Even with unlimited, clean energy, growth still leaves an environmental footprint. Increases in population demand more food, and more living space, both of which would involve expansion into unsettled habitats (e.g., cutting down the rain forests, developing grasslands).
The Dark Greens, who would prefer to not see any this destruction of habitat occur. Unlimited energy however would make expansion into undeveloped habitats cheap, and therefore easier and more likely. Thus, as a sect of the environmental movement that primarily favors preserving undeveloped territory (over reducing pollution), Dark Greens by necessity would have to be opposed to finding cheap, clean, unlimited energy.
I surmise that they would much rather see energy prices skyrocket, and no new sources be developed. This would necessitate a worldwide Powerdown scenario, which would effectively halt, if not at least dramatically slow, worldwide growth. Only after this state, would their vision of society be palpable to the masses. In a nutshell, they are eco-Marxists.
I believe what the grandparent is referring to is known as the Dark Green sect of the environmental movement. These people tend to believe that it is not pollution that is the problem, but rather the current form of human civilization itself. Some of them see the continued growth and expansion of human civilization as the worst case scenario. Thus to these groups an unlimited, pollution-free source of power, which would enable unlimited growth and expansion of human civilization, would be a worst case scenario since it would allow for unbridled expansion.
In my opinion these fringes of the environmental movement are merely using the whole "save mother Earth" as a front to push their true agenda, which is the desire to see civilization regress to an agrarian, survivalist, (maybe even subsistence,) state of existence.
Yes, they have the choice to not participate in the school's competitive sports programs. For example, if someone really objected to the pledge, they could do regular physical education (no pledge required), or join a non-school affiliated club team if they really wanted to play the forgone sport.
can you hold a teen legally accountable for any other contract?
Laws binding teens to contracts they enter into vary from state to state, but generally most states will hold teens responsible according to a general standard of reasonableness (i.e., whether the teen reasonably understood the content of the contract and its ramifications). Whether this pledge was reasonable of course depends on its wording, but if language was to the effect of:
As a condition of participating in this sports program, I promise not to drink or consume any alcoholic beverages. I understand that failure to abide by this plegdge could result in my suspension from the school's team.
, then I don't see how a teen could misinterpret or misconstrue it.
why make liars of your children by duping them into unrealistic promises?
How is making a teenager promise not to drink alcohol in exchange for letting them participate on the school's football team a "unrealistic" promise? Personally, I think it is a perfectly fair bargain. No one is being forced to sign this merely by attending the school. Participation in a competitive sport is not required by the high school. It's not like the school is forcing every student to sign a pledge saying that they will get straight A's and then grading them all on a bell curve.
it is irresponsible of adults to push children or teenagers to make these kinds of pledges and it sets a terribly low standard for society in general.
Setting aside the morality of teenage drinking, how is it irresponsible NOT to teach children and teens to honor promises they make? Teaching children the value of following through on one's words and promises is integral to maintaining a functional society. Hell I think it's a "terribly low standard for society" to not force children to make any promises, merely because a few children maybe unable to keep them. I mean, (explicitly or implicitly) we make kids promise to not to hurt or kill each other (or any human being). Should we not make them promise that merely because every couple years some socially retarded jackoffs decide to go postal and massacre their schoolmates? Sure, that's an extreme, but your logic leads toward that conclusion.
any non-conformist who refuses to sign such a pledge will be the nail to be hammered down and made an example of.
Really? I think worst case, a person will made fun of for not playing a sport they want to play. That's typical high school cruelty, which unfortunately is inevitable. I think best case, a person will probably get "street cred" and respect from his peers flipping the bird to the administration and saying (effectively) that he'll drink booze if damn well pleases him. This pledge isn't a witch hunt.
I agree with you on this. If you had some good law school legal clinics taking up the cause, it would do a lot to end most of these suits, assuming the RIAA is filing them primarily for nuisance value. I know the clinic at my school has wanted to get involved, but we also have a film school that has way more pull, and they love internships and jobs that **AA member companies throw to graduates. More schools with less conflicts of interest should get involved.
I think the blog post on p2pnet gives this motion to dismiss a lot more credit than it is due. The basic crux of motion's the argument is that Bell Atlantic v. Twombly (Decision Here) raises the pleading standards for what a lawsuit must allege to a level that the RIAA's complaint, as currently written cannot meet.
The argument used does not challenge law suit on any substantive legal ground (i.e., the law underlying the complaint), but rather on procedural grounds. That basically means that the motion alleges that that RIAA/MPAA failed to meet a proper standard of proof with respect alleging enough facts to merit a suit.
I externed at a Federal Court this summer, and we saw plenty of these motions with this same argument for many different types of cases. Most of the time this procedural error was the fault of some idiot lawyer forgetting to check the validity of the case law cited in some boilerplate form complaint that the submitting firm had in their document library. The cases were usually dismissed, with leave to amend the complaint and refile one a sufficient complaint could be drafted. This is not "groundbreaking" will not stop the RIAA cold in its tracks. They will file another suit once they tweak their complaint to meat Twombly's new standard of proof.
I wish the students luck in fighting the suits against them and hope they win, but this is nothing more than a legal pothole, not the roadblock that the summary makes it out to be.
I was a sophomore in high school when this game was announced. I didn't even have a drivers license. I am now about to finish law school, and (probably) will take the bar before this game is released. How's that for perspective.
The gold and silver clause was written into the constitution because the framers had recent, painful experience with the dangers of fiat currency.
