>>>We shoulda wiped your asses out when there were only a few of you alone out in the desert.
Clearly you don't understand the concept of freedom/liberty. You may not like the Mormons, but they still have the right to live their lives however they please, within their own member state (Utah).
Also I lived in Utah for half a year - not long, but enough time to see they are not evil people. They just want to live their lives & raise families like any other American in any other member state
A lot of cops carry around a fake search warrant, toss it into the hands of the homeowner and then just *walk in* without giving the homeowner a chance to read the fake document. Of course anything the cops find during this illegal search is inadmissible in court, but it can still be used in an interrogation room to extract a voluntary confession.
>>>Under the Patriot Act, FBI agents may issue National Security Letters to obtain comprehensive financial and communications records about anyone, including people suspected of no wrongdoing and no connection to terrorists or foreign powers. To do this, the FBI merely needs to claim the information is relevant to an investigation >>>
This is why we can no longer depend upon the U.S. Supreme Court. They've had almost ten years to nullify this unconstitutional law and have not done so. Therefore I propose this:
The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act. ----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII. Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the States declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed. ----- Section 2. This article shall be inoperative, unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths* of the several States by the date January 1, 2050.
With this amendment, there'd be no need to wait for the 9 old people on the court. You (and your neighbors) could collectively instruct the State Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional". Once 25 other legislatures have done the same, then the U.S. law would be voided, and there's be no more Patriot Act.
My proposed amendment would simplify the process, shorten the time that an unconstitutional law sits on the books (2-3 years, not decades), and most-importantly, not require citizens to sit in jail or otherwise be spied upon.
Hopefully this legislative law will be overturned by the Utah Supreme Court, although it won't stop the practice. If the General Attorney asks a cellphone or internet company for information, they can still turn it over voluntarily. What do they care about the privacy of their customers?
We need an amendment to our State Constitutions and eventually, our U.S. Constitution:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects [including information held in third-party hands] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by Oath or affirmation [in a court of Law], and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Because Progressives are anti-Constitutionalists, and anti-Bill of Rights (especially amendments 9 and 10). I consider them to be completely incompatible with my view that the Constitution exists to shackle the government from turning tyrannical. I consider anti-constitutionalists an enemy of the people.
And those who say, "No Progressives are not anti-constitution or anti-bill of rights," clearly don't understand the party they are a member of (or support). They trample over the People's Constitution as if it didn't exist.
>>>As for government taking active control of corporations, I *want* them to do that.
No way. The government would end-up bankrupting the profitable companies of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Walmart, Ford, Honda, et cetera the same way they bankrupted the Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare/SSI (not bankrupt yet but will be in 2014), and so on.
Government doesn't run efficiently, because government serves the Relection campaigns of the Congressmen, not the people or the customers. That means hiring whole swaths of people who do nothing, and should properly be laid off, but their Congressional representative won't allow it. I know because I held one of those jobs for a year - located at the FAA in Oklahoma City where most of the office sat around surfing the net.
What we need is free market, and put the power in the hands of customers to decide which companies they want to support (like Walmart) and which companies not to support (the bankrupted Circuit City).
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>>>Examples include sewage, the water supply, education and the infrastructure for gas and electricity.
I agree with you in the case of a natural monopoly (where having two companies serving a neighborhood is impossible). I don't agree in cases where we could have true competition, like in the case of schools and gasoline. There's no reason why students should be forced to attend/pay tuition for just one school - they should be free to spend their money at any school they want. And competition between various corner gasoline stations is why it's cheaper than a bottle of water.
>>>Corporations have proven time and time again that given the chance they'll bend their customers over a barrel and do whatever they damn well please.
Yes in monopolies, but not in a free market, in which case customers can say, "Frak you," and switch from Circuit City to Walmart. Or Toyota to Honda. Or Microsoft to Apple or Linux. Corporations don't have power in a free market.
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>>>As for the whole Mao thing, there have been several US politicans that have quoted him
Well there's a difference between saying, "That asshole Mao said we need to thin the herd," and somebody announcing her favorite philosopher is Mao and she admires him.
>>>the first one-piece camcorder was the Betamovie.
