Now, the Big Publishing is making the exact same mistakes. Insisting on DRM. All of it is on different platforms in different formats. None of it works with anything else.
I think they recognize this problem, and their desire is to standardize the DRM aspect. It doesn't exactly solve the problem of there being DRM, but how would you get people to pay for text?
You can force music down people's ears, but you can't force words into people's brains through their eyes. The publishing industry has to be very careful, as people are already reading less and less.
If the music industry kills online distribution outright (through legislation and such), they'd still have people listening to the radio and buying CD's. If publishers are not careful managing their entry into electronic delivery, their actions could adversely affect their traditional business.
think anything rich media, graphic or design heavy
Use vector graphics. SVG is a good start. It's not perfect for text set into graphics if you want it visible, but it'd work for keeping graphical layouts, and even rich media.
You can also use a hybrid approach, with SVG for the graphics, and special text elements that will work with re-flow.
Things come out of Apple, and it Just Works(tm). It might not do much, but what it does works.
Things come out of Google in Beta(tm). Things may or may not work or work too well, may or may not be available, and may or may not do what you think it does, depending on physical location, locale, time of day, bandwidth, and whether you dunk your Oreo in milk before or after splitting it.
There exist such things as anti-trust laws for this very reason. It's not illegal to have a monopoly, but once a company has a monopoly, they're not allowed to do anti-competitive things like arbitrarily disable the competition and any potential competitors.
It's too bad the iPod Touch doesn't quite have a monopoly on mp3 players, and that Washington is so pro-corporate these days.
It seems GP is thinking recent thought movements are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Sure, social constructs can be abused, and things can get pretty bad when the abuse goes unchecked. Society today is effectively seeing the abuses, thinking that the cause of the abuses are the social constructs themselves, and in an attempt to prevent future abuse, denounce those constructs completely and absolutely. But those constructs do provide certain good, which GP argues gets marginalized and overlooked.
GP argues a more moderate approach, one that may be a little harder and take a little longer to implement, but will maintain the benefits of the old as well as prevent the abuses. But in this day and age of convenience and immediacy, such a thing would never even be considered. And if such a way does get brought up, one side will argue it's not good enough, while the other side will argue it's too much.
In an age where information is so prevalent, thoughtfulness does not seem to have increased, but mindlessness seems to have gotten louder.
The majority of religion is a social code to live by so we (hopefully) won't exterminate our own species. The rest of it, all the mysticism, and flash are simply window dressing to "sex up" (if you'll pardon the usage) the underlying message and make it mentally appealing to people.
Unfortunately, it's also being used the opposite way. Actually, it's rather an interesting idea whether sending us back into the dark ages can preserve humanity as a species, considering how technology and progress is contributing to our downfall by all accounts.
As I stated before in a comment above, where there's power, there's abuse. It's probably best to remove power from any single individual and distribute it among all individuals. But that's probably not going to happen.
I think the agnostic swings both ways. Some people consider them religious, some non-religious. The only groups you can consider absolutely are the atheists and the theists.
You're right that the percentage of atheists are much higher among the scientific community than any other population of individuals (other than the population of atheists). But the data shows it's not the majority that everybody seems to think, and that the rabid atheists seem to imply.
Again, you can't include the agnostics in either set of data. They're not even sure themselves. How can you be?
You can't be spiritual without having faith. It's not necessarily faith in some diety or the afterlife or whatnot, but faith in something. That faith can be in humanity, or in an individual, or in individuals, or even in oneself. But it's still faith.
And you know why this is? Because there is nothing to be gain and a lot to be lost in actively opposing religion.
You should've stopped there.
You make scientists out to be like cowards, worried about sticking their heads out and getting it chopped off if they talked about religion.
It's actually not that at all. Religion has no place in science. Period. Why would they talk about it if it's not pertinent to their science? What's there to talk about? As you've said, there's nothing to be gained--in science--by talking about it. So having no bearing on their science, why bother?
Religion is better left for their private, personal life--at least the aspects that do not involve science.
You speak of observation, but as a scientist, you should know that there are yet many things humanity does not know left to be observed.
Denying or affirming religion is the same action. By GGP asserting that the being in people's beliefs is "imaginary," it is denying not merely the reality, but the very possibility of it becoming reality. Denial of anything unknown, whether it is asserted by a theorist or a scientist, is denial of potential knowledge. Science, which posits that knowledge is unprovable absolutely, only deny assertions that observations deny. That which is unobservable can neither be denied nor affirmed by science.
Your GP isn't being critical, he's being intolerant and narrow-minded. Your parent is correct, and the mods are correct to mod down.
No, but certain religions promote compassion, which makes its followers more likely to be compassionate. One can be compassionate without religion, and one can act on those compassionate ideas, but it would take a sociology study to determine whether compassionate religions have a noticeable benefit to society. But, it's human nature to do more "good" things if there's a social stigma discouraging not doing "good" things.
