Well, I was just throwing out round figures. $25K certainly is not enough for a family of 4, but I know that for some individual folks, $25K would be plenty to live on. I am a perfect example -- single, no dependents, and no expensive tastes. I don't buy fancy clothes, I don't eat lobster or filet mignon, and when I have a car (I currently do not), it ain't no Lexus. I have survived most of my adult life on less than $25K a year, and I ain't starving. (In fact, I could stand to lose 20 or 25 pounds). And, of course, geography plays a big role -- $25K can be quite comfortable in some small Midwest towns, whereas in New York you could probably make $25K and still be sleeping on the street.
No one with a brain would dispute that "piracy" has some negative effect on their bottom line. The context is "how much of an effect" and "how does that relate proportionally to overall profits?" The MPAA would have you believe that online file sharing is putting the industry at death's door -- hardly. Similarly, the oil industry will tell you that they cannot moderate pump prices a bit to help out the middle class and the overall economy even though every year brings them ever increasing record-setting profits. See, in the corporate world, it's not "how much did we make," it's "how much MORE could we be making." Because no matter how much that is, it's never "enough." Of course, individuals fall into that same trap. If you make $25,000 a year, you want $50K. If you make $100K, you want $200K. And if you're a ballplayer making $10 million a year, your next contract better be a significant increase over that or you'll shop yourself to another team. It has nothing to do with whether what you currently earn is more than enough to meet your needs, even if it's enough to meet your needs for the rest of your life. You always want more. It's called "greed."
After 9/11, the odds of such an incident being repeated went down a lot. In fact one of the planes didn't hit the target because of the passengers (who learnt what was happening), so that proves my point.
Hell, before 9/11 the odds were slim to none. If security was so piss-poor before, then why had there only been maybe half a dozen or so (I don't have a list in front of me at the moment) incidents of, say, bombs being used to blow us U.S. originated airliners? And hardly any incidents of hijackers actually taking control of a plane and crashing it? For that matter, why have there never been mass suicide bombings in our malls or other public places a la what happens in some other corners of the world? In theory, it should be stupidly easy to walk into the Mall of America at lunchtime and blow yourself up, taking a few dozens shoppers with you.
It boils down to this: 9/11 was an anomaly. It was so far out of the norm that it had never been done before, and is not likely to be replicated anytime soon. The risk is always there, but it is infinitesimally small in relation to the number of flights and passengers annually. You can be 99.9% safe and, in the process, majorly disrupt and complicate airline travel, negatively affect the economy by costing businesses and their travelers added expense and delays, plus expend billions of taxpayer dollars on added security. Or, you can use the same common sense precautions that had always been used, and still be, say, 99.5% safe. The difference is not worth the expense. Of course, if you happen to have a loved one killed in such an incident, you will say that ANY improvement in security is worth ANY additional effort and expense, but when it comes to the big picture, common sense must trump emotionalism or we will all be held hostage to fear.
And besides... anonymous posts online can technically be traced back to an IP address and that can be traced to a specific computer with a specific location and knowing the time can aid you to determine a specific person. Thus, the notion that anonymous cowards are truly anonymous is flawed. So if somebody posts something truly, then the coward can be traced and identified so criminal charges can be pressed.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't SCOTUS already rule that anonymous speech is protected? Ah yes, here we go: http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity. Yet another law just waiting to be struck down, and it took five seconds on Google to demonstrate why.
Ah, so SCOTUS decisions are written in stone, are they? If that were true, we would still be counting African-Americans as 3/5 of a person. Courts change, attitudes change, decisions that seemed immutable get overturned or reversed or gutted. Don't think it can't happen. If a liberal or centrist justice dies, and Bush gets one more appointment, we may have a Court that will one day declare the Constitution itself "unconstitutional..."
What really bothers me is that not this white house makes nixon and reagan look like boy scouts, but that the dems PROMISED to go after them, and really has done nothing.
Politicians making promises and then failing to keep them? I'm shocked....SHOCKED...
The thing is, though, what the hell are you supposed to do if everyone else is going blindly down that road?
