Sure, thank you for bolstering my point. The title asks if the sushi is hazardous, but the story is only about the fish, not the rice or seaweed (etc)... (I'm tired and feeling a bit picky.)
Language is about communication. How many people do you think thought to themselves "I bet they're talking about the rice!". Then, reading into it, got confused, and wondered "what does tuna have to do with *SUSHI*?!?!?"
Even you, the person making a fuss, *KNEW* what was being communicated. So what's the problem?
Slack language is a cause and/or result of slack thinking.
Sort of. Slack language is superior to strict language, as the world *itself* is not strict (or, if you prefer, one single slack word can usually better convey an idea than even a *thousand* strict words).
Slack language, and slack thinking, you are right, go together, but they are inextricable aspects of being human and existing in reality.
For example, single TV episodes advertised as "all new" or the Dodge Ram commercial that states the truck is "all brawn, all brain" - sigh.
In both cases you know what they mean. They are examples of language working as it should.
You are correct about the word sushi technically refers specifically to the rice and how it's prepared, but you are very, *very* wrong in your conclusion that the word is being used incorrectly here.
Eat less calories and you eventually weigh less. You may be less healthy, but I guarentee, you'll weigh less!
That's not true, and a fundamental problem most engineering/geek types make with regards to calories and weight loss. It's an oversimplification like saying "increase the mass of something and I guarantee it will be harder to lift". Two counterexamples are increasing mass to correct for awkward shapes, and increasing mass by attaching a (very large) helium balloon.
With calories, eating less may cause you to become more lethargic, which may actually *increase* weight.
Getting 150 calories from a Twinkie certainly is less beneficial than 150 calories from oatmeal, for the exact reasons you describe
Twinkie calories get turned into fat more readily. Oatmeal calories both take more calories to consume, and are spread out over time, making them less likely to get turned into fat, while also decreasing hunger later and/or lethargy later. Also, eventually, with twinkies, your health will suffer such that you will find gaining weight, even on the same amount of calories, is much, much easier (i.e., due to less muscle mass, you will burn fewer calories when you are sitting down, and you will find activities more stressing, and partake in them less often).
"Eating less calorines doesn't mean you lose weigh!" I was like, "really, tell that to someone starving to death..."
You haven't really refuted anything. All you've done is show an example where it *does* lead to weight loss, not shown that, as a blanket statement, eating fewer calories leads to weight loss with a sufficiently high level of correlation.
When starving people lose weight, that happens because, after a certain point, there's nowhere to go but down. When you don't eat enough to support your body's functions, you will eventually lose weight. But if you are eating in excess of that, there's a lot more leeway, and increasing calories can lead to weight loss, while cutting calories can lead to weight gain. When you're starving, there's no leeway, and the only think you can do is either consumer body mass to stay alive, or die, which just like losing or gaining weight under more normal circumstances, is not all that much under one's conscious control. You have some input into the matter, but you can only supply the foods (or lack thereof) and to a certain extent, the physical activity, but your body will do what it will with those inputs, and what it does is *not* always what a cursory thermodynamical view of the situation might imply.
Trying to pretend that information stored in your head by means electro-chemical is somehow qualitatively different than modulation of magnetic fields, laser beams or electrons in silicone or ink on paper is simply mendacious sophistry.
Given that you are claiming that a CD is indistinguishable from a flash drive is indistinguishable from a human brain, I would be careful about bandying about terms like "mendacious sophistry".
Should it be any different
Yes, it should. Most humans have no difficulty in seeing the difference in making a photocopy of a book and reading a book.
But I tell you what. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you're not the complete idiot your posts have implied. By all means, take your argument into a legal setting--a great way might be to write a book, then sue people for reading it. Once you've triumphed, I'll accept your notion that copies in a computer needing to be authorized that it "must logically lead to convictions for 'unauthorized copies' in your mind".
I look forward to reading of your success in the matter.
As one can easily see, the argument of "unauthorized copies" in any medium, once precedents are established (as they already apparently are), must logically lead to convictions for "unauthorized copies" in your mind (also known as "illegal thoughts").
Please explain how the one thing "must logically" lead to the other?
