if you have 110 million regular bulbs in your house, I doubt you are gonna worry about changing any of them out for CF.
No, in the context of the summary, it is clear that the correct phrase is "one bulb", since the summary is about everyone in the US swapping out ONE BULB, and that being the equivalent of taking 1.3 mil cars off the road.
Sorry. Every sentence in a paragraph does not need to explain every point of the paragraph. COntext is key.
It is simple. When men can give birth and feed infants from mammary glands, then that equality of regret/accomplishment will exist.
A look into the animal kingdom will reveal far more examples of females of a particular species raising and caring for young, than the male of that particular species. Don't be a moron and start spouting single examples that contradict this, for yes, although male seahorses actually give birth, they are in a tiny minority.
A man might look back and say "Hmmm. I wish I had fathered a child in my life. Wait. I don't know if I fathered children. I might actually have a son out there." Unless she is mentally unbalanced, suffers from a disorder that affects the memory, or constantly takes a lot of drugs that keep her out of the real world, a woman cannot look back and say "I don't know if I gave birth to any kids in my life." Even if a woman makes the conscious decision to pursue a career and a life of her own, rather than becoming a mother, no woman can deny that her physical makeup is designed around having children.
Take a different tack on this. If humans had functional wings, and an individual human spent their entire life NOT flying, they will, at some point feel unfulfilled. Whether or not this feeling is strong enough to cause issues, is up to the individual.
Men have the "luxury" of having a fire-and-forget role in the whole part of reproduction. They only NEED to be present for a few moments at the point of conception. Current social models prove this out. After that conception, the man does not ever need to be present for that child to be born and grow up. Sure, the woman can disappear as well eventually, but first that woman has to carry the child to term, give birth, and provide nourishment until the child can get it's own food. Ever know a woman to begin lactating at the sound of a child crying? There is an example of a conditioned response, where her body produces a physical reaction directly related to the child rearing process, in direct connection to the child itself. If women want to deny their own physical makeup, in how they are the ones designed by nature to give birth and at least initially raise the child, that is their choice. That is an extra sacrifice right there, however.
Can a man stay home and raise the kids? Absolutely. Men can't stay home and give birth though. Men can't get pregnant, and then have to be extra careful because they are now carrying two lives in one body, instead of one. In a standard family setup, where there is a mother and a father present, one of the parents has to spend more time being available to the children than the other. Even if the two parents discuss and arrange a schedule where they take turns being that parent who is available, it is all compensation after the birth and initial raising. A man can't say "Honey, you relax. I'll breast feed for a while." Of course, a bottle can be substituted. It is just that. A substitute.
Should women stay barefoot and pregnant in the home? Of course not. However, women are built by design to be better nurturers. So if they decide never to have kids and to only work, they are already sacrificing parts of their bodies, as well as parts of their nature. So a woman is not sacrificing her career in favor of her husband's/partner's career. What if she was unmarried and decided to have a child (with that initial help) and raise it herself completely? She is sacrificing her career for her child.
Raising a child is a career unto itself. For anyone, male or female.
Back on topic, computers in the bed might be a distraction, but no more so than a book. Books have been in the bed(room) for so long, that we don't even seem to consider them a distraction anymore. Sure, people often have sex while the TV is on, but people rarely have sex while one (or both) are reading a book. However, if you can have relations while reading a book, you can have relations while working on a laptop.
you are absolutely right. How stupid was I? I mean, I didn't even realize that the Metallica songs I was downloading, were really done by Jim Bob's Garage Band. I mean, legal copies of the tunes would be ones that were paid for. SInce these weren't, but they are identical in every respect to the ones that were paid for... they must have been made by someone else.. My bad.
so it seems that you are implying that if an item is not unique, then it is OK to steal it, as long as the person you steal it from cannot tell that it is missing.
Do you know the difference between manslaughter and murder? Intent. If one cannot prove intent, one cannot prosecute for murder. Intent can be proven by past actions, up to a point. However, if a defendant suffers remorse and changes their mind, immediately before their actions cause the death of another individual, that can still make the difference between murder and manslaughter.
