I never claimed AAC required a fee per song. I was addressing the part that compared them and said "AAC: is free." Just wanted to point out that it's not free.
I'm not sure why you claim there's a problem with my approach. I don't see anything in yours that is different from what I suggested. What is different is that I wouldn't let them stay here for twenty years dicking around without deciding whether they wanted to be an American.
Unfortunately, Southwest doesn't even fly in my half of the country. They're actually big in one of the places I fly most, but that's useless because they're nonexistent here. Other carriers have a pretty strong lock here. The only real choice in carriers is how MUCH of an inconvenience you want and which kinds of inconvenience. Right now I've been planning a trip. To get a flight in the $350 range, I had to choose flying small jets early in the morning with a layover, landing in the smaller, less convenient airport at my destination. There were no non-stop flights for anything less than $675. I started looking about a month and a half in advance. I'd like to stress that I'm flying between two major US cities that are 1000 miles apart. I work in travel, so I know which things affect prices (minimum stays, saturday stays, etc.), so it wasn't because of a poor choice of dates. So basically I had my choices of one or two carriers or I could pay three hundred more and have my choice of two more. Or I could pay $1k more and actually have a lot of choices. That is not feasible on my budget, any more than hiring a private jet is. So it's not really a "choice."
As much as I'd like to think that the airline would offer this as a differentiator, I have too much close experience with airlines to really believe it. Consider that before the FAA smoking ban, it took until the early 90s for most carriers to ban smoking on flights.
All you have to do is look at the state of air travel to know that what you suggest is laughable. Which part of how air travel works right now is set up to appeal to the passenger? I can't think of a single thing.
And yes, I have noise cancelling headphones. They work well, but they wouldn't work THAT well. I have worn them before to try to block out loud talking having "normal" conversations nearby. They can only really do that if you pump some music into them as well. Doesn't really work well for reading a book or trying to nap.
No one wants to do it for cheap. For enough money, people will do a whole lot of crappy jobs. Just watch a few episodes of Dirty Work. I'm not suggesting that ANYONE do those jobs for peanuts. I'm willing to pay more in food prices for those jobs to be done by citizens. I don't see what that has to do with mint juleps, though.
Have you flown much? Do you actually believe the fiction that choice has much to do with which carrier you fly? Unless you live in a few big hub markets, carrier is more than likely dictated by your geographic location. It has very little to do with choice. I have a "choice" in which carrier to fly in the same way I have a "choice" to drive there instead.
First, "begging the government" is a contradiction. The government is made up of the people. We tend to vote for them every two years or so. We can even try to BE on of those people up for a vote if we wish.
Second, there is no "right" to have a personal conversation on cellphone on an airplane. If you start spreading around the word "rights" to cover things like this, you devalue the ACTUAL rights we do have.
That's exactly what I was saying. Why don't the FAA just come out with a ban that's simply based on this reasoning? Loud talking is banned in public libraries and cellphone use is banned in moving vehicles in some states, so why can't they ban cellphones on planes? I think if you took a poll of most psychologists, I think they'd back you up that having to listen to a plane full of people's cellphone conversations is like sitting on a powder keg.
Notice how I said full immigration, not temporary work visas. This includes renouncing their current citizenship (where possible - some countries don't recognize this). Right now I believe the H1-B program is the reason why the pay is so low for the positions they fill. If these people were given full citizenship and didn't have to worry about deportation when their boss fires them, the wages wouldn't be so low. These people would be paying for things like cars and houses like the rest of the Americans and would no longer find a low wage desirable because it wouldn't cover the bills. Personally, I do not believe it will harm our country to skew our population towards being more skilled. I think it will in turn foster new business opportunities that will help everyone.
I would only support such a program if it completely replaced the H1-B program. Due to politics (and in some cases some actual real needs for certain specialties), it's going to be extremely difficult to get rid of the H1-B program any other way.
You ask is the term "paper" dead? That's stupid! Boy, Gyes, you sure do ask a lot of stupid questions for a user on slashdot. I say "paper" almost every day. I load paper into the printer. I write notes on pieces of paper. Sometimes I like to do the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Though usually only the Monday's and Tuesday's because have you ever noticed how they start to just get stupid as the week goes on and it seems like they're just making words up. Oh yeah, and sometimes I like to do paper-maché. And you can't spell "paper-maché" without the term "paper"! Well, I guess if you spell it "papier-mâché"... Where was I? Oh yes, it's just stupid to say that the term "paper" might be dead. When I went to the doctor he made me sit on a sheet of paper right before he checked out that weird rash that had been spreading for the last month or so and wouldn't you know it turned out to be a fungus, which makes sense because it kind of smelled like cheese. I challenge you to go through one day without saying "paper." Just because you people weren't born before everyone was using computers doesn't-
And then you'll start seeing everyone's hypocrisy rising to the surface! The "pro-immigration" crowd is okay with immigration as long as it's poor Mexicans wanting the jobs "no one else wants"
I'm not sure I'd say hypocrisy. I've heard plenty of them out and out saying it just the way you phrased it. So whether or not you like their stance, since they're already saying it there's really not a lot of room for hypocrisy. Maybe the confusion lies in the fact that there isn't only one crowd, but many different groups that sometimes intersect.