Ain't a hell of a lot any individual can do. There are so few left who care about what's going on. Another poster was right about civil disobedience no longer being an option. For that to work, you need a good percentage of the populace united behind a common cause. The number of people who actually (a)understand and (b)care about what's taking place are an increasingly small minority who are more often viewed as wackos, rabble rousers, conspiracy theorists, and so forth. We have a failing educational system that doesn't even begin to teach people to think for themselves, popular media that is largely corporate owned and afraid to rock the boat, an economy that has resulted in an ever shrinking middle class who are desperate to keep their jobs and benefits at any cost, and a culture that blinds are distracts us with the largely meaningless and shallow forms of "entertainment" that prevail. Sure, those few of us who still believe in something better and nobler can stand our ground in protest, but all it will ultimately get you is a lot of trouble, ostracization, and perhaps a nice little criminal record to fuck up your future.
I just turned half a century old, and I think within my lifetime things are going to go from bad to worse. I no longer fear death, because I'm not sure I want to be around to experience what's coming after that.
IANAL (I don't even play one on TV), but it seems to me that IP might be considered a legal fiction, much like the equally disputed concept of corporate personhood. Maybe our resident NYCL could set me straight on this.
I want to start a band that makes music that is actually not music at all, but poor quality recordings of terrible noises. Something so stupid and so utterly annoying and maddening to listen to that there isn't a single person on the face of the planet that would bother to pirate it even if paid to do so. Not to mention that playing it back would probably damage any good speaker.
Then, I would get some dirty lawyer to represent my band in court, claiming that thousands of people are illegally pirating my valuable intellectual property. I can just see the looks on the faces of the jury when the so-called "music" is played in the court to demonstrate just how valuable said intellectual property is.
Never overestimate the taste of the American public. Your "noise" just might be a hit. (Of course, at my age, plenty of hit "songs" sound like so much noise to me anyway...)
What I can't understand is the media companies keep claiming a decline in sales yet also report record profits. This is more true of the movie industry than the music but still, it doesn't make any logical sense to me. It is like the oil industry claiming to need tax relief while showing record profits. I just don't get it...
The media companies need those profits to invest in exploration to find new sources of music. Experts believe that music extraction has reached its peak and is now declining. Not to mention the manipulating tactics of OMEC (Organization of Music Exporting Countries). Unless you want to pay $5 per gallon for your music, you shouldn't begrudge those profits.
Undoubtably I'll be modded down to flamebait, but as a non-US citizen I get pretty tired of the US trying to be the 'policeman of the world' and at the same time pull these underhanded tricks.
I am 100% American, and I also agree with you 100%. I'm mod you up if I had any mod points.
Another example I came upon today is how the White House was planning to overthrow the democratically chosen Hamas party, because it didn't stroke with their plans.
Well, of course they have to -- after all, that Allende guy is a communist. (Oh, wait....wrong coup...my error...)
Back in the 80's, I picked up a 15" Trinitron TV/Monitor at a garage sale for 25 bucks. The exterior was pretty beat up, but it still worked like a charm (and had quite a few years on it already). I used that thing for at least another decade, finally giving it away to a friend, still producing a sharp, clear, well-balanced picture. That's how they used to make things.
Disclaimer: I recently turned half a century old, and yes, I'm feeling every day of it...
You know, some people like those "grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments." That's why I go to a library. If I wanted to go to an "urban hangout," I'd go to an "urban hangout." (Which I don't, cos everyone there is younger, slimmer, richer, and better-looking than me.) I revel in the musty and anachronistic atmosphere of a traditional library -- it's a nice, quiet, relaxing environment that links me to the past and the thousands of other souls who have poured over those well-worn volumes before me.
"Pertinent facts supporting reinstatement?" How about "I am not dead" -- is that "pertinent" enough? Is holding a mirror under my nose to see if it fogs up enough, or must we get a licensed physician to take a pulse?
Actually, if you think about it, if there is this much time, verification, and red tape involved in proving that you are indeed alive once the "system" thinks otherwise, the government will eventually figure out that it's much cheaper and quicker to just kill you...
Is there a way one can determine if there has been this sort of "default" court judgment against them? I mean, a case like the one you stated in which one can't be located (maybe several address changes since) to be served and/or some unseen notice published in an obscure weekly or something. Is there a website where one can look up such things?