Part of the problem here also, is that you are working with an outdated and archaic definition of the word "theft". Theft was defined before it was possible to produce an unlimited number of copies of something, each being indistinguishable from the original. However, the spirit of Theft does cover this. If you steal an ear of corn from a field of corn, it is still stealing. It does not matter if it will never be missed. It does not mater if it is such a small crime. It is still theft. If it is overlooked by the farmer that grew the corn, that is up to the farmer.
Also, what you are implying, if a record producer manufactured an unknown quantity of CD's, meaning that somehow a production run did not get tracked or noticed, then someone taking one of those CD's without permission would be stealing it. It does not matter if the loss of that CD would not affect projected sales; without knowing how many CD's there were to sell, there would be no way of knowing how much money would be made off selling that CD. Stealing the CD does not deprive the creator of the songs on it. It does not even affect the retailer, for in this instance, the CD was stolen from the manufacturer. It is still stealing.
So, if I take a blank piece of copy paper from a desk, there is nothing wrong with that. If I take a piece of paper from a desk that has someone's credit card information on it, but it is not the ORIGINAL document with that information, I'm only taking a copy. Your argument says there is nothing wrong with that.
Remember, what I DO with that credit card information is another matter altogether. If I do nothing, but keep it handy so I can admire it in the privacy of my home, then there is no reason why I should not be able to continue to take copies of people's personal information without their knowledge or consent, because I am not intending to do anything illegal with it. Your personal opinion about what you THINK I'm going to do with that information is irrelevant.
The creator may never have had my money, but they did have the song. My duplicating it without ther knowledge, does not validate my duplicating it. Because they are selling the song, in order for me to posess it legally in any form, I must purchase it.
labelling it "doubletalk" sounds more like trying to justify criminal actions with obfiscation. Exactly how is what I said "doubletalk"? In what you quoted, I merely demonstrated how improvements in tools have made many different kinds of duplication much easier. Making the duplication easier does not make it more legal, if the duplication was illegal in the first place.
Here is an example of one legal definition of theft: "the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it".
By copying the music, you are dishonestly appropriating (not paying for; keeping the money for yourself) property (before sale, the song; after sale, the money) belonging to another (record company/artist) with the intention of permanently depriving (you do not ever intend to pay for that song) that person (record company/artist) of it.
Certainly seems to fit the description of theft.
The big problem here is that, as I have already said, this is a victimless crime. It is similar to insurance fraud. It is still illegal.
Ok. I'll come at it from this angle. These artists wrote their mushc and signed on with these record companies in order to make money. If they were creating the music because they wanted to freely distribute it, they would. Some artists currently DO freely distribute their music. Downloading and sharing those songs is not illegal. But just because you have a tool at your disposal that enables you to avoid paying an artist for the music he (or she) has said that you cannot have for free (unless you are willing to wait for it to play in roataion at a radio station), that does not make it LEGAL. Just because you CAN do something, does not mean you SHOULD do something.
Must I trot out the fact that helping slaves escape and women to vote was also once illegal?
Yes, you must. Because until the laws were changed, these two things were illegal. Even if we can NOW look back and shake our heads at how wrong we were to keep slaves and keep women from voting, THEN these were punishable crimes. Why not trot out how at one time, saying that the world was round was punishable by death? Why not trot out how at one time saying that the Sun revolved around the Earth was once punishable by death? Because the same concept still holds true. We can look back now and say that those punishments were wrong. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
If a law is wrong, there are three options. Obey the law, change the law, or move to where the law does not apply. Breaking the law and not getting caught does not make the action legal.
And while your example of stock certificates and deeds is admittedly clever, those that duplicate them are doing so with the intent to deprive the owner of the original stock/property. Not so with piracy.
