Why not prosecute just for theft of the physical good? Why not prosecute for public damages? Or why not file a class-action civil suit on behalf of all the people (namely, anyone using that infrastructure) who suffered damages as a result of the theft?
Secondary damages have been awarded to victims of theft in the past... the precedent is there. In Florida, they have a specific statute authorizing civil theft suits, which allow for the award of treble damages and legal fees (but no punitive damages).
I think we should have (if we don't already), a law under which we can prosecute for willful damage of critical infrastructure. This way it will cover vandalism, theft, sabotage, etc.
Prosecute the suckers for theft, and for willful damage to infrastructure. Allow for large punitive awards (and possibly jail time, etc) for the latter.
Looks like you were being humorous, but seriously, pulling licenses doesn't ever work. Driving is essential to function in the United States, and no amount of complaining is going to make it different.
That's the whole reason pulling licenses does work, some of the time. In essence, it is a fine. It causes people to expend more effort getting around (leaning on friends, family, coworkers, etc). Most people I know who have had their licenses suspended have been in that position from DWI... and most of the people who gave them rides made not ever driving drunk again (and for a couple people, not ever *drinking* again) a condition for giving them lifts to work/school/etc.
Yes, some people will instead drive unlicensed and uninsured. But some people will get the point, and not repeat their offense. License suspension can be a very effective way of rehabilitating problem drivers... and it makes sense for the punishment to fit the crime.
If, as you seem to wish (and I do too, but for different reasons), mass transit were useful in most areas, then suspending licenses would not have any impact, since it would not be an inconvenience to the unlicensed person.
Hopefully some day people will learn that you don't punish people for things you don't like.
Hopefully someday people will learn that allowing people to put others at risk through behavior of questionable benefit is a stupid idea. It is difficult for a police officer to determine whether a potentially distracted driver is actually driving carelesslyhether... one would need, usually, some type of incident to determine wthe driver's reaction is appropriate. It is not difficult to ascertain whether someone is using a cell phone, which has been proven to be distracting.
I don't care if people talk on the phone while driving. What I do care about is that distracted people cause accidents, and talking on the cell phone is a distraction. Remove the distraction == fewer accidents.
As for the banks acting in their own self-interest... there's a huge distinction that needs to be made. Banks are not people. The people who made the decisions for the banks made decisions that were best for them, not necessarily best for their bank.
So bank CxOs, VPs, loan officers, and boardmembers took actions that rewarded each other... in the end, the losing party was the bank, and it's creditors.
This is tangential to your point, of course. Banks weren't coerced into making bad decisions, as you rightly point out. But, decision-makers at banks did make decisions that wer ebad for the bank, though they were good for the decision-makers.
At any rate, once the bets started getting called, the banks realized how bad it could get -- and kept betting, because they knew that the failure was going to be borne by the taxpayer, the shareholder, and the low-level employee who got laid off without seeing the massive payouts certain employees did. What matters is that the execs and their buddies got theirs.
Just because the federal government's solution to this debacle is more regulation and bailouts doesn't mean there were zero before.
Just because there was regulation doesn't mean it caused the meltdown.
I'd point at the relaxed asset ratio requirements and the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act as two of the big contributors -- and both of those are examples of *lessened* regulation.
Tell me about it. How dumb to blame ISP availability on such tiny things, such as.. oh, I don't know.. cable monopoly status granted by franchise agreements with local governments, for periods lasting decades.
And yet, without the monopoly provision, the high barrier to entry due to infrastructure buildout costs would have resulted in a worse situation: no option for cable service at all.
Did the cable companies strong-arm local governments by telling towns that they wouldn't build out the infrastructure if they didn't get a monopoly? Sure. In some cases, they were probably full of shit, and it would have been profitable to build out even if the town didn't grant the monopoly (since no competitor would even *think* of building out competing infrastructure, since it couldn't be profitable).
The problem is not the monopoly (which would have occurred naturally). The problem is that the towns have been derelict in their duty to properly oversee the monopolies they authorized.
Reduce the atmospheric warming effect of contrails by microwaving and thereby heating the atmosphere...
Dare I say...BRILLIANT!
Without knowing the math, we can't tell if it's brilliant or not. It's quite possible that the heat produced by the microwaves is less than [(insulating effect of the contrails) - (albedo effect of the contrails)].