(Um, not that I am concerned with myself, of course, as I have always lead an exemplary and blameless life...) (*ahem*)
The PTB (Powers That Be) would love a "replacement" Internet where anonymity is impossible or at least extremely difficult. An Internet in which you would have to provide full, verifiable, real personal information just to get on, logging in through a central controlled gateway, and where every keystroke would be clearly traceable to you. An Internet in which anonymous posting and nicknames or handles are useless. And an Internet in which even if you are able to somehow crack the security and fudge your online identity, you can be tossed in jail if you do so.
It ain't about fighting crime (and never has been) -- it's all about control. The press and the media can be influenced, bought off, even controlled at times. But the Internet is a huge, multi-tentacled, slippery, uncooperative monster. That scares the hell out of the PTB. It must be tamed.
There is a very simple reason for holding on to fallacious statistics like the "1 in 5" here. If you changed that to the real percentage, parents would worry less about it, and feel like their child was safe enough without implementing even the most obvious common-sense measures to combat a rare, but very real threat. These groups probably feel they need to have a scarier number to sufficiently motivate people, so they latched on to a stat that, with enough obfuscation and fudging of the actual information, makes the problem seem more critical than it is. This is not to justify the practice (which, BTW, happens all the time in this world, not just in the "think of the children" spheres), but that is the probable reason for perpetuating a fallacious statistic.
Not to mention that there is a whole industry surrounding the issue that depends on scaremongering for its existence and profits -- think, for example, of all the cybernanny blocking programs being sold. (Brings back memories of the old "satanic ritual abuse" panic -- a lot of people made a lot of money out of books, TV shows, etc. devoted to the subject. Not to mention "therapists" who plied their trade of recovering bogus "repressed memories" at a pretty decent hourly rate...)
People simply respond to emotional appeals better than logic or "complicated" things like science. The naturopaths are sure they can help you. The MD tells you the odds. The priest tells you about faith and epiphany. The scientist tells you about experiments, observations and theories.
Which is basically what I said about preferring the source that has the answers you want to hear. A comforting lie trumps a distressing truth every time. Most people seem to be hard-wired to believe only what they want to believe.
Part of the problem, at least here in the U.S. (land of self-centeredness and instant gratification) is that science often fails to give people the answers they want to hear, or the results they want to have.
This is especially true when it comes to medical science. As far as medicine has advanced, there are still diseases and maladies that cannot be cured or even mitigated by current knowledge and practices. It can be very hard, if you are someone suffering from something of that sort, to accept that there may be little, or even nothing, that can be done. Desperation can cause even basically level-headed people to seek out untested or even already debunked alternative treatments that may at best have a mild placebo effect, more likely will do nothing to alleviate their suffering, and at worst can worsen the condition or hasten the person's ultimate demise.
Religion, obviously, can be a powerful impediment to acceptance of science as well. If your faith stands or falls with a literal reading of Genesis, then you will not, indeed CANnot accept scientific evidence to the contrary.
Finally, one thing I've always noted about humans is that we don't like "grey areas." We want answers that are complete, definitive, and satisfying. The fact that science can sometimes be wrong, and theories changed as more evidence is gathered, is unsettling to those who don't understand the scientific method, and leads them to have little faith in its conclusions.
This can only be remedied by not only pushing basic science courses hard and early in school (something way more comprehensive than that which produces the mere ability to answer a few multiple-choice questions on some standardized test), but instruction in reasoning and critical thinking as well. And I don't see that happening, not by a long shot. If you have a child, and want him or her to be scientifically literate, you pretty much have to teach them yourself. Schools today are about establishing minimal (very minimal) levels of ability, and high (very high) levels of conformity. Teaching too much science threatens the former goal, while instruction in critical thinking thwarts the latter.
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Well, I was just throwing out round figures. $25K certainly is not enough for a family of 4, but I know that for some individual folks, $25K would be plenty to live on. I am a perfect example -- single, no dependents, and no expensive tastes. I don't buy fancy clothes, I don't eat lobster or filet mignon, and when I have a car (I currently do not), it ain't no Lexus. I have survived most of my adult life on less than $25K a year, and I ain't starving. (In fact, I could stand to lose 20 or 25 pounds). And, of course, geography plays a big role -- $25K can be quite comfortable in some small Midwest towns, whereas in New York you could probably make $25K and still be sleeping on the street.