Incorrect. Stealing the original stock certificate or deed is intending to deprive the owner of the original. Duplicating them is intending to provide others with objects of the same value as the original, while leaving the original alone. In the case of a property deed, it is true that there is only one piece of property. However, using that duplicate deed and "selling" the property would not result in the original owner losing the property. It would only result in the buyer being ripped off.
Artists create the song. Record companies spend the money on the studios and the recording, paying all the salaries of the people involved in the process. They pay for the production and initial distribution. Piracy for the purpose of selling, is making money off of the work done by the artists and record companies (or designers and software companies), without any of that money going back to the people who did the actual work.
Is scalping concert tickets legal then? How about selling "fake" concert t-shirts?
We may have to go through the process of breaking laws to attempt to get them changed, but we are still BREAKING LAWS to do so. If everyone jumps on the bandwagon, then sure, law makers might get with the program and repeal the offending laws. I don't see that happenning. Just because it is easy to copy music digitally, that doesn't make it right. All of this got started because MP3 compression algorythms were pirated originally. They were not released as open source. That Pandora's box was already opened.
If John Smith designed a revolutionary new home construction device, it does not matter if it costs a million dollars to duplicate, or if it can be duplicated for free. John Smith should still be able to decide if it should be freely available. If Mr. Smith decides that he should get paid by people who want one of his devices, then he should get paid. Until AFTER the laws have been changed, anyone who duplicates his work to avoid paying him is breaking the law and should face punishment.
You have never heard of "counterfeiting"? Shall we flip back through slashdot here, to the submitted articles about how new passports are going to include embedded digital data to make them harder to steal and copy? How about the technique of tagging unique and expensive jewelry with miniscule identifiers to attempt to make them impossible to copy AND make them easier to ideitify if stolen?
Don't start to think I'm proving your argument. Techniques like these to foil those who would attempt to copy passports and jewelry are still at the crawling (as opposed to walking or running) stage.
Forgers who specialize in creating copies of works of art will go to extremes to make them indistinguishable from the original. They will make their paints by hand, using the same ingredients and methods that the original artist used. They will use antique and/or aged canvases. They will create the equivalent of a "clean room", except that the closed environment will be one that attempts to mimic one the original painting was created in (industrial pollutant free, etc.). They will even paint on top of less valuable, but still original valid works by the same artist, if that artist had a habit of painting on top of previous works.
Are all of these "exact" copies? The word "exact" is actually irrelevant. It does not matter if you can make an Exact copy of a twenty dollar bill. If your copy is ALMOST perfect, but with only one flaw, you are guilty of counterfeitting. If your copy is EXACTLY perfect, you are still guilty of counterfeitting. A piece of Jewelry might actually be much easier to copy (without the laser ID tag), but that doesn't make it any less illegal to copy it to avoid paying for it.
If you want to copy music without breaking any laws, there is a way. Learn to play some musical instruments. THEN you are crafting the music and recording it yourself. You are performing it in private, you are not making any money off of the performance or song, and you have a copy of the song you wanted. That would be much closer to what you were implying about the "Exact" copy comment.
If you could drop a diamond ring into a machine and get exact dupicates, sure that would be akin to getting exact duplicates of digital music files. But a chisel to cut a stone with is a tool. A grinding wheel is a more advanced tool that can accomplish the same task faster and more efficiently. A hand operated printing press is a tool that can be used in counterfeitting. A mechanical laser printer is a more advanced tool that makes the same task much easier and more efficient. A tape recorder with a microphone is a tool that can be used to copy music. A computer that can just reproduce unlimited copies of a single file is just a more advanced tool accomplishing the same task. Just because the tool is more advanced, that doesn't make the crime any less of a crime.
As for myself I keep all my downloads on an external USB 2.0 drive, simply unplug it and poof, it's as if the data was never on the machine in the first place. Of course this is just a happy consequence of my machine, being that it's liquid-cooled two hard drives are mounted to a cooler, I needed more space so rather then ripping one of the smaller ones out I just put it in an enclosure.