And what's more, what if the energy used to 'zap' the contrails was produced via solar power... then it puts us in better shape heatwise, since instead of the solar energy being mostly absorbed as heat at ground level, where it is insulated, the heat occurs above most of the insulation, thereby escaping the atmosphere more easily.
Which makes for an interesting idea, IMO... if we had (that's a big IF) a carbon-neutral method of transporting heat generation from ground level to the upper atmosphere, we could reduce the greenhouse effect by heating the upper atmosphere with energy that would otherwise be heating the ground. Not that the impact of heating the upper atmosphere wouldn't need to be worked out... but it seems like a better plan than spreading confetti in the upper atmosphere.
I remember the weather in lower NY was absolutely spectacular for several days- beautiful blue skies like I'd never seen before in that part of NY.
Just wanted to note that I experienced the same thing, but have a couplre observations:
Do you recall the weather on 9/10/01 and the morning of 9/11/01? Absolutely gorgeous, nice shore breeze so we had clean air, sunny, and low humidity. I'm not sure if the weather subsequent to 9/11 was part of the same weather pattern or not, or how much impact reduced air traffic had.
Second, not only were planes grounded, but factories were closed, there was much less vehicular travel, etc. I think the grounded planes helped a but, but I imagine the reduced ground traffic was what really improved the air quality in and around Manhattan (downwind of the WTC excepted, of course).
Define "green". If you're using it in the common manner, it means one or more of the following:
Reduced carbon footprint Reduced toxin output Reduction of resources required to produce Reduction of resources required for operation
And note that this is per unit of work, whether that is passenger-mile or some other measure of work.
Note that while substitution of resource requirements can go either way with cost, reduction of resources for operation will by definition reduce cost.
Maybe you feel that it's not "going green" if there is an economic incentive to take "green" actions, but I don't make that distinction. Hell, I'd consider the airlines' choice to charge for each checked bag to be a green move, since it reduces fuel usage.
The extra fuel recursion gets to be insignificant pretty quickly...
My concern is the extra fuel necessary to carry all the smugness from the environmental lipservice of the passengers flying in the brand new iPriusplane.
"The exploit is now tens of thousands of times harder, but still possible," Kaminsky stated during his Black Hat webcast. "one in several hundred million to one in a couple billion."
You know, for all of Kaminsky's brilliance, he's got math problems.
Going from "one in several hundred million to one in a couple billion" is not "tens of thousands of times harder". I guess it would make his quote a little less exciting.
"The exploit is now tens of times harder" just doesn't have any flair to it.
We're talking about the EU. Care to look up Apple's current market share in the EU? You'll find it to be different.
The EU != the US. 2006 != 2008.
While Apple is the dominant player in the market, that does not mean that they are a de facto monopoly. You'll see from EU spokespeople that they do not consider Apple to be a monopoly partly because of the competition from pirated music.
Why hasn't the EU screwed apple already? The itunes-ipod abuse is like 10 times worse than IE-windows, yet nobody seems to be doing anything to stop this abusive non-sense.
One reason is because Apple does not have a monopoly. It's ok to mildly abuse your customers if they can go to one of your competitors.
ITMS is far from the sole provider of online music, and Apple is far from the sole provider of "mp3" players.
Oh -- and the icing on the cake? Guess who produces most of the world's bismuth? China, the country best known for producing lead-laden products of much doom.
And why does China produce the most Bismuth?
Because China produces the most lead from ore (the US refines more lead, but it's largely from scrap, not from ore)... I think China refines about 3x more lead from ore than the US.
On the plus side, bismuth production facilities are opening in Canada and other countries, on account of increased demand for bismuth as a lead substitute -- particularly in ammunition, but also in electronics and elsewhere.
At any rate, if we see hugely increased demand for bismuth, and the accompanying increase in production, we'll also see increased production of lead, since it would become a valuable byproduct of bismuth production:). Not to mention tin, zinc, etc.
Apple's number one motivating factor, and the number one motivating factor of all publicly traded companies, is to increase stock value.In spirit, yes, but technically not so. There are (a few) publically traded companies whose charter is based upon something other than profits (though,as you can imagine, they aren't traded much)... but even for the 99.99% of companies who operate normally, shareholder value is the motivation. This can be via increased stock price, or it can be via dividends, or it can be via stock buyback (which theoretically leads to higher stock price, but that's a different story). In other words, the important thing is the expected return on the shareholder's capital.
