Why does it have to be either/or?
I like my music to have useful filenames so that I can find what I'm looking for with standard tools. I also like to have metadata, so that I can find what I'm looking for from within any music player that understands tags.
My girlfriend has an iPod. Every music file she's copied to it through iTunes has had its filename corrupted, so that I'm left wondering, "what the hell is AYQZ.mp3?" Yes, these files still have their metadata, but ultimately, that's not very useful to me until I open some kind of music catalog program. What's the point of scrambling my filenames and throwing out some useful information? All it does is make using my files difficult.
I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but if so, it bears saying again: the control system in question belongs to the CMS detector, not to the LHC. These are two entirely different beasts.
I keep hearing about this sort of nonsense, but I have yet to experience anything even remotely resembling it for myself. I'm a science and math student; maybe it's limited to the liberal arts? I suspect every one of my professors would most likely be opposed to preventing the spread of course material!
Normal by your standards. Americans sometimes seem pretty fuckin' weird to people from other cultures. It's not exactly normal to have a belly roll in Japan, for example.
I've visited Hiroshima and stood under the point where the bomb detonated. I'd certainly call the use there 'nefarious,' regardless of how one moralizes loss of non-American life to be somehow 'okay.' The bomb on Nagasaki was only dropped to keep out the Russians -- how many lives must be extinguished for political gain?
Why do we trust the US to make good decisions concerning nuclear weapons, when the US is the only country ever to use them against an enemy? There may be others out there who'd like to get their hands on nukes for nefarious purposes, but the US is not exactly innocent.
My adviser and several other professors on my floor commonly wear socks with sandals. There are three men in my research group with long hair, two of whom wear floral-pattern shirts. Nobody wears a tie (eww!). I'm not sure anyone cares about the shoes/belt thing; I've certainly never bothered to make sure the person I'm discussing physics with is wearing matching accessories. Nobody I know wears a binary watch, but a few professors carry PDAs that they use for all manner of unusual purposes.
And you know what? All of these people are very successful scientists. Who'd have thought that the silly corporate obsession with appearance would be so irrelevant to real productivity?
Here's an idea: copyright is cut back to 7 years, like patents (correct me if I'm wrong). Each additional year after the initial "freebie" runs out, the owner of IP can optionally pay a flat fee to retain exclusive rights for the next year for that particular piece of IP. A system like this would encourage creativity, because it costs less than trying to profit from an idea one came up with a number of years ago if the fee is substantial enough. On the other hand, if a company or individual feels there is a valid reason not to let the IP enter the public domain, the owner can always pay the fee. It therefore becomes the owner's responsibility to assess whether the IP is worth whatever price has been set. Admittedly, the amount of the fee is a weak point that would need to be explored. If the money collected goes to the government, income tax could be lowered by an appropriate amount.
Meanwhile, the customer's car has been idling in the parking lot, because the customer expected the purchase to take all of a couple of minutes. The customer drinks his coke inside the store and, disgruntled, walks out to his car, only to find that it has run out of gas and his tires have been slashed.
Actually, the jury need not necessarily vote one way or the other. Even if there is no shadow of a doubt that Reiser committed the crime, the jury is still well within their rights to give a not guilty verdict. Perhaps in the case of murder, jury nullification is the wrong thing to do, but it's still very much an option. The jury is not bound to support the law.
You just acknowledged that governments tend to make a lot of bad decisions. Why, then, is it automatically irrelevant that a large fraction of a country's citizens break a law? Please note that I didn't say anything like, "If a lot of people break a law, then the law is bad." My point was that the larger the number of people who break a law, the more likely it is that the law is not optimal, and should be corrected rather than enforced more harshly. Perhaps in this case the law is bad (or perhaps not).
