I wonder what's the total amount robbed each year by "conventional" robbers (e.g. 24/7 stores, bank heists, etc). 1 billion? Half a billion?
And what's the total amount "robbed" by those white-collar "robbers"...
In countries with no or poor social safety-nets, if you wipe-out/halve some poor/midclass person's savings, you've very likely shortened his/her lifespan.
Not justifying armed robbery of course, just looking at things from a different POV.
It's far from a new organism. So far it's not much different from a frog corpse that moves because it's being zapped.
I doubt it self repairs itself (e.g. if you destroy one part, the other cells around will reproduce and rebuild what you destroyed). When the cells somehow help rebuild the new entity, then it is a new multicellular organism. When we've figured out how the cells figure out what and where to build, and control that, then we'll have made a lot of progress.
There's a risk of course - if stuff goes bad and the banks get scared, they may have to sell their stock at a loss to pay the debt back. Maybe there are hedging methods to reduce the risk, but I doubt most of them would bother.
When it grows to a certain size, the cell then reproduces by dividing its body equally into two. One of these inherits the ancestral home; the other is left the bundle of building material. These stones, we know not how, are then moved to the body surface and arranged to create the distinctive architecture of this species. Just enough particles of the right sizes, big and small, have been picked up to accomplish this.
(I understand the above to mean that the amoeba collects enough suitable particles to make a new second home before splitting - in my opinion this requires a fair bit of intelligence).
Even some of the stuff amoeba eat don't seem that stupid either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsLoFHKJjiM Look at them moving about - its not that random. Not too different from some stupid fish.
To me it seems as if many multicellular organisms are like vehicles/"mecha" which single cell organisms working together build and use in order to sense and explore the world in a different scale.
Think of it as evolution on a different scale. Many of the weaker ones died out years ago.
From what I see the less costly religions would have had an advantage over atheism, at least in the past when medical technology wasn't that good. The placebo effect is real, so if you need to ignore pain for the good of the tribe, and there's no one else around except God/etc, it's a lot easier for nonatheists to self-administer the placebo...
Belief in some hockey/football/sport team is unlikely to work as well for stuff like that, but it might cause you to bash up believers in other teams.
From history it seems easy to get groups of people to kill others, God and religion need not be involved at all - many of the top genocides in the last century were not caused by religion.
You also need to take into account that much of the rest of the world is using US dollars to buy and sell stuff (oil, CPU, other commodities). This makes the inflationary effect smaller and take longer to show up. The dollars devalued by the inflation are not just in the USA but in much of the rest of the world.
Basically by printing money the US Gov gets to tax anyone who has net positive amounts of US dollars, and that includes those in other countries, or even entire countries (e.g. those that have lent the US Gov trillions of US dollars).
In contrast when Zimbabwe printed money the rest of the world could laugh and be mostly unaffected. Now if the US Gov/Mugabe printed the money and gave a lot of it to the US citizens/Zimbabwe Cronies, then the US citizens would still be better off than those in the rest of the world. But the US Gov/Mugabe does not appear to be a friend of the US citizens in general, but rather just a small group of already rich people.
but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.
I'd like to see some proof that most/all of his fortune was from that. Because his service (and similar services) was also used by people to legitimately transfer files too big to be emailed.
I wonder how many of the people who wanted stuff free would actually pay Kim Dotcom. Paying seems to defeat the purpose of getting stuff free;).
In contrast, how many organizations who need to send huge files _fast_ to many other people would be willing to pay for the service?
There's Akamai and EC2/CDN but there appears to be a big enough market gap between Akamai and running and managing your own download servers and pipes.
But why should I waste my time typing strong passwords for sites I don't care that much about?
Especially if they're going to get pwned and my password ends up visible to the whole world? Because too often the idiots store the passwords in a reversible format. From what I see some of those yahoo passwords released aren't that trivial e.g. %5M%us$@7U What are the odds the attackers brute-forced that and the other harder passwords?
