Is it just me or does the RIAA think that it's their constitiutional right to have people hand them money?
I know you're being facecious and all, but...the RIAA is a "trade group." "Trade groups", corporations, and other member-nodal entities have no "constitutional rights". The Constitution grants artists the right of copyright for the progress of science and useful arts! Being somewhat of a constructionist, this means that the explicit intent of the framers must be taken into account. The framers obviously did not intend for businesses to weild the same rights as individuals. That has happened once in our history, and it is known to history as The Gilded Age. As far as I'm concerned, I own the disk's matter, therefore I own whatever the matter represents. If I own a plot of land, and then a huge heap of gold is found on its site, I own that gold. "Intellectual property" means that an artist can't be robbed of his or her creative ideas. If a person thinks of something and develops it privately, and someone else then sneaks a peek at it, that should be illegal. I'd be pretty pissed if someone stole my designs like that. The designs and things are my property. But after my product is released, it is fair game. I sell disks, which are matter encoded to represent something. People who buy the disks own the disk's matter, and therefore can use the disks as they please. Art isn't, and never has been the most lucrative of industries. Science and engineering and the professions and the trades yield quantitative progress, but art by its very nature is qualitative. Today, a grossly small percentage of artists make up a grossly large percentage of artists' total wealth. They get rich by selling you the record, the 8-trak, the audio cassette, and the CD. Now they want to sell you the DRMd mp3 derivative. Shove it, RIAA. I support artists, not greedy fat rich corporate bastards who care only about their personal check-books.
I am an American currently living in the states but I have lived in Europe. Most of the junk that Europe hears about America isn't true. We don't eat our children.;-) Well, that's an exaggeration, but most of the video clips and information about what you get is either yellow-journalism or just hollywood garbage. I can tell you two facts: a) 80% of Americans are not "cowboys" like Bush and b) 0% of America is like Hollywood portrays it. Hollywood is filled with the most outspoken, rich know-it-alls in the country. They make movies that usually have some sort of political propaganda value (such as "Day After Tomorrow"). America definitely has its share of problems, and Hollywood is one of them. The MPAA monopolizes the movie industry and ensures that no one can challenge it. In fact, the very act of assigning ratings is very political. If a film is likely to make a good amount of money, the studio for that movie will use its influence to lower the rating (from R, which means kids below 17 must have an adult, to PG-13, meaning that anyone can attend). The movie Titanic, for example, probably should have been R, but since the movie cost so much to make and was likely to earn back a huge amount more, it was lowered to PG-13. NC-17 movies are a strict policy of no children attending. This documentary was likely given a high rating simply because it may not favorably shadow the MPAA. America was founded on rejecting the top-heavy authority, but today it seems that people are content in ignorance.
Re:I did not RTFA, Take with grain of salt.
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See, I have no real problems with atheists, except when they try and pull this "it's my right to not be offended." In fact, atheism is rather small following whereas agnosticism is followed by many people. The atheists who I don't like are the ones who go along with the ACLU and say that because some small percentage of government funds go toward some organization which preaches belief in some religion then the government is absolutely aligning itself with these organizations and thereby violating the first amendment. If we look at the constitution, government doesn't establish religion nor prevent free excercise thereof. I personally cringe that my tax money is used horribly inefficiently on programs like welfare. Instead of helping impoverished people by giving them temporary support while they move up the social ladder, welfare is structured in such a way that benefits poor, illiterate, undereducated, unemployed, single parents with many children. Let the statistics show that success comes to those who are educated, married when they have children, and are employed. I take a personal offense to this misappropriation. I don't agree with everything my tax money is used for and I have philosophical grounds. My rights (apart from being taxed) aren't being violated, however. I feel it is my duty to bring about change in government, and atheists may feel the same way. But this selfish, "I am offended" bullshit has got to stop. I do not get offended because it's a waste of time. I think that these militant atheists are a scum, trying to undermine the historical importance of deism in America because they are too proud. They forget that their rights are not some sort of infinite quantity. Government can't infringe on rights, but an individual's rights end where another's begin. Of course, I'm talking only about the really militant ones. As far as an atheist being told he's a sinner, I get pissed off when radical Christians tell me I'm going to hell because I was baptiezed correctly. What bullshit! How about "christians" go about living in Godly ways and sharing the message of Christ through action. Scaring people into "repentance" isn't faith at all; faith is the freedom one has to accept the world as he or she pleases.
Unfortunately, #3 is the rather silent majority. I'll come out and say that, yes, I am very much pro-science and that I'm also a devout Christian. That said, these hoodlums were very wrong to beat the man up. Of course, we are assuming that he is telling the truth. You can never be too sure when someone says they were beaten by two men on a country road. Final comment: Dogmatic Athiests pushing their belief system as the anti-religion. That to me seems like the most ridiculous state, to be a dogmatic atheist or militant atheist. That's like saying, "I'm a die-hard believer in absolutely nothing!" Or, "I'm going to die for my belief in no greater purpose!" It always struck me as funny. If they believe that they are as close to supernatural as anything is, then what gives. "Don't mess with me, I'm a god in some places..."
tech: Alright, ma'am, thank you for calling. Portions of this phone call may be recorded to ensure the best customer service. I'm going to ask you to reboot your machine. woman: What's that? tech: Ma'am, can you tell me what Operating System you're running. woman: I don't know. Is that what's wrong? tech: Not at all ma'am... If you would please click the "start" menu in the bottom lefthand corner. woman: Alright. tech: Select the button that says "Turn Off Computer" and then select "Restart" from the pop up. woman: It just turned off and then turned back on, is that supposed to happen? tech: Yes, ma'am, that's quite normal. ... woman: Thank you so much; my mp3 works just like it should... ... ::ring, ring:: tech: Alright, sir, thank you for calling. Portions of this phone call may be recorded to ensure the best customer service. First, I'm going to ask you to reboot your machine. man: How do I do that? tech: Ah, no problem. Can you tell me what operating system you're running? man: Hell if I know. tech: No problem. Go the "start" button in the lower lefthand corner...