Now that's I've grown-up I just buy the top two systems (Nintendo 64/PS1, Gamecube/PS2, Wii/X360)
Shouldn't that read XBOX/PS2?
No, it should read PS2/PS1 (in the more natural #1/#2 order, instead of the OP's Sony-diminishing reverse order). Or if you want the top five (for context):
PS2/PS1/NES/Wii/SNES (the last three having sold far fewer than the first two).
The NES and SNES console wars. Not the N64 or GameCube wars.
The present war is still in effect.
It took nearly 2 full years for Wii stock to meet demand.
Only due to a deliberate decision by Nintendo to *not* increase production.
The Wii is tracking ahead of the PS2 in terms of sales, despite the global recession and the high failure rate of early PS2 models.
What does the "high failure rate" (oh, please. the "high failure rate" is *nothing* like the *present* failure rate of the Xbox 360) of early PS2s have to do with Wii sales rates?
How far out do you have to extrapolate for the Wii to surpass the PS2 as the top selling console of all time? The Wii hasn't even surpassed the NES, which itself has sold less than *half* the number of units the PS2 has, and is Nintendo's top selling console to date.
On the other hand, Nintendo's profits fell by over 50% last quarter over the same quarter last year. Additionally, the PS3 outsold the Wii in September in the US, taking the top spot in console sales.
To read Slashdot, you'd think Nintendo is experiencing exponential profits growth, and the Xbox 360 outsells the PS3 10-to-1.
I agree, except that it was due to any sort of "voting". It's just market forces. Market forces are more like herd dynamics. Herds don't "vote". They don't stop and deliberate for a year, then tally a vote and move on. They run wherever the majority is headed.
If a single wildebeest runs off in some other direction, he's not casting a vote, he's just running somewhere in the hopes that the rest will follow. If he's a wildebeest of significance (i.e., a corporation, a celebrity, or a politician), the herd may very well follow him. If he's just some random wildebeest (i.e., any of us here on Slashdot), there is virtually *zero* chance the herd is going to follow him, no matter how superior his choice.
Market forces have shown that people prefer to rent movies. It was never put up for a vote, and many people may have bought a movie they'd have rather rented due to availability issues. If a purchase is the equivalent of a vote, then why would someone promote an election system which often tells people to cast their vote for the *opposite* of what they actually *prefer*?
It is not in your own best interests to spend money wastefully.
Wastefully would be buying a movie you'd rather rent.
You'd be better off ignoring the garbage Hollywood puts out and spend your money on something useful.
That's not your call to make. Further, Hollywood puts out a *lot* of good movies. Just because they also put out a lot of crap doesn't mean I should therefore not buy movies that I enjoyed.
These companies can do this because there are more people like you that believe that it isn't worth doing anything about than there are people like me who completely reject such a notion.
And if I decide to boycott an industry, even when that industry creates products that I enjoy, they've simply lost *one* customer. For the intended goal, a boycott, or "voting with your dollar" is not an effective activity.
On the other hand, if your goal is to engender a sense of having done something for the betterment of mankind, even if the effect is not likely to amount to anything, then sure, boycott away. Bonus points if it also gives you a chance to act like a cultural snob "Hollywood? Pshaw!".
This has nothing to do with whether voting with your dollars works. All you've really said is akin to, "I don't care if the elections in Afghanistan are fixed, because I don't live there anyway".
Voting with your dollars does work - it's just that like many elections, your vote isn't always in the majority. You can't bitch about the results when you have an unpopular opinion.
How does that counter:
1. Uninformed consumers. 2. Informed consumers who sacrifice long-term goals for short-term gains 3. Large consumers (like corporations) who get many thousands of votes (dollars) for each one of yours?
Yeah, no shit sometimes I lose the "election", but *that was never my point*.
If you don't like something then don't buy it.
It's not as simple as that. I like (for example) the new Star Trek movie. When it comes out, I might prefer to rent it. Hell, I might even *buy* it. But I don't like the studios' plans to force me to buy it, or wait a month to rent it. So what do I choose?
