"Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite side of the correlation != causation arguments that come up on slashdot every time violent video games come up."
- He only said "IF" there is any correltion.
And guess what, there probably isn't. there is a correlation, but there isn't any causation, so the slashdot mantra still holds pretty nicely.
The 2 facts are both effects, not causes, and there is a chance that these 2 effects have the same root-cause (i.e. correlate) nothing more.
Well, if you mean "a new low" meaning that the discussion has reached the fundamentals of question/answer relationsship in a philosophical way, then Indeed!
I can say without a doubt that all questions have an answer, ask any person anywhere any question on any subject, and they will respond with an answer. It probably will be "I don't know", but that indeed is an answer.
Thing is, you can never expect to ask a question and always get the "right" answer, there are always conditions in place, and with a computer system, the condition most likely is "any answer the computer is programmed to respond with". So ask them "what is X", and at the least it should respond "I don't know"..or if that fails, a "+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++" response.
I say change the patent system into what it really should be, a way for people to verify whether someone is illegally copying/cloning an invention for his own profit. - If 2 people individually invent something, I say let them both have a chance to get it out there, and may the best man win. If on the other hand one stole from the other and that can be proven, let the patent system deal with that.
Not sure why it has to be more complex than that.
In the end patents do not help society, they are selfish things which only help the one who has the patent and of course there should be an expiry date on it.
"Isn't that like using gravity to explain the effect of gravity?"
- well, not quite. The demonstration is a very simple model, not of how gravity really works, but a simple model created to demonstrate graphically what's going on.
Basically they tell you this: 1: imagine an infinite 2 dimensional plane 2: imagine that all objects have a downward force onto this plane, but movement in X and Y axis is completely free 3: image that big objects curve the plane itself. - That means that objects affected by the downward force of the plane, and are affected by the curvature will seek the lowest energy point available.
It's not how gravity really works. There isn't a "plane" in RL which affects us, it's that space itself is being influenced by the objects in it making objects with mass attract each other.
No one knows how this is happening, as no one really knows what space is and how space relates to the "human-measurable energy" in the universe.
There definitely is a correlation between space and matter and energy, but no equations or theories I know of to this day try and explain what it is, as it is nigh-impossible to understand what's happening.
Things like detecting gravity waves will help, but we really have no way of measuring "space" in any form except via gravity changes.
You haven't really convinced me that the browser "market" is right to sue and win on this thing with Microsoft.
The fact that a company whose market is Office applications and operating systems wrote and gave a free browser to compliment their products in my mind doesn't allow the browser market to sue them, that's like toy companies suing McDonalds for complimenting their meals with toys.
It's their OS, they should be allowed to add a complimentary program to enhance it if they want, same as McDonalds is allowed to add a complimentary toy to their meals without getting sued by other toy companies.
And the customer can themselves decide whether they want to play with their own toy while eating their meal, or they can decide to play with the complimentary toy, it's a matter of choice, even though the complimentary one comes default with the meal.
So yea, this still just looks like MS legalese bashing.
Hmm.. health care is something everyone needs now and then.
You could look at it solely from a political viewpoint and let archaic left-wing/right-wing banter moor it forever, or you could try and streamline it so that you get the most bang for your buck.
There was a recent slashdot article here about how medicine has stopped being about science and is more about the culture/politics, and this has happened with health care in the US to a critically bad point.
Seems like everyone wants a change, but everyone is afraid of change, and no one knows what to change.
I say, you voted for a change, now get the damn ball rolling, change this horrible mess you're in.
It's even easy once you realize what you want, you want to benefit as many people as possible in the most cost-effective manner possible using scientific means to measure quality/cost so you can be informed of what's going on.
I like the idea that publicly owned TV stations are given an incentive to create something that the people of that country would enjoy.
In the case of SCTV, I'd take the stance that a show made in canada with canadians fits the bill, no need to add to it anything extra, but them adding the 2 idiot canucks is a great addition.
I wouldn't want any country though to create a new entity which might have the power to control the industry itself, use current art grants, use current local TV stations, so use the current system for increasing the arts, no need to add a new governing body, and especially not one in the name of "net neutrality".
"People who fixate on "gun control" want nothing of the sort. They want to ban guns outright buy are stymied by the current state of the law. They don't want the moderate version of your little caricature."
- Um, no.. that's what you'd like to think, not what most people for gun control really want.
