It has to do with not only counterfeiting, but with poaching competitors trademarked search keywords to drive traffic to their site instead of the relevant trademark, and with the use of patented digital technology in their own underground modified software applications.
Its a very complex, expensive, unwieldy and time-consuming effort for an ISP or search engine to undertake in order to comply with the DMCA. Shifting the responsibility for some of this expense to the sites that continually offer these questionable products is only fair.
I work in Intellectual Property. I welcome this bill, as it would make my job of enforcing DMCA regulations a lot easier.
Its all well and good to say this is violating First Amendment Rights. It's not your revenue going to shoddy Chinese mock-ups instead of your brand. This is the first round in what will become a world-wide trade war as countries who don't recognize patents and trademarks are forced to comply with International Law instead of using their rogue status to scam the rest of us or engage in illicit commerce.
As far as Youtube and the rest go. Reactive compliance is not enough. If you can't spend the money to hire people to proactively screen uploads, your service shouldn't be available to people who are actively seeking to circumvent the DMCA. There's freedom, and there's freedom. Your freedom stops at the end of my nose, and that includes my wallet.
Rats and fleas And base disease The rede of pain And loss and gain The tired, lonely Ghostly whispers Through the musty Dusty pillars of A silent outdoor Mausoleum as the Season slowly turns And red hunters moon Flares above a broken Bower, flowers dead and Wilting, a windmill Slowly tilting, Crows cry, the winds sigh The light in mill As creak, The sill creeps slowly Window wide A walking corpses' face peeks Out into the night, A Nightmare and a sight, And moans the ages into space, Who? the owl says in reply, And the wizard walks away, Another devil's day, Waving,grinning demom, Not St. Nick, But rather, another Nick indeed, Saying...
Lately I've been thinking of taking some Lee Oskar replacement plates and machining a custom brass comb for it. I'm not sure how brass would perform in a comb, but one of my friends swears by it.
Taxes have gone beyond what they were in the beginning of our country (the US, that is). The whole reason this country exists is because people were fed up with exorbitant taxes being levied by the Crown without any representation. Yet, is it any different today?
We have a Federal Government that spends our money on extremely unpopular programs (e.g.: National Healthcare) without paying any heed to the opinions of the citizens that pay the funds to finance these programs. Is this moral?
So, ultimately it is a semantic war. What is considered a conspiracy when a group of private citizens collaborate in secret is termed National Security when public servants engage in the same activities.
One government's "morality" is another mans moral outrage, and you can plaster PC labels all over it to cover up the truth, but ultimately, you can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig. The federal government has turned into the largest organized crime racket in the world, extorting "protection" from its citizens in exchange for the illusion of freedom...
So these governments that have been "cheated" out of their protection payoffs are at odds with Liechtenstein's government? Sounds like a Mafia turf war to me. As usual, the little guy is who will suffer...
What about those parents who home-school because they don't want their children exposed to the level of daily violence associated with gang activity and class conflict in the public system? Are they being narrow-minded and irrational because they want to protect their children? Public school systems are over-crowded and under-funded, making them dangerous to the students and to the faculty.
The liberals don't want to address that. They want to protect the so-called "right" of illegals to participate in a system of entitlements without paying their fair share into it. We pay thousands of extra tax dollars to create bilingual lesson plans for the sake of educating people who aren't even legally entitled to the service in any language.
True education is placed on the sacrificial block for the sake of PC agendas that care nothing about teaching and everything about indoctrination into the liberal socialist mind-set so our socialist masters can "educate" a new generation of "comrades".
So much for the land of the free, and the home of the brave. Now we are the land of the indoctrinated and the home of the cowardly.
I'm excited about this research. As Isaac Asimov has been quoted saying, "I will believe anything, given enough evidence." If IONS can eventually prove the non-local nature of consciousness, then we are moving toward a science that will have tools to explore what is currently known as the "paranormal". If consciousness is energy, and obeys the laws of conservation, then it is reasonable to infer that a lot of things that currently are unexplainable will have evidence to back it up.
Do you believe in ghosts? Tell me, do you believe in yourself? We cannot weigh consciousness, at least, not currently.
After having just finished reading "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown, I am even more proud to be an American. For, while we are in a world of hurt currently, the ideas in this book that represent the foundations of this country and its destiny impress me and give me hope for the future.