Yep, this is exactly what I call fair. Ajax is actually a very good idea. Maybe I'm tne only one that gets this, but having a local machine run code rather than have a server stream code to the client seems like a perfectly logical proposition for me. Bookmarkable? That's the whole point. You can't bookmark a rich user experience. What you can bookmark is the URL. A (well-designed) AJAX page will automatically pick up from where you left off. That has to do with sessions, not bookmarking. Back button? Ajax handles the back button better than frames, and actually an ingenious sliver of code in gmail completely fixes the broken back button (GMAIL gets and sends data from a 0 x 0 iframe). The fact that a lot of ajax sucks is inherent in the fact that it's relatively young (really, people, the technology has been here, but using javascript and xml as the primary modes of design rather than strict html is new). In fact, the web sucks most of the time. That's right, I said it. How many sites can you count that are incompatible with other browsers or have utterly irrelevant and useless features (such as mouse tails)? Really, who cares if someone can build the 1001st "yo momma" joke generator. Ajax is more about semantics than it is about actual coding. Instead of using (X)HTML as the presentation language and augmenting it with javascript, javascript is the language employing XHTML for presentation. It deals more with the fact that there are, indeed, a limited number of HTML tags, but Javascript is turing-complete. This is really ridiculous. In its infancy, most of the web pages sucked, most javascript sucked, most serverside scripting sucked, etc. The technology matures; change is inevitable.
Please, do not say such things. Nanotech does exist and I have seen it with my own eyes (aided by an electron microscope, mind you). In fact, corporations are developing technologies and some have already developed technologies integrating nanotechnologies. New tennis raquets use nanotubes to become stiffer and stronger than the older models. Samsung has developed a display utilizing nanotubes which hasn't hit the market yet, but will once some issues are resolved (the display works fine, but it is a wee bit fragile as of yet). Also, right now it takes an incredibly long time to grow the nanotubes. The record for the longest nanotube is about 3 cm, and it was grown in about 2 days. The technology is truly fascinating. I recently attended a conference at GA Tech, and one of the seminars was about nanotech. Really a fascinating subject area. Nanotech is not synonymous with nanomachines; it is the engineering of objects on the nano scale (10^(-6) m). Though many companies use "nanotechnology" as somewhat of a buzzword, avoid saying that "no one" is investigating it or that "no one" has made anything with it. Ad hominem argument is a fallacy.
I am of the opinion that AI will never achieve true intelligence. Consider the "definitions" we have of AI. Basically, if it emulates a human, then it's AI. Well sometimes ELIZA on AOL makes more sense than the president, but does that make me think ELIZA is intelligent and Bush isn't? No way! ELIZA is coded to respond to certain things. If you type in some sort of complex sentence, ELIZA will respond that "I didn't understand that last part." Human intelligence isn't programmed, it's the function of our brains. When the original AI theories were developed, computers were very very very new. Alan Turing, one of the fathers of digital computers (for whom "Turing-complete" is named), was so stumped that he came up with a test as subjective and unscientific as the process outlined above. He said that if it fools people into thinking it is intelligent, then it must be intelligent. Today this seems absurd. But in the 1950's, psychology was focused on behaviorism. The brain was considered a "black box" and the only measure of people could be taken from their behavior. This was actually sort of a reaction to the psychoanalysts (such as Freud), who believed that the analysis of one's life could reveal the answers to problems. Behaviorists are best exemplified through such experiments as Pavlov's dog. This, in fact, is very much of a program. "if (time == 1700){feed(dog);}". Though behaviorism has some merits, its basic philosophy boils down to analysis only of the exterior at a certain time. Today psychology has moved far beyond behaviorism and we now even have new theories of intelligence (such as multiple intelligences, and so on). Also, psychology gave up on the whole "black box" idea, which it deemed rather stupid. Remember that in the 1950's, they also believed that weather could be easily predicted years into the future once computers of sufficient power were devised. The 1960s and its Chaos and Fractals really disproved this, but this is beyond my scope.
Today we no longer view psychology the same way. The brain is actually at the forefront of modern psychology. Unfortunately, the studies on the brain really focus on specific areas of the brain. No real theories* have been made about the human brain. It's just sort of like "well, if we poke this area and then ask Mr. Fox to move his arm, he won't be able to." I respect these doctors for such diligent research and experimentation, and above all the saving of many many lives. But, theory is still lacking. To truely make intelligence, we would need to understand a few aspects of intelligence. These may include prediction, understanding, association, sensory functions, and learning, among others. To these ends, "AI" is absolutely useless, and a gross misnomer. If a computer or peice of hardware were to become fully intelligent, it would need just a very simple base algorithm, with ability to build onto itself. That is how we learn: we take in new information and the brain adds the new information to itself. This is not how computers work. A computer will take the new information and overwrite the old. In fact, the information is stored simply in arbitrary aggregations of 0s and 1s. Not only this, but certain areas of computer memory are reserved for certain functions. A basic brain would have no such "allocation" built in. Computer memory has the ability to be "defragmented", but the brain has no need to do this. You see, the brain is not a "permanent storage" model like the hard drive or anything in a present-day computer. The brain take in inputs, creates memories and functions associated with the inputs, and then links them all together. Effectively, a brain is like a computer that continuously is adding to its code and relinking itself. Compilation is not necessary. In some cases, the brain actually subtracts from itself to make itself more efficient. If you look at brain inputs on MRI scans, different parts of the brain are activated by hearing and vision, but extremely similar patterns are propogated through the neurons. In fact,
Ah, yes, you are correct. Not only did I torture you by having you read that long thing, but mispelled "mach" as "mock". The thing I meant to say that is weird about Mac OS X is that the hacked OSx86 actually got better performance on PC hardware on comparable speed processors and size of memory. But that said, Mac is just awesome and it's a thrill to use.
That is a good question, and if us Linux geeks ever want some foothold in the "common" market, we need to answer it or create an easy way to do this. The first thing I would do is begin using OSS applications like OpenOffice.org vs. the standard M$ Office products. OO.o is cheaper, has similar functionality, and is simpler than MS Office. I'd perhaps also deploy the newest version of Firefox as the default web browser, including some sort of memo to the staff to please use this new one (for security reasons, you could say).
This is where the hardware aspect enters. Each of the software mentioned above has ports to Win32, Linux, Mac (9 and X), and SunOS/Solaris. The thing about linux is that there is upkeep needed. I guarentee that probably 20000 of the users will not want to update their software weekly. I work at a research lab, and we run SunOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Win32 XP. I love linux, but RHEL doesn't have the best package management in the world, and most users aren't going to like the necessity to hunt down packages. Plus, with RHEL, I often must compile my own packages, which is a pain and sometimes time-consuming, and often I have to make further system modifications (most of which require root access) to integrate the new application into the environment. Having every user log in as root to apply updates is a terrible idea.
At home I dual boot XP Home and Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is good; I really enjoy it. It is based on Debian, so the rock-solid package management is still there. Minimal configuration could be done to allow users to install updates, without them needing root access or requiring technical knowledge. Still, though, many applications require compilation tweaking for the user to be happy with the results. Basically with any Linux distro, you'll have the ease-of-use problems. I'd keep a simple rule of thumb: if it needs the terminal, stay away (regarding large amounts of users).
