Many countries will not even allow the importation of U.S. beef because of the antibiotics and hormones. I do not know about exporting chicken, but they use similar practices in that industry.
It is illegal to use any kind of growth hormone, including steroids, on chickens in the US. Also, antibiotics used in chicken farming are not absorbed by the chicken's gut, and thus are not present in the meat -- nor in the interior of the eggs (though some may be present on the outside of the eggshell, deposited there when the egg passes through the cloaca.
Why is there always some dick ready to step up and blame the victim? In his eyes, and I'd say the eyes of anyone who doesn't have their head crammed up their academic buttocks, he wasn't breaking the rules. He wasn't cheating, he was studying. Even if they were posting the answers that doesn't help them on the test. Either you know the material or you don't.
And why is there always some idiot who wants to defend behavior that is obviously prohibited?
Regardless of the exam, homework in this case was worth 10% of their final grade. So if you're borderline between pass/fail or A/B, the extra couple percent could make a difference. Never mind the fact that he was enabling freeloaders to just copy the info and turn it in. If I was in the class, I'd be a bit pissed, since by doing the work myself I'd be hurting myself -- or I'd be spending extra time checking my work against those posted answers to ensure that I wasn't on the lower end of the curve.
Collaboration on a smallscale is one thing. Distributing answers is another.
That said, they came down pretty hard -- either they just want to make an example of him, or there is a back story we're not getting. You'd think they would have asked him to remove the group, and maybe failed him so he'd have to retake the class. Maybe he refused, and that's why it was escalated so far? Or maybe he played politics and didn't allow unliked classmates to join the group. Who knows.
One last thought -- the reason I'd be upset as a professor is that the performance of the students reflects on the professor and the school. If the school allows things like this to slide by, they may be diluting the quality of their graduates. Just as when you're in the workforce and need to consider the impact of your actions on your boss and company, so too should students consider the impact of their actions on their professor and school.
Real property - exclusion can be accomplished without involving 3rd parties.
False. Force can be used to overcome attempts at exclusion. It's only by means of a third party that the absolute right to property can be maintained. Read up on John Locke, Adam Smith, even John Stuart Mill (who was a Utilitarian!) -- the right to property (yes, physical property) is inextricably intertwined with government. Yes, it's been said that government has the lowest cost in protecting property rights due to their monopoly on sanctioned force (Smith) but it's also been said that the very purpose of government is to protect the property rights of the wealthy from the efforts of the poor (also Smith). While Locke maintained that property rights are natural rights, Smith maintained that they are not -- they are assigned according to the government and society of the time. And in the US, our handling of property rights is more defined by Smith than by Locke.
In short, the right to physical property is defined by legality just as much as intellectual property.
I don't want to get into a big debate about economics right now, but you clearly state in your blog that the purpose of property rights is to allow for efficient allocation of resources. While property rights may aid in efficient allocation of resources, the right to own property has a history all its own that you should look into again. While Adam Smith divided the right of property ownership from natural rights and explained that property ownership is only etablished by the state and society, he explained that this is so because the state has the lower cost of enforcing property rights due to force. Prior to Smith, however, Locke wrote that the right to own property is a natural right that is a corollary to the right to self-determination. This was the foundation for property rights. Smith did believe that property rights were necessary to ensure the freedom of actors in the economy, which is where I believe your line about property rights and the efficient allocation of resources come in. Note, however, that Smith discussed this in the context of the role of government in assigning and protecting the rights to own property -- and Smith even espoused the need and duty for the sovereign to assume ownership of, and responsibility for, large capital improvements that override the right to individual ownership in those cases.
Yet if you read up on John Stuart Mill, or others of a Utilitarian mindset, he believed that efficient use of resources requires abrogation of property rights when that property was being mismanaged. That philosophy remains today, as it is the justification for the inheritance tax.
So it is just as true to say that efficient allocation of resources is a justification for removing property rights as it is to say that efficient allocation of resources is a justification for assigning property rights.