I think you need to pay attention to everyone's comments on this one. You should also take a look at your registry. You will find plenty of evidence in that single file alone that not only points to the existance of your USB drive, but what was on it, especially if you used any software that accessed data directly off that drive (as opposed to first copying the desired file off the USB drive and onto a non-portable one, then accessing it).
Is driving faster than the posted speed limit a crime? Is it any less of a crime because "everybody does it"? Will mentioning that to the cop who pulled you over and gave you a ticket get you out of the ticket? Did you hurt someone when you parked too far from the curb and got a ticket? How about when you parked in front of that fire hydrant and got a ticket? THAT is a good one, especially considering that what the fire department would do to the car would be MUCH worse and more expensive if there was a fire and they needed that hydrant. How about that ticket for blowing through the red light/stop sign at that early morning hour when noone else was around?
would you steal a car? Would you steal a purse? Would you steal a cell phone? No, I wouldn't steal any of those. But if I could make an exact duplicate copy of any of them, and the original was still intact, then damn straight I would!
So you would steal passports, money, property deeds, stock certificates, jewelry, and other items that you COULD make an exact duplicate of and still leave the original intact? Because that is what it looks like you are saying.
What about growing your own Marijuana for personal consumption and smoking it? No duplication involved. Noone is getting hurt. There is no distribution. Don't like that example? Ok, what about growing your own HEMP? Let's see... you can't smoke it, you can make rope and paper and ink and oil and clothing out of Hemp. It is still illegal in the USA. Whether or not it SHOULD be illegal has nothing to do with the fact that it is CURRENTLY illegal.
And for all those people who are amazed at the recovery of deleted data, try a simple google search for "undelete". Try it. Recovery of deleted data is nothing new. Software even exists to make it harder to recover deleted data, because of Undelete utilities.
Victimless crimes are still crimes.
Re:Americans traveling to other countries.
on
E-Passport In the Works
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· Score: 3, Insightful
what kind of contradictory Bullshit are you spewing? First you say...
"The problem is, U.S. corporate behavior is geared toward maximizing profits at the expense of the employees and an imaginary work ethic that drives people into the ground"
Which clearly indicates you believe that U.S. Citizens are pushed against their will to work as much as they do, because the CEOs and other corporate bigwigs want to increase the amount in their already overfull pockets. Then you say...
"But please, don't insinuate that just because you're a driven workaholic with nothing better to do that the rest of us would 'prefer' that lifestyle."...which clearly indicates that you are of the opinion that if someone makes a statement about how Americans prefer 2 weeks they must be workaholics.
So which is it? Is that 2 week limit there because of people being workaholics and not wanting more vacation time, or is it there because the employers push harder than they should and only allow 2 weeks?
Personally I've never had a job where I had 2 weeks official vacation time per year. And I'm a U.S. Citizen.
I can clearly see from the anti-U.S sentiment here in the responses exactly WHY most Americans would prefer not to travel. It could also be due to the fact that while a lot of European countries are very tiny, the US is very large. Why go to another country when you can go somewhere in your own country that is easier to get to, somewhere you have never been before, and somewhere that won't cost you your entire vacation budget on airfare? An American can even expand their travelling habits to include visiting other countries, namely Mexico and Canada, so that they can spend their entire life vacationing once a year somewhere in North America, and never go to the same place twice.
Americans are not all rich. Not even most of us. Most Americans don't have a passport, because they will NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO TRAVEL OUTSIDE THIS COUNTRY in their lifetime. It is not because they are workaholics, or Xenophobes. If you work 6 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, it does not automatically mean that you are addicted to work. It most likely means that your job sucks, you have no prospects for a better job, you have no skills (or more importantly, documented notarized certification) to get a better job, and you have to support your family.
The cost of living in the US is now so high, compared to the "average" income, that we live in a DUAL INCOME culture. This is where there must be the equivalent of two incomes coming in, in order for a single family to be able to afford an "average" lifestyle. Guess what? Only those with an "average" or better lifestyle get to take 2 week vacations. THe rest of us working schmucks get to work on holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Etc.) and don't look forward to a vacation. THe rest of us working schmucks find that our vacation time comes when we get burned out with the job, and spend a few weeks looking for another. That's our vacation.