My first choice would actually be Apple in this case. Not only is Mac OS X secure and easy to use, but it is simple to distribute widely. Mac OS X is based on Darwin BSD (based on, like movies based on books). It uses a mock kernel, so it isn't really BSD, but the layer between the UI and the kernel is Unix. Installing applications is just as simple as windows. In fact, most applications require the user to copy the application the applications folder by clicking and dragging. Plus any business application these days is likely to support Mac and Windows. The biggest problem with using Apples is that they don't come standard with a 3 buttom mouse (but 3 button mice are compatible with Macs). Apples are honestly the best computers on the market for general business users and artists alike. I wouldn't run a 500000 entry Oracle database off of one, but I would not even run a 50000 entry database from Windows. The advantage of Mac is that it accomadates both techies and regular users. I, being a techie, like to customize lots of things. It isn't hard to customize a Mac, but Apple set things up very well so a non-techie doesn't inadvertantly screw something up. The only real disadvantage (other than the mouse issue) of Macs is that they are expensive. Consider, however, that Apple has some of the best support (though with 40000 computes you'd probably have techs ascending from the ground), it has some of the best hardware, and an Apple's power doesn't deflate. We've all had the experience with Windows that it works so quickly at the beginning, and then after a while Windows just slows down. Apples don't do this. The battle for the gigahertz is really irrelevant.
Summary:
Go with Apple: cost/benefit is probably best of anything out there. Begin using OSS standardly. Update the systems in very small baby-steps. Start out with a test group of maybe 200 users. If you want to upgrade a specific department, that may be the best idea. Get their inputs throughout the test group. Include both techies and non-techies in this test-group and see how it goes. Most likely any major problems will pop up in this test phase and can be addressed before 40000 computers and users are affected.
OK, really, what does this have to do with anything? "National Institute of Media and the Family." This sounds to me like one of the (many) organizations euphamistically promoting "family values" through overliteralization of the Bible and the attempt to control. Any organization like this which says that a ratings body gets a grade is just full of it. Of course ESRB inflates ratings: no one holds them accountable for the ratings. No one asks ESRB, "uh, don't ya think that the 6 titties that were flashed at once deserves an adults-only rating?" No one does this. Also, why don't some parents take some initiative instead of relying on some marketing rubberstamp. Maybe this National Institute of Mother Figs should look at, er, the FAMILY. Last time I looked, parents were supposed to censor things for their children. Perhaps that is the only valid method of censorship available. I can't really disagree with ESRB's statement. "Reform" groups like this NIMF claim to be "conservative" except that they want government to legislate what is "morally" right and "morally" wrong (in other words, what they interpret Christianity says about morality). Last time I looked, a conservative favored less government intervention in the lives of citizens. Perhaps registering as a libertarian is a good idea...
Summary:
ESRB: Hate ya but agree with your statement
NIMF: Really hate your attempt to impose Christianity on everyone (thus making the rest of the Christian people have a bad name), really hate your attempt to censor, really hate your utterly stupid comments. How do you know all that stuff about these obscene games, anyway?
I was at a baseball game earlier this year (Cubs v. Cardinals) and the bathroom was completely filled. There was a trough (a no flush) urinal, but some drunk dudes (there are many in Wrigley Field) just open pissed in a sink. That was absolutely disgusting. How about more urinals (or perhaps sinks labeled "for drunks' piss only") instead of arguing about flush v. no flush.
This actually severly lowers my value of this study. I do respect you, though, for putting it in. Basically, what we were led to believe is that conclusive proof that humans cause(d) global warming has been found. This completely tears that down. The journal states two important facts: a) the greenhouse gasses and climate correlate and b) the two have always correlated. This tells me that pinning a cause as "the industrial revolution" is strictly circumstantial. The fact is, a major anomolous climate change could have caused these drastic rises in greenhouse gasses (there was a "mini-ice age" in the late 1600s). I'm not suggesting that we should spew black ash into the air. We should all be stewards of the environment. Besides, the earth has been coming out of the last major ice age for a long time. 650 thousand years is very short with respect to Earth's age. People affect the environment; the environment affects us. Humans are here today because of how our ancestors adapted to drastic climate changes.
As far as I know, the RIAA and other music cartels around the world have not yet made it illegal for independent artists to do it themselves.
It might as well be illegal. So many indie artists would use filesharing ("legally") to spread their stuff to the world. The RIAA wants to bring all file-sharing down because it is "illegal" or "unethical". It's a load of cold, hard crap. Consider this: indie artists get very little (if any at all) air-time on radio. Even the artists who do get air-time are made to pay for it (the studios subtract the fees against the artists' profits). Now let's say someone wants to create an indie radio station. Too bad, gotta go through the FCC, pay fees, and yada yada. And what about playing indie music on regular radio stations? Not gonna happen. The radio stations are put under the fingers of each studio. The (RI/MP)AA have this sick, twisted, and tyrannical view of art, science, and media. They infest the masses with this idea that an abstract idea or representation can be copyrighted. They have this idea that "to benefit artists" the exclusive right to copy, play, or use the song/art/media is given to the "artists"::cough cough::ahem, studios::cough cough::. Anyone with good experience with the Constitution should cringe at this. For those blessed souls who do not have a baboon as president, the US Constitution provides that copyright exists a) for limited periods of time and b) exists only to be used for the progress of art or science. NOT for the benefit of just the "artists"...er...studios. Since the Constitution supercedes all US Law, much (if not all) of the US Copyright Law is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.
These facts haven't stopped the (MP/RI)AA from spreading their propaganda and their lies. The Media is allied with these cartels, and the sad state of American media has a) led to indoctrination and b) led to crackpot journalism. "News" with little analysis, incorrect analysis, or the complete lack thereof is rampant in American mass media. The news networks present these stories about "illegal file-swapping" or "filesharing bandits" which are completely one-sided. When I was younger and had no idea about the truth, I believed what they said about Napster. It sounded like some sort of evil plot. Until I learned the truth. I learned that the truth truly does set one free. I learned that the Media (as any group with power) only wants more power. They think the world would be a better place if everyone just did everything the way the media wanted. Most likely, this would only benefit the media. That is the state of things now. The Media is on this self-appointed crusade. Yet now they have experienced the bulk of their power. The news relics of the cold-war are no longer adequate. People are actually becoming disgusted with the media. Movie viewership is far below projected estimates this year. The MP/RIAA claims that this is the underhanded dealing of filesharing "pirates". Since these cartels have so much influence, they dance about unchecked, weilding lawsuits, subpoenas, and red tape. I hold the opinion that the MP/RIAA hold much less wealth than we are led to believe, and that is why they have begun these attacks. They are desperate, and they know that copyright provides enough leverage for the MP/RIAA to become some state-sponsored thing. They'll get their money (somehow they'd get it; energy research is willingly cut out of the budget, but the MP/RIAA must get their new subsidy) and they'll be happy...at individuals' expense. Their rights end where ours begin.
