Let's not forget the Democrat's Watergate in 2005:
"Two opposition researchers working for Sen. Charles Schumer at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee obtained copies of a confidential credit report on Maryland's Republican lieutenant governor, prompting calls for their prosecution."
"On March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent for his gin. Because the American patent system was relatively new and untested -- Whitney's patent was number 72 -- he found it difficult to keep competitors from copying his simple machine. By 1798, in debt and disillusioned, he returned to the North and began a new venture -- mass-producing muskets for the federal government.
Whitney once again recognized a technological need and devised a way to address it. Fearing it was about to face a war with France, the new nation needed arms. Whitney proposed to mass-produce muskets. Firearms had previously been made one at a time by skilled craftsmen who fashioned each part individually. Whitney proposed to create tools that worked like the plates of a printing press, turning out large numbers of exact copies of each part.
Not only did this method allow for faster production, but parts could be interchanged between muskets, so that damaged weapons could easily be repaired. Muskets made of standardized parts produced by machines could be turned out in factories employing semi-skilled laborers rather than skilled craftsmen.
In January of 1801, Whitney traveled to Washington. President John Adams, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, and other notables watched as he laid out the machined parts of prototype gunlocks. He assembled them quickly, demonstrated how the parts could be easily interchanged, and invited his distinguished audience to do the same. The officials were astonished -- and convinced. The government awarded Whitney a contract to produce 15,000 muskets.
The mass production of standardized parts in assembly-line fashion by specialized machines and unskilled labor became known as the "American System." The full flowering of the American System did not occur until the 1840s, 15 years after Whitney's death. "
As far as paying high wages (above and beyond the market value for the worker):
" Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing that should be high priced in this country is the man that works. Wages must not come down, they must not even stay on their present level; they must go up. And even that is not sufficient of itself -- we must see to it that the increased wages are not taken away from the people by increased prices that do not represent increased values. "
Henry Ford, New York Times, November 22, 1929 (5.0% unemployment)
1,028 Economists Ask Hoover to Veto Pending Tariff Bill
New York Times headline, about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, May 5, 1930
"In this enlightened age, large manufacturers...will maintain wages...as being the far-sighted and...the constructive thing to do."
Howard ("57 Varieties") Heinz, "Would Keep Scale of Present Wages," New York Times, August 7, 1930 (6.4% unemployment)
"Our leading business concerns have sustained wages.... These measures have maintained higher degrees of consumption than would have otherwise been the case.... They have thus prevented a large measure of unemployment."
Herbert Hoover, Banker's Magazine, November 1930 (11.6% unemployment)
Digital media is too easy to copy without degradation. DRM is an attempt to cut down on piracy by locking a piece of digital media to some entity that has the rights to use it.
Gosh... Henry Ford was innovative in his approach of manufacture, of handling employees (e.g., in paying them enough that they have a chance to buy the cars they're building), in putting a strong focus in efficiency and manufacturing speed. Henry Ford more or less invented the assembly line and mass production.
Sorry, Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line or mass production. Also, his employees were able to buy his cars because efficient mass production brought the price down (using market forces) to an affordable level. Sure, Henry paid them a decent wage, probably more than their skills would have dictated, but he wasn't the first to do that either. He was innovative in that he applied these techniques to something that was considered a luxury and made it affordable to the common person. It isn't much different than what Sony does EVERY day.
Would you be new to this spankin' new field called computer gaming?
Console gaming has never really been HD (we are talking 1080 here).
introducing "the same, but more powerful" is _not_ innovation.
You've been using the cell processor and Blu-Ray drives for years now have you? "Change that creates a new dimension of performance" is innovation, particularly when consoles have not been this powerful before. The cell processor and developers having the ability to make HD video games from disc to screen is pretty innovative in my opinion.
1. By your logic, Henry Ford was not innovative because the Automobile had already been invented. Innovation is doing something that has not been done before. A console with that much power has not been done before.
2. How can someone get positive Karma points by being negative and sarcastic? You modders on slashdot are just plain ignorant.
How about those darned rail road tracks that went across all that empty land across America. It's a shame that private dollars couldn't have done that instead. Oh wait...
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is the one who introduced the bill. He's known that Stevens had put a hold on it (perfectly legal btw, part of the senate rules) for two weeks now. He stated so in OKC two weeks ago. Please, enough with the drama.
