By Diana Hsieh @ 1:00 PM
I've found a new musical obsession to temporarily displace my beloved Lady Gaga: Mika. (That's pronounced "me-ka.") He's an up-and-coming British pop singer. His music is super-happy-fun-complex pop -- which I love love love. I'm most myself when in a state of crazy, wild joy at the mere fact of my own fabulous existence, and I connect with that feeling with Mika's music. Oddly, Vivaldi's Violin Concertos and String Symphonies give me the same feeling. (In college, I bought the fantastic ten-disc Vivaldi Collection by Shlomo Mintz and Israel Chamber Orchestra. I still adore it.)
In this post, I'll tell you how I came to acquire Mika's albums. The story is rather awesome for hooray-for-technology reasons. However, if you hate super-happy-fun-complex pop, please don't torture yourself by hitting any of the "play" buttons below.
I first read about Mika in a post on Trey Givens' blog: Straight Privilege. The post wasn't even about his music, but instead about his sexuality. For some unknown reason, I googled him, then listened to the first track that came up: "Grace Kelly."
I liked the song quite a bit from the get-go. That's unusual for me, as I'm almost always somewhat slow to warm up to music that I like. I can tell the stuff that I don't like immediately, such as Rush.
After I decided that I wanted to buy some of his music, I checked his discography on Wikipedia, and then bought his two albums -- "Life in Cartoon Motion" and "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" -- on iTunes. Then I thanked @TreyPeden on Twitter. (Trey might not be a fan; I don't know.)
Since then, I've been listening pretty obsessively, as I always what I do with a new album that I like. Like with Lady Gaga, I enjoy every song on these two albums; that's definitely a rarity. I'd only call a handful of the albums in my rather vast collection "perfect" in that way. So far, my favorite song is "One Foot Boy":
So why is that story remarkable? Just fifteen years ago, I couldn't have done any of that. Back in those stone ages of the internet...
Blogs didn't exist.
Google didn't exist.
Lala didn't exist.
YouTube didn't exist.
Wikipedia didn't exist.
iTunes didn't exist.
Twitter didn't exist.
As depressed and worried as I often get about the direction of this country, I'm so happy that the fabulous innovators, capitalists, and workers of this country make my life so much more awesome on a regular basis.
By Diana Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
This video shows the unsung hero of the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson" -- namely the plane -- being battered by ice, then raised out of the water. On seeing it, I keep having to remind myself just how huge the plane is. I'm so impressed that something so enormous could be raised from the water at all.
Exclusive unseen time lapse video footage of the Miracle on the Hudson, US Airways flight 1549 as it is struggling to stay afloat and avoid the barrage of an ice attack. An unsung hero was the Airbus A320 which survived a crash landing, sinking and safely contained 155 Humans.
I shot these clips from a cheap compact Canon camera. The plane came to a strop outside my apartment here in NYC. Most of the footage on TV from CNN, NY Post, NBC and ABC was filmed from my apartment over those 3 days.
By Paul Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
Diana has already posted her own thoughts about the Kindle, and I wanted to note that I have a vastly more positive opinion of my Kindle DX. The Kindle DX is the larger version with a 9.7-inch screen, whereas Diana's Kindle has the smaller 6-inch screen.
For my purposes, the Kindle DX is nearly ideal. I use it mostly as a travel machine. It used to be that whenever I went on an out-of-town trip, I had to decide which 3 radiology journals and which two books to pack. But given the Kindle's storage capacity, I can load it up with dozens of books and PDF files.
I have no major complaints about the e-Ink technology. The major positives include:
1) It is very easy to read in direct sunlight (as opposed to a backlit system such as a netbook or an iPhone).
2) It draws very little power (and hence the Kindle requires infrequent recharging)
3) It's easier on the eyes than any backlit system.
The only relatively minor negatives to the e-Ink technology are:
1) The slower refresh rate when turning a page compared to a typical LCD computer screen.
