Um, who want want to buy or steal something that they already have?
Not to mention that I think your numbers of 60 or 70 percent are ludicrous. I'd say applying the 80/20 rule would be more sensible and would think that no more than 20% would try to pawn something, even though they would find no buyers because of the saturated market.
Why is it that there are so many loud complaints about government when it helps individual citizens, but silence when government bails out corporations and the rich?
I'm in the camp that thinks government is to help protect people. You obviously seem to be in the camp that government is there to protect the few at the top.
For many reasons, otherwise completely sensible people are not prepared for a disaster to hit. Like social security providing a safety net for those who do not make enough to afford a 401K, perhaps we could also provide a safety net for those who can't or won't prepare for disasters.
Would increasing a state's sales tax by.01% provide enough revenue to send each household one of these emergency radios as well as 2 weeks worth of MRE's, water, and a first-aid kit, every year?
What better way to help prevent the large scale suffering that so many endured during Katrina while waiting for rescue efforts.
I wonder why they never talk about detecting lies with these fMRI machines. They'll talk about how to induce "spiritual" feelings in people, or how they've discovered the mirror neurons that tell us when a person watches another person do something, it's like we're doing it ourselves.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01-mo nkey.html
If we want to really clean up government and speed up processing in the criminal justice system, we should put $100 million into fMIR as lie detectors.
We could have an electoral truth telling challenge between candidates to see who's telling the truth and who isn't.
The article does make a good point when it says that these competitions let everyone compete on a level playing field.
We get to see a published set of standards, an open competition, and the winner isn't based on who has taken whom to dinner.
Wow! Making awards based on what one has accomplished rather than who one knows. This could have a major impact on business integrity if it's widely adopted.
I agree, this is not new. I saw something on DW TV's Tomorrow Today show a while back about two German high school students who were doing something similar to prevent bootlegging of movies shown at the cinema.
Do y'all think any of this excessive regulation will make it impossible for people to create mesh networks from their network access points?
I'd love to see an "Othernet" made up of inter-linking wireless access points made up of individual homes and businesses.
Who even needs to connect the Othernet to the Internet? Businesses will move where the customers are. You can't tell me that Google would not buy it's own wireless points to join the mesh and index everyone serving things up if there was a significant Othernet?
HP Had a product called Capshare that was a handheld scanner that you could run over a page and then it would put everything together on your PC.
It was a great little product, but I don't think they marketed it well. It was perfect for anyone who was doing researcher.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodCategory?dl c=en&lc=en&cc=us&product=304005
If all the books in the library are digital, doesn't that keep the book burners from having their fun?
On a more serious note, how does one insure the intergrity of digital collections. Things can disappear or be replaced with more politically acceptable alternatives.
At the end of May my local Democratic club had a speaker on global warming, but one of the questions asked was about the ozone layer.
Professor Harte responded that with the changes we've made around the globe that the ozone layer is recovering.
I was a little worried that this would be a boring talk, but I was pleasantly surprised to the contrary. Professor Harte was a wonderful speaker and knew how to explain it in a way that left me astounded at the seriousness of the problem.
Sort of like when you hear stranded people in New Orleans being rescued and saying that they didn't think it would be that bad. Well folks, global warming is bad. Changes that life has had hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to in the past are going to have less than a century to change.
But then this is about the ozone:-)
If you'd like to have Professor Harte come speak to your group, here's the info I have on him.
Professor John Harte, Ph. D. U.C, Berkeley Energy and Resources Group and Ecosystem Sciences Division, College of Natural Resources
I'm curious as to what would happen to people who have had surgery to remove organs or have existing scar tissue from other injuries?
If an injury has already healed, does it not regenerate? I'd be curious to know if they injected the cells into mice with healed injuries and what were the results.
If someone has been missing a gall bladder or a breast for ten years, I can't see it growing back unless another surgery is performed to remove the healed areas.
1960's wouldn't work. Everything before 1923 is in the public domain here in the USA. After 1923, it's hard to tell what is in the public domain and what isn't. I can't remember what date the automatic copyright started to take place. After that time it's like everything is perpetually copyrighted until 75 after the authors death.
