digital ?= free

Have you seen these ads on some DVDs, mixed in with the trailers/previews, that say, "You wouldn't steal a car," "You wouldn't steal a TV," etc.? There's a fundamental difference between stealing physical objects and making copies of movies, music, and software: The individual is not removing the material from the owner who paid. It's more like listening to the radio or taking notes in class than stealing a car. I don't really know how to feel about it, morally. For most of my life, I've taken the mixed position that it's okay to do this sort of copying occasionally, but not with material that I use frequently. A combination of the U2 incident, the current state of the global economy, and ubuntu (linux) has brought the issue to mind again, and I'm thinking about it at a slightly different angle.

The creators of music, movies, and software, should be compensated for their work, but no one should be required to pay for it. Can't we have it both ways? Consider the internet: google (and all of its projects, like gmail), youtube, facebook, and of course, the software needed to use the internet: firefox, shockwave, flash, quicktime, silverlight, (moonlight), countless firefox add-ons... all FREE, and yet no one loses. The creators are compensated, but no one is required to pay. GIMP is free; Picasa is free, ubuntu is free--an entire OPERATING SYSTEM that rivals, or defeats, windows and mac, depending on the application. i get most of my world news from the internet, for free. It's very confusing, morally. It makes musicians and movie actors/directors/producers seem greedy. Why do they charge me and mozilla doesn't? What's the difference between free and non-free content?

Well, ads provide revenue for some people providing free content, but not everyone. Google sells user behavior data. What else? What am I missing here?

(p.s. perhaps i'm greedy for wanting to own music, movies, and software. radio, television, and internet provide all of these things for free in some fashion. but that's a tangential discussion....)

"People would like to see a hairy elephant."

-George Church, director of computational genomics at Harvard Medical School

Looks like scientists can extract most of a woolly mammoth's genome from frozen hair found in Siberian permafrost, so it's conceivable that they could create a living woolly mammoth or a hybrid woolly elephant in the next 10-20 years. Just think of the implications.... They could remake those computer-animated Ice Age movies with live animals!

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2008-11-19-mammoth-dna_N.htm

Now What?

"Six ways Obama can show he'll be a different kind of president."

I especially like #3: "Work without pay."

http://www.slate.com/id/2203761/pagenum/all/

B.O.

I'm glad Obama's going to be our next president. I actually found his acceptance speech somewhat inspiring. No US president has ever inspired me before.

fantastic contraption

http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=3688163

"Let's Make a Deal" Riddle

I'm pretty sure most everyone is wrong about the "Let's Make a Deal" riddle. Have you heard this one? Check it out if you haven't, and just think on it for a while. I maintain that there is no advantage to switching doors after the host opens one of the doors. It's abuse of probability mathematics. In reality, your choice before the host opens a door has no consequence. Your choice after the host opens a door is the only one that matters, and that choice is 50/50. Please enlighten me if I am being a complete fool.

UPDATE: I like this guy's explanation, if you insist on cohering the first and second choices. Since the host will always pick a goat, it's as though there were only 2 doors available in the first place: 1 with a goat, and 1 with a car. The 3rd choice is only an illusion. Let's try this with 4 doors, labeled @, #, *, and Q. 25%, 25%, 25%, and 25%. Then, Monty opens @ and *, revealing a cardboard cut-out of Michael Richards and a poorly-drawn portrait of Snoopy. Now, take into account that the desired prize is behind door #. Your chances of picking Q were no greater than your chances of picking # in the beginning. It was 25% and 25%. Therefore, at this stage of the game, you are no more likely to have chosen the losing door than the prize door (50/50), and your next choice is 50/50 as well. Lots of good discussion here, along with plenty of bogus conclusions.

UPDATE 2 (the last): Ah, here are some people with empirical evidence proving me wrong, and an interesting statement from someone as stubborn as I am. My head is still spinning....