You should look into why he criticizes Fox News. It's not because they have opinion programs. It's the way in which they do not separate the opinion from the news and how the news waits a few days and then treats the opinion guy's stories as news. It's an ugly circle that falsely represents our world. One of the ways I know that Jon Stewart is more relevant is because he takes an outcomes and attacks the elements that support such an outcome. Yes Fox News has opinion programs. I wouldn't be opposed to "News" stations being limited to the news, but it's not inherently a bad thing. It's bad because it supports the poor representation of facts that Fox News provides.
No, they won't always select the wrong answer when in a group. We are easily persuaded by group think, just like every other pack animal. What makes humans special is that sometimes a smarty comes along and can out smart group think. And thus the fittest survive yet again.
I'd suggest this is how doctors work as well. It's poor engineering, but I'd bet people would claim it's the best we've got. It's the proactive/reactive IT debate. Is it better to keep locked down, smoothly running machines that fail at your expense? Or do you keep open systems that fail at the whim and fancy of your co-workers with you as their hero every time it's fixed? Human nature points people towards the poor option.
And there's those hyperbolic statements. Farming today is vastly better than it was 10K years ago. I'm not happy with the slow draining of our aquifers and rampant usage of fertilizer, but it is much better practice than the earth destroyers who started agriculture all those thousands of years ago. The point being, we want progress, and an important piece of progress is our ability to sustain ourselves and our habitat. Of course we are not masters of the planet, we wouldn't be worrying about it as much if we were. We are slaves to the planet and should not be pushing it too far outside it's norms. If we could postpone an extinction event, then we are so far advanced that we do not have to worry about it. Right now though we are only rocking the cradle harder and harder.
Not true. We know that we are affecting many parts of our planet. If the climate is unaffected it is due to a bizarre concoction of exactly the right elements. What we don't know is how it changes the weather, which is what people want to know. That's much too difficult to say, but it doesn't stop us from knowing that we are changing the climate.
The point is that greenies are usually going on about _self interest_. If the environment changes significantly, so does my and every other life. I like the stability that can only come with stable weather patterns. Our lives are completely tied to the weather and not pushing it to further extremes (as it often does in Montana) _is_ beneficial to me and mine. This completely ignores the changes to nature that come as well and make good hiking, camping, and fishing difficult activities.
There _is_ a reasonably middle ground. It involves taking steps in my everyday life to being a better member of planet Earth. There is a false dichotomy in your head. I use electricity, but I use less. I contribute to polluting this planet, but I also actively work with an organization that has better ideas. It's not about stopping all polluting activity, that's only possible through extinction. It's about lessening the impact. It's a real path that many are already doing. You could participate too!
Yes, cheers to this! Disney has no control over how I and billions of others perceive Mickey Mouse. They have no control, not even copyright can affect that. Mickey Mouse is a cultural icon that should be used as such, rather than stifled by copyright.
Copyright is not something that comes about because of physical laws or anything. It exists because we feel it helps our situation. It is only through great debate that we can figure this out. Such economics have not even come close to being reducible to comparable figures.
If it took you years to develop an algorithm but it only takes someone else weeks to re-implement it, then you are in the wrong industry. It should have taken you weeks to implement the first time. You are entitled to nothing more than copyright on your own works.
Your definition is filthy and so off base that it probably has the desired effect. Any one with a lick of understanding is completely dumbfounded by such buffoonery while the laypeople will agree. Software is a device, how silly!
Except that any compromise here means we lose. Software patents in any form hurt society and progress. Why would we compromise, especially when software patents are a new idea, not a long held legal or social concept?
That is in your current English. Just because that's how you learned it does not make it universal. That's a distinguishing feature of English over French or German. English is the freest of the languages.
No one is disputing that the new machine is patentable. That's the point of the patent system. However, any parts about software or instructions should be removed. They should not have been patentable.
I must agree with the AC. This is a completely ridiculous argument as software does _not_ do stuff. Software tells a computer what to do just the same as a roll tells a player piano what to do. It is the hardware that is doing something. Software is nothing more than instructions for the hardware, an infinite resource of infinite combinations that are only limited by the actual physical machine and our imaginations. I'm really ashamed that not only does TFS not understand what's going on here, but so much of the general/. populace doesn't either. These are not novel or new arguments. Instructions, no matter how complex, should never have been allowed to be patented.
Good job redefining terms to suit your position. Your post is effectively nonsensical to anyone that understands economics. To join a real conversation you should probably learn what capitalism, socialism, and a mixed-economy are and how the USA fits in. I'll give you a hint, we don't fit in on the Socialism side of things.
Or we can note that sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong and that reactionary anti-anything is a bad idea. Bad central planners are not always worse than not letting good central planners do their thing.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but don't go romanticizing America's first settlers. They were outcasts, miscreants, and religious nuts. The common men and women never reached the boat.
No no no. That is the student's job. As GP said, if they want a trade, go to trade school. Teaching trades at university is a waste of everyone's time.
This. This is exactly what I wanted to see (I couldn't get the words out myself). College is an opportunity to become a better person in so many ways (not all intellectual). It's many middle-class people's first experience of freedom, it's their first experience of being surrounded by learning, it's their first experience not being tethered to the safety of home. I didn't hear it at first myself, but it was also the first time that people actually wanted me to excel beyond the image they had for me. It was the first time that I was able to actually find myself. These are not pursuits that most Americans are able to engage growing up in middle America.