There's a guy from Stanford who has been advocating that we institute a copyright renewal fee of something like $1 every few years. That would let most things fall into the public domain.
It would also create a registry so that everyone would know exactly what is in the public domain and what isn't.
I wish I could make claim to thinking up this idear. I remember reading a fascinating application of this technology in a sort of whacky potential future book (Sorry I can't remember the name).
In the book, there is a construction scene where the building materials are all tagged with RFID. Volunteers are wired with devices that tell them what part needs to go where next. A central processor keeps track of where the parts are, what needs to go next, and where it needs to go in relation to the other parts that have already been applied. I imagine it also told them how to connect it if they didn't know how. Such as, first take the mortar and the trowel and apply it this way before you get that brick and put it there. I'd guess you'd need some sort of HUD to make it efficient.
Maybe if every part had an RFID tag then we'd be able to make great steps forward in Open Hardware?
We're cutting funding to science because the right wing extremist agenda can't compete against the truth.
So the best way is to kill the truth by stopping science. Also by attacking the credibility of the media. It's difficult for people to focus on an action to take when they're being confused by contradictory messages and you don't know which one to believe.
Sounds like they made the right decision. The article makes the great point that it's the definitions that make all the difference. It sounds very balanced.
It just seems so natural that Open Source is the way to go. As with art and culture, many creative people would have you believe that everything new is created from nothing but their own creative spirit.
However, it's possible to trace the historical influences on the evolution of arts and culture. Everything created is based on thousands of years of art and culture that belong to all of humanity.
Even new scientific and technological developments are based on the entire history of human scientific knowledge that provides the foundation for new knowledge to be added to.
And isn't that what Open Source is all about?
Seamus, you raise a very interesting point about forcing Americans to accept lower wages and worse working conditions by threatening to outsource jobs.
Instead of lowering our own standards here at home to compete, we should be helping labor in other countries raise their living standards and protections. In that way it would not be cost effective for corporations to outsource jobs so that they can make $2 billion in profit instead of only $1 billion in profit.
In the late 1800's and early 1900's many women and men gave their lives and livelhood to make sure that children weren't forced to work, that we had 40 hour work weeks, and that there were worker safety laws put in place. A lot of things people take for granted today are a direct result of union organizing.
I think we'd be a lot better off if white collar workers would get a clue. The seem to be doing it at Electronic Arts. The way I think of it is:
Blue Collar = Organized Labor
White Collar = Disorganized Labor
Agreed. Does it make sense to throw thousands of people out of work in America so that you can make $2 billion in profits instead of $1 billion?
How much profit is enough?
I'd like to see us move to a mixed economy. It always gives me the creeps to think that people are making profits on war, medicine, medical care, and insurance. Especially those who raise prices in times of disasters.
During the Democratic presidential primary I heard one candidate talk about the need to stop giving welfare money to large corporations but instead give tax breaks and incentives to small businesses.
The rationale is that small businesses keep jobs here in America rather than outsource them.
I like the idear not only because it keeps jobs in America, but it fits in well with the American Dream. Giving people the opportunities of making a good living while being your own boss.
Is it cost effective to have advertiser paid distribution of television shows produced by independent production companies?
I'm pretty clueless when it comes to knowing how much it costs to copy and mail a DVD each week, but if it's feasible it seems to me that using the postal service to mail individual episodes that also contain advertising would be interesting.
Or maybe as a subscription service?
This is a great point Bogtha.
That's the whole problem with everlasting copyrights now. How many times should a person be paid for the same piece of work?
What if furniture makers were paid for everytime you used a chair? Or construction workers for every time you used a door?
Wow, Anonymous Coward. This is exactly the message I came to post. But why pay people to create open source text books? I think there are plenty of scientists and educators who would be willing to put together curriculum and subject articles for free. Didn't Feynman have a rant about K-12 text book corruption? I could have seen him backing a project like this.
I don't know much about wikipedia, but if it has the functionality to let people vote on the best articles and curriculum then it may be a great tool to use for open source text books. A group could come together as an editorial board for each subject area and credential the authors. Once credentialed, they can submit articles to the wiki. A built-in peer review process for articles amongst the credentialed authors would be a great way to keep out junk.