In short, you've oversimplified the history and philosophy of property rights, and only presented that which fits into your thesis. That's dishonest or uninformed, I don't know which -- and truthfully, I don't care -- either way the basis of your argument about IP is based on incomplete information and is therefore suspect.
My gripe isn't really with your blog, since I'm all for people writing and publishing. And I don't think you wrote it to get pageviews, it just seems that way since your blog echoes so much of what I've read on slashdot, and captures the zeitgeist well.
As for factually accuracy, I suggest you include some references and citations if you want to debate the facts about historical property rights -- I'll gladly read any you supply, and revise my understanding as necessary.
At the risk of a big ol' karma hit (which I'm sure I can afford), let me just say that almost anyone can look through slashdot comments and come up with the exact same thing written. The "article" seems to be written purely to get on the front page of slashdot and drive pageviews up. I got the biggest sense of deja vu reading it -- I'm sure I've read every word there on slashdot already.
That said,
As I've written before, the very purpose of "property" and "property rights" was to better manage allocation of scarce resources.
Sounds nice, but I don't think it holds merit at all. The very purpose of property and property rights is self-interest and the philosophical right to pursue self-interest. It has nothing to do with managing allocation of resources. It's human nature to declare ownership (ever been around a two-year-old?) because ownership of things translates to better survival and reporductive rates.
At any rate, I'm sure I'm gonna get modded into oblivion here, since my post runs counter to the opinions of some of the more rabid libertarian/anarchist moderators. I'm not going to get into some of the other things in his blog specifically in relation to IP... since rebuttal of same is apparent in the comments to so many articles have come before.
The quote in the summary isn't referring to defining an individual patent. It's referring to defining the term "business method patent".
And patents should not need to be defined in "easy to understand terms". They need to be defined in unambiguous terms. Sometimes, in order to remove ambiguity, it is necessary to make the definition complicated. For example, define "housecat". Easy to understand: "domesticated mammal residing indoors". But very ambiguous, as one could then claim that the definition includes some dogs (but not all), some mice, etc. If we want to have a clear definition without ambiguity, that definition needs to be extended.
'What we know is that there are organized crime gangs who use the Internet and other forms of technology to hide their crimes
Yes, because when I (and my legitimate businessmen associates) want to hide my crimes, the first thing I do is post information about them on the internet. Because, of all places I could put my crimes in the hope of hiding them, the Internet is the best choice. It's not like law enforcement has the time to monitor all the tubes, after all, and even if they did, they can't check all the trucks.
I know that quote was cherry-picked from the article because it's so ridiculous, but really... people should make certain that the person publically commenting on programs knows what they are talking about and can express their FUD in a way that makes sense to both Joe Oilcan and the techies.
You understand what a low-hanging fruit is, right?
It's no reflection on the quality or caliber of people and projects in the AF.
When your goal is to pick fruit from a tree, the low-hanging ones are the easiest to reach and thus the first to get picked.
When your goal is to cut costs, the low-hanging fruit are the ones that are easy to cut because they are 1) big-ticket items where a small reduction in qty yields a large cost-savings and 2) there is little direct elimination of jobs.
Naval yards, for example, fulfill item 1 but not item 2. Orders for new aircraft, however, fulfill both -- though there is indirect job loss.
Power relationships only exist when certain parties believe they are weaker and must submit to those in power. That's your worldview.
Not my worldview.
You believe the masses are needed to make decisions, a process that is slow, remarkably inconsistent, and doesn't treat any person with respect.
No. I believe that there are decisions that need to be made at a massive level. I do not believe that the masses are necessary to make all those decisions -- but I do believe that the impact upon the masses must be considered. As for respect, that is a matter of who is making the decision.
Every man IS an island, though.
Wow. You really do believe that every man is an island. That's going to make any debate on these issues moot, as it's the foundation of your philosophy, and antithetical to mine.
You're saying there are issues bigger than one person (what issues are those?) and yet you want to elect one person to deal with those issues. Nice contradiction to your own debate process
You're confusing the impact of a decision with the originator of a decision. There is no contradiction there. The problem with your philosophy is that a decision that affects 20 people should not be made unilaterally by one person without input from the other 19. The one person making the decision, in my view, should be the person who the other 19 have consented to give that authority to. In your view, the person makes it unilaterally to best suit themselves.