Yes and as I said, it could record but not playback (i.e. no instant review). It's also why Sony went on to create Video8 to compete with the Compact VHS, because Betamax could not be shrunk any smaller. Sony just made mistake-after-mistake with this format. .
>>>only the Super versions of both formats store the signal in a split fashion.
Not correct. Chroma and luma are stored separately on the tape, so there would be no "color bleed" on either Betamax or VHS tape.
>>>beta supported 250 lines of resolution vs vhs' 240, and the
That's true, but when Sony eliminated Beta-I speed to try to squeeze 2 hours per tape with Beta-II, the resolution dropped to match VHS' 240 lines, and thus there was no difference. Later VHS add HQ, which brought them back up to 250 lines. Overall most viewers couldn't see any real difference (it is only + or - 10 lines). .
>>>heavy luma/chroma 'bleed' in vhs made the picture look noticeably worse
I don't know what you're talking about. Betamax and VHS both use S-video for storage, such that the luma and chroma do not mix, so there's no bleeding during playback (unless you have a really bad TV that doesn't keep the two separate but that's not the VCR's fault). .
>>>at 290 lines of resolution SuperBetamax tapes were/are significantly clearer than vhs.
Yes but nowhere near as good as Super VHS which had 420 lines resolution (like laserdisc), and so once again Betamax offers no reason to switch to it.
Betamax also failed to transition to camcorders (it could record but not playback), so it required customers to use a different format like Sony's Video 8. People didn't want different incompatible formats - they wanted the convenience of one format - like VHS which could be used either in cameras or home VCRs.
However you look at it, Sony's Betamax team majorly frakked up. First they didn't provide enough time to be useful (only 1 hour), then they discontinued Beta-I speed which left early adopters abandoned, and next they tried to get consumers to adopt a new format called Video 8. No wonder Betamax flopped.
>>>If you are lucky, this will be relatively harmless. If you are unlucky, it will cause cancer.
And what do you think happens with the hundreds of pounds of coal particulate matter, car exhaust hydrocarbons, and ground-level ozone that you breathe every year? I'd sooner drink a drop of tritium than breathe all that crap.
>>>Nuclear power is one of the few technologies that are capable of displacing fossil fuels
What happens when the uranium runs out? Then what do we use to replace nuclear? IMHO what we should be doing is building homes and cars that are so efficient they use almost no energy. See PassivHaus or the 250 1 Liter car to see what I mean.
We cannot continue down this unlimited power path forever. Eventually it will run out.
>>>porn is just too "uncool" for Apple to sully itself with, so they actively forbid such applications on their devices now (and make no mistake - with the level of control they are THEIR devices, not yours) >>>
As long as I can still see it on my Mac... then... I... don... What the fej??? I did an upgrade to 10.6.22 and now I can't access domai.com. Grrr.
>>>Agreed. Sony learned from their VHS vs. Betamax lessons and proved it with the success of Bluray. What was the lesson? Betamax discouraged porn on their format. >>>
I wish people would stop posting false stories. Sony allowed Betamax to carry porn, and have (or rather had) a whole library to prove it. Playboy, swimsuits, unmentionable stuff - it was all available on Betamax. You are quoting a false urban legend. In reality the reason Betamax failed is because it only supported 1 hour per tape (in 1975) and people felt 1 hour was not long enough to record an evening football game, or primetime programming, or afternoon soaps.
So instead they chose VHS which supported 4 hours (in 1976). While Sony later increased the max record time to 3 hours in 1980, the damage had already been done, and VHS had already gained dominance.
As for quality between VHS and Betamax, that is yet another urban legend. Just as Sony tried to dupe people into believing the PS2 had Toy Story-level graphics, so too did they try the same with Betamax, but in reality, there's no statistical difference: - Both are 3 megahertz video bandwidth (250 lines analog horizontal resolution) - Both have 0.6 megahertz chroma bandwidth - Both have AM-quality sound recording... and later Hi-Fi recording
>>>There's also a line in Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay, about how freedom without limitations is really just a word.
And there's a debating tactic called "strawman argument" which is what you just did. I never said freedom should not have limitations. As Jefferson said, "No man has a right to harm another, and that's all the government should restrain him." A blogger like Alex Jones, although a bit of a nutter, does not physically harm anyone by exercising his right of free speech, so there's no reason to silence his internet website (or give leaders a tool to do so). .