To those filthy corporate bastards: Sorry, we left our eyepatches at home. Cartels are much more piratical than we. We the consumers are being alienated. Why not make something that we like? Capitalism is founded on the principle that competition forces innovation. Capitalism does not induce bitching about consumers. F^** you!
Though I see your point, the article does state that M$ did pay discounted prices, and the researcher did take these discounts into consideration. Also consider that M$ is pulling an Apple: releasing limited quanitities to increase demand for a sexy product. They likely didn't place a huge order on each unit of the components; why would they? They could just buy a huge amount of components and make tons of XBox's, but they'd have to store those before releasing them. And storage is expensive. I have no doubt that M$ would do this; they have clearly demonstrated that they have no regard for ethical business practices and would love to see Sony and other gaming companies blown out of the water. Then they can make up for their loss.
Though your study pits Windows versus Linux and claims Linux has a higher TCO, what is the actual marginal cost of implementing a Linux box versus a Windows box? Only three machines seems hardly determinant or significant. Implementing one Linux machine may be (although I don't believe it) more expensive, but several Linux machines may cost less than the same number of Windows boxes.
Also, with respect to updates, did you consider all of the upgrades in Red Hat's "up2date" as "patches" or simply as "upgrades" with a few being security patches.
Did your study favor GUI over command-line interface or vice-versa?
Did your study log each crash/reboot/system error thrown by each machine? Also, were you required to run any "system restores" on the Windows machine?
Did your study consider alternative operating systems with high security (such as OpenBSD)?
If you could "fix" Linux (or at least the distros you reviewed), what would you insert, update, or delete?
Would you consider running the same study with a very powerful package management system, such as APT?
Though your study pits Windows versus Linux and claims Linux has a higher TCO, what is the actual marginal cost of implementing a Linux box versus a Windows box? Only three machines seems hardly determinant or significant. Implementing one Linux machine may be (although I don't believe it) more expensive, but several Linux machines may cost less than the same number of Windows boxes.
Also, with respect to updates, did you consider all of the upgrades in Red Hat's "up2date" as "patches" or simply as "upgrades" with a few being security patches.
Did your study favor GUI over command-line interface or vice-versa?
Did your study log each crash/reboot/system error thrown by each machine? Also, were you required to run any "system restores" on the Windows machine?
Did your study consider alternative operating systems with high security (such as OpenBSD)?
If you could "fix" Linux (or at least the distros you reviewed), what would you insert, update, or delete?
Would you consider running the same study with a very powerful package management system, such as APT?
Exactly. Society creates the video games; video games don't create the society. Unless, of course, my name is Morpheus and I have a red pill. When will sensationalist bleeding-heart liberals realize that society's problems stem from the reasons we have violent video games, not the video games themselves. I think its somewhat sick that people play these indulgent video games (it's just my opinion), but I am not ignorant enough to say that video games cause the crime. That's just garbage. What needs to be determined is why people play these violent and sick (killing whores, anyone?) video games appealing to kids and adults alike? If society didn't cultivate people wanting to play these games, the games wouldn't sell. Obviously people in society like them, and some of these people who like these violent video games get thrills out of killing real people as well. It's just another example of how backwards "American culture" is with respect to morality.
This is great. Despite other/.ers who seem to think that the plurality of opinions requires all people to defend all opinions, I think this is great for business, for government, and most of all, for the Chinese themselves./.ers seem to think that since some are concerned about human rights and others are concerned about the Chinese "stealing jobs", we all agree with both statements. Malarcky! Outsourcing helps the US economy greatly. Where do you think the profits go? Not to sweat-shop workers, I can assuredly tell you that. Also, what happens if the Chinese invest in our industries? It means they have a vested interest in making our industries profitable. Now also consider the horrid press companies get when they are uncovered employing sweat-shop workers in filthy conditions? Stock prices do go down. It's happened to Nike (a company I love to hate) and now sounds like is happening to Yahoo!. The government could implement laws, but what's the point? Laws are faulty in multiple ways: a) the US Government has very limited jurisdiction in this area, able only to impose an injunction of some sort on the organization using sweat-shop labor; b) the results would be contested over and over again--by the time the damage has been done, the case is still dragging in court, and 5 punishments have been reduced to a grain of rice; c) government should be designed to encourage business growth, and enacting anti-business laws is a sure method to weaken the economy.
I think it's time the companies were compelled to "do the right thing" by someone other than the government. In the classical ages, good-based economies resulted in very authoritarian corporations, with an elite at the top standing on the shoulders of the proletariat. But service-based economy has brought the idea of rights and ethics here. Services are easy to implement, and therefore are much more likely to have competition. Would rather buy clothes from Wal-Mart or Target if you found that Wal-Mart used Chinese children about age 8 to make their clothes (assuming the clothes are around the same price)? Companies hate bad press. That's the bottom line (no pun intended). Shareholders don't want bad press leaked, and the 100% sure way to not have bad press leaked is to have clean policy. I read an article not long ago about environmental groups petitioning boards of directors rather than governments. The result? Companies moved quickly to enact changes. Folks, the private sector is where growth occurs. It eliminates costs, maximizes profit (thereby maximizing efficiency) and it is not invincible. This is a great era!
That isn't the case at all. The issue in that case was that H. Ford owned a disproportionate number of shares, and the board was obligated to carry out Ford's interests. Since the majority of the minority shareholders wanted to make money and to earn dividends, not employ the poor, they took Ford Corp to court. Keep in mind that a corporation is really not answerable to anyone but the shareholders, and they are represented by the board (which to me at least is why the Chairman of the Board and CEO MUST be separate positions). Since the majority of shareholders was actually in favor of those favoring dividends, the court determined that Ford was to comply with their demands. Basically, they said that the board represents them, and therefore is legally bound to represent all shareholders' interests. This has nothing to do with profit maximisation or minimisation. The government couldn't give a hoot about the profits of those companies (or at least shouldn't::cough cough::Haliburton::cough cough::). If the government forced companies to maximize profit, then progress would come to a screeching halt.
So... I can spam the world with the news that you rape babies, and you can't stop me unless you can provide hard evidence that you have never raped a baby?
Nice. Sounds like a great system.
Erm...No...