You're saying there are issues bigger than one person (what issues are those?)
Google tragedy of the commons, which is what I pointed out as the example. If you don't understand the concept, then read up on it a bit, since there are examples aplenty in the wild. Fishing rights and quotas, for example.
Every issue that matters only matters because it effects one person - you.
Your motivations are purely selfish, and you believe all others to be the same. Fine -- you believe we're all inherently evil. So why should all decisions be made at the individual level when all are inherently evil?
Name one good part of politics or of government. I dare you. You can't. All government is based on the evil notion of using force to make people change their wills to better another person.
BS. Government is based upon the understanding that it is more efficient to act as a group than as an individual in some instances. Examples of good in government? How about the mutual protection agreement that comprises military defense? How about protection from individual violence? How about redress of wrongs via the courts? How about treaties that codify and streamline trade, resulting in a more informed marketplace, resulting in more efficient use of resources?
I'm just wondering how much of it applies during times of budget contraction, as opposed to the status quo of annual expansion... because we're going to need to shrink the military budget in the next few years... whether it's done via inflation or visible cuts, I'm not sure.
The Constitution doesn't give the President power to lead, only to execute the laws which we wanted put in place; equitable laws that infringe on everyone equally, rather than giving preferential treatment to the few at the cost of the many (or vice versa).
BS. The President is the Head of State, by default that's a leadership position. Never mind the powers expressly granted to the President by the Constitution.
Oh, wait, I forgot -- you believe that every man is an island, and apparently Ayn Rand is the greatest philosopher ever. Your worldview sadly doesn't accomodate the fact that relationships (inclduing power relationships) actually exist, regardless of how they are codified (via the Constitutions of the US and of the States, and the laws issued in accordance with them).
The biggest problem with your worldview is that it is unrealistic. There are issues far bigger than one person, that cannot be resolved in a manner consistent with the greatest good (or, if it helps you understand better, optimal utilisation of resources) without a decision being taken en masse that applies to all. The "tragedy of the commons" is a great example to illustrate why sometimes it is necessary for one decision to apply to all in order to maintain best use of resources.
Politics continues to sicken me, although not more than before.
I think this is most telling. Your aversion to something has colored your understanding of it. If you really want to understand how the world works, you'll need to set aside your aversion to the political process in order to evaluate the good parts of it, and why they are there.
Military spending is a huge contributor to the US's debt problems, and anything that reduces the efficiency of the military contributes to the problem. Consider how expensive the air force is to maintain -- when it comes time to curtail the military budget, the air force has a lot of low-hanging fruit.
Security breaches and awareness of systemic ineptitude will just increase the likelihood that the air force will be targeted with more cuts.
Never mind the fact the a security breach, if taken advantage of by the wrong people, could be *very* expensive.
It doesn't take a tech geek to understand that it is necessary.
The question is one of whether MediaSentry can be trusted that the evidence produced was gathered in a means that is in accordance with law, and that does not have flaws in methodology that could cause the evidence produced to be incorrect.
If the defendant is given no opportunity to examine the evidence-gathering methodology, then the evidence should be taken as hearsay, since it is only the word of MediaSentry that validates the evidence.
Obviously civil and criminal court are two different beasts, and some evidence that is inadmissible in criminal court is admissible in civil court. But nonetheless, MediaSentry should be forced to provide their methodology -- only then can the court be sure that the evidence they have provided is valid. Even if it's disclosed to limited parties and covered by confidentiality agreement, this should be the bare minimum standard for any evidence in dispute.
The problems with merging and so on would essentially evaporate if people dropped back a bit from the vehicle in front
In a high-traffic situation, this does not help. Since this is a story about cars, I going to need a different analogy... how about beer funnels?