I've never understood the argument that because you think that when people want gun control they want a total ban on guns, you think it's better to take the complete opposite, and just as insane position that everyone can have a gun.. for free.. get one for your kids.. 1/2 price off ammo at walmart.
Either extreme is stupid in regard to guns, Most people want intelligent restriction to guns, and arguing that you're against the idea of gun control "because the people aren't really saying gun control, they're saying ban" is putting lies into the mouths of others to excuse your extremely negative view of gun control.
I'd encourage you to look at the merits of the proposition, and not at what "isn't" being said, as you're making that up all by yourself.
I wish that Thedailyshow and Colbertreport would work with Miro/torrent.. not everyone can stream those shows even at the lowest setting, and they are pretty ruthless about the limitation.. If miro would support TDS and CR, and be more forgiving, I'd use it.
Well, if you want to extend the concept of art to anything created to please, then games are art.. Sports then is an artistic expression and thus art, any image snapped off a camera is art, every single finger painting by a 2 year old is art, the way you masturbate in the morning shower? an artistic expression, and thus art.
I'm sorry, but that's a stupid way to define what is art, and about as cool as a teenagers constant use of the word "awesome" to describe the most mundane stimuli.
To me a computer game is about as artistic as sports or tv soap-operas, as in are meant as entertainment, and do their job as such. They don't have to be defined as "art" to be of value, as they already have value as entertainment.
I say stop trying to put the same hat on everything, we have different definitions to suit different circumstances, and computer games very, very rarely can be described as art, but almost all of the time be described as entertainment.
Maybe not all Republicans are neo-con, but all neo-cons are Republicans. You will always have the neo-con stigma no matter how liberal you are as a republican, but then again, you know this already and are probably ok with it.
If you don't think the neo-con speaks for you, then you might not want to be a republican anymore? I'm not saying you have to join the democrats, but if there was a party which was centrist with a right-lean, but would say no to the bullshit of the neo-cons, would you join it?
Think about it, Everyone in the republican party think they have to spout off nonsense just to please the neo-cons, there's a disgustingly obvious "I'm saying this just to please the right-religious-scaredshitless-delusional-neo-cons" to everything republicans say or do, and it's become such a "newspeak" that people are convinced themselves that they see five fingers.
I'd love it if you'd just stop being just 2 stupid parties, there's a lot to be gained from saying "hell no" to the neo-cons and have a real republican party who is centrist with a right-lean.
But that's also what I love about america, the irony, they fight religious zealots at abroad because they just can't face them at home./internet rant off.
...or just a lot of attempts until you get it right.
You could ask yourself, which came first, the science or the rocket, and I'm inclined to think that people first thought "how can we put a man on the moon" instead of "how can we implement Pascals' law of fluid pressures in shooting something at the moon?"
The thing with science is that it's mostly best-known implementations of solutions which have worked in solving a certain problem, it's what you get after countless of manhours of testing, poking, prodding and thinking about a problem.
I say kudos to the iranians, they've taken a glorious step forwards, and I'm hoping they'll continue advancing on all fronts, especially on social and humanitarian fronts.
I get the feeling that Obama just did what any sane person would do when you have a ton of horseshit on your lawn and you're on a 2 hour deadline; instead of arguing whose fault it is and making sure that the Bush who dumped a ton of horseshit on your lawn gets properly penalized for it (and thus you have no time to actually clean up the horseshit within the deadline), you realize that it's you who'll in the end have to clean it up, it's you who want to clean it up, and it's something you have to do before the deadline.
Face it, Obama got Bushed, and instead of attacking, he's cleaning the shit up, and he's a better man for it. Finally a president I really like. Finally the united states are normal again, can't wait for the rest of what he'll do.
"the gov no longer works for us, it thinks we work for it."
- classic republican nonsense.
I've always wondered why there hasn't been a book detailing how the republicans and their rhetoric about government being bad actually implements itself when they are in power.
Everytime the republicans are in office, they abuse the power, everytime. Everytime the democrats are in office, they right the wrongs of the republicans and try to develop a better society for everyone, just ripe for the neo-con republicans to scare people into voting republican again and letting the super-rich rob everyone all over again.
Wish someone more knowledgeable than me could finally go through the data and just display it in black letters on white paper how the differences in thinking between republicans and democrats actually means that everyone suffers when republicans are in power, and everyone gains when democrats are in power. There should be enough historically proven statistics, I'd just like it if certain bad ideas that keep occurring again and again get squashed, no matter in what corner the bad idea is from.
