Thanks for the info seems to make sense how they did it.
Don't normally point out typos but this one is funny "tormenting the 1 GB":-) I hate these clusters they've always been mean to me so as punishment I'll write Barnie episodes on them in an endless loop:-)
Apps do as far as I know and music shows up in the iTunes store and you have to individually select it (as far as this sufficiently dorky sounding guy demonstrates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9q7FTO_9to). So we're each half right I think:-)
Agreed on both points. Siri selects people based on willingness to use data. It is used for searching for things so what happens when you get results? You start browsing to them etc which means you'll be using more data. Kind of an obvious conclusion since with Siri you have a group of people that are selected to be data users, versus non-siri users where the population might or might not use data.
The cloud functions are pretty huge actually. I've been thinking of that since iCloud came out. I live in Canada and our data packages are rediculous. Out comes Apple with a product that syncs everything to everything else crazy usage. Sure people can select what they want but chances are the average user is going to say "well I want songs on my phone so I'll turn that on" and all of a sudden every song that they download on the computer is going through their data package to get to their phone. Wouldn't be such a big deal for those that purchase songs since the cost of the data is still relatively cheap compared to the price of the song but what about those people that pirate a 1GB of Rolling Stones torrent one night? I do stuff like that a lot when I'm trying to find out about older stuff of a band I like, 95% of what I download I might not like and delete in a week or so, but iCloud would be going batshit on my network connection all the time because I churn content a lot.
I'd still say the studio loses something on a used sale. There would have been some amount of the money that they could have skimmed off of you. Say everyone resells there games to take it to an extreme. Than the amount that people are willing to pay for a new game that do pay for the game is the retail price - the buy back price they'll get from a used store ~$5. The used store turns around and sells the game for $20 if the studio instead was the one selling the game at retail for that price they would have gotten a portion of that sale. In theory selling a locked version of the game for $5 less should sell the same as a unlocked version that you can sell for $5 later but it gives the studio the opportunity to control the market. The studio is better off once the sales have flattened on the game to start dropping the price eventually to the discount bin level so that new is always close to the used price the classic "skimming the market" technique that is used for hardware.
That is assuming brand effects aren't taken into account which if they are it might mean the damage to the brand of being in the discount bin is greater than the used sales are worth (EA might never want to see FIFA in the $5 bin for example) as well as the cost of any licensing that has to happen (eg. rights to players).
I see your point with kids games. They probably have a much longer life too since kids are relatively easily amused where as there are a bunch of adult nerds out there that will say "oh the fill rate on the fog effect is so 2005":-).
Data Piracy Day and was thinking "yes". Everyone turn everything on to download stuff at the same time. Make those "legitament business use" people beg for mercy.
I think we are arguing the same thing but coming to opposite conclusions. To me the abuse happened irregardless of whether or not it was filmed. For the kiddie porn itself to be illegal you should have to show that the porn itself does harm. Whether or not the molester would have molested without the monetary benefit is a fact unproven. Also sometimes what is considered kiddie porn doesn't involve any sort of abuse.
I heard of a case (I assume there are several like it) where a guy was convicted of child porn because he had nude pictures of some relatives (nieces/nephews?) that were skinny dipping when really young or something (it was a few years back). Anyways the guy did some time and finally got released. As well a lot of parents have nude pics of their kids as infants but it isn't considered porn until creepy uncle Ned collects them and starts selling them to friends. It is a complicated mess, perhaps no one should take naked pictures and save themselves the risk. After all does your mother really need a picture at the moment you were taking a bath so bad that she couldn't wait until you were dressed?
I think the biggest argument for kiddy porn being illegal and bomb making not being illegal is the time frame. At least those images depicting sexual activities there WAS a criminal act so the images could be seen as proceeds of crime, where as the bomb making stuff might be evidence that some time in the future you MIGHT do something illegal (at least in the countries where the info itself isn't illegal). That would have been the argument I'd make. But non-expicit images is a hard one because they could be taken in a situation where the kid didn't care/know, wasn't abused and being used for the gratification of someone that doesn't ever intent to act on their fetish. At that point all you are preventing is having a guy stimulate himself with thoughts you don't like which is back to the shaky ground of the banning bomb making tips where the courts are essentially saying "I don't like what you are thinking about/interested in and it should be illegal".
