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Sorry, I was referring to the grandparent article. However, the original statistic was cited from this report which sorts software by piracy. That's where Armenia is listed as the highest country at 93% and the US is the lowest at 20%. The same list gives a weighted international piracy average of 59.9%, which is high, but is much lower than the 90% that is making the rounds in the press and the number that you gave in your discussion of matchmaking, etc (citation, btw?).

The point of my comments was not to doubt that piracy exists, as it obviously does. But the difference between a country with 93% and a country with 20% must be assumed to be the sum of all the social norms combined (consider that a large chunk of this is most likely made up of businesses and government workers knowingly using pirated or bootlegged software). It may also show just how prosperous the US is, when 80% of software acquired is fully paid for despite 60% of the world's population at large not paying for it.

So again, I think it helps to have a qualified discussion when we're talking about piracy, because every game does not have the same piracy numbers and every country does not have the same social norms around acquiring software. It's not helpful to treat everyone in the US as if they are piratical college students, nor is it helpful to treat the pirates as if they are customers.

The people who are pirating will probably keep pirating, but it's not because of some other justification. It's because the vast majority of them are in a country or culture where it's the norm.

To countries like Armenia, they don't even consider that there is DRM in a game at retail because they usually are acquiring it via bootleg salesmen or pirated downloads. It's as if the DRMed game never existed.

And that's why the one, two, and sometimes three or more layers of DRM doesn't do anything but hurt the customers in the culture where paying is the social norm.

http://silentbluejay.tumblr.com

Actually no. I think my views on the matter are summed up nicely here: http://whatupdave.tumblr.com/post/1170718843/leaving-net

Well, I looked for your Polk Pickup Truck Usage Study (whatever that is) and couldn't find it. And as for your 27% and 78% assertions, I believe this fortune cookie might shed a little light.

I did some very brief research in the past about software piracy back when the Dead Trigger story came out. 93% is the software piracy rate of the highest piracy countries in the world.

As I mention in that post, if you read the original interview, Yves was talking in the context of those specific countries when he gave the 93% figure. So free to play gives them no different results in those countries where they have no social stigma about pirating.

Contrast the 93% number of Armenia to the 20% piracy rate of the lowest country on that list (that would be the United States), and it makes a lot more sense why the immediate reaction of western countries is to not believe the figure.

Still, free to play seems like a dumb solution and their attempt at a DRM bandaid is even more idiotic.

Calling it a different name means nothing. Your argument that "temporary surrender isn't named extradition, so Sweden can do it," means less than nothing. Sweden is still bound by its obligations under the EAW to not surrender Mr. Assange unless it secures the consent of the UK. There is no special legal magic here, and the chain of consent is exactly the same as if the extradition request were submitted directly to the UK - it doesn't magically only require some third-level second assistant bureaucrat to stamp the right form if it's done through Sweden.

But please, go educate yourself. You could start here for a very thorough breakdown of the relevant laws, and even read the laws themselves, so you can understand exactly how foolish you sound:

http://gregcallus.tumblr.com/post/29939891330/assange-sweden-temporary-surrender-eaw

And do try to get past your outrage when the author calls the "temporary surrender" thing a canard - I know Mr. Assange is your personal hero - and we all know that somebody who published the "Collateral Murder" video would never create a false story with the intent of deliberately misleading people - but the laws are cited with relevant links, and are fairly simple to read. And they demonstrate quite clearly that this argument that somehow Sweden could "legally" send him on to the US is complete nonsense.

Of course, wait until a global famine hits and see how many 6-foot individuals last.

In the big scheme of things, is being a CEO so important? What do you get out of a it? Perhaps the chance to associate with (or spawn) individuals like the following Rich kids of Instagram?

There are a number of valid reasons for not using USB. I'll address some of them and make a few guesses towards Apple's perspective, but I'm not interested in arguing whether or not this is the right decision.