So can the whole of bush administration be sued for fraudulent behavior even though the attorney general says "I don't know" alot infront of judges? If there ever was a sentence which boils down the neo-con bush republicans it's that one.
"The people who download their apps aren't likely to pay for them in the first place."
- I completely disagree. There's alot of people who download and try before they buy. There's alot of people who for instance pirate photoshop, but when some of these guys become professional graphic artists, what package are they going to use?
It's the same with any tool, most people don't all of a sudden buy it just because they heard it works well from an ad company. Either a friend they know pirated it and recommends it, or they pirate it themselves and then decide to buy it.
Of course you would be a madman to pirate it, then buy it, and then use the legal version with all its DRM crap, continue with the pirate version and keep the legal one somewhere safe.
I think these lawsuits are just getting over the top. Microsoft in this case is interested in enhancing the user experience by integrating the web browser into the OS. I think that's fine.
And this has somehow given Europe access to suing them for as much money as they like? don't you think that's stupid? This is a clear-case of a company being attacked for being successful, this is just extra tax/bribes which is being conjured out of them, at least in asia the politicians call the bribes what it is: a bribe.
To me, as long as I can download whatever program I want and there's no artificial blockages, then I'm happy, and MS can do as they please.
The fact they add IE to the OS, I don't find anything wrong with that, and no, I don't think that other companies should get to piggyback on MS, MS made both an OS and a web browser, they can let people have the benefits of both if they so choose, If mozilla really wants its browser into a default OS, then they should make their own OS to spread it with.
It's also a tax/blackmail because other OS-companies don't have this problem. Apple doesn't have this problem, most linux distributions don't have this problem.
Hopefully they will win if they get sued because it's just a bloody stupid lawsuit.
"Eventually the wet for Obama crowd is going to wake up and realize that the Democrats are just as big of a threat to our way of life as the Republicans are. Of course by the time that happens everybody will have forgotten about how badly the GOP fucked up and we'll start the whole cycle over again. Wash, rinse, repeat."
- How you can say that with a straight face, I'll never know.
When are you religious republicans going to realize that we didn't hate the man because he was a republican, everyone hated him because he hired dumb people who were politically tied to him instead of capable people into the government, he praised people and gave them medals for gross mistakes, he was as blind as a bat to anything which didn't fit his world-view, his world-view was that of a simpleton.
The main difference I see between democrats and republicans is that republicans are willing to sacrifice what they think they don't themselves use and focus only on the bare minimum to make things barrel along; Democrats are willing to look at statistics, research and feedback on what needs are in society and make sure that they are filled so that we all benefit.
The damned curious thing is that republicans think that's "wasting tax dollars", when instead they think that a war business which they've steeped themselves into huge debts over is a good thing.
You gave Bush 8 years to really show how useless and disgusting the basic republican principles are, I hope you never allow that to happen again.
My opinion is that attitude and philosophy towards government, such as yours, is the underlying problem.
stop thinking of government as a necessary evil, it's the completely wrong way of looking at it and it allows people like Bush to get into power who have no interest in anything but filling his own pocket.
Republicans think of government as necessary evil, that's why every time they're in power, they screw it up.
"The medling of the government with the banking industry is an excellent case in point."
- Could you be more wrong? It was because of a complete LACK of government controls on the banking industry that this fell apart in the first place. You're saying that you would have wanted even less control, and even less of a bailout? my god, are you high?
The founders warned of the power of government IN THE WRONG HANDS, and also warned of the IMBALANCE of power, that's why there's a tripolar split, and one branch should never get control of anothers.
The fact is that the founders warned of the dangers of people like Bush, and you're just too religiously republican to not get it.
I really was waiting for Bush to ignore the 8 year deadline and just continue as president, but thankfully that didn't happen.
You people always praise the private industry for having the solutions, even though the private industry has never-ever been able to self regulate to the benefit of the people they serve.
Mostly you're praising that individuals of great achievement can get things done, guess what, you finally elected one as the head of government, and I sincerely hope you not only allow him to clean up the mess that "necessary evil" thinkers got us into, but also CHANGE so you won't ever allow someone as grossly incompetent as Bush gets to power.