You're a little late to the party, Sherlock. I'm not sure which is worse, the misspelling or you missing the fact that the fourth and fifth posts already pointed that out.
It's questionable what percentage of these H1-B workers would be as desirable if they were here on regular visas. H1-B puts the employee in a certain position that very advantageous to the employer. I wouldn't mind finding out, though. I'm all for ditching the H1-B system and allowing full, unlimited immigration to highly skilled workers.
You actually submitted a headline where the moron spelled it batchelor
Which moron? Isn't this a submission created by kdawson? I don't see any "So and so writes" in front of the article text. This would imply there was no second moron involved.
The DVD-R specification states that for every 192 bits, 48 of them are not protected under any scheme, 24 of them are protected by 24 bits of parity, and the last 56 bits are protected by another 24 bits of parity. This weird (to put it mildly) scheme allows you to easily scramble or lose 25% of the data that is required to read your disk! This information is almost more important than the actual data burned on the disc itself.
The DVD+R specification, however, states that for every 204 bits of information, it is split into four blocks of 52 bits containing 1 (shared among all blocks) sync bit to prevent misreading because of phase changes, 31 bits of data, and a 20 bit parity (that protects all 32 bits).
The part about the partitioning of the data is what allows for you to only lose a smaller part of your data should you scratch or otherwise damage the disc after burning. yes, you'll do a verify after burning. But plenty of things can happen AFTER that.
As the other poster already stated, just because it's in a contract doesn't make it legal in court. I think where these people got tripped up was that they somehow "tainted" it by involving company property. Either that, or they just didn't have the money to defend themselves against a giant like Activision.
Interestingly enough, the news article says this:
As part of their settlement with Activision, Guitar Hero II executive producer John Tam and brand manager Corey Fong consented to a judge's issuing a permanent injunction against them.
The judge did not rule against them. If he did, there would be no question of the defendants consenting. You don't get a choice on whether you consent to a judge's ruling. Activision and the defendants settled, and the judge issued an injunction to enforce the settlement as per their wishes. So whether or not they would have won a case and which issues (contracts, non-competes, working "on the clock" versus off, etc.) would have been applicable is still unknown.
You should probably stop using the word "sport" and start using the phrase "geekoid's redefinition of the word sport", then. It will help clear up some potential confusion.
BTW, if you actually look in the dictionary under both sports and games, you'll find that in many of the definitions both words are used interchangeably. The English language does not follow the rigid partitions you seem to be trying to shoehorn on top of it.
Yes, they're games. All sports are games, as well (hence "Olympic Games").
My point was that those games are very different from games like chess, checkers and poker. They require a very real amount of physical skill and coordination with a component of mental strategy. Chess, checkers, poker, Risk, Boggle, etc. all rely entirely on mental skill.
Some video games are just video equivalents of mind-only games - RTS, for example. The only physical skill involved is clicking a mouse and typing on a keyboard. Much like shuffling cards and shaking a Boggle game. Other video games do have a very real physical skill components - FPS, for example. Then there are others like DDR that really DO have an athletic component and are dangerously close to fitting your definition of "sports."
Video games are a "sport" in the same way billiards, darts, horseshoes or fishing (river/lake) are sports. It's kind of on the boundary. These "sports" almost entirely consist of minimal physical exertion and rely mainly on hand-eye coordination. However, like video games that can require the player to think ahead and consider strategy or adjusting to local conditions (esp. fishing). Very few people ever get exhausted doing these activities. On the other hand, simply classifying them as "games" puts them in the same category as chess, checkers and poker, which is also a poor fit.
I'd have to see a bit more of the details before I'd accept the language the plaintiff used. "Directed an Activision employee and Activision independent contractors to develop" could translate into normal people language as "got some of their friends who also worked at Activision to work on their project in their spare time." Likewise, "at Activision's expense" could mean "they used their company laptops to post to the project message board while at home."