Uh... you lost me there. You're not trying to imply that higher resolution + more storage = innovation are you? Cause if you were I've got bad news for you: my computer has 4 500Gb hard drives, and I can play in 2560*1600... I guess my currently available computer is somehow more innovative than your currently-non-existant PS3 isn't it?
Considering that there aren't any console video game systems with equal power, YES. Some people prefer the simplicity of a console over a computer system.
Mmmm let me guess... The N64 got beaten by the PS1, the GC got annihilated by the PS2 and the Wii uses perfectly standard DVDs?
All I am getting at is that it isn't *that* unusual, and it is more 'standard' than what Nintendo was doing.
Sony expects to use the PS3 to help launch Blu-Ray into millions of homes, but this then means if the PS3 flounders, Blu-Ray is basically dead in the water.
This has the potential to bring the cost down of Blu-Ray players faster than selling Blu-Ray players by themselves. When this happens, and people start buying stand-alone Blu-Ray players, the cost will go down further and the price of PS3s will also go down. It sounds like a win-win for consumers and for Sony.
All you anti-blue ray, anti-DRM, anti-capitalist, anti-Sony, anti-PS3 guys have finally made me want to go buy a PS3 when they first come out. Have you ever stopped to think that just maybe some gamers might want a game machine that will take full advantage of their expensive HD systems? What was Sony going to do, put a regular DVD player in their system? Is that called innovation? So what if they chose Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, most players/recorders will end up supporting both formats anyway. It isn't like Beta-Max, where even the physical dimensions were different. I'm sure Sony has learned their lesson from the MiniDisc fiasco. Besides, Nintendo has always had their own disc or cartridge format, so what's the difference?
1. The way they 'deregulated' energy was the reason for that, not deregulation itself. There are 1000s of examples of products besides energy that get delivered without lots of regulation or Enron type disasters. Henry Ford didn't need the government to build automobiles for the masses, for instance. (Roads on the other hand are more like power lines and are very difficult to deregulate as a practical matter. One wouldn't want lots of power lines from different companies all running to the same places just so that they can compete with each other. The type of deregulation that they came up with was not exactly true market based deregulation.)
2. Governments have had Enron type disasters, but you don't bother mentioning these. Social security is about to be one of those disasters.
3. Communes are just practical applications of what people like you believe. When they fail, you act like it wasn't tried on a big enough scale! Communists feel that communism cannot work unless it is applied world-wide even!
First of all, I am not a libertarian, just a patriot. Liberty means just that. Our bill of rights state just that (IX and X specifically). Many of our founding fathers thought just that. Second, you give absolutely no examples of what has been tried and failed. We have been living under the failed policies of FDR for the last 50+ years, so I can give you plenty of examples of where big government has failed. Welfare, social security (failing), public schools (failing), etc. I can tell you how many socialist countries have failed or are failing: Cuba, France, U.S.S.R, China, etc. All of those hippy communes have failed. Third, you give no examples of what you consider the government's role should be, but I assume it is more of the same coercion and mobocracy.
Many in the U.S., including myself, believe that the government's job is to keep others from getting in the way of your freedom and to keep you from getting in the way of other's freedom. Anything else it does is often considered coercion or mobocracy, and therefore it should keep this type of stuff to a minimum. It is not this great secular humanist saviour as many of you would like to believe.
2. The government does not provide street lights for free. We all pay for them and they probably cost a lot more than they should. You just don't see the waste.
3. If companies competed for which roads you drive on, the company that produced the ones with great street lights would probably win your dollar. More innovation would happen in road design, etc.
4. Since companies cannot compete in this area for practical reasons, it is obvious the government has to get involved or whatever. This is not the case when it comes to internet access. I predict that over the long run, most of the U.S. will have the internet access that offers the best value. Other countries will be stuck with old technology that their government has put in today.
5. Those who are not for free markets are for what alternative? The only other alternative I can think of is "coercion and mobocracy" (i.e. "the good of the community").
Ha! All you leftists have your underwear in a bunch now! You all preach that it is a conspiracy that we are all dependent on oil, and that all these oil companies and G.W. are evil. Yet you cannot, no matter how hard you try, come up with a real alternative! It is quite funny to watch!
Just think of cars as being "extra population". They use O2 and expel CO2, just like you and I. They are fed carbon based material for energy just like you and I. We can grow food for our cars, but then we are put in the position of directly competing with our cars for food and water! It is bad enough that we compete with each other for such resources.