Even better, people could then take this content and make it into on-line learning tools. The kind of teaching software that assesses a student's level of knowledge and then tunes the teaching to be challenging. That way the student doesn't get bored. Isn't that how computer gaming progresses in challenge so players don't get bored?
But why stop at K-12? Can you imagine open source college text books? The students would love it! The faculty would probably hate it as I'm sure they think that a text book is their next big money making venture.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, who want want to buy or steal something that they already have? Not to mention that I think your numbers of 60 or 70 percent are ludicrous. I'd say applying the 80/20 rule would be more sensible and would think that no more than 20% would try to pawn something, even though they would find no buyers because of the saturated market.
Why is it that there are so many loud complaints about government when it helps individual citizens, but silence when government bails out corporations and the rich? I'm in the camp that thinks government is to help protect people. You obviously seem to be in the camp that government is there to protect the few at the top.
Would increasing a state's sales tax by .01% provide enough revenue to send each household one of these emergency radios as well as 2 weeks worth of MRE's, water, and a first-aid kit, every year?
What better way to help prevent the large scale suffering that so many endured during Katrina while waiting for rescue efforts.
If we want to really clean up government and speed up processing in the criminal justice system, we should put $100 million into fMIR as lie detectors.
We could have an electoral truth telling challenge between candidates to see who's telling the truth and who isn't.
We get to see a published set of standards, an open competition, and the winner isn't based on who has taken whom to dinner.
Wow! Making awards based on what one has accomplished rather than who one knows. This could have a major impact on business integrity if it's widely adopted.
You think I might catch them on a blue light special?
I agree, this is not new. I saw something on DW TV's Tomorrow Today show a while back about two German high school students who were doing something similar to prevent bootlegging of movies shown at the cinema.
I'd love to see an "Othernet" made up of inter-linking wireless access points made up of individual homes and businesses.
Who even needs to connect the Othernet to the Internet? Businesses will move where the customers are. You can't tell me that Google would not buy it's own wireless points to join the mesh and index everyone serving things up if there was a significant Othernet?
Sounds like an excellent excuse to do nothing.
Let's end the debate once and for all and lobby Consumer Reports to evaluate electronic voting machines. Following is a link to their feedback form.m erreports.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?
http://custhelp.consumerreports.org/cgi-bin/consu
HP Had a product called Capshare that was a handheld scanner that you could run over a page and then it would put everything together on your PC. It was a great little product, but I don't think they marketed it well. It was perfect for anyone who was doing researcher. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodCategory?dl c=en&lc=en&cc=us&product=304005
On a more serious note, how does one insure the intergrity of digital collections. Things can disappear or be replaced with more politically acceptable alternatives.
Professor Harte responded that with the changes we've made around the globe that the ozone layer is recovering.
I was a little worried that this would be a boring talk, but I was pleasantly surprised to the contrary. Professor Harte was a wonderful speaker and knew how to explain it in a way that left me astounded at the seriousness of the problem.
Sort of like when you hear stranded people in New Orleans being rescued and saying that they didn't think it would be that bad. Well folks, global warming is bad. Changes that life has had hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to in the past are going to have less than a century to change.
But then this is about the ozone:-)
If you'd like to have Professor Harte come speak to your group, here's the info I have on him.
Professor John Harte, Ph. D. U.C, Berkeley Energy and Resources Group and Ecosystem Sciences Division, College of Natural Resources
I'm curious as to what would happen to people who have had surgery to remove organs or have existing scar tissue from other injuries? If an injury has already healed, does it not regenerate? I'd be curious to know if they injected the cells into mice with healed injuries and what were the results. If someone has been missing a gall bladder or a breast for ten years, I can't see it growing back unless another surgery is performed to remove the healed areas.
Not knowing anything about science, I sometimes wonder if DNA was brought to the solar system by some sort of seeding program.
Any bio geeks out there care to enlighten a bio-knowledge impoverished pupil?