No one with a brain would dispute that "piracy" has some negative effect on their bottom line. The context is "how much of an effect" and "how does that relate proportionally to overall profits?" The MPAA would have you believe that online file sharing is putting the industry at death's door -- hardly. Similarly, the oil industry will tell you that they cannot moderate pump prices a bit to help out the middle class and the overall economy even though every year brings them ever increasing record-setting profits. See, in the corporate world, it's not "how much did we make," it's "how much MORE could we be making." Because no matter how much that is, it's never "enough." Of course, individuals fall into that same trap. If you make $25,000 a year, you want $50K. If you make $100K, you want $200K. And if you're a ballplayer making $10 million a year, your next contract better be a significant increase over that or you'll shop yourself to another team. It has nothing to do with whether what you currently earn is more than enough to meet your needs, even if it's enough to meet your needs for the rest of your life. You always want more. It's called "greed."
After 9/11, the odds of such an incident being repeated went down a lot. In fact one of the planes didn't hit the target because of the passengers (who learnt what was happening), so that proves my point.
Hell, before 9/11 the odds were slim to none. If security was so piss-poor before, then why had there only been maybe half a dozen or so (I don't have a list in front of me at the moment) incidents of, say, bombs being used to blow us U.S. originated airliners? And hardly any incidents of hijackers actually taking control of a plane and crashing it? For that matter, why have there never been mass suicide bombings in our malls or other public places a la what happens in some other corners of the world? In theory, it should be stupidly easy to walk into the Mall of America at lunchtime and blow yourself up, taking a few dozens shoppers with you.
It boils down to this: 9/11 was an anomaly. It was so far out of the norm that it had never been done before, and is not likely to be replicated anytime soon. The risk is always there, but it is infinitesimally small in relation to the number of flights and passengers annually. You can be 99.9% safe and, in the process, majorly disrupt and complicate airline travel, negatively affect the economy by costing businesses and their travelers added expense and delays, plus expend billions of taxpayer dollars on added security. Or, you can use the same common sense precautions that had always been used, and still be, say, 99.5% safe. The difference is not worth the expense. Of course, if you happen to have a loved one killed in such an incident, you will say that ANY improvement in security is worth ANY additional effort and expense, but when it comes to the big picture, common sense must trump emotionalism or we will all be held hostage to fear.
And besides... anonymous posts online can technically be traced back to an IP address and that can be traced to a specific computer with a specific location and knowing the time can aid you to determine a specific person. Thus, the notion that anonymous cowards are truly anonymous is flawed. So if somebody posts something truly, then the coward can be traced and identified so criminal charges can be pressed.
And how long have you been working for the RIAA?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't SCOTUS already rule that anonymous speech is protected? Ah yes, here we go: http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity. Yet another law just waiting to be struck down, and it took five seconds on Google to demonstrate why.
Ah, so SCOTUS decisions are written in stone, are they? If that were true, we would still be counting African-Americans as 3/5 of a person. Courts change, attitudes change, decisions that seemed immutable get overturned or reversed or gutted. Don't think it can't happen. If a liberal or centrist justice dies, and Bush gets one more appointment, we may have a Court that will one day declare the Constitution itself "unconstitutional..."
What really bothers me is that not this white house makes nixon and reagan look like boy scouts, but that the dems PROMISED to go after them, and really has done nothing.
Politicians making promises and then failing to keep them? I'm shocked....SHOCKED...
The thing is, though, what the hell are you supposed to do if everyone else is going blindly down that road?
Ain't a hell of a lot any individual can do. There are so few left who care about what's going on. Another poster was right about civil disobedience no longer being an option. For that to work, you need a good percentage of the populace united behind a common cause. The number of people who actually (a)understand and (b)care about what's taking place are an increasingly small minority who are more often viewed as wackos, rabble rousers, conspiracy theorists, and so forth. We have a failing educational system that doesn't even begin to teach people to think for themselves, popular media that is largely corporate owned and afraid to rock the boat, an economy that has resulted in an ever shrinking middle class who are desperate to keep their jobs and benefits at any cost, and a culture that blinds are distracts us with the largely meaningless and shallow forms of "entertainment" that prevail. Sure, those few of us who still believe in something better and nobler can stand our ground in protest, but all it will ultimately get you is a lot of trouble, ostracization, and perhaps a nice little criminal record to fuck up your future.
