Also, by "Oklahoma bomber" I assume you mean Timothy McVeigh, who was not a terrorist. He was a badly misguided revolutionary.
Potato, potato? You may agree with his motivations or not, but blowing up a building full of bureaucrats (and a daycare) is not an act of revolution (i.e. military action) it is an act of terrorism.
Something to consider if you feel the need to consider bullshit. Logic and history make it clear that groups who work together are more successful than individuals, no matter how ruthless the bastard may be. The exact anarchy you describe is why that sort of anarchy is a bad idea. Religion may have been a way to get people to follow along with the basic idea, but the simple truth is the more civilized and peaceful we as a species have become, the better all of our lives have been. Your argument is one that is made by people who are religious and refuse to allow for the fact that some people don't need threats to get them to do what's in their own best interest.
From what I've read, it is a bit of a clusterfuck where someone got the rights from DC Comics in the 80s. That guy got into bed with Fox, transferring some (if not all) of the rights. When that fell through, there was another deal that reverted some (or all) of the rights back to the production company that was formed when he got into business with a couple other guys. Those rights were only transfered if certain obligations were met. Part of the deal is the rights were non-transferable. Now when that company dissolved, he retained right to all of the property he brought to the company, but the company itself didn't settle with Fox before any of that happened so someone had to retain control of that non-transferable deal (or did they?). From there, the guy who got the rights from DC was approached years later by New Line (if I remember correctly). Money exchanged hands and he did (or didn't) fulfill his obligations to Fox before that deal went forward. New Line ended up not making the movie when they got a new head honcho who decided it would be too expensive. The rights that New Line had reverted back to the first guy. Somewhere in there, Warner Brothers purchased DC Comics. The current Warner film made a deal with the infamous guy who owns/ed the rights and made the film.
There, a cut and dried case. I may be a little off on a few of the details, but it's something like that.
*Note: Yes paragraph breaks would have helped that make some sense, but hey, I'm getting into the spirit of the thing.
What are you talking about? G.G. Allin sold out the minute he didn't shoot himself on stage at the height of his fame. Drug overdose? Come on, what rock star hasn't died that way?
We can play hypothetical all day long. For instance, the college kid is semi computer literate. He gets his techie friend to help him move all his important files from his old computer to the shiny new laptop his parents got him for college. The friend sets up a little network and turns on file-sharing. "just drag all the stuff you want into here, I've got to go get some more Red Bull," sez the techie friend, who then leaves. By the time he's returned, he finds a note from the college kid thanking him for all his help. He's off to college and probably won't see Mr. Techie until Thanksgiving. In college, he follows the printed instructions for connecting the laptop to the Universities wireless network. He left all of the files he moved in the folder that he first put them in because that's as good a place as any other. Or perhaps used control c and control v without even realizing he was duplicating the data. Either way, now he's on the University network with a shared file full of gigs of music. Is he committing a copyright crime? Arguably, yes, realistically, not really.
I'm not saying that's the case. We just don't know so saying things like "he intentionally adhered to a setup that has no other real world function other than copyright infringement," is just as disingenuous as saying "OMFG the RIAA haxor'd him to find that stuff!!!!11!!"
I laugh at people who think taking a gun from someone would solve the problem. MOST OF THE PEOPLE THAT COMMIT CRIMES USE GUNS THEY POSSESS ILLEGALLY! If you told every person in the US right now they had to hand in their guns, do you think it would make a difference on crime statistics? Do you really think the crack head in LA is going to show up and hand over his hand gun? The law abiding people are the only people the law affects. The people committing the crimes couldn't care less if you tell them to give up their guns.
This is such a tired argument. It uses the false assumption that the illegal guns in circulation would remain circulating through the criminal underworld forever. If it were illegal to own an automatic or semi-automatic firearm, anyone caught with one in their possession would be arrested and the gun would leave circulation. Would there be a period of time where where only the criminals have guns (ignoring all the guns that law enforcement has)? Yep. Paradigm shifts can be painful. After the transition period, would that disparity stabilize so that only the most organized criminals (the ones who are going to have these guns no matter what) have the outlawed guns? Yep to that too.
Honestly, how often are gun crimes stopped by a random civilian who happened to be armed? It happens, but not frequently. I'm not arguing we should ban all automatic and semi-automatic weapons, but the argument "if guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns" just annoys me. If that's the best argument you can come up with, then the anti-gun crowd's position is stronger than I've thought. It's like the people who were arguing that fewer people would have been killed if one of the teachers or students was armed and well trained in the use of their firearm. The assumption that makes the situation ideal is being "well trained." If that were the case, yes, that would have been great, but if there were several people armed but not as well trained as they thought, there could have been as many if not more friendly fire casualties.