If you have a funnel and a tube, and the flow through the tube is 2 ounces per second, that's eight seconds to get a full pint of beer through the tube. This may be too much for the poor little coed at the bottom of the tube to handle, causing a "traffic jam" of beer. What you are suggesting is similar to reducing the flow rate to one ounce per second. Sure, it may be easier for the coed at the bottom of the tube to ingest the beer (i.e., no traffic jam at her mouth), but meanwhile you're accumulating beer in the funnel that needs to wait before it can pass down the tube. So you've simply moved the traffic jam from one part of the highway to another.
Now, this is slashdot, so that may or may not be an obscure analogy. But the concept is the same. When there is a rate-limiting bandwidth issue, the option is to route around the rate-limiting area, or to increase the bandwidth. (Better analogy?) The other option is to increase the "springiness" of the beer in the tube (or data in the tube, or cars on the highway) by making the re-acceleration from a slowdown occur as quickly as the braking did. Imagine the distance between the vehicles as tension springs. When the springs are compacted, you're in a situation where traffic jams will occur unless extension of the springs happens as quickly as compaction.
So, I've got just about as many analogies as I can handle in this post. Not sure if it's clear at all... but increasing the distance between vehicles is only going to reduce your flow rate and increase traffic jams at entrance points.
ROI relates to capital investment in business, and includes revenue calculations for the return on investment.
TCO is used to evaluate overhead, where there is no measurable "R". Sure, proper cost analysis brings in all the costs associated with TCO -- but there are many, many small business out there that do not have good analytics in place (often because the ROI of analytics is so small for them:) ). So in order to "remind" them that there are costs borne other than those at time of purchase or via depreciation, MS (& others) like to use the term TCO.
As a financial analyst, I find the term very useful, especially when discussing or presenting to management.
Sales people like to refer to ROI when discussing their own product since it helps them convince people they'll be making money if they buy their product. They like to refer to the TCO of a competitor's product since it helps them get people to associate that product with cost, instead of revenue.
At any rate, TCO may be meaningless to you since you've never heard it used in the real world -- but I think your real world is a little limited in scope. And regarding your example:
As a silly example, a windows box might have 50% of the TCO of a Linux box. If it does nothing useful then it has a vastly smaller ROI.
Yes, silly. Because you appear to have forgotten that TCO includes the opportunity cost of lost productivity.
And yet the standard nomenclature would have us write 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, which is more precise and less likely to be confused. Then, instead of being confused by a|un|anti, everyone knows exactly what is being referred to...
Sir, This is entirely your opinion which reflects your taste, which you are of course entitled to, but I think you should frame it as such and not as an absolute fact as you did.
Welcome to slashdot.
Of course it's my opinion, it's a matter of fashion (which is all opinion btw), and there is no citation of external source.
Why would anyone assume it's anything BUT opinion?
Note though, that having extensive experience in hiring, working in jacket&tie offices, etc, I think my opinion is a little better informed than most people on slashdot. I'd also note that if you talk with any of the recruiting firms out there re: suits for interviews, they'll confirm what I've said... and they've done research on the subject.
But from an economic standpoint, the market has decided that lobbyist time is very valuable (yeah, yeah, this is due to restrictions on supply of lobbyists, as well as constaints on who has access to politicians). In a capitalist system, we must assume that lobbyists produce something of value, since the market has assigned value to their labor.
So what we're left with is that it's a very inefficient use of resources to have the lobbyists waiting in line. We're all better off economically if someone whose labor is less valuable does the line-waiting instead. Otherwise, we'd need more lobbyists to fulfill the market demand for them, and other than the sharks themselves, who wants that?
/Where Alph the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. :)
There was never an "industry" for things like books and recorded music for most of history, yet music and writing have existed for thousands of years. Cavemen painted on the walls of their caves. Nobody paid them, but it was still done.
How do you know that? How do you know that Og didn't pay Grog a cave-bear haunch to draw a mural?
As for comparing today's situation to that of the past several hundred years, do you know why this has become an issue? It's because the entire nature of how art (including music, text, paintings, et al) is disseminated has changed. I agree there was no "industry" for recorded music for most of history -- this is because there was no such thing as recorded music. As for books, you're kidding yourself if you believe that. There has been a market for books for as long as they have existed, but the capacity for a "book industry" wasn't there until the invention of the printing press. You know what followed fairly quickly on the heels of widespread use of the printing press? Copyright.