The defendants may very well have done something wrong. But from personal experience, employers will often greatly overstate their case and courts will back them up. It's much like when they RIAA claims some BS number for revenue lost, even though in reality a certain percentage of the people would never have bought the music even if they couldn't download it.
Again, I'd have to read the exact details where Activision details when and where the work was done and with what company equipment.
The sad part is that I was doing it as a joke rather than a grammar flame. The real grammar flamers would have been sure to get it right the first time. The second time, I was actually distracted by trying to get my html tags right and wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Ah well, even good comedians flub a joke now and then.
Possibly true, but I would argue that averages are much MORE useless. At least with medians you'd get a chance of filtering out the high paid outliers. I think a histogram for many different areas of the country/world would be the main thing you'd need to actually make any sense out of this.
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I never claimed AAC required a fee per song. I was addressing the part that compared them and said "AAC: is free." Just wanted to point out that it's not free.
I'm not sure why you claim there's a problem with my approach. I don't see anything in yours that is different from what I suggested. What is different is that I wouldn't let them stay here for twenty years dicking around without deciding whether they wanted to be an American.
AAC is free?
d ex.cfmf m
http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/MPEG2AAC_in
http://www.vialicensing.com/Licensing/MPEG4_FAQ.c
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/aac/
Unfortunately, Southwest doesn't even fly in my half of the country. They're actually big in one of the places I fly most, but that's useless because they're nonexistent here. Other carriers have a pretty strong lock here. The only real choice in carriers is how MUCH of an inconvenience you want and which kinds of inconvenience. Right now I've been planning a trip. To get a flight in the $350 range, I had to choose flying small jets early in the morning with a layover, landing in the smaller, less convenient airport at my destination. There were no non-stop flights for anything less than $675. I started looking about a month and a half in advance. I'd like to stress that I'm flying between two major US cities that are 1000 miles apart. I work in travel, so I know which things affect prices (minimum stays, saturday stays, etc.), so it wasn't because of a poor choice of dates. So basically I had my choices of one or two carriers or I could pay three hundred more and have my choice of two more. Or I could pay $1k more and actually have a lot of choices. That is not feasible on my budget, any more than hiring a private jet is. So it's not really a "choice."
As much as I'd like to think that the airline would offer this as a differentiator, I have too much close experience with airlines to really believe it. Consider that before the FAA smoking ban, it took until the early 90s for most carriers to ban smoking on flights.
All you have to do is look at the state of air travel to know that what you suggest is laughable. Which part of how air travel works right now is set up to appeal to the passenger? I can't think of a single thing.
And yes, I have noise cancelling headphones. They work well, but they wouldn't work THAT well. I have worn them before to try to block out loud talking having "normal" conversations nearby. They can only really do that if you pump some music into them as well. Doesn't really work well for reading a book or trying to nap.
No one wants to do it for cheap. For enough money, people will do a whole lot of crappy jobs. Just watch a few episodes of Dirty Work. I'm not suggesting that ANYONE do those jobs for peanuts. I'm willing to pay more in food prices for those jobs to be done by citizens. I don't see what that has to do with mint juleps, though.
Have you flown much? Do you actually believe the fiction that choice has much to do with which carrier you fly? Unless you live in a few big hub markets, carrier is more than likely dictated by your geographic location. It has very little to do with choice. I have a "choice" in which carrier to fly in the same way I have a "choice" to drive there instead.
First, "begging the government" is a contradiction. The government is made up of the people. We tend to vote for them every two years or so. We can even try to BE on of those people up for a vote if we wish.
Second, there is no "right" to have a personal conversation on cellphone on an airplane. If you start spreading around the word "rights" to cover things like this, you devalue the ACTUAL rights we do have.
That's exactly what I was saying. Why don't the FAA just come out with a ban that's simply based on this reasoning? Loud talking is banned in public libraries and cellphone use is banned in moving vehicles in some states, so why can't they ban cellphones on planes? I think if you took a poll of most psychologists, I think they'd back you up that having to listen to a plane full of people's cellphone conversations is like sitting on a powder keg.
Notice how I said full immigration, not temporary work visas. This includes renouncing their current citizenship (where possible - some countries don't recognize this). Right now I believe the H1-B program is the reason why the pay is so low for the positions they fill. If these people were given full citizenship and didn't have to worry about deportation when their boss fires them, the wages wouldn't be so low. These people would be paying for things like cars and houses like the rest of the Americans and would no longer find a low wage desirable because it wouldn't cover the bills. Personally, I do not believe it will harm our country to skew our population towards being more skilled. I think it will in turn foster new business opportunities that will help everyone.