2) The display is greyscale only (no color). For most books that's a non-issue. It only really affects me when looking at medical articles, which often include color illustrations.
The Kindle interface is also generally fine for my purposes. The issues that bother Diana simply aren't a significant problem for me. I don't rely on the Kindle for notetaking. Nor am I bothered by what she regards as a "Heraclitean stream of words". I'm in the process of also reading Tara Smith's book Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, and have had no problems with reading it.
The three small UI (user interface) nuisances for me are as follows:
1) The inability to sort books and PDFs into folders.
2) The absence in some (but not all) Kindle books of markers that indicate how far one is within the chapter when viewing the progress bar on the bottom of the screen. (The reader can easily tell how far along he or she is with respect to the book as a whole).
3) The inability to alter the font size in PDF files. (One can easily alter font sizes in purchased Kindle books, documents converted using the Kindle free service, or any .mobi files one creates or downloads.)
If a PDF text is too difficult to read in portrait mode, I typically rotate the Kindle 90 degrees and view the document in landscape mode. The software enlarges the file to fit the full width of the screen (which is now along the long axis of the Kindle), but then only one half of the page is visible and one has to use the Page Up/Page Down buttons to toggle back and forth between the two halves of the PDF page.
Because I have the larger Kindle DX (9.7-inch screen), rather than the smaller Kindle (6-inch screen), most PDFs are easy to read in portrait mode. Only a few require shifting to the landscape mode.
I don't use the Kindle to replace all reading of physical books at home. But when I'm away from home because I'm travelling out of town (or simply just leaving the house for a few hours but anticipate some downtime where I might want to read a book), then I routinely take my Kindle. It takes up very little space in my backpack.
I currently have over 100 books and 100 PDFs loaded onto my Kindle DX. Both categories include a mixture of work-related and recreational reading. About half of my Kindle content is free material (public domain books, PDF articles I've found online, etc).
I do think that if a company like Apple had designed the Kindle (rather than Amazon), then they would have done a better job with the user interface. But for my purposes, the drawbacks of the Kindle are relatively minor and are more than outweighed by its virtues of readability and portability.
It's simply damned cool to have nearly the entire non-fiction corpus of Rand and Peikoff in one place, along with Tara Smith, Lord of the Rings, Dune, a dozen radiology articles, a few radiology, orthopedic surgery, and emergency medicine textbooks, PDF versions of unread Objective Standard articles, classic novels from Victor Hugo and other public-domain authors, and a miscellany of purchased fiction and non-fiction books.
And although there aren't (yet) Kindle versions of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, most of Rand's greatest essays from those novels are available in For the New Intellectual, including Galt's speech, Francisco's money speech, etc.
Note: I haven't spent much time with the various Kindle competitors such as the new Barnes & Noble Nook or the various Sony Readers. But for two fairly detailed Kindle-vs-Nook reviews, see Walter Mossberg's, "Nook E-Reader Has Potential, but Needs Work" (Wall Street Journal, 12/10/2009) and David Pogue's "Not Yet the Season for a Nook" (New York Times, 12/9/2009).
The SawStop system uses electrical conductivity to tell the difference between wood and human flesh, allowing it to cut the first, but not the second. The technology is impressive, but the most jaw-dropping section of the video is the super slow-motion demonstration where the inventor places his own finger into the path of the saw to show how well it works.
I personally think that it was unnecessary risk for the inventor to take. But there is a similarity to the scene in Atlas Shrugged where Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart had sufficient confidence in their judgment to ride the first train on rails made of Rearden Metal.
More information on the technology can be found at the SawStop website.
By Paul Hsieh @ 5:00 AM
This time lapse video of "Typhoon 'Nangka' over Hong Kong" made me appreciate the power of storms -- and the power of men's ability to build cities capable of withstanding them:
The final minute when the lights of the Hong Kong come alive is especially beautiful.