I think it is a very subtle distinction. If say the guy that made the porn was already arrested he presumably isn't making more of it. Is the kid harmed more if one more person sees it? In my mind at least I think if I was abused that the fact that anyone saw it would case pain and N + 1 people would be no more painful. Also I think the actual activities themselves are more damaging than the fact that they were filmed. That said I haven't abused, I'd be curious to see a study comparing abused but not distributed versus distributed and the amount of mental problems the victims suffer. I'm curious if there is any correlation. I'm fine with it being illegal because I have no interest in it, but I'm not so sure that the abusers are any less inclined to abuse because they can't also make money off it. So I'm not sure that kiddy porn is any more damaging than a bomb recipe. At best I think you can argue that both things aren't stuff that the average person needs to know and both have the potential for harm whether or not that gives the government a right to make the knowledge illegal is another thing.
It is similar to the debate around stem cell research during G.W.'s administration. Does making a demand for stem cells promote abortions were the mother might otherwise be convinced to carry to term and offer the kid up for adoption? If so does that mean that a scientist doing experiments is guilty for any women that might be pressured into abortions? The Bush government seemed to think so with their stem cell ban, at least that is what I remember Decision Points, Bush's autobiography. But he also said that they decided the way they did because scientists said there was enough stem cell strains available that they probably didn't need more). Demand doesn't help get rid of something you don't like but it doesn't prevent the person doing the original action from being responsible for their actions.
For another example: videos of murders are legal and I think everyone would agree murder is illegal whether or not the video would make you famous. The fame/money is immaterial since it doesn't affect whether or not the action is legal.
Just because you hate an action, it doesn't mean you are allowed to prevent it from being thought about.
No but the fact that the legislative body created a law that makes it illegal to have the information does make it illegal to have the information.
Interesting links about intent etc. I guess this is an example where the spirit/purpose of the law (in my mind to prevent planning terrorist acts) goes in a different direction than other laws in that it doesn't require that the plan be for a specific target before it becomes illegal.
I can see the challenge here though for law enforcement. A murderer actually planning to kill someone for a reason (not just a random pyschopath killing looking for a random victim) has a target in mind when they do their planning. A terrorist will probably be quite willing to blow up the Pentagon instead of the White House if they think that would be easier at the time. So they might make a generic plan (break into building fence with truck boom made with X explosive and go boom). Law enforcement probably doesn't want to have to wait until their is a specific target because it could be picked immediately before setting off the explosive. "Lets see how we do with a drive by the White House and there was a army guard their by chance, lets blow up the Lincoln Memorial instead" kind of thing.
His crime was possession of the information which is illegal in the UK so there was a "physical crime". You don't have to like it but you also are taking the chance and deserve what you get when you break the law. Similar to how in most countries having kiddy porn is illegal even if they can't prove that you ever intended on sellign/using it, or even looked at it (say part of a large picture collection you download). Some info/data is illegal regardless of what you do with it.
How about conspiracy to commit murder? I'm pretty sure it is illegal in most places even if the target doesn't actually get attacked. As I posted earlier though, it is in fact against the law to have the information in the UK unless you have "a reasonable excuse". Buddy with "I want to do jihad" letters and weapons price lists would have a pretty hard time coming up with a reasonable excuse.
It is illegial in the UK to have the information: Terrorism act 2000 sec 58 (2)In this section “record” includes a photographic or electronic record.
(3)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession.
(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years, to a fine or to both, or
(b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both.
His defence would have to be a "reasonable excuse" to why he had the info. I'm not sure if "I'm interested in chemistry" or" I'm studying IEDs out of curiosity since your troops are dying from them" would be considered reasonable. Especially when you have a letter (albieit) anonymous saying you want advice on fighting a jihad.
P.S. I also love how a lot of jihadists live in the west, study there and then act all pissed off with the western lifestyle. Funny it was good enough for you to live, you went there for school because yours are crap but "everything the west does is evil".
Prostitutes are better you know how much the sex is going to cost up front:-)
Games don't have an unlimited life because it becomes hard/impossible to find hardware for them. I realize emulators help with that but for example dust off an old copy of wolfenstein and try to run it on a i7 Win 7 box. Cars ~10 years I live in Canada. Even if the mechanically runs most of them start having serious rust issues due to the salt around that time. Would be nice to live in the southern US where I hear it is common to get 1M km out of a car (here we're lucky to get 200k or so before the car is starting to have serious problems).
