Apr 18 2012: I don't think that would answer the questions at all. I think that would make the questions more pertinent, and more confused. I think they would then become one question : Why did you make us all so confused? What did you expect us to gain from the constant questing? The Bible, read cover to cover, is stunningly contradictory of itself.
Even if science did prove God, it wouldn't answer the question of where God originated.
Apr 18 2012: I suspect that we simply don't recognize the evidence as evidence. Don't all the elements that make up Earth exist in space? And don't they exist on Earth because they came from stars that exploded long ago, which then coalesced and slowly formed Earth? So isn't it possible that every element we identify is actually alien crematory dust - evidence of other lifeforms?
For countless years, early man had no idea there was any other man-form on earth. People in China didn't know there were people in Russia, etc. Even once we expanded and habitually traveled Europe and the Far East, we had no idea Aborigines or Native Americans existed. Five hundred years ago, the Earth was flat and ended at Iceland. It is, to me, no surprise that we don't recognize evidence of alien lifeforms. We barely recognize humanity.
Apr 18 2012: Neurons have neuron consciousness. So small compared to ours that we don't see it, as our consciousness is so small to whatever is as many levels above us as we are above neurons. Honestly, I think everything has consciousness in its way. We are so different from everything else - a rock, for example - that we simply can't comprehend the world from a rock's viewpoint. A year in rock-awareness might be eons to us, yet the rock might still measure time and we would never know. Somehow we assume that everything must think like us, feel as we feel, experience time in the same way as we do, or it can't be conscious. Wouldn't it be funny if the rocks considered us as nothing more than leaves in the wind? And to neurons, we were akin to antimatter - suspected, but not yet located.
Apr 18 2012: It is weird to 'hear' my beliefs in your words, but there they are. I feel this is correct - we are a small part of the larger being, who is a small part of the larger being, ad infinitum. Bit we are also the god-body to the smaller parts that make up our bodies, ad infinitum. We are connected to everything, part of everything, and only in our self-absorption do we misplace that connection.
Apr 18 2012: Most artists create because they are artists.
Recording artists didn't make money off the recordings, they made money off touring and t-shirts. The writers make a little off each play and each recording, the studios made/make most of the money.
Painters and sculptors make money off the original works, and some also profit from licensing, but most aren't involved in licensing.
Inventors make money off the original sale of patents, or off royalties derived from patents during the life (17 yrs) of the patent.
Yes, some money is lost to pirating. Most products, whether creative or not, have a limited life-expectancy. There is a specific time frame in which you can expect to profit from the work before others either improve upon it or copy it. Imagine if no one were allowed to create a new kind of soda because Coke owned the rights. No one could ever make any kind of cola. Every carbinated drink after the first one is derivative. You can watch a random movie, then go back in history and find one that is similar. Read any book, there are others like it.
I wonder how the copyright holders would feel if they got sued because someone else used the phrase I love you in a song before they did? Or named a character Mary in a book first, or used a red dress in a movie first?
The 'mineminemine' clutching is excessive. Don't pass my work off as your own, but if it inspires you to create something, I find that to be high praise. If you also choose to use part of my work in yours, please give me credit - at least link to the original or mention my name. But unless you outright steal the work, I'm cool with sharing.
Apr 18 2012: Anne, audiences at TED talks are predominately liberal. Lessig is making the point that the label "republican" is in the way. He's trying to show the audience that the divide is not nearly as great as people perceive it to be. In my mind, politics is a round table. You can't have a dialog if everyone is in a line, it has to be a circle. Well, the right-wingers and the left-wingers are both so far from the center that they are sitting in one another's laps. There really is not that much difference between them, and both are so far from the 'average' that most people dismiss them completely. (A mistake, as extremism is often dangerous.)
He made the very good point that democrats are just as restrictive as republicans. Had it not been for the public involvement in petitioning our politicians to defeat SOPA/PIPA, they would have passed. One side was protecting their monetary interests (stock owners), the other was protecting their campaign finance base (entertainment donations to politicians) and neither was doing anything for our personal freedoms.