Plus it made me think of Francisco d'Anconia's words to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged, Part 1, Chapter 5:
"It's a terrible night for any animal caught unprotected on that plain," said Francisco d'Anconia. "This is when one should appreciate the meaning of being a man..."
"You stood here and watched the storm with the greatest pride one can ever feel -- because you are able to have summer flowers and half-naked women in your house on a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that storm. And if it weren't for you, most of those who are here would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain..."
The so-called "Active Denial System" works by heating the outer surface of the target's skin using millimeter waves -- short wavelength microwaves. The effect is painful, but generally harmless, and forces the target to get out of the beam. ...
[The Silent Guardian] is Active Denial in a box, a 10,000-pound containerized system that can be mounted on a ship, a truck, or a fixed installation. It's got an effective range of about 250 meters. The beam has a power of around 30 kilowatts.
Unlike "Project X," this device won't kill a person. Yet it seems like just the kind of device that some statist government might like to use to control ... say ... unruly "mobs" of protesters.
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:01 PM
Paul and I have been living in the stone ages: we've not yet upgraded to high definition television. We bought a 52" set back in 2001, when HD was way too expensive. We've delayed the upgrade as prices dropped so as to get more value from that purchase. But now, with the upcoming NFL season approaching, I just can't stand it. We'd like to get another large screen -- probably about the same size. Any recommendations for buying? Any features that we definitely must have?
(Link via Chris Zeh who noted: "Now that the info is out there, I wonder if this sort of thing will happen more often. I'm just worried if zombies do attack, nobody will pay attention to the warnings ;-) ")
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:03 AM
I've just had the pleasure of reading two of Ray Niles' recent articles, one on financial regulation and one on proposed government internet regulations to guarantee "net neutrality". Both are clear and excellent applications of Objectivist principles to important and timely issues. If you have an interest in these topics (or know someone who does), these are "must reads".
Given the widespread prevalence of the "information wants to be free" viewpoint by libertarian tech types, it's refreshing to read a principled defense of property rights as applied to the issues of internet traffic and the "net neutrality" debate.
If you're not a subscriber, you can purchase a PDF of the entire piece for $4.95. But you really should be a subscriber, if you're not already.
His second piece is on the issue of financial regulations in the wake of the recent economic crisis. Here is his description (reproduced with his permission):
I am excited to announce that an article I wrote has been published in CFA Magazine, a magazine with global circulation of 100,000 that is published by CFA Institute, a finance professional organization. It is part of an "Agree / Disagree" set on the proposition: "The global market crisis calls for an expansion of regulatory oversight." I have permission to email it; if you want a copy, let me know and I will email it to you. Please feel free to re-distribute it, but do not post it in its entirety on the web.
In the article, I call for gold money and the abolition of regulatory agencies. I identify the need for government to recognize the right to life, liberty, and property. The editor featured the article as the magazine's cover story under a scary image that says, "Big Government Is Watching." In the print version of the magazine, a yellow banner also asks, "Is more regulation the answer to market woes?"
Here are the opening paragraphs. Later, I discuss the specific causes and solution to the crisis.
Regulation cannot be the solution to the financial crisis because it is the cause of the financial crisis. The only proper action for governments to take is to remove existing regulations, fully recognize property rights, and enforce already-existing laws against fraud and theft. Doing so will help our economy speedily recover and make future crises smaller and rarer.
In fact, the premise itself is misleading. "Regulatory oversight" implies that regulation is some form of law enforcement mechanism that protects the rights to life and property, akin to laws against robbery, murder, and fraud. But that is not the case. Such laws already exist on the books and should be enforced when mortgage lenders, for example, commit fraud. No new regulation is necessary to protect rights.
Instead of protecting rights, regulations violate them. A regulation is an action by a government body that intervenes in voluntary agreements between individuals. It prohibits -- before the fact -- entire classes of behavior, criminalizing that behavior even if it is voluntary and involves no compulsion or fraud. For example, a law such as the Community Reinvestment Act that forces lenders to give mortgage loans to borrowers that do not meet their credit standards violates the right of the lender to decide whether and to whom to lend its money.