I see your point. The price of manufacturing a game is much less than the cost at the store. If the game studios want money they can just sell a cheaper copy. I guess the problem becomes really popular games. Say a new Final Fantasy. You might play it till you've completed it say a month and then want to sell it while the game is still at full price. They don't want to cut the price of the game so the used market exists. Once a game is a year or so old you see it start to show up in classics collections or whatever at a discount. I guess the problem is that games have a very short half life to the purchaser (at least some games do) but a longer valuable life to the seller (ie the new FF is still a hot item for about 3-6months but you might be done with it after a month). I think this is why the new consoles all have networks and updates of the game. They are trying to give you some incentive to hang on to the game (and pay for extra levels etc) rather than flood the market with 1 month old copies of MW3.
I think part of the problem is how quick things wear out. The car company knows someone will be buying a new car (likely you) if you sell your old one. Eventually that used car will be worth less than it is going to cost to fix it. Software is immortal or at least is compared to how quickly it improves/is expected to be the "current standard". What I mean is you can get a car that is say 10 years old and it will be roughly the same with major model changes about the same range of time. But a car when used typically isn't in that great of a shape after 10 years so will get replaced soon.
Software: lots of engineering work (say ~80% of cost versus 10% for automotive) to improve it fairly drastically every 3 years or so. But if you can live with the older features you could pretty much hang onto it for about 10-5 years (before the OS/CPU no longer supports it on commodity hardware) so there is the risk that your customers will skip 3-5 product cycles between upgrades if they could by used. Not saying it is fair or right but software companies want their current users to give them money at the same frequency that they products get upgraded so that they can pay for all the engineering work required to compete.
You have a point here. People willing to buy a used game are by definition willing to spend money on games which perhaps the average person isn't. More of a PC game thing though, IMHO, most people I know that play consoles actually buy their console games where as PC gamers are always looking for someone with a cracked copy on a torrent site, at least that has been my experience. But regardless you can be pretty sure you are losing something when someone buys used versus new, where as for a pirated copy all you can say is that the person MIGHT have been willing to pay something if they had no other option.
Agreed. It is a step function I think. You get modded up slightly more people will bother to read it. Once they do assuming it is a good post and they have mod points you'll probably get another point. If they don't agree it is good you'll get bounced back to 2. So 3 and 4's are just paths to getting a 5 afterwards people probably won't bother to mod you because it would be a waste to give a point to something that is already a 5.
Well if most people read with a setting of 2 than if you mod down a post you don't like that is new you'd essentially move it off the majority of peoples screen and banish it:-) So I guess you have more power if you mod down than up because modding down gets rid of it but moding up its still there with the rest of things.
I very rarely mod down it has to be a pretty blatant personal attach or something. I mainly comb through the twos and look for ones that were worthwhile and help them along. Things that are already 3+ will show up for virtually everyone so I don't bother. But giving a slight boost to someones unmodded post helps when people visually filter via the "I have 5 minutes what is good" criteria.
I lasted about a week in grade 7 science. The teacher said "I don't know" several times and than realized she didn't know enough to teach me and sent me to the library for the rest of my classes so I could research stuff on my own. Worked for me. Should almost be like university required courses where sometimes the prof gives people the option of just writing the exam and if they pass they don't take the course. They could have done that with you and let you read a book for that hour a day.
Classes at high school could work, my case the highschool in my area was probably a 40 min walk away. Not sure how that would have worked I was advanced for math and science but just normally brilliant in other subjects (mid 90's nothing "special" IMHO though good) so getting me back and forth each day would have been a pain.
a school has to provide education at your level or find/allow means to do so
I think it is more a school "should" provide. They don't have to. The regulations say they need to teach you X by year Y. If you already know it there isn't any obligation for the teacher to go out of there way and make special lessons for you. You're just one less student they have to worry about.
If they have resources or you live in a large enough city where they can combine kids with similar gifts together and only teach one lesson plan but at a higher level that is one thing. But is an already overworked teacher obligated to teach two or more lessons so that every kid is challenged at their own level?
