People must eventually see the obvious paradigm shift;

In the analog era, the economic agents (movie studios, gaming studios, etc) had to GUESS demand, invest THEIR OWN money, a priori, and thereafter hope for people will like their offering.

Ergo, they had to protect their investment because they did not amortise it.

This is an entirely limited-due-to-technology model and places the "chariot, before the horses".

In the digital era however, the horses (demand) are placed in front of the chariot (supply).

See initiatives like kickstarter.com, flattr.com - the movie/gaming studios can propose their offering, collect the funds and thereafter produce.

Moreover, the producers can make money, on the side, by offering scarce goods (memorabilia, signed items, paid dinners with actors, producers, scriptwriters etc).

disclaimer: this does not mean in any way that the new system is perfect - it is just a better than the old one and also inevitable because the digitisation of information renders the old one obsolete

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Well the whole article and point is actually BS as a quick search in wikipedia reveals;

Quote

Beside his scientific career, Chu has also developed interest in various sports, including baseball, swimming and cycling. He taught himself tennis by reading a book in the eighth grade, and was a second-string substitute for the school team for three years. He also taught himself how to pole vaultusing bamboo poles obtained from the local carpet store.

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Hope that Google includes the "stealing wi-fi feature" with the Chevy OS for some free internet on the ride!!

The aliens are already in front of us and they are the black holes!

Seriously now, humanity and any other advanced civilisation are simply entropy maximising objects in the Universe.

Humans have moved over the course of the years from using slaves (our own bodily energy resources) to splitting the atom in a clear direction of entropy maximisation.

The natural progression would be the creation of a black hole which is the maximum entropy object in the Universe.

In view of the above, there would be no point for an advanced civilisation to go to the far-end of the universe in order to conquer earth or our galaxy - they would first gradually harvest all the adjacent energy and matter and would not go out of their way to Earth as the cost benefit analysis would come back as negative.

For these reasons I would not worry - that is exactly what is happening with the black holes that we have already detected - the aliens are gradually consuming the adjacent energy and will not bother with us until we become neighbours.

Even then, we should not worry too much as this is the fate of all the universe - if you worry too much perhaps you should consider becoming Christian or alternatively believing in any other deus ex machina dogma

Art has never been defined properly and such discussions have taken place for ages - even a toilet seat has been submitted by marcel duschamp as art -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)and artists that the time were discussing whether it is art or not.

The thing is, one distinctive characteristic of the cloudy concept of art is that, as Oscar Wilde said, all art is useless.

Human's act 99% of the time in order to survive - they sleep, eat and work.

If they waste their time in order to create something which is pleasuring or even hurting the senses, this has a sense of purposelessness, in the sense that it does not assist survivability per se - therefore it is art.

Art=the item that is being created and has no use other than to provoke the senses

Videogames are a creation and do not increase survivability in any direct manner - therefore they are "useless" and therefore art

You may not believe in those guys but fact is human' life expectancy is growing;

Source, Wikipedia:

QUOTE

The number of centenarians is increasing at 7% per year, which means doubling the centanarian population every decade, pushing it into the millions in the next few years.

Japan has the highest ratio of centenarians. In Okinawa, there are 34.7 centenarians for every 100,000 inhabitants [6].
In the United States, the number of centenarians grew from 15,000 in 1980 to 77,000 in 2000

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Tying copyright span to human life is entirely antithetical to any form of human progression - very few things will ever come into the public domain which is not very conducive to evolution - you would have to practically shoot Bono in order to be able to listen to his music after 100 years!!

Having said that, if you do not believe in Kurzweil you must be very short sighted - things are pointing towards a technological singularity, a fact predicted not by my snake oil merchants but by John von Neumann in 1958;

Source Wikipedia:

QUOTE

In 1958, Stanisaw Ulam wrote in reference to a conversation with John von Neumann:
"(...) One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. (...)"

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Stem cells, nanotechnology, protein and genomics medicine, transhumanism which is already taking place (I am communicating this message wearing a pacemaker, contact lenses and by mobile keyboard) will make us almost immortal.