To get the full version of the article, you can contact Ray directly at: "rayniles (at) rcniles (dot) com".
This would be a great article to distribute to friends, coworkers, your investment advisor, or anyone who lost money in the markets in the last 6 months (which is pretty much everyone in the Western World!)
Plus Ray's example highlights two important points:
1) Americans are interested in hearing our message. Many people know that there is something deeply wrong with the status quo, and at some level they recognize that Obama-style socialism is not the answer. But they don't know what the positive alternative is. We can offer them that. Americans are becoming increasingly receptive to our ideas. Hence, there is no better time to speak out.
2) Individuals can make a difference. I'll let Ray speak for himself if he wishes, but until relatively recently he did not engage in any kind of formal activism. But he has found subjects that were of great interest to him and chosen to write on those subjects to appropriate audiences.
The result has been two articles in The Objective Standard (one on energy policy now available for free and his more recent article on "net neutrality") as well as his article for CFA Magazine. This latter piece could reach many influential minds in the financial industry and give them the moral defense of the free market that they so badly need.
Ray Niles has clearly upped his game. And I thank him for it!
By Paul Hsieh @ 1:01 AM
Some Maryland high school students are using speed cameras to "exact revenge on people who they believe have wronged them in the past, including other students and even teachers".
High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras as a tool to fine innocent drivers in a game, according to the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. Because photo enforcement devices will automatically mail out a ticket to any registered vehicle owner based solely on a photograph of a license plate, any driver could receive a ticket if someone else creates a duplicate of his license plate and drives quickly past a speed camera. The private companies that mail out the tickets often do not bother to verify whether vehicle registration information for the accused vehicle matches the photographed vehicle.
...A speed camera is located out in front of Wootton High School, providing a convenient location for generating the false tickets. Instead of purchasing license plates, students have ready access to laser printers that can create duplicate license plates using glossy paper using readily available fonts. For example, the state name of "Maryland" appears on plates in a font similar to Garamond Number 5 Swash Italic. Once the camera flashes, the driver can quickly pull over and remove the fake paper plate. The victim will receive a $40 ticket in the mail weeks later.
These speed cameras are a technological embodiment of the flawed principle of "guilty until proven innocent". These sorts of "pranks" (and the subsequent injustices) are a predictable result of this bad approach to enforcing the law.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:43 AM
The December 17, 2008 New York Times reports on the variety of reactions that NYPD police officers have to being videotaped while performing their official public duties in this interesting article, "Officers Become Accidental YouTube Stars".
The article notes that videotaping police is entirely legal, as long as it doesn't interfere with the performance of their duties. And some police officers correctly recognize that fact:
"People tape all the time," said an eight-year veteran of the department, a female officer in Downtown Brooklyn who, like other officers questioned for this article, spoke only on the condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to reporters. "It makes you uncomfortable, but that's their right. You can't stop them from taping."
Unfortunately other NYPD officers hold the following mistaken view:
An officer directing traffic in Brooklyn asserted that it is illegal to tape police officers. "If I know that he's taking video, I'm going to walk up to him and stop him," the officer said.
Or in another encounter:
...[A] man asks an officer if he may film him, and the officer replies, "You going to post them on the Internet? Then I'm going to have to break your camera over your face." But he and other officers laugh, as does the cameraman, who eventually walks away. The video had 19,370 views as of Tuesday evening.
Provided that citizens don't interfere with official police duties, this sort of transparency is a good thing. It can protect innocent civilians from police misconduct as well as protect honest police officers from wrongful claims of misconduct.
Given that it is perfectly legal for citizens to observe and truthfully write about any actions that police officers perform in public view while "on the job", it should be (and is) similarly legal to record their official actions on video.
Note that the bicyclist was originally charged with "resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing government administration." After the video surfaced, those charges were dismissed.