Two things:
a) If you get news from a spammer, does it really have any standing? b) The defendant would have to prove that the spammer was false, not that he or she did not rape the baby. Remember, US law says there must be damage for one to have legal standing. It's a much better system. It keeps our police honest and keeps justice sound. Here, circumstantial evidence does rear its ugly head, but you'll find much more that people are justly prosecuted in the US than other countries. I agree with the original poster...I'm glad in this case to be an American citizen. Our lawyers may be the biggest scum bags in the world, but at least our justice system can compensate.
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Is it just me or does the RIAA think that it's their constitiutional right to have people hand them money?
I know you're being facecious and all, but...the RIAA is a "trade group." "Trade groups", corporations, and other member-nodal entities have no "constitutional rights". The Constitution grants artists the right of copyright for the progress of science and useful arts! Being somewhat of a constructionist, this means that the explicit intent of the framers must be taken into account. The framers obviously did not intend for businesses to weild the same rights as individuals. That has happened once in our history, and it is known to history as The Gilded Age. As far as I'm concerned, I own the disk's matter, therefore I own whatever the matter represents. If I own a plot of land, and then a huge heap of gold is found on its site, I own that gold. "Intellectual property" means that an artist can't be robbed of his or her creative ideas. If a person thinks of something and develops it privately, and someone else then sneaks a peek at it, that should be illegal. I'd be pretty pissed if someone stole my designs like that. The designs and things are my property. But after my product is released, it is fair game. I sell disks, which are matter encoded to represent something. People who buy the disks own the disk's matter, and therefore can use the disks as they please. Art isn't, and never has been the most lucrative of industries. Science and engineering and the professions and the trades yield quantitative progress, but art by its very nature is qualitative. Today, a grossly small percentage of artists make up a grossly large percentage of artists' total wealth. They get rich by selling you the record, the 8-trak, the audio cassette, and the CD. Now they want to sell you the DRMd mp3 derivative. Shove it, RIAA. I support artists, not greedy fat rich corporate bastards who care only about their personal check-books.
I am an American currently living in the states but I have lived in Europe. Most of the junk that Europe hears about America isn't true. We don't eat our children. ;-) Well, that's an exaggeration, but most of the video clips and information about what you get is either yellow-journalism or just hollywood garbage. I can tell you two facts: a) 80% of Americans are not "cowboys" like Bush and b) 0% of America is like Hollywood portrays it. Hollywood is filled with the most outspoken, rich know-it-alls in the country. They make movies that usually have some sort of political propaganda value (such as "Day After Tomorrow"). America definitely has its share of problems, and Hollywood is one of them. The MPAA monopolizes the movie industry and ensures that no one can challenge it. In fact, the very act of assigning ratings is very political. If a film is likely to make a good amount of money, the studio for that movie will use its influence to lower the rating (from R, which means kids below 17 must have an adult, to PG-13, meaning that anyone can attend). The movie Titanic, for example, probably should have been R, but since the movie cost so much to make and was likely to earn back a huge amount more, it was lowered to PG-13. NC-17 movies are a strict policy of no children attending. This documentary was likely given a high rating simply because it may not favorably shadow the MPAA. America was founded on rejecting the top-heavy authority, but today it seems that people are content in ignorance.
This scenario was on Numb3rs about a week ago.
See, I have no real problems with atheists, except when they try and pull this "it's my right to not be offended." In fact, atheism is rather small following whereas agnosticism is followed by many people. The atheists who I don't like are the ones who go along with the ACLU and say that because some small percentage of government funds go toward some organization which preaches belief in some religion then the government is absolutely aligning itself with these organizations and thereby violating the first amendment. If we look at the constitution, government doesn't establish religion nor prevent free excercise thereof. I personally cringe that my tax money is used horribly inefficiently on programs like welfare. Instead of helping impoverished people by giving them temporary support while they move up the social ladder, welfare is structured in such a way that benefits poor, illiterate, undereducated, unemployed, single parents with many children. Let the statistics show that success comes to those who are educated, married when they have children, and are employed. I take a personal offense to this misappropriation. I don't agree with everything my tax money is used for and I have philosophical grounds. My rights (apart from being taxed) aren't being violated, however. I feel it is my duty to bring about change in government, and atheists may feel the same way. But this selfish, "I am offended" bullshit has got to stop. I do not get offended because it's a waste of time. I think that these militant atheists are a scum, trying to undermine the historical importance of deism in America because they are too proud. They forget that their rights are not some sort of infinite quantity. Government can't infringe on rights, but an individual's rights end where another's begin. Of course, I'm talking only about the really militant ones. As far as an atheist being told he's a sinner, I get pissed off when radical Christians tell me I'm going to hell because I was baptiezed correctly. What bullshit! How about "christians" go about living in Godly ways and sharing the message of Christ through action. Scaring people into "repentance" isn't faith at all; faith is the freedom one has to accept the world as he or she pleases.
Unfortunately, #3 is the rather silent majority. I'll come out and say that, yes, I am very much pro-science and that I'm also a devout Christian. That said, these hoodlums were very wrong to beat the man up. Of course, we are assuming that he is telling the truth. You can never be too sure when someone says they were beaten by two men on a country road. Final comment: Dogmatic Athiests pushing their belief system as the anti-religion. That to me seems like the most ridiculous state, to be a dogmatic atheist or militant atheist. That's like saying, "I'm a die-hard believer in absolutely nothing!" Or, "I'm going to die for my belief in no greater purpose!" It always struck me as funny. If they believe that they are as close to supernatural as anything is, then what gives. "Don't mess with me, I'm a god in some places..."
tech: Alright, ma'am, thank you for calling. Portions of this phone call may be recorded to ensure the best customer service. I'm going to ask you to reboot your machine.
...
...
::ring, ring::
woman: What's that?
tech: Ma'am, can you tell me what Operating System you're running.
woman: I don't know. Is that what's wrong?
tech: Not at all ma'am... If you would please click the "start" menu in the bottom lefthand corner.
woman: Alright.
tech: Select the button that says "Turn Off Computer" and then select "Restart" from the pop up.
woman: It just turned off and then turned back on, is that supposed to happen?
tech: Yes, ma'am, that's quite normal.
woman: Thank you so much; my mp3 works just like it should...
tech: Alright, sir, thank you for calling. Portions of this phone call may be recorded to ensure the best customer service. First, I'm going to ask you to reboot your machine.
man: How do I do that?
tech: Ah, no problem. Can you tell me what operating system you're running?
man: Hell if I know.
tech: No problem. Go the "start" button in the lower lefthand corner...
610,000 shares for $.0083 each
No irony, no incorrect submission.