Looks like you Europeans are the ones with all the money and leisure time. Looks like YOU should be the ones on the world crusade to help the needy. We did our part. We saved your countries over 60 years ago. Get off our backs. How about a Thank you? How about taking US out for a vacation?
It's nice and all that the travel industry is growing and attempting to get more secure with the addition of these identifier chips. Soon, we won't need a separate passport. Soon, our regular Identification (what ever that turns out to be) will be all that is needed to travel. ANd I'm sure it will include a digital component.
Slashdot Mirror
if you have 110 million regular bulbs in your house, I doubt you are gonna worry about changing any of them out for CF.
No, in the context of the summary, it is clear that the correct phrase is "one bulb", since the summary is about everyone in the US swapping out ONE BULB, and that being the equivalent of taking 1.3 mil cars off the road.
Sorry. Every sentence in a paragraph does not need to explain every point of the paragraph. COntext is key.
It is simple. When men can give birth and feed infants from mammary glands, then that equality of regret/accomplishment will exist.
A look into the animal kingdom will reveal far more examples of females of a particular species raising and caring for young, than the male of that particular species. Don't be a moron and start spouting single examples that contradict this, for yes, although male seahorses actually give birth, they are in a tiny minority.
A man might look back and say "Hmmm. I wish I had fathered a child in my life. Wait. I don't know if I fathered children. I might actually have a son out there." Unless she is mentally unbalanced, suffers from a disorder that affects the memory, or constantly takes a lot of drugs that keep her out of the real world, a woman cannot look back and say "I don't know if I gave birth to any kids in my life." Even if a woman makes the conscious decision to pursue a career and a life of her own, rather than becoming a mother, no woman can deny that her physical makeup is designed around having children.
Take a different tack on this. If humans had functional wings, and an individual human spent their entire life NOT flying, they will, at some point feel unfulfilled. Whether or not this feeling is strong enough to cause issues, is up to the individual.
Men have the "luxury" of having a fire-and-forget role in the whole part of reproduction. They only NEED to be present for a few moments at the point of conception. Current social models prove this out. After that conception, the man does not ever need to be present for that child to be born and grow up. Sure, the woman can disappear as well eventually, but first that woman has to carry the child to term, give birth, and provide nourishment until the child can get it's own food. Ever know a woman to begin lactating at the sound of a child crying? There is an example of a conditioned response, where her body produces a physical reaction directly related to the child rearing process, in direct connection to the child itself. If women want to deny their own physical makeup, in how they are the ones designed by nature to give birth and at least initially raise the child, that is their choice. That is an extra sacrifice right there, however.
Can a man stay home and raise the kids? Absolutely. Men can't stay home and give birth though. Men can't get pregnant, and then have to be extra careful because they are now carrying two lives in one body, instead of one. In a standard family setup, where there is a mother and a father present, one of the parents has to spend more time being available to the children than the other. Even if the two parents discuss and arrange a schedule where they take turns being that parent who is available, it is all compensation after the birth and initial raising. A man can't say "Honey, you relax. I'll breast feed for a while." Of course, a bottle can be substituted. It is just that. A substitute.
Should women stay barefoot and pregnant in the home? Of course not. However, women are built by design to be better nurturers. So if they decide never to have kids and to only work, they are already sacrificing parts of their bodies, as well as parts of their nature. So a woman is not sacrificing her career in favor of her husband's/partner's career. What if she was unmarried and decided to have a child (with that initial help) and raise it herself completely? She is sacrificing her career for her child.
Raising a child is a career unto itself. For anyone, male or female.