I just turned half a century old, and I think within my lifetime things are going to go from bad to worse. I no longer fear death, because I'm not sure I want to be around to experience what's coming after that.
IANAL (I don't even play one on TV), but it seems to me that IP might be considered a legal fiction, much like the equally disputed concept of corporate personhood. Maybe our resident NYCL could set me straight on this.
I want to start a band that makes music that is actually not music at all, but poor quality recordings of terrible noises. Something so stupid and so utterly annoying and maddening to listen to that there isn't a single person on the face of the planet that would bother to pirate it even if paid to do so. Not to mention that playing it back would probably damage any good speaker.
Then, I would get some dirty lawyer to represent my band in court, claiming that thousands of people are illegally pirating my valuable intellectual property. I can just see the looks on the faces of the jury when the so-called "music" is played in the court to demonstrate just how valuable said intellectual property is.
Never overestimate the taste of the American public. Your "noise" just might be a hit. (Of course, at my age, plenty of hit "songs" sound like so much noise to me anyway...)
I'll take a couple of WebSlices with pepperoni and mushrooms, please....
What I can't understand is the media companies keep claiming a decline in sales yet also report record profits. This is more true of the movie industry than the music but still, it doesn't make any logical sense to me. It is like the oil industry claiming to need tax relief while showing record profits. I just don't get it...
The media companies need those profits to invest in exploration to find new sources of music. Experts believe that music extraction has reached its peak and is now declining. Not to mention the manipulating tactics of OMEC (Organization of Music Exporting Countries). Unless you want to pay $5 per gallon for your music, you shouldn't begrudge those profits.
Undoubtably I'll be modded down to flamebait, but as a non-US citizen I get pretty tired of the US trying to be the 'policeman of the world' and at the same time pull these underhanded tricks.
I am 100% American, and I also agree with you 100%. I'm mod you up if I had any mod points.
Another example I came upon today is how the White House was planning to overthrow the democratically chosen Hamas party, because it didn't stroke with their plans.
Well, of course they have to -- after all, that Allende guy is a communist. (Oh, wait....wrong coup...my error...)
Keep playing little games like this, RIAA & MPAA, and you will find yourselves facing the Supreme Court.
And going before our new more right-leaning and business-friendly SCOTUS is supposed to scare them.....how, exactly?
Back in the 80's, I picked up a 15" Trinitron TV/Monitor at a garage sale for 25 bucks. The exterior was pretty beat up, but it still worked like a charm (and had quite a few years on it already). I used that thing for at least another decade, finally giving it away to a friend, still producing a sharp, clear, well-balanced picture. That's how they used to make things.
Disclaimer: I recently turned half a century old, and yes, I'm feeling every day of it...
You know, some people like those "grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments." That's why I go to a library. If I wanted to go to an "urban hangout," I'd go to an "urban hangout." (Which I don't, cos everyone there is younger, slimmer, richer, and better-looking than me.) I revel in the musty and anachronistic atmosphere of a traditional library -- it's a nice, quiet, relaxing environment that links me to the past and the thousands of other souls who have poured over those well-worn volumes before me.
But again, I'm just an old fart...
"Pertinent facts supporting reinstatement?" How about "I am not dead" -- is that "pertinent" enough? Is holding a mirror under my nose to see if it fogs up enough, or must we get a licensed physician to take a pulse?
Actually, if you think about it, if there is this much time, verification, and red tape involved in proving that you are indeed alive once the "system" thinks otherwise, the government will eventually figure out that it's much cheaper and quicker to just kill you...
This article has got to be a hose. I mean, Microsoft doing something both useful and cool?
Well, as they say: even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then...
Is there a way one can determine if there has been this sort of "default" court judgment against them? I mean, a case like the one you stated in which one can't be located (maybe several address changes since) to be served and/or some unseen notice published in an obscure weekly or something. Is there a website where one can look up such things?