Do I chose to buy it? Even if I would have done anyway? What if I want to "send a message" or "vote with my dollars"? So then I do *without* to make a point that will get overwhelmed anyway? Or do I give in, and send the signal that I *like* their decision?
Your mistake, and be sure, you've made a significant one, is comparing shopping choices with political elections. When you vote in an election, you vote for where *you want the country (state, city, etc.) to go*. When you "vote with your dollars", you're not "voting" for anything, you're just buying something. Sometimes you buy the thing you really *believe* in (as much as such a thing can be said for a product or company), but sometimes you buy what's cheapest, or what's not out of stock today, or what the store that *isn't* 20 miles away decides to offer.
Now, for "voting with your dollars" to work, in the current example of the film rental issue, you would have to have the film available from *multiple* sources, for *multiple* prices, and under *multiple* options. Some would sell a deluxe pack, some would just sell the bare film, some would rent it, some would stream it, etc. In a situation like *that*, is there any sort of voting.
As it stands right now, the consumer *has already voted*, and they elected "I wanna rent" to office. The studios are looking to take that choice *away*.
straw men are used by the irrelevant to stop people from demanding what they are due
Aside from the fact that your sig, taken on the whole, is rather nonsensical, it's somewhat ironic that you bring up the straw men of communism and socialism.
All I did was criticize capitalism for having encouraged such a blatantly anti-consumer scheme. That doesn't mean I want to do away with capitalism, or move to communism or socialism (and, a clue, socialism *is* an economics system, or more accurately, the three -isms you've mentioned have both political and economic aspects to them).
But your main mistake is in thinking those systems are somehow mutually exclusive and can actually exist. Our military is communism (the military economy is highly centralized), our roads, schools, police forces, etc, are socialism (paid for by the taxpayers, and overseen by local authorities (although there's a trend towards fascism in this are, which is moving the execution of such services over to corporations).
As for capitalism, it's *always* tempered by regulation, centralization and socialization.
No state on the planet has been run exclusively under any of those three systems, and nowhere on the planet *will* there ever be such a state, because such a thing is impossible.
Worse than that, there's a net *loss* to the consumer. Initially, they were content to rent the movie. Now, they may have to either wait, or make a more expensive purchase. Did you think those increased profits were going to materialize out of thin air?
there is a product that consumer can choose to purchase/rent/whatever.
Close. There's a product that the consumer can choose to purchase/*not* rent/whatever(pirate, I assume), only after a month can you then choose to rent it, under this scheme.
and you can thank "capitalism" that Redbox even exists and provides a great service for a minimal fee.
Some people are so simpleminded that they cannot cope with the notion of both criticizing and praising something. I *praise* capitalism for RedBox, and even for the existence of the movie studios themselves. But I also criticize capitalism for encouraging such blatantly anti-consumer schemes such as the one in question.
Then don't buy their products. They can not profit from you at that point without some type of socialism.
Yeah, MGM is *really* going to find they've gotten themselves into a pickle when *I* personally decide not to buy a movie...
"Voting with your dollars" is a load of bullshit, used in order to get people to act *against* their own best interests.
Here are three reasons why it doesn't work.
1. Most people will never know about this scheme. The informed "voters" will be overwhelmed by the ignorance of the masses. 2. Even informed users will work against their long-term benefit in order to attain short-term gains. In this case, some will buy the movie now, instead of waiting a month to rent it. 3. (granted, this doesn't apply here, but it is still a prevalent aspect in the "vote with your dollars" dynamic) Individual purchasers are often vastly outweighed by corporate purchasers.
So, yeah, I can "vote with my dollar", not that it'll do any good. So why put myself through the trouble? Why deny myself a movie (if I really do want it) just to show some corporation a lesson? It'll amount to nothing *and* I'll have missed out on a film. That puts me worse off than where I started!
You can get all sorts of weird stuff on cable that you will never see on OTA TV and will probably never see on Hulu.
The problem with Hulu is it's a little too much like the local NBC or Fox affiliate.
On the other hand, Hulu is on demand. You don't get that with broadcast TV, or even basic cable.
OTOH, I can watch anything on cable commercial free through the wonders of modern technology (DVR).
