The spikey thing on a chain you linked to isn't a mace... it's a flail. A spikey thing on a stick is a morningstar. A mace is a knobby thing on a stick.
has there been any rumors on when a complete "box set" containing the director's cut of all three films will be released
Not until everyone who bought the theatrical version has bought the extended version... then they'll release the super-extended-box-set. Why sell a person a DVD once when you can sell it to them three times?
My only experience working with a non-trivial Python-based application was GNU Mailman, which is (IMHO) a bloated monstrosity. Now, I'll be the first to admit that you can't judge the merits of a language based on one application -- particuarly if that application is poorly engineered to start with. However, having seen Mailman in action, sucking up over 300M of RAM and spawning a half-dozen instances of the virtual machine in the course of processing a small low-volume mailing list, I'm very reluctant to start using Python for my own projects.
For free? Can you explain to me how you are getting SpikeTV legally without paying?
Basic cable TV comes with my cable modem, whether I watch it or not. Since I need a broadband connection for telecommuting, and the cable package is cheaper than DSL, from my perspective the TV part is effectively "free" (especially since I can write it off as a business expense). Call it "Included-in-the-price-of-a-service-I'd-get-anyway " instead of "free" if you really want to be pedantic.
At 10 episodes per week, about 4 months for the entire run.
But stop acting like the concept of buying something is completely unreasonable
I'm not saying that buying it is unreasonable -- I'm saying that THE PRICE THEY ARE ASKING is unreasonable for what you get. I don't mind paying a fair price for a product. I *DO* mind having my wallet ass-raped.
Look, if you don't want to buy it, then don't buy it
I don't plan to.
A lot of us have actual jobs and don't care that much about $100
Some of us have kids and mortgages and have a more important things to spend $100 on than a TV show which we can watch for free.
$700 is also probably a lot less than you would have to buy for the rights to all those shows, so you should be thankful that DVD brings an otherwise UNATAINABLE creative license to you.
Yeah, but it's a lot more than a spindle of DVD-Rs.
FYI, it is still *LEGAL* to record a TV show for your personal use. If I want all 7 seasons of TNG on DVD, all I need is a video capture card, SpikeTV's broadcast schedule, a simple shell script, and a small investment of time to edit out the commercials and burn the disks. If Paramount wants me to PAY for something I can *LEGALLY* get for next to nothing, they have to make it worth my while. Better image quality is a start, but it isn't worth an order of magnitude price difference.
$100 for the WHOLE SERIES RUN is a more realistic assessment of the real value -- at that price it's almost worth it to me to get the nice box set rather than collecting the episodes over the course of a couple months.
That's not a Constitutional Amendment, and any lesser law which contradicts the Constitution is invalid.
I'm a strict constructionist, and not particuarly a fan of the War Powers Act, but I have to conclude that it *IS* Constitutional. There are two key Constitutional points the WPA hits: that the President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and that Congress has the sole power to declare war. However, there's a good bit of grey area regarding the operations of the armed forces which the Constitution does not address directly.
The President clearly has no Constitutional authority to declare war against another sovereign nation or (arguably) to take any action against a sovereign nation which would be likely to be considered an Act of War by the internationally accepted standards of the day, unless explicitly authorized to do so by Congress. However, the only Constitutional authority Congress has over the day-to-day operations of the Armed Forces is to control the purse strings. The problem here is that, short of a formal (or de-facto) declaration of war, there's no clear Constitutional demarcation saying where the President's authority as Commander in Chief begins and ends when the country is NOT in a declared state of war.
Even in the early days of the Republic, it was recognized that there were legitimate offensive and defensive military actions short of declared war, and that directing the conduct such operations was within the scope of the normal duties of the Commander In Chief. For example, defending the frontier against hostile Indians and protecting friendly merchant ships against piracy would have been routine duties for the Armed Forces of the day. I doubt that any of the Founding Fathers would have argued, for example, that the President would need to seek Congress's approval before ordering the Navy to attack a pirate haven.
What the WPA does (quite legitimately, I may add) is formalize the boundry between the routine and emergency operational powers of the Commander in Chief and the war powers reserved for Congress. This is the Constitution working exactly as it was designed to: Congress setting the boundries of when and where military force can be used, and the President directing military operations within the limits set by Congress. From a strict constructionist point of view, the WPA actually reduces the President's power -- you could argue that the Constitution permits the President to order the military to do *anything* as long as he doesn't issue a formal declaration of war.
I always felt the WON authentication on the original Half-Life (miltiplayer) worked just fine. I purchased a legitimage copy of the original Half-Life and had no problems (no one ever copied my key, at least not when I tried to play).