>>>Arbitrarily disconnecting soccer moms or Joe Sixpacks is just as bad, and a lot more likely to happen without any ruckus.
Agreed. You might have pointed that out in your previous post, instead of just leaving me guessing what you meant when you said: "silence a blogger/reporter seems like a tiny risk compared to the others," and that the reporter can just go to a TV station to air his views. You made it sound like you were in FAVOR of the 3-strike law silencing reporters (especially since you apparently think trials by juries are "ridiculous"). .
>>>You do realize ACTA is a big business interest right? Something the left traditionally opposes? The real left, that is?
I don't buy that. Leftists like Obama and Pelosi are bending-over backwards to please the Hollywood types and arrest citizens who download a song or movie. Most leftists want to *integrate* business & government such that business is privately-owned, but government is running the board and making decisions. They call it a "third way" halfway between capitalism (free market) and communism (government-run market).
As for Beck and the next conservative president, he has said (multiple times) that we haven't had a single good president in the last 100 years except for Reagan, and on that point I agree with him. If it turns-out our next president is non conservative, but Beck praises him anyway, then I'll stop listening to Beck. After all I'm not married to the man - I just find his show informative (such as learning that Obama's communication director thinks Mao is her favorite philosopher).
BTW: I find it interesting you did not know about the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
>>>But seriously where does this end? Will we see the death of Microsoft's.lit format in favor of Kindle's.azw?
Possibly but Microsoft will still win: - EMBRACE (amazon's standard) - EXTEND (azw with new features which will be MS proprietary & only readable from Windows) - EXTINGUISH (because amazon kindles will no longer be able to read the new azw2 format that MS now controls, people will buy the Microsoft Zune Reader instead - Kindles will disappear)
If you don't know what I'm talking about just read wikipedia's article about Microsoft during the 1990s.
>>>As for your concern...using the 3 strikes law to silence a blogger/reporter seems like a tiny risk compared to the others. What's to stop said reporter/blogger from walking over the nearest newspaper/tv-station and getting his story out that way? >>>
Well if we imagine that the person who was cut-off was an anti-government blogger/reporter like Alex Jones of infowars.org, then he really does NOT have the recourse to ask the pro-government organizations like BBC or NBC or CBS to carry his report, does he? He has been silenced.
There's a line from Star Trek, about how even one trampled freedom or right forges the first link in a chain that will eventually bind us all. It is correct. Leaders should not have the ability to simply say, "That guy violated the 3-strike law," and silence them without benefit of trial.
>>>Ah, I see you're a fan of Glenn Beck.
And Judge Napolitano, and Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and Andrew Jackson, and anyone else who (wisely) thinks neither government nor its leaders can be trusted with power, and it's time we start enforcing the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
>>>>>Not really. The U.S. member states constantly share information across borders and it's justified as "being tough on crooks". The EU member states will likely do the same, if not now, then in the near future. >>>>> >> >>Like how we manipulated Mexico and Central America
Neither Mexico nor central America are member states of the U.S., so your point has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
>>>That is because such a (ridiculous) thing does not exist in most European countries. See the Wikipedia entry on Civil Law.
A wise man once said, "People may think you are stupid. Don't open you mouth and prove them right." First off, it's not ridiculous to have a trial by your peers, since it is your peers that have the power to block the government from acting unjustly. Second, a 3-strike law where the *government* disconnects the internet as *punishment* would be CRIMINAL law not civil. And finally the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights does not have a right of trial by your peers, but it does still have the right to a trial:
Article 47 - Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right toan effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article. Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and represented. Legal aid shall be made available to those who lack sufficient resources in so far as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.
Article 48 - Presumption of innocence and right of defence 1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law. 2. Respect for the rights of the defence of anyone who has been charged shall be guaranteed.
Receiving punishment (your internet cut off) without trial violates article 47. It also violates article 48 because it presumes guilt without the government having to prove its case.
>>>data-sharing for enforcement purposes among countries that have different criminal punishments for copyright law is hard to justify
Not really. The U.S. member states constantly share information across borders and it's justified as "being tough on crooks". The EU member states will likely do the same, if not now, then in the near future.