Yep, this is exactly what I call fair. Ajax is actually a very good idea. Maybe I'm tne only one that gets this, but having a local machine run code rather than have a server stream code to the client seems like a perfectly logical proposition for me. Bookmarkable? That's the whole point. You can't bookmark a rich user experience. What you can bookmark is the URL. A (well-designed) AJAX page will automatically pick up from where you left off. That has to do with sessions, not bookmarking. Back button? Ajax handles the back button better than frames, and actually an ingenious sliver of code in gmail completely fixes the broken back button (GMAIL gets and sends data from a 0 x 0 iframe). The fact that a lot of ajax sucks is inherent in the fact that it's relatively young (really, people, the technology has been here, but using javascript and xml as the primary modes of design rather than strict html is new). In fact, the web sucks most of the time. That's right, I said it. How many sites can you count that are incompatible with other browsers or have utterly irrelevant and useless features (such as mouse tails)? Really, who cares if someone can build the 1001st "yo momma" joke generator. Ajax is more about semantics than it is about actual coding. Instead of using (X)HTML as the presentation language and augmenting it with javascript, javascript is the language employing XHTML for presentation. It deals more with the fact that there are, indeed, a limited number of HTML tags, but Javascript is turing-complete. This is really ridiculous. In its infancy, most of the web pages sucked, most javascript sucked, most serverside scripting sucked, etc. The technology matures; change is inevitable.
Please, do not say such things. Nanotech does exist and I have seen it with my own eyes (aided by an electron microscope, mind you). In fact, corporations are developing technologies and some have already developed technologies integrating nanotechnologies. New tennis raquets use nanotubes to become stiffer and stronger than the older models. Samsung has developed a display utilizing nanotubes which hasn't hit the market yet, but will once some issues are resolved (the display works fine, but it is a wee bit fragile as of yet). Also, right now it takes an incredibly long time to grow the nanotubes. The record for the longest nanotube is about 3 cm, and it was grown in about 2 days. The technology is truly fascinating. I recently attended a conference at GA Tech, and one of the seminars was about nanotech. Really a fascinating subject area. Nanotech is not synonymous with nanomachines; it is the engineering of objects on the nano scale (10^(-6) m). Though many companies use "nanotechnology" as somewhat of a buzzword, avoid saying that "no one" is investigating it or that "no one" has made anything with it. Ad hominem argument is a fallacy.
I am of the opinion that AI will never achieve true intelligence. Consider the "definitions" we have of AI. Basically, if it emulates a human, then it's AI. Well sometimes ELIZA on AOL makes more sense than the president, but does that make me think ELIZA is intelligent and Bush isn't? No way! ELIZA is coded to respond to certain things. If you type in some sort of complex sentence, ELIZA will respond that "I didn't understand that last part." Human intelligence isn't programmed, it's the function of our brains. When the original AI theories were developed, computers were very very very new. Alan Turing, one of the fathers of digital computers (for whom "Turing-complete" is named), was so stumped that he came up with a test as subjective and unscientific as the process outlined above. He said that if it fools people into thinking it is intelligent, then it must be intelligent. Today this seems absurd. But in the 1950's, psychology was focused on behaviorism. The brain was considered a "black box" and the only measure of people could be taken from their behavior. This was actually sort of a reaction to the psychoanalysts (such as Freud), who believed that the analysis of one's life could reveal the answers to problems. Behaviorists are best exemplified through such experiments as Pavlov's dog. This, in fact, is very much of a program. "if (time == 1700){feed(dog);}". Though behaviorism has some merits, its basic philosophy boils down to analysis only of the exterior at a certain time. Today psychology has moved far beyond behaviorism and we now even have new theories of intelligence (such as multiple intelligences, and so on). Also, psychology gave up on the whole "black box" idea, which it deemed rather stupid. Remember that in the 1950's, they also believed that weather could be easily predicted years into the future once computers of sufficient power were devised. The 1960s and its Chaos and Fractals really disproved this, but this is beyond my scope.
Today we no longer view psychology the same way. The brain is actually at the forefront of modern psychology. Unfortunately, the studies on the brain really focus on specific areas of the brain. No real theories* have been made about the human brain. It's just sort of like "well, if we poke this area and then ask Mr. Fox to move his arm, he won't be able to." I respect these doctors for such diligent research and experimentation, and above all the saving of many many lives. But, theory is still lacking. To truely make intelligence, we would need to understand a few aspects of intelligence. These may include prediction, understanding, association, sensory functions, and learning, among others. To these ends, "AI" is absolutely useless, and a gross misnomer. If a computer or peice of hardware were to become fully intelligent, it would need just a very simple base algorithm, with ability to build onto itself. That is how we learn: we take in new information and the brain adds the new information to itself. This is not how computers work. A computer will take the new information and overwrite the old. In fact, the information is stored simply in arbitrary aggregations of 0s and 1s. Not only this, but certain areas of computer memory are reserved for certain functions. A basic brain would have no such "allocation" built in. Computer memory has the ability to be "defragmented", but the brain has no need to do this. You see, the brain is not a "permanent storage" model like the hard drive or anything in a present-day computer. The brain take in inputs, creates memories and functions associated with the inputs, and then links them all together. Effectively, a brain is like a computer that continuously is adding to its code and relinking itself. Compilation is not necessary. In some cases, the brain actually subtracts from itself to make itself more efficient. If you look at brain inputs on MRI scans, different parts of the brain are activated by hearing and vision, but extremely similar patterns are propogated through the neurons. In fact,
Ah, yes, you are correct. Not only did I torture you by having you read that long thing, but mispelled "mach" as "mock". The thing I meant to say that is weird about Mac OS X is that the hacked OSx86 actually got better performance on PC hardware on comparable speed processors and size of memory. But that said, Mac is just awesome and it's a thrill to use.
That is a good question, and if us Linux geeks ever want some foothold in the "common" market, we need to answer it or create an easy way to do this. The first thing I would do is begin using OSS applications like OpenOffice.org vs. the standard M$ Office products. OO.o is cheaper, has similar functionality, and is simpler than MS Office. I'd perhaps also deploy the newest version of Firefox as the default web browser, including some sort of memo to the staff to please use this new one (for security reasons, you could say).
This is where the hardware aspect enters. Each of the software mentioned above has ports to Win32, Linux, Mac (9 and X), and SunOS/Solaris. The thing about linux is that there is upkeep needed. I guarentee that probably 20000 of the users will not want to update their software weekly. I work at a research lab, and we run SunOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Win32 XP. I love linux, but RHEL doesn't have the best package management in the world, and most users aren't going to like the necessity to hunt down packages. Plus, with RHEL, I often must compile my own packages, which is a pain and sometimes time-consuming, and often I have to make further system modifications (most of which require root access) to integrate the new application into the environment. Having every user log in as root to apply updates is a terrible idea.