And my Ford Pinto never burst into flames. What's your point?
Just because *YOU* never got bit by a defect in a product does not mean that the product wasn't defective -- it just means that you got lucky.
It would be similarly unlawful for President Bush to order a Mexican invasion
Sorry, you're wrong. Under the War Powers Act of 1973, the President can initiate military action and conduct offensive operations for 60 days without consulting Congress. Also, after 9/11 Congress gave the Shrub what amounts to a blank check to use military force against "terrorist" countries.
If he wanted to invade Mexico, all Shrub has to do is pull some specious bullshit excuse out of his ass based on shoddy, discredited intelligence reports and say that Mexico is developing weapons of mass destruction or is harboring terrorists. The sad thing is people will just sit there and listen to his lies and believe every word of it.
We didn't do drive by installations, or hide our intentions: we just traded our customers data for use of our program
And in your moral code "just" pimping out your sister isn't wrong either, as long as you're not hiding your intentions. It's a cop-out and you know it.
Did your program pop up a message when it started saying "WARNING: We collect your private information and sell it to the highest bidder"? Did you tell the user exactly what data you were taking and what you were using it for UP FRONT in CLEAR LANGUAGE, or was it in obfuscated legalese buried at the end of a 12-page click-through user agreement? In other words, would a clueless newbie (your grandmother, for instance) realize that their privacy was being violated, or would they just say "oooh, neat stuff for free"?
"It's not illegal" isn't an acceptable excuse for engaging in scummy behavior; you may not be a criminal scumbag but you're still a scumbag.
Everyone can (and should) turn down job offers from employers who engage in ethically dubious business practices, even if it means making less money. I turned down a job 6 months ago even though it meant a more money and a shorter commute. The advantage is that when my son asks me "what do you do, daddy?" I can say "I help scientists find a cure for cancer" instead of "I send people junk mail."
He is the civilian controller of the military, which doesn't make him a member.
True, but the President and other Civilian command authorities (Secretary of the Defense, Secretaries of the Army/Navy/Air Force) are a special case -- they, unlike just about any other civilian, are part of the military chain of command. They can give lawful orders to the military and those orders WILL be obeyed.
The Governers' authority is much more limited -- Governer Arnhuld can't lawfully order the California National Guard to invade Mexico.
Fundamentalists certainly played a role in Bush's re-election, but they don't make up the majority of Republican voters, much less the country
The problem is that the "religious right" has all but taken over the Republican party. Somewhere along the line the Republicans confused the issue of being FISCALLY conservitive with being SOCIALLY conservitive. Ten years ago, you could have said that the Republicans were throwing the far-right fundie whackos a few bones to curry their votes. Now, the fundies have taken the party over and they are the ones who are throwing bones to the fiscal conservitives.
The Democrats are missing a golden opportunity here. Under the Bush administration, the Republican party has all but abandoned any claim it had of being the party of fiscal responsibility. If they were smart, the Democrats would assume this mantle and encouage the REAL conservitives to abandon the Republican party. With the fiscal conservitives gone, the fundies would inevitably marginalize the Republican party with their extremist views.
The teachings of Christ were very clear on respect and love for others
It's too bad so many "Christians" forget about that and the other incovienient things Christ said like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and "judge not lest ye be judged".
Please do not group all Christians into the same category as these people. Not all Christians believe that the government should be used to force our values down others throats.
Unfortunately for you, the tolerant small-mouthed variety of Christian seems to be a minority (even an endangered species), at least in the public arena.
The fact remains that it's the Christians with the biggest mouths and the most extreme viewpoints who are the ones who get all the attention; and, it would seem, are the ones who are currently running the Republican party. There's a group of powerful people who call themselves Christians who ARE intent on using the Government to shove their version of Christianity down everyone's throat, and who like to think that they operate on behalf of all Christians.
The simple fact is that, in today's world, if you label yourself as a "Christian" without further qualification or explanation, a lot of people (on both sides) are going to lump you together with the rabidly intolerant, frothing-at-the-mouth, hate-spewing control freak "Christians" like Falwell & Robertson.
Whether you like it or not, you have to face the fact that the extremists have co-opted the name "Christian" for their own use. If you don't want to be associated with them, you really only have two choices. First, you can use some other name to identify your religious beliefs; or second, you have work with other people who share your version of Christianity in order to take the name back from the snakeshakers. Your silence allows the "Religious Right" to claim that they speak for you.
Besides, this isn't really about Christianity or religion, it is about power and the ability to control people.
What do you think religion IS besides a means to accquire power and control people? Going back to the dawn of recorded history, EVERY organized religion has been a social control mechanism and the priesthood has ALWAYS been a reliable path to secular wealth and power.