What I'm surprised he did not address is the violation of the Right to a trial by your peers (jury). The 3-strike law presumes guilt without any requirement that the state prove its case FIRST. Although this may sound harmless, I can easily imagine the state government, or a progressive leader, using the 3-strike law to silence bloggers/reporters he doesn't like by making false 3-strike claims. In such a case the connection gets cut automatically (presumed guilt), the blogger is silenced, and the leader smiles.
>>>>>Isn't that discriminatory/prejudicial? YES. >> >>No; at least not in the way you are using the words. Racism is.....
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT (pisspoor debating tactic). Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say it was racist. ----- I said it was "prejudiced". The insurance company decided, because I was 16, I was a dangerous dangerous person and should have to pay three times what a 30-yr-old person pays. That's *prejudging* me when you don't even know me. If you bothered to get to know me, then you'd know I'm not dangerous at all. .
>>>It is different if the data says it is different. It's all about what the data says.
By that reasoning, I should have been thrown into prison at age 16. Why? Because data shows that 16-year-olds commit more crimes than any other age group. No doubt you would support such a thing, such you think it's okay to rape 16-year-olds with 3x higher rates, even when said 16-yr-olds are studious, straight-A students who spend most of their time sitting at home programming a computer (i.e. not driving).
People should be treated as *individuals* and not pre-judged or pre-punished when they haven't done anything wrong.
>>>Wow, insurance understanding fail. The entire freakin' point of insurance, and the way it works, is that enough people who don't need it buy it when they don't need it. If you want to wait until you're older when you will need it soon, while not paying into it your entire life, you are breaking the system. >>>
Yeah.
Don't care.
I'll continue living without insurance until about age 60, when my health starts to decline, and then buy it. No sense buying ~$5000 worth of insurance when I'm perfectly healthy and only spend $2-300 per year. That's just money foolish. .
>>>But the health insurance companies will be looking for any way they possibly can to deny you coverage when you come crawling to them at 60
Well if the Democrats are successful, they won't be able to deny me for pre-existing condtions, but even if they DO deny me, it's still not a tragedy. The $5000 saved over 60 years time, plus compounding interest == a heck of a lot of money. I'll simply pay out of my own pocket, and when I run-out of cash, then I'll die.
It's where we all end-up anyway... it makes little difference whether it happens at age 70, or 80, or 90.
>>>IMHO Americans really need to get past the solialist bogeyman that is preventing the implementation of a sane health system >>>
(1) When Tom Green, a Canadian comedian, developed testicular cancer he went to the Canadian government's hospital to have it treated. They told him he had to wait 9 months, so instead he flew to the U.S. and got it done almost immediately.
(2) When a UK actress went to get a PAP smear at age 20 (as a preventive measure and because both her mother and grandmother had cancer), she was denied by the UK Government's NICE (aka nasty) (aka rationing) organization. She was denied again at ages 21, 22, 23, 24. By the time she was 25 it was too late. She had cervical cancer. ----- And like Tom Green she was told she had to wait several months to get surgery, so she flew to the U.S. and had it done within a week.
These are just two stories, but I could post millions of similar stories. Government-run healthcare does not work any better than government-run trains or postal service or medicare or social security.
Also:
There's the consideration of individual property & labor rights. My neighbors overate, smoked, and/or drank excessively, which eventually led to the related diseases of being overweight, developing lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, heart problems, brain strokes, paralysis, and so on. Why should *I* have to pay the bills that result from these foolish life decisions? It's my money, not theirs. Let them pay their own damn bills for their own damn self-created problems.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>We shoulda wiped your asses out when there were only a few of you alone out in the desert.
Clearly you don't understand the concept of freedom/liberty. You may not like the Mormons, but they still have the right to live their lives however they please, within their own member state (Utah).
Also I lived in Utah for half a year - not long, but enough time to see they are not evil people. They just want to live their lives & raise families like any other American in any other member state
You don't even need that.
A lot of cops carry around a fake search warrant, toss it into the hands of the homeowner and then just *walk in* without giving the homeowner a chance to read the fake document. Of course anything the cops find during this illegal search is inadmissible in court, but it can still be used in an interrogation room to extract a voluntary confession.
