"The system will have a video camera, thermal imaging sensors, a laser... and a microphone."
Okay, so it's a "laser range finder" and not a death ray, but my world now potentially includes hostile robots shooting lasers at me, which is neat (or terrifying?).
As many have said, it's an issue of money. Based on some brief research, a monthly pass for the London underground costs £213.60, or $344. A monthly pass on the NYC subway costs $112. The residents of my city would rather have an additional $232 in their pocket each month instead of a newly redecorated subway system.
A better question would be, "Can there be closed source music?" I can't imagine how there could be. If you want sheet music for a particular recording, you can just transcribe it. imslp.org has copious amounts of public domain sheetmusic available for download, so access isn't even a problem for the classical tradition that TFA is discussing. TFA is a slashvertisement for a recording by Kimiko Ishizaka, and is using open source as an advertising buzzword. Nobody is "liberating" Bach's "source code." Bach's sheetmusic is in the public domain; you can download a whole bunch of different versions of it from all kinds of places. Anyone who knows how to play the piano can make a recording of it; this has been true since recordings existed. There are a lot of websites that host recordings of public domain classical music, such as pianosociety.com. Nothing new is happening here, and it does not have anything to do with "open source." Someone is making another recording of the Goldberg Variations, and is also releasing another public domain version of the sheet music. You can hear my "open source" recording of the Aria from the Goldberg Variations here: http://recitals.pianoworld.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Coldsalmon along with a whole bunch of other "open source" recordings.
That sounds like an unconstitutional bill of attainder to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder It is "an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without privilege of a judicial trial." This is prohibited by Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution.
A lot of occupations require a suspension of empathy. I would be interested to see if "non-psychopaths" have a similar "empathy switch" ability regarding tasks associated with their daily occupation.
Glad to see that contemporary programming is finally taking more influence from early 20th-century Russian poetry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acmeism
When I was a kid, our neighbor had one of these obnoxious lights that would turn on and off constantly all night long. It eventually caught fire and almost burned their house down.
Friedman is the reason I stopped reading the NYT. His articles improve if you add the words "It seems like..." to the beginnig of every sentence, and the words "but if you think about it for 5 seconds, you'll realize that things are much more complicated than that" to the end of every sentence. For example: "It seems like ordinary people can now be micro-entrepreneurs, but if you think about it for 5 seconds, you'll realize that things are much more complicated than that."
This is a feature of all private property protections. We don't mind having private property because the goal of our society is promoting general welfare, not promoting equality. Sometimes these two goals are compatible, and sometimes they are not.
... what Bennett Haselton thinks about the right against self-incrimination? Convince me why I should read this instead of an article by a competent legal scholar, or why I should bother trying to convince Bennett Haselton of anything.
What little "programming" I've done (bash scripting, HTML, MySQL, a bit of Scheme from SICP for fun) doesn't really count. What I've learned, I've taught myself based on information found online and in books. I know enough to write some useful scripts for my office Linux server, but I leave the real programming to real programmers.
Actually, the belief that the American Revolutionary War was won with guerrilla war tactics is a popularly-held misconception. The colonists did use guerrilla tactics, but they did not start to win battles until they started fighting like the British. See, e.g. http://www.unpopulartruth.com/2009/04/american-revolutionary-war-was-not-won.html
Imagine this pitch to an investor: "As a software company, our coders are our biggest asset. That's why we don't let them take a proper lunch, and feed them junk food and caffeine instead. This is directly reflected in the quality of their code."
On the flip side, imagine saying this in a interview: "By the way, I am not even capable of feeding myself, and I have the diet of a feral 6-year-old, so if you don't give me free candy and soda I will be unable to work and I will probably starve to death." If you live on diet coke and candy bars, you're doing it wrong. If you don't know how to go to the grocery store and buy real food, that's not your employer's fault.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert a character with a cat's face and a body resembling a horizontal breakfast bar with pink frosting sprinkled with light red dots, flies across the screen, leaving a stream of exhaust in the form of a bright rainbow in its wake, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
I like the Nook tablets because they provide me with a functional, Google-free Android device (and because they're actually really good tablets for my purposes). If I have to link my Nook to a Google account, it looks like I'll have to take my tin foil hat elsewhere.
The recent US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United considered the degree to which the 1st Amendment right of free speech applies to an artificial person, as opposed to a natural person. It did not, as is sometimes believed, establish the doctrine of corporate personhood.
Slashdot Mirror
Without Nelson Mandela, there would have been no Mark Shuttleworth, and hence no Ubuntu Phone.
"The system will have a video camera, thermal imaging sensors, a laser ... and a microphone."
Okay, so it's a "laser range finder" and not a death ray, but my world now potentially includes hostile robots shooting lasers at me, which is neat (or terrifying?).
"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." -- John Maynard Keynes
As many have said, it's an issue of money. Based on some brief research, a monthly pass for the London underground costs £213.60, or $344. A monthly pass on the NYC subway costs $112. The residents of my city would rather have an additional $232 in their pocket each month instead of a newly redecorated subway system.