ObPedanticSciFiFact: In the Uplift books, Trinary was an invented language so that uplifted Fins and humans could talk to each other without mechanical translators. Un-uplifted dolphins used Primal Delphin.
Hunting an animal, doofus. You've never actually hunted anything, have you? If you don't know what you're talking about, STFU.
Hunting is not easy, even with all the advantages modern technology gives you. Even with the best technology available a hunt is still by no means a sure thing, nor does technology remove all skill from the hunt. It does make it a lot easier, which is why modern firearms hunting season is typically only a fraction of the length of bow and blackpowder seasons.
Hunting with a rifle is a good way to gain the skills and confidence you need to be an effective bowhunter, kind of like the way training wheels are a good way to get the skills and confidence you need to ride a bike. A lot of hunters I know started out with a gun and then "graduated" to more primitive tools once they wanted more challenge.
That said, I think that the topic at hand, internet hunting, is disgusting and unacceptable
As a hunter I have to agree with your sentiment if not the words. Disgusting? No more so than a dozen other things I can think of. Besides, "disgusting" is a subjective term -- what's "disgusting" to you may not be to someone else. Appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, so let's just stick to objective facts, OK?
Objectively, my main objection to this is safety -- speaking as an engineer, hunter, and shooter, I see no practical way of designing such a system with an acceptable degree of safety. Even the current setup with a low-caliber rifle on an enclosed range with a severely limited range of motion gives me the heebie-jeebies. Remotely-operated weapons have their place: on the battlefield. They don't belong at the target range or on the hunting grounds, and they have absolutely no business whatsoever being hooked up to a publicly-accessible network.
You are confusing the act of hunting an animal with the social event called a "hunting trip". Hunting trips are less about the actual hunting than they are about the social experience. IME, serious hunters usually either hunt alone or with a single partner.
The !Kung live in an area which is only marginally capable of supporting human life -- the Kalahari desert. Their lifestyle and diet cannot be realistically compared to hunter-gatherer societies living in more hospitable environments with plentiful game, like neolithic Europe or pre-Columbian America.
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The spikey thing on a chain you linked to isn't a mace... it's a flail. A spikey thing on a stick is a morningstar. A mace is a knobby thing on a stick.
That's why I refused to by the RoTK DVD until the extended version came out.
My only experience working with a non-trivial Python-based application was GNU Mailman, which is (IMHO) a bloated monstrosity. Now, I'll be the first to admit that you can't judge the merits of a language based on one application -- particuarly if that application is poorly engineered to start with. However, having seen Mailman in action, sucking up over 300M of RAM and spawning a half-dozen instances of the virtual machine in the course of processing a small low-volume mailing list, I'm very reluctant to start using Python for my own projects.
FYI, it is still *LEGAL* to record a TV show for your personal use. If I want all 7 seasons of TNG on DVD, all I need is a video capture card, SpikeTV's broadcast schedule, a simple shell script, and a small investment of time to edit out the commercials and burn the disks. If Paramount wants me to PAY for something I can *LEGALLY* get for next to nothing, they have to make it worth my while. Better image quality is a start, but it isn't worth an order of magnitude price difference.
$100 for the WHOLE SERIES RUN is a more realistic assessment of the real value -- at that price it's almost worth it to me to get the nice box set rather than collecting the episodes over the course of a couple months.
The President clearly has no Constitutional authority to declare war against another sovereign nation or (arguably) to take any action against a sovereign nation which would be likely to be considered an Act of War by the internationally accepted standards of the day, unless explicitly authorized to do so by Congress. However, the only Constitutional authority Congress has over the day-to-day operations of the Armed Forces is to control the purse strings. The problem here is that, short of a formal (or de-facto) declaration of war, there's no clear Constitutional demarcation saying where the President's authority as Commander in Chief begins and ends when the country is NOT in a declared state of war.
Even in the early days of the Republic, it was recognized that there were legitimate offensive and defensive military actions short of declared war, and that directing the conduct such operations was within the scope of the normal duties of the Commander In Chief. For example, defending the frontier against hostile Indians and protecting friendly merchant ships against piracy would have been routine duties for the Armed Forces of the day. I doubt that any of the Founding Fathers would have argued, for example, that the President would need to seek Congress's approval before ordering the Navy to attack a pirate haven.
What the WPA does (quite legitimately, I may add) is formalize the boundry between the routine and emergency operational powers of the Commander in Chief and the war powers reserved for Congress. This is the Constitution working exactly as it was designed to: Congress setting the boundries of when and where military force can be used, and the President directing military operations within the limits set by Congress. From a strict constructionist point of view, the WPA actually reduces the President's power -- you could argue that the Constitution permits the President to order the military to do *anything* as long as he doesn't issue a formal declaration of war.