Wrong, the gold and silver standard was written so that states could not create fiat currency. If you remember, during the Articles of Confederation, the big problem was not the depreciation of the Continental Dollar itself, but the fact that the states were creating their own currencies and use those to pay down their debt. This had the secondary effect of undermining the Continental Dollar, because no one would use it or take it when they could use the state currency instead (remember, states governments had more control over daily life and respect then the federal government did at that time.) This clause prevented the states from doing this, by requiring them to back their currencies, with something, which prevented them from printing money to pay off debts (i.e., hyperinflation).
Additionally, interpreting the clause to apply to the Federal Government is absurd. The clause, located in Article I, Section 10 clearly states that, "No state shall... make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." Source. It makes no prohibition of federal government's ability to create a fiat currency or requires it to back its currency with gold or silver. As further evidence of its textual limitation, Article I, Section 10's purpose is to place limits on the states, and it would be illogical to construe it place those same restrictions on the Federal Government. For example, that very same clause also states that no state shall "enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation." If you interpret this clause to apply to the Federal Government, then you have effectively prohibited it from entering into peace treaties, the Geneva Convention, NATO, and other multi-national agreements. What sense does it make if Congress can declare war, but then not agree to a treaty to end it?
The scope and limitations of Congress's power to pass legislation is laid out in Sections 8 and 9, and nowhere there does it require a commodity backed currency.
For extra credit, can you tell us who benefits from inflation?
Just to take a quick shot at this, I assume you mean that creditors (i.e., anyone who borrows money) benefit from inflation, and that the US as a creditor is paying off its debts by making its money worth less (not necessarily worthless) through inflation. This is true and I won't disagree, but your also missing the point that everyone benefits from steady, predictable, low inflation. Prices that rise in a predictable manner, allow for us to discount them in our economic decisions. Specifically, it allows banks to factor in inflation when lending money, which allows them to predict their expected return on investment from lending that money, creating a stable credit market, which is one of the primary driving forces of our economy.
One of the great problems with the gold standard is that it will only hold inflation in check so long as the supply of gold in the world stays steady. If there is a sudden increase (e.g., a new vein is discovered) , or decrease (e.g., a shipwreck) then prices of gold back assets will have to swing dramatically to deal with it. This creates rapid inflation or deflation, which wrecks havoc credit markets that depend on predictable returns. This increased risk takes the form of increases interest rates for everyone, which makes it harder for everyone to borrow money, negatively affecting economic growth. (This works because businesses borrow money if they think they can get a greater rate of return on it than the interest they are paying for it. This activity is what generates economic growth. Thus when interest rates are low, more people borrow because it becomes more profitable to do so. If interest rates are perpetually high, it becomes less profitable to borrow money and less people take the economic risk of borrowing, decreasing the potential for growth.)
The deal is structured so that Vivendi basically controls the new company. My bet is that they keep the same hands off approach with Blizzard that they have always had. Given Blizzard's immense profitability (projected 2007 revenue of $1.1b; $510m operating profit; 40% operating margins), they have earned that level of independence, and it would be stupid to mess with it.
It really saddens me when game companies make good business decisions...
Well, like you said, both Blizzard and Activision are businesses, and businesses exist to make money that they can return to their owners and shareholders. Both Blizzard and Activision don't make games just because it's fun to. They make games because people will pay money for them.
...that, to me, seem like they will hurt gamers in the long run
I actually think this will help gamers. First off, Vivendi will basically retain control of Activision Blizzard by bieng the majority shareholder and having the majority of seats on the board. This will allow them to protect Blizzard's independent operation status, something it has always had as a subsidiary of Vivendi, and something that has clearly worked in past given the quality and profitability of the titles and franchises Blizzard has created. Blizzard is probably set for the longterm with this deal.
Activision fans also benefit, at least in the short term, because it will get access to Universal Music Groups song catalog through Vivendi. This will translate into more, and better Guitar Hero sequels, which will benefit Guitar Hero fans. Of course, the problem with Guitar Hero is that it is an inherently faddish game, ala DDR, and its novelty will probably wear off in a year. Then Activision will have to depend on its Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, and Quake franchises, all of which are oversaturated. However, that would have happened to Activision regardless of the merger, so I fail to see how gamers are hurt by this merger.
Housing: Housing prices are not increasing? Did you see the losses all of the banks took this quarter? It's because of all of the people who defaulted on mortgages they could not afford to pay. Those people cannot afford to pay because they have no equity in their homes to refinance. They have no equity in their homes because property values have declined by as much as 15% in the last year in some parts of the country. Those houses they walked away from; they are now being repossessed and sold further depressing the housing market. This isn't inflationary at all. It's text book deflationary pressure, and based on the losses some these banks are taking I predict its going to result in a net decrease of at least $40-70 billion in the money supply of this country. This is only going to show in the form of these people decreasing their spending since they won't have that home equity line of credit to draw from.
Fuel: Sure oil is hitting $90 a barrel, but that's still below the inflation-adjusted all-time high of $100 that we saw in late 1970s. Source. And most of this recent spike is due to overblown concerns over Iran and speculators (i.e., people who are just buying oil because they think it is going up in price, not people who actually use it) who are going to start dumping oil in the next few months. I bet you oil is closer to $70 in January than it is to $100. (And as an aside, as someone who wants to encourage renewable energy, I want $100 oil because at this point solar, biodiesel, ethanol, geothermal, and a whole bunch of other alternative energy sources become economically profitable. That'll never happen until oil is legitimately scare though because OPEC will act to keep longterm prices below this point to avoid letting the genie out of the bottle. Source.