By using their own port, they can ensure that every device/cable that will ever be plugged into it (by a sane person) will work as expected. In contrast, if they were to use a general purpose port, such as micro USB, while it would be able to connect to more devices and cables, you'd also introduce confusion as a result, as well as introducing compromise by using a general purpose solution for something that may be better served by a specific solution. Regarding the latter idea, someone far smarter than I discussed it at length just yesterday, going into detail for why this is such a good design for the application in which it will be used. He talks about why it's better in terms of simplicity, integrity, and a number of other factors than the current dock connector, but many of those would apply to USB as well.

For a few other examples that weren't mentioned in that article of why having a proprietary port may be a good idea, unlike the current dock connector, which has dedicated pins for video and audio and standard ways of supplying them, implementations of video and audio over USB are not so standardized across the industry. Some devices may support certain files or certain codecs, while others support nothing at all. Some devices that can play video may not be able to accept any video at all from mobile devices hooked up to it. There are no guarantees. When a user plugs their device into an accessory that's supposed to support video and/or audio, will it, in fact, support it for their model? The answer is "maybe". That sort of confusion and poor handling of user expectations undermines confidence in the brand among the general public, which is something that Apple would clearly want to avoid.

And if you go by the standards, USB doesn't carry anywhere close to enough power for modern devices to charge quickly for most people, so they'd already have to stray away from the standard as it is (which is exactly what they (and many other manufacturers, for that matter) have done for years with USB ports on their computers).

As I said, those are some of the benefits to having a proprietary design. Does it mean that it's worth not using USB? For Apple, quite possibly so, especially since they can still support it via an adapter, as they already do in Europe, thus eliminating complaints that people have to buy new chargers and the like. And I imagine that Apple does not see interoperability with other accessories designed for devices besides theirs as being important (or perhaps even of value), which may be justifiable, given the number of hardware accessories available specifically for devices with their current dock connector and the consistency with which they operate.

You Don't Say?

http://heygirlitspaulryan.tumblr.com/

obligatory link

If Instagram had three jump-the-shark moments, the first was version 2 that removed and altered some filters. The second was the android version that brought in lots of new users and lots of mediocre cameras. The third was the facebook purchase.

The free return trajectory maneuver ("slingshot") was well known to NASA engineers, and was actually the default trajectory for all lunar missions before 13. The crew had to specifically fire the engines to enter lunar orbit. If the engines somehow failed to fire, the spacecraft was already on the proper trajectory to swing around the moon and return to earth . 13 was the first mission that was on a different initial trajectory, and required a change in order to get ONTO a free-return, but the "lunar slingshot" concept was obvious to all involved.

The "long-haired hippie at MIT" who saved an Apollo mission was named Don Eyles, and the mission was Apollo 14. Picture of Eyles as he looked in those days here:

http://pophop.tumblr.com/post/7532929166/m-i-t-programmer-don-eyles-posing-in-the-draper

When a loose ball of solder inside the abort switch threatened to cancel the lunar landing, Eyles was called on to write a software patch that would bypass the switch and allow the landing to continue. Full story at the "LM Tales" section of his website, which is largely devoted to his post-Apollo artwork, photography, and sculpture.

http://www.doneyles.com/supersymandala.html

I use it to control my robot arm.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv3lq4fCmT1qhpy7q.jpg

It helps to pass the time.

They have little-to-no qualms attacking civilians if they are ordered to

damned right!

we have been dehumanized, to the military. we are dogs. to be stepped on.

with that thinking, YES, they will fire on us, their own people.

don't think your own people will show pity. we are ruthless killers and we train the same to be 'better' killers and more obedient.

the whole concept can be summed up here, by sergent pepperspray (the now infamous john pike):

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv5hj8X1HV1r4vpxio1_500.jpg

no, he didn't use guns. I bet he would have, though. I bet he wanted to. I bet if he was allowed to, he'd fully enjoy it.

witness our 'just following orders' military.

you think they will show mercy?

FUCK NO!

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqjv5j6CVY1qidtfx.gif

I think you're spot on with this. I hate that it's getting positive press. I wrote up the quick bit of research I did into the assertions about piracy.

In a case that makes the Android platform needlessly look like a demon, all of the piracy allegations are red herrings in this story.