Dan Brown mentions Noetic Sciences in this book, and for anyone who is interested, the following is the home site for IONS, the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
And what, you may ask, is The Institute of Noetic Science?
" The Institute of Noetic Sciences, founded in 1973 by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research, education, and membership organization whose mission is advancing the science of consciousness and human experience to serve individual and collective transformation. “Noetic” comes from the Greek word nous, which means “intuitive mind” or “inner knowing.” IONS conducts, sponsors, and collaborates on leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness, exploring phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor.
The Institute’s primary program areas are consciousness and healing, extended human capacities, and emerging worldviews. The specific work of the Institute includes the following:
* Sponsorship of and participation in original research and publication of articles in peer-reviewed journals * Application of findings into educational products and trainings * A monthly membership program that includes weekly teleseminars with global thought leaders, product and workshop discounts, and the quarterly periodical The Noetic Post * Presentation and cosponsorship of regional and international workshops and conferences * The hosting of residential seminars and workshops at EarthRise, our on-campus retreat facility, located on 200 acres thirty miles north of San Francisco with facilities for up to 120 people * Supporting a global network of self-organizing community groups" -
"God does not play dice with the universe..." is not a statement where the use of the word God implies belief. Al was upset with the subjectivity of quantum mechanics probability matrices. His view was that there was an objective, deterministic level at which reality does not depend on an observer in order to be other than potential.
God did not say, "Let there be light." If quantum physics is correct, God said, "Let there be the possibility of light, and let the observer interpret what that light means, and why."
Notwithstanding Einsteins actual belief or disbelief, he was upset that determinism was thrown out like the baby with the bathwater of classical physical theory. Natural philosophy became yet another soft-science with the advent of a participatory universe, and he refused to reconcile the loss of his paradigms with the new non-local, non-dualistic one.
He would strive to the end of his days to prove his denial was based on something he just wasn't seeing, rather than believe that he was looking for something that just wasn't there. Sorta like invisible purple unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters. And global warming as a direct function of the global population of pirates.
But the beat goes on as people insist on their version of the purple unicorn, and insist that it is our job to prove that invisible, well-endowed equines do not, in fact exist.
It could equally be said that the existence of the sky proves the existence of Zeus or Odin, depending on which revelatory source you cite, as well as the other finer aspects of nature personified as various other deities within these respective pantheons. To cite reality as a tautological proof of the existence of Yahweh is a logical fallacy of equal disrepute as citing reality as proof of Zeus or Poseidon.
This isn't about me. Stop trying to change the subject. I'm not going to be a straw-man to hang bogus principles on. Address the quality of your own ignorance, before you begin to seek to remedy mine.
Still insisting that illegal immigration is a turd that can be picked up by the clean end eh? Your neighborhood isn't a major pipeline for the cartels, with miles of tunnels dug every day for mules to bring dope across the border, so you're defending all this on the basis of principal and partisan position rather than any personal experience of the really real political realities that are involved...
I'd tell you to shut up and drink your koolaid, but it appears you've had an overdose.
I've been several times. Unlike most Ren-Faires, SCA events span a few days, and are like period camping trips with both Daytime & Night-time activities. War College during the day (combat practice and tournies) along with tech presentations (everything from needle-point to blacksmithing) and merchant booths.
At night there are big parties with period music, Tablero tournaments, and period plays put on by thespians in period costumes.
That's just the public events. Certain clans also have clan feasts, tournies, and political honor presentations as leadership and stewardship of various clan activities are decided or change hands.
Altogether SCA events are superior to any Ren-faire I've ever been to. For a few days its actually like living in the period.
So you think you're a Romeo playing a part in a picture-show Take the long way home Take the long way home Cos you're the joke of the neighborhood Why should you care if you're feeling good Take the long way home Take the long way home But there are times that you feel you're part of the scenery all the greenery is comin' down, boy And then your wife seems to think you're part of the furniture oh, it's peculiar, she used to be so nice. When lonely days turn to lonely nights you take a trip to the city lights And take the long way home Take the long way home You never see what you want to see Forever playing to the gallery You take the long way home Take the long way home And when you're up on the stage, it's so unbelievable, unforgettable, how they adore you, But then your wife seems to think you're losing your sanity, oh, calamity, is there no way out? Does it feel that you life's become a catastrophe? Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy. When you look through the years and see what you could have been oh, what might have been, if you'd had more time. So, when the day comes to settle down, Who's to blame if you're not around? You took the long way home You took the long way home...........
Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is often misunderstood. The words "parallel universe" give a mistaken impression of what is really going on. Parallel is a word that generates an image of multiple lanes on a highway, and that it might be possible to find some way of changing lanes. But in Everett's interpretation that is not actually the case.
In neurology, metallurgy, and crystallography, there is a structure known as a dendrite, deriving from the Greek dendron, or "tree". This means that growth of a structure occurs at acute to right angles of the primary axis and that once a divergence occurs there will be tertiary intersections, but all primary and secondary axes will forever be separate.
And in quantum mechanics, evolved into string and then most currently M-theory, this all occurs in 11 dimensions, not just 3 or 4. The true implications of Everett's interpretation are truly mind-boggling, especially from the perspective of the laws of conservation. If energy and thus mass are infinite, why do dimensions exist at all? There is a lack of symmetry here yet to be be explained?
This sort of image can explain alot of so-called mystical or paranormal phemomenon, most significantly Synchronicity. A primary universe doesn't exist, just a lot of shadows of shadows of shadows.
Especially after tampering with nuclear forces during the dawn of the Atomic Age. The quantum is like Pandora's box. Once its opened, its too late to change it. The Cat is out of the Box now.
There is no such thing as ever going home again. Once a choice is made, the lane we are in the multiverse is the reality of that choice, and that is the price of being a time-traveller every day.
There are more things on heaven and earth than are dream't of in any of your philosophies. Spiritual but not religious to me is the recognition of the unseen and unknowable nature of the universe without the need for some holy book to tell you what it all means.
Un-natural? Do you mean supernatural? Un-natural implies a negation of nature, whereas supernatural implies rules outside of nature.
In either case, science is concerned with natural philosophy, not the mumbo-jumbo that the priest class insist is their sole demesne. Whether you classify this as "un-natural", "supernatural", "paranormal" or "quasi-significant" the answer will have to be no in my case.
"Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?" "Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." - The Roving Mind (1983), Isaac Asimov
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. - Essay "The “Threat” of Creationism" Isaac Asimov, New York Times Magazine, 14 June 1981 reprinted Science and Creationism (1984); M. F. Ashley Montagu (Editor) .
I think there's a difference between being thick-skinned and learning not to take things personal. I mean, things people say about me might hurt if they actually knew who I was, but since they don't, they can't, in truth, make a comment that hurts unless they do it by sheer accident.
I know who I am. I know what I do and why I do it. If people infer things about me that are incorrect, or perhaps skewed by who they are, then I'm not responsible for their feelings.
Any attempt to make me responsible for their feelings exhibits an even more profound ignorance of me than can be construed from the general ignorance of being a far-away stranger limited by a textual format of exchange.
Do not equate kindness with weakness. Strength of character is not something based on my height or weight or overall attractiveness. At the end of the day, when everyone logs off, I still have to live with me. Thick-skinned, maybe. Maybe not. Comfortable in that skin, no matter what the thickness, definitely.
Whatever you resist persists. The more energy you pour into resisting something negative in your life, the stronger the attachment to that karma you create, and the more permanent it seems to be.
Energy flows, and by adding resistance to the flow, we dam the natural procession of yin and yang into our life. The result is stagnation, and we are left exhausted from our struggle against a tide that is as transient as it is inevitable, and we wonder why, despite all our efforts, nothing ever seems to change.
There is a Zen Koan that, in a river, nobody can ever step on the same piece of water twice. Well, if the river is stagnant from the natural flow being blocked, the same piece of water can be stepped on, again, and again, and again.
Patience is key. And dignity. Rome was not built in a day, and nothing ever comes easy. Nor do things often come hard. Sometimes they just come, when they're good and ready, and not a damn second before.
Galactic_bodhi Forum Posts (9,196)
RE: All Americans: Where's your First Amendment now???
It has to do with not only counterfeiting, but with poaching competitors trademarked search keywords to drive traffic to their site instead of the relevant trademark, and with the use of patented digital technology in their own underground modified software applications.Its a very complex, expensive, unwieldy and time-consuming effort for an ISP or search engine to undertake in order to comply with the DMCA. Shifting the responsibility for some of this expense to the sites that continually offer these questionable products is only fair.