Did I miss a joke here? Since when does anybody expect a response when they send their CV to anybody but a personnel department (unless specifically instructed otherwise)? Sending it to a principle is tantamount to a crank letter as it screams that you have no idea how submit your credentials professionally.
You arguing a very specific case where a third party violates your privacy rather than your boss does not invalidate the GP...especially since the GP is, well, right. If someone films/records you without your knowledge or permission then they should be prosecuted under existing statutes. Once knowledge is out there though... Most posts in this thread seem to miss the simple fact that social pressures are what control a society. As long as you choose to live in a society, you will be subject to the subtle and not so subtle pressures brought to bear by its members upon you. This isn't about witch hunts, it's about shunning. Look up the concept and you might be surprised that people don't 'have it in for you', they just don't like you or want to be around you.
Japan requires fingerprinting, photographing, etc. (all the basic biometrics) to enter from ANY other country. Then the information is shared back with the Passport-issuing country's equivalent of the FBI. In other words, visit Japan, and get into your own country's criminal databases: for being someone who visits other countries.
First, let me say that I liked your post. But..."Distorts" the market? Lets argue for a moment that it near-completely un-distorts, or levels the market. When I was 15, I would buy a CD every week. A lot was determined by who I liked, granted, but as CD prices crept up (this was late 80's) I would often have to buy only the CDs at the prices I could afford, completely forgoing new CDs priced at $18.99 for the older CDs priced at $14.99 (yeah, $3 made a difference to me at 15). This creates a disconnect between what I liked and what I could purchase, AND it drove me to listen to more radio, moving the "profit" from the RIAA companies to Clearchannel. This also drove me away from the newer music as I got into early 80's punk bands and wound up not being able to tolerate "todays" music (I don't purchase or download music now at ANY price).
Now, at a price of free, everyone can download exactly what they want, giving a completely precise picture of what people really want. Let me reiterate that, a completely undistorted picture of what consumer's want. If you have such a market, then the playing field opens up to anyone who has the smarts to make a product worth selling/buying, and that is a level market.
Imagine if the RIAA members had bought Napster in 1999 instead of litigating against it, they would have had a one stop source of determining exactly what the worlds consumers wanted in music and been able to hone their offerings accordingly instead of coming out with boy-band-#-56 every year. Imagine being able to "audition" groups knowing by their sound whether or not they'd be popular in advance, where they'd be popular, and to what degree. It would be like American Idol with all music groups competing. The missed opportunity is staggering. This is tip-of-the-iceberg stuff when it comes to what they could have done with this information in terms of marketing (marketing/advertising, BTW, being the biggest "distorting" factor in an open economy. Period.) Not knowing how to use an opportunity is not a distortion, it's, well, not opening the door when opportunity knocks and then sitting and thinking that it never came-a-calling.
I'm very sad for you if you really only work for the paycheck. If you don't understand that sadness now, then I doubt you ever will, especially given your example of an abusive relationship. How bad is your job?
I'm pretty anti-nuke, but your argument just makes me think about being "dead right". It's like entering an intersection when you have the green but someone is running the red- you'll be in the right on the accident report, but you'll still be dead. That said, having the sheer number of warheads in existence that we have is just asking for the laws of probability to catch up to us with an accident. Let alone not using/sharing the PALs...
In fact, Cuban's flash site is sucking bandwidth that I could be using to make my P2P connection faster. Since I don't go to his team's website, his connections should be throttled so that I can have the best internet experience possible. (pleeease note that that's irony, and not an argument against Net Neutrality, more an argument over why it's stupid- screw fairness, I don't want people with money to make their craptastic sites the only things you can access on the net- it would be like cable TV today)
If you remove the "heating issues, the battery and the space limitations" from laptops, don't you then have a desktop/"normal PC"?
Re GP: Isn't the benefit to portable data centers, like many cheap laptops, that you can deploy them where you want them, quickly, and then, due to their inexpensive (and cheap/low value) nature, junk them in a year or two? It's not like this is a long term deployment solution where they are "just as good as" a normal Data Center, right? Think satellite laptop instead of desktop replacement laptop. Portable Data Centers are something to use in addition to traditional data centers, not in stead of.
Thank you for pointing out my error. Yeah, I meant inertial reference frame, not absolute space. My point was that something can "move" even if it's not in reference to some "thing", and that it's fun to research and read about this stuff sometimes.