Health Care and Education: There are legitimate concerns with respect to inflation in these two areas as their cost increases are far and a way outstripping regular inflation.
No personal jet. No military style compound. But a nice house isn't a bad way to start off your adult life.
For those of you wondering where those dreams went, I give you a graph of VA/OSDN/Sourceforge's stock price.
Weren't you worth a couple hundred million at some point Taco?
(Note: I'm not trying to disparage or flame Taco, I'm just trying to use the graph illustrate to all the young-uns how insane dot-com bubble was. And people think the current housing bubble is bad!)
Why shouldn't coal be an option? The NRDC has a great article on clean coal that effectively lays out the case for and against it.
The pros of clean coal include (1) zero carbon emission; (2) almost none of the particulate emissions associated with traditional coal; (3) a 300 year supply of coal; (4) a significant chunk of that supply being in the US; and (5) minimal additional investment in plant upgrades since most coal plants are old and need to be upgraded already anyway.
The cons of clean coal include (1) CO2 sequestration (clean coal gets zero carbon status by capturing the CO2 from plaints and injecting it into underground reservoirs); (2) Environmental impact associated with mining the coal (this includes physical impact and the carbon emissions associated with mining); and (3) using the captured CO2 to produce oil (process explain in the article).
There are two sides to this debate, and some of the pro arguments are extremely compelling, especially if you are concerned with energy independence. To say categorically that coal should not be an option is to ignore a potentially great energy source. The solution to getting away form oil dependence is not just solar power. It includes wind, solar, nuclear, coal, geothermal and any other power source that is NOT oil. In fact a combination of sources is probably the bets way balance energy demand. The less dependent society becomes on one particular source, the less it will be held hostage by the downsides of using that source, and the more likely it will be to accept the introduction of a new source. It's just like the argument for multiple operating systems. People are more likely to switch to Linux, OSX, or BSD if they have had exposure to multiple OS's and not just Windows for all of their life.
But the fact that [independent discovery] happens over and over again just shows that the current system blocks progress of art and science rather than encouraging it.
Really? How does discovering something again lead to progress? I could re-invent the wheel, or prove that 2+2=4 for independently, but neither would advance the fields of engineering or mathematics. Prohibiting independent discovery is not so much the issue, as dealing with the infringing use. It is the potential prohibition of the infringing use that threatens to hamper the progress of the arts and sciences, not the mere fact that it was rediscovered.
Perhaps the best solution here would be do adopt a mandatory licensing scheme similar to the one used for copyrighted musical works. The only catch here would be determining what a proper royalty would be. Patented inventions are inherently more hard to value then music because their value often comes from their combination with other inventions (patented or unpatented). Songs on the other hand are singular items. This is the biggest problem a mandatory licensing regime faces.
We have to start only allowing patents that are judged non-obvious by leading experts in the area.
No, lawyers would have a field day with this standard. How do we determine who a "leading expert" is? If it is a question of fact, it goes to the jury, which will result in unpredictable and inconsistent outcomes; i.e., a craps shoot. Try explaining to your average person on the street why theoretical physicist A's interpretation of M-Theory is more correct then theoretical physicist B's interpretation. Alternatively if it is a question of law, the judge decides, this leads to huge legal battles (and costs) as the lawyers argue over A vs. B , and arguably will not produce better or more coherent outcomes then a jury. Patent litigation is already the most expensive form of litigation to pursue, increasing the complexity of litigation helps no one.
The summary's claim is that the White House is selectively using data points, and to an extent that is true. They base their claims on an index comparison that starts at the year 2000. When you view the data this way, it does appear that the EU's Greenhouse Gas emissions have gone up, while the US's have declined/been neutral. The article prefers on the other hand to index at 1990, which shows that over the last 14 years of data that the US's emissions have increased dramatically compared to the EU.
Now here's my first problem: the accusation assumes that 2000 is not a good index year, which it is. If the Bush Administration wants to make the case that they (The Bush Administration) have been more successful than the EU in reducing emissions, then the logical start point for comparison is about when they took over which would be 2001.
Now, the article points out correctly that Greenhouse emissions tend to drop during economic slowdowns. One can see that easily by looking at the graph at the end of it (the US has a drop in 1991; the EU has a drop from 92-96; the US has another drop from 00-01). If one takes these economic slowdowns into account, then 2000, the peak of the last economy, might very well be a good starting point for the Administration to start their indexing from. Why should they have to take into account the failures of past administrations (Bush I, and Clinton) when touting the success of their administration? If, hypothetically, US emissions had decreased from 1990 to 2000 and increased from 2000 to 2004, would it be fair for the Bush Administration to take the earlier data into account and claim that they had reduced emissions? No, that would be taking credit for progress they did not make. The same principle applies reverse.
The article also brings about a perpetual flaw in any sort of greenhouse gas analysis. It completely ignores economic growth and the effect it has on increasing emissions (which it candidly points out by the way). During much of the mid-90s the US economy was booming, especially compared to the EU, so of course there was going to be an increase in emissions from 1991-2000. Additionally, these indexes fail to take into account the size of the economic growth when making the comparison. If we really want a useful measure, we should be tracking "Volume of Emissions per Unit of GDP Growth." That way we could judge economies based on their environmental efficiency rather just on pure volumetric data.
OMG Lucas, you just like to jab that knife in and keep on twisting, don't you? What do we have to look forward to now, a story about the Gungans? I might actually see that... if they use the Death Star to blow Naboo up in the first five minutes of the film. Or better yet, how about a story about Wookies? We could expand upon the great festive celebration that is Life Day! Oh how I would love to see Itchy, Mala, and Lumpy (yes, Lumpy!) again.