The sentiment is that people who are fans of X will buy X whether they get it for free or not, they want to own a piece of it, and buying the CDs, DVDs is a part of that immersion into something you like. This is what the Monty python youtube videochannel is showing.
Music and video is in the distinct place that by itself it can sell the product for you.
Consider furniture. Most people are not fans of furniture, they use it, and that's it, but there are some people who enjoy a certain style of furniture, enjoy perhaps even a certain artist who creates furniture, there's a connection there same as with music, but it's alot harder for furniture artists to get their stuff out than music artists.
I've got a few friends, they are completely indifferent to music, they know where they can download thousands and thousands of songs, albums by the containerful, but they have no interest in music whatsoever, I've never seen them with a MP3, or listening to anything of that ilk.
I've also got a few DJ friends who are so immersed in music they download thousands and thousands of music, albums by the containerful, but still buy more than a few albums weekly.
Anything digital is in the unique position that you can freely advertise it just by giving it out for free, people who become fans will grab it, they will buy it.
The thing with MPAA and RIAA is that these are a few companies who want to spoil the whole industry just to save themselves, and by saving themselves like they've been trying to do, they kill the industry.
I think they should open source it, see what happens.
The real deal with mad magazine was that you had youths with ambition intelligence and wit driving the magazine, a safe-haven for pondering not just silliness but the big things that were going on (with silliness).
To me the magazine was never something i knew was filled with humor, it was filled with brilliant art, where the whole page wasn't just the frame, but alot more than that.
Today it's doesn't have the same punch, probably because you don't have young artistic minds with a desire to express themselves, you have artists drawing to a script, artists who use the same well-known format and imitate that over and again.
Back in the day, a paper and pencil was all you could get your hand on, today youtube is doing what Mad did back in the day (I point at the crazy german kid as one example).
You can either go where the young people are, and do what they're doing, or you can recapture the people who enjoyed Mad comics in the past, and go for what they care for, which is alot more adult, and alot more gritty, and alot more personal than what you sometimes see.
Slashdot Mirror
"Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite side of the correlation != causation arguments that come up on slashdot every time violent video games come up."
- He only said "IF" there is any correltion.
And guess what, there probably isn't. there is a correlation, but there isn't any causation, so the slashdot mantra still holds pretty nicely.
The 2 facts are both effects, not causes, and there is a chance that these 2 effects have the same root-cause (i.e. correlate) nothing more.
Whoosh!
I don't know why, but I'm grinning like crazy at this news, finally someone gets it.. finally!
A smiley face is in order :D
Well, if you mean "a new low" meaning that the discussion has reached the fundamentals of question/answer relationsship in a philosophical way, then Indeed!
I can say without a doubt that all questions have an answer, ask any person anywhere any question on any subject, and they will respond with an answer. It probably will be "I don't know", but that indeed is an answer.
Thing is, you can never expect to ask a question and always get the "right" answer, there are always conditions in place, and with a computer system, the condition most likely is "any answer the computer is programmed to respond with". So ask them "what is X", and at the least it should respond "I don't know" ..or if that fails, a "+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++" response.
I say change the patent system into what it really should be, a way for people to verify whether someone is illegally copying/cloning an invention for his own profit.
- If 2 people individually invent something, I say let them both have a chance to get it out there, and may the best man win. If on the other hand one stole from the other and that can be proven, let the patent system deal with that.
Not sure why it has to be more complex than that.
In the end patents do not help society, they are selfish things which only help the one who has the patent and of course there should be an expiry date on it.
"Isn't that like using gravity to explain the effect of gravity?"
- well, not quite. The demonstration is a very simple model, not of how gravity really works, but a simple model created to demonstrate graphically what's going on.
Basically they tell you this: 1: imagine an infinite 2 dimensional plane 2: imagine that all objects have a downward force onto this plane, but movement in X and Y axis is completely free 3: image that big objects curve the plane itself.
- That means that objects affected by the downward force of the plane, and are affected by the curvature will seek the lowest energy point available.
It's not how gravity really works. There isn't a "plane" in RL which affects us, it's that space itself is being influenced by the objects in it making objects with mass attract each other.
No one knows how this is happening, as no one really knows what space is and how space relates to the "human-measurable energy" in the universe.
There definitely is a correlation between space and matter and energy, but no equations or theories I know of to this day try and explain what it is, as it is nigh-impossible to understand what's happening.