Apr 18 2012: Franco, copyright applies to creative works. Patents apply to science, medicine, processes, etc. That is why generic drugs can be made after a certain time frame (17 years), why eventually all disposible pens have a little air hole, and why there are 40000 brands of clear adhesive tape in the store. A vaccine would be covered under patent law. It used to be that copyright ended with your demise, then it was death +20 years, now it is death +50 years. That's nuts. I can allow 20 years, so your heirs don't lose everything the moment you die, but restricting usage until everyone who was alive while you were producing is also dead is excessive.
Apr 18 2012: Anne,
To a certain extent, owners of the original work can protest the usage of the work in a contradictory manner. However, that is protected as parody, which is a form of satire. In a weird way, this gives the originator the opportunity to promote what they stand for. In most cases, the negative usage ends up doing more to promote the original, it brings new attention to the original.
Parody is fair use. Using snippets to illustrate a point is fair use. I can quote from a book, as long as I give credit to the author and cite the book. I can use a few lines from a song to illustrate a point, but I must give full credit to the writer/performer/publisher of that song. In the case of mashups, in my opinion, using a few seconds of film or song is okay. Using the whole soundtrack? That goes beyond fair usage. It might be derivative - if your pictures illustrated the song in such a way as to give it new meaning. There is a wonderful mashup I have heard that combines Don't Worry Be Happy (McFerrin), with Over The Rainbow(Kamakawiwo’ole) and I'm Yours (Mraz). This is original, even though it fully uses three other works. It introduced me to Kamakawiwo’ole, and may well have introduced new audiences to all three artists. Under fair use, I don't think this mashup would fair well, yet it is an excellent example of why we need to find a way to soften the copyright laws to allow this type of creativity.
Using the full work, such as was done in the relocations of the song example in the video, is not fair use. The owner has to protest that usage to protect their copyright, which is probably counter-productive from a profit standpoint. The more personally people feel a song, the more likely they are to buy it. Seeing the videos done in their own city or state is likely to increase sales.Technically, any band that plays a cover of a popular song in a performance they profit from, is violating copyright. Yet without that, many artists wouldn't be as popular or profitable.
Mar 4 2012: A universal language will evolve naturally if it serves its users. As the world becomes more accessible - through innovations like the internet - language will evolve to fulfill the needs of communication. The mingling of languages will create something akin to a universal language.
Mar 4 2012: English is baffling because it is a conglomeration of all the other languages. Pedi and Podi both mean feet because they came from different languages originally - one is Greek, the other Latin. English, like any living language, takes on useful words where it finds them. English also tends to make up new words as needed. You can strip away all the things you find confusing, and in a few years new confusing elements will arise because that is the nature of a living language.
If you can't explain to your son why a podiatrist might recommend a pedicure, visit the dictionary where the root origins are explained. The Oxford English Dictionary is a wonderful resource, available online, at your local library, and in condensed form for a few hundred dollars. It is worth every penny to a word lover like me. Other dictionaries are less extensive, but will probably cover every word a school child will encounter. Unless he reads Heinlein and comes across occifloccinihilipilificatrix, which is how I met the OED!
English has a specific word for anything you can imagine. The level of precision possible in English isn't possible in a simpler language and the level of complication in English exists because it serves the needs of its users. Someone else responded saying English is widespread because the Brits and Americans spread out so much. Actually, English was complicated 1000 years ago. Angles, Saxons, Normans, Vikings, Celts, and even Romans kept invading Britain. That is where English got its habit of taking useful words from other languages and where it developed the complexity that you find frustrating today.
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A reply on Talk: Questions no one knows the answers to
Even if science did prove God, it wouldn't answer the question of where God originated.
A reply on Talk: Questions no one knows the answers to
For countless years, early man had no idea there was any other man-form on earth. People in China didn't know there were people in Russia, etc. Even once we expanded and habitually traveled Europe and the Far East, we had no idea Aborigines or Native Americans existed. Five hundred years ago, the Earth was flat and ended at Iceland. It is, to me, no surprise that we don't recognize evidence of alien lifeforms. We barely recognize humanity.