(Um, not that I am concerned with myself, of course, as I have always lead an exemplary and blameless life...) (*ahem*)
The PTB (Powers That Be) would love a "replacement" Internet where anonymity is impossible or at least extremely difficult. An Internet in which you would have to provide full, verifiable, real personal information just to get on, logging in through a central controlled gateway, and where every keystroke would be clearly traceable to you. An Internet in which anonymous posting and nicknames or handles are useless. And an Internet in which even if you are able to somehow crack the security and fudge your online identity, you can be tossed in jail if you do so.
It ain't about fighting crime (and never has been) -- it's all about control. The press and the media can be influenced, bought off, even controlled at times. But the Internet is a huge, multi-tentacled, slippery, uncooperative monster. That scares the hell out of the PTB. It must be tamed.
Yes, but you make the erroneous assumption that D.C. lobbyists are as mature as 1st graders...
Perhaps people should 2 seconds of research before they begin jumping to conclusions about things.
You're obviously new here...
There is a very simple reason for holding on to fallacious statistics like the "1 in 5" here. If you changed that to the real percentage, parents would worry less about it, and feel like their child was safe enough without implementing even the most obvious common-sense measures to combat a rare, but very real threat. These groups probably feel they need to have a scarier number to sufficiently motivate people, so they latched on to a stat that, with enough obfuscation and fudging of the actual information, makes the problem seem more critical than it is. This is not to justify the practice (which, BTW, happens all the time in this world, not just in the "think of the children" spheres), but that is the probable reason for perpetuating a fallacious statistic.
Not to mention that there is a whole industry surrounding the issue that depends on scaremongering for its existence and profits -- think, for example, of all the cybernanny blocking programs being sold. (Brings back memories of the old "satanic ritual abuse" panic -- a lot of people made a lot of money out of books, TV shows, etc. devoted to the subject. Not to mention "therapists" who plied their trade of recovering bogus "repressed memories" at a pretty decent hourly rate...)
People simply respond to emotional appeals better than logic or "complicated" things like science. The naturopaths are sure they can help you. The MD tells you the odds. The priest tells you about faith and epiphany. The scientist tells you about experiments, observations and theories.
Which is basically what I said about preferring the source that has the answers you want to hear. A comforting lie trumps a distressing truth every time. Most people seem to be hard-wired to believe only what they want to believe.Nobody cares about matters of substance like what's being reported on the major news outlets.
They report on matters of substance on the news channels? When did this start?
Part of the problem, at least here in the U.S. (land of self-centeredness and instant gratification) is that science often fails to give people the answers they want to hear, or the results they want to have.
This is especially true when it comes to medical science. As far as medicine has advanced, there are still diseases and maladies that cannot be cured or even mitigated by current knowledge and practices. It can be very hard, if you are someone suffering from something of that sort, to accept that there may be little, or even nothing, that can be done. Desperation can cause even basically level-headed people to seek out untested or even already debunked alternative treatments that may at best have a mild placebo effect, more likely will do nothing to alleviate their suffering, and at worst can worsen the condition or hasten the person's ultimate demise.
Religion, obviously, can be a powerful impediment to acceptance of science as well. If your faith stands or falls with a literal reading of Genesis, then you will not, indeed CANnot accept scientific evidence to the contrary.
Finally, one thing I've always noted about humans is that we don't like "grey areas." We want answers that are complete, definitive, and satisfying. The fact that science can sometimes be wrong, and theories changed as more evidence is gathered, is unsettling to those who don't understand the scientific method, and leads them to have little faith in its conclusions.
This can only be remedied by not only pushing basic science courses hard and early in school (something way more comprehensive than that which produces the mere ability to answer a few multiple-choice questions on some standardized test), but instruction in reasoning and critical thinking as well. And I don't see that happening, not by a long shot. If you have a child, and want him or her to be scientifically literate, you pretty much have to teach them yourself. Schools today are about establishing minimal (very minimal) levels of ability, and high (very high) levels of conformity. Teaching too much science threatens the former goal, while instruction in critical thinking thwarts the latter.