Has anyone considered the sheer logistics of this? It's not like you're just creating a couple european user accounts on a computer in the US. If the UN were to take control of the internet (and I'm assuming that means moving a large number of the root dns servers, among other things), it's going to be a massive and EXPENSIVE undertaking. If this is done, will they be able to do it without a lot of downtime? Is there even any guarantee that everything will work correctly afterwards, even if we have to deal with downtime? Right now, the internet works. Muck around with its guts, and it might not...
Blanket statements are never good. Yes, some, even most people who buy mod chips may do so for the purpose of piracy.
Myself? I'm hard on hardware. Back when I had a sega CD, I killed most of my games within the space of a year. My own damned fault; I take poor care of them. It's why I pay to download music as opposed to buying cds. These days, I make CD-R backups of any piece of software I buy. Thats why I have a mod chip. I don't share, and I Don't download images of ps2 games.
When you purchase a game cd, you are not purchasing the game, you are purchasing a license to use the game. You own the media, but the software itself is licensed. If my original media is damaged, it's still within the scope of my license to use a copy I backed up myself, so long as I don't attempt to re-distribute it. As long as I own the media that I backed it up onto, I'm not stealing anything.
On the other hand, when you purchase a playstation 2, you are buying the hardware. Therefore, there is no way they can claim it to be illegal to install a mod chip. It's your hardware. As long as you aren't reverse-engineering the system so you can build and sell your own. The exception to this is the integrated operating system / bios / firmware / whatever. That, you are being licensed to use. Installing a mod chip makes no changes to this.
Moreover. Piracy only hurts the gaming industry in cases where, barring the ability to pirate the software, the person pirating said software would have purchased it legitimately. I would say that most people who pirate software would NOT purchase it legitimately if they couldn't pirate it. Mod chips don't hurt anyone.
It's not about piracy, it's about our rights as consumers to protect our own investments and defend our own rights. This is a good thing.
>Because carbon forms a wide variety of stable compounds. It is by far the most likely basis for life. The alternatives are not so good.
True, but who is to say that 'stability' is entirely necessary? On the other hand, looking at its effect on many materials, oxygen itself is a dangerous substance. It can corrode and damage many materials. Look at the effect on the flesh of an apple exposed to the air; thats not a pretty picture. Humans as well can suffer negative effects from Oxygen Toxicity.
Imagine, for example, a species that does not depend on carbon and oxygen at all for their source of energy. Perhpas a species could exist that derives all of its energy directly from radioactive isotopes. It seems strange, but I'd be hesitant to say it's impossible.
>We can assume the laws of physics will hold constant (a safe assumption, based on our observations), so chemical properties will be the same.
This is a problem as well. All of our established laws of physics hold true in our environment, but who's to say that's true everywhere? In accepting the big bang theory, for example, most of the laws of thermodynamics have to be discarded. This does not disprove the laws of thermodynamics, but merely indicates a situation wherein they do not apply.
>>Life elsewhere might be made of substances and energies that we don't even know exist.
>Huh?
Food for thought: A number of the elements on the periodic table do not exist in nature as far as we know, and were only created in laboratories. Add in the fact that there are numerous isotopes for any number of elements, and the number of possible compounds greatly exceeds the number we have been able to actually observe on earth. Additionally, there are several forms of energy and forces that, while observable, can not yet be explained. Example: Gravity. We know that masses are attracted to other masses, and that this is what gravity is. But we don't know why masses are attracted to other masses.
Ultimately, I'm a firm believer in extraterrestrial life. Whether you believe in Intelligent Design or Evolution, you have to admit the possibility; for the former, who's to say a creator would stick to one planet (and since most religions believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful creator, it'd seem strange for them to limit themselves to a single, infinismal [compared to the universe] planet). For the latter, however remote the chances of life evolving, there are so many stars in our galaxy alone, it'd be ridiculous to assume that it's limited to our planet. And for those of you who are pastafarian, is it not arrogant to assume we are the only ones touched by his noodly appendage?
this will lead to the improvement of torrents overall due to increased capital to work with, or will worsen them by making them a larger target for poisoning.
Personally, I can deal with ads, so long as theres tangible benefit to be had.
I just don't want to see torrents become a more powerful version of limewire (in the sense of delivering spyware and viruses to unsuspecting users).