We can either hope to make technological advances using our superior capitalist system or we can go back to living in the stone age, which is it? I know what leftists would rather us do!
You might change D to "gravitational/tidal/rotational". Weather is dictated by fresh and stored solar, as well as the rotation of the earth around its axis and around the sun. The magnetic field can be a source of energy too, but it exists due to the rotation of the earth, etc.
Also, energy isn't as important as "energy difference," although one cannot have such a concept without energy. I suppose static electricity and energy from friction cannot exist without these other energies either.
If one believes that we live in a universe described by a complex mathematical equation that is complex enough to include self awareness, etc., then one can also imagine that God could also exist in such an equation. Many atheists believe in something called the 'many worlds theory,' yet they are quick to discount the existence of God (or any god). It is quite possible that one cannot 'test' for the existence of God using physical means, particularly if God is the equation itself, or exists outside 'our' domain of the equation. For this reason, I don't believe that religious people should discount science or the other way around. Science is just a tool to measure our physical world and describe its processes using what can be measured. It does not deal in truth, only consistency.
That would be even better, but it may not work for banking and medical information. The government wouldn't like such a solution either. Since government cannot such collect data per se, they just use industry to collect it for them. I think everyone should push for some form of anonymous ID/security that keeps us in control of our own privacy. The sooner the better.
Why do we as consumers and citizens not have a problem with privacy data farming? Why are we not pushing for more anonymous ways of allowing companies to serve us better? Why do we allow this to be legal? I for one would like to see an anonymous ID system. Companies like Amazon can keep track of what you like, etc., without really knowing who you are. There would have to be a third party that correlates the two, which is independent, non-profit, well governed but not government based, and secure. People could then opt out using this one company instead of contacting 100s of companies. People can also tell this company what information they can store and what they cannot. People would still 'own' their privacy information. Other companies would merely get a token that represents you, but that cannot be traced to you except by this third party company. (Something like that anyway.)
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not forget the Democrat's Watergate in 2005:
"Two opposition researchers working for Sen. Charles Schumer at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee obtained copies of a confidential credit report on Maryland's Republican lieutenant governor, prompting calls for their prosecution."
--from Newsday
You are simply wrong:
From: http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=80
"On March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent for his gin. Because the American patent system was relatively new and untested -- Whitney's patent was number 72 -- he found it difficult to keep competitors from copying his simple machine. By 1798, in debt and disillusioned, he returned to the North and began a new venture -- mass-producing muskets for the federal government.
Whitney once again recognized a technological need and devised a way to address it. Fearing it was about to face a war with France, the new nation needed arms. Whitney proposed to mass-produce muskets. Firearms had previously been made one at a time by skilled craftsmen who fashioned each part individually. Whitney proposed to create tools that worked like the plates of a printing press, turning out large numbers of exact copies of each part.
Not only did this method allow for faster production, but parts could be interchanged between muskets, so that damaged weapons could easily be repaired. Muskets made of standardized parts produced by machines could be turned out in factories employing semi-skilled laborers rather than skilled craftsmen.
In January of 1801, Whitney traveled to Washington. President John Adams, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, and other notables watched as he laid out the machined parts of prototype gunlocks. He assembled them quickly, demonstrated how the parts could be easily interchanged, and invited his distinguished audience to do the same. The officials were astonished -- and convinced. The government awarded Whitney a contract to produce 15,000 muskets.
The mass production of standardized parts in assembly-line fashion by specialized machines and unskilled labor became known as the "American System." The full flowering of the American System did not occur until the 1840s, 15 years after Whitney's death. "
As far as paying high wages (above and beyond the market value for the worker):
From: http://friesian.com/sayslaw.htm
"
Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing that should be high priced in this country is the man that works. Wages must not come down, they must not even stay on their present level; they must go up. And even that is not sufficient of itself -- we must see to it that the increased wages are not taken away from the people by increased prices that do not represent increased values.
"
Henry Ford, New York Times, November 22, 1929 (5.0% unemployment)
1,028 Economists Ask Hoover
to Veto Pending Tariff Bill
New York Times headline, about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, May 5, 1930
"In this enlightened age, large manufacturers...will maintain wages...as being the far-sighted and...the constructive thing to do."
Howard ("57 Varieties") Heinz, "Would Keep Scale of Present Wages," New York Times, August 7, 1930 (6.4% unemployment)
"Our leading business concerns have sustained wages.... These measures have maintained higher degrees of consumption than would have otherwise been the case.... They have thus prevented a large measure of unemployment."