A better question would be, "Can there be closed source music?" I can't imagine how there could be. If you want sheet music for a particular recording, you can just transcribe it. imslp.org has copious amounts of public domain sheetmusic available for download, so access isn't even a problem for the classical tradition that TFA is discussing. TFA is a slashvertisement for a recording by Kimiko Ishizaka, and is using open source as an advertising buzzword. Nobody is "liberating" Bach's "source code." Bach's sheetmusic is in the public domain; you can download a whole bunch of different versions of it from all kinds of places. Anyone who knows how to play the piano can make a recording of it; this has been true since recordings existed. There are a lot of websites that host recordings of public domain classical music, such as pianosociety.com. Nothing new is happening here, and it does not have anything to do with "open source." Someone is making another recording of the Goldberg Variations, and is also releasing another public domain version of the sheet music. You can hear my "open source" recording of the Aria from the Goldberg Variations here: http://recitals.pianoworld.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Coldsalmon along with a whole bunch of other "open source" recordings.
http://www.utilikilts.com/
They have large pockets and are not form fitting, so the tablet will not stand out as much as if it were in a pair of pants.
This also worked for the fattest man in the world.
That sounds like an unconstitutional bill of attainder to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
It is "an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without privilege of a judicial trial." This is prohibited by Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution.
A lot of occupations require a suspension of empathy. I would be interested to see if "non-psychopaths" have a similar "empathy switch" ability regarding tasks associated with their daily occupation.
Glad to see that contemporary programming is finally taking more influence from early 20th-century Russian poetry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acmeism
When I was a kid, our neighbor had one of these obnoxious lights that would turn on and off constantly all night long. It eventually caught fire and almost burned their house down.
Friedman is the reason I stopped reading the NYT. His articles improve if you add the words "It seems like..." to the beginnig of every sentence, and the words "but if you think about it for 5 seconds, you'll realize that things are much more complicated than that" to the end of every sentence. For example: "It seems like ordinary people can now be micro-entrepreneurs, but if you think about it for 5 seconds, you'll realize that things are much more complicated than that."
This is a feature of all private property protections. We don't mind having private property because the goal of our society is promoting general welfare, not promoting equality. Sometimes these two goals are compatible, and sometimes they are not.
... what Bennett Haselton thinks about the right against self-incrimination? Convince me why I should read this instead of an article by a competent legal scholar, or why I should bother trying to convince Bennett Haselton of anything.
What little "programming" I've done (bash scripting, HTML, MySQL, a bit of Scheme from SICP for fun) doesn't really count. What I've learned, I've taught myself based on information found online and in books. I know enough to write some useful scripts for my office Linux server, but I leave the real programming to real programmers.
Actually, the belief that the American Revolutionary War was won with guerrilla war tactics is a popularly-held misconception. The colonists did use guerrilla tactics, but they did not start to win battles until they started fighting like the British. See, e.g. http://www.unpopulartruth.com/2009/04/american-revolutionary-war-was-not-won.html
Everyone knows the Death Star plans are not in the main computer.
This 1,000,000% increase in Bitcoin's value has made it soooooo uncool.
Imagine this pitch to an investor: "As a software company, our coders are our biggest asset. That's why we don't let them take a proper lunch, and feed them junk food and caffeine instead. This is directly reflected in the quality of their code."
On the flip side, imagine saying this in a interview: "By the way, I am not even capable of feeding myself, and I have the diet of a feral 6-year-old, so if you don't give me free candy and soda I will be unable to work and I will probably starve to death." If you live on diet coke and candy bars, you're doing it wrong. If you don't know how to go to the grocery store and buy real food, that's not your employer's fault.
...we'll go to work building robots, and then building better robots. That's already what is happening to the labor force.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
a character with a cat's face and a body
resembling a horizontal breakfast bar
with pink frosting sprinkled with light red dots,
flies across the screen, leaving a stream
of exhaust in the form of a bright rainbow
in its wake, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
Court documents alleged that Warner Bros and 5th Cell 'knowingly and intentionally infringed' both claimant's ownership rights.
They infringed both claimant's ownership rights and what else?
I like the Nook tablets because they provide me with a functional, Google-free Android device (and because they're actually really good tablets for my purposes). If I have to link my Nook to a Google account, it looks like I'll have to take my tin foil hat elsewhere.
Did you really evade the police by dressing up in a speedo and screaming at people in German, as you describe here: http://www.whoismcafee.com/watchfulness/
The US doctrine of corporate personhood is actually derived from the British common law tradition. The concept was originally introduced during the industrial revolution, and most countries now share this doctrine. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_company_law#Corporate_personality and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_legal_personality
The recent US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United considered the degree to which the 1st Amendment right of free speech applies to an artificial person, as opposed to a natural person. It did not, as is sometimes believed, establish the doctrine of corporate personhood.