Things like detecting gravity waves will help, but we really have no way of measuring "space" in any form except via gravity changes.
You haven't really convinced me that the browser "market" is right to sue and win on this thing with Microsoft.
The fact that a company whose market is Office applications and operating systems wrote and gave a free browser to compliment their products in my mind doesn't allow the browser market to sue them, that's like toy companies suing McDonalds for complimenting their meals with toys.
It's their OS, they should be allowed to add a complimentary program to enhance it if they want, same as McDonalds is allowed to add a complimentary toy to their meals without getting sued by other toy companies.
And the customer can themselves decide whether they want to play with their own toy while eating their meal, or they can decide to play with the complimentary toy, it's a matter of choice, even though the complimentary one comes default with the meal.
So yea, this still just looks like MS legalese bashing.
I actually think a 1 euro fine is about right.
Can anyone make the politicians see that the rest of us think 1 euro is a fine fine?
...did you just 'come' up with the best argument why one should never handle a library book?
I think you did.
Hmm.. health care is something everyone needs now and then.
You could look at it solely from a political viewpoint and let archaic left-wing/right-wing banter moor it forever, or you could try and streamline it so that you get the most bang for your buck.
There was a recent slashdot article here about how medicine has stopped being about science and is more about the culture/politics, and this has happened with health care in the US to a critically bad point.
Seems like everyone wants a change, but everyone is afraid of change, and no one knows what to change.
I say, you voted for a change, now get the damn ball rolling, change this horrible mess you're in.
It's even easy once you realize what you want, you want to benefit as many people as possible in the most cost-effective manner possible using scientific means to measure quality/cost so you can be informed of what's going on.
I like the idea that publicly owned TV stations are given an incentive to create something that the people of that country would enjoy.
In the case of SCTV, I'd take the stance that a show made in canada with canadians fits the bill, no need to add to it anything extra, but them adding the 2 idiot canucks is a great addition.
I wouldn't want any country though to create a new entity which might have the power to control the industry itself, use current art grants, use current local TV stations, so use the current system for increasing the arts, no need to add a new governing body, and especially not one in the name of "net neutrality".
"People who fixate on "gun control" want nothing of the sort. They want to ban
guns outright buy are stymied by the current state of the law. They don't want
the moderate version of your little caricature."
- Um, no.. that's what you'd like to think, not what most people for gun control really want.
I've never understood the argument that because you think that when people want gun control they want a total ban on guns, you think it's better to take the complete opposite, and just as insane position that everyone can have a gun.. for free.. get one for your kids.. 1/2 price off ammo at walmart.
Either extreme is stupid in regard to guns, Most people want intelligent restriction to guns, and arguing that you're against the idea of gun control "because the people aren't really saying gun control, they're saying ban" is putting lies into the mouths of others to excuse your extremely negative view of gun control.
I'd encourage you to look at the merits of the proposition, and not at what "isn't" being said, as you're making that up all by yourself.
I wish that Thedailyshow and Colbertreport would work with Miro/torrent.. not everyone can stream those shows even at the lowest setting, and they are pretty ruthless about the limitation.. If miro would support TDS and CR, and be more forgiving, I'd use it.
Well, if you want to extend the concept of art to anything created to please, then games are art.. Sports then is an artistic expression and thus art, any image snapped off a camera is art, every single finger painting by a 2 year old is art, the way you masturbate in the morning shower? an artistic expression, and thus art.
I'm sorry, but that's a stupid way to define what is art, and about as cool as a teenagers constant use of the word "awesome" to describe the most mundane stimuli.
To me a computer game is about as artistic as sports or tv soap-operas, as in are meant as entertainment, and do their job as such. They don't have to be defined as "art" to be of value, as they already have value as entertainment.
I say stop trying to put the same hat on everything, we have different definitions to suit different circumstances, and computer games very, very rarely can be described as art, but almost all of the time be described as entertainment.
/internet rant on.
Maybe not all Republicans are neo-con, but all neo-cons are Republicans. You will always have the neo-con stigma no matter how liberal you are as a republican, but then again, you know this already and are probably ok with it.
If you don't think the neo-con speaks for you, then you might not want to be a republican anymore? I'm not saying you have to join the democrats, but if there was a party which was centrist with a right-lean, but would say no to the bullshit of the neo-cons, would you join it?