A reply on Talk: Questions no one knows the answers to
A reply on Talk: Questions no one knows the answers to
A reply on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix
Recording artists didn't make money off the recordings, they made money off touring and t-shirts. The writers make a little off each play and each recording, the studios made/make most of the money.
Painters and sculptors make money off the original works, and some also profit from licensing, but most aren't involved in licensing.
Inventors make money off the original sale of patents, or off royalties derived from patents during the life (17 yrs) of the patent.
Yes, some money is lost to pirating. Most products, whether creative or not, have a limited life-expectancy. There is a specific time frame in which you can expect to profit from the work before others either improve upon it or copy it. Imagine if no one were allowed to create a new kind of soda because Coke owned the rights. No one could ever make any kind of cola. Every carbinated drink after the first one is derivative. You can watch a random movie, then go back in history and find one that is similar. Read any book, there are others like it.
I wonder how the copyright holders would feel if they got sued because someone else used the phrase I love you in a song before they did? Or named a character Mary in a book first, or used a red dress in a movie first?
The 'mineminemine' clutching is excessive. Don't pass my work off as your own, but if it inspires you to create something, I find that to be high praise. If you also choose to use part of my work in yours, please give me credit - at least link to the original or mention my name. But unless you outright steal the work, I'm cool with sharing.
A reply on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix
He made the very good point that democrats are just as restrictive as republicans. Had it not been for the public involvement in petitioning our politicians to defeat SOPA/PIPA, they would have passed. One side was protecting their monetary interests (stock owners), the other was protecting their campaign finance base (entertainment donations to politicians) and neither was doing anything for our personal freedoms.
A reply on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix
A reply on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix
To a certain extent, owners of the original work can protest the usage of the work in a contradictory manner. However, that is protected as parody, which is a form of satire. In a weird way, this gives the originator the opportunity to promote what they stand for. In most cases, the negative usage ends up doing more to promote the original, it brings new attention to the original.
Parody is fair use. Using snippets to illustrate a point is fair use. I can quote from a book, as long as I give credit to the author and cite the book. I can use a few lines from a song to illustrate a point, but I must give full credit to the writer/performer/publisher of that song. In the case of mashups, in my opinion, using a few seconds of film or song is okay. Using the whole soundtrack? That goes beyond fair usage. It might be derivative - if your pictures illustrated the song in such a way as to give it new meaning. There is a wonderful mashup I have heard that combines Don't Worry Be Happy (McFerrin), with Over The Rainbow(Kamakawiwo’ole) and I'm Yours (Mraz). This is original, even though it fully uses three other works. It introduced me to Kamakawiwo’ole, and may well have introduced new audiences to all three artists. Under fair use, I don't think this mashup would fair well, yet it is an excellent example of why we need to find a way to soften the copyright laws to allow this type of creativity.
Using the full work, such as was done in the relocations of the song example in the video, is not fair use. The owner has to protest that usage to protect their copyright, which is probably counter-productive from a profit standpoint. The more personally people feel a song, the more likely they are to buy it. Seeing the videos done in their own city or state is likely to increase sales.Technically, any band that plays a cover of a popular song in a performance they profit from, is violating copyright. Yet without that, many artists wouldn't be as popular or profitable.
A comment on Conversation: A Global Language
A comment on Conversation: Using the most logical and simple language versus one as complicated and illogical as English.
If you can't explain to your son why a podiatrist might recommend a pedicure, visit the dictionary where the root origins are explained. The Oxford English Dictionary is a wonderful resource, available online, at your local library, and in condensed form for a few hundred dollars. It is worth every penny to a word lover like me. Other dictionaries are less extensive, but will probably cover every word a school child will encounter. Unless he reads Heinlein and comes across occifloccinihilipilificatrix, which is how I met the OED!
English has a specific word for anything you can imagine. The level of precision possible in English isn't possible in a simpler language and the level of complication in English exists because it serves the needs of its users. Someone else responded saying English is widespread because the Brits and Americans spread out so much. Actually, English was complicated 1000 years ago. Angles, Saxons, Normans, Vikings, Celts, and even Romans kept invading Britain. That is where English got its habit of taking useful words from other languages and where it developed the complexity that you find frustrating today.