Back on topic, computers in the bed might be a distraction, but no more so than a book. Books have been in the bed(room) for so long, that we don't even seem to consider them a distraction anymore. Sure, people often have sex while the TV is on, but people rarely have sex while one (or both) are reading a book. However, if you can have relations while reading a book, you can have relations while working on a laptop.
you are absolutely right. How stupid was I? I mean, I didn't even realize that the Metallica songs I was downloading, were really done by Jim Bob's Garage Band. I mean, legal copies of the tunes would be ones that were paid for. SInce these weren't, but they are identical in every respect to the ones that were paid for... they must have been made by someone else.. My bad.
so it seems that you are implying that if an item is not unique, then it is OK to steal it, as long as the person you steal it from cannot tell that it is missing. Do you know the difference between manslaughter and murder? Intent. If one cannot prove intent, one cannot prosecute for murder. Intent can be proven by past actions, up to a point. However, if a defendant suffers remorse and changes their mind, immediately before their actions cause the death of another individual, that can still make the difference between murder and manslaughter. Part of the problem here also, is that you are working with an outdated and archaic definition of the word "theft". Theft was defined before it was possible to produce an unlimited number of copies of something, each being indistinguishable from the original. However, the spirit of Theft does cover this. If you steal an ear of corn from a field of corn, it is still stealing. It does not matter if it will never be missed. It does not mater if it is such a small crime. It is still theft. If it is overlooked by the farmer that grew the corn, that is up to the farmer. Also, what you are implying, if a record producer manufactured an unknown quantity of CD's, meaning that somehow a production run did not get tracked or noticed, then someone taking one of those CD's without permission would be stealing it. It does not matter if the loss of that CD would not affect projected sales; without knowing how many CD's there were to sell, there would be no way of knowing how much money would be made off selling that CD. Stealing the CD does not deprive the creator of the songs on it. It does not even affect the retailer, for in this instance, the CD was stolen from the manufacturer. It is still stealing.
So, if I take a blank piece of copy paper from a desk, there is nothing wrong with that. If I take a piece of paper from a desk that has someone's credit card information on it, but it is not the ORIGINAL document with that information, I'm only taking a copy. Your argument says there is nothing wrong with that.
Remember, what I DO with that credit card information is another matter altogether. If I do nothing, but keep it handy so I can admire it in the privacy of my home, then there is no reason why I should not be able to continue to take copies of people's personal information without their knowledge or consent, because I am not intending to do anything illegal with it. Your personal opinion about what you THINK I'm going to do with that information is irrelevant.
The creator may never have had my money, but they did have the song. My duplicating it without ther knowledge, does not validate my duplicating it. Because they are selling the song, in order for me to posess it legally in any form, I must purchase it.
labelling it "doubletalk" sounds more like trying to justify criminal actions with obfiscation. Exactly how is what I said "doubletalk"? In what you quoted, I merely demonstrated how improvements in tools have made many different kinds of duplication much easier. Making the duplication easier does not make it more legal, if the duplication was illegal in the first place.
By copying the music, you are dishonestly appropriating (not paying for; keeping the money for yourself) property (before sale, the song; after sale, the money) belonging to another (record company/artist) with the intention of permanently depriving (you do not ever intend to pay for that song) that person (record company/artist) of it.
Certainly seems to fit the description of theft.
The big problem here is that, as I have already said, this is a victimless crime. It is similar to insurance fraud. It is still illegal.
Ok. I'll come at it from this angle. These artists wrote their mushc and signed on with these record companies in order to make money. If they were creating the music because they wanted to freely distribute it, they would. Some artists currently DO freely distribute their music. Downloading and sharing those songs is not illegal. But just because you have a tool at your disposal that enables you to avoid paying an artist for the music he (or she) has said that you cannot have for free (unless you are willing to wait for it to play in roataion at a radio station), that does not make it LEGAL. Just because you CAN do something, does not mean you SHOULD do something.