Only if you've already recorded it (unless you have some form of on demand service, and the show you want is available). Hulu, on the other hand, requires no forethought, and works just fine no matter how many shows you want to watch, even if they are broadcast at the same time.
Hulu is like DVR, without all the annoyances and complexity of managing a dedicated recording device. Also, most standalone DVRs have some form of subscription tied to them for full functionality.
Any rational view of capitalism realizes that there is a limit to 'screw everything' profit, and the more people you screw, the sooner your profitable days will be over.
Only collectively. Individually, the only "rational" view is the fast-profits model.
The reason is, if you take the long-term approach, and everyone else doesn't, you've given up short-term profits, and everyone else has ruined the long-term profits model.
But if we take a collectivist view on the topic, and put into place regulations which forbid, or at the very least, sufficiently discourage, the unsustainable short-term profit seeking, then the rational individual capitalists can make solid decisions which both benefit them in the short-term, while benefiting everyone in the long-term, which ensures that the capitalist will have the opportunity to continue to make a profit, instead of having the carpet pulled out from under him.
The problem is capitalism encourages the "sheer profit only (and screw everything else)" mindset, and discourages any actual caring about the effects of their actions on others, sometimes even outright *punishing* people who do the right thing.
You're right that there are good capitalists (good people who are capitalists, not people who are good at being capitalists) out there. But they can only be good capitalists by being bad capitalists (by *not* being good at being a capitalist). They have to give up some potential profit for the benefit of others.
Slashdot Mirror
If I ever run into someone who doubts that Stockholm Syndrome is real, I'll just direct them to your post.
Just because isn't incorrect doesn't mean it isn't bad.
Sure, so let me be clear about this. Not only is calling the whole food item (rice, fish, seaweed, etc.) sushi correct, but it's also good.
Sure, thank you for bolstering my point. The title asks if the sushi is hazardous, but the story is only about the fish, not the rice or seaweed (etc)... (I'm tired and feeling a bit picky.)
Language is about communication. How many people do you think thought to themselves "I bet they're talking about the rice!". Then, reading into it, got confused, and wondered "what does tuna have to do with *SUSHI*?!?!?"
Even you, the person making a fuss, *KNEW* what was being communicated. So what's the problem?
Slack language is a cause and/or result of slack thinking.
Sort of. Slack language is superior to strict language, as the world *itself* is not strict (or, if you prefer, one single slack word can usually better convey an idea than even a *thousand* strict words).
Slack language, and slack thinking, you are right, go together, but they are inextricable aspects of being human and existing in reality.
For example, single TV episodes advertised as "all new" or the Dodge Ram commercial that states the truck is "all brawn, all brain" - sigh.
In both cases you know what they mean. They are examples of language working as it should.
You are correct about the word sushi technically refers specifically to the rice and how it's prepared, but you are very, *very* wrong in your conclusion that the word is being used incorrectly here.
Eat less calories and you eventually weigh less. You may be less healthy, but I guarentee, you'll weigh less!
That's not true, and a fundamental problem most engineering/geek types make with regards to calories and weight loss. It's an oversimplification like saying "increase the mass of something and I guarantee it will be harder to lift". Two counterexamples are increasing mass to correct for awkward shapes, and increasing mass by attaching a (very large) helium balloon.
With calories, eating less may cause you to become more lethargic, which may actually *increase* weight.
Getting 150 calories from a Twinkie certainly is less beneficial than 150 calories from oatmeal, for the exact reasons you describe
Twinkie calories get turned into fat more readily. Oatmeal calories both take more calories to consume, and are spread out over time, making them less likely to get turned into fat, while also decreasing hunger later and/or lethargy later. Also, eventually, with twinkies, your health will suffer such that you will find gaining weight, even on the same amount of calories, is much, much easier (i.e., due to less muscle mass, you will burn fewer calories when you are sitting down, and you will find activities more stressing, and partake in them less often).
"Eating less calorines doesn't mean you lose weigh!" I was like, "really, tell that to someone starving to death..."
You haven't really refuted anything. All you've done is show an example where it *does* lead to weight loss, not shown that, as a blanket statement, eating fewer calories leads to weight loss with a sufficiently high level of correlation.