At least a secular organization does not try to indoctrinate, which is a form of mental abuse in my book.
Like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which stipulates the use of Windows computers in all the efforts to which it contributes? Forced indoctrination is neither a secular nor religious thing. Money is power, and where there's power, there'll be abuse. Religion neither fosters it, nor does non-religiosity prevent it. The responsible parties are the individuals, not the religion or lack thereof.
The argument that religion has anything to do with abuse is merely the other side of the coin that says religion promotes social good, which you've argued against in the preceding statements.
I'm not religious, but how is this silly? Just because you don't believe in the premises doesn't make it silly or otherwise trivial. It reconciles a certain set of beliefs with reality, without violating the assertions of either. I would find that instead to be rather thoughtful.
I wonder if you think philosophy is likewise silly and trivial. Yet, science is amoral. So how should one reconcile our morality with science? Or should we discard morality, because science is all that matters?
Both science and religion attempt to reconcile our observations of the world with our understanding of the world, so yes, they are comparable at a certain abstraction.
The difference is that one makes stuff up and says it's true no matter what, while the other one makes stuff up and includes the caveat: if it doesn't work as expected, it's time to come up with something better that has to fit all previous observations. In this sense, religion is the antithesis of science, as religion is 100% confident, while science's maximum is 99.999...%.
Religion also has a moral, social component that in order to maintain the above component, is likewise absolute and true regardless. If one discards the above and only follows this second component, religion becomes less religion and more organized spirituality. Then it is compatible with science.
You have to be careful about stats that tell you X copies sold in Y time. Sometimes, those numbers are only how many have been distributed to retail stores, not necessarily the number that actually got into people's hands.
You can just diff two maps and see what's different. You're pretty screwed if one map is blatantly copied off the other. But barring that special case, you'd get a pretty accurate picture of wherever you're looking to go.
Engaging in anti-competitive practices is completely justified by the improvements in shininess of the next toy such a practice would bring if Apple's doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
There are plenty of other GSM carriers in the US. T-Mobile is a big one.
There are also smaller ones like Cellular one, and numerous pay-as-you-go carriers like TracFone.
Now, the Big Publishing is making the exact same mistakes. Insisting on DRM. All of it is on different platforms in different formats. None of it works with anything else.
I think they recognize this problem, and their desire is to standardize the DRM aspect. It doesn't exactly solve the problem of there being DRM, but how would you get people to pay for text?
You can force music down people's ears, but you can't force words into people's brains through their eyes. The publishing industry has to be very careful, as people are already reading less and less.
If the music industry kills online distribution outright (through legislation and such), they'd still have people listening to the radio and buying CD's. If publishers are not careful managing their entry into electronic delivery, their actions could adversely affect their traditional business.
think anything rich media, graphic or design heavy
Use vector graphics. SVG is a good start. It's not perfect for text set into graphics if you want it visible, but it'd work for keeping graphical layouts, and even rich media.
You can also use a hybrid approach, with SVG for the graphics, and special text elements that will work with re-flow.
Google's philosophy is different from Apple.
Things come out of Apple, and it Just Works(tm). It might not do much, but what it does works.
Things come out of Google in Beta(tm). Things may or may not work or work too well, may or may not be available, and may or may not do what you think it does, depending on physical location, locale, time of day, bandwidth, and whether you dunk your Oreo in milk before or after splitting it.
It'll take some time, but order will eventually form from within chaos. It's a matter of hanging on until then.
There exist such things as anti-trust laws for this very reason. It's not illegal to have a monopoly, but once a company has a monopoly, they're not allowed to do anti-competitive things like arbitrarily disable the competition and any potential competitors.
It's too bad the iPod Touch doesn't quite have a monopoly on mp3 players, and that Washington is so pro-corporate these days.
It seems GP is thinking recent thought movements are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Sure, social constructs can be abused, and things can get pretty bad when the abuse goes unchecked. Society today is effectively seeing the abuses, thinking that the cause of the abuses are the social constructs themselves, and in an attempt to prevent future abuse, denounce those constructs completely and absolutely. But those constructs do provide certain good, which GP argues gets marginalized and overlooked.
GP argues a more moderate approach, one that may be a little harder and take a little longer to implement, but will maintain the benefits of the old as well as prevent the abuses. But in this day and age of convenience and immediacy, such a thing would never even be considered. And if such a way does get brought up, one side will argue it's not good enough, while the other side will argue it's too much.
In an age where information is so prevalent, thoughtfulness does not seem to have increased, but mindlessness seems to have gotten louder.
The majority of religion is a social code to live by so we (hopefully) won't exterminate our own species. The rest of it, all the mysticism, and flash are simply window dressing to "sex up" (if you'll pardon the usage) the underlying message and make it mentally appealing to people.