Yes, you must. Because until the laws were changed, these two things were illegal. Even if we can NOW look back and shake our heads at how wrong we were to keep slaves and keep women from voting, THEN these were punishable crimes. Why not trot out how at one time, saying that the world was round was punishable by death? Why not trot out how at one time saying that the Sun revolved around the Earth was once punishable by death? Because the same concept still holds true. We can look back now and say that those punishments were wrong. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
If a law is wrong, there are three options. Obey the law, change the law, or move to where the law does not apply. Breaking the law and not getting caught does not make the action legal.
Incorrect. Stealing the original stock certificate or deed is intending to deprive the owner of the original. Duplicating them is intending to provide others with objects of the same value as the original, while leaving the original alone. In the case of a property deed, it is true that there is only one piece of property. However, using that duplicate deed and "selling" the property would not result in the original owner losing the property. It would only result in the buyer being ripped off.
Artists create the song. Record companies spend the money on the studios and the recording, paying all the salaries of the people involved in the process. They pay for the production and initial distribution. Piracy for the purpose of selling, is making money off of the work done by the artists and record companies (or designers and software companies), without any of that money going back to the people who did the actual work.
Is scalping concert tickets legal then? How about selling "fake" concert t-shirts?
We may have to go through the process of breaking laws to attempt to get them changed, but we are still BREAKING LAWS to do so. If everyone jumps on the bandwagon, then sure, law makers might get with the program and repeal the offending laws. I don't see that happenning. Just because it is easy to copy music digitally, that doesn't make it right. All of this got started because MP3 compression algorythms were pirated originally. They were not released as open source. That Pandora's box was already opened.
If John Smith designed a revolutionary new home construction device, it does not matter if it costs a million dollars to duplicate, or if it can be duplicated for free. John Smith should still be able to decide if it should be freely available. If Mr. Smith decides that he should get paid by people who want one of his devices, then he should get paid. Until AFTER the laws have been changed, anyone who duplicates his work to avoid paying him is breaking the law and should face punishment.
You have never heard of "counterfeiting"? Shall we flip back through slashdot here, to the submitted articles about how new passports are going to include embedded digital data to make them harder to steal and copy? How about the technique of tagging unique and expensive jewelry with miniscule identifiers to attempt to make them impossible to copy AND make them easier to ideitify if stolen?
Don't start to think I'm proving your argument. Techniques like these to foil those who would attempt to copy passports and jewelry are still at the crawling (as opposed to walking or running) stage.
Forgers who specialize in creating copies of works of art will go to extremes to make them indistinguishable from the original. They will make their paints by hand, using the same ingredients and methods that the original artist used. They will use antique and/or aged canvases. They will create the equivalent of a "clean room", except that the closed environment will be one that attempts to mimic one the original painting was created in (industrial pollutant free, etc.). They will even paint on top of less valuable, but still original valid works by the same artist, if that artist had a habit of painting on top of previous works.
Are all of these "exact" copies? The word "exact" is actually irrelevant. It does not matter if you can make an Exact copy of a twenty dollar bill. If your copy is ALMOST perfect, but with only one flaw, you are guilty of counterfeitting. If your copy is EXACTLY perfect, you are still guilty of counterfeitting. A piece of Jewelry might actually be much easier to copy (without the laser ID tag), but that doesn't make it any less illegal to copy it to avoid paying for it.
If you want to copy music without breaking any laws, there is a way. Learn to play some musical instruments. THEN you are crafting the music and recording it yourself. You are performing it in private, you are not making any money off of the performance or song, and you have a copy of the song you wanted. That would be much closer to what you were implying about the "Exact" copy comment.
If you could drop a diamond ring into a machine and get exact dupicates, sure that would be akin to getting exact duplicates of digital music files. But a chisel to cut a stone with is a tool. A grinding wheel is a more advanced tool that can accomplish the same task faster and more efficiently. A hand operated printing press is a tool that can be used in counterfeitting. A mechanical laser printer is a more advanced tool that makes the same task much easier and more efficient. A tape recorder with a microphone is a tool that can be used to copy music. A computer that can just reproduce unlimited copies of a single file is just a more advanced tool accomplishing the same task. Just because the tool is more advanced, that doesn't make the crime any less of a crime.