Just because *YOU* never got bit by a defect in a product does not mean that the product wasn't defective -- it just means that you got lucky.
If he wanted to invade Mexico, all Shrub has to do is pull some specious bullshit excuse out of his ass based on shoddy, discredited intelligence reports and say that Mexico is developing weapons of mass destruction or is harboring terrorists. The sad thing is people will just sit there and listen to his lies and believe every word of it.
Did your program pop up a message when it started saying "WARNING: We collect your private information and sell it to the highest bidder"? Did you tell the user exactly what data you were taking and what you were using it for UP FRONT in CLEAR LANGUAGE, or was it in obfuscated legalese buried at the end of a 12-page click-through user agreement? In other words, would a clueless newbie (your grandmother, for instance) realize that their privacy was being violated, or would they just say "oooh, neat stuff for free"?
"It's not illegal" isn't an acceptable excuse for engaging in scummy behavior; you may not be a criminal scumbag but you're still a scumbag.
Everyone can (and should) turn down job offers from employers who engage in ethically dubious business practices, even if it means making less money. I turned down a job 6 months ago even though it meant a more money and a shorter commute. The advantage is that when my son asks me "what do you do, daddy?" I can say "I help scientists find a cure for cancer" instead of "I send people junk mail."
Only if you were stupid enough not to get rid of the printer!
The Governers' authority is much more limited -- Governer Arnhuld can't lawfully order the California National Guard to invade Mexico.
The Democrats are missing a golden opportunity here. Under the Bush administration, the Republican party has all but abandoned any claim it had of being the party of fiscal responsibility. If they were smart, the Democrats would assume this mantle and encouage the REAL conservitives to abandon the Republican party. With the fiscal conservitives gone, the fundies would inevitably marginalize the Republican party with their extremist views.
The fact remains that it's the Christians with the biggest mouths and the most extreme viewpoints who are the ones who get all the attention; and, it would seem, are the ones who are currently running the Republican party. There's a group of powerful people who call themselves Christians who ARE intent on using the Government to shove their version of Christianity down everyone's throat, and who like to think that they operate on behalf of all Christians.
The simple fact is that, in today's world, if you label yourself as a "Christian" without further qualification or explanation, a lot of people (on both sides) are going to lump you together with the rabidly intolerant, frothing-at-the-mouth, hate-spewing control freak "Christians" like Falwell & Robertson.
Whether you like it or not, you have to face the fact that the extremists have co-opted the name "Christian" for their own use. If you don't want to be associated with them, you really only have two choices. First, you can use some other name to identify your religious beliefs; or second, you have work with other people who share your version of Christianity in order to take the name back from the snakeshakers. Your silence allows the "Religious Right" to claim that they speak for you.
What do you think religion IS besides a means to accquire power and control people? Going back to the dawn of recorded history, EVERY organized religion has been a social control mechanism and the priesthood has ALWAYS been a reliable path to secular wealth and power.ObPedanticSciFiFact: In the Uplift books, Trinary was an invented language so that uplifted Fins and humans could talk to each other without mechanical translators. Un-uplifted dolphins used Primal Delphin.
Hunting is not easy, even with all the advantages modern technology gives you. Even with the best technology available a hunt is still by no means a sure thing, nor does technology remove all skill from the hunt. It does make it a lot easier, which is why modern firearms hunting season is typically only a fraction of the length of bow and blackpowder seasons.
Hunting with a rifle is a good way to gain the skills and confidence you need to be an effective bowhunter, kind of like the way training wheels are a good way to get the skills and confidence you need to ride a bike. A lot of hunters I know started out with a gun and then "graduated" to more primitive tools once they wanted more challenge.
Objectively, my main objection to this is safety -- speaking as an engineer, hunter, and shooter, I see no practical way of designing such a system with an acceptable degree of safety. Even the current setup with a low-caliber rifle on an enclosed range with a severely limited range of motion gives me the heebie-jeebies. Remotely-operated weapons have their place: on the battlefield. They don't belong at the target range or on the hunting grounds, and they have absolutely no business whatsoever being hooked up to a publicly-accessible network.
You are confusing the act of hunting an animal with the social event called a "hunting trip". Hunting trips are less about the actual hunting than they are about the social experience. IME, serious hunters usually either hunt alone or with a single partner.
The !Kung live in an area which is only marginally capable of supporting human life -- the Kalahari desert. Their lifestyle and diet cannot be realistically compared to hunter-gatherer societies living in more hospitable environments with plentiful game, like neolithic Europe or pre-Columbian America.