By Paul Hsieh @ 6:39 PM
Here's a sign from the early 1900's telling patrons about that new-fangled electrical light. I especially liked the sentence, "The use of Electricity for lighting is in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect the soundness of sleep."
I'm sure glad we Americans in the 21st century beyond such irrational fears of new technology!...
By Diana Hsieh @ 1:37 PM
There's nothing worse than the big vertical jets of water that often populate shopping malls. They're loud -- and not interesting in the slightest. In contrast, I've seen some cool "jumping" fountains, but this fountain beats them all:
By Greg Perkins @ 1:01 AM
The Ford Hall Forum is a longstanding and prestigious platform for speakers with interesting things to say (like Objectivists Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and Yaron Brook). The Forum sent out an announcement that Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales of Wikipedia fame will be speaking on September 11 in Boston. This caught my eye, not only because I fondly remember Jimbo from Objectivisty circles many years back, but also because it advertises that he is going to talk about how "Objectivist philosophy guides his vision":
Free Speech, Free Minds, Free Markets: Competition and Collaboration
Across the globe we are building, editing, and contributing to a growing body of knowledge and tools at everyone's fingertips. Volunteers in leaderless organizations contribute to online initiatives and articles. Software developers spend their free time collaborating with complete strangers. Amazingly, these efforts are creating products of extraordinary quality, sometimes better than that of large for-profit organizations. Why do we do it? Why does it work? Join us tonight as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales joins journalist Christopher Lydon to address these questions, where "web 2.0" will take us next, and how Objectivist philosophy guides his vision.
I would love to ask some questions about how Objectivism guides his vision, but I can't be there. Maybe someone in the NoodleCaboodle could go and ask questions for us and report back! Here are the ones I am curious to hear addressed:
You refer to Wikipedia as a way to give people free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Yet Wikipedia doesn't even aim to express what is true—it is focused on documenting what people believe, carefully including all the patently silly and downright vicious things people think. That is, Wikipedia strives for neutrality rather than objectivity with regard to the truth of what is claimed. Wouldn't Objectivism inspire you to characterize Wikipedia more accurately as a vast snapshot of what people currently think, good and bad?
When you ask for contributions to Wikipedia, you seem to frame or at least decorate the appeal in altruistic terms. How does that square with the ethical egoism of Objectivism, which flatly rejects altruism as immoral?
In your appeal for contributions, you wrote that "This is a radical strike at the heart of an increasingly shallow, proprietary and anti-intellectual culture. ... I hope [my daughter] will grow up in a world where culture is free, not proprietary... We're already taking back the Internet. With your help, we can take back the world." (Emphasis added.) Just what is bad about being proprietary? Wouldn't an Objectivist be supportive of the creator who chooses to profit from the sale of his work, rather than fight against him? And "taking back" seems to imply that something was unjustly taken. The Internet is physically composed of private property (computers, connections) and wasn't taken from you; the information communicated using it wasn't taken from you, either. Wouldn't Objectivism inspire clarifying and reinforcing the intellectual and physical property rights involved—including how they recognize and foster a deep harmony of interests—rather than this talk of "taking back" something that wasn't taken in the first place?
You recently announced your launch of a Green Wiki. That site explains, "In light of the climate crisis and other ecological challenges increasingly facing us," that it hopes to serve the "people who want to inform themselves and live in a more sustainable way," because "the threats to our environment are real and that they require action." It will be "written from a green point of view," and will focus on detailing such helpful actions as "How to reduce your carbon footprint." How can this initiative of yours be informed by Objectivism, which repudiates the Environmentalist movement as epistemologically, morally, and politically corrupt?
Obviously, I don't understand how Jimbo's actions can be reconciled with Objectivist principles, so I'm surprised to hear that he thinks the philosophy guides his vision. It would be great to see how he addresses this.
By Paul Hsieh @ 1:28 PM
Is there a need for a "Black Google"? According to this article, there is.