My first point is this: historically, as soon as widespread distribution of a media became possible, some method of protecting the works of content creators within that media followed.
My second point relates to your economics 101, there may have been some lectures missed -- the ones regarding black market goods. Regardless of whether supply of an item is legal, it still affects the market and market prices. In a situation where prices are fixed at a lower level than market by government, supply of the good will be reduced. That doesn't apply here -- instead, in a situation where prices are fixed at a level higher than the market value (by a supplier with a monopoly, for example), the black market volume will increase. Since the unit cost of production of the black-market good is almost zero, prices would eventually fall to almost zero if there wasn't monopoly provision.
What's important is the distinction between value and price. Keep in mind that the value a person assesses a black market good at (assuming full knowledge) is equal to the price of the good plus the [probability of getting caught * the cost of the punishment] less [the costs of not having the legal good]. This is where the parent to your post had it wrong -- or perhaps they feel that the probability of being caught approaches zero.
In the bigger picture, I believe both you and the parent to the post are correct. I believe that some protection is necessary for the art creation to be a viable profession. I also believe that no one has the right to be compensated for doing what they want -- but since media distribution is now practically free of cost, artists can't support their work by selling copies.
My concern is that the arts suffer when only those of independent means, or those with sponsorship of wealthy individuals, are able to devote themselves to producing art. How many Beethovens, Stravinskys, and Bachs were never able to achieve their potential because they did not come from relatively wealthy backgrounds? How many artists have lived destitute because there was no means to profit off their work, and how many artists of great potential chose another field because they saw the 'starving artists'?
I believe art has great value, and I believe that there needs to be a mechanism for artists to be compensated for creation of works, not just performance of works.
Slashdot Mirror
Beef, on the other hand -- you're spot on.
Regardless of the exam, homework in this case was worth 10% of their final grade. So if you're borderline between pass/fail or A/B, the extra couple percent could make a difference. Never mind the fact that he was enabling freeloaders to just copy the info and turn it in. If I was in the class, I'd be a bit pissed, since by doing the work myself I'd be hurting myself -- or I'd be spending extra time checking my work against those posted answers to ensure that I wasn't on the lower end of the curve.
Collaboration on a smallscale is one thing. Distributing answers is another.
That said, they came down pretty hard -- either they just want to make an example of him, or there is a back story we're not getting. You'd think they would have asked him to remove the group, and maybe failed him so he'd have to retake the class. Maybe he refused, and that's why it was escalated so far? Or maybe he played politics and didn't allow unliked classmates to join the group. Who knows.
One last thought -- the reason I'd be upset as a professor is that the performance of the students reflects on the professor and the school. If the school allows things like this to slide by, they may be diluting the quality of their graduates. Just as when you're in the workforce and need to consider the impact of your actions on your boss and company, so too should students consider the impact of their actions on their professor and school.
Then I thought to myself, does he mean "mount" as in shag, or "mount" as in stuffed and hung on the wall of the cabin?
And then I realized my coffee is ready, and all became clear to me.
In short, the right to physical property is defined by legality just as much as intellectual property.
Mike,
I don't want to get into a big debate about economics right now, but you clearly state in your blog that the purpose of property rights is to allow for efficient allocation of resources. While property rights may aid in efficient allocation of resources, the right to own property has a history all its own that you should look into again. While Adam Smith divided the right of property ownership from natural rights and explained that property ownership is only etablished by the state and society, he explained that this is so because the state has the lower cost of enforcing property rights due to force. Prior to Smith, however, Locke wrote that the right to own property is a natural right that is a corollary to the right to self-determination. This was the foundation for property rights. Smith did believe that property rights were necessary to ensure the freedom of actors in the economy, which is where I believe your line about property rights and the efficient allocation of resources come in. Note, however, that Smith discussed this in the context of the role of government in assigning and protecting the rights to own property -- and Smith even espoused the need and duty for the sovereign to assume ownership of, and responsibility for, large capital improvements that override the right to individual ownership in those cases.