Herbert Hoover, Banker's Magazine, November 1930 (11.6% unemployment)
Of course, we know what happened after that...
That story is not even close to a proper analogy. It's just socialist brainwash.
Digital media is too easy to copy without degradation. DRM is an attempt to cut down on piracy by locking a piece of digital media to some entity that has the rights to use it.
Gosh... Henry Ford was innovative in his approach of manufacture, of handling employees (e.g., in paying them enough that they have a chance to buy the cars they're building), in putting a strong focus in efficiency and manufacturing speed. Henry Ford more or less invented the assembly line and mass production.
Sorry, Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line or mass production. Also, his employees were able to buy his cars because efficient mass production brought the price down (using market forces) to an affordable level. Sure, Henry paid them a decent wage, probably more than their skills would have dictated, but he wasn't the first to do that either. He was innovative in that he applied these techniques to something that was considered a luxury and made it affordable to the common person. It isn't much different than what Sony does EVERY day.
Would you be new to this spankin' new field called computer gaming?
Console gaming has never really been HD (we are talking 1080 here).
introducing "the same, but more powerful" is _not_ innovation.
You've been using the cell processor and Blu-Ray drives for years now have you? "Change that creates a new dimension of performance" is innovation, particularly when consoles have not been this powerful before. The cell processor and developers having the ability to make HD video games from disc to screen is pretty innovative in my opinion.
1. By your logic, Henry Ford was not innovative because the Automobile had already been invented. Innovation is doing something that has not been done before. A console with that much power has not been done before.
2. How can someone get positive Karma points by being negative and sarcastic? You modders on slashdot are just plain ignorant.
How about those darned rail road tracks that went across all that empty land across America. It's a shame that private dollars couldn't have done that instead. Oh wait...
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced the bill, and he's known about the hold for two weeks now. I'd hardly call that a secret hold.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is the one who introduced the bill. He's known that Stevens had put a hold on it (perfectly legal btw, part of the senate rules) for two weeks now. He stated so in OKC two weeks ago. Please, enough with the drama.
Uh... you lost me there. You're not trying to imply that higher resolution + more storage = innovation are you? Cause if you were I've got bad news for you: my computer has 4 500Gb hard drives, and I can play in 2560*1600... I guess my currently available computer is somehow more innovative than your currently-non-existant PS3 isn't it?
Considering that there aren't any console video game systems with equal power, YES. Some people prefer the simplicity of a console over a computer system.
Mmmm let me guess... The N64 got beaten by the PS1, the GC got annihilated by the PS2 and the Wii uses perfectly standard DVDs?
All I am getting at is that it isn't *that* unusual, and it is more 'standard' than what Nintendo was doing.
Sony expects to use the PS3 to help launch Blu-Ray into millions of homes, but this then means if the PS3 flounders, Blu-Ray is basically dead in the water.
This has the potential to bring the cost down of Blu-Ray players faster than selling Blu-Ray players by themselves. When this happens, and people start buying stand-alone Blu-Ray players, the cost will go down further and the price of PS3s will also go down. It sounds like a win-win for consumers and for Sony.
All you anti-blue ray, anti-DRM, anti-capitalist, anti-Sony, anti-PS3 guys have finally made me want to go buy a PS3 when they first come out. Have you ever stopped to think that just maybe some gamers might want a game machine that will take full advantage of their expensive HD systems? What was Sony going to do, put a regular DVD player in their system? Is that called innovation? So what if they chose Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, most players/recorders will end up supporting both formats anyway. It isn't like Beta-Max, where even the physical dimensions were different. I'm sure Sony has learned their lesson from the MiniDisc fiasco. Besides, Nintendo has always had their own disc or cartridge format, so what's the difference?
1. The way they 'deregulated' energy was the reason for that, not deregulation itself. There are 1000s of examples of products besides energy that get delivered without lots of regulation or Enron type disasters. Henry Ford didn't need the government to build automobiles for the masses, for instance. (Roads on the other hand are more like power lines and are very difficult to deregulate as a practical matter. One wouldn't want lots of power lines from different companies all running to the same places just so that they can compete with each other. The type of deregulation that they came up with was not exactly true market based deregulation.)
2. Governments have had Enron type disasters, but you don't bother mentioning these. Social security is about to be one of those disasters.