Seriously George, just save us the trouble and sell us a rusty spoon for $10. It'll be much more fun jabbing that in our eyes then watching whatever monstrosity these films turn out to be. Isn't $3.1 billion enough?
(1) Who is the single senator? (whose name is apparently much more difficult to type than 'single senator') (3) What is he actually doing that's "holding up" the bill?
In the US Senate, any member is allowed to place a secret hold on legislation to prevent it from coming up for a vote. Standing Rules of the Senate RULE VII. Notably, there was a news story last year where Sen. Ted Stevens put a secret hold on a bill that would have required the government to publish online a database of federal spending.
Then downsample it to MP3. iTunes has a transcoder built right in. Hell you can do this with their 128kbps DRM'ed AAC files as well. Converting to MP3 of course kills the benefits of AAC, namely (1) better sound quality for the bit rate and (2) longer battery life for your iPod (AAC takes less processing power to decode).
You know, I call bullshit on this argument. I bet that you and all the other people that make this argument (and there seems to be a lot) really just don't want to pay anything for music at all. You all just want to download the songs for free, and wouldn't pay a cent for a song even if it came in uncompressed 96 KHz PCM Audio straight from the master tape.
Now, if that's what you want (free, as in beer, music) come out and say it, and lets have a real debate over the underlying issue. But don't hide behind this BS "uncompressed music" argument. No commercially available completely uncompressed. Even most CD's are dynamically range compressed.
4. This will have zero effect on outsourcing to India. Do you really think companies will shift operations to another continent/culture/timezone just to save internet connection bills???
How so, outsourcing is the product cheap internet connections and VOIP. This makes communicating with corporate in the US easy and cheap (not to mention also making foreign call centers possible). If internet connections were to get cheaper, how would that not make the cost of outsourcing cheaper? While I agree your with level of service argument. I fail to see how more then a home-connection level is needed if your just hiring individuals to VPN in and telecommute. US corporations pay for DSL/Cable for their employees to do VPN in from home all the time. What's India gonna do, block "business packets" to prevent companies from exploiting this?
How exactly do people subsisting in tenement slums benefit from free broadband? I don't think tenement slums mean what you think it means.
That parenthetical was sarcastic. Clearly I did not do a good job in conveying it.
The article raises a few issues. The first of which is what level of connectivity are we talking about? Does "access" mean a line to every home, or just access to a line by every household. The former would be a boon to all citizens (especially those living in tenement slums). The latter isn't as impressive as one could establish this by having access to one computer in each village.
I think the greater issue, however, is the potential boon this might be to companies looking to outsource operations. One of the driving forces behind outsourcing is the penetration of cheap telecom into emerging markets. Here, you'd have a situation where companies wouldn't even need to pay for internet access to hire workers. They could just have them telecommute from home. If that's the case the amount of outsourcing could increase rapidly. It's a smart decision by the Indian government, as their investment would pay off ten fold if that were case. For the American engineer, though, this is perhaps not such a good development.
I think you can clearly define "hate speech" in the current culture and there's no reason we shouldn't make an effort to stop it.
Classifying speech is inherently hard to do. The problem comes because brightline definitions in these cases are inherently overinclusive or underinclusive in speech they cover. Lets take you definition for example:
To me hate speech is [1] a severe form of slander and libel [2] which is pushed upon one entire ethnic group or race. [emphasis added]
Using your definition, "severe forms of libel or slander" would be allowed against homosexuals because they are not an "ethnic group or race." "Fine," you say, "let's extend the definition to include sexual orientation." Now you have just protected pedophiles from "severe forms of slander and libel" because they can claim their views on sexuality as a sexual orientation. How about little people? Can I call them midgets? How about the handicapped? Can I advocate for their extermination because they are a drain on the resources of society? I hope this illustrates the problem with drawing a bright line.
Then we get to the question of whether banning "severe forms" of libel or slander is enough to stop hate speech. You suggested the following is hate speech because it is libelous:
Should I be able to create a book detailing with no real scientific proof, that african americans are an inferior race of stupid people who should be shot an hanged on site for merely existing? Absolutely not.
How about if someone were to write a books saying that African Americans were inferior (and shoudl be shot) because they were more likely then the general population to have sickle cell anemia, and because they score demonstrably lower on standardized tests and have lower graduation rates? There is nothing libelous or slanderous about that because assertion of inferiority is based on true facts. This would be completely acceptable under your definition (i.e., not hate speech), and, if anything, would have a greater effect then mere libelous hate speech because the assertion is based on verifiable facts.
My point here, isn't to disparage homosexuals, African Americans, or little people. It's merely to illustrate why a brightline definition for hate speech is so hard to come up with. I'm just a second year law student and I eviscerated your definition. Imagine what a real lawyer or the ACLU could do. Heck, the Supreme Court has been trying to draw lines around the First Amendment for 60 years, and they haven't even been able to come close to defining and delineating types of speech. Speech is inherently hard to define or classify; that's why the best solution is not to define or regulate it and let the market place of ideas work its magic.
I think grandparent's main assertion was not that prior art should be considered, it was that the first-to-file system is better than the first-to-invent system, because it reduces the litigation over prior art. Currently the US system uses the rule that priority of invention goes to the person who (1) is the first to conceive of the invention, and (2) the first to diligently reduce it practice (i.e., make or describe how to make a working invention). This test is a significant point of litigation (i.e., costly) because it turns around proving factual issues of conception (i.e., when did the apple strike the inventor's head), and diligent reduction to practice (e.g., does the fact that InventorOne had to stop work on his invention to take care of a terminally ill relative bar him from having priority because it cause him to reduce the invention to practice later then InventorTwo?).