When starving people lose weight, that happens because, after a certain point, there's nowhere to go but down. When you don't eat enough to support your body's functions, you will eventually lose weight. But if you are eating in excess of that, there's a lot more leeway, and increasing calories can lead to weight loss, while cutting calories can lead to weight gain. When you're starving, there's no leeway, and the only think you can do is either consumer body mass to stay alive, or die, which just like losing or gaining weight under more normal circumstances, is not all that much under one's conscious control. You have some input into the matter, but you can only supply the foods (or lack thereof) and to a certain extent, the physical activity, but your body will do what it will with those inputs, and what it does is *not* always what a cursory thermodynamical view of the situation might imply.
Trying to pretend that information stored in your head by means electro-chemical is somehow qualitatively different than modulation of magnetic fields, laser beams or electrons in silicone or ink on paper is simply mendacious sophistry.
Given that you are claiming that a CD is indistinguishable from a flash drive is indistinguishable from a human brain, I would be careful about bandying about terms like "mendacious sophistry".
Should it be any different
Yes, it should. Most humans have no difficulty in seeing the difference in making a photocopy of a book and reading a book.
But I tell you what. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you're not the complete idiot your posts have implied. By all means, take your argument into a legal setting--a great way might be to write a book, then sue people for reading it. Once you've triumphed, I'll accept your notion that copies in a computer needing to be authorized that it "must logically lead to convictions for 'unauthorized copies' in your mind".
I look forward to reading of your success in the matter.
As one can easily see, the argument of "unauthorized copies" in any medium, once precedents are established (as they already apparently are), must logically lead to convictions for "unauthorized copies" in your mind (also known as "illegal thoughts").
Please explain how the one thing "must logically" lead to the other?
Now that's I've grown-up I just buy the top two systems (Nintendo 64/PS1, Gamecube/PS2, Wii/X360)
Shouldn't that read XBOX/PS2?
No, it should read PS2/PS1 (in the more natural #1/#2 order, instead of the OP's Sony-diminishing reverse order). Or if you want the top five (for context):
PS2/PS1/NES/Wii/SNES (the last three having sold far fewer than the first two).
Not necessarily.
The XBOX and GameCube were neck-and-neck worldwide.
Depending on how he defines the top two, it could be either of them.
And neither of them have outsold the PS3...
Nintendo won the console wars years ago.
The NES and SNES console wars. Not the N64 or GameCube wars.
The present war is still in effect.
It took nearly 2 full years for Wii stock to meet demand.
Only due to a deliberate decision by Nintendo to *not* increase production.
The Wii is tracking ahead of the PS2 in terms of sales, despite the global recession and the high failure rate of early PS2 models.
What does the "high failure rate" (oh, please. the "high failure rate" is *nothing* like the *present* failure rate of the Xbox 360) of early PS2s have to do with Wii sales rates?
How far out do you have to extrapolate for the Wii to surpass the PS2 as the top selling console of all time? The Wii hasn't even surpassed the NES, which itself has sold less than *half* the number of units the PS2 has, and is Nintendo's top selling console to date.
On the other hand, Nintendo's profits fell by over 50% last quarter over the same quarter last year. Additionally, the PS3 outsold the Wii in September in the US, taking the top spot in console sales.
To read Slashdot, you'd think Nintendo is experiencing exponential profits growth, and the Xbox 360 outsells the PS3 10-to-1.
I agree, except that it was due to any sort of "voting". It's just market forces. Market forces are more like herd dynamics. Herds don't "vote". They don't stop and deliberate for a year, then tally a vote and move on. They run wherever the majority is headed.
If a single wildebeest runs off in some other direction, he's not casting a vote, he's just running somewhere in the hopes that the rest will follow. If he's a wildebeest of significance (i.e., a corporation, a celebrity, or a politician), the herd may very well follow him. If he's just some random wildebeest (i.e., any of us here on Slashdot), there is virtually *zero* chance the herd is going to follow him, no matter how superior his choice.