I was the same way but in science. By grade 7 I knew more than my teacher so she sent me off to do independent study for the term. I worked on newtonian and relativistic physics and came back at the end of the year and gave a presentation on the subject. I'm sure it happens more times than not. I looked into becoming a teacher at one point and for something to be considered a teachable (at least in Ontario where I live) I think it only required that you had 3 courses in the subject at a university level.
You had to have a primary and secondary teachable (where you had a degree in the subject or pretty close to a minor) but anything extra was extra. So your grade 10 science teacher might have been a bio major so anything outside of the normal chemistry and physics in the curriculum that you knew or wanted to know about they didn't necessarily know themselves. They'd have to go learn it in order to teach it to you and frankly THEY might not have the ability to excel at the subject enough to teach it well.
The other sad thing with the teaching profession was that they had to take a bunch of psych and "humanities" courses to qualify to get into teachers college. That meant that a physics or comp sci major student had a really hard time because it pretty much meant they didn't have any electives in physics (GR, particle, bio-physics, advanced computational, fluid mechanics etc were all electives at my school) and the schedule of classes was almost guaranteed to conflict with each other or at least be at a really inconvenient time. Where as the general science or humanities majors the schedules worked out, the courses could be counted towards there major etc. What ends up happening is there is a lot of teachers in science and math with lower level education in their field because they had to make room for the humanities courses and the electives in a second teachable. I'm sorry but a physicist that doesn't know the really large (GR) or the really small (particle) isn't a physicist IMHO and a good mathematics teacher doesn't need to know how to write in iambic pentameter.
Hmm not sure. People that had sex are likely more similar than people that aren't, more likely to be of similar social and financial status, more likely to continue to live similarly even after the break up etc. Also the babies have the same chemical environment during development. 30% is pretty huge depending what it is: say 30% of IQ = one doctor and one squeegee kid.
Where the hell did this come from? I agree a lot of baseless accusations flying around but what does this have to do with the parent post or the comment by Aeros? Even if Aeros was one of the many accounts you mention I don't see how it is relevant to the post about. I'm confused.
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Thanks for the info seems to make sense how they did it.
Don't normally point out typos but this one is funny "tormenting the 1 GB" :-) I hate these clusters they've always been mean to me so as punishment I'll write Barnie episodes on them in an endless loop :-)
Apps do as far as I know and music shows up in the iTunes store and you have to individually select it (as far as this sufficiently dorky sounding guy demonstrates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9q7FTO_9to). So we're each half right I think :-)
Of course not if it isn't free or bashing FB or MS it isn't welcome.
Agreed on both points. Siri selects people based on willingness to use data. It is used for searching for things so what happens when you get results? You start browsing to them etc which means you'll be using more data. Kind of an obvious conclusion since with Siri you have a group of people that are selected to be data users, versus non-siri users where the population might or might not use data.
The cloud functions are pretty huge actually. I've been thinking of that since iCloud came out. I live in Canada and our data packages are rediculous. Out comes Apple with a product that syncs everything to everything else crazy usage. Sure people can select what they want but chances are the average user is going to say "well I want songs on my phone so I'll turn that on" and all of a sudden every song that they download on the computer is going through their data package to get to their phone. Wouldn't be such a big deal for those that purchase songs since the cost of the data is still relatively cheap compared to the price of the song but what about those people that pirate a 1GB of Rolling Stones torrent one night? I do stuff like that a lot when I'm trying to find out about older stuff of a band I like, 95% of what I download I might not like and delete in a week or so, but iCloud would be going batshit on my network connection all the time because I churn content a lot.
I'd still say the studio loses something on a used sale. There would have been some amount of the money that they could have skimmed off of you. Say everyone resells there games to take it to an extreme. Than the amount that people are willing to pay for a new game that do pay for the game is the retail price - the buy back price they'll get from a used store ~$5. The used store turns around and sells the game for $20 if the studio instead was the one selling the game at retail for that price they would have gotten a portion of that sale. In theory selling a locked version of the game for $5 less should sell the same as a unlocked version that you can sell for $5 later but it gives the studio the opportunity to control the market. The studio is better off once the sales have flattened on the game to start dropping the price eventually to the discount bin level so that new is always close to the used price the classic "skimming the market" technique that is used for hardware.
