When I read your first line, I thought you were going to be referring to the Matrix, which would be a much more likely situation. I can see humans spreading out over all of space and taking over planet after planet as they destroy the previous ones. That is, if they don't destroy themselves before they have the chance.
You do bring up an interesting point, however. Kind of the same thing as the opening scene in Contact. There's the entire universe, covering all this vast distance, and it turns out to be all inside someone's eye. And I don't think there is actually any way to find out. But then again, does it really affect us at all?
Hey, that's a way for a city to end traffic problems: just set this up in the city, and then make cellular phones illegal in cars and there you go, no more traffic. And everyone can go online and check to see that there is no traffic. But then the mayor would have to set up a bunch of cell phones that are constantly on and surrounding his office so that people think the traffic is so bad that they can't get their angry mob through gridlock to burn down his house and ride him out of town on rail... Seems like something Mayor Quimby would do.
Maybe they don't care because the video they're showing just doesn't matter. I mean, what can people actually do with the data they get from pirating the video stream? In the Balkans? I mean really, who cares?
Whoa, wait a second! Isn't that what they're for in the first place? I'm pretty sure the ability to do math is just a side effect of being in-class gaming machines.
That's true, when you don't have a calculator you do tend to get better at doing it by hand. On the first day of Calc 2 my TI-85 was stolen, and I couldn't afford to buy a new one. So what was my only option? Do everything in my head, of course. I got damn good at visualizing integrals and differential functions in my head, and I never learned how to do it on a calculator. I went on to take the ACT and SAT without a calculator, and I think I did better without it. After all, pretty soon you get to the point where it takes longer to plug something into the calculator than it does to do it in your head. It all comes down to which you do more often. I'd rather be independent of the calculator.
Yes yes, but they said nothing about trying to do it "right." These bandwidth caps and speed limitations and graduated prices for high-bandwidth users all come at the same time as they raise the price of their basic, flat-rated service. I'm not a paranoid man, and I don't wear any kind of hat, much less one made of tinfoil, but these cable companies are not operating as a real business should. In fact, dare I say it, they are worse than Microsoft. Their "innovation" comes only in the form of new pricing schemes, while they roll back technology to the golden days of yesteryear.
On the other hand, I buy my DSL from Qwest, and I'm still considering the switch to cable... and yes Qwest is that bad.
It seems to me that this would be a huge risk for the RIAA. Right now, people download their music from Kazaa for no cost. A lot of people then go out and purchase the songs they like on CD, paying for what they downloaded, and thus legitimizing it. I don't have the link to evidence that CD sales skyrocketed along with P2P filesharing, but in this forum I think I can assume it's common knowledge. But if the downloaders have to pay the cable companies for the songs they downloaded, they would then feel that they own the song, without having to go down to the local megastore to buy the CD. In the minds of the users, having to pay for it may legitimize it, and people would stop going out to buy the CDs. I can see this really hurting the RIAA, as people continue to download music with the money they used to spend on buying CDs and can no longer afford to blow their cash on the silverbacks.
On the other hand, it could hurt the cable companies, too. If they raise their prices so that it still costs less to download the music than to buy it, it hurts the RIAA and helps the broadband providers. If they raise the prices so that it actually costs more to download the music than it costs to buy it on CD, it helps the RIAA and hurts the cable companies (and it also hurts the consumer, as broadband innovation will have been squashed). If, however, they raise the prices to the point where it would cost the same to download it as it would to buy it, the results are harder to see. Some people would continue to download, and they definitely would not then go out to buy the CD, in effect paying twice what it's worth (or, some would say, 200x times what it's worth, but you get the picture). Other people would stop downloading and buy the CDs instead, perhaps cancelling their broadband connection. Still others would stop downloading and continue to not buy CDs, but rather return to the good ol' radio. Before Napster, I got all my music off the radio. It started to get old, however, when the commercial-density-ratio began to skyrocket, so I began to download songs off the internet. When I listened on the radio, the RIAA had no chance at my dollars, and when I downloaded it, the RIAA still had no chance at my dollars. If they force me back to the radio, why would I then give them a chance at my dollars?
This isn't even mentioning the fact that this price hike is totally ridiculous, because it cuts into fair, legal use as well. What if I wanted to download the ISO of the newest Debian release? Or upload a home movie to a community website for mass viewing, and then download one of somebody else's? Or download the source code to my favorite OSS program to edit it, and then upload my edited copy? Why is it that people only see the "bad" things that happen, while ignoring the good? Nothing would squash Open Source like forcing us all back to 56k modems to download and upload our huge source files.
I think it's time for a new guy in the broadband arena, one who understands the needs of the consumers, not the needs of the billionaires. Now if only I had like a million bucks so I could start my own service provider...