At home I dual boot XP Home and Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is good; I really enjoy it. It is based on Debian, so the rock-solid package management is still there. Minimal configuration could be done to allow users to install updates, without them needing root access or requiring technical knowledge. Still, though, many applications require compilation tweaking for the user to be happy with the results. Basically with any Linux distro, you'll have the ease-of-use problems. I'd keep a simple rule of thumb: if it needs the terminal, stay away (regarding large amounts of users).
My first choice would actually be Apple in this case. Not only is Mac OS X secure and easy to use, but it is simple to distribute widely. Mac OS X is based on Darwin BSD (based on, like movies based on books). It uses a mock kernel, so it isn't really BSD, but the layer between the UI and the kernel is Unix. Installing applications is just as simple as windows. In fact, most applications require the user to copy the application the applications folder by clicking and dragging. Plus any business application these days is likely to support Mac and Windows. The biggest problem with using Apples is that they don't come standard with a 3 buttom mouse (but 3 button mice are compatible with Macs). Apples are honestly the best computers on the market for general business users and artists alike. I wouldn't run a 500000 entry Oracle database off of one, but I would not even run a 50000 entry database from Windows. The advantage of Mac is that it accomadates both techies and regular users. I, being a techie, like to customize lots of things. It isn't hard to customize a Mac, but Apple set things up very well so a non-techie doesn't inadvertantly screw something up. The only real disadvantage (other than the mouse issue) of Macs is that they are expensive. Consider, however, that Apple has some of the best support (though with 40000 computes you'd probably have techs ascending from the ground), it has some of the best hardware, and an Apple's power doesn't deflate. We've all had the experience with Windows that it works so quickly at the beginning, and then after a while Windows just slows down. Apples don't do this. The battle for the gigahertz is really irrelevant.
Summary:
Go with Apple: cost/benefit is probably best of anything out there. Begin using OSS standardly. Update the systems in very small baby-steps. Start out with a test group of maybe 200 users. If you want to upgrade a specific department, that may be the best idea. Get their inputs throughout the test group. Include both techies and non-techies in this test-group and see how it goes. Most likely any major problems will pop up in this test phase and can be addressed before 40000 computers and users are affected.
Yeah, and the mod seems to grade for effort.
OK, really, what does this have to do with anything? "National Institute of Media and the Family." This sounds to me like one of the (many) organizations euphamistically promoting "family values" through overliteralization of the Bible and the attempt to control. Any organization like this which says that a ratings body gets a grade is just full of it. Of course ESRB inflates ratings: no one holds them accountable for the ratings. No one asks ESRB, "uh, don't ya think that the 6 titties that were flashed at once deserves an adults-only rating?" No one does this. Also, why don't some parents take some initiative instead of relying on some marketing rubberstamp. Maybe this National Institute of Mother Figs should look at, er, the FAMILY. Last time I looked, parents were supposed to censor things for their children. Perhaps that is the only valid method of censorship available. I can't really disagree with ESRB's statement. "Reform" groups like this NIMF claim to be "conservative" except that they want government to legislate what is "morally" right and "morally" wrong (in other words, what they interpret Christianity says about morality). Last time I looked, a conservative favored less government intervention in the lives of citizens. Perhaps registering as a libertarian is a good idea...
Summary:
ESRB: Hate ya but agree with your statement
NIMF: Really hate your attempt to impose Christianity on everyone (thus making the rest of the Christian people have a bad name), really hate your attempt to censor, really hate your utterly stupid comments. How do you know all that stuff about these obscene games, anyway?
I was at a baseball game earlier this year (Cubs v. Cardinals) and the bathroom was completely filled. There was a trough (a no flush) urinal, but some drunk dudes (there are many in Wrigley Field) just open pissed in a sink. That was absolutely disgusting. How about more urinals (or perhaps sinks labeled "for drunks' piss only") instead of arguing about flush v. no flush.
This actually severly lowers my value of this study. I do respect you, though, for putting it in. Basically, what we were led to believe is that conclusive proof that humans cause(d) global warming has been found. This completely tears that down. The journal states two important facts: a) the greenhouse gasses and climate correlate and b) the two have always correlated. This tells me that pinning a cause as "the industrial revolution" is strictly circumstantial. The fact is, a major anomolous climate change could have caused these drastic rises in greenhouse gasses (there was a "mini-ice age" in the late 1600s). I'm not suggesting that we should spew black ash into the air. We should all be stewards of the environment. Besides, the earth has been coming out of the last major ice age for a long time. 650 thousand years is very short with respect to Earth's age. People affect the environment; the environment affects us. Humans are here today because of how our ancestors adapted to drastic climate changes.
As far as I know, the RIAA and other music cartels around the world have not yet made it illegal for independent artists to do it themselves.
It might as well be illegal. So many indie artists would use filesharing ("legally") to spread their stuff to the world. The RIAA wants to bring all file-sharing down because it is "illegal" or "unethical". It's a load of cold, hard crap. Consider this: indie artists get very little (if any at all) air-time on radio. Even the artists who do get air-time are made to pay for it (the studios subtract the fees against the artists' profits). Now let's say someone wants to create an indie radio station. Too bad, gotta go through the FCC, pay fees, and yada yada. And what about playing indie music on regular radio stations? Not gonna happen. The radio stations are put under the fingers of each studio. The (RI/MP)AA have this sick, twisted, and tyrannical view of art, science, and media. They infest the masses with this idea that an abstract idea or representation can be copyrighted. They have this idea that "to benefit artists" the exclusive right to copy, play, or use the song/art/media is given to the "artists" ::cough cough::ahem, studios::cough cough::. Anyone with good experience with the Constitution should cringe at this. For those blessed souls who do not have a baboon as president, the US Constitution provides that copyright exists a) for limited periods of time and b) exists only to be used for the progress of art or science. NOT for the benefit of just the "artists"...er...studios. Since the Constitution supercedes all US Law, much (if not all) of the US Copyright Law is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.
