In any organization, there are basically two optimization games being played at any given moment: The long-term game, and the short-term game. In general charting an optimal course is hard, both because the long game is very hard to play, and because how well you play the short game affects your long game. The negative effects are well-known: witness big business' almost being straightjacketed to quarterly and yearly forecasts. The consequences of this? A tendency to play for short-term gain at the expense of foreseeable long-term ruin.

But also witness Netflix shooting their feet off at the knees. Why did that happen? They played too much in favor of the long game, essentially. Far enough down the road, it will make as much sense to be in the DVD-by-mail business as it currently makes to be in the DVD-by-rental-store business. The problem is, their long-term plays were premature, and very harmful to the short-term game.

So, space exploration. Everyone agrees that it's very important, right? But it's a long-term game, with long-term payoffs. Possibly very long term. The true maturation of space exploration - the transformation from mankind's journey into space being a herculean endeavor, funded at considerable expense by entire nations - into the space industry, undertaken by various firms for different businesses ... This is the long term goal. But how long term? I think it's not unreasonable to estimate that it will be a hundred years. Now, the US is less than 250 years old. A hundred years is a VERY long time. A hundred years ago, it was 1912, and WW1 (yes, 1) was more than two years off.

Meanwhile, there is a very real chance the financial system underpinning the entire world economy could implode within a few decades. If that happens, every penny that has ever been spent on long-term goals with a maturation significantly further into the future than this ... will have largely been wasted, spent building castles in the sky.

So it makes sense to cut the Mars stuff. I want to know what kind of life is on Europa, or Mars, or wherever else ... just as much as you do. But it just doesn't make sense, given the realities of enormous deficits, and a political process paralyzed by gridlock.

Criticizing someone by saying that they got less done than a group of other people is a pretty lousy criticism. All you've really done is establish that there's a benefit to two types of testing: methodical testing, and let's-just-mess-around-with-it stress testing.

Just messing around is way faster, and it will quickly catch a lot of bugs. But it's no substitute for methodical testing. How many bugs did she find that the entire group of other people would have never noticed?

I feel sorry for her. It seems like she did a pretty good job, and it sounds like she did exactly what the business hired her to do, yet it doesn't sound like she got any respect for it.

This problem is not amenable to technical solution. Trying to stop attackers from cheating via the Internet, by using some a filter or other form of limited access -- is as futile as trying to solve the halting problem, and enumerate the irrationals, at the same time.

The halting problem fails because it's too easy to craft countermeasures aimed deliberately at the scanner. Enumerating the irrationals fails because there is so much complexity, it's literally impossible to go throgh it all.

But just because you can't solve this problem technically doesn't mean it can't be solved. It's difficult, but I believe it might be possible. Don't bother beyond the basics. Get a computer lab set up with computers you control. Don't allow the students to bring in any USB sticks or CDs.

Then simply install tracking software on every PC. (You can also use a network sniffer to back this up.) The idea isn't that to prevent cheating technically; rather, you want to preserve the ability to tell that people have cheated, and simply punishing them under the existing rules.

You tell everyone in the class that you'll be monitoring their internet usage during the exam. Then tell everyone what you consider cheating. Have your grad students go through the logs manually; the difference should be fairly obvious.

Unfortunately, the part where you said "If some of them aren't paying attention, then too bad" is plain and simple against the law. It is a copyright violation to redistribute someone's work without their permission, and you are contemplating doing precisely that.

It doesn't matter that what you proposed is a reasonable-sounding way to deal with the issue. It's against the law.

This is the thing holding up a lot of really interesting things, like Google Books. Hell, even the big multinationals can't do that kind of thing. Sony would probably like to make every PS1 game available for download. They can't due to rights issues. Their contracts 10, 15 years ago didn't give them permission to do X, so now they can't.

I'm sorry, but the plain truth is you propose to ignore the rights of people on the grounds it would be too much of a burden.

The Linux model is amazingly powerful, but at the same time, its reliance on an army of contributors creates legal problems. If those contributors didn't give you permission to do something with what they contributed, then you have 3 choices: 1) Don't do it; 2) Get permission; 3) Rip out their contribution.

It might be feasible to do what you proposed, get say 90% buy-in ... and then rip out the remaining code and re-implement that portion. But you cannot simply ignore their copyrights. They didn't give permission to license their work under GPLv3, and you can't relicense it without their approval.