If they can dump the hashed passwords for brute forcing, it usually means they can pwned the site in so many other ways that it doesn't really make a big difference.
My suggestion is to use a different password for each site that you care about.
I'll just point out that you were the one who was saying "drop ALL restrictions". Note your own emphasis. I currently can't think of a game without restrictions. Different restrictions, different game. No restrictions, no game.
So if you want a particular sort of running game/sport, you're going to need to think harder and deeper about the rules than "drop ALL restrictions". Otherwise you might as well play Calvinball.
Requiring that a large nation-wide train network that connects many rural areas be profitable is about as stupid as a shopping mall or office building requiring their escalator and elevator (or even toilet) divisions be profitable.
Such things are better run as cost centres. They must meet targets like safety, efficiency, availability, reliability, coverage, etc but I don't see why they must be profitable. If after the other targets are met and they are still profitable, that's icing on the cake.
I believe the multi-screen stuff was doable with the Doom game many years ago (3 computers + monitors- center, 90 degrees left, 90 degrees right - so if you set the screens accordingly there is not that much distortion).
Progress is slow, and all that patent bullshit doesn't help.
Violent revolutions tend to result in the ones willing and able to do the most violence reaching the top. Once they are there, they usually don't let anyone else take over. And who can stop them? They can defeat everyone else in the country - they've already done it on their way up.
That's why most (all?) communist revolutions lead to Dictatorships - because Engels etc put violence as part of the implementation plan.
When leaders are those with the most soldiers rather than the most votes, it's a lot harder to change the leadership without bloodshed.
The American Revolution may be an exception, but there are significant differences in the details. People should learn what made it different, before promoting violent revolution as a way to select a new government.
I don't really care much that about Desktop Linux. As far as I've concerned, I've done my part. I'm just pointing out where and how things could be improved so that even if they have a zillion distros, they could be supported by helpdesk in similar ways. If nobody from the Desktop Linux bunch are interested, it's not my problem. Doesn't hurt me - "Server Linux" isn't going away and I use Windows for desktop stuff.
The upgrade limitation isn't a problem - the ones who haven't upgraded to Windows 7 already, are the ones who are even less likely to want Windows 8.
As long as Microsoft don't shoot both feet and make it impossible to stick with Windows 7, they will still retain most of their marketshare.
I don't like Windows 7 that much, but I actually prefer it (and XP ) to OS X. I think 10-20% or so will really love OS X, but the rest will be fine with Windows XP/7.
If Microsoft sells Windows 8 but allows "downgrade rights" to Windows 7 (and maybe even XP), they'd still be raking in their usual cut.
Permanent forwarding still means the old account is active and is counted as a user.
At least in the past with Hotmail and yahoo you still had to log in every now and then or the account would be disabled (or even deleted), and the emails wiped..
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I wonder what's the total amount robbed each year by "conventional" robbers (e.g. 24/7 stores, bank heists, etc). 1 billion? Half a billion?
And what's the total amount "robbed" by those white-collar "robbers"...
In countries with no or poor social safety-nets, if you wipe-out/halve some poor/midclass person's savings, you've very likely shortened his/her lifespan.
Not justifying armed robbery of course, just looking at things from a different POV.
It's far from a new organism. So far it's not much different from a frog corpse that moves because it's being zapped.
I doubt it self repairs itself (e.g. if you destroy one part, the other cells around will reproduce and rebuild what you destroyed). When the cells somehow help rebuild the new entity, then it is a new multicellular organism. When we've figured out how the cells figure out what and where to build, and control that, then we'll have made a lot of progress.
Even some single cells can repair themselves.
What some rich people do is they don't pay capital gains tax. They borrow money from banks, and use their stock etc as collateral.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/08/2310218/the-zuckerberg-tax
There's a risk of course - if stuff goes bad and the banks get scared, they may have to sell their stock at a loss to pay the debt back. Maybe there are hedging methods to reduce the risk, but I doubt most of them would bother.