Deciding these issues place a significant burden on the USPTO, and use time that arguably would be better spent looking at a patent's novelty or obviousness (the issues slashdotters complain about the most). A first-to-file system would be better in this respect because litigation over diligence and conception would be irrelevant. Priority for a patent between two deserving patentees would go to the one who filed an application first, no questions asked.
Slashdot Mirror
Even with unlimited, clean energy, growth still leaves an environmental footprint. Increases in population demand more food, and more living space, both of which would involve expansion into unsettled habitats (e.g., cutting down the rain forests, developing grasslands).
The Dark Greens, who would prefer to not see any this destruction of habitat occur. Unlimited energy however would make expansion into undeveloped habitats cheap, and therefore easier and more likely. Thus, as a sect of the environmental movement that primarily favors preserving undeveloped territory (over reducing pollution), Dark Greens by necessity would have to be opposed to finding cheap, clean, unlimited energy.
I surmise that they would much rather see energy prices skyrocket, and no new sources be developed. This would necessitate a worldwide Powerdown scenario, which would effectively halt, if not at least dramatically slow, worldwide growth. Only after this state, would their vision of society be palpable to the masses. In a nutshell, they are eco-Marxists.
I believe what the grandparent is referring to is known as the Dark Green sect of the environmental movement. These people tend to believe that it is not pollution that is the problem, but rather the current form of human civilization itself. Some of them see the continued growth and expansion of human civilization as the worst case scenario. Thus to these groups an unlimited, pollution-free source of power, which would enable unlimited growth and expansion of human civilization, would be a worst case scenario since it would allow for unbridled expansion.
In my opinion these fringes of the environmental movement are merely using the whole "save mother Earth" as a front to push their true agenda, which is the desire to see civilization regress to an agrarian, survivalist, (maybe even subsistence,) state of existence.
Yes, they have the choice to not participate in the school's competitive sports programs. For example, if someone really objected to the pledge, they could do regular physical education (no pledge required), or join a non-school affiliated club team if they really wanted to play the forgone sport.
Laws binding teens to contracts they enter into vary from state to state, but generally most states will hold teens responsible according to a general standard of reasonableness (i.e., whether the teen reasonably understood the content of the contract and its ramifications). Whether this pledge was reasonable of course depends on its wording, but if language was to the effect of:
, then I don't see how a teen could misinterpret or misconstrue it.
How is making a teenager promise not to drink alcohol in exchange for letting them participate on the school's football team a "unrealistic" promise? Personally, I think it is a perfectly fair bargain. No one is being forced to sign this merely by attending the school. Participation in a competitive sport is not required by the high school. It's not like the school is forcing every student to sign a pledge saying that they will get straight A's and then grading them all on a bell curve.
Setting aside the morality of teenage drinking, how is it irresponsible NOT to teach children and teens to honor promises they make? Teaching children the value of following through on one's words and promises is integral to maintaining a functional society. Hell I think it's a "terribly low standard for society" to not force children to make any promises, merely because a few children maybe unable to keep them. I mean, (explicitly or implicitly) we make kids promise to not to hurt or kill each other (or any human being). Should we not make them promise that merely because every couple years some socially retarded jackoffs decide to go postal and massacre their schoolmates? Sure, that's an extreme, but your logic leads toward that conclusion.
Really? I think worst case, a person will made fun of for not playing a sport they want to play. That's typical high school cruelty, which unfortunately is inevitable. I think best case, a person will probably get "street cred" and respect from his peers flipping the bird to the administration and saying (effectively) that he'll drink booze if damn well pleases him. This pledge isn't a witch hunt.
I agree with you on this. If you had some good law school legal clinics taking up the cause, it would do a lot to end most of these suits, assuming the RIAA is filing them primarily for nuisance value. I know the clinic at my school has wanted to get involved, but we also have a film school that has way more pull, and they love internships and jobs that **AA member companies throw to graduates. More schools with less conflicts of interest should get involved.
I think the blog post on p2pnet gives this motion to dismiss a lot more credit than it is due. The basic crux of motion's the argument is that Bell Atlantic v. Twombly (Decision Here) raises the pleading standards for what a lawsuit must allege to a level that the RIAA's complaint, as currently written cannot meet.
The argument used does not challenge law suit on any substantive legal ground (i.e., the law underlying the complaint), but rather on procedural grounds. That basically means that the motion alleges that that RIAA/MPAA failed to meet a proper standard of proof with respect alleging enough facts to merit a suit.
I externed at a Federal Court this summer, and we saw plenty of these motions with this same argument for many different types of cases. Most of the time this procedural error was the fault of some idiot lawyer forgetting to check the validity of the case law cited in some boilerplate form complaint that the submitting firm had in their document library. The cases were usually dismissed, with leave to amend the complaint and refile one a sufficient complaint could be drafted. This is not "groundbreaking" will not stop the RIAA cold in its tracks. They will file another suit once they tweak their complaint to meat Twombly's new standard of proof.
I wish the students luck in fighting the suits against them and hope they win, but this is nothing more than a legal pothole, not the roadblock that the summary makes it out to be.
I was a sophomore in high school when this game was announced. I didn't even have a drivers license. I am now about to finish law school, and (probably) will take the bar before this game is released. How's that for perspective.