>>>Under the Patriot Act, FBI agents may issue National Security Letters to obtain comprehensive financial and communications records about anyone, including people suspected of no wrongdoing and no connection to terrorists or foreign powers. To do this, the FBI merely needs to claim the information is relevant to an investigation
>>>
This is why we can no longer depend upon the U.S. Supreme Court. They've had almost ten years to nullify this unconstitutional law and have not done so. Therefore I propose this:
The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act.
----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII.
Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the States declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed. ----- Section 2. This article shall be inoperative, unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths* of the several States by the date January 1, 2050.
With this amendment, there'd be no need to wait for the 9 old people on the court. You (and your neighbors) could collectively instruct the State Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional". Once 25 other legislatures have done the same, then the U.S. law would be voided, and there's be no more Patriot Act.
My proposed amendment would simplify the process, shorten the time that an unconstitutional law sits on the books (2-3 years, not decades), and most-importantly, not require citizens to sit in jail or otherwise be spied upon.
+1 insightful.
Hopefully this legislative law will be overturned by the Utah Supreme Court, although it won't stop the practice. If the General Attorney asks a cellphone or internet company for information, they can still turn it over voluntarily. What do they care about the privacy of their customers?
We need an amendment to our State Constitutions and eventually, our U.S. Constitution:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
[including information held in third-party hands] against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause supported by Oath or affirmation [in a court of Law], and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Because Progressives are anti-Constitutionalists, and anti-Bill of Rights (especially amendments 9 and 10). I consider them to be completely incompatible with my view that the Constitution exists to shackle the government from turning tyrannical. I consider anti-constitutionalists an enemy of the people.
And those who say, "No Progressives are not anti-constitution or anti-bill of rights," clearly don't understand the party they are a member of (or support). They trample over the People's Constitution as if it didn't exist.
>>>As for government taking active control of corporations, I *want* them to do that.
No way. The government would end-up bankrupting the profitable companies of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Walmart, Ford, Honda, et cetera the same way they bankrupted the Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare/SSI (not bankrupt yet but will be in 2014), and so on.
Government doesn't run efficiently, because government serves the Relection campaigns of the Congressmen, not the people or the customers. That means hiring whole swaths of people who do nothing, and should properly be laid off, but their Congressional representative won't allow it. I know because I held one of those jobs for a year - located at the FAA in Oklahoma City where most of the office sat around surfing the net.
What we need is free market, and put the power in the hands of customers to decide which companies they want to support (like Walmart) and which companies not to support (the bankrupted Circuit City).
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>>>Examples include sewage, the water supply, education and the infrastructure for gas and electricity.
I agree with you in the case of a natural monopoly (where having two companies serving a neighborhood is impossible). I don't agree in cases where we could have true competition, like in the case of schools and gasoline. There's no reason why students should be forced to attend/pay tuition for just one school - they should be free to spend their money at any school they want. And competition between various corner gasoline stations is why it's cheaper than a bottle of water.
>>>Corporations have proven time and time again that given the chance they'll bend their customers over a barrel and do whatever they damn well please.
Yes in monopolies, but not in a free market, in which case customers can say, "Frak you," and switch from Circuit City to Walmart. Or Toyota to Honda. Or Microsoft to Apple or Linux. Corporations don't have power in a free market.
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>>>As for the whole Mao thing, there have been several US politicans that have quoted him
Well there's a difference between saying, "That asshole Mao said we need to thin the herd," and somebody announcing her favorite philosopher is Mao and she admires him.
>>>i think commodore64 is confusing betamax and betacam
No I'm not. Betacam isn't even a home standard, so it's not relevant to discussing home recording.
>>>the first one-piece camcorder was the Betamovie.
Yes and as I said, it could record but not playback (i.e. no instant review). It's also why Sony went on to create Video8 to compete with the Compact VHS, because Betamax could not be shrunk any smaller. Sony just made mistake-after-mistake with this format.
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>>>only the Super versions of both formats store the signal in a split fashion.
Not correct. Chroma and luma are stored separately on the tape, so there would be no "color bleed" on either Betamax or VHS tape.