Think about it, Everyone in the republican party think they have to spout off nonsense just to please the neo-cons, there's a disgustingly obvious "I'm saying this just to please the right-religious-scaredshitless-delusional-neo-cons" to everything republicans say or do, and it's become such a "newspeak" that people are convinced themselves that they see five fingers.
I'd love it if you'd just stop being just 2 stupid parties, there's a lot to be gained from saying "hell no" to the neo-cons and have a real republican party who is centrist with a right-lean.
But that's also what I love about america, the irony, they fight religious zealots at abroad because they just can't face them at home. /internet rant off.
...or just a lot of attempts until you get it right.
You could ask yourself, which came first, the science or the rocket, and I'm inclined to think that people first thought "how can we put a man on the moon" instead of "how can we implement Pascals' law of fluid pressures in shooting something at the moon?"
The thing with science is that it's mostly best-known implementations of solutions which have worked in solving a certain problem, it's what you get after countless of manhours of testing, poking, prodding and thinking about a problem.
I say kudos to the iranians, they've taken a glorious step forwards, and I'm hoping they'll continue advancing on all fronts, especially on social and humanitarian fronts.
I get the feeling that Obama just did what any sane person would do when you have a ton of horseshit on your lawn and you're on a 2 hour deadline; instead of arguing whose fault it is and making sure that the Bush who dumped a ton of horseshit on your lawn gets properly penalized for it (and thus you have no time to actually clean up the horseshit within the deadline), you realize that it's you who'll in the end have to clean it up, it's you who want to clean it up, and it's something you have to do before the deadline.
Face it, Obama got Bushed, and instead of attacking, he's cleaning the shit up, and he's a better man for it. Finally a president I really like. Finally the united states are normal again, can't wait for the rest of what he'll do.
"the gov no longer works for us, it thinks we work for it."
- classic republican nonsense.
I've always wondered why there hasn't been a book detailing how the republicans and their rhetoric about government being bad actually implements itself when they are in power.
Everytime the republicans are in office, they abuse the power, everytime. Everytime the democrats are in office, they right the wrongs of the republicans and try to develop a better society for everyone, just ripe for the neo-con republicans to scare people into voting republican again and letting the super-rich rob everyone all over again.
Wish someone more knowledgeable than me could finally go through the data and just display it in black letters on white paper how the differences in thinking between republicans and democrats actually means that everyone suffers when republicans are in power, and everyone gains when democrats are in power. There should be enough historically proven statistics, I'd just like it if certain bad ideas that keep occurring again and again get squashed, no matter in what corner the bad idea is from.
So can the whole of bush administration be sued for fraudulent behavior even though the attorney general says "I don't know" alot infront of judges? If there ever was a sentence which boils down the neo-con bush republicans it's that one.
"The people who download their apps aren't likely to pay for them in the first place."
- I completely disagree. There's alot of people who download and try before they buy. There's alot of people who for instance pirate photoshop, but when some of these guys become professional graphic artists, what package are they going to use?
It's the same with any tool, most people don't all of a sudden buy it just because they heard it works well from an ad company. Either a friend they know pirated it and recommends it, or they pirate it themselves and then decide to buy it.
Of course you would be a madman to pirate it, then buy it, and then use the legal version with all its DRM crap, continue with the pirate version and keep the legal one somewhere safe.
It kind of is.. your reply that is
I think these lawsuits are just getting over the top. Microsoft in this case is interested in enhancing the user experience by integrating the web browser into the OS. I think that's fine.
And this has somehow given Europe access to suing them for as much money as they like? don't you think that's stupid? This is a clear-case of a company being attacked for being successful, this is just extra tax/bribes which is being conjured out of them, at least in asia the politicians call the bribes what it is: a bribe.
To me, as long as I can download whatever program I want and there's no artificial blockages, then I'm happy, and MS can do as they please.
The fact they add IE to the OS, I don't find anything wrong with that, and no, I don't think that other companies should get to piggyback on MS, MS made both an OS and a web browser, they can let people have the benefits of both if they so choose, If mozilla really wants its browser into a default OS, then they should make their own OS to spread it with.
It's also a tax/blackmail because other OS-companies don't have this problem. Apple doesn't have this problem, most linux distributions don't have this problem.
Hopefully they will win if they get sued because it's just a bloody stupid lawsuit.