Wrong, the gold and silver standard was written so that states could not create fiat currency. If you remember, during the Articles of Confederation, the big problem was not the depreciation of the Continental Dollar itself, but the fact that the states were creating their own currencies and use those to pay down their debt. This had the secondary effect of undermining the Continental Dollar, because no one would use it or take it when they could use the state currency instead (remember, states governments had more control over daily life and respect then the federal government did at that time.) This clause prevented the states from doing this, by requiring them to back their currencies, with something, which prevented them from printing money to pay off debts (i.e., hyperinflation).
Additionally, interpreting the clause to apply to the Federal Government is absurd. The clause, located in Article I, Section 10 clearly states that, "No state shall... make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." Source. It makes no prohibition of federal government's ability to create a fiat currency or requires it to back its currency with gold or silver. As further evidence of its textual limitation, Article I, Section 10's purpose is to place limits on the states, and it would be illogical to construe it place those same restrictions on the Federal Government. For example, that very same clause also states that no state shall "enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation." If you interpret this clause to apply to the Federal Government, then you have effectively prohibited it from entering into peace treaties, the Geneva Convention, NATO, and other multi-national agreements. What sense does it make if Congress can declare war, but then not agree to a treaty to end it?
The scope and limitations of Congress's power to pass legislation is laid out in Sections 8 and 9, and nowhere there does it require a commodity backed currency.
Just to take a quick shot at this, I assume you mean that creditors (i.e., anyone who borrows money) benefit from inflation, and that the US as a creditor is paying off its debts by making its money worth less (not necessarily worthless) through inflation. This is true and I won't disagree, but your also missing the point that everyone benefits from steady, predictable, low inflation. Prices that rise in a predictable manner, allow for us to discount them in our economic decisions. Specifically, it allows banks to factor in inflation when lending money, which allows them to predict their expected return on investment from lending that money, creating a stable credit market, which is one of the primary driving forces of our economy.
One of the great problems with the gold standard is that it will only hold inflation in check so long as the supply of gold in the world stays steady. If there is a sudden increase (e.g., a new vein is discovered) , or decrease (e.g., a shipwreck) then prices of gold back assets will have to swing dramatically to deal with it. This creates rapid inflation or deflation, which wrecks havoc credit markets that depend on predictable returns. This increased risk takes the form of increases interest rates for everyone, which makes it harder for everyone to borrow money, negatively affecting economic growth. (This works because businesses borrow money if they think they can get a greater rate of return on it than the interest they are paying for it. This activity is what generates economic growth. Thus when interest rates are low, more people borrow because it becomes more profitable to do so. If interest rates are perpetually high, it becomes less profitable to borrow money and less people take the economic risk of borrowing, decreasing the potential for growth.)
It's been said a couple of times, but I'll reiterate it. With the deal, Blizzard retains its operating independence. Source.
The deal is structured so that Vivendi basically controls the new company. My bet is that they keep the same hands off approach with Blizzard that they have always had. Given Blizzard's immense profitability (projected 2007 revenue of $1.1b; $510m operating profit; 40% operating margins), they have earned that level of independence, and it would be stupid to mess with it.
Well, like you said, both Blizzard and Activision are businesses, and businesses exist to make money that they can return to their owners and shareholders. Both Blizzard and Activision don't make games just because it's fun to. They make games because people will pay money for them.
I actually think this will help gamers. First off, Vivendi will basically retain control of Activision Blizzard by bieng the majority shareholder and having the majority of seats on the board. This will allow them to protect Blizzard's independent operation status, something it has always had as a subsidiary of Vivendi, and something that has clearly worked in past given the quality and profitability of the titles and franchises Blizzard has created. Blizzard is probably set for the longterm with this deal.
Activision fans also benefit, at least in the short term, because it will get access to Universal Music Groups song catalog through Vivendi. This will translate into more, and better Guitar Hero sequels, which will benefit Guitar Hero fans. Of course, the problem with Guitar Hero is that it is an inherently faddish game, ala DDR, and its novelty will probably wear off in a year. Then Activision will have to depend on its Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, and Quake franchises, all of which are oversaturated. However, that would have happened to Activision regardless of the merger, so I fail to see how gamers are hurt by this merger.
Just to address a few specific claims.
Housing: Housing prices are not increasing? Did you see the losses all of the banks took this quarter? It's because of all of the people who defaulted on mortgages they could not afford to pay. Those people cannot afford to pay because they have no equity in their homes to refinance. They have no equity in their homes because property values have declined by as much as 15% in the last year in some parts of the country. Those houses they walked away from; they are now being repossessed and sold further depressing the housing market. This isn't inflationary at all. It's text book deflationary pressure, and based on the losses some these banks are taking I predict its going to result in a net decrease of at least $40-70 billion in the money supply of this country. This is only going to show in the form of these people decreasing their spending since they won't have that home equity line of credit to draw from.
Fuel: Sure oil is hitting $90 a barrel, but that's still below the inflation-adjusted all-time high of $100 that we saw in late 1970s. Source. And most of this recent spike is due to overblown concerns over Iran and speculators (i.e., people who are just buying oil because they think it is going up in price, not people who actually use it) who are going to start dumping oil in the next few months. I bet you oil is closer to $70 in January than it is to $100. (And as an aside, as someone who wants to encourage renewable energy, I want $100 oil because at this point solar, biodiesel, ethanol, geothermal, and a whole bunch of other alternative energy sources become economically profitable. That'll never happen until oil is legitimately scare though because OPEC will act to keep longterm prices below this point to avoid letting the genie out of the bottle. Source.