In a free market, specialty search engines could be entirely reasonable and appropriate if there is a demand for such a service. For instance, a search engine catering towards physicians might properly give different sorts of results than a search engine catering towards patients.
But the business model would only succeed if there were a subpopulation that had distinctive and significantly different search engine results preferences from the population at large, and the business could get them to become dominant users of their alternative search engine.
Otherwise you end up with problems like this:
Since search engines learn from what people are clicking on, RushmoreDrive had a small problem immediately after its launch: So many white members of the media were visiting the site that the results became skewed and turned up more "white" results...
The article also struck an odd note when it stated that Google's search results "alienate the rest of the population" (i.e., the non-caucasians). It's not clear to me that the term "alienate" is warranted.
For what it's worth, Jason Fortuny aka"Weev" (the featured troll in the article) has explicitly stated that he believes we are living in a simulation. I'll leave it an an exercise for the reader to decide if/how that philosophy shapes his actions.
By Greg Perkins @ 6:37 PM
I just love to learn about how people are using their brains and turning important problems inside out to slam-dunk in some novel way.
Try this on for size: they have produced genetically-modified organisms that "feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw [...and] excrete crude oil." Isn't that outrageously cool? So much for the "finite supply of fossil fuels."
Oh, and the guys pulling this off have a nice angle aimed at those who are out to destroy industrial civilization:
What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy -- as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel - they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this "Oil 2.0" will not only be renewable but also carbon negative -- meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.
So if they go big with this, we get to enjoy the resulting cognitive dissonance in the guys who consider the invention of the internal combustion engine the low point of human history. Sweet.
By Paul Hsieh @ 11:52 AM
There have been a couple of recent articles on extending the concept of private property into outer space. One is from the May 18, 2008 Boston Globe entitled "My Space", and one is from the June 2008 issue of Popular Mechanics entitled "Who Owns the Moon? The Case for Lunar Property Rights". (Both links via Instapundit.)
Here are a couple of noteworthy quotes from the Boston Globe article:
There's a variety of opinion as to how extensive extraterrestrial property rights should be - whether to allow, for example, the outright buying and selling of land, or whether to forbid ownership and instead rely on leases, trusts, and easements - but there's nonetheless a growing consensus that some form of space property is inevitable and necessary.
..."Property rights will provide the only economic incentive that will possibly justify entrepreneurial space exploration," says Alan Wasser, chairman of the Space Settlement Institute and the former CEO of the National Space Society.
One can legitimately debate the merits of the various proposals to apply the concept of "property rights" to this new realm. But I'm glad that the discussion is at last beginning.
Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property—by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort.
The precise and proper application of the concept of property rights to new areas may require some hard intellectual work. For instance, the guidelines for the airwaves are different than for real estate. Similarly, the rules for intellectual property in the era of easy internet dissemination of MP3's may be different than the rules for tangible objects. But as long as men need to think and use their minds in order to create the values necessary for life, the broad principles and justifications for property rights will always apply.
The Panama Canal Authority website states, "The history of the construction of the Panama Canal is the saga of human ingenuity and courage: years of sacrifice, crushing defeat, and final victory. Many gave their life in the effort. Follow the story from the early days of the French construction period, to the completion by the United States, and into the present time."
More details of the history of this amazing creation can be found here. And of course there's a Wikipedia article.
By Diana Hsieh @ 11:09 AM
You'll learn more about elevators than you ever wanted to know in this New Yorker article: Up and Then Down. The article includes the story of Nicholas White, who was trapped for 41 hours without any food or water in an elevator. It's pretty horrific, if you concretely imagine what that would be like. You can even help your imagination by watching this time-lapse video of him stuck in the elevator.
I ride the elevators at CU Boulder pretty frequently. Kate accompanies me teach my classes at CU Boulder every Tuesday and Thursday. (She's perfectly well-behaved, she needs the exercise, and she loves to come with me.) She's too old and creaky to go up and down the stairs, so we take the elevators. After reading that article, though, I'll never ride an elevator again without a working cell phone!