These facts haven't stopped the (MP/RI)AA from spreading their propaganda and their lies. The Media is allied with these cartels, and the sad state of American media has a) led to indoctrination and b) led to crackpot journalism. "News" with little analysis, incorrect analysis, or the complete lack thereof is rampant in American mass media. The news networks present these stories about "illegal file-swapping" or "filesharing bandits" which are completely one-sided. When I was younger and had no idea about the truth, I believed what they said about Napster. It sounded like some sort of evil plot. Until I learned the truth. I learned that the truth truly does set one free. I learned that the Media (as any group with power) only wants more power. They think the world would be a better place if everyone just did everything the way the media wanted. Most likely, this would only benefit the media. That is the state of things now. The Media is on this self-appointed crusade. Yet now they have experienced the bulk of their power. The news relics of the cold-war are no longer adequate. People are actually becoming disgusted with the media. Movie viewership is far below projected estimates this year. The MP/RIAA claims that this is the underhanded dealing of filesharing "pirates". Since these cartels have so much influence, they dance about unchecked, weilding lawsuits, subpoenas, and red tape. I hold the opinion that the MP/RIAA hold much less wealth than we are led to believe, and that is why they have begun these attacks. They are desperate, and they know that copyright provides enough leverage for the MP/RIAA to become some state-sponsored thing. They'll get their money (somehow they'd get it; energy research is willingly cut out of the budget, but the MP/RIAA must get their new subsidy) and they'll be happy...at individuals' expense. Their rights end where ours begin.
To those filthy corporate bastards: Sorry, we left our eyepatches at home. Cartels are much more piratical than we. We the consumers are being alienated. Why not make something that we like? Capitalism is founded on the principle that competition forces innovation. Capitalism does not induce bitching about consumers. F^** you!
Though I see your point, the article does state that M$ did pay discounted prices, and the researcher did take these discounts into consideration. Also consider that M$ is pulling an Apple: releasing limited quanitities to increase demand for a sexy product. They likely didn't place a huge order on each unit of the components; why would they? They could just buy a huge amount of components and make tons of XBox's, but they'd have to store those before releasing them. And storage is expensive. I have no doubt that M$ would do this; they have clearly demonstrated that they have no regard for ethical business practices and would love to see Sony and other gaming companies blown out of the water. Then they can make up for their loss.
Dr. Thompson,
Though your study pits Windows versus Linux and claims Linux has a higher TCO, what is the actual marginal cost of implementing a Linux box versus a Windows box? Only three machines seems hardly determinant or significant. Implementing one Linux machine may be (although I don't believe it) more expensive, but several Linux machines may cost less than the same number of Windows boxes.
Also, with respect to updates, did you consider all of the upgrades in Red Hat's "up2date" as "patches" or simply as "upgrades" with a few being security patches.
Did your study favor GUI over command-line interface or vice-versa?
Did your study log each crash/reboot/system error thrown by each machine? Also, were you required to run any "system restores" on the Windows machine?
Did your study consider alternative operating systems with high security (such as OpenBSD)?
If you could "fix" Linux (or at least the distros you reviewed), what would you insert, update, or delete?
Would you consider running the same study with a very powerful package management system, such as APT?
Thank you,
Drew E.
Dr. Thompson,
Though your study pits Windows versus Linux and claims Linux has a higher TCO, what is the actual marginal cost of implementing a Linux box versus a Windows box? Only three machines seems hardly determinant or significant. Implementing one Linux machine may be (although I don't believe it) more expensive, but several Linux machines may cost less than the same number of Windows boxes.
Also, with respect to updates, did you consider all of the upgrades in Red Hat's "up2date" as "patches" or simply as "upgrades" with a few being security patches.
Did your study favor GUI over command-line interface or vice-versa?
Did your study log each crash/reboot/system error thrown by each machine? Also, were you required to run any "system restores" on the Windows machine?
Did your study consider alternative operating systems with high security (such as OpenBSD)?
If you could "fix" Linux (or at least the distros you reviewed), what would you insert, update, or delete?
Would you consider running the same study with a very powerful package management system, such as APT?
Thank you,
Drew E.
Exactly. Society creates the video games; video games don't create the society. Unless, of course, my name is Morpheus and I have a red pill. When will sensationalist bleeding-heart liberals realize that society's problems stem from the reasons we have violent video games, not the video games themselves. I think its somewhat sick that people play these indulgent video games (it's just my opinion), but I am not ignorant enough to say that video games cause the crime. That's just garbage. What needs to be determined is why people play these violent and sick (killing whores, anyone?) video games appealing to kids and adults alike? If society didn't cultivate people wanting to play these games, the games wouldn't sell. Obviously people in society like them, and some of these people who like these violent video games get thrills out of killing real people as well. It's just another example of how backwards "American culture" is with respect to morality.
Kirk: "Genesis, what's that??"
Khan: "No you fool, the internet is what I want. aside By the way, give me all Genesis related information too..."
I think it's time the companies were compelled to "do the right thing" by someone other than the government. In the classical ages, good-based economies resulted in very authoritarian corporations, with an elite at the top standing on the shoulders of the proletariat. But service-based economy has brought the idea of rights and ethics here. Services are easy to implement, and therefore are much more likely to have competition. Would rather buy clothes from Wal-Mart or Target if you found that Wal-Mart used Chinese children about age 8 to make their clothes (assuming the clothes are around the same price)? Companies hate bad press. That's the bottom line (no pun intended). Shareholders don't want bad press leaked, and the 100% sure way to not have bad press leaked is to have clean policy. I read an article not long ago about environmental groups petitioning boards of directors rather than governments. The result? Companies moved quickly to enact changes. Folks, the private sector is where growth occurs. It eliminates costs, maximizes profit (thereby maximizing efficiency) and it is not invincible. This is a great era!
That isn't the case at all. The issue in that case was that H. Ford owned a disproportionate number of shares, and the board was obligated to carry out Ford's interests. Since the majority of the minority shareholders wanted to make money and to earn dividends, not employ the poor, they took Ford Corp to court. Keep in mind that a corporation is really not answerable to anyone but the shareholders, and they are represented by the board (which to me at least is why the Chairman of the Board and CEO MUST be separate positions). Since the majority of shareholders was actually in favor of those favoring dividends, the court determined that Ford was to comply with their demands. Basically, they said that the board represents them, and therefore is legally bound to represent all shareholders' interests. This has nothing to do with profit maximisation or minimisation. The government couldn't give a hoot about the profits of those companies (or at least shouldn't ::cough cough::Haliburton::cough cough::). If the government forced companies to maximize profit, then progress would come to a screeching halt.
Erm...No...
Two things:
a) If you get news from a spammer, does it really have any standing?
b) The defendant would have to prove that the spammer was false, not that he or she did not rape the baby. Remember, US law says there must be damage for one to have legal standing. It's a much better system. It keeps our police honest and keeps justice sound. Here, circumstantial evidence does rear its ugly head, but you'll find much more that people are justly prosecuted in the US than other countries. I agree with the original poster...I'm glad in this case to be an American citizen. Our lawyers may be the biggest scum bags in the world, but at least our justice system can compensate.