Health Care and Education: There are legitimate concerns with respect to inflation in these two areas as their cost increases are far and a way outstripping regular inflation.
For those of you wondering where those dreams went, I give you a graph of VA/OSDN/Sourceforge's stock price.
Weren't you worth a couple hundred million at some point Taco?
(Note: I'm not trying to disparage or flame Taco, I'm just trying to use the graph illustrate to all the young-uns how insane dot-com bubble was. And people think the current housing bubble is bad!)
Why shouldn't coal be an option? The NRDC has a great article on clean coal that effectively lays out the case for and against it.
The pros of clean coal include (1) zero carbon emission; (2) almost none of the particulate emissions associated with traditional coal; (3) a 300 year supply of coal; (4) a significant chunk of that supply being in the US; and (5) minimal additional investment in plant upgrades since most coal plants are old and need to be upgraded already anyway.
The cons of clean coal include (1) CO2 sequestration (clean coal gets zero carbon status by capturing the CO2 from plaints and injecting it into underground reservoirs); (2) Environmental impact associated with mining the coal (this includes physical impact and the carbon emissions associated with mining); and (3) using the captured CO2 to produce oil (process explain in the article).
There are two sides to this debate, and some of the pro arguments are extremely compelling, especially if you are concerned with energy independence. To say categorically that coal should not be an option is to ignore a potentially great energy source. The solution to getting away form oil dependence is not just solar power. It includes wind, solar, nuclear, coal, geothermal and any other power source that is NOT oil. In fact a combination of sources is probably the bets way balance energy demand. The less dependent society becomes on one particular source, the less it will be held hostage by the downsides of using that source, and the more likely it will be to accept the introduction of a new source. It's just like the argument for multiple operating systems. People are more likely to switch to Linux, OSX, or BSD if they have had exposure to multiple OS's and not just Windows for all of their life.
Now instead of just hitting the neighbor's cat with a sling shot, Jimmy can set it on fire.
Really? How does discovering something again lead to progress? I could re-invent the wheel, or prove that 2+2=4 for independently, but neither would advance the fields of engineering or mathematics. Prohibiting independent discovery is not so much the issue, as dealing with the infringing use. It is the potential prohibition of the infringing use that threatens to hamper the progress of the arts and sciences, not the mere fact that it was rediscovered.
Perhaps the best solution here would be do adopt a mandatory licensing scheme similar to the one used for copyrighted musical works. The only catch here would be determining what a proper royalty would be. Patented inventions are inherently more hard to value then music because their value often comes from their combination with other inventions (patented or unpatented). Songs on the other hand are singular items. This is the biggest problem a mandatory licensing regime faces.
No, lawyers would have a field day with this standard. How do we determine who a "leading expert" is? If it is a question of fact, it goes to the jury, which will result in unpredictable and inconsistent outcomes; i.e., a craps shoot. Try explaining to your average person on the street why theoretical physicist A's interpretation of M-Theory is more correct then theoretical physicist B's interpretation. Alternatively if it is a question of law, the judge decides, this leads to huge legal battles (and costs) as the lawyers argue over A vs. B , and arguably will not produce better or more coherent outcomes then a jury. Patent litigation is already the most expensive form of litigation to pursue, increasing the complexity of litigation helps no one.
The summary's claim is that the White House is selectively using data points, and to an extent that is true. They base their claims on an index comparison that starts at the year 2000. When you view the data this way, it does appear that the EU's Greenhouse Gas emissions have gone up, while the US's have declined/been neutral. The article prefers on the other hand to index at 1990, which shows that over the last 14 years of data that the US's emissions have increased dramatically compared to the EU.
Now here's my first problem: the accusation assumes that 2000 is not a good index year, which it is. If the Bush Administration wants to make the case that they (The Bush Administration) have been more successful than the EU in reducing emissions, then the logical start point for comparison is about when they took over which would be 2001.
Now, the article points out correctly that Greenhouse emissions tend to drop during economic slowdowns. One can see that easily by looking at the graph at the end of it (the US has a drop in 1991; the EU has a drop from 92-96; the US has another drop from 00-01). If one takes these economic slowdowns into account, then 2000, the peak of the last economy, might very well be a good starting point for the Administration to start their indexing from. Why should they have to take into account the failures of past administrations (Bush I, and Clinton) when touting the success of their administration? If, hypothetically, US emissions had decreased from 1990 to 2000 and increased from 2000 to 2004, would it be fair for the Bush Administration to take the earlier data into account and claim that they had reduced emissions? No, that would be taking credit for progress they did not make. The same principle applies reverse.
The article also brings about a perpetual flaw in any sort of greenhouse gas analysis. It completely ignores economic growth and the effect it has on increasing emissions (which it candidly points out by the way). During much of the mid-90s the US economy was booming, especially compared to the EU, so of course there was going to be an increase in emissions from 1991-2000. Additionally, these indexes fail to take into account the size of the economic growth when making the comparison. If we really want a useful measure, we should be tracking "Volume of Emissions per Unit of GDP Growth." That way we could judge economies based on their environmental efficiency rather just on pure volumetric data.
Great non-Skywalker family films like this one. Or maybe this masterpiece.
OMG Lucas, you just like to jab that knife in and keep on twisting, don't you? What do we have to look forward to now, a story about the Gungans? I might actually see that... if they use the Death Star to blow Naboo up in the first five minutes of the film. Or better yet, how about a story about Wookies? We could expand upon the great festive celebration that is Life Day! Oh how I would love to see Itchy, Mala, and Lumpy (yes, Lumpy!) again.