Yeah, but doesn't a heat gun cost significantly more than a scissors? People can walk up to an ethernet cable and give it a snip to destroy data integrity. But you have a good point, because it would provide only temporary disruption.
How could a government mandate operating system diversity? If several departments were using Linux, and another wanted to switch, they would be unable to because the nation had already reached their Linux quota? That would be interesting, to say the least...
If everyone else had guns, why would the terrorists keep their boxcutters? Rather, they would upgrade to a weapon that was equally as far above a handgun as a boxcutter is above a fingernail. And if 1 or 2 people on every hijacked flight tried to do something, a lot more people would probably die. The September 11 hijackings were completely different from every previous hijacking. Usually terrorists have demands, and the best way for the individuals on the plane is to give in to the demands, not to attack them.
Yes, air marshalls can carry guns on board an airplane, but their bullets travel slowly, fragment inside a person's body, and they don't miss. If you had 100 people shooting guns that sent a bullet traveling over the speed of sound with hollow pointed or armor piercing or otherwise ridiculously dangerous bullets, and most of these 100 people are panicking and not very well trained, a lot of bullets would be hitting the hulls. You have attempted to refute my arguments and have failed.
I ignored your attempted argument about schools, because it was merely residue from your bitterness about your own education.
Yes, but Microsoft doesn't own Linux, and they don't think they do. And you sure don't own the highway. The US government can tear up the highway if they want, because they own it. You may not agree with them, but the RIAA thinks they own the music, and that gives them the right to do with it what they want (in their minds).
I completely agree with you. I download music and movies, and I watch the movies on my TV and listen to the music on my stereo, both piped over from the computer. The music is only 128 kb, which isn't too great, and the movies are really bad. But you get what you pay for. If the movie is any good, I'll go see it in the theater; if not, I won't. I go see a lot of movies, but I only see good ones. It's a good screening process, and people should never complain that something they paid nothing for is not as good as it would be had they paid full price.
If every person on an airplane that was being hijacked had a gun, the terrorist would die, sure, but the plane would go down an awful lot faster. The hull of a commercial airliner simply cannot take a hit from a bullet at such close range. One miss has the potential to bring the entire plane down and kill everyone inside it, and I don't think you want everyone on the plane to have that choice. If every person on every plane had a gun, that even opens up more options for terrorism. Imagine a highly coordinated terrorist attack in which the terrorist organization had a man on every plane above the US, and every single one was destroyed at the exact same time. A single man with a gun can do this. That's why the airline companies have so much interest vested into keeping guns off planes.
Your argument is weak, and I hope the world, when they see it, can choose wisely.
Well, to what are you comparing the Department of Education's inability to improve schools? Before the federal government funded public schools, there were very few schools in the country, they were very expensive, and they just weren't that good. You don't think children could get a better education than they do now by trucking it five miles in the snow to the nearest one room schoolhouse that can afford only one teacher for all eight grades, do you? Surely you don't think that the onset of public education actually harmed the public's education? The only problem with the public system of education is that it is grossly underfunded.
What remedy would you suggest instead of the FBI attempting to prevent terrorists? Arming the populace to the teeth? A heavily armed population would not be able to fight terrorism at all. If every person in the World Trade Center had been wielding a weapon, would that have stopped the planes? No, but there would have been a lot of murdered Arab-Americans...
Well, I used to pin comic strips up on my monitor, I guess now I'll have to print out the source code to various programs and pin it all up on my monitor...
Perhaps Microsoft should put something like this into their manual:
When shutting down your Windows computer it is imperative that you do so by clicking on the Start bar and selecting Shut Down. If the computer is shut down by merely hitting the off switch or otherwise cutting power to the machine, Windows may become unstable. If you, or anyone you know, has ever, will ever, or will ever even think about shutting the Windows machine down incorrectly, Microsoft and all subsidiaries cannot be held accountable for any instabilities you may encounter when using your Windows machine. Remember that the preferred way to shut down a Macintosh computer is by unplugging it from the wall outlet, and the preferred way to shut down a computer running any blasphemous Open Source OS, such as Linux, is to open the case and remove the hard drive from the machine. If the machine does not shut down, and due to the poor quality of the Linux OS, it may not, the Central Processing Unit should next be removed. If Linux still refuses to release its hold on your machine, unplug power cable connecting the power supply to the motherboard. If the hassle of shutting down your Linux machine gets to be too much, and it darn well should, see Chapter 2: Windows Installation.
Can anyone else see the beast pulling something like this?
I completely agree with you. The mouse gestures are an incredible feature for a web browser. I have grown so accustomed to using them that, whenever I am forced to go back to another browser for whatever reason, I too right-drag to go back. It even happens in Windows Explorer!