I don't really know what the solution is, but whatever it is, it has to factor the innate arrogance and stupidity of people. It also needs to scale over time.
I don't live in California for a reason (not the least of which their four seasons are Wildfire, Mudslide, Earthquake, and Smog). You are so naive. Earthquake and smog are not seasons. They happen year round and constantly. It's no wonder the mud is sliding all over the place what with all the quaking earth. The wildfires are even better than ones in other states since they burn with less oxygen thanks to all the smog. If anything, it proves that everything is better in California. Well, I guess there is the other 300ish days a year where it's sunny and beautiful. That kinda sucks. You're right, fuck California. What kind of freak would want to live there?
I think it's more likely to be a case of "they don't want you to buy 1 copy of Vista, install it in a VM, and then put the VM image up on a BT tracker for a billion of your close personal friends".
Because if you're going to do that, it's better you do it with their premium versions of Vista and not the cheep ones.
Yes, but saying you couldn't have created the copyrighted work without the benefit of the society around you so your copyright should end to give the same opportunity to others misses the basic thrust of your own argument. My mother sang me lullabies and read me fairy tales. That stuff all gets put into my writing today, but I'm not quoting them. I'm lifting themes. Perhaps making references. Copyright doesn't exclude that sort of creation. (For an extreme example, look at the Scary Movie franchise) What copyright says is that I can require publishers to negotiate with me for the right to sell exact copies of my work. As has been stated, for most creative endeavors not funded by a large corporation, it's a long shot to get any recognition. It can take years of slowly building up a following before you break through to the point where you see any real return on your personal investment (equipment, time to write, rewrite, polish, etc) if you set the date to an arbitrary number, like 25 years, then it's possible that the window for an artists early works to be truly profitable might be unduly small. This isn't going into the whole corporations being treated as individuals, which is a problem on many levels. Since corporations are not individuals, they shouldn't be treated like one. Especially since the "life" of the company is essentially infinite when assets (copyrights) get sold in bankruptcy. Its easy to confuse the well funded, corporate creators (i.e. Hollywood) who explode on the scene and make a ton of money and then never want to let go, with the lone artist chipping away at night while working at a soul crushing job they hate and dreaming of a day when they can do this thing they love and still, you know, eat. The problem is what's fair for one is horribly unfair for the other.
I think the argument was always that a specialized device that does the job well is better than a compromise device. Up until this point, I don't think any of the cell providers have given a compelling reason to want music on my phone. I don't know if the iPhone has either. The coverage gave me the the feeling that it's more of a net enabled PDA/mac-micro that happens to have a phone than a phone that happens to have an MP3 player. Honestly, I don't think I'd be giving up my iPod for this. For one thing it doesn't have enough storage. If they sold a version without the phone at a lower price point, I'd take a strong look at that before considering changing my cell provider (who I don't like) for Cingular (who I stopped using previously because I didn't like 'em). The killer apps on this things seem to be Safari, mail and iCal. Even in iTunes, the most compelling idea for me is having a screen "good enough" for watching movies/TV on an airplane. I don't know if this is that device. It looks like their phone user interface is really interesting (the voicemail bit's compelling, as it the integration with my computer's contact list) but in and of itself, not worth $500. I suspect this will sell fairly well and perhaps become a status symbol for the well to do, but right now it's to early to tell if it's really worth the investment for the rest of us.
Thanks for the link. You'll notice it's a.cn domain, so... ahem... slightly biased. None the less, by accusing the IEEE of "organizing a conspiracy against the China-developed WAPI, insulting China and other national bodies, and intimidation and threats." it's hard to take the claims seriously. If AMD was complaining about some move of Intel's and one of their arguments was "they insulted us!" it would rightly drown out all their other claims with our laughter. I realize that China is a face focused culture, but seriously. They should do what every other competitor to a standard does, build their product and let the market decide. Hell, they're requiring it for all wireless devices in China. I'm sure SOMEONE will pick up their standard just to get their business. If it really is better, then people outside of China will want to use it too. If, as our American conspiracy theorists predict, it's just a Chinese government backdoor into wireless encryption, then it will never catch on because no one outside of their country will want it.
Only if you subscribe to the notion that a parent of one gender or the other is not particularily important.
A second mom can love her daughter very dearly, but (unless the difference between genders is far more superficial than commonly-accepted evidence seems to indicate) she can never be the girl's father.