Oh, and whip up a universal microbiocide to keep sex safe while you're at it:-)
There's a guy from Stanford who has been advocating that we institute a copyright renewal fee of something like $1 every few years. That would let most things fall into the public domain.
It would also create a registry so that everyone would know exactly what is in the public domain and what isn't.
In the book, there is a construction scene where the building materials are all tagged with RFID. Volunteers are wired with devices that tell them what part needs to go where next. A central processor keeps track of where the parts are, what needs to go next, and where it needs to go in relation to the other parts that have already been applied. I imagine it also told them how to connect it if they didn't know how. Such as, first take the mortar and the trowel and apply it this way before you get that brick and put it there. I'd guess you'd need some sort of HUD to make it efficient.
Maybe if every part had an RFID tag then we'd be able to make great steps forward in Open Hardware?
So the best way is to kill the truth by stopping science. Also by attacking the credibility of the media. It's difficult for people to focus on an action to take when they're being confused by contradictory messages and you don't know which one to believe.
I wrote a journal article yesterday about why being pro-science is the most important message in winning the right wing extremist war on women. http://science.slashdot.org/~Safe%20Sex%20Goddess/ journal/
Sounds like they made the right decision. The article makes the great point that it's the definitions that make all the difference. It sounds very balanced. It just seems so natural that Open Source is the way to go. As with art and culture, many creative people would have you believe that everything new is created from nothing but their own creative spirit. However, it's possible to trace the historical influences on the evolution of arts and culture. Everything created is based on thousands of years of art and culture that belong to all of humanity. Even new scientific and technological developments are based on the entire history of human scientific knowledge that provides the foundation for new knowledge to be added to. And isn't that what Open Source is all about?
Instead of lowering our own standards here at home to compete, we should be helping labor in other countries raise their living standards and protections. In that way it would not be cost effective for corporations to outsource jobs so that they can make $2 billion in profit instead of only $1 billion in profit.
In the late 1800's and early 1900's many women and men gave their lives and livelhood to make sure that children weren't forced to work, that we had 40 hour work weeks, and that there were worker safety laws put in place. A lot of things people take for granted today are a direct result of union organizing.
I think we'd be a lot better off if white collar workers would get a clue. The seem to be doing it at Electronic Arts. The way I think of it is:
Blue Collar = Organized Labor
White Collar = Disorganized Labor
How much profit is enough?
I'd like to see us move to a mixed economy. It always gives me the creeps to think that people are making profits on war, medicine, medical care, and insurance. Especially those who raise prices in times of disasters.
Necessities at cost, luxiries for profit.
During the Democratic presidential primary I heard one candidate talk about the need to stop giving welfare money to large corporations but instead give tax breaks and incentives to small businesses. The rationale is that small businesses keep jobs here in America rather than outsource them. I like the idear not only because it keeps jobs in America, but it fits in well with the American Dream. Giving people the opportunities of making a good living while being your own boss.
Is it cost effective to have advertiser paid distribution of television shows produced by independent production companies? I'm pretty clueless when it comes to knowing how much it costs to copy and mail a DVD each week, but if it's feasible it seems to me that using the postal service to mail individual episodes that also contain advertising would be interesting. Or maybe as a subscription service?
This is a great point Bogtha. That's the whole problem with everlasting copyrights now. How many times should a person be paid for the same piece of work? What if furniture makers were paid for everytime you used a chair? Or construction workers for every time you used a door?
I don't know much about wikipedia, but if it has the functionality to let people vote on the best articles and curriculum then it may be a great tool to use for open source text books. A group could come together as an editorial board for each subject area and credential the authors. Once credentialed, they can submit articles to the wiki. A built-in peer review process for articles amongst the credentialed authors would be a great way to keep out junk.
Even better, people could then take this content and make it into on-line learning tools. The kind of teaching software that assesses a student's level of knowledge and then tunes the teaching to be challenging. That way the student doesn't get bored. Isn't that how computer gaming progresses in challenge so players don't get bored?
But why stop at K-12? Can you imagine open source college text books? The students would love it! The faculty would probably hate it as I'm sure they think that a text book is their next big money making venture.