Intel has found a way to stretch a Wi-Fi signal from one antenna to another located more than 60 miles away.
Intel has announced plans to sell a specialized Wi-Fi platform later this year that can send data from a city to outlying rural areas tens of miles away, connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet. The wireless technology, called the rural connectivity platform (RCP), will be helpful to computer-equipped students in poor countries, says Jeff Galinovsky, a senior platform manager at Intel. And the data rates are high enough--up to about 6.5 megabits per second--that the connection could be used for video conferencing and telemedicine, he says.
The RCP, which essentially consists of a processor, radios, specialized software, and an antenna, is an appealing way to connect remote areas that otherwise would go without the Internet, says Galinovsky. Wireless satellite connections are expensive, he points out. And it's impractical to wire up some villages in Asian and African countries. "You can't lay cable," he says. "It's difficult, expensive, and someone is going to pull it up out of the ground to sell it."
...Importantly, the devices require relatively little power. Running two or three radios in a link, Galinvosky says, requires about five to six watts. This makes it possible to power the radios using solar energy.
Nuclear "batteries" are nothing new. Energy from a fist-size lump of plutonium has powered the Voyager spacecraft for 25 years. And tiny specks of the stuff kept pacemakers ticking for decades. Now, Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) is developing a nuclear battery capable of powering a town. The size of a hot tub, it can put out more than 25 megawatts for five years, enough to run 25,000 homes.
Building on technology developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Santa Fe (N.M.) startup's battery runs on uranium hydride, which acts as fuel and also regulates power output, making it virtually impossible for the battery to suffer a meltdown. With no moving parts to break or corrode, HPG's batteries can be buried in the earth for added security and safety. Their small size makes them easy to install and, later, to remove and refuel, cutting out the need to handle radioactive materials on site.
HPG plans to sell its first units to towns and industrial operations not connected to the grid. The company estimates lifetime costs for its battery will be a fraction of the price to build and run a natural gas plant with the same capacity. Backed by venture capital from Altira, HPG could have its batteries ready in six years.
Obviously this changes the merits of that particular lawsuit. (It doesn't change the error of the Sony lawyer Jennifer Pariser's statements also cited in the WaPo story.)
=====
I am a firm believer in intellectual property rights, including copyright. However, when the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) takes ridiculously wrong legal positions in their supposed "defense" of copyright, it merely confuses and alienates honest consumers. A recent article in the Washington Post summarizes some of the statements that recording industry lawyers have made condemning the entirely legitimate practice of taking a music CD that one has legally purchased and transferring a copy onto one's own home computer or MP3 player for personal use (i.e., not for widespread distribution to others):
In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.
...The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.
But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.
To make things worse, the RIAA used to explicitly endorse the practice they are now condemning. A few years ago, they stated on their official website (and still available via the Web Archive):
If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.
But that language has since then been removed from their current website.
The danger is that when an organization like the RIAA overstates its case by making such egregiously bad claims about intellectual property rights, it merely undercuts the validity of the concept in the average readers' minds. An average consumer might easily (and with some partial justification) conclude, "If 'copyright' means that I can't listen to my own legally-purchased album on my own iPod, then screw it - I won't respect copyrights!"
Of course, the correct approach to combating illegal and immoral "file sharing" of copyrighted material is not to make a bogus defense of property rights, but to make a genuine principled defense that incorporates the relevant technological facts about these issues.
For instance Dr. Leonard Peikoff's briefly discusses this issue on his website (in the entry dated April 12, 2007), and arrives at a better conclusion, based on the distinction between form and content:
Q: On Copyrights:
1. Under a proper capitalist government, if you buy CDs where the only contract term is "Copyright, All Rights Reserved," would it be legal--and moral--to copy those CDs, that one has already bought and paid for, to one's own iPod?