If you believe fathers are not particularilly important to a child, then there's no problem, but that seems to be a point which is still open to debate.
Likewise, a second dad, no matter how fantastic of a parent he is, isn't really a mom. Same arguments apply.
Except that single parents have been raising children for thousands of years. Dad dies in the viking raid, mom in childbirth. Dad runs off with his secretary and forgets he ever had the first family, mom gets addicted to smack and ends up on the street. Stuff happens. Life doesn't stop because of it.
Unless you can explain why A) a single parent is superior to two parents of the same gender or B) the child of a single parent is somehow inferior, I can't take your argument seriously. Family is family. Sure dad's going to have a tough time walking his daughter through her first period, but hey, parenting isn't supposed to be easy. There will be an awkward moment for all parties and then they'll move on.
Even if I were to concede that it's "better" for the child to have a mother and a father, is it better to have that child adopted by a gay couple who really WANT to be parents or leave them to be raised in an orphanage without a mother or a father?
I think you are missing something. There is way more to marriage than taxes. Heck I'm sure you've heard of the marriage penalty. I think the biggest right/privilege/goodie for married couples is the ability to be with your loved one in the hospital. I've had two major back surgeries in the last sixish years. My girlfriend borrowed a ring from her mother and taped it to her finger so she could stay with me in the hospital. Not surprisingly, she's my wife now. If I were a woman, there would have been nothing she could have done for either of my extended hospital visits. To me, it's the little rights married couples get that you don't even think about until you need them that gay couples are being screwed out of. Another example, my grandfather was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's and will need to go into a nursing home. He didn't marry his girlfriend because it would have messed up their social security (or something, we grandkids only half get the details). The problem is that he'd need to put his house up to get into a nursing home. They co-own the house. If he can't sell half of an occupied house in a certain time period, she'll be forced to sell the whole house and take half of the proceds. If they were married, he could sign it over to her and she wouldn't get kicked to the curb. (Again, I'm not 100% on the specifics, but it's something like that) A gay couple will always have that problem without any recourse at all. And of course to complicate things, they'd be insane to put it in one person's name since they have no divorce rights. All I'm saying is the gay marriage issue is about so much more than we generally think about. It's a ton of civil things that only come to mind at the absolute worst times. Times when you've got bigger problems to deal with (like your partner). OK, I'll shut up now.
I think editing for spelling and grammar should be mostly for clarity's sake if your intention is to keep it folksie. In that case spelling, more so than grammar should be a priority. The argument about non-english speakers is an excellent point regarding that. Clearly there are times when poor spelling/grammar are stylistic choices and should be respected (You changes them, you are teh suck). Might there be a way that we could moderate/meta-moderate the spelling/grammar? Say someone with max karma and high scores in meta moderation can get, instead of mod points, editor points. This lets them change the text (but not the links) of a front page story. Then there is the meta-editor system where people can see the submitters language and the edited version. If someone gets dinged enough for doing a poor job, then their changes leave the front page and are replaced by the submitters and they lose the right to text edit? I know this opens the system up to all sorts of abuse, but if we (and by we I really mean you) could find a way to get qualified users who care about the site to do the work, the overall quality would go up for casual users. The complaints about spellnig would go down and it really won't add any more work for the editors (after the system was coded and the right unpaid text editors were found, duh).
Why not move meta-discussions about slashdot to another site? Don't clutter up the front page with stories about "should we still add CowboyNeal to the slashpoll?" since I agree, I don't really care. But clearly there are a lot of people who do want to piss and moan about how the editors eat babies or whatever. Give them a place where they can do that. slashdottalk.org is available. (Pronounced "slash-dotta-El-Kay" clearly) The nice folk who run slashdot can see what gets modded the highest and at least know what the latest group think gripe is. I worry about the idea of moderating stories since the hive mind will end up with tons of me too articles to whatever it is that's politically hip here ("someone at the RIAA murdered my sister" or" some guy says Google is working on the greatest thing ever"). I tend to only read the occasional SCO type story because I know what the conversation will be. The stories outside of the groupthink tend to have the best conversations. If we moderate stories, those may not be getting modded down, but I fear they wouldn't always be the first ones to get modded up.