You're right that the author invalidates himself by saying that they are an annoyance, but he further invalidates himself by writing such poor English. I was supremely disappointed by this article: it just doesn't do Opera justice.
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When I read your first line, I thought you were going to be referring to the Matrix, which would be a much more likely situation. I can see humans spreading out over all of space and taking over planet after planet as they destroy the previous ones. That is, if they don't destroy themselves before they have the chance.
You do bring up an interesting point, however. Kind of the same thing as the opening scene in Contact. There's the entire universe, covering all this vast distance, and it turns out to be all inside someone's eye. And I don't think there is actually any way to find out. But then again, does it really affect us at all?
You deserve a compliment for that, it very much resembles the Hitchhiker's style. Congratulations. :)
Hey, that's a way for a city to end traffic problems: just set this up in the city, and then make cellular phones illegal in cars and there you go, no more traffic. And everyone can go online and check to see that there is no traffic. But then the mayor would have to set up a bunch of cell phones that are constantly on and surrounding his office so that people think the traffic is so bad that they can't get their angry mob through gridlock to burn down his house and ride him out of town on rail... Seems like something Mayor Quimby would do.
Maybe they don't care because the video they're showing just doesn't matter. I mean, what can people actually do with the data they get from pirating the video stream? In the Balkans? I mean really, who cares?
Games can even be loaded onto the devices.
Whoa, wait a second! Isn't that what they're for in the first place? I'm pretty sure the ability to do math is just a side effect of being in-class gaming machines.
That's true, when you don't have a calculator you do tend to get better at doing it by hand. On the first day of Calc 2 my TI-85 was stolen, and I couldn't afford to buy a new one. So what was my only option? Do everything in my head, of course. I got damn good at visualizing integrals and differential functions in my head, and I never learned how to do it on a calculator. I went on to take the ACT and SAT without a calculator, and I think I did better without it. After all, pretty soon you get to the point where it takes longer to plug something into the calculator than it does to do it in your head. It all comes down to which you do more often. I'd rather be independent of the calculator.
Horses don't wear shoes anymore?
If you hate flying, why would you prefer this? After all, the thing flies...
Yes yes, but they said nothing about trying to do it "right." These bandwidth caps and speed limitations and graduated prices for high-bandwidth users all come at the same time as they raise the price of their basic, flat-rated service. I'm not a paranoid man, and I don't wear any kind of hat, much less one made of tinfoil, but these cable companies are not operating as a real business should. In fact, dare I say it, they are worse than Microsoft. Their "innovation" comes only in the form of new pricing schemes, while they roll back technology to the golden days of yesteryear.
On the other hand, I buy my DSL from Qwest, and I'm still considering the switch to cable... and yes Qwest is that bad.
It seems to me that this would be a huge risk for the RIAA. Right now, people download their music from Kazaa for no cost. A lot of people then go out and purchase the songs they like on CD, paying for what they downloaded, and thus legitimizing it. I don't have the link to evidence that CD sales skyrocketed along with P2P filesharing, but in this forum I think I can assume it's common knowledge. But if the downloaders have to pay the cable companies for the songs they downloaded, they would then feel that they own the song, without having to go down to the local megastore to buy the CD. In the minds of the users, having to pay for it may legitimize it, and people would stop going out to buy the CDs. I can see this really hurting the RIAA, as people continue to download music with the money they used to spend on buying CDs and can no longer afford to blow their cash on the silverbacks.
On the other hand, it could hurt the cable companies, too. If they raise their prices so that it still costs less to download the music than to buy it, it hurts the RIAA and helps the broadband providers. If they raise the prices so that it actually costs more to download the music than it costs to buy it on CD, it helps the RIAA and hurts the cable companies (and it also hurts the consumer, as broadband innovation will have been squashed). If, however, they raise the prices to the point where it would cost the same to download it as it would to buy it, the results are harder to see. Some people would continue to download, and they definitely would not then go out to buy the CD, in effect paying twice what it's worth (or, some would say, 200x times what it's worth, but you get the picture). Other people would stop downloading and buy the CDs instead, perhaps cancelling their broadband connection. Still others would stop downloading and continue to not buy CDs, but rather return to the good ol' radio. Before Napster, I got all my music off the radio. It started to get old, however, when the commercial-density-ratio began to skyrocket, so I began to download songs off the internet. When I listened on the radio, the RIAA had no chance at my dollars, and when I downloaded it, the RIAA still had no chance at my dollars. If they force me back to the radio, why would I then give them a chance at my dollars?