But one theme rings true throughout the Apple way of doing things: a tightly controlled branded ecosystem, which is what underlies the clean user experience. DRM can fit quite tidily with that principle.
Spot on. If the user cannot play back media from a major source, then the user experience is going to suffer. If the DRM is not intrusive to most of their market, then user experience will remain positive, and the Apple brand will continue to see success.
There is no problem with Apple tying its hardware to its OS sales.
The court has ruled that Apple does not dominate the market; therefore it has no monopoly position to abuse by means of a tying arrangement.
The point of prohibiting tying arrangements is that companies in dominating market position could not force sale of an undesirable good by tying it to a desirable good for which there is no meaningful competition.
So before you run around saying that no one is catching te tying arrangement, perhaps you should RTFA and learn that the judge has ruled that Apple's market is not the 'market for Apple's OS' but instead, the 'market for all OS's'.
No monopoly == no abuse of monopoly via tying arrangement
I thought all slashdot moderators, by now, would be savvy to the practice of replying to a fp in order to get comments listed earlier in a discussion.
And I also thought that most slashdot posters would be savvy to the use of tongue-in-cheekery... which assumes that the reader actually knows what's going on (which, if they are a regular slashdot reader, they should).
Because of the family obligations that women often end up with (or perhaps value more than men), stability in a career is often a big factor for women.
That's a very interesting point, and leads me to think further along those lines. It seems to me that most women also place a higher value on predictable work hours (for the same reasons). I know of more people in tech that work ridiculous hours than in any other field, save finance. It's very hard for someone focused on family to work those kinds of hours, regardless of gender... and as you point out, it's likely that women place more value on family than men do. It's been shown time and again that women are more likely than men (even "modern" family men) to take on the brunt of the child-rearing responsibilities, such as picking the kids up from daycare.
So in addition to your point about stability, I'd add working hours/conditions to the mix.
Maybe even under the letter of the law. 'Aid and Comfort'
Only if China is our Enemy.
I'm sure that move would be great for foreign relations... let's legally define China as our enemy in order to convict someone of treason instead of espionage!!1!;)
It seems you don't think along those lines, but I thought I'd point out the ramifications for the GP... of course there are plenty of Americans (and people of other nationalities, of course) who believe the Other is always an enemy... but those people are irrational, IMO, and not worth having a discussion with.
Hey record labels, your biggest market (for touring bands anyway) is college students. Why do you guys want to get rid of all of that free marketing? (word of mouth, mix CD's etc.) Get a clue.
Please, they're not the only ones who need to get a clue.
That "free marketing" you're discussing is eating into the sales in their biggest market -- it's gone from "free marketing" to "replacing potential sales".
Not that I agree with the RIAA at all, but it's rather obvious that when your biggest market is easily able to get your product for free, your sales are going to be diminished.
As for word-of-mouth and mix CDs... you do realize that word-of-mouth is a very small concern for the Nashville labels, compared to the expensive, controlled marketing they have? They are the big players, with access to traditional media channels. They don't want word-of-mouth having a big impact in marketing... they want radio station play, TV play, and targeted marketing to drive demand for pop country.
And you know that mix CDs have increasingly little relevance due to widespread mp3 players? There is such reduced cost for consumers to share songs... mix CDs have little to do with it.
I'd like to see you do that by remembering (no writing down allowed, distances to be calculated manually, by paces say) "0.12 miles north, left, 0.27 miles West, left, 0.03 miles South" etc. and enjoy the sights at the same time.
That's a pretty specious argument, for two reasons.
First, navigating for yourself is a lot different than communicating to someone else.
Second, most people are a better judge of distance than that. There is no need to count paces, an estimate works just fine...
I will note that I agree I'm an exception to the rule, since I grew up in a rural area, where distances are referred to by units of length, not units of time.
My point, though, is that referring to distances, rather than than the time it takes to get somewhere, or landmarks in the vincinity, is more precise. In the original post I responded to, the poster made the claim that absolute coordinates are useless since everything is moving. On a galactic scale, landmarks have that problem. On a personal scale, like you describe, not so much... but what happens if you visit that town 30 yeas later and refer to your travel notes? Will you still be able to find what you're looking for? What about in 80 years? On a galactic scale, timespans are even more important, since we are only observing what actually occurred millions or billions of years ago.