Market forces have shown that people prefer to rent movies. It was never put up for a vote, and many people may have bought a movie they'd have rather rented due to availability issues. If a purchase is the equivalent of a vote, then why would someone promote an election system which often tells people to cast their vote for the *opposite* of what they actually *prefer*?
It is not in your own best interests to spend money wastefully.
Wastefully would be buying a movie you'd rather rent.
You'd be better off ignoring the garbage Hollywood puts out and spend your money on something useful.
That's not your call to make. Further, Hollywood puts out a *lot* of good movies. Just because they also put out a lot of crap doesn't mean I should therefore not buy movies that I enjoyed.
These companies can do this because there are more people like you that believe that it isn't worth doing anything about than there are people like me who completely reject such a notion.
And if I decide to boycott an industry, even when that industry creates products that I enjoy, they've simply lost *one* customer. For the intended goal, a boycott, or "voting with your dollar" is not an effective activity.
On the other hand, if your goal is to engender a sense of having done something for the betterment of mankind, even if the effect is not likely to amount to anything, then sure, boycott away. Bonus points if it also gives you a chance to act like a cultural snob "Hollywood? Pshaw!".
This has nothing to do with whether voting with your dollars works. All you've really said is akin to, "I don't care if the elections in Afghanistan are fixed, because I don't live there anyway".
It was pretty clear in his post that it didn't matter if it worked or not, he's not going to lift a finger to make it happen either way.
What do you think I'm doing right now?
Voting with your dollars does work - it's just that like many elections, your vote isn't always in the majority. You can't bitch about the results when you have an unpopular opinion.
How does that counter:
1. Uninformed consumers.
2. Informed consumers who sacrifice long-term goals for short-term gains
3. Large consumers (like corporations) who get many thousands of votes (dollars) for each one of yours?
Yeah, no shit sometimes I lose the "election", but *that was never my point*.
If you don't like something then don't buy it.
It's not as simple as that. I like (for example) the new Star Trek movie. When it comes out, I might prefer to rent it. Hell, I might even *buy* it. But I don't like the studios' plans to force me to buy it, or wait a month to rent it. So what do I choose?
Do I chose to buy it? Even if I would have done anyway? What if I want to "send a message" or "vote with my dollars"? So then I do *without* to make a point that will get overwhelmed anyway? Or do I give in, and send the signal that I *like* their decision?
Your mistake, and be sure, you've made a significant one, is comparing shopping choices with political elections. When you vote in an election, you vote for where *you want the country (state, city, etc.) to go*. When you "vote with your dollars", you're not "voting" for anything, you're just buying something. Sometimes you buy the thing you really *believe* in (as much as such a thing can be said for a product or company), but sometimes you buy what's cheapest, or what's not out of stock today, or what the store that *isn't* 20 miles away decides to offer.
Now, for "voting with your dollars" to work, in the current example of the film rental issue, you would have to have the film available from *multiple* sources, for *multiple* prices, and under *multiple* options. Some would sell a deluxe pack, some would just sell the bare film, some would rent it, some would stream it, etc. In a situation like *that*, is there any sort of voting.
As it stands right now, the consumer *has already voted*, and they elected "I wanna rent" to office. The studios are looking to take that choice *away*.
straw men are used by the irrelevant to stop people from demanding what they are due
Aside from the fact that your sig, taken on the whole, is rather nonsensical, it's somewhat ironic that you bring up the straw men of communism and socialism.
All I did was criticize capitalism for having encouraged such a blatantly anti-consumer scheme. That doesn't mean I want to do away with capitalism, or move to communism or socialism (and, a clue, socialism *is* an economics system, or more accurately, the three -isms you've mentioned have both political and economic aspects to them).
But your main mistake is in thinking those systems are somehow mutually exclusive and can actually exist. Our military is communism (the military economy is highly centralized), our roads, schools, police forces, etc, are socialism (paid for by the taxpayers, and overseen by local authorities (although there's a trend towards fascism in this are, which is moving the execution of such services over to corporations).
As for capitalism, it's *always* tempered by regulation, centralization and socialization.
