ourselves. I'm not saying that makes it right, but it does make the parent post wrong.
Yes, yes, I don't think the war in Iraq really had a substantial basis in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. They weren't really linked with Al Qaeda. But, the administration and much of the public (including what you call "religious fanatics") *perceived* a terror threat from Saddam. Even though there were no links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, there was a not entirely irrational or unfounded fear of Saddaam allying with terrorists. He is known to have supported the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who killed Israelis. Although it turned out he didn't have WMD at the time of the invasion, he had certainly been pursuing a nuclear program in the past, and had kicked out U.N. IAEA inspectors for a period of years. He was certainly no friend or lover of the U.S. in particular, or "The West" in general. He *had* used aweful weapons, like Chemical Weapons, against civilian populations (his own people, at that - certainly someone who would use terrible weapons against the civilians under his own rule would not blink an eye at using such weapons against foreign civilian targets, if given opportunity).
Were there other possibilities for dealing with Saddam instead of invasion - possibly. From what I've read about the history of the invasion, the Bush administration rushed things, jumped the gun. But that doesn't mean there wasn't any non-religious basis for the invasion.
While I think the war in Iraq may have been a mistake, I think people oversimplify things a lot, whether it's the "No Blood for Oil" crowd, who I think there is substantial evidence to show they are just wrong about presuming Iraq to be a war for oil, or people such as the parent post, who just say that the U.S. has been taken over by religious extremists (the Christian-right in the U.S. is predominantly nowhere near as extreme as the Islamist-extremist [I suppose you can probably find an extremely small number of examples (from my experience, it's not any statistically signifance proportion of U.S. Christian's) of Christian's who are almost as extreme as the Islamic global-jihadists, and in any case, the religious right was far from having complete control over U.S. politics or policy, though they were influential during the Bush years).
"he thinks he doesn't deserve the lion's share of the prize because there were others who contributed to his (their) achievement."
If that's the case, wouldn't the logical solution be to convince the prize committee to split the prize with the other mathematicians, to give them medals also, and to split the money between them?
As for the earthly indulgences thing, I guess I could see that, but that's also a problem easily dealt with. . . setup some sort of trust fund that only gives you a yearly stipend sufficient to cover his yearly expenses (rent on his mother's apartment, food, utilities, small allowance for clothes, etc).
I don't know, it's hard to admire someone for doing something without really understanding *why* they did it. Lot's of people on here seem to claim admiration for the guy, just because he turned down the money, but I see neither vice nor virtue in accepting or rejecting the money. It just is what it is, and it is puzzling.
$1 Million isn't what it used to be, but I'd still like to have it. I mean, if you got a Prof's Salary (and let's face it, if he chose to, this guy could have a *very* well salaried position at any University in the world he chose), he could have $1 Million, plus probably another 2 Million in salary over the course of 10 or 20 years. Instead, he turns down the 1 Million and *quits* the teaching position he had previously at a Russian university. Not sure how he plans to live on no salary and without taking the prize money.
My guess would be this has some kind of distance limit much shorter than 10Gb/s ethernet. I don't know much about electrical engineering, but it's my understanding that, generally, the shorter distance limit you allow, the greater bandwidth you can get with 'cheaper' parts (to an extent). Maybe they can get 10Gb/s, but with like a 6 foot limit or something, using 'cheap' parts?
Exactly my thoughts. $150k is a nice windfall - put some of it into a college fund for the kid, and the rest into an investment fund and let it get some interest.
But, a one-time Internet success does not a career make. You can't live off $150k for the rest of your life, and as the parent points out, it's unlikely the father will be able to reliably create additional Internet video revenue on that scale.
This sounds like another family heading down the path of "Balloon boy" - staging ever more elaborate stunts until they do something which either causes them to be arrested, sued, or simply have public opinion turn against them and they lose all marketability.