This isn't like going through the trash at all. Besides, where are your manners? This is Slashdot, and the decision to opt for a trash analogy instead of a car analogy is just plain rude.
This is like you're driving down the highway, listening to tunes and shit, and some dude on the side of the highway is using x-ray vision, man, X-RAY VISION, to look at the driver's license in your wallet to see who you are...
Except he's got a bunch of machines to do it for him, and get this -- with three machines, he can not only see who you are, but he can also see exactly *WHERE* you are, dude. He's all violating Heisenberger's Uncertainty Principle or something... and the worst part is, he can ALSO tell if you're alive or dead *before* he gets a warrant, so he's violating the fundamental laws of physics not once, but twice.
Put that in your trashcan.
Besides... The Wire? As a source of tech knowledge by a Slashdot reader? What is the world coming to?
Slashdot Mirror
Why not prosecute just for theft of the physical good? Why not prosecute for public damages? Or why not file a class-action civil suit on behalf of all the people (namely, anyone using that infrastructure) who suffered damages as a result of the theft?
Secondary damages have been awarded to victims of theft in the past... the precedent is there. In Florida, they have a specific statute authorizing civil theft suits, which allow for the award of treble damages and legal fees (but no punitive damages).
I think we should have (if we don't already), a law under which we can prosecute for willful damage of critical infrastructure. This way it will cover vandalism, theft, sabotage, etc.
Prosecute the suckers for theft, and for willful damage to infrastructure. Allow for large punitive awards (and possibly jail time, etc) for the latter.
That's the whole reason pulling licenses does work, some of the time. In essence, it is a fine. It causes people to expend more effort getting around (leaning on friends, family, coworkers, etc). Most people I know who have had their licenses suspended have been in that position from DWI... and most of the people who gave them rides made not ever driving drunk again (and for a couple people, not ever *drinking* again) a condition for giving them lifts to work/school/etc.
Yes, some people will instead drive unlicensed and uninsured. But some people will get the point, and not repeat their offense. License suspension can be a very effective way of rehabilitating problem drivers... and it makes sense for the punishment to fit the crime.
If, as you seem to wish (and I do too, but for different reasons), mass transit were useful in most areas, then suspending licenses would not have any impact, since it would not be an inconvenience to the unlicensed person.
Hopefully someday people will learn that allowing people to put others at risk through behavior of questionable benefit is a stupid idea. It is difficult for a police officer to determine whether a potentially distracted driver is actually driving carelesslyhether ... one would need, usually, some type of incident to determine wthe driver's reaction is appropriate. It is not difficult to ascertain whether someone is using a cell phone, which has been proven to be distracting.
I don't care if people talk on the phone while driving. What I do care about is that distracted people cause accidents, and talking on the cell phone is a distraction. Remove the distraction == fewer accidents.
I hate to be a pedant, but the correct term when referring to ursines is "pic-a-nic basket".
Sheesh.
As for the banks acting in their own self-interest... there's a huge distinction that needs to be made. Banks are not people. The people who made the decisions for the banks made decisions that were best for them, not necessarily best for their bank.
So bank CxOs, VPs, loan officers, and boardmembers took actions that rewarded each other... in the end, the losing party was the bank, and it's creditors.
This is tangential to your point, of course. Banks weren't coerced into making bad decisions, as you rightly point out. But, decision-makers at banks did make decisions that wer ebad for the bank, though they were good for the decision-makers.
At any rate, once the bets started getting called, the banks realized how bad it could get -- and kept betting, because they knew that the failure was going to be borne by the taxpayer, the shareholder, and the low-level employee who got laid off without seeing the massive payouts certain employees did. What matters is that the execs and their buddies got theirs.
Just because there was regulation doesn't mean it caused the meltdown.
I'd point at the relaxed asset ratio requirements and the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act as two of the big contributors -- and both of those are examples of *lessened* regulation.
And yet, without the monopoly provision, the high barrier to entry due to infrastructure buildout costs would have resulted in a worse situation: no option for cable service at all.