Yet if you read up on John Stuart Mill, or others of a Utilitarian mindset, he believed that efficient use of resources requires abrogation of property rights when that property was being mismanaged. That philosophy remains today, as it is the justification for the inheritance tax.
So it is just as true to say that efficient allocation of resources is a justification for removing property rights as it is to say that efficient allocation of resources is a justification for assigning property rights.
In short, you've oversimplified the history and philosophy of property rights, and only presented that which fits into your thesis. That's dishonest or uninformed, I don't know which -- and truthfully, I don't care -- either way the basis of your argument about IP is based on incomplete information and is therefore suspect.
My gripe isn't really with your blog, since I'm all for people writing and publishing. And I don't think you wrote it to get pageviews, it just seems that way since your blog echoes so much of what I've read on slashdot, and captures the zeitgeist well.
As for factually accuracy, I suggest you include some references and citations if you want to debate the facts about historical property rights -- I'll gladly read any you supply, and revise my understanding as necessary.
That said,Sounds nice, but I don't think it holds merit at all. The very purpose of property and property rights is self-interest and the philosophical right to pursue self-interest. It has nothing to do with managing allocation of resources. It's human nature to declare ownership (ever been around a two-year-old?) because ownership of things translates to better survival and reporductive rates.
At any rate, I'm sure I'm gonna get modded into oblivion here, since my post runs counter to the opinions of some of the more rabid libertarian/anarchist moderators. I'm not going to get into some of the other things in his blog specifically in relation to IP... since rebuttal of same is apparent in the comments to so many articles have come before.
The quote in the summary isn't referring to defining an individual patent. It's referring to defining the term "business method patent".
And patents should not need to be defined in "easy to understand terms". They need to be defined in unambiguous terms. Sometimes, in order to remove ambiguity, it is necessary to make the definition complicated.
For example, define "housecat". Easy to understand: "domesticated mammal residing indoors". But very ambiguous, as one could then claim that the definition includes some dogs (but not all), some mice, etc. If we want to have a clear definition without ambiguity, that definition needs to be extended.
I know that quote was cherry-picked from the article because it's so ridiculous, but really... people should make certain that the person publically commenting on programs knows what they are talking about and can express their FUD in a way that makes sense to both Joe Oilcan and the techies.
You understand what a low-hanging fruit is, right?
It's no reflection on the quality or caliber of people and projects in the AF.
When your goal is to pick fruit from a tree, the low-hanging ones are the easiest to reach and thus the first to get picked.
When your goal is to cut costs, the low-hanging fruit are the ones that are easy to cut because they are 1) big-ticket items where a small reduction in qty yields a large cost-savings and 2) there is little direct elimination of jobs.
Naval yards, for example, fulfill item 1 but not item 2. Orders for new aircraft, however, fulfill both -- though there is indirect job loss.
No. I believe that there are decisions that need to be made at a massive level. I do not believe that the masses are necessary to make all those decisions -- but I do believe that the impact upon the masses must be considered. As for respect, that is a matter of who is making the decision.
Wow. You really do believe that every man is an island. That's going to make any debate on these issues moot, as it's the foundation of your philosophy, and antithetical to mine.You're confusing the impact of a decision with the originator of a decision. There is no contradiction there. The problem with your philosophy is that a decision that affects 20 people should not be made unilaterally by one person without input from the other 19. The one person making the decision, in my view, should be the person who the other 19 have consented to give that authority to. In your view, the person makes it unilaterally to best suit themselves.Google tragedy of the commons, which is what I pointed out as the example. If you don't understand the concept, then read up on it a bit, since there are examples aplenty in the wild. Fishing rights and quotas, for example.
Your motivations are purely selfish, and you believe all others to be the same. Fine -- you believe we're all inherently evil. So why should all decisions be made at the individual level when all are inherently evil?
BS. Government is based upon the understanding that it is more efficient to act as a group than as an individual in some instances. Examples of good in government? How about the mutual protection agreement that comprises military defense? How about protection from individual violence? How about redress of wrongs via the courts? How about treaties that codify and streamline trade, resulting in a more informed marketplace, resulting in more efficient use of resources?