A quick glance around Google will find a completely different set of cherry picked "before iPad/iPhone" and "after iPad/iPhone" images that show that, hey, their design isn't actually all that original

Cue the usual search for earlier unsuccessful attempts at touch devices--unsuccessful precisely because they did not come close to implementing the full set of features that made Apple's products a hit (and that Google is now arguing is essential for a usable touch-based tablet or phone)--which may happen to resemble Apple's products in one or two superficial respects, but do not even come close to reproducing the combination of many physical, interface, and even packaging details that are covered by Apple's design patent.

And then you have things like the LG Prada that you conveniently forget.

Actually, I think the LG Prada is a good example of my point, that there is a lot more to an iPhone (and Samsung and other makers of iPhone knockoffs have copied a lot more) than just the shape and the concept of a touch phone.

Similarly, did you know that Android has always been designed to run on a full touchscreen? Here's a bit of history [osnews.com] to cure your ignorance. Added bonus is the bit about Google voluntarily withholding the pinch-zoom gesture at Apple's behest.

I notice you don't cite the same author's follow-up article in which he admits that the article you cite was inaccurate, and that the pre-iPhone Android did in fact resemble the Blackberry

There is little excuse for it, and "people in the know" should do something about it.

We're going to need a year or so to switch out the current "leadership"...

Also: +1 your sig.

Are you talking about this comic strip?

http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-was-entrapped

What could go wrong? http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/large+government+ammo+purchase

The says that they can purchase "up to" 450 million rounds over 5 years. They could also purchase 500 rounds under that contract. The ammo manufacturer wanted a CYA limitation on the number of rounds they could be asked to provide, so that the government couldn't sue them for breach of contract if the government asked them to provide a billion rounds and the manufacturer was unable to fulfill the order.

Occam's razor. Sometime's a contract is just a contract.

Americans are docile because they have easy access to cheap high-calorie food, cheap entertainment and cheap antidepressant psychotropics at the local drugstore or Vitamin Shoppe (i.e. St. John's Wort, SAM-E, Holy Basil) as well as cheap energy for heating and cooling. When this is no longer the case, a hot/cold, hungry, un-entertained, hungover populace will lose that docility with extraordinary speed.

All of the aforementioned is possible due to cheap energy and a functioning financial system. What could go wrong? http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/large+government+ammo+purchase

I've spent years thinking about Agile and development in general. I'm no apologist for the methodology: see my post from just this morning: http://deathrayresearch.tumblr.com/post/27257008711/when-agile-jumped-the-shark. Some aspects of Agile are better than others, but overall, the methodology is based on sound principles. Most notably, there are many short feedback loops (unit testing, continuous integration, short cycles, customers on the team) that decrease the opportunity for hidden problems. This is extremely powerful. That it's used to sell services is undeniable, and their are aspects that strike me as wrong, but this is a good methodology overall.

"Oh, you mean the antenna that in actual, practical use is functionally no worse than" if that was true, SJ wouldn't have told people to use the other hand,

Errm, no, he didn't.

That misquote aside: every phone maker does the same: http://dontholditwrong.tumblr.com/

Team Fortress 2; the most fun you can have on your PC that isn't pr0n!

Rule #34

We have no hope of getting rid of these idiots as long as they stuff a bunch of people who see voting as "Vote R for Jesus" into the voting population.

Here's your solution. "Don't Vote. Pray." Pretty cynical. Pretty funny.

Europe is once again reborn as a democracy, of the people, for the people.

Now all we have to deal with is the ESM and we are home free....

Sigh

A new entry for the Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project - the eternal quest to divide all inanimate objects into those that cause cancer and those that cure it.

Yay science!

Here's what entrapment is, as explained by a lawyer, in an appropriately visual format to appease the attention span of most Slashdotters.

i got back had difficulty getting itself alec baldwin a cop helicopter.

That's a Spongbob episode, if you were wondering.

Exactly what kind of laughter did you have in mind?

Heeeeere's Johnny!

"That's impossible, trolls aren't real."

"Then how do you explain all the dead unicorns." Metalocalypse referance.

If you really want to close the gender gap

Start 'em early. If you raise your daughter on Disney Princess and Barbie, that's what will be instilled as their formative values. Do better, buy your daughter a ray gun.