As far as Rosetta not working on pro applications, it's the same problem we had with the move to OS X. The pro apps tend to get closer too the hardware to squeeze every drop of performance out. That means hand coded assembler, etc. That's the sort of stuff that an automated system like Rosetta is more likely to choke on. I agree it sucks having to pay for an "upgrade" on all the software you really use, but it's nothing new or sinister. I bought OS X the day it came out and had to leave the box on my shelf for something like a year because of problems between it and Pro Tools. The recording studio I worked at about two years after OS X's release still refused to install it on any of their machines because there was a bug in Digital Performer 4 that occasionally caused problems. If you really need those pro apps then you will want to wait before buying and Intel Mac, but then again, as a pro, isn't your top concern finding the right tool for the job and not using the latest cool new toy?
OK, there's a lot of confusion here about how the entertainment industry works. Here is my understanding of how Firefly/Serenity got where it is, bassed on the trades and my industry knowlege. Joss Whedon, or his production company Mutant Enemy had a first look deal with Fox (the Studio) to create television projects. This deal probably sprung up because of the success of Buffy. He did Buffy with Sanddollar (another production company) so I think that predates the deal with Fox. The first look deal means that he has to let them "buy" any show idea he comes up with. Also, he's probably obligated to pitch a certain number of ideas over the life of the contract. If they pass, and again there are all sorts of contractual limits on what that means, etc., then he can take it to other studios. In the case of Firefly they didn't. Now Fox the studio has the show in development. This is where the pilot script is conceved/written. The studio takes the idea/work in progress to various networks. Fox probably goes to Fox TV first for obvious reasons. If the people who decide what Fox puts on the air don't like it, don't feel they have a slot for it, whatever, then Fox the studio takes it to other networks. That is why Angel was a fox show but on the WB and why Buffy went from WB to UPN. When the network picks up the pilot, they make that episode. Lots of pilots get made and it's basically a proof of concept episode. It has to introduce the world/characters/etc and also be a solid indicator of what a typical episode will look like. Dozens of pilots all compete for a small number of open slots in the network's schedule. Now, over the life of this process, personel can change, politics can get involved, etc. In the case of Firefly the executive who ulitmately killed the show resided at the network. I don't know if they were the one who greenlit it, but I understand that they did have a profesional relationship with Joss in the past. Another thing to understand is that jobs in Hollywood are highly insecure. You don't want to be the one to make a decision unless you can prove to your boss in triplicate that it's the same play they would have made. I think that's why we saw the scheduling monkey business, etc.
Now on to the film. As you may have heard, the DVDs sold well. Real well. Money get's peoples attention, and from what I heard, the person who greenlit the film at Universal was also a fan. That never hurts. Universal isn't Fox. I've heard speculation online that there was a loophole in the contract allowing films. I don't know. It seems like something was worked out. From a who owns what standpoint, the film and the TV show are two entirely different properties. Fox isn't likely to ever relase television rights to anyone else because if it becomes successfull and you're the moron who sold it to them, you are out of a job. If it never makes a penny more, then no one was wrong. I don't make the rules.
At the end of the day, what I just said is mostly office gossip and rumors based on the way the industry tends to work (in my experience). Take it with as much salt as you want. Just realize that it is less likely to be a big conspiracy. As a footnote. Mutant Enemy ended its relationship with Fox a year early. They told Fox not to pay them the rest of the contract and closed up shop for at least the remainder of the contract. Joss apparently lost his taste for TV (perhaps because of what was done to Firefly?). Fox even went on record saying they would have happily continued to pay him even if he didn't pitch any new ideas.
I almost got used to Opera a few months ago, then I realized it didn't have extensions. Which means no adblock. Whoops. So it was back to Firefox for me.
Full disclosure: I'm a Safari user. The closest to FF I've ever used was Mozzilla about three years ago, so perhaps I'm way off base but... It seems to me that if there is an adblock extension in FF, that works (i.e. no adds at all, ever) or even the threat that someone could somehow develop one, then that right there is the reason that Google would want Opera (not saying they'll actually get them). Remember how Google pays their bills? Right, adds. If you aren't looking at their adds (and possibly clicking them from time to time) they are losing money.
The nice thing about a steam hybrid is that you don't have any high-voltage electrical cables running through the car -- so after an accident, firemen and police won't need to worry about getting electrocuted when cutting you out of your car.
Nah, just scalded by steam. Unless that pipe burst in the initial impact and then they need a spatula to scrape you out. Not saying one is better than the other. Heck, I think having rescue workers fearing the electrified steam of doom while cutting me out of my BMW (I got a beamer?! Way to go me!) that gets 100+ miles to the gallon is a OK,
Sure an iPod video would have been crazy LAST YEAR. Way back then you'd have to be daft to even consider it. The proof? Well you don't have one, do you? Now doing it today? That's another story. Today it's all "wave of the future", "the next big thing" and "whatnot."