A: First, a caveat: I have not thought much about issues in the philosophy of law. So some of the following is only my best ideas given limited knowledge.
I agree with your earlier general statement that creators have a moral right to set whatever conditions they want, rational or otherwise, in regard to the use of their property. As you say: "copyright owners have the right to control the act of copying as such. In support of this is the idea that their property rights cannot be limited, and that the copyright owners created the value of the music in the first place."
However, if you ask me what is the rational policy in this issue, my answer involves a distinction between form and matter -- i.e., changing the medium or organization of a purchased work in order to make its content more conveniently accessible to the buyer; vs. duplicating the purchased work (which is what I myself call "copying"). E.g., scanning OPAR into your computer in order to adjust the font vs. making a copy of the purchased book, so that you have two of the very books on sale in the store. I regard the first as, in essence, a transfer of content already paid for, and thus justified; while the second is unjustified: if you buy a book, you are not and should not be authorized to become a manufacturer of it, whether of 1 or 1,000 more copies.
The same applies to CDs. I think you have a right to transfer the content to an iPod, or to transfer excerpts from different CDs onto one CD; but I do not think you have a right to "copy" them in the sense of manufacturing duplicates of the original CDs.
I believe Dr. Peikoff's position is essentially correct, and that form-content distinction is an important one.
There are some interesting side issues that he didn't address that might be worthy of further analysis. For instance, does creating a physical backup copy of a CD of music or software that one has legitimately purchased (purely as a precaution in case that the original is accidentally damaged or destroyed) count as "manufacturing" in the sense that he means? Provided that one keeps that backup copy in a safe place unused (as opposed to giving/selling it to others for their use), I think this would be legitimate. Most software producers allow or even encourage this practice, and I think it would be a reasonable practice for musical content as well.
Similarly, does burning a duplicate physical copy of a music CD so that one can keep one copy in the upstairs music CD player and a second copy downstairs or in one's car (again purely for personal use as opposed to giving/selling to others) count as "manufacturing"? Also, is the intended user (i.e., personal use vs. giving/selling to others) the critical distinction as well? I freely admit that I don't have fully worked out positions on some of these questions of how best to apply the broad principle of copyright to specific scenarios in this era of easy digital duplication and dissemination.
Overall, I think Dr. Peikoff is on the right track with this type of analysis, and this is the correct approach to take, rather than the concrete-bound approach of the RIAA ("copying" = "stealing") which merely undercuts respect for property rights.
I would love to see more work by Objectivists on the nature and proper justification of intellectual property rights, such as Greg Perkins' essay, "Don't Steal This Article!" or Ayn Rand's own "Patents and Copyrights" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Michigan State law professor Adam Mossoff has also written a number of articles on intellectual property available on SSRN. More such work would be a welcome contribution to the often-contentious and confused discussions in the mainstream media about these important issues.
1. "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.
2. "We will never make a 32 bit operating system." -- Bill Gates
3. "Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company ..." -- a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.
4. "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States." -- T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).
5. "To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." -- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926
6. "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." -- New York Times, 1936.
7. "Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible." - Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.
8. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.
9. "There will never be a bigger plane built." -- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people
10. "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." -- Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
11. "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy during World War II, advising President Truman on the atomic bomb, 1945.[6] Leahy admitted the error five years later in his memoirs
12. "The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." -- Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.
13. "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932
14. "The cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage." -- Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916
15. "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad." -- The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
16. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
17. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).
18. "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." -- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.
19. "I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea." -- HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.
20. "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.
21. "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous." -- Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.
22. "How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense." -- Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, 1800s.
23. "Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." -- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).
24. "Home Taping Is Killing Music" -- A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.
25. "Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan." -- Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.
26. "[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." -- Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
27. "When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it." - Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson
28. "Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as 'railroads' ... As you may well know, Mr. President, 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed." -- Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).
29. "Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." -- Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.
30. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?" -- Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter's call for investment in the radio in 1921.
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