I suggest http://depressioncomix.tumblr.com/

A professional icon designer will design his icon vector based, raster the sizes he needs and tweak the pixel images until they look great. Pure SVG will just be not as "crisp" in comparison. Just look at the different folder images for comparison.

Sorry, but I had to laugh a bit.

You've never played any PC games have you?

If you have, I bet you've never tried playing a game at 30fps, then again at 60fps, then 120fps (what most CRTs could handle). The difference really is night and day.

You can see this yourself here (zipped AVI file). Original page here, but of course YouTube can't do more than 30fps yet.

Also, are you seriously trying to tell me that traditional film content (filmed at 24fps no matter how it's presented later) looks no less smooth to you than broadcast television (effective 50fps or 60fps depending on where you live)? Perhaps you're now limiting your argument to 48 vs higher frame rates which is slightly less outrageous.

But if you're wanting a study on why even vurrent TV frame rates are not sufficient, here's one by the BBC.

Stuxnet meh. WAY more importantly:

http://whoisthathotadgirl.tumblr.com/post/5646552017/q-who-is-the-hot-girl-in-those-quibids-com-ads

Q: Who is the hot girl in those QuiBids.com ads?
A: D’Arcy Kate Fellona

D’Arcy is a model/actress. She has appeared on episodes of ‘White Collar’ and ‘Gossip Girl’. She is also a former Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader!

I have, actually, met the sort of person you're describing, although they're generally called pre-med or life sciences students. They certainly don't have any interest in research, nor medicine, which is why they invariably wash out of the med school application process. Usually the blame belongs on the parents, who idolize specialist MDs for no reason other than wealth. (There's even a mildly offensive meme about it.)

The trick, though, is that the moment their dreams shatter, only a handful of them stay on to do research in physiology. A pre-med bachelor's degree does not prepare you to do general biochemistry, so your options when you get to your fourth year are already really obvious to you: either find "one of those jobs" that just requires a bachelor's degree as proof of trial-by-fire, or commit to spending the next eight years doing something that barely pays and requires an immense love of the material you were just skimming anyway. Graduate school is not an attractive option for them; it goes against their (rather materialistic) personal objectives. Instead they usually about-face and either switch majors to a commerce or economics degree when the going gets tough, or just quietly enter the world of business afterwards.

It's amusing to watch "serious thinkers" labor under the seemingly self-imposed restriction that basically says "all important things come down to money.". Apparently , this is the only way to taken seriously in America today- do a "we' re all economically interdependent " jig ala Thomas Friedman -who turns out is wrong-o on, like, a regular basis:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/03/friedmans-follies

Look, one thing that unites us at least as much as money is porn. Porn porn porn. The porn the Navy seals found in bin Laden's son hard drive. It's non-trivial. The world view that women are fundamentally non-sexual or worse, a kind of livestock to be owned, collected, traded and bred, is not going to survive the Great Porn Onslaught coming from developed nations. You can't be exposed to image after image of two chicks fucking each other with gigantic purple gel dildos while one guy fucks one up the ass and the other administers a deep-throated, lipstick-perfect blowjob to a tanned and muscled Mr. 10 inches and continue to see the sight of a woman's bare ankle, or hair or uncovered mouth as a dangerously provocative sight.

And then there's the flood of pages questioning religion through everything from mockery to lists of holy book contradictions and ridiculous assertions to sane and sober dismemberment of core religious tenets .

As far as China goes, knowledge of what the West had started with TV and now is spreading into the areas of the intellectual, political and associational freedoms people in western nations enjoy. These are the things that change nations by changing people's perceptions, one person at a time, sitting alone in front of their computer, reading something forbidden, exhilarated at the ideas being encountered and idealizing what life might be like to live in a country where men and women were able to speak so freely.

Or whacking off to dirty Tumblr-after-dark pictures.

http://tumblr-afterdark.tumblr.com/

There ya go.