Very good point.
I'm just wondering how much of it applies during times of budget contraction, as opposed to the status quo of annual expansion... because we're going to need to shrink the military budget in the next few years... whether it's done via inflation or visible cuts, I'm not sure.
Oh, wait, I forgot -- you believe that every man is an island, and apparently Ayn Rand is the greatest philosopher ever. Your worldview sadly doesn't accomodate the fact that relationships (inclduing power relationships) actually exist, regardless of how they are codified (via the Constitutions of the US and of the States, and the laws issued in accordance with them).
The biggest problem with your worldview is that it is unrealistic. There are issues far bigger than one person, that cannot be resolved in a manner consistent with the greatest good (or, if it helps you understand better, optimal utilisation of resources) without a decision being taken en masse that applies to all. The "tragedy of the commons" is a great example to illustrate why sometimes it is necessary for one decision to apply to all in order to maintain best use of resources.
I think this is most telling. Your aversion to something has colored your understanding of it. If you really want to understand how the world works, you'll need to set aside your aversion to the political process in order to evaluate the good parts of it, and why they are there.
The budget.
Military spending is a huge contributor to the US's debt problems, and anything that reduces the efficiency of the military contributes to the problem. Consider how expensive the air force is to maintain -- when it comes time to curtail the military budget, the air force has a lot of low-hanging fruit.
Security breaches and awareness of systemic ineptitude will just increase the likelihood that the air force will be targeted with more cuts.
Never mind the fact the a security breach, if taken advantage of by the wrong people, could be *very* expensive.
Not to mention that it likely can't be reduced to Boolean logic.
/Sorry
It doesn't take a tech geek to understand that it is necessary.
The question is one of whether MediaSentry can be trusted that the evidence produced was gathered in a means that is in accordance with law, and that does not have flaws in methodology that could cause the evidence produced to be incorrect.
If the defendant is given no opportunity to examine the evidence-gathering methodology, then the evidence should be taken as hearsay, since it is only the word of MediaSentry that validates the evidence.
Obviously civil and criminal court are two different beasts, and some evidence that is inadmissible in criminal court is admissible in civil court. But nonetheless, MediaSentry should be forced to provide their methodology -- only then can the court be sure that the evidence they have provided is valid. Even if it's disclosed to limited parties and covered by confidentiality agreement, this should be the bare minimum standard for any evidence in dispute.
If you have a funnel and a tube, and the flow through the tube is 2 ounces per second, that's eight seconds to get a full pint of beer through the tube. This may be too much for the poor little coed at the bottom of the tube to handle, causing a "traffic jam" of beer. What you are suggesting is similar to reducing the flow rate to one ounce per second. Sure, it may be easier for the coed at the bottom of the tube to ingest the beer (i.e., no traffic jam at her mouth), but meanwhile you're accumulating beer in the funnel that needs to wait before it can pass down the tube. So you've simply moved the traffic jam from one part of the highway to another.
Now, this is slashdot, so that may or may not be an obscure analogy. But the concept is the same. When there is a rate-limiting bandwidth issue, the option is to route around the rate-limiting area, or to increase the bandwidth. (Better analogy?) The other option is to increase the "springiness" of the beer in the tube (or data in the tube, or cars on the highway) by making the re-acceleration from a slowdown occur as quickly as the braking did. Imagine the distance between the vehicles as tension springs. When the springs are compacted, you're in a situation where traffic jams will occur unless extension of the springs happens as quickly as compaction.
So, I've got just about as many analogies as I can handle in this post. Not sure if it's clear at all... but increasing the distance between vehicles is only going to reduce your flow rate and increase traffic jams at entrance points.
ROI relates to capital investment in business, and includes revenue calculations for the return on investment.
TCO is used to evaluate overhead, where there is no measurable "R". Sure, proper cost analysis brings in all the costs associated with TCO -- but there are many, many small business out there that do not have good analytics in place (often because the ROI of analytics is so small for them
As a financial analyst, I find the term very useful, especially when discussing or presenting to management.