The wet noodle is, nonetheless, coming out.
I'm ignoring the whole transverse motion thing as I really don't care to get into a metaphysical debate today, and that's the only place that could go.
Relative to absolute Space Time. Really, it's there.
For us non-physicists, try the book "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene. Helps to sort out stuff like that.
I know that this isn't a complete answer, but part of it is that other countries have more competition due to the fact that they don't create "regulated" monopolies in the same fashion. Here in the 'states, once one company has put in a line (be it electrical, sewer, telco, or otherwise), it would take an act-of-god(TM) for the gov't to allow another company to lay their own line on top/alongside that one from that point on forever and ever. Giving one company a monopoly is only a good idea until the industry is _just_ mature enough to support competition, but since we let companies own our politicians, the gov't will never let anyone else into a market once one provider is already in there (remaining "laws" which allow equal access being mostly a joke). It makes for cleaner looking streets (I mean, have you SEEN the tangles of power/telco lines in rural Japan, Thailand, Phillipines, etc.?) but other than that it just means once you have a provider of a service, that's the only provider you're ever going to have a "choice" of using.
You ask several questions, and raise several legitimate points that deserve answering. I'll address why most people here give credence to this story- a reason which can be answered, in short, by the fact that Best Buy has a history of crap like this. I've had bad service there, others posting here have had bad service there. Also, we have never been burned by the guy who bought the HDD/tiles. So, this guy's story rings, if not true, then as entirely plausible.
You may think that your flame-bait is funny, but two people at work last Monday actually said that to me. Except they stated that it was a Muslim N**** and a Woman... and they were completely serious. That's middle Amerikkka for you.
Do you not know what the word "banned" means? Or did you not read the article which _you_ referenced? Or, more likely, you just posted using inflammatory rhetoric as to bolster your position without regard to the facts?
As others have pointed out, the judge says that the film must be presented alongside other materials. In point of fact, the judge agreed that the movie was of estimable value. To quote, since no one is going to RTFA, "In particular, he (the judge) agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore's arguments: "That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide ('greenhouse gases').
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts."
Oh, and First Post.
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Did I miss a joke here? Since when does anybody expect a response when they send their CV to anybody but a personnel department (unless specifically instructed otherwise)? Sending it to a principle is tantamount to a crank letter as it screams that you have no idea how submit your credentials professionally.
You arguing a very specific case where a third party violates your privacy rather than your boss does not invalidate the GP...especially since the GP is, well, right. If someone films/records you without your knowledge or permission then they should be prosecuted under existing statutes. Once knowledge is out there though... Most posts in this thread seem to miss the simple fact that social pressures are what control a society. As long as you choose to live in a society, you will be subject to the subtle and not so subtle pressures brought to bear by its members upon you. This isn't about witch hunts, it's about shunning. Look up the concept and you might be surprised that people don't 'have it in for you', they just don't like you or want to be around you.
Japan requires fingerprinting, photographing, etc. (all the basic biometrics) to enter from ANY other country. Then the information is shared back with the Passport-issuing country's equivalent of the FBI. In other words, visit Japan, and get into your own country's criminal databases: for being someone who visits other countries.
The U.S. isn't considering it a gray area when it comes to Blackwater, they just say they can't prosecute for murder committed in another country.
George W. Bush
First, let me say that I liked your post. But..."Distorts" the market? Lets argue for a moment that it near-completely un-distorts, or levels the market. When I was 15, I would buy a CD every week. A lot was determined by who I liked, granted, but as CD prices crept up (this was late 80's) I would often have to buy only the CDs at the prices I could afford, completely forgoing new CDs priced at $18.99 for the older CDs priced at $14.99 (yeah, $3 made a difference to me at 15). This creates a disconnect between what I liked and what I could purchase, AND it drove me to listen to more radio, moving the "profit" from the RIAA companies to Clearchannel. This also drove me away from the newer music as I got into early 80's punk bands and wound up not being able to tolerate "todays" music (I don't purchase or download music now at ANY price).
Now, at a price of free, everyone can download exactly what they want, giving a completely precise picture of what people really want. Let me reiterate that, a completely undistorted picture of what consumer's want. If you have such a market, then the playing field opens up to anyone who has the smarts to make a product worth selling/buying, and that is a level market.