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Has anyone considered the sheer logistics of this? It's not like you're just creating a couple european user accounts on a computer in the US. If the UN were to take control of the internet (and I'm assuming that means moving a large number of the root dns servers, among other things), it's going to be a massive and EXPENSIVE undertaking. If this is done, will they be able to do it without a lot of downtime? Is there even any guarantee that everything will work correctly afterwards, even if we have to deal with downtime? Right now, the internet works. Muck around with its guts, and it might not...
Blanket statements are never good. Yes, some, even most people who buy mod chips may do so for the purpose of piracy.
Myself? I'm hard on hardware. Back when I had a sega CD, I killed most of my games within the space of a year. My own damned fault; I take poor care of them. It's why I pay to download music as opposed to buying cds. These days, I make CD-R backups of any piece of software I buy. Thats why I have a mod chip. I don't share, and I Don't download images of ps2 games.
When you purchase a game cd, you are not purchasing the game, you are purchasing a license to use the game. You own the media, but the software itself is licensed. If my original media is damaged, it's still within the scope of my license to use a copy I backed up myself, so long as I don't attempt to re-distribute it. As long as I own the media that I backed it up onto, I'm not stealing anything.
On the other hand, when you purchase a playstation 2, you are buying the hardware. Therefore, there is no way they can claim it to be illegal to install a mod chip. It's your hardware. As long as you aren't reverse-engineering the system so you can build and sell your own. The exception to this is the integrated operating system / bios / firmware / whatever. That, you are being licensed to use. Installing a mod chip makes no changes to this.
Moreover. Piracy only hurts the gaming industry in cases where, barring the ability to pirate the software, the person pirating said software would have purchased it legitimately. I would say that most people who pirate software would NOT purchase it legitimately if they couldn't pirate it. Mod chips don't hurt anyone.
It's not about piracy, it's about our rights as consumers to protect our own investments and defend our own rights. This is a good thing.
>Because carbon forms a wide variety of stable compounds. It is by far the most likely basis for life. The alternatives are not so good.
True, but who is to say that 'stability' is entirely necessary? On the other hand, looking at its effect on many materials, oxygen itself is a dangerous substance. It can corrode and damage many materials. Look at the effect on the flesh of an apple exposed to the air; thats not a pretty picture. Humans as well can suffer negative effects from Oxygen Toxicity.
Imagine, for example, a species that does not depend on carbon and oxygen at all for their source of energy. Perhpas a species could exist that derives all of its energy directly from radioactive isotopes. It seems strange, but I'd be hesitant to say it's impossible.
>We can assume the laws of physics will hold constant (a safe assumption, based on our observations), so chemical properties will be the same.
This is a problem as well. All of our established laws of physics hold true in our environment, but who's to say that's true everywhere? In accepting the big bang theory, for example, most of the laws of thermodynamics have to be discarded. This does not disprove the laws of thermodynamics, but merely indicates a situation wherein they do not apply.
>>Life elsewhere might be made of substances and energies that we don't even know exist.
>Huh?
Food for thought: A number of the elements on the periodic table do not exist in nature as far as we know, and were only created in laboratories. Add in the fact that there are numerous isotopes for any number of elements, and the number of possible compounds greatly exceeds the number we have been able to actually observe on earth. Additionally, there are several forms of energy and forces that, while observable, can not yet be explained. Example: Gravity. We know that masses are attracted to other masses, and that this is what gravity is. But we don't know why masses are attracted to other masses.
Ultimately, I'm a firm believer in extraterrestrial life. Whether you believe in Intelligent Design or Evolution, you have to admit the possibility; for the former, who's to say a creator would stick to one planet (and since most religions believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful creator, it'd seem strange for them to limit themselves to a single, infinismal [compared to the universe] planet). For the latter, however remote the chances of life evolving, there are so many stars in our galaxy alone, it'd be ridiculous to assume that it's limited to our planet. And for those of you who are pastafarian, is it not arrogant to assume we are the only ones touched by his noodly appendage?
With the kind of money they make, I'd tend to disagree.
this will lead to the improvement of torrents overall due to increased capital to work with, or will worsen them by making them a larger target for poisoning. Personally, I can deal with ads, so long as theres tangible benefit to be had. I just don't want to see torrents become a more powerful version of limewire (in the sense of delivering spyware and viruses to unsuspecting users).