>>>beta supported 250 lines of resolution vs vhs' 240, and the
That's true, but when Sony eliminated Beta-I speed to try to squeeze 2 hours per tape with Beta-II, the resolution dropped to match VHS' 240 lines, and thus there was no difference. Later VHS add HQ, which brought them back up to 250 lines. Overall most viewers couldn't see any real difference (it is only + or - 10 lines).
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>>>heavy luma/chroma 'bleed' in vhs made the picture look noticeably worse
I don't know what you're talking about. Betamax and VHS both use S-video for storage, such that the luma and chroma do not mix, so there's no bleeding during playback (unless you have a really bad TV that doesn't keep the two separate but that's not the VCR's fault).
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>>>at 290 lines of resolution SuperBetamax tapes were/are significantly clearer than vhs.
Yes but nowhere near as good as Super VHS which had 420 lines resolution (like laserdisc), and so once again Betamax offers no reason to switch to it.
Betamax also failed to transition to camcorders (it could record but not playback), so it required customers to use a different format like Sony's Video 8. People didn't want different incompatible formats - they wanted the convenience of one format - like VHS which could be used either in cameras or home VCRs.
However you look at it, Sony's Betamax team majorly frakked up. First they didn't provide enough time to be useful (only 1 hour), then they discontinued Beta-I speed which left early adopters abandoned, and next they tried to get consumers to adopt a new format called Video 8. No wonder Betamax flopped.
>>>If you are lucky, this will be relatively harmless. If you are unlucky, it will cause cancer.
And what do you think happens with the hundreds of pounds of coal particulate matter, car exhaust hydrocarbons, and ground-level ozone that you breathe every year? I'd sooner drink a drop of tritium than breathe all that crap.
>>> I also understand that 2.5 million picocuries per liter sounds like a huge amount
Then change your units. "The plant only leaked 0.003 millicuries per liter of water. Virtually noting."
>>>Nuclear power is one of the few technologies that are capable of displacing fossil fuels
What happens when the uranium runs out? Then what do we use to replace nuclear? IMHO what we should be doing is building homes and cars that are so efficient they use almost no energy. See PassivHaus or the 250 1 Liter car to see what I mean.
We cannot continue down this unlimited power path forever. Eventually it will run out.
The people over here http://cbox.ws/?n=4-3392068-3126 would probably stone you for that statement (they are American conservatives and anti-nudity).
>>>porn is just too "uncool" for Apple to sully itself with, so they actively forbid such applications on their devices now (and make no mistake - with the level of control they are THEIR devices, not yours)
>>>
As long as I can still see it on my Mac... then... I... don...
What the fej???
I did an upgrade to 10.6.22 and now I can't access domai.com. Grrr.
>>>Agreed. Sony learned from their VHS vs. Betamax lessons and proved it with the success of Bluray. What was the lesson? Betamax discouraged porn on their format.
>>>
I wish people would stop posting false stories. Sony allowed Betamax to carry porn, and have (or rather had) a whole library to prove it. Playboy, swimsuits, unmentionable stuff - it was all available on Betamax. You are quoting a false urban legend. In reality the reason Betamax failed is because it only supported 1 hour per tape (in 1975) and people felt 1 hour was not long enough to record an evening football game, or primetime programming, or afternoon soaps.
So instead they chose VHS which supported 4 hours (in 1976). While Sony later increased the max record time to 3 hours in 1980, the damage had already been done, and VHS had already gained dominance.
As for quality between VHS and Betamax, that is yet another urban legend. Just as Sony tried to dupe people into believing the PS2 had Toy Story-level graphics, so too did they try the same with Betamax, but in reality, there's no statistical difference:
- Both are 3 megahertz video bandwidth (250 lines analog horizontal resolution)
- Both have 0.6 megahertz chroma bandwidth
- Both have AM-quality sound recording... and later Hi-Fi recording
>>>A merchant app that sold bikinis was dropped too, for showing girls in bikinis.
fap fap fap
Teacher: "What's that noise?"
Students: (silent)
Teacher: "So like I was saying, during the antitrust legislation, President..."
fap fap fap
Teacher: "Okay knock it off!"
Guy-in-back: "Oh sorry. I was just using my iPhone."