No state on the planet has been run exclusively under any of those three systems, and nowhere on the planet *will* there ever be such a state, because such a thing is impossible.
there is no "profit" for the consumer
Worse than that, there's a net *loss* to the consumer. Initially, they were content to rent the movie. Now, they may have to either wait, or make a more expensive purchase. Did you think those increased profits were going to materialize out of thin air?
there is a product that consumer can choose to purchase/rent/whatever.
Close. There's a product that the consumer can choose to purchase/*not* rent/whatever(pirate, I assume), only after a month can you then choose to rent it, under this scheme.
and you can thank "capitalism" that Redbox even exists and provides a great service for a minimal fee.
Some people are so simpleminded that they cannot cope with the notion of both criticizing and praising something. I *praise* capitalism for RedBox, and even for the existence of the movie studios themselves. But I also criticize capitalism for encouraging such blatantly anti-consumer schemes such as the one in question.
Then don't buy their products. They can not profit from you at that point without some type of socialism.
Yeah, MGM is *really* going to find they've gotten themselves into a pickle when *I* personally decide not to buy a movie...
"Voting with your dollars" is a load of bullshit, used in order to get people to act *against* their own best interests.
Here are three reasons why it doesn't work.
1. Most people will never know about this scheme. The informed "voters" will be overwhelmed by the ignorance of the masses.
2. Even informed users will work against their long-term benefit in order to attain short-term gains. In this case, some will buy the movie now, instead of waiting a month to rent it.
3. (granted, this doesn't apply here, but it is still a prevalent aspect in the "vote with your dollars" dynamic) Individual purchasers are often vastly outweighed by corporate purchasers.
So, yeah, I can "vote with my dollar", not that it'll do any good. So why put myself through the trouble? Why deny myself a movie (if I really do want it) just to show some corporation a lesson? It'll amount to nothing *and* I'll have missed out on a film. That puts me worse off than where I started!
This may increase profits for everyone, except the consumer. How wonderful. Thanks Capitalism!
Yes, it really sucks to have a mature system...
It does when that system is X11.
You can get all sorts of weird stuff on cable that you will never see on OTA TV and will probably never see on Hulu.
The problem with Hulu is it's a little too much like the local NBC or Fox affiliate.
On the other hand, Hulu is on demand. You don't get that with broadcast TV, or even basic cable.
OTOH, I can watch anything on cable commercial free through the wonders of modern technology (DVR).
Only if you've already recorded it (unless you have some form of on demand service, and the show you want is available). Hulu, on the other hand, requires no forethought, and works just fine no matter how many shows you want to watch, even if they are broadcast at the same time.
Hulu is like DVR, without all the annoyances and complexity of managing a dedicated recording device. Also, most standalone DVRs have some form of subscription tied to them for full functionality.
Any rational view of capitalism realizes that there is a limit to 'screw everything' profit, and the more people you screw, the sooner your profitable days will be over.
Only collectively. Individually, the only "rational" view is the fast-profits model.
The reason is, if you take the long-term approach, and everyone else doesn't, you've given up short-term profits, and everyone else has ruined the long-term profits model.
But if we take a collectivist view on the topic, and put into place regulations which forbid, or at the very least, sufficiently discourage, the unsustainable short-term profit seeking, then the rational individual capitalists can make solid decisions which both benefit them in the short-term, while benefiting everyone in the long-term, which ensures that the capitalist will have the opportunity to continue to make a profit, instead of having the carpet pulled out from under him.
Aha! We now have the last two digits of your social security number...
Question. If you were to represent your odds of agreeing with this study as a *nine* digit number, what would it be?
The problem is capitalism encourages the "sheer profit only (and screw everything else)" mindset, and discourages any actual caring about the effects of their actions on others, sometimes even outright *punishing* people who do the right thing.
You're right that there are good capitalists (good people who are capitalists, not people who are good at being capitalists) out there. But they can only be good capitalists by being bad capitalists (by *not* being good at being a capitalist). They have to give up some potential profit for the benefit of others.
If Ubuntu beta/rc is not news worthy by itself, releasing on the same day with Win7 doesn't change that in any way.
The Ubuntu release dates and development cycle were put in place *long* before Windows 7 got an official release date.