3. Communes are just practical applications of what people like you believe. When they fail, you act like it wasn't tried on a big enough scale! Communists feel that communism cannot work unless it is applied world-wide even!
If you like big government, move to France.
First of all, I am not a libertarian, just a patriot. Liberty means just that. Our bill of rights state just that (IX and X specifically). Many of our founding fathers thought just that. Second, you give absolutely no examples of what has been tried and failed. We have been living under the failed policies of FDR for the last 50+ years, so I can give you plenty of examples of where big government has failed. Welfare, social security (failing), public schools (failing), etc. I can tell you how many socialist countries have failed or are failing: Cuba, France, U.S.S.R, China, etc. All of those hippy communes have failed. Third, you give no examples of what you consider the government's role should be, but I assume it is more of the same coercion and mobocracy.
Many in the U.S., including myself, believe that the government's job is to keep others from getting in the way of your freedom and to keep you from getting in the way of other's freedom. Anything else it does is often considered coercion or mobocracy, and therefore it should keep this type of stuff to a minimum. It is not this great secular humanist saviour as many of you would like to believe.
1. Yes, everyone is bad and greedy but you.
2. The government does not provide street lights for free. We all pay for them and they probably cost a lot more than they should. You just don't see the waste.
3. If companies competed for which roads you drive on, the company that produced the ones with great street lights would probably win your dollar. More innovation would happen in road design, etc.
4. Since companies cannot compete in this area for practical reasons, it is obvious the government has to get involved or whatever. This is not the case when it comes to internet access. I predict that over the long run, most of the U.S. will have the internet access that offers the best value. Other countries will be stuck with old technology that their government has put in today.
5. Those who are not for free markets are for what alternative? The only other alternative I can think of is "coercion and mobocracy" (i.e. "the good of the community").
Ha! All you leftists have your underwear in a bunch now! You all preach that it is a conspiracy that we are all dependent on oil, and that all these oil companies and G.W. are evil. Yet you cannot, no matter how hard you try, come up with a real alternative! It is quite funny to watch!
Just think of cars as being "extra population". They use O2 and expel CO2, just like you and I. They are fed carbon based material for energy just like you and I. We can grow food for our cars, but then we are put in the position of directly competing with our cars for food and water! It is bad enough that we compete with each other for such resources.
We can either hope to make technological advances using our superior capitalist system or we can go back to living in the stone age, which is it? I know what leftists would rather us do!
You might change D to "gravitational/tidal/rotational". Weather is dictated by fresh and stored solar, as well as the rotation of the earth around its axis and around the sun. The magnetic field can be a source of energy too, but it exists due to the rotation of the earth, etc.
Also, energy isn't as important as "energy difference," although one cannot have such a concept without energy. I suppose static electricity and energy from friction cannot exist without these other energies either.
Does Google keep a copy of everything you write?
Actually, Al Gore did it before he invented the internet.
Java ugly? Have you seen C++? Anyone who likes all that :: and -> and &var and *var stuff is just nuts!
If one believes that we live in a universe described by a complex mathematical equation that is complex enough to include self awareness, etc., then one can also imagine that God could also exist in such an equation. Many atheists believe in something called the 'many worlds theory,' yet they are quick to discount the existence of God (or any god). It is quite possible that one cannot 'test' for the existence of God using physical means, particularly if God is the equation itself, or exists outside 'our' domain of the equation. For this reason, I don't believe that religious people should discount science or the other way around. Science is just a tool to measure our physical world and describe its processes using what can be measured. It does not deal in truth, only consistency.
That would be even better, but it may not work for banking and medical information. The government wouldn't like such a solution either. Since government cannot such collect data per se, they just use industry to collect it for them. I think everyone should push for some form of anonymous ID/security that keeps us in control of our own privacy. The sooner the better.
Why do we as consumers and citizens not have a problem with privacy data farming? Why are we not pushing for more anonymous ways of allowing companies to serve us better? Why do we allow this to be legal? I for one would like to see an anonymous ID system. Companies like Amazon can keep track of what you like, etc., without really knowing who you are. There would have to be a third party that correlates the two, which is independent, non-profit, well governed but not government based, and secure. People could then opt out using this one company instead of contacting 100s of companies. People can also tell this company what information they can store and what they cannot. People would still 'own' their privacy information. Other companies would merely get a token that represents you, but that cannot be traced to you except by this third party company. (Something like that anyway.)