If you watch the second video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02_94cGye1E ) at 4x or higher speed it does resemble a snail moving about and eating stuff.
See also:
http://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/06/life-and-art-sand-and-glass-the-wonders-of-difflugia.html
When it grows to a certain size, the cell then reproduces by dividing its body equally into two. One of these inherits the ancestral home; the other is left the bundle of building material. These stones, we know not how, are then moved to the body surface and arranged to create the distinctive architecture of this species. Just enough particles of the right sizes, big and small, have been picked up to accomplish this.
(I understand the above to mean that the amoeba collects enough suitable particles to make a new second home before splitting - in my opinion this requires a fair bit of intelligence).
And: http://www.brianjford.com/a-ISR_Ford.pdf
From what I see at least some amoebas aren't that stupid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGJvZotBHzc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02_94cGye1E
(the above amoebas build shells to protect themselves!)
Even some of the stuff amoeba eat don't seem that stupid either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsLoFHKJjiM
Look at them moving about - its not that random. Not too different from some stupid fish.
White blood cells too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_xh-bkiv_c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9zSe0qmXGw#t=0m16s
To me it seems as if many multicellular organisms are like vehicles/"mecha" which single cell organisms working together build and use in order to sense and explore the world in a different scale.
Think of it as evolution on a different scale. Many of the weaker ones died out years ago.
From what I see the less costly religions would have had an advantage over atheism, at least in the past when medical technology wasn't that good. The placebo effect is real, so if you need to ignore pain for the good of the tribe, and there's no one else around except God/etc, it's a lot easier for nonatheists to self-administer the placebo...
Belief in some hockey/football/sport team is unlikely to work as well for stuff like that, but it might cause you to bash up believers in other teams.
From history it seems easy to get groups of people to kill others, God and religion need not be involved at all - many of the top genocides in the last century were not caused by religion.
we were at the same time giving lots of money to England in their fight against Germany
IIRC lending, not giving. They had to pay it back, and they eventually did.
You also need to take into account that much of the rest of the world is using US dollars to buy and sell stuff (oil, CPU, other commodities). This makes the inflationary effect smaller and take longer to show up. The dollars devalued by the inflation are not just in the USA but in much of the rest of the world.
Basically by printing money the US Gov gets to tax anyone who has net positive amounts of US dollars, and that includes those in other countries, or even entire countries (e.g. those that have lent the US Gov trillions of US dollars).
In contrast when Zimbabwe printed money the rest of the world could laugh and be mostly unaffected. Now if the US Gov/Mugabe printed the money and gave a lot of it to the US citizens/Zimbabwe Cronies, then the US citizens would still be better off than those in the rest of the world. But the US Gov/Mugabe does not appear to be a friend of the US citizens in general, but rather just a small group of already rich people.
but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.
I'd like to see some proof that most/all of his fortune was from that. Because his service (and similar services) was also used by people to legitimately transfer files too big to be emailed.
I wonder how many of the people who wanted stuff free would actually pay Kim Dotcom. Paying seems to defeat the purpose of getting stuff free ;).
In contrast, how many organizations who need to send huge files _fast_ to many other people would be willing to pay for the service?
There's Akamai and EC2/CDN but there appears to be a big enough market gap between Akamai and running and managing your own download servers and pipes.
Makoto badass? IIRC he got beaten by a shoe salesman in Sasuke ;).
But why should I waste my time typing strong passwords for sites I don't care that much about?
Especially if they're going to get pwned and my password ends up visible to the whole world? Because too often the idiots store the passwords in a reversible format. From what I see some of those yahoo passwords released aren't that trivial e.g. %5M%us$@7U
What are the odds the attackers brute-forced that and the other harder passwords?
If they can dump the hashed passwords for brute forcing, it usually means they can pwned the site in so many other ways that it doesn't really make a big difference.
My suggestion is to use a different password for each site that you care about.