THIS is why Apple banned the ap. Hmmm... looking at this site, I'm wondering why it's possible to order the bottom of the bikini w/o the top? What good's a swimsuit with no top? LINK http://www.simplybeach.com/products/Seafolly/MauiHipsterTieSidewithBand-Cinder.aspx
>>>There's also a line in Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay, about how freedom without limitations is really just a word.
And there's a debating tactic called "strawman argument" which is what you just did. I never said freedom should not have limitations. As Jefferson said, "No man has a right to harm another, and that's all the government should restrain him." A blogger like Alex Jones, although a bit of a nutter, does not physically harm anyone by exercising his right of free speech, so there's no reason to silence his internet website (or give leaders a tool to do so).
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>>>Arbitrarily disconnecting soccer moms or Joe Sixpacks is just as bad, and a lot more likely to happen without any ruckus.
Agreed. You might have pointed that out in your previous post, instead of just leaving me guessing what you meant when you said: "silence a blogger/reporter seems like a tiny risk compared to the others," and that the reporter can just go to a TV station to air his views. You made it sound like you were in FAVOR of the 3-strike law silencing reporters (especially since you apparently think trials by juries are "ridiculous").
.
>>>You do realize ACTA is a big business interest right? Something the left traditionally opposes? The real left, that is?
I don't buy that. Leftists like Obama and Pelosi are bending-over backwards to please the Hollywood types and arrest citizens who download a song or movie. Most leftists want to *integrate* business & government such that business is privately-owned, but government is running the board and making decisions. They call it a "third way" halfway between capitalism (free market) and communism (government-run market).
As for Beck and the next conservative president, he has said (multiple times) that we haven't had a single good president in the last 100 years except for Reagan, and on that point I agree with him. If it turns-out our next president is non conservative, but Beck praises him anyway, then I'll stop listening to Beck. After all I'm not married to the man - I just find his show informative (such as learning that Obama's communication director thinks Mao is her favorite philosopher).
BTW: I find it interesting you did not know about the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
>>>But seriously where does this end? Will we see the death of Microsoft's .lit format in favor of Kindle's .azw?
Possibly but Microsoft will still win:
- EMBRACE (amazon's standard)
- EXTEND (azw with new features which will be MS proprietary & only readable from Windows)
- EXTINGUISH (because amazon kindles will no longer be able to read the new azw2 format that MS now controls, people will buy the Microsoft Zune Reader instead - Kindles will disappear)
If you don't know what I'm talking about just read wikipedia's article about Microsoft during the 1990s.
>>>As for your concern...using the 3 strikes law to silence a blogger/reporter seems like a tiny risk compared to the others. What's to stop said reporter/blogger from walking over the nearest newspaper/tv-station and getting his story out that way?
>>>
Well if we imagine that the person who was cut-off was an anti-government blogger/reporter like Alex Jones of infowars.org, then he really does NOT have the recourse to ask the pro-government organizations like BBC or NBC or CBS to carry his report, does he? He has been silenced.
There's a line from Star Trek, about how even one trampled freedom or right forges the first link in a chain that will eventually bind us all. It is correct. Leaders should not have the ability to simply say, "That guy violated the 3-strike law," and silence them without benefit of trial.
>>>Ah, I see you're a fan of Glenn Beck.
And Judge Napolitano, and Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and Andrew Jackson, and anyone else who (wisely) thinks neither government nor its leaders can be trusted with power, and it's time we start enforcing the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
>>>>>Not really. The U.S. member states constantly share information across borders and it's justified as "being tough on crooks". The EU member states will likely do the same, if not now, then in the near future.
>>>>>
>>
>>Like how we manipulated Mexico and Central America
Neither Mexico nor central America are member states of the U.S., so your point has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
>>>That is because such a (ridiculous) thing does not exist in most European countries. See the Wikipedia entry on Civil Law.
A wise man once said, "People may think you are stupid. Don't open you mouth and prove them right." First off, it's not ridiculous to have a trial by your peers, since it is your peers that have the power to block the government from acting unjustly. Second, a 3-strike law where the *government* disconnects the internet as *punishment* would be CRIMINAL law not civil. And finally the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights does not have a right of trial by your peers, but it does still have the right to a trial:
Article 47 - Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial
Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right toan effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article. Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and represented. Legal aid shall be made available to those who lack sufficient resources in so far as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.