Never underestimate the power of Steve's reality distortion field.
If you do and you don't want to feel free to use my "real information":
Bob Smith 1313 Mockingbirdlane Beverly Hills Califonia 90210 555-555-5555 (h) 555-555-5555 (c) alternate email ifjeufeiehhc@yahoo.com
Wait a minute. I'm Bob Smith of 1313 Mockingbirdlane in Beverly Hills. I was wondering how all my personal information was getting God knows where. I'm contacting my lawyer right now. Your ass, sir, is mine.
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But at least I upgrade from my boring old wife to his MILFtacular one. Everyone wins!
FUCK YOU!
Shhh... don't tell or there will be less for us.
Luv ya,
stick
Also, by "Oklahoma bomber" I assume you mean Timothy McVeigh, who was not a terrorist. He was a badly misguided revolutionary.
Potato, potato? You may agree with his motivations or not, but blowing up a building full of bureaucrats (and a daycare) is not an act of revolution (i.e. military action) it is an act of terrorism.
Something to consider if you feel the need to consider bullshit. Logic and history make it clear that groups who work together are more successful than individuals, no matter how ruthless the bastard may be. The exact anarchy you describe is why that sort of anarchy is a bad idea. Religion may have been a way to get people to follow along with the basic idea, but the simple truth is the more civilized and peaceful we as a species have become, the better all of our lives have been. Your argument is one that is made by people who are religious and refuse to allow for the fact that some people don't need threats to get them to do what's in their own best interest.
Will never work. Once Obama takes over everyone would just assume it should revert back to being called Frenchware.
From what I've read, it is a bit of a clusterfuck where someone got the rights from DC Comics in the 80s. That guy got into bed with Fox, transferring some (if not all) of the rights. When that fell through, there was another deal that reverted some (or all) of the rights back to the production company that was formed when he got into business with a couple other guys. Those rights were only transfered if certain obligations were met. Part of the deal is the rights were non-transferable. Now when that company dissolved, he retained right to all of the property he brought to the company, but the company itself didn't settle with Fox before any of that happened so someone had to retain control of that non-transferable deal (or did they?). From there, the guy who got the rights from DC was approached years later by New Line (if I remember correctly). Money exchanged hands and he did (or didn't) fulfill his obligations to Fox before that deal went forward. New Line ended up not making the movie when they got a new head honcho who decided it would be too expensive. The rights that New Line had reverted back to the first guy. Somewhere in there, Warner Brothers purchased DC Comics. The current Warner film made a deal with the infamous guy who owns/ed the rights and made the film.
There, a cut and dried case. I may be a little off on a few of the details, but it's something like that.
*Note: Yes paragraph breaks would have helped that make some sense, but hey, I'm getting into the spirit of the thing.
What are you talking about? G.G. Allin sold out the minute he didn't shoot himself on stage at the height of his fame. Drug overdose? Come on, what rock star hasn't died that way?
We can play hypothetical all day long. For instance, the college kid is semi computer literate. He gets his techie friend to help him move all his important files from his old computer to the shiny new laptop his parents got him for college. The friend sets up a little network and turns on file-sharing. "just drag all the stuff you want into here, I've got to go get some more Red Bull," sez the techie friend, who then leaves. By the time he's returned, he finds a note from the college kid thanking him for all his help. He's off to college and probably won't see Mr. Techie until Thanksgiving. In college, he follows the printed instructions for connecting the laptop to the Universities wireless network. He left all of the files he moved in the folder that he first put them in because that's as good a place as any other. Or perhaps used control c and control v without even realizing he was duplicating the data. Either way, now he's on the University network with a shared file full of gigs of music. Is he committing a copyright crime? Arguably, yes, realistically, not really.
I'm not saying that's the case. We just don't know so saying things like "he intentionally adhered to a setup that has no other real world function other than copyright infringement,"
is just as disingenuous as saying "OMFG the RIAA haxor'd him to find that stuff!!!!11!!"
This is such a tired argument. It uses the false assumption that the illegal guns in circulation would remain circulating through the criminal underworld forever. If it were illegal to own an automatic or semi-automatic firearm, anyone caught with one in their possession would be arrested and the gun would leave circulation. Would there be a period of time where where only the criminals have guns (ignoring all the guns that law enforcement has)? Yep. Paradigm shifts can be painful. After the transition period, would that disparity stabilize so that only the most organized criminals (the ones who are going to have these guns no matter what) have the outlawed guns? Yep to that too.