Did the cable companies strong-arm local governments by telling towns that they wouldn't build out the infrastructure if they didn't get a monopoly? Sure. In some cases, they were probably full of shit, and it would have been profitable to build out even if the town didn't grant the monopoly (since no competitor would even *think* of building out competing infrastructure, since it couldn't be profitable).
The problem is not the monopoly (which would have occurred naturally). The problem is that the towns have been derelict in their duty to properly oversee the monopolies they authorized.
Without knowing the math, we can't tell if it's brilliant or not. It's quite possible that the heat produced by the microwaves is less than [(insulating effect of the contrails) - (albedo effect of the contrails)].
And what's more, what if the energy used to 'zap' the contrails was produced via solar power... then it puts us in better shape heatwise, since instead of the solar energy being mostly absorbed as heat at ground level, where it is insulated, the heat occurs above most of the insulation, thereby escaping the atmosphere more easily.
Which makes for an interesting idea, IMO... if we had (that's a big IF) a carbon-neutral method of transporting heat generation from ground level to the upper atmosphere, we could reduce the greenhouse effect by heating the upper atmosphere with energy that would otherwise be heating the ground. Not that the impact of heating the upper atmosphere wouldn't need to be worked out... but it seems like a better plan than spreading confetti in the upper atmosphere.
Just wanted to note that I experienced the same thing, but have a couplre observations:
Do you recall the weather on 9/10/01 and the morning of 9/11/01? Absolutely gorgeous, nice shore breeze so we had clean air, sunny, and low humidity. I'm not sure if the weather subsequent to 9/11 was part of the same weather pattern or not, or how much impact reduced air traffic had.
Second, not only were planes grounded, but factories were closed, there was much less vehicular travel, etc. I think the grounded planes helped a but, but I imagine the reduced ground traffic was what really improved the air quality in and around Manhattan (downwind of the WTC excepted, of course).
What are you smoking?
Define "green". If you're using it in the common manner, it means one or more of the following:
Reduced carbon footprint
Reduced toxin output
Reduction of resources required to produce
Reduction of resources required for operation
And note that this is per unit of work, whether that is passenger-mile or some other measure of work.
Note that while substitution of resource requirements can go either way with cost, reduction of resources for operation will by definition reduce cost.
Maybe you feel that it's not "going green" if there is an economic incentive to take "green" actions, but I don't make that distinction. Hell, I'd consider the airlines' choice to charge for each checked bag to be a green move, since it reduces fuel usage.
The extra fuel recursion gets to be insignificant pretty quickly...
My concern is the extra fuel necessary to carry all the smugness from the environmental lipservice of the passengers flying in the brand new iPriusplane.
You know, for all of Kaminsky's brilliance, he's got math problems.
Going from "one in several hundred million to one in a couple billion" is not "tens of thousands of times harder". I guess it would make his quote a little less exciting.
"The exploit is now tens of times harder" just doesn't have any flair to it.
We're talking about the EU. Care to look up Apple's current market share in the EU? You'll find it to be different.
The EU != the US. 2006 != 2008.
While Apple is the dominant player in the market, that does not mean that they are a de facto monopoly. You'll see from EU spokespeople that they do not consider Apple to be a monopoly partly because of the competition from pirated music.
One reason is because Apple does not have a monopoly. It's ok to mildly abuse your customers if they can go to one of your competitors.
ITMS is far from the sole provider of online music, and Apple is far from the sole provider of "mp3" players.
And why does China produce the most Bismuth?
:). Not to mention tin, zinc, etc.
Because China produces the most lead from ore (the US refines more lead, but it's largely from scrap, not from ore)... I think China refines about 3x more lead from ore than the US.
On the plus side, bismuth production facilities are opening in Canada and other countries, on account of increased demand for bismuth as a lead substitute -- particularly in ammunition, but also in electronics and elsewhere.
At any rate, if we see hugely increased demand for bismuth, and the accompanying increase in production, we'll also see increased production of lead, since it would become a valuable byproduct of bismuth production
Doh. Must be getting late in the day. I fail for not closing a tag, and then not previewing when I know I'm tired.
Good thing I'm jerking around on Slashdot, and not reviewing code.
There is no problem with Apple tying its hardware to its OS sales.
The court has ruled that Apple does not dominate the market; therefore it has no monopoly position to abuse by means of a tying arrangement.