Article 48 - Presumption of innocence and right of defence
1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to
law. 2. Respect for the rights of the defence of anyone who has been charged shall be guaranteed.
Receiving punishment (your internet cut off) without trial violates article 47. It also violates article 48 because it presumes guilt without the government having to prove its case.
>>>data-sharing for enforcement purposes among countries that have different criminal punishments for copyright law is hard to justify
Not really. The U.S. member states constantly share information across borders and it's justified as "being tough on crooks". The EU member states will likely do the same, if not now, then in the near future.
What I'm surprised he did not address is the violation of the Right to a trial by your peers (jury). The 3-strike law presumes guilt without any requirement that the state prove its case FIRST. Although this may sound harmless, I can easily imagine the state government, or a progressive leader, using the 3-strike law to silence bloggers/reporters he doesn't like by making false 3-strike claims. In such a case the connection gets cut automatically (presumed guilt), the blogger is silenced, and the leader smiles.
>>>>>Isn't that discriminatory/prejudicial? YES.
>>
>>No; at least not in the way you are using the words. Racism is.....
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT (pisspoor debating tactic). Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say it was racist. ----- I said it was "prejudiced". The insurance company decided, because I was 16, I was a dangerous dangerous person and should have to pay three times what a 30-yr-old person pays. That's *prejudging* me when you don't even know me. If you bothered to get to know me, then you'd know I'm not dangerous at all.
.
>>>It is different if the data says it is different. It's all about what the data says.
By that reasoning, I should have been thrown into prison at age 16. Why? Because data shows that 16-year-olds commit more crimes than any other age group. No doubt you would support such a thing, such you think it's okay to rape 16-year-olds with 3x higher rates, even when said 16-yr-olds are studious, straight-A students who spend most of their time sitting at home programming a computer (i.e. not driving).
People should be treated as *individuals* and not pre-judged or pre-punished when they haven't done anything wrong.
Ass.
>>>Wow, insurance understanding fail. The entire freakin' point of insurance, and the way it works, is that enough people who don't need it buy it when they don't need it. If you want to wait until you're older when you will need it soon, while not paying into it your entire life, you are breaking the system.
>>>
Yeah.
Don't care.
I'll continue living without insurance until about age 60, when my health starts to decline, and then buy it. No sense buying ~$5000 worth of insurance when I'm perfectly healthy and only spend $2-300 per year. That's just money foolish.
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>>>But the health insurance companies will be looking for any way they possibly can to deny you coverage when you come crawling to them at 60
Well if the Democrats are successful, they won't be able to deny me for pre-existing condtions, but even if they DO deny me, it's still not a tragedy. The $5000 saved over 60 years time, plus compounding interest == a heck of a lot of money. I'll simply pay out of my own pocket, and when I run-out of cash, then I'll die.
It's where we all end-up anyway... it makes little difference whether it happens at age 70, or 80, or 90.
>>>IMHO Americans really need to get past the solialist bogeyman that is preventing the implementation of a sane health system
>>>
(1) When Tom Green, a Canadian comedian, developed testicular cancer he went to the Canadian government's hospital to have it treated. They told him he had to wait 9 months, so instead he flew to the U.S. and got it done almost immediately.
(2) When a UK actress went to get a PAP smear at age 20 (as a preventive measure and because both her mother and grandmother had cancer), she was denied by the UK Government's NICE (aka nasty) (aka rationing) organization. She was denied again at ages 21, 22, 23, 24. By the time she was 25 it was too late. She had cervical cancer. ----- And like Tom Green she was told she had to wait several months to get surgery, so she flew to the U.S. and had it done within a week.
These are just two stories, but I could post millions of similar stories. Government-run healthcare does not work any better than government-run trains or postal service or medicare or social security.
Also:
There's the consideration of individual property & labor rights. My neighbors overate, smoked, and/or drank excessively, which eventually led to the related diseases of being overweight, developing lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, heart problems, brain strokes, paralysis, and so on. Why should *I* have to pay the bills that result from these foolish life decisions? It's my money, not theirs. Let them pay their own damn bills for their own damn self-created problems.