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You should look into why he criticizes Fox News. It's not because they have opinion programs. It's the way in which they do not separate the opinion from the news and how the news waits a few days and then treats the opinion guy's stories as news. It's an ugly circle that falsely represents our world. One of the ways I know that Jon Stewart is more relevant is because he takes an outcomes and attacks the elements that support such an outcome. Yes Fox News has opinion programs. I wouldn't be opposed to "News" stations being limited to the news, but it's not inherently a bad thing. It's bad because it supports the poor representation of facts that Fox News provides.
No, they won't always select the wrong answer when in a group. We are easily persuaded by group think, just like every other pack animal. What makes humans special is that sometimes a smarty comes along and can out smart group think. And thus the fittest survive yet again.
I'd suggest this is how doctors work as well. It's poor engineering, but I'd bet people would claim it's the best we've got. It's the proactive/reactive IT debate. Is it better to keep locked down, smoothly running machines that fail at your expense? Or do you keep open systems that fail at the whim and fancy of your co-workers with you as their hero every time it's fixed? Human nature points people towards the poor option.
And there's those hyperbolic statements. Farming today is vastly better than it was 10K years ago. I'm not happy with the slow draining of our aquifers and rampant usage of fertilizer, but it is much better practice than the earth destroyers who started agriculture all those thousands of years ago. The point being, we want progress, and an important piece of progress is our ability to sustain ourselves and our habitat. Of course we are not masters of the planet, we wouldn't be worrying about it as much if we were. We are slaves to the planet and should not be pushing it too far outside it's norms. If we could postpone an extinction event, then we are so far advanced that we do not have to worry about it. Right now though we are only rocking the cradle harder and harder.
Not true. We know that we are affecting many parts of our planet. If the climate is unaffected it is due to a bizarre concoction of exactly the right elements. What we don't know is how it changes the weather, which is what people want to know. That's much too difficult to say, but it doesn't stop us from knowing that we are changing the climate.
The point is that greenies are usually going on about _self interest_. If the environment changes significantly, so does my and every other life. I like the stability that can only come with stable weather patterns. Our lives are completely tied to the weather and not pushing it to further extremes (as it often does in Montana) _is_ beneficial to me and mine. This completely ignores the changes to nature that come as well and make good hiking, camping, and fishing difficult activities.
I'm not sure you understand the human experience if you think people are not going to tell you what to do.
There _is_ a reasonably middle ground. It involves taking steps in my everyday life to being a better member of planet Earth. There is a false dichotomy in your head. I use electricity, but I use less. I contribute to polluting this planet, but I also actively work with an organization that has better ideas. It's not about stopping all polluting activity, that's only possible through extinction. It's about lessening the impact. It's a real path that many are already doing. You could participate too!
Yes, cheers to this! Disney has no control over how I and billions of others perceive Mickey Mouse. They have no control, not even copyright can affect that. Mickey Mouse is a cultural icon that should be used as such, rather than stifled by copyright.
Copyright is not something that comes about because of physical laws or anything. It exists because we feel it helps our situation. It is only through great debate that we can figure this out. Such economics have not even come close to being reducible to comparable figures.
If it took you years to develop an algorithm but it only takes someone else weeks to re-implement it, then you are in the wrong industry. It should have taken you weeks to implement the first time. You are entitled to nothing more than copyright on your own works.
Your definition is filthy and so off base that it probably has the desired effect. Any one with a lick of understanding is completely dumbfounded by such buffoonery while the laypeople will agree. Software is a device, how silly!
Except that any compromise here means we lose. Software patents in any form hurt society and progress. Why would we compromise, especially when software patents are a new idea, not a long held legal or social concept?
That is in your current English. Just because that's how you learned it does not make it universal. That's a distinguishing feature of English over French or German. English is the freest of the languages.
No one is disputing that the new machine is patentable. That's the point of the patent system. However, any parts about software or instructions should be removed. They should not have been patentable.
I must agree with the AC. This is a completely ridiculous argument as software does _not_ do stuff. Software tells a computer what to do just the same as a roll tells a player piano what to do. It is the hardware that is doing something. Software is nothing more than instructions for the hardware, an infinite resource of infinite combinations that are only limited by the actual physical machine and our imaginations. I'm really ashamed that not only does TFS not understand what's going on here, but so much of the general /. populace doesn't either. These are not novel or new arguments. Instructions, no matter how complex, should never have been allowed to be patented.
He's still winning by my count.
Good job redefining terms to suit your position. Your post is effectively nonsensical to anyone that understands economics. To join a real conversation you should probably learn what capitalism, socialism, and a mixed-economy are and how the USA fits in. I'll give you a hint, we don't fit in on the Socialism side of things.
How does Occam's Razor apply?
Most notably, none were properly supported by Nintendo themselves.
Or we can note that sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong and that reactionary anti-anything is a bad idea. Bad central planners are not always worse than not letting good central planners do their thing.
I caulk it up to Ayn Rand. Now there was an anti-intellectual.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but don't go romanticizing America's first settlers. They were outcasts, miscreants, and religious nuts. The common men and women never reached the boat.
No no no. That is the student's job. As GP said, if they want a trade, go to trade school. Teaching trades at university is a waste of everyone's time.
This. This is exactly what I wanted to see (I couldn't get the words out myself). College is an opportunity to become a better person in so many ways (not all intellectual). It's many middle-class people's first experience of freedom, it's their first experience of being surrounded by learning, it's their first experience not being tethered to the safety of home. I didn't hear it at first myself, but it was also the first time that people actually wanted me to excel beyond the image they had for me. It was the first time that I was able to actually find myself. These are not pursuits that most Americans are able to engage growing up in middle America.