This isn't even mentioning the fact that this price hike is totally ridiculous, because it cuts into fair, legal use as well. What if I wanted to download the ISO of the newest Debian release? Or upload a home movie to a community website for mass viewing, and then download one of somebody else's? Or download the source code to my favorite OSS program to edit it, and then upload my edited copy? Why is it that people only see the "bad" things that happen, while ignoring the good? Nothing would squash Open Source like forcing us all back to 56k modems to download and upload our huge source files.
I think it's time for a new guy in the broadband arena, one who understands the needs of the consumers, not the needs of the billionaires. Now if only I had like a million bucks so I could start my own service provider...
Yeah, run better, too...
Yeah, but doesn't a heat gun cost significantly more than a scissors? People can walk up to an ethernet cable and give it a snip to destroy data integrity. But you have a good point, because it would provide only temporary disruption.
How could a government mandate operating system diversity? If several departments were using Linux, and another wanted to switch, they would be unable to because the nation had already reached their Linux quota? That would be interesting, to say the least...
This is interesting, considering the fact that they're quitting the hard drive business. Anybody think they'll reconsider?
If everyone else had guns, why would the terrorists keep their boxcutters? Rather, they would upgrade to a weapon that was equally as far above a handgun as a boxcutter is above a fingernail. And if 1 or 2 people on every hijacked flight tried to do something, a lot more people would probably die. The September 11 hijackings were completely different from every previous hijacking. Usually terrorists have demands, and the best way for the individuals on the plane is to give in to the demands, not to attack them.
Yes, air marshalls can carry guns on board an airplane, but their bullets travel slowly, fragment inside a person's body, and they don't miss. If you had 100 people shooting guns that sent a bullet traveling over the speed of sound with hollow pointed or armor piercing or otherwise ridiculously dangerous bullets, and most of these 100 people are panicking and not very well trained, a lot of bullets would be hitting the hulls. You have attempted to refute my arguments and have failed.
I ignored your attempted argument about schools, because it was merely residue from your bitterness about your own education.
Yes, but Microsoft doesn't own Linux, and they don't think they do. And you sure don't own the highway. The US government can tear up the highway if they want, because they own it. You may not agree with them, but the RIAA thinks they own the music, and that gives them the right to do with it what they want (in their minds).
I completely agree with you. I download music and movies, and I watch the movies on my TV and listen to the music on my stereo, both piped over from the computer. The music is only 128 kb, which isn't too great, and the movies are really bad. But you get what you pay for. If the movie is any good, I'll go see it in the theater; if not, I won't. I go see a lot of movies, but I only see good ones. It's a good screening process, and people should never complain that something they paid nothing for is not as good as it would be had they paid full price.
If every person on an airplane that was being hijacked had a gun, the terrorist would die, sure, but the plane would go down an awful lot faster. The hull of a commercial airliner simply cannot take a hit from a bullet at such close range. One miss has the potential to bring the entire plane down and kill everyone inside it, and I don't think you want everyone on the plane to have that choice. If every person on every plane had a gun, that even opens up more options for terrorism. Imagine a highly coordinated terrorist attack in which the terrorist organization had a man on every plane above the US, and every single one was destroyed at the exact same time. A single man with a gun can do this. That's why the airline companies have so much interest vested into keeping guns off planes.
Your argument is weak, and I hope the world, when they see it, can choose wisely.
Open source programmers have families? ;)
Well, to what are you comparing the Department of Education's inability to improve schools? Before the federal government funded public schools, there were very few schools in the country, they were very expensive, and they just weren't that good. You don't think children could get a better education than they do now by trucking it five miles in the snow to the nearest one room schoolhouse that can afford only one teacher for all eight grades, do you? Surely you don't think that the onset of public education actually harmed the public's education? The only problem with the public system of education is that it is grossly underfunded.
What remedy would you suggest instead of the FBI attempting to prevent terrorists? Arming the populace to the teeth? A heavily armed population would not be able to fight terrorism at all. If every person in the World Trade Center had been wielding a weapon, would that have stopped the planes? No, but there would have been a lot of murdered Arab-Americans...
Obviously Hawking would win: you saw his punching bag in the Simpsons...
Well, I used to pin comic strips up on my monitor, I guess now I'll have to print out the source code to various programs and pin it all up on my monitor...
Can anyone else see the beast pulling something like this?
I completely agree with you. The mouse gestures are an incredible feature for a web browser. I have grown so accustomed to using them that, whenever I am forced to go back to another browser for whatever reason, I too right-drag to go back. It even happens in Windows Explorer!
You're right that the author invalidates himself by saying that they are an annoyance, but he further invalidates himself by writing such poor English. I was supremely disappointed by this article: it just doesn't do Opera justice.