Honestly, how often are gun crimes stopped by a random civilian who happened to be armed? It happens, but not frequently. I'm not arguing we should ban all automatic and semi-automatic weapons, but the argument "if guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns" just annoys me. If that's the best argument you can come up with, then the anti-gun crowd's position is stronger than I've thought. It's like the people who were arguing that fewer people would have been killed if one of the teachers or students was armed and well trained in the use of their firearm. The assumption that makes the situation ideal is being "well trained." If that were the case, yes, that would have been great, but if there were several people armed but not as well trained as they thought, there could have been as many if not more friendly fire casualties.
I don't really know what the solution is, but whatever it is, it has to factor the innate arrogance and stupidity of people. It also needs to scale over time.
Because if you're going to do that, it's better you do it with their premium versions of Vista and not the cheep ones.
Yes, but saying you couldn't have created the copyrighted work without the benefit of the society around you so your copyright should end to give the same opportunity to others misses the basic thrust of your own argument. My mother sang me lullabies and read me fairy tales. That stuff all gets put into my writing today, but I'm not quoting them. I'm lifting themes. Perhaps making references. Copyright doesn't exclude that sort of creation. (For an extreme example, look at the Scary Movie franchise) What copyright says is that I can require publishers to negotiate with me for the right to sell exact copies of my work. As has been stated, for most creative endeavors not funded by a large corporation, it's a long shot to get any recognition. It can take years of slowly building up a following before you break through to the point where you see any real return on your personal investment (equipment, time to write, rewrite, polish, etc) if you set the date to an arbitrary number, like 25 years, then it's possible that the window for an artists early works to be truly profitable might be unduly small. This isn't going into the whole corporations being treated as individuals, which is a problem on many levels. Since corporations are not individuals, they shouldn't be treated like one. Especially since the "life" of the company is essentially infinite when assets (copyrights) get sold in bankruptcy. Its easy to confuse the well funded, corporate creators (i.e. Hollywood) who explode on the scene and make a ton of money and then never want to let go, with the lone artist chipping away at night while working at a soul crushing job they hate and dreaming of a day when they can do this thing they love and still, you know, eat. The problem is what's fair for one is horribly unfair for the other.
I think the argument was always that a specialized device that does the job well is better than a compromise device. Up until this point, I don't think any of the cell providers have given a compelling reason to want music on my phone. I don't know if the iPhone has either. The coverage gave me the the feeling that it's more of a net enabled PDA/mac-micro that happens to have a phone than a phone that happens to have an MP3 player. Honestly, I don't think I'd be giving up my iPod for this. For one thing it doesn't have enough storage. If they sold a version without the phone at a lower price point, I'd take a strong look at that before considering changing my cell provider (who I don't like) for Cingular (who I stopped using previously because I didn't like 'em). The killer apps on this things seem to be Safari, mail and iCal. Even in iTunes, the most compelling idea for me is having a screen "good enough" for watching movies/TV on an airplane. I don't know if this is that device. It looks like their phone user interface is really interesting (the voicemail bit's compelling, as it the integration with my computer's contact list) but in and of itself, not worth $500. I suspect this will sell fairly well and perhaps become a status symbol for the well to do, but right now it's to early to tell if it's really worth the investment for the rest of us.
Thanks for the link. You'll notice it's a .cn domain, so ... ahem... slightly biased. None the less, by accusing the IEEE of "organizing a conspiracy against the China-developed WAPI, insulting China and other national bodies, and intimidation and threats." it's hard to take the claims seriously. If AMD was complaining about some move of Intel's and one of their arguments was "they insulted us!" it would rightly drown out all their other claims with our laughter. I realize that China is a face focused culture, but seriously. They should do what every other competitor to a standard does, build their product and let the market decide. Hell, they're requiring it for all wireless devices in China. I'm sure SOMEONE will pick up their standard just to get their business. If it really is better, then people outside of China will want to use it too. If, as our American conspiracy theorists predict, it's just a Chinese government backdoor into wireless encryption, then it will never catch on because no one outside of their country will want it.
Only if you subscribe to the notion that a parent of one gender or the other is not particularily important.
A second mom can love her daughter very dearly, but (unless the difference between genders is far more superficial than commonly-accepted evidence seems to indicate) she can never be the girl's father.
If you believe fathers are not particularilly important to a child, then there's no problem, but that seems to be a point which is still open to debate.
Likewise, a second dad, no matter how fantastic of a parent he is, isn't really a mom. Same arguments apply.