I'll just point out that you were the one who was saying "drop ALL restrictions". Note your own emphasis. I currently can't think of a game without restrictions. Different restrictions, different game. No restrictions, no game.
So if you want a particular sort of running game/sport, you're going to need to think harder and deeper about the rules than "drop ALL restrictions". Otherwise you might as well play Calvinball.
If the 4 people are drivers who can sleep as passengers the wait time is less.
So car is about 4-5x cheaper but 3x slower.
I think Top Gear (completely unbiased) has proven time and time again that, up against all other forms of transportation, the car always wins.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBPQe4dFxk
Top Gear is mostly an entertainment show.
Requiring that a large nation-wide train network that connects many rural areas be profitable is about as stupid as a shopping mall or office building requiring their escalator and elevator (or even toilet) divisions be profitable.
Such things are better run as cost centres. They must meet targets like safety, efficiency, availability, reliability, coverage, etc but I don't see why they must be profitable. If after the other targets are met and they are still profitable, that's icing on the cake.
Why not go all the way and change to Kelvin
With Kelvin most "normal human" temperatures would need three digits instead of two. That might annoy the airconditioner/heater manufacturers.
Reminds me of this (which came out a bit earlier) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
I believe the multi-screen stuff was doable with the Doom game many years ago (3 computers + monitors- center, 90 degrees left, 90 degrees right - so if you set the screens accordingly there is not that much distortion).
Progress is slow, and all that patent bullshit doesn't help.
All restrictions? So you'd be fine with "runners" driving/flying high speed vehicles? Or killing each other?
No restrictions and no rules = no sport, no game. Seems to me what you really want are different restrictions.
So you need to think harder about why your restrictions would be better than the current restrictions.
Violent revolutions tend to result in the ones willing and able to do the most violence reaching the top. Once they are there, they usually don't let anyone else take over. And who can stop them? They can defeat everyone else in the country - they've already done it on their way up.
That's why most (all?) communist revolutions lead to Dictatorships - because Engels etc put violence as part of the implementation plan.
When leaders are those with the most soldiers rather than the most votes, it's a lot harder to change the leadership without bloodshed.
The American Revolution may be an exception, but there are significant differences in the details. People should learn what made it different, before promoting violent revolution as a way to select a new government.
Doesn't work on Ubuntu or the other Linux distros I'm aware of.
I don't really care much that about Desktop Linux. As far as I've concerned, I've done my part. I'm just pointing out where and how things could be improved so that even if they have a zillion distros, they could be supported by helpdesk in similar ways. If nobody from the Desktop Linux bunch are interested, it's not my problem. Doesn't hurt me - "Server Linux" isn't going away and I use Windows for desktop stuff.
Now which OS often forces the user to pull up a shell to fix things or install drivers.
Here's my proposal for what I think is missing between CLI and "conventional GUI":
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/29001/
If that ever gets built, I'm sure a few expert users would also use it as a shortcut to do certain things.
The upgrade limitation isn't a problem - the ones who haven't upgraded to Windows 7 already, are the ones who are even less likely to want Windows 8.
As long as Microsoft don't shoot both feet and make it impossible to stick with Windows 7, they will still retain most of their marketshare.
I don't like Windows 7 that much, but I actually prefer it (and XP ) to OS X. I think 10-20% or so will really love OS X, but the rest will be fine with Windows XP/7.
If Microsoft sells Windows 8 but allows "downgrade rights" to Windows 7 (and maybe even XP), they'd still be raking in their usual cut.
Permanent forwarding still means the old account is active and is counted as a user.
At least in the past with Hotmail and yahoo you still had to log in every now and then or the account would be disabled (or even deleted), and the emails wiped..
The bird pic is not from a real bird.
Some guy did actually draw some birds based on the angry birds:
http://funnyzela.com/real-life-angry-birds/
So that oriental ink bird is a more abstract drawing of a pseudo-realistic version of an imaginary bird... Something like that - did I miss a step? :).