Seriously George, just save us the trouble and sell us a rusty spoon for $10. It'll be much more fun jabbing that in our eyes then watching whatever monstrosity these films turn out to be. Isn't $3.1 billion enough?
In the US Senate, any member is allowed to place a secret hold on legislation to prevent it from coming up for a vote. Standing Rules of the Senate RULE VII. Notably, there was a news story last year where Sen. Ted Stevens put a secret hold on a bill that would have required the government to publish online a database of federal spending.
Then downsample it to MP3. iTunes has a transcoder built right in. Hell you can do this with their 128kbps DRM'ed AAC files as well. Converting to MP3 of course kills the benefits of AAC, namely (1) better sound quality for the bit rate and (2) longer battery life for your iPod (AAC takes less processing power to decode).
You know, I call bullshit on this argument. I bet that you and all the other people that make this argument (and there seems to be a lot) really just don't want to pay anything for music at all. You all just want to download the songs for free, and wouldn't pay a cent for a song even if it came in uncompressed 96 KHz PCM Audio straight from the master tape.
Now, if that's what you want (free, as in beer, music) come out and say it, and lets have a real debate over the underlying issue. But don't hide behind this BS "uncompressed music" argument. No commercially available completely uncompressed. Even most CD's are dynamically range compressed.
How so, outsourcing is the product cheap internet connections and VOIP. This makes communicating with corporate in the US easy and cheap (not to mention also making foreign call centers possible). If internet connections were to get cheaper, how would that not make the cost of outsourcing cheaper? While I agree your with level of service argument. I fail to see how more then a home-connection level is needed if your just hiring individuals to VPN in and telecommute. US corporations pay for DSL/Cable for their employees to do VPN in from home all the time. What's India gonna do, block "business packets" to prevent companies from exploiting this?
That parenthetical was sarcastic. Clearly I did not do a good job in conveying it.
Actually I have, and that was precisely the intent of the first paragraph. Maybe I didn't convey my sarcasm towards an "every hut" policy that well.
The article raises a few issues. The first of which is what level of connectivity are we talking about? Does "access" mean a line to every home, or just access to a line by every household. The former would be a boon to all citizens (especially those living in tenement slums). The latter isn't as impressive as one could establish this by having access to one computer in each village.
I think the greater issue, however, is the potential boon this might be to companies looking to outsource operations. One of the driving forces behind outsourcing is the penetration of cheap telecom into emerging markets. Here, you'd have a situation where companies wouldn't even need to pay for internet access to hire workers. They could just have them telecommute from home. If that's the case the amount of outsourcing could increase rapidly. It's a smart decision by the Indian government, as their investment would pay off ten fold if that were case. For the American engineer, though, this is perhaps not such a good development.
Classifying speech is inherently hard to do. The problem comes because brightline definitions in these cases are inherently overinclusive or underinclusive in speech they cover. Lets take you definition for example:
Using your definition, "severe forms of libel or slander" would be allowed against homosexuals because they are not an "ethnic group or race." "Fine," you say, "let's extend the definition to include sexual orientation." Now you have just protected pedophiles from "severe forms of slander and libel" because they can claim their views on sexuality as a sexual orientation. How about little people? Can I call them midgets? How about the handicapped? Can I advocate for their extermination because they are a drain on the resources of society? I hope this illustrates the problem with drawing a bright line.
Then we get to the question of whether banning "severe forms" of libel or slander is enough to stop hate speech. You suggested the following is hate speech because it is libelous:
How about if someone were to write a books saying that African Americans were inferior (and shoudl be shot) because they were more likely then the general population to have sickle cell anemia, and because they score demonstrably lower on standardized tests and have lower graduation rates? There is nothing libelous or slanderous about that because assertion of inferiority is based on true facts. This would be completely acceptable under your definition (i.e., not hate speech), and, if anything, would have a greater effect then mere libelous hate speech because the assertion is based on verifiable facts.
My point here, isn't to disparage homosexuals, African Americans, or little people. It's merely to illustrate why a brightline definition for hate speech is so hard to come up with. I'm just a second year law student and I eviscerated your definition. Imagine what a real lawyer or the ACLU could do. Heck, the Supreme Court has been trying to draw lines around the First Amendment for 60 years, and they haven't even been able to come close to defining and delineating types of speech. Speech is inherently hard to define or classify; that's why the best solution is not to define or regulate it and let the market place of ideas work its magic.
I think grandparent's main assertion was not that prior art should be considered, it was that the first-to-file system is better than the first-to-invent system, because it reduces the litigation over prior art. Currently the US system uses the rule that priority of invention goes to the person who (1) is the first to conceive of the invention, and (2) the first to diligently reduce it practice (i.e., make or describe how to make a working invention). This test is a significant point of litigation (i.e., costly) because it turns around proving factual issues of conception (i.e., when did the apple strike the inventor's head), and diligent reduction to practice (e.g., does the fact that InventorOne had to stop work on his invention to take care of a terminally ill relative bar him from having priority because it cause him to reduce the invention to practice later then InventorTwo?).
Deciding these issues place a significant burden on the USPTO, and use time that arguably would be better spent looking at a patent's novelty or obviousness (the issues slashdotters complain about the most). A first-to-file system would be better in this respect because litigation over diligence and conception would be irrelevant. Priority for a patent between two deserving patentees would go to the one who filed an application first, no questions asked.