Except that single parents have been raising children for thousands of years. Dad dies in the viking raid, mom in childbirth. Dad runs off with his secretary and forgets he ever had the first family, mom gets addicted to smack and ends up on the street. Stuff happens. Life doesn't stop because of it.
Unless you can explain why A) a single parent is superior to two parents of the same gender or B) the child of a single parent is somehow inferior, I can't take your argument seriously. Family is family. Sure dad's going to have a tough time walking his daughter through her first period, but hey, parenting isn't supposed to be easy. There will be an awkward moment for all parties and then they'll move on.
Even if I were to concede that it's "better" for the child to have a mother and a father, is it better to have that child adopted by a gay couple who really WANT to be parents or leave them to be raised in an orphanage without a mother or a father?
I think you are missing something. There is way more to marriage than taxes. Heck I'm sure you've heard of the marriage penalty. I think the biggest right/privilege/goodie for married couples is the ability to be with your loved one in the hospital. I've had two major back surgeries in the last sixish years. My girlfriend borrowed a ring from her mother and taped it to her finger so she could stay with me in the hospital. Not surprisingly, she's my wife now. If I were a woman, there would have been nothing she could have done for either of my extended hospital visits. To me, it's the little rights married couples get that you don't even think about until you need them that gay couples are being screwed out of. Another example, my grandfather was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's and will need to go into a nursing home. He didn't marry his girlfriend because it would have messed up their social security (or something, we grandkids only half get the details). The problem is that he'd need to put his house up to get into a nursing home. They co-own the house. If he can't sell half of an occupied house in a certain time period, she'll be forced to sell the whole house and take half of the proceds. If they were married, he could sign it over to her and she wouldn't get kicked to the curb. (Again, I'm not 100% on the specifics, but it's something like that) A gay couple will always have that problem without any recourse at all. And of course to complicate things, they'd be insane to put it in one person's name since they have no divorce rights. All I'm saying is the gay marriage issue is about so much more than we generally think about. It's a ton of civil things that only come to mind at the absolute worst times. Times when you've got bigger problems to deal with (like your partner). OK, I'll shut up now.
I think editing for spelling and grammar should be mostly for clarity's sake if your intention is to keep it folksie. In that case spelling, more so than grammar should be a priority. The argument about non-english speakers is an excellent point regarding that. Clearly there are times when poor spelling/grammar are stylistic choices and should be respected (You changes them, you are teh suck). Might there be a way that we could moderate/meta-moderate the spelling/grammar? Say someone with max karma and high scores in meta moderation can get, instead of mod points, editor points. This lets them change the text (but not the links) of a front page story. Then there is the meta-editor system where people can see the submitters language and the edited version. If someone gets dinged enough for doing a poor job, then their changes leave the front page and are replaced by the submitters and they lose the right to text edit? I know this opens the system up to all sorts of abuse, but if we (and by we I really mean you) could find a way to get qualified users who care about the site to do the work, the overall quality would go up for casual users. The complaints about spellnig would go down and it really won't add any more work for the editors (after the system was coded and the right unpaid text editors were found, duh).
Why not move meta-discussions about slashdot to another site? Don't clutter up the front page with stories about "should we still add CowboyNeal to the slashpoll?" since I agree, I don't really care. But clearly there are a lot of people who do want to piss and moan about how the editors eat babies or whatever. Give them a place where they can do that. slashdottalk.org is available. (Pronounced "slash-dotta-El-Kay" clearly) The nice folk who run slashdot can see what gets modded the highest and at least know what the latest group think gripe is. I worry about the idea of moderating stories since the hive mind will end up with tons of me too articles to whatever it is that's politically hip here ("someone at the RIAA murdered my sister" or" some guy says Google is working on the greatest thing ever"). I tend to only read the occasional SCO type story because I know what the conversation will be. The stories outside of the groupthink tend to have the best conversations. If we moderate stories, those may not be getting modded down, but I fear they wouldn't always be the first ones to get modded up.
As far as Rosetta not working on pro applications, it's the same problem we had with the move to OS X. The pro apps tend to get closer too the hardware to squeeze every drop of performance out. That means hand coded assembler, etc. That's the sort of stuff that an automated system like Rosetta is more likely to choke on. I agree it sucks having to pay for an "upgrade" on all the software you really use, but it's nothing new or sinister. I bought OS X the day it came out and had to leave the box on my shelf for something like a year because of problems between it and Pro Tools. The recording studio I worked at about two years after OS X's release still refused to install it on any of their machines because there was a bug in Digital Performer 4 that occasionally caused problems. If you really need those pro apps then you will want to wait before buying and Intel Mac, but then again, as a pro, isn't your top concern finding the right tool for the job and not using the latest cool new toy?