Respect for the law is important. It's the difference between Sony (at least, back when they fought for Betamax) and Grokster. Groups that figure it's so much easier to simply ignore the law and do whatever they want tend to get smacked very hard. And it doesn't even matter whether the authority being ignored is just, or corrupt, they all react the same. Why do you think corporations spend all this money trying to slant the laws in their favor? It'd be so much cheaper to simply ignore them.

You really think (say) the EPA could file enforcement actions against every major company in the US? They couldn't, and neither could any other law enforcement agency in the world. The way to maintain law and order is to essentially intimidate people into respecting the rules using the powers you have, so that you don't have to try to smack down the entire world.

The key is that every organized group in the entire world knows this fact. So they come down hard on disrespecting authority, because they have no choice.

Besides, it's kind of hard to condemn others (for instance, large multinationals doing things like polluting the environment) for feeling that they shouldn't have to obey the laws because they're inconvenient ... if you're doing the same thing yourself.

One of the reasons, I think, that copyright is so screwed up is that the thing that it is actually attempting to regulate, and the thing the regulations directly affect, are not the same.

Copyright isn't actually about the thing being copyrighted. After a work has been created, is an abundant good - but the problem is, this ignores the part of the process that is not abundant. By the same logic, cars are an abundant good - the raw materials to duplicate them are (considering the volume of the earth) nigh-inexhaustible, if you ignore the energy sunk retrieving and refining said raw materials.

Similarly, people's time is not an abundant good. And the purpose of copyright is to regulate this non-abundant good: It's to create an incentive for people to spend their time in creative endeavors.

Things get weird, because to do this, the law cracked down on the duplication of legally-protected information. This worked just fine for hundreds of years, because you needed large and expensive machinery to duplicate in any significant way. It's not working nearly as well anymore. But attempting to protect information was never the goal, it was always a means to an end.

Two things: One, I agree with Shieldw0lf. Two, consider this: If these kids receive a crappy education, the course of their lives is negatively impacted. Most criminals are poorly educated. Most poorly educated people make crappy salaries compared to their more well-educated counterparts. A poor education system drags all of society down with it, in the form of crime rates and economic woes.

It's just that the problems caused by it don't set in until years after the fact. And even then it's too easy to simply blame the damage caused by this on the way the people affected chose to play the crappy hand they were dealt (ignoring the fact that the hands were crappy, so of course they were going to perform badly).

Virii is the plural for computer virus. And viruses is another. Take your pick, they're both perfectly good words. One might be much less common than the other, but anyone immediately knows what is meant by either of the two, and both are in wide enough use to be instantly recognized by most people. Therefore virii is a word, and continuing to insist that it ain't is exactly like the stubborn insistence only a few decades ago that ain't wasn't a word either. Irregardless is a word, now, as well, despite its highly annoying etymology.

Similarly, "begs the question" has changed meanings. I don't even know what the original meaning was supposed to be, and I have never in my entire life ever heard or read it used in that sense, other than on this website. Its original meaning is well on its way to gaining the archaic classification, and I'm sorry, but when you so self-righteously flame someone else for "incorrectly" using it, all that happens is I think you're more interested in making yourself feel superior than in contributing to the discussion.

Now I'd better go put on my asbestos suit ...

The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant.

Like it or not, this is clearly a measure "provided for by law" and also "necessary to protect national security [and] public order". The fact that the measures are unlikely to actually be effective at protecting the public is unlikely to cause a court to rule them a violation.

Just earlier this week Slashdot ran a story to the effect that the government should never regulate technology, because they don't understand any of it. Well, more or less for the same reason, judges tend to give deference to the decisions of government bodies that are (theoretically) experts on the subject. The judge is going to take the word of the government agencies saying "we need to do this to increase security" because hey, they're the ones who spend all their time protecting the public.

As for the US cases you cite, I find nothing in Paul v. Virginia that's even related to this topic. And Corfield v Coryell is a district court ruling, which means it's not precedent. And it isn't in agreement with the actual precedent on the issue of the 14th Amendment (the Slaughterhouse cases) or the right to travel. Gilmore v Gonzales is the case most directly dealing with this issuek, and it's not a Supreme Court ruling but it is binding precedent for part of the country: You don't have the right to any one particular mode of transportation, even if it is far more convenient than any other.

If it were the only available mode of transportation, the constitutionality question would be very different. But in the particular case at issue, you can take a taxi, or a bicycle, or even simply walk.