Except he did it long before he got cancer. To quote David Bunnel, publisher of Macworld, about a visit he made to Apple headquarters in the early-80's:

“We could tell that Steve was in, because his blue Mercedes was parked in the handicap zone in front. As I was to learn, Steve always parked there."

The quote then goes on to talk about Steve doing it because disgruntled Apple employees (Disgruntled Apple employees?! How is this possible?!!??!?!!?) would key his car when he parked it in back. Obviously the reasonable solution, if your Steve Jobs, is not to put security cameras up or anything realistic...no, the solution is to just park in a handicapped spot because fuck all those crippled people, I'm Steve Jobs and the rules don't apply to me, and besides, the sanctity of my Mercedes is more important than their legal right to a parking spot near the front doors.

"Don't laugh at me, I'm not a nutter! I didn't mean god, I was referring to aliens!" ;-)

Even if we assume the origin of life is extraterrestrial, there is no reason to believe any intelligence or intent was involved. And extraterrestrial life must still have spontaneously formed somewhere. Knowing that life can spontaneously form, doesn't the explanation that does not involve interstellar travel seem more likely?

The one place I can see gTLDs being useful is for companies that host content sites on subdomains. For example, tumblr.com or wordpress.com. Using http://foo.tumblr/ or http://bar.wordpress/ is a little nicer than http://foo.tumblr.com/ or http://bar.wordpress.com/.

Gotta go old school.

think.

UFC 146 live Stream

Here's my pics of the eclipse, as the sun set past the Sandia Mountains.

The truly pathetic part is the state could easily prevent a lot of police beatings and misconduct by simply forcing them to get video recordings for any of the typical cover and contempt of cop charges. Resisting arrest? Disorderly conduct? Disturbing the peace? Failure to obey a lawful order? Assault and battery against a police officer? With a deadly weapon? In my case they even included little things like "failure to identify oneself". All of the attorneys know that a lot of the time these charges are bogus and in fact likely mean that the alleged aggressor is in fact the victim. So why treat the situation the same as any other charge? When it comes to these sorts of charges the police should need real evidence and only unbiased civilian witness testimony should be admissible.

You obviously can't trust other police officers to come forward and rat out their fellow officer for beating up or in some cases even killing someone for some minor insult or sign of disrespect. In fact you can pretty much count on every last one of them to lie about it even under oath. I mean, you are talking about accusing a fellow officer of excessive use of force, false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, violating the victim's civil rights and tort assault and battery. It's just not going to happen. To pretend that it is is completely ridiculous. There is simply no police misconduct case where the police officers themselves can be counted on to testify truthfully. In such situations it is quite reasonable to assume that they are going to lie to protect themselves and lie to protect each other under the assumption that if they ever ended up losing control and injuring or killing someone out of anger that their fellow officers would back up their story as well.

I was attacked by a pissed off psycho cop at a DUI roadblock They had to drop the DUI charges against me when they finally allowed me to take a breathalyzer test at the police station and after 3 separate tries the machine refused to output anything other than 0.0% alcohol. They really wanted to get me on that, but I don't even drink. Luckily I don't use alcohol based mouthwash either or I might have been fighting a DUI charge as well and probably wouldn't have gotten such a favorable plea bargain. DUI roadblocks shouldn't even exist in this country and some states don't allow them, but if we have to have them all the encounters should be filmed. Police simply cannot be trusted to not abuse their power in such situations. If they can't videotape the stops and sobriety tests they should at least have an unbiased witness not associated with law enforcement there to observe and make sure things don't get out of hand or serve as a witness if they do. Former victims of police brutality would make good witnesses although most of us would probably be too scared. Once you realize that cops can and will severely injure or kill you for even the most minor sign of disrespect, it's difficult to have voluntary contact with any of them for any reason ever again. I can only admire the courage of those NH guys intentionally filming the police. No doubt if one of them is killed or very badly injured people will consider that courage to be stupidity. People will say, "What did he expect, provoking a cop like that? I have no sympathy for him."

I like having senses other people don't.

Yeah... I think I have a sense you don't have...

I prefer this one: http://textfromdog.tumblr.com/

Combine with the FX show "Wilfred" and you've got everything you need to peer into a dog's psyche.