Unfortunately, it's also being used the opposite way. Actually, it's rather an interesting idea whether sending us back into the dark ages can preserve humanity as a species, considering how technology and progress is contributing to our downfall by all accounts.
As I stated before in a comment above, where there's power, there's abuse. It's probably best to remove power from any single individual and distribute it among all individuals. But that's probably not going to happen.
I think the agnostic swings both ways. Some people consider them religious, some non-religious. The only groups you can consider absolutely are the atheists and the theists.
You're right that the percentage of atheists are much higher among the scientific community than any other population of individuals (other than the population of atheists). But the data shows it's not the majority that everybody seems to think, and that the rabid atheists seem to imply.
Again, you can't include the agnostics in either set of data. They're not even sure themselves. How can you be?
You can't be spiritual without having faith. It's not necessarily faith in some diety or the afterlife or whatnot, but faith in something. That faith can be in humanity, or in an individual, or in individuals, or even in oneself. But it's still faith.
And you know why this is? Because there is nothing to be gain and a lot to be lost in actively opposing religion.
You should've stopped there.
You make scientists out to be like cowards, worried about sticking their heads out and getting it chopped off if they talked about religion.
It's actually not that at all. Religion has no place in science. Period. Why would they talk about it if it's not pertinent to their science? What's there to talk about? As you've said, there's nothing to be gained--in science--by talking about it. So having no bearing on their science, why bother?
Religion is better left for their private, personal life--at least the aspects that do not involve science.
You speak of observation, but as a scientist, you should know that there are yet many things humanity does not know left to be observed.
Denying or affirming religion is the same action. By GGP asserting that the being in people's beliefs is "imaginary," it is denying not merely the reality, but the very possibility of it becoming reality. Denial of anything unknown, whether it is asserted by a theorist or a scientist, is denial of potential knowledge. Science, which posits that knowledge is unprovable absolutely, only deny assertions that observations deny. That which is unobservable can neither be denied nor affirmed by science.
Your GP isn't being critical, he's being intolerant and narrow-minded. Your parent is correct, and the mods are correct to mod down.
Religion does not have a monopoly on compassion.
No, but certain religions promote compassion, which makes its followers more likely to be compassionate. One can be compassionate without religion, and one can act on those compassionate ideas, but it would take a sociology study to determine whether compassionate religions have a noticeable benefit to society. But, it's human nature to do more "good" things if there's a social stigma discouraging not doing "good" things.
At least a secular organization does not try to indoctrinate, which is a form of mental abuse in my book.
Like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which stipulates the use of Windows computers in all the efforts to which it contributes? Forced indoctrination is neither a secular nor religious thing. Money is power, and where there's power, there'll be abuse. Religion neither fosters it, nor does non-religiosity prevent it. The responsible parties are the individuals, not the religion or lack thereof.
The argument that religion has anything to do with abuse is merely the other side of the coin that says religion promotes social good, which you've argued against in the preceding statements.
I'm not religious, but how is this silly? Just because you don't believe in the premises doesn't make it silly or otherwise trivial. It reconciles a certain set of beliefs with reality, without violating the assertions of either. I would find that instead to be rather thoughtful.
I wonder if you think philosophy is likewise silly and trivial. Yet, science is amoral. So how should one reconcile our morality with science? Or should we discard morality, because science is all that matters?
Both science and religion attempt to reconcile our observations of the world with our understanding of the world, so yes, they are comparable at a certain abstraction.
The difference is that one makes stuff up and says it's true no matter what, while the other one makes stuff up and includes the caveat: if it doesn't work as expected, it's time to come up with something better that has to fit all previous observations. In this sense, religion is the antithesis of science, as religion is 100% confident, while science's maximum is 99.999...%.
Religion also has a moral, social component that in order to maintain the above component, is likewise absolute and true regardless. If one discards the above and only follows this second component, religion becomes less religion and more organized spirituality. Then it is compatible with science.
You have to be careful about stats that tell you X copies sold in Y time. Sometimes, those numbers are only how many have been distributed to retail stores, not necessarily the number that actually got into people's hands.
Dynamic Link Library files don't contain movies
Not yet.
If passing the turning test was the criterion for being a legitmate account, Facebook would instantly lose half its users.
That one mighty sunspot that can clog up such massive tubes.
And anyway, no one shuts down the big movie company when they make a re-hash movie.
Only when it's bad. Like The Italian Job.
*shudder*
Nuclear plants need to be engineered to be as moron resistant as possible
This is true of everything. But for some things, failure has relatively minor consequences, while for other things, failure has major consequences.
Calm down, Robin! It's just a reincarnated Kant speaking English.
You can just diff two maps and see what's different. You're pretty screwed if one map is blatantly copied off the other. But barring that special case, you'd get a pretty accurate picture of wherever you're looking to go.
Engaging in anti-competitive practices is completely justified by the improvements in shininess of the next toy such a practice would bring if Apple's doing it.