That is assuming brand effects aren't taken into account which if they are it might mean the damage to the brand of being in the discount bin is greater than the used sales are worth (EA might never want to see FIFA in the $5 bin for example) as well as the cost of any licensing that has to happen (eg. rights to players).
I see your point with kids games. They probably have a much longer life too since kids are relatively easily amused where as there are a bunch of adult nerds out there that will say "oh the fill rate on the fog effect is so 2005" :-).
Data Piracy Day and was thinking "yes". Everyone turn everything on to download stuff at the same time. Make those "legitament business use" people beg for mercy.
I think we are arguing the same thing but coming to opposite conclusions. To me the abuse happened irregardless of whether or not it was filmed. For the kiddie porn itself to be illegal you should have to show that the porn itself does harm. Whether or not the molester would have molested without the monetary benefit is a fact unproven. Also sometimes what is considered kiddie porn doesn't involve any sort of abuse.
I heard of a case (I assume there are several like it) where a guy was convicted of child porn because he had nude pictures of some relatives (nieces/nephews?) that were skinny dipping when really young or something (it was a few years back). Anyways the guy did some time and finally got released. As well a lot of parents have nude pics of their kids as infants but it isn't considered porn until creepy uncle Ned collects them and starts selling them to friends. It is a complicated mess, perhaps no one should take naked pictures and save themselves the risk. After all does your mother really need a picture at the moment you were taking a bath so bad that she couldn't wait until you were dressed?
I think the biggest argument for kiddy porn being illegal and bomb making not being illegal is the time frame. At least those images depicting sexual activities there WAS a criminal act so the images could be seen as proceeds of crime, where as the bomb making stuff might be evidence that some time in the future you MIGHT do something illegal (at least in the countries where the info itself isn't illegal). That would have been the argument I'd make. But non-expicit images is a hard one because they could be taken in a situation where the kid didn't care/know, wasn't abused and being used for the gratification of someone that doesn't ever intent to act on their fetish. At that point all you are preventing is having a guy stimulate himself with thoughts you don't like which is back to the shaky ground of the banning bomb making tips where the courts are essentially saying "I don't like what you are thinking about/interested in and it should be illegal".
I think it is a very subtle distinction. If say the guy that made the porn was already arrested he presumably isn't making more of it. Is the kid harmed more if one more person sees it? In my mind at least I think if I was abused that the fact that anyone saw it would case pain and N + 1 people would be no more painful. Also I think the actual activities themselves are more damaging than the fact that they were filmed. That said I haven't abused, I'd be curious to see a study comparing abused but not distributed versus distributed and the amount of mental problems the victims suffer. I'm curious if there is any correlation. I'm fine with it being illegal because I have no interest in it, but I'm not so sure that the abusers are any less inclined to abuse because they can't also make money off it. So I'm not sure that kiddy porn is any more damaging than a bomb recipe. At best I think you can argue that both things aren't stuff that the average person needs to know and both have the potential for harm whether or not that gives the government a right to make the knowledge illegal is another thing.
It is similar to the debate around stem cell research during G.W.'s administration. Does making a demand for stem cells promote abortions were the mother might otherwise be convinced to carry to term and offer the kid up for adoption? If so does that mean that a scientist doing experiments is guilty for any women that might be pressured into abortions? The Bush government seemed to think so with their stem cell ban, at least that is what I remember Decision Points, Bush's autobiography. But he also said that they decided the way they did because scientists said there was enough stem cell strains available that they probably didn't need more). Demand doesn't help get rid of something you don't like but it doesn't prevent the person doing the original action from being responsible for their actions.
For another example: videos of murders are legal and I think everyone would agree murder is illegal whether or not the video would make you famous. The fame/money is immaterial since it doesn't affect whether or not the action is legal.
Dial your stupid gun up to "nun" and fire :-)
Just because you hate an action, it doesn't mean you are allowed to prevent it from being thought about.
No but the fact that the legislative body created a law that makes it illegal to have the information does make it illegal to have the information.
Interesting links about intent etc. I guess this is an example where the spirit/purpose of the law (in my mind to prevent planning terrorist acts) goes in a different direction than other laws in that it doesn't require that the plan be for a specific target before it becomes illegal.