The point of prohibiting tying arrangements is that companies in dominating market position could not force sale of an undesirable good by tying it to a desirable good for which there is no meaningful competition.
So before you run around saying that no one is catching te tying arrangement, perhaps you should RTFA and learn that the judge has ruled that Apple's market is not the 'market for Apple's OS' but instead, the 'market for all OS's'.
No monopoly == no abuse of monopoly via tying arrangement
Mmm.... bukkake...
I thought all slashdot moderators, by now, would be savvy to the practice of replying to a fp in order to get comments listed earlier in a discussion.
And I also thought that most slashdot posters would be savvy to the use of tongue-in-cheekery... which assumes that the reader actually knows what's going on (which, if they are a regular slashdot reader, they should).
Seriously. Whoosh.
That's a very interesting point, and leads me to think further along those lines. It seems to me that most women also place a higher value on predictable work hours (for the same reasons). I know of more people in tech that work ridiculous hours than in any other field, save finance. It's very hard for someone focused on family to work those kinds of hours, regardless of gender... and as you point out, it's likely that women place more value on family than men do. It's been shown time and again that women are more likely than men (even "modern" family men) to take on the brunt of the child-rearing responsibilities, such as picking the kids up from daycare.
So in addition to your point about stability, I'd add working hours/conditions to the mix.
Only if China is our Enemy.
;)
I'm sure that move would be great for foreign relations... let's legally define China as our enemy in order to convict someone of treason instead of espionage!!1!
It seems you don't think along those lines, but I thought I'd point out the ramifications for the GP... of course there are plenty of Americans (and people of other nationalities, of course) who believe the Other is always an enemy... but those people are irrational, IMO, and not worth having a discussion with.
Sorry, should have said 4.5 x 4.5 x 4.5 feet. I figured one significant digit was good enough for a napkin calculation.
Please, they're not the only ones who need to get a clue.
That "free marketing" you're discussing is eating into the sales in their biggest market -- it's gone from "free marketing" to "replacing potential sales".
Not that I agree with the RIAA at all, but it's rather obvious that when your biggest market is easily able to get your product for free, your sales are going to be diminished.
As for word-of-mouth and mix CDs... you do realize that word-of-mouth is a very small concern for the Nashville labels, compared to the expensive, controlled marketing they have? They are the big players, with access to traditional media channels. They don't want word-of-mouth having a big impact in marketing... they want radio station play, TV play, and targeted marketing to drive demand for pop country.
And you know that mix CDs have increasingly little relevance due to widespread mp3 players? There is such reduced cost for consumers to share songs... mix CDs have little to do with it.
That's a pretty specious argument, for two reasons.
First, navigating for yourself is a lot different than communicating to someone else.
Second, most people are a better judge of distance than that. There is no need to count paces, an estimate works just fine...
I will note that I agree I'm an exception to the rule, since I grew up in a rural area, where distances are referred to by units of length, not units of time.
My point, though, is that referring to distances, rather than than the time it takes to get somewhere, or landmarks in the vincinity, is more precise. In the original post I responded to, the poster made the claim that absolute coordinates are useless since everything is moving. On a galactic scale, landmarks have that problem. On a personal scale, like you describe, not so much... but what happens if you visit that town 30 yeas later and refer to your travel notes? Will you still be able to find what you're looking for? What about in 80 years? On a galactic scale, timespans are even more important, since we are only observing what actually occurred millions or billions of years ago.
This isn't like going through the trash at all. Besides, where are your manners? This is Slashdot, and the decision to opt for a trash analogy instead of a car analogy is just plain rude.
This is like you're driving down the highway, listening to tunes and shit, and some dude on the side of the highway is using x-ray vision, man, X-RAY VISION, to look at the driver's license in your wallet to see who you are...
Except he's got a bunch of machines to do it for him, and get this -- with three machines, he can not only see who you are, but he can also see exactly *WHERE* you are, dude. He's all violating Heisenberger's Uncertainty Principle or something... and the worst part is, he can ALSO tell if you're alive or dead *before* he gets a warrant, so he's violating the fundamental laws of physics not once, but twice.
Put that in your trashcan.
Besides... The Wire? As a source of tech knowledge by a Slashdot reader? What is the world coming to?