I understand that this runs contrary to commonly accepted notions but the whole trend points to that direction and no other, therefore it is irrefutable-

Totally agree with parent - has anybody seriously considered the fact that with medical and technological advances average life expectancy will grow immensely, even possibly rendering a transhuman entity immortal (Kurzweil, Grossman et al) and therefore also copyright protection infinite? Humanity has better things to worry about such as quickening the time in which we will become a type II and III Kardashev civilization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale) and longer copyright protection surely is not assisting in that direction at all!!

Okay, it's not FAKE but it's completely and entirely dishonest. I can solve the rubik's cube in about 20 seconds over an average of 12 solves, so I have a thorough understanding of human speed-solving. Computers, on the other hand, would go for some idea solution that a human brain is not capable of producing. This is especially true since the robot in this video moves EXTREMELY slowly, about 1-2 turns per second on average. Human hands can EASILY sustain 3-5 moves per second. This computer, to solve the Rubik's cube in 2 seconds as in the first part of the video, or 4 seconds as in the second part of the video, would have to be able to solve the cube in 4-10 moves. The optimal solution for solving a rubik's cube has already been bounded at about 18 moves (look it up).

Still don't believe me? Start watching and replay the video from 30s onwards. Freeze the video when the timer starts at 0:00 and look at the cube, it is actually a single 90 degree rotation away from a fully solved state.

The 4s video beginning at 1:07 shows several rotations of the WHOLE CUBE without making any actual moves, then does 4 turns and solve it, which means that it wasn't anywhere near a scrambled state to begin with.

More evidence that it's fake? Is there any information on this other than a 2 minute video on youtube?

A huge paradigm shift is taking place lately with the realisation by humanity that "life" is not only organic - in fact organic life is simply an efficient thermodynamic machine and acts in exactly the same as inorganic "life" An excellent example is that plasma crystals exhibit the same properties as organic life http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/9/8/263/njp7_8_263.html Given that 99% of the universe is probably plasma as plasmas are by far the most common phase of matter in the universe, both by mass and by volume and all the stars are made of plasma, and even the space between the stars is filled with a plasma, albeit a very sparse one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)), it is most probable that organic life is simply very small part and specific type of thermodynamic machine. Nonetheless all Universe appears to be following the 2nd law of thermodynamics and humanity and organic life is simply a local iteration/mutation in the universe's attempt to obey the law, perhaps not even the most efficient one. This is the reason why we have Fermi's paradox, as we are looking to find life that is a mirror of us, whereas the universe is full of very intelligent inorganic life which even performs computations more complex than humanity at present - can you seriously stare at the remnants of Tycho's supernova with a clear mind and not think that the supernova is alive in an exotic way ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Main_tycho_remnant_full.jpg For the above reason perhaps the most efficient thermodynamic machines in the universe are not organically driven but inorganically driven like black holes which are the maximum entropy objects in the universe. In fact, is very possible, given the nature of humanity to create efficiencies in energy creation which however do not cover its needs but on the other hand create more needs for more consumption of energy, consistent with the 2nd law (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/jeff-rubins-smaller-world/why-energy-efficiency-means-higher-consumption/article1419515/), it is very possible that the logical progression of this trend is the creation of a black hole by humanity as the singular point of maximum entropy creation (could it be the CERN one?) In fact, the black holes in the universe may be "life" such as ours which may have "awakened" earlier than us and reached their "purpose" (see thermodynamic conclusion/limit) at an earlier time. Good stuff! Ntemis

Before we start lauding the Chinese for bringing this technological marvel to the world and criticizing the "west" for falling behind, perhaps we should be mindful of the fact that the only reason this is possible is because the Chinese government can walk up to your house, tell you it's no longer yours, and you have no recourse. No concern for the environmental impact, human impact, long term impact, etc. The Soviet Union's great technological leaps looked mind blowing at the time as well, and look where they are today.

It is funny how many smart slashdot geeks forget their conditional probabilities - 99.9% of Muslims may not be terrorists but 99% of terrorists trying to blow up planes are most probably Muslims. Ergo, by searching Muslims you have a higher risk of catching the terrorist rather than searching, lets say, Buddhists who board the plane. These people will also certainly have a tendency of being agitated before the flight therefore careful screening of passengers with cameras a-la casino security against cheaters plus pattern recognition software a la "lie to me" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_to_Me) could help screen many potential threats.

If the disasters don't get these guys at CERN the electricity company will definitely get them!!