Your examples (racial persecution, reckless driving) without a doubt *do* harm others. As you mentioned, there are very heated debates with good points on both sides when it comes to whether music sharing is ultimately harmful. The question of whether such sharing should be illegal is therefore not nearly so cut and dry a question as other things. Is the broken copyright system really what's best for the people? Why is the government the best, most knowledgeable entity in this particular case? Who actually benefits from this law?
If it's pointless to try to have a fair debate about a topic, then why is it fair for the government to make a law in favor of one side or the other? I stand by my initial statement: if an insignificant portion of a country's citizens break a given law, then perhaps it is the law that needs to be re-examined, rather than its implementation (or enforcement, in this case).
Easy solution: the computer doesn't get 'net access. There's no reason an unplugged box shouldn't be as private as the child wants it to be; computers are no more dangerous than a pen and paper. Problems only occur when children don't take proper precautions online. There's no reason, in 2008, that a child should not have unfettered access to his/her own system, including root.
If a significant percentage of the population regularly does something that happens to be illegal, perhaps it's the law that needs to be re-examined, not its implementation.
I haven't heard of the theories you refer to. Mind linking me? I'm not sure what you mean by "charging a wire with certain wavelengths"; all we can do to a wire is push a current through it. Wires are conductors, so there's no electric field inside them, and hence, no waves. Maybe you're thinking of waveguides, like optical fibers and co-axial cables, where certain frequencies are transmitted and others aren't. However, this is a very well-understood theory, as the wavelengths accepted depend on the physical properties of the waveguide, and everything follows directly from Maxwell's equations. Waveguides, radiation, etc. are topics that are taught at the advanced undergraduate level of every good physics curriculum; graduate classes in E&M are even more detailed.
Slashdot Mirror
Falsify the information in every category that you would rather keep private. Nobody who actually knows you needs to ask what your gender is.
Not to mention the fact that the ribbon takes up so much more screen real estate than menus.
No, what they really need is more pylons.
Why does it have to be either/or? I like my music to have useful filenames so that I can find what I'm looking for with standard tools. I also like to have metadata, so that I can find what I'm looking for from within any music player that understands tags. My girlfriend has an iPod. Every music file she's copied to it through iTunes has had its filename corrupted, so that I'm left wondering, "what the hell is AYQZ.mp3?" Yes, these files still have their metadata, but ultimately, that's not very useful to me until I open some kind of music catalog program. What's the point of scrambling my filenames and throwing out some useful information? All it does is make using my files difficult.
I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but if so, it bears saying again: the control system in question belongs to the CMS detector, not to the LHC. These are two entirely different beasts.
Wouldn't that make them attorneys general?
I keep hearing about this sort of nonsense, but I have yet to experience anything even remotely resembling it for myself. I'm a science and math student; maybe it's limited to the liberal arts? I suspect every one of my professors would most likely be opposed to preventing the spread of course material!
Both! Just like the null set is both open and closed...
No, I'm Spartacus!
Oh my Godwin, now you've done it!
Normal by your standards. Americans sometimes seem pretty fuckin' weird to people from other cultures. It's not exactly normal to have a belly roll in Japan, for example.
I've visited Hiroshima and stood under the point where the bomb detonated. I'd certainly call the use there 'nefarious,' regardless of how one moralizes loss of non-American life to be somehow 'okay.' The bomb on Nagasaki was only dropped to keep out the Russians -- how many lives must be extinguished for political gain?
Why do we trust the US to make good decisions concerning nuclear weapons, when the US is the only country ever to use them against an enemy? There may be others out there who'd like to get their hands on nukes for nefarious purposes, but the US is not exactly innocent.
This list is all wrong!
My adviser and several other professors on my floor commonly wear socks with sandals. There are three men in my research group with long hair, two of whom wear floral-pattern shirts. Nobody wears a tie (eww!). I'm not sure anyone cares about the shoes/belt thing; I've certainly never bothered to make sure the person I'm discussing physics with is wearing matching accessories. Nobody I know wears a binary watch, but a few professors carry PDAs that they use for all manner of unusual purposes.