I think you need to pay attention to everyone's comments on this one. You should also take a look at your registry. You will find plenty of evidence in that single file alone that not only points to the existance of your USB drive, but what was on it, especially if you used any software that accessed data directly off that drive (as opposed to first copying the desired file off the USB drive and onto a non-portable one, then accessing it).
So you would steal passports, money, property deeds, stock certificates, jewelry, and other items that you COULD make an exact duplicate of and still leave the original intact? Because that is what it looks like you are saying.
What about growing your own Marijuana for personal consumption and smoking it? No duplication involved. Noone is getting hurt. There is no distribution. Don't like that example? Ok, what about growing your own HEMP? Let's see... you can't smoke it, you can make rope and paper and ink and oil and clothing out of Hemp. It is still illegal in the USA. Whether or not it SHOULD be illegal has nothing to do with the fact that it is CURRENTLY illegal.
And for all those people who are amazed at the recovery of deleted data, try a simple google search for "undelete". Try it. Recovery of deleted data is nothing new. Software even exists to make it harder to recover deleted data, because of Undelete utilities.
Victimless crimes are still crimes.
what kind of contradictory Bullshit are you spewing? First you say...
...which clearly indicates that you are of the opinion that if someone makes a statement about how Americans prefer 2 weeks they must be workaholics.
"The problem is, U.S. corporate behavior is geared toward maximizing profits at the expense of the employees and an imaginary work ethic that drives people into the ground"
Which clearly indicates you believe that U.S. Citizens are pushed against their will to work as much as they do, because the CEOs and other corporate bigwigs want to increase the amount in their already overfull pockets. Then you say...
"But please, don't insinuate that just because you're a driven workaholic with nothing better to do that the rest of us would 'prefer' that lifestyle."
So which is it? Is that 2 week limit there because of people being workaholics and not wanting more vacation time, or is it there because the employers push harder than they should and only allow 2 weeks?
Personally I've never had a job where I had 2 weeks official vacation time per year. And I'm a U.S. Citizen.
I can clearly see from the anti-U.S sentiment here in the responses exactly WHY most Americans would prefer not to travel. It could also be due to the fact that while a lot of European countries are very tiny, the US is very large. Why go to another country when you can go somewhere in your own country that is easier to get to, somewhere you have never been before, and somewhere that won't cost you your entire vacation budget on airfare? An American can even expand their travelling habits to include visiting other countries, namely Mexico and Canada, so that they can spend their entire life vacationing once a year somewhere in North America, and never go to the same place twice.
Americans are not all rich. Not even most of us. Most Americans don't have a passport, because they will NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO TRAVEL OUTSIDE THIS COUNTRY in their lifetime. It is not because they are workaholics, or Xenophobes. If you work 6 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, it does not automatically mean that you are addicted to work. It most likely means that your job sucks, you have no prospects for a better job, you have no skills (or more importantly, documented notarized certification) to get a better job, and you have to support your family.
The cost of living in the US is now so high, compared to the "average" income, that we live in a DUAL INCOME culture. This is where there must be the equivalent of two incomes coming in, in order for a single family to be able to afford an "average" lifestyle. Guess what? Only those with an "average" or better lifestyle get to take 2 week vacations. THe rest of us working schmucks get to work on holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Etc.) and don't look forward to a vacation. THe rest of us working schmucks find that our vacation time comes when we get burned out with the job, and spend a few weeks looking for another. That's our vacation.
Looks like you Europeans are the ones with all the money and leisure time. Looks like YOU should be the ones on the world crusade to help the needy. We did our part. We saved your countries over 60 years ago. Get off our backs. How about a Thank you? How about taking US out for a vacation?
It's nice and all that the travel industry is growing and attempting to get more secure with the addition of these identifier chips. Soon, we won't need a separate passport. Soon, our regular Identification (what ever that turns out to be) will be all that is needed to travel. ANd I'm sure it will include a digital component.