I can see the challenge here though for law enforcement. A murderer actually planning to kill someone for a reason (not just a random pyschopath killing looking for a random victim) has a target in mind when they do their planning. A terrorist will probably be quite willing to blow up the Pentagon instead of the White House if they think that would be easier at the time. So they might make a generic plan (break into building fence with truck boom made with X explosive and go boom). Law enforcement probably doesn't want to have to wait until their is a specific target because it could be picked immediately before setting off the explosive. "Lets see how we do with a drive by the White House and there was a army guard their by chance, lets blow up the Lincoln Memorial instead" kind of thing.
His crime was possession of the information which is illegal in the UK so there was a "physical crime". You don't have to like it but you also are taking the chance and deserve what you get when you break the law. Similar to how in most countries having kiddy porn is illegal even if they can't prove that you ever intended on sellign/using it, or even looked at it (say part of a large picture collection you download). Some info/data is illegal regardless of what you do with it.
How about conspiracy to commit murder? I'm pretty sure it is illegal in most places even if the target doesn't actually get attacked. As I posted earlier though, it is in fact against the law to have the information in the UK unless you have "a reasonable excuse". Buddy with "I want to do jihad" letters and weapons price lists would have a pretty hard time coming up with a reasonable excuse.
It is illegial in the UK to have the information:
Terrorism act 2000 sec 58
(2)In this section “record” includes a photographic or electronic record.
(3)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession.
(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years, to a fine or to both, or
(b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both.
His defence would have to be a "reasonable excuse" to why he had the info. I'm not sure if "I'm interested in chemistry" or" I'm studying IEDs out of curiosity since your troops are dying from them" would be considered reasonable. Especially when you have a letter (albieit) anonymous saying you want advice on fighting a jihad.
P.S. I also love how a lot of jihadists live in the west, study there and then act all pissed off with the western lifestyle. Funny it was good enough for you to live, you went there for school because yours are crap but "everything the west does is evil".
It depends are you brown?
Prostitutes are better you know how much the sex is going to cost up front :-)
Games don't have an unlimited life because it becomes hard/impossible to find hardware for them. I realize emulators help with that but for example dust off an old copy of wolfenstein and try to run it on a i7 Win 7 box. Cars ~10 years I live in Canada. Even if the mechanically runs most of them start having serious rust issues due to the salt around that time. Would be nice to live in the southern US where I hear it is common to get 1M km out of a car (here we're lucky to get 200k or so before the car is starting to have serious problems).
I see your point. The price of manufacturing a game is much less than the cost at the store. If the game studios want money they can just sell a cheaper copy. I guess the problem becomes really popular games. Say a new Final Fantasy. You might play it till you've completed it say a month and then want to sell it while the game is still at full price. They don't want to cut the price of the game so the used market exists. Once a game is a year or so old you see it start to show up in classics collections or whatever at a discount. I guess the problem is that games have a very short half life to the purchaser (at least some games do) but a longer valuable life to the seller (ie the new FF is still a hot item for about 3-6months but you might be done with it after a month). I think this is why the new consoles all have networks and updates of the game. They are trying to give you some incentive to hang on to the game (and pay for extra levels etc) rather than flood the market with 1 month old copies of MW3.
I think part of the problem is how quick things wear out. The car company knows someone will be buying a new car (likely you) if you sell your old one. Eventually that used car will be worth less than it is going to cost to fix it. Software is immortal or at least is compared to how quickly it improves/is expected to be the "current standard". What I mean is you can get a car that is say 10 years old and it will be roughly the same with major model changes about the same range of time. But a car when used typically isn't in that great of a shape after 10 years so will get replaced soon.
Software: lots of engineering work (say ~80% of cost versus 10% for automotive) to improve it fairly drastically every 3 years or so. But if you can live with the older features you could pretty much hang onto it for about 10-5 years (before the OS/CPU no longer supports it on commodity hardware) so there is the risk that your customers will skip 3-5 product cycles between upgrades if they could by used. Not saying it is fair or right but software companies want their current users to give them money at the same frequency that they products get upgraded so that they can pay for all the engineering work required to compete.
You have a point here. People willing to buy a used game are by definition willing to spend money on games which perhaps the average person isn't. More of a PC game thing though, IMHO, most people I know that play consoles actually buy their console games where as PC gamers are always looking for someone with a cracked copy on a torrent site, at least that has been my experience. But regardless you can be pretty sure you are losing something when someone buys used versus new, where as for a pirated copy all you can say is that the person MIGHT have been willing to pay something if they had no other option.