And you know what? All of these people are very successful scientists. Who'd have thought that the silly corporate obsession with appearance would be so irrelevant to real productivity?
Here's an idea: copyright is cut back to 7 years, like patents (correct me if I'm wrong). Each additional year after the initial "freebie" runs out, the owner of IP can optionally pay a flat fee to retain exclusive rights for the next year for that particular piece of IP. A system like this would encourage creativity, because it costs less than trying to profit from an idea one came up with a number of years ago if the fee is substantial enough. On the other hand, if a company or individual feels there is a valid reason not to let the IP enter the public domain, the owner can always pay the fee. It therefore becomes the owner's responsibility to assess whether the IP is worth whatever price has been set. Admittedly, the amount of the fee is a weak point that would need to be explored. If the money collected goes to the government, income tax could be lowered by an appropriate amount.
Those pesky pirates can't plunder the booty without power, now can they?
Meanwhile, the customer's car has been idling in the parking lot, because the customer expected the purchase to take all of a couple of minutes. The customer drinks his coke inside the store and, disgruntled, walks out to his car, only to find that it has run out of gas and his tires have been slashed.
Actually, the jury need not necessarily vote one way or the other. Even if there is no shadow of a doubt that Reiser committed the crime, the jury is still well within their rights to give a not guilty verdict. Perhaps in the case of murder, jury nullification is the wrong thing to do, but it's still very much an option. The jury is not bound to support the law.
When has music sharing ever killed anybody's daughter on prom night?
You just acknowledged that governments tend to make a lot of bad decisions. Why, then, is it automatically irrelevant that a large fraction of a country's citizens break a law? Please note that I didn't say anything like, "If a lot of people break a law, then the law is bad." My point was that the larger the number of people who break a law, the more likely it is that the law is not optimal, and should be corrected rather than enforced more harshly. Perhaps in this case the law is bad (or perhaps not).
Your examples (racial persecution, reckless driving) without a doubt *do* harm others. As you mentioned, there are very heated debates with good points on both sides when it comes to whether music sharing is ultimately harmful. The question of whether such sharing should be illegal is therefore not nearly so cut and dry a question as other things. Is the broken copyright system really what's best for the people? Why is the government the best, most knowledgeable entity in this particular case? Who actually benefits from this law?
If it's pointless to try to have a fair debate about a topic, then why is it fair for the government to make a law in favor of one side or the other? I stand by my initial statement: if an insignificant portion of a country's citizens break a given law, then perhaps it is the law that needs to be re-examined, rather than its implementation (or enforcement, in this case).
They hired 36 new recruits once, but the moment that last guy graduated from boot camp, the records keeper suffered a stroke.
The Swedes didn't care about what Germany was doing in Norway; they just wanted to bomb Norway. You know, an old Viking sibling rivalry thing.
Easy solution: the computer doesn't get 'net access. There's no reason an unplugged box shouldn't be as private as the child wants it to be; computers are no more dangerous than a pen and paper. Problems only occur when children don't take proper precautions online. There's no reason, in 2008, that a child should not have unfettered access to his/her own system, including root.
If a significant percentage of the population regularly does something that happens to be illegal, perhaps it's the law that needs to be re-examined, not its implementation.
IAAP == I Am A Physicist
I haven't heard of the theories you refer to. Mind linking me? I'm not sure what you mean by "charging a wire with certain wavelengths"; all we can do to a wire is push a current through it. Wires are conductors, so there's no electric field inside them, and hence, no waves. Maybe you're thinking of waveguides, like optical fibers and co-axial cables, where certain frequencies are transmitted and others aren't. However, this is a very well-understood theory, as the wavelengths accepted depend on the physical properties of the waveguide, and everything follows directly from Maxwell's equations. Waveguides, radiation, etc. are topics that are taught at the advanced undergraduate level of every good physics curriculum; graduate classes in E&M are even more detailed.