Imagine if the RIAA members had bought Napster in 1999 instead of litigating against it, they would have had a one stop source of determining exactly what the worlds consumers wanted in music and been able to hone their offerings accordingly instead of coming out with boy-band-#-56 every year. Imagine being able to "audition" groups knowing by their sound whether or not they'd be popular in advance, where they'd be popular, and to what degree. It would be like American Idol with all music groups competing. The missed opportunity is staggering. This is tip-of-the-iceberg stuff when it comes to what they could have done with this information in terms of marketing (marketing/advertising, BTW, being the biggest "distorting" factor in an open economy. Period.) Not knowing how to use an opportunity is not a distortion, it's, well, not opening the door when opportunity knocks and then sitting and thinking that it never came-a-calling.
I'm very sad for you if you really only work for the paycheck. If you don't understand that sadness now, then I doubt you ever will, especially given your example of an abusive relationship. How bad is your job?
I'm pretty anti-nuke, but your argument just makes me think about being "dead right". It's like entering an intersection when you have the green but someone is running the red- you'll be in the right on the accident report, but you'll still be dead. That said, having the sheer number of warheads in existence that we have is just asking for the laws of probability to catch up to us with an accident. Let alone not using/sharing the PALs...
In fact, Cuban's flash site is sucking bandwidth that I could be using to make my P2P connection faster. Since I don't go to his team's website, his connections should be throttled so that I can have the best internet experience possible. (pleeease note that that's irony, and not an argument against Net Neutrality, more an argument over why it's stupid- screw fairness, I don't want people with money to make their craptastic sites the only things you can access on the net- it would be like cable TV today)
If you remove the "heating issues, the battery and the space limitations" from laptops, don't you then have a desktop/"normal PC"?
Re GP: Isn't the benefit to portable data centers, like many cheap laptops, that you can deploy them where you want them, quickly, and then, due to their inexpensive (and cheap/low value) nature, junk them in a year or two? It's not like this is a long term deployment solution where they are "just as good as" a normal Data Center, right? Think satellite laptop instead of desktop replacement laptop. Portable Data Centers are something to use in addition to traditional data centers, not in stead of.
Thank you for pointing out my error. Yeah, I meant inertial reference frame, not absolute space. My point was that something can "move" even if it's not in reference to some "thing", and that it's fun to research and read about this stuff sometimes. The wet noodle is, nonetheless, coming out. I'm ignoring the whole transverse motion thing as I really don't care to get into a metaphysical debate today, and that's the only place that could go.
Relative to absolute Space Time. Really, it's there. For us non-physicists, try the book "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene. Helps to sort out stuff like that.
I know that this isn't a complete answer, but part of it is that other countries have more competition due to the fact that they don't create "regulated" monopolies in the same fashion. Here in the 'states, once one company has put in a line (be it electrical, sewer, telco, or otherwise), it would take an act-of-god(TM) for the gov't to allow another company to lay their own line on top/alongside that one from that point on forever and ever. Giving one company a monopoly is only a good idea until the industry is _just_ mature enough to support competition, but since we let companies own our politicians, the gov't will never let anyone else into a market once one provider is already in there (remaining "laws" which allow equal access being mostly a joke). It makes for cleaner looking streets (I mean, have you SEEN the tangles of power/telco lines in rural Japan, Thailand, Phillipines, etc.?) but other than that it just means once you have a provider of a service, that's the only provider you're ever going to have a "choice" of using.
If he'd been a student he'd have been arrested for vandalizing school property.
You ask several questions, and raise several legitimate points that deserve answering. I'll address why most people here give credence to this story- a reason which can be answered, in short, by the fact that Best Buy has a history of crap like this. I've had bad service there, others posting here have had bad service there. Also, we have never been burned by the guy who bought the HDD/tiles. So, this guy's story rings, if not true, then as entirely plausible.
You may think that your flame-bait is funny, but two people at work last Monday actually said that to me. Except they stated that it was a Muslim N**** and a Woman... and they were completely serious. That's middle Amerikkka for you.
Do you not know what the word "banned" means? Or did you not read the article which _you_ referenced? Or, more likely, you just posted using inflammatory rhetoric as to bolster your position without regard to the facts? As others have pointed out, the judge says that the film must be presented alongside other materials. In point of fact, the judge agreed that the movie was of estimable value. To quote, since no one is going to RTFA, "In particular, he (the judge) agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore's arguments: "That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide ('greenhouse gases'). The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts." Oh, and First Post.