I would only support such a program if it completely replaced the H1-B program. Due to politics (and in some cases some actual real needs for certain specialties), it's going to be extremely difficult to get rid of the H1-B program any other way.
You ask is the term "paper" dead? That's stupid! Boy, Gyes, you sure do ask a lot of stupid questions for a user on slashdot. I say "paper" almost every day. I load paper into the printer. I write notes on pieces of paper. Sometimes I like to do the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Though usually only the Monday's and Tuesday's because have you ever noticed how they start to just get stupid as the week goes on and it seems like they're just making words up. Oh yeah, and sometimes I like to do paper-maché. And you can't spell "paper-maché" without the term "paper"! Well, I guess if you spell it "papier-mâché"... Where was I? Oh yes, it's just stupid to say that the term "paper" might be dead. When I went to the doctor he made me sit on a sheet of paper right before he checked out that weird rash that had been spreading for the last month or so and wouldn't you know it turned out to be a fungus, which makes sense because it kind of smelled like cheese. I challenge you to go through one day without saying "paper." Just because you people weren't born before everyone was using computers doesn't-
What? Oh, I see.
Never mind.
Yes.
= 18543473
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=228751&cid
You're a little late to the party, Sherlock. I'm not sure which is worse, the misspelling or you missing the fact that the fourth and fifth posts already pointed that out.
It's questionable what percentage of these H1-B workers would be as desirable if they were here on regular visas. H1-B puts the employee in a certain position that very advantageous to the employer. I wouldn't mind finding out, though. I'm all for ditching the H1-B system and allowing full, unlimited immigration to highly skilled workers.
Interestingly enough, the news article says this:The judge did not rule against them. If he did, there would be no question of the defendants consenting. You don't get a choice on whether you consent to a judge's ruling. Activision and the defendants settled, and the judge issued an injunction to enforce the settlement as per their wishes. So whether or not they would have won a case and which issues (contracts, non-competes, working "on the clock" versus off, etc.) would have been applicable is still unknown.
You should probably stop using the word "sport" and start using the phrase "geekoid's redefinition of the word sport", then. It will help clear up some potential confusion.
BTW, if you actually look in the dictionary under both sports and games, you'll find that in many of the definitions both words are used interchangeably. The English language does not follow the rigid partitions you seem to be trying to shoehorn on top of it.
Yes, they're games. All sports are games, as well (hence "Olympic Games").
My point was that those games are very different from games like chess, checkers and poker. They require a very real amount of physical skill and coordination with a component of mental strategy. Chess, checkers, poker, Risk, Boggle, etc. all rely entirely on mental skill.
Some video games are just video equivalents of mind-only games - RTS, for example. The only physical skill involved is clicking a mouse and typing on a keyboard. Much like shuffling cards and shaking a Boggle game. Other video games do have a very real physical skill components - FPS, for example. Then there are others like DDR that really DO have an athletic component and are dangerously close to fitting your definition of "sports."
So really, it's not all that cut and dried.
Video games are a "sport" in the same way billiards, darts, horseshoes or fishing (river/lake) are sports. It's kind of on the boundary. These "sports" almost entirely consist of minimal physical exertion and rely mainly on hand-eye coordination. However, like video games that can require the player to think ahead and consider strategy or adjusting to local conditions (esp. fishing). Very few people ever get exhausted doing these activities. On the other hand, simply classifying them as "games" puts them in the same category as chess, checkers and poker, which is also a poor fit.
I propose we create a new category: gorts.
Or possibly "spomes."
I'd have to see a bit more of the details before I'd accept the language the plaintiff used. "Directed an Activision employee and Activision independent contractors to develop" could translate into normal people language as "got some of their friends who also worked at Activision to work on their project in their spare time." Likewise, "at Activision's expense" could mean "they used their company laptops to post to the project message board while at home."
The defendants may very well have done something wrong. But from personal experience, employers will often greatly overstate their case and courts will back them up. It's much like when they RIAA claims some BS number for revenue lost, even though in reality a certain percentage of the people would never have bought the music even if they couldn't download it.
Again, I'd have to read the exact details where Activision details when and where the work was done and with what company equipment.
The sad part is that I was doing it as a joke rather than a grammar flame. The real grammar flamers would have been sure to get it right the first time. The second time, I was actually distracted by trying to get my html tags right and wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Ah well, even good comedians flub a joke now and then.
Possibly true, but I would argue that averages are much MORE useless. At least with medians you'd get a chance of filtering out the high paid outliers. I think a histogram for many different areas of the country/world would be the main thing you'd need to actually make any sense out of this.