Agreed. It is a step function I think. You get modded up slightly more people will bother to read it. Once they do assuming it is a good post and they have mod points you'll probably get another point. If they don't agree it is good you'll get bounced back to 2. So 3 and 4's are just paths to getting a 5 afterwards people probably won't bother to mod you because it would be a waste to give a point to something that is already a 5.
Well if most people read with a setting of 2 than if you mod down a post you don't like that is new you'd essentially move it off the majority of peoples screen and banish it :-) So I guess you have more power if you mod down than up because modding down gets rid of it but moding up its still there with the rest of things.
I very rarely mod down it has to be a pretty blatant personal attach or something. I mainly comb through the twos and look for ones that were worthwhile and help them along. Things that are already 3+ will show up for virtually everyone so I don't bother. But giving a slight boost to someones unmodded post helps when people visually filter via the "I have 5 minutes what is good" criteria.
I lasted about a week in grade 7 science. The teacher said "I don't know" several times and than realized she didn't know enough to teach me and sent me to the library for the rest of my classes so I could research stuff on my own. Worked for me. Should almost be like university required courses where sometimes the prof gives people the option of just writing the exam and if they pass they don't take the course. They could have done that with you and let you read a book for that hour a day.
Classes at high school could work, my case the highschool in my area was probably a 40 min walk away. Not sure how that would have worked I was advanced for math and science but just normally brilliant in other subjects (mid 90's nothing "special" IMHO though good) so getting me back and forth each day would have been a pain.
a school has to provide education at your level or find/allow means to do so
I think it is more a school "should" provide. They don't have to. The regulations say they need to teach you X by year Y. If you already know it there isn't any obligation for the teacher to go out of there way and make special lessons for you. You're just one less student they have to worry about.
If they have resources or you live in a large enough city where they can combine kids with similar gifts together and only teach one lesson plan but at a higher level that is one thing. But is an already overworked teacher obligated to teach two or more lessons so that every kid is challenged at their own level?
I was the same way but in science. By grade 7 I knew more than my teacher so she sent me off to do independent study for the term. I worked on newtonian and relativistic physics and came back at the end of the year and gave a presentation on the subject. I'm sure it happens more times than not. I looked into becoming a teacher at one point and for something to be considered a teachable (at least in Ontario where I live) I think it only required that you had 3 courses in the subject at a university level.
You had to have a primary and secondary teachable (where you had a degree in the subject or pretty close to a minor) but anything extra was extra. So your grade 10 science teacher might have been a bio major so anything outside of the normal chemistry and physics in the curriculum that you knew or wanted to know about they didn't necessarily know themselves. They'd have to go learn it in order to teach it to you and frankly THEY might not have the ability to excel at the subject enough to teach it well.
The other sad thing with the teaching profession was that they had to take a bunch of psych and "humanities" courses to qualify to get into teachers college. That meant that a physics or comp sci major student had a really hard time because it pretty much meant they didn't have any electives in physics (GR, particle, bio-physics, advanced computational, fluid mechanics etc were all electives at my school) and the schedule of classes was almost guaranteed to conflict with each other or at least be at a really inconvenient time. Where as the general science or humanities majors the schedules worked out, the courses could be counted towards there major etc. What ends up happening is there is a lot of teachers in science and math with lower level education in their field because they had to make room for the humanities courses and the electives in a second teachable. I'm sorry but a physicist that doesn't know the really large (GR) or the really small (particle) isn't a physicist IMHO and a good mathematics teacher doesn't need to know how to write in iambic pentameter.
Hmm not sure. People that had sex are likely more similar than people that aren't, more likely to be of similar social and financial status, more likely to continue to live similarly even after the break up etc. Also the babies have the same chemical environment during development. 30% is pretty huge depending what it is: say 30% of IQ = one doctor and one squeegee kid.
I agree married people should pay the same taxes as single people.
Where the hell did this come from? I agree a lot of baseless accusations flying around but what does this have to do with the parent post or the comment by Aeros? Even if Aeros was one of the many accounts you mention I don't see how it is relevant to the post about. I'm confused.