Sales people like to refer to ROI when discussing their own product since it helps them convince people they'll be making money if they buy their product. They like to refer to the TCO of a competitor's product since it helps them get people to associate that product with cost, instead of revenue.
At any rate, TCO may be meaningless to you since you've never heard it used in the real world -- but I think your real world is a little limited in scope. And regarding your example:Yes, silly. Because you appear to have forgotten that TCO includes the opportunity cost of lost productivity.
And yet the standard nomenclature would have us write 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, which is more precise and less likely to be confused. Then, instead of being confused by a|un|anti, everyone knows exactly what is being referred to...
Should be "Sony is teh evil!"
^sheesh^
d) harmless
e) we won't know until "they" open the box
f) mostly harmless
Sorry, I work in the financial services for the financial industry.
Traditionalism is required.
Non-financial is a different horse, but going conservative is generally the best way to go when in doubt.
Of course it's my opinion, it's a matter of fashion (which is all opinion btw), and there is no citation of external source.
Why would anyone assume it's anything BUT opinion?
Note though, that having extensive experience in hiring, working in jacket&tie offices, etc, I think my opinion is a little better informed than most people on slashdot. I'd also note that if you talk with any of the recruiting firms out there re: suits for interviews, they'll confirm what I've said... and they've done research on the subject.
From a political standpoint, I agree.
But from an economic standpoint, the market has decided that lobbyist time is very valuable (yeah, yeah, this is due to restrictions on supply of lobbyists, as well as constaints on who has access to politicians). In a capitalist system, we must assume that lobbyists produce something of value, since the market has assigned value to their labor.
So what we're left with is that it's a very inefficient use of resources to have the lobbyists waiting in line. We're all better off economically if someone whose labor is less valuable does the line-waiting instead. Otherwise, we'd need more lobbyists to fulfill the market demand for them, and other than the sharks themselves, who wants that?
/Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
:)
As for comparing today's situation to that of the past several hundred years, do you know why this has become an issue? It's because the entire nature of how art (including music, text, paintings, et al) is disseminated has changed. I agree there was no "industry" for recorded music for most of history -- this is because there was no such thing as recorded music. As for books, you're kidding yourself if you believe that. There has been a market for books for as long as they have existed, but the capacity for a "book industry" wasn't there until the invention of the printing press. You know what followed fairly quickly on the heels of widespread use of the printing press? Copyright.
My first point is this: historically, as soon as widespread distribution of a media became possible, some method of protecting the works of content creators within that media followed.
My second point relates to your economics 101, there may have been some lectures missed -- the ones regarding black market goods. Regardless of whether supply of an item is legal, it still affects the market and market prices. In a situation where prices are fixed at a lower level than market by government, supply of the good will be reduced. That doesn't apply here -- instead, in a situation where prices are fixed at a level higher than the market value (by a supplier with a monopoly, for example), the black market volume will increase. Since the unit cost of production of the black-market good is almost zero, prices would eventually fall to almost zero if there wasn't monopoly provision.
What's important is the distinction between value and price. Keep in mind that the value a person assesses a black market good at (assuming full knowledge) is equal to the price of the good plus the [probability of getting caught * the cost of the punishment] less [the costs of not having the legal good]. This is where the parent to your post had it wrong -- or perhaps they feel that the probability of being caught approaches zero.
In the bigger picture, I believe both you and the parent to the post are correct. I believe that some protection is necessary for the art creation to be a viable profession. I also believe that no one has the right to be compensated for doing what they want -- but since media distribution is now practically free of cost, artists can't support their work by selling copies.
My concern is that the arts suffer when only those of independent means, or those with sponsorship of wealthy individuals, are able to devote themselves to producing art. How many Beethovens, Stravinskys, and Bachs were never able to achieve their potential because they did not come from relatively wealthy backgrounds? How many artists have lived destitute because there was no means to profit off their work, and how many artists of great potential chose another field because they saw the 'starving artists'?
I believe art has great value, and I believe that there needs to be a mechanism for artists to be compensated for creation of works, not just performance of works.