It worked on the silkworms, so obviously Dr. Doom's sinister radioactive-spider genetic engineering scheme has been a success. It won't be long now before we see ...

Spider monkey, spider monkey. Doing whatever a spider can.
Look out! Here comes the spider monkey.
Can he swing from a thread?
Take a look overhead.
Spider monkey!

I can't remember where I heard it, so I have no proof, but the story I heard goes like this:

They tried, years ago in a trial run somewhere. Customers hated it. Why? A few reasons: One, marking down the price sends the message "this movie sucks!" whether it's true or not, and nobody will go to see it. Two, people will feel like you're extorting them by charging more for the good movies (just like Coca-Cola found out when they decided they could add thermometers to Coke machines and charge more when it was really hot out).

Three, people LIKE it being predictable that a movie always costs X; it turns out in fact people don't like having to do complicated 'well would movie A be worth $10, or should I see movie B instead for $%' calculations. This makes the decision-making much more complicated than "which of these movies do I want to see".

A great many media have discovered more or less the same thing. DVDs, books, audio CDs, movies, video games ... they tend to have standardized prices. Such a practice would not be so common if there weren't very compelling reasons.

The only reason you've given that they're too high is the impact it has on you - this is only half the question. Nobody likes paying taxes. The other half of the question is, how much money does the government need?

If you eat at an expensive restaraunt, you can't complain you shouldn't have to pay for dessert because you already paid $100 for the entree and drinks, and you "thought you paid enough thank you very much".

Clearly, the government does not have enough money to pay its bills. Clearly, borrowing at the rate we have been is at best a stopgap solution. Somewhat less clearly, but still pretty obvious, the gap is too big to close by reducing spending; the deep cuts required would cut into the government's ability to pay for things almost everyone agrees are required.

The obvious conclusion is that taxes are not too high. They're too low.

This does not necessarily mean your taxes specifically are too low. But given the size of this pit, asking only some of us to fill it in doesn't seem right. Taxes need to be raised, and before you ask - yes, I am calling for my own taxes to be raised.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Except that the federal law in question provides that no website is considered either an 'author' or a 'publisher' of any 'information [the post] provided by another information content provider [the user]'. It then goes on to explicitly overrule any state/local laws that conflict with this.

Short version is, this law was intended to shield Internet companies for being passive conduits. It would be a terrible idea if, anytime anyone sent defamatory content through the mail, the victim could sue the Post Office, right?

The problem is, the wording was very broad. So now this company is covered by the liability shield (which provides more or less complete immunity from defamation laws of any kind) because it's user-generated content. But they're NOT a passive conduit, their business is apparently set up to actively solicit this type of arguably-libelous content.

So yeah, your suggestion is a good idea - it might be a good idea to tweak the CDA to strip the liability shield if the user wants something removed and the company refuses. But as written, that's not currently how the law works. Which is unfortunate.

A semester's worth of ab-psych and wikipedia do not a diagnosis make - but he quite likely has Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

He completely flew off the handle when the customer complained about being treated badly (Reacts to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation), doesn't seem to care about or even really understand why the customer is pissed off (Obsessed with oneself and Lacks empathy and disregards the feelings of others) ... And finally, unrealistic fantasies of ... power speaks for itself, as does [exaggerates] own importance, achievements, and talents
.

"People who are overly narcissistic commonly feel rejected, humiliated and threatened when criticised. To protect themselves from these dangers, they often react with disdain, rage, and/or defiance to any slight criticism, real or imagined ... In cases where [the afflicted] feels a lack of admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation, he/she may also manifest a desire to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply).

Although individuals with NPD are often ambitious and capable, the inability to tolerate setbacks, disagreements or criticism, along with lack of empathy, make it difficult for such individuals to work cooperatively with others or to maintain long-term professional achievements. With narcissistic personality disorder, the individual's self-perceived fantastic grandiosity, often coupled with a hypomanic mood, is typically not commensurate with his or her real accomplishments.

The entire thing describes him almost to the letter.

A four billion dollar non-refundable breakup fee? Why would you want to pay such an enormous fee to abandon your buyout attempt ... and then close the buy out anyway?

The deal is dead, dead, dead as a doornail, done. AT&T would not be paying four billion dollars to one of its biggest competitors if it thought there was a snowball's chance in hell it could avoid doing so.