OK, there's a lot of confusion here about how the entertainment industry works. Here is my understanding of how Firefly/Serenity got where it is, bassed on the trades and my industry knowlege. Joss Whedon, or his production company Mutant Enemy had a first look deal with Fox (the Studio) to create television projects. This deal probably sprung up because of the success of Buffy. He did Buffy with Sanddollar (another production company) so I think that predates the deal with Fox. The first look deal means that he has to let them "buy" any show idea he comes up with. Also, he's probably obligated to pitch a certain number of ideas over the life of the contract. If they pass, and again there are all sorts of contractual limits on what that means, etc., then he can take it to other studios. In the case of Firefly they didn't. Now Fox the studio has the show in development. This is where the pilot script is conceved/written. The studio takes the idea/work in progress to various networks. Fox probably goes to Fox TV first for obvious reasons. If the people who decide what Fox puts on the air don't like it, don't feel they have a slot for it, whatever, then Fox the studio takes it to other networks. That is why Angel was a fox show but on the WB and why Buffy went from WB to UPN. When the network picks up the pilot, they make that episode. Lots of pilots get made and it's basically a proof of concept episode. It has to introduce the world/characters/etc and also be a solid indicator of what a typical episode will look like. Dozens of pilots all compete for a small number of open slots in the network's schedule. Now, over the life of this process, personel can change, politics can get involved, etc. In the case of Firefly the executive who ulitmately killed the show resided at the network. I don't know if they were the one who greenlit it, but I understand that they did have a profesional relationship with Joss in the past. Another thing to understand is that jobs in Hollywood are highly insecure. You don't want to be the one to make a decision unless you can prove to your boss in triplicate that it's the same play they would have made. I think that's why we saw the scheduling monkey business, etc.
Now on to the film. As you may have heard, the DVDs sold well. Real well. Money get's peoples attention, and from what I heard, the person who greenlit the film at Universal was also a fan. That never hurts. Universal isn't Fox. I've heard speculation online that there was a loophole in the contract allowing films. I don't know. It seems like something was worked out. From a who owns what standpoint, the film and the TV show are two entirely different properties. Fox isn't likely to ever relase television rights to anyone else because if it becomes successfull and you're the moron who sold it to them, you are out of a job. If it never makes a penny more, then no one was wrong. I don't make the rules.
At the end of the day, what I just said is mostly office gossip and rumors based on the way the industry tends to work (in my experience). Take it with as much salt as you want. Just realize that it is less likely to be a big conspiracy. As a footnote. Mutant Enemy ended its relationship with Fox a year early. They told Fox not to pay them the rest of the contract and closed up shop for at least the remainder of the contract. Joss apparently lost his taste for TV (perhaps because of what was done to Firefly?). Fox even went on record saying they would have happily continued to pay him even if he didn't pitch any new ideas.
I almost got used to Opera a few months ago, then I realized it didn't have extensions. Which means no adblock. Whoops. So it was back to Firefox for me.
Full disclosure: I'm a Safari user. The closest to FF I've ever used was Mozzilla about three years ago, so perhaps I'm way off base but... It seems to me that if there is an adblock extension in FF, that works (i.e. no adds at all, ever) or even the threat that someone could somehow develop one, then that right there is the reason that Google would want Opera (not saying they'll actually get them). Remember how Google pays their bills? Right, adds. If you aren't looking at their adds (and possibly clicking them from time to time) they are losing money.
The nice thing about a steam hybrid is that you don't have any high-voltage electrical cables running through the car -- so after an accident, firemen and police won't need to worry about getting electrocuted when cutting you out of your car.
Nah, just scalded by steam. Unless that pipe burst in the initial impact and then they need a spatula to scrape you out. Not saying one is better than the other. Heck, I think having rescue workers fearing the electrified steam of doom while cutting me out of my BMW (I got a beamer?! Way to go me!) that gets 100+ miles to the gallon is a OK,
Sure an iPod video would have been crazy LAST YEAR. Way back then you'd have to be daft to even consider it. The proof? Well you don't have one, do you? Now doing it today? That's another story. Today it's all "wave of the future", "the next big thing" and "whatnot."
Never underestimate the power of Steve's reality distortion field.
Whine. Loudly and often.
Wait a minute. I'm Bob Smith of 1313 Mockingbirdlane in Beverly Hills. I was wondering how all my personal information was getting God knows where. I'm contacting my lawyer right now. Your ass, sir, is mine.