"Eventually the wet for Obama crowd is going to wake up and realize that the Democrats are just as big of a threat to our way of life as the Republicans are. Of course by the time that happens everybody will have forgotten about how badly the GOP fucked up and we'll start the whole cycle over again. Wash, rinse, repeat."
- How you can say that with a straight face, I'll never know.
When are you religious republicans going to realize that we didn't hate the man because he was a republican, everyone hated him because he hired dumb people who were politically tied to him instead of capable people into the government, he praised people and gave them medals for gross mistakes, he was as blind as a bat to anything which didn't fit his world-view, his world-view was that of a simpleton.
The main difference I see between democrats and republicans is that republicans are willing to sacrifice what they think they don't themselves use and focus only on the bare minimum to make things barrel along; Democrats are willing to look at statistics, research and feedback on what needs are in society and make sure that they are filled so that we all benefit.
The damned curious thing is that republicans think that's "wasting tax dollars", when instead they think that a war business which they've steeped themselves into huge debts over is a good thing.
You gave Bush 8 years to really show how useless and disgusting the basic republican principles are, I hope you never allow that to happen again.
My opinion is that attitude and philosophy towards government, such as yours, is the underlying problem.
stop thinking of government as a necessary evil, it's the completely wrong way of looking at it and it allows people like Bush to get into power who have no interest in anything but filling his own pocket.
Republicans think of government as necessary evil, that's why every time they're in power, they screw it up.
"The medling of the government with the banking industry is an excellent case in point."
- Could you be more wrong? It was because of a complete LACK of government controls on the banking industry that this fell apart in the first place. You're saying that you would have wanted even less control, and even less of a bailout? my god, are you high?
The founders warned of the power of government IN THE WRONG HANDS, and also warned of the IMBALANCE of power, that's why there's a tripolar split, and one branch should never get control of anothers.
The fact is that the founders warned of the dangers of people like Bush, and you're just too religiously republican to not get it.
I really was waiting for Bush to ignore the 8 year deadline and just continue as president, but thankfully that didn't happen.
You people always praise the private industry for having the solutions, even though the private industry has never-ever been able to self regulate to the benefit of the people they serve.
Mostly you're praising that individuals of great achievement can get things done, guess what, you finally elected one as the head of government, and I sincerely hope you not only allow him to clean up the mess that "necessary evil" thinkers got us into, but also CHANGE so you won't ever allow someone as grossly incompetent as Bush gets to power.
The sentiment is that people who are fans of X will buy X whether they get it for free or not, they want to own a piece of it, and buying the CDs, DVDs is a part of that immersion into something you like. This is what the Monty python youtube videochannel is showing.
Music and video is in the distinct place that by itself it can sell the product for you.
Consider furniture. Most people are not fans of furniture, they use it, and that's it, but there are some people who enjoy a certain style of furniture, enjoy perhaps even a certain artist who creates furniture, there's a connection there same as with music, but it's alot harder for furniture artists to get their stuff out than music artists.
I've got a few friends, they are completely indifferent to music, they know where they can download thousands and thousands of songs, albums by the containerful, but they have no interest in music whatsoever, I've never seen them with a MP3, or listening to anything of that ilk.
I've also got a few DJ friends who are so immersed in music they download thousands and thousands of music, albums by the containerful, but still buy more than a few albums weekly.
Anything digital is in the unique position that you can freely advertise it just by giving it out for free, people who become fans will grab it, they will buy it.
The thing with MPAA and RIAA is that these are a few companies who want to spoil the whole industry just to save themselves, and by saving themselves like they've been trying to do, they kill the industry.
I think they should open source it, see what happens.
The real deal with mad magazine was that you had youths with ambition intelligence and wit driving the magazine, a safe-haven for pondering not just silliness but the big things that were going on (with silliness).
To me the magazine was never something i knew was filled with humor, it was filled with brilliant art, where the whole page wasn't just the frame, but alot more than that.
Today it's doesn't have the same punch, probably because you don't have young artistic minds with a desire to express themselves, you have artists drawing to a script, artists who use the same well-known format and imitate that over and again.
Back in the day, a paper and pencil was all you could get your hand on, today youtube is doing what Mad did back in the day (I point at the crazy german kid as one example).
You can either go where the young people are, and do what they're doing, or you can recapture the people who enjoyed Mad comics in the past, and go for what they care for, which is alot more adult, and alot more gritty, and alot more personal than what you sometimes see.
Good luck to them, I hope they can survive.