> If you have an HDTV with HD programming, DVD's don't look very good anymore.
What is that? HD programming was a momentary blip, now it's almost gone. Replaced with overcompressed crap on cable and multiple subprograms on over the air. Because in the end more channels with a pretty good picture brings in a lot more money than one superior quality picture. Premium (HBO, etc) and PPV still get some bits thrown at them but their picture quality will also decline over time, just a bit slower and will always get more than non-remium channels. So by the time most people have HD sets their question is going to be, "Eh? What's the big deal?"
The real problem is HD is better than SD but it is just a waypoint. The origional HD 720p and 1080i have already fallen, forcing a round of hardware refreshing before HD even got going. But HD still isn't as good as even 35mm film so HD and BluRay aren't going to last, now that we have jumped to digital and forsaken NTSC the res and codec wars are only going to intensify. And you videophiles are welcome to spend the early adopter money to push the tech, I'm probably keeping my 32inch tube until it breaks though.
> However with blu-ray disks, i cannot picture the average consumer, or even > the less common nerder consumer giving a damn over the inability to copy > 40gig movies to their computer or to where ever.
Forget the nerds, the problem is the people who casually copy DVDs, often for sensible reasons like CHILDREN. DVDs and children are a sure fire way to lose titles. So a lot of people make copies for the kids. Others make copies for their portable media players. As soon as a potential BD customer realizes they will have to buy a BD copy (at a premium) and a DVD print of the same movie they ain't going to be all that interested unless they are the sort of hard core video quality freak that has a bunch of laserdiscs already. (assuming they are old enough)
People won't buy players while there are only a few overpriced titles in stores and the titles won't be cheap and plentiful until lots of people have players.
They really should have seen this problem coming and planned from day one on making flippies. Origionally a lot of DVDs had widescreen/fullscreen on opposite sides because that was a problem at one time. Stores didn't want to stock both formats. So now what we need is DVD on one side and BlueRay on the other. Yes the BD copy could be a shovelware edition on most back catalog and the A features could support two SKUs to allow the BD version to sell for enough more to justify the extra expenses in mastering the additional BD exclusive bonus features.
The other option is really cheap players. And it looks like they are finally realizing they need the players to sell for less. They need a 'bridge' player that optimizes the experience with component to sell to all those folks who bought big TVs before HDMI was finalized. Then they need really cheap ones that perhaps only does S-Video/Composite for second rooms. Forget the super picture quality, just lemme play my damned discs in the back bedroom or kids room without paying a crapload for a player or having to buy both DVD and BD copies. Especially since the copy restrictions prevent duping off a spare copy myself.
> Media histeria says violence and crime have gone up, facts say the opposite.
Don't change the subject by confusing general crime and crime involving firearms. A quick Google turns up hits from the BBC that GUN CRIMES have been increasing. Now maybe the BBC (I remember reports of them being banned from Royal Navy ships because they are considered too biased) is really a rightwing outfit involved in a vast Rovian conspiracy, but here in the reality where Spock doesn't have a beard nobody serious believes that so we can accept their publishing official government statistics, right? Granted the story I just found only reported single digit increases of 2 and 3% annually, but if the only purpose that might possibly justify the banning of all guns is to take guns entirely out of the crime equation, it seems to have been a miserable failure. Ten years after one of the most draconian gun grabs since the guy who must not be named for fear of Godwin's Law and gun crimes aren't even going down. And England is a frickin' island.
But even if crime committed with firearms were possible by a general bad it would be dangerous, immoral and evil. Fundamental human rights are not something to be so lightly traded away for some pipe dream of temporary safety.
But that is just a mental wankathon anyway because a ban can't work. It's simple logic. Criminals cannot be stopped from obtaining arms, they are outlaws. Simple compound word: OUT LAW, outside the law. If they are importing thousands of tons of illegal narcotics it doesn't take too much imagination to think they could stuff a few small arms into those shipments. And if you think a little more, in a total gun ban environment guns are probably worth far more than the same volume of cocaine. No, gun bans only disarm the law abiding so the inquiring mind is left wondering why are leftists the world over so obsessed with disarming the general populations the second they obtain enough political power to do so? The Federalist Papers provide sufficient explanation to anyone with an open enough mind to see the obvious.
> So, for example, people might be far more concerned about being killed in a 9/11 repeat (5000 people) rather than in an automobile accident..
Or some of might be willing to THINK. Fact is we got lucky on 9/11. I still remember watching the coverage that day, and everyone was expecting a much higher body count. We got a couple of very lucky breaks that day, including the heroism of Flight 93's passengers that avoided a hit on another DC landmark. But that is not all that important. The more severe damage that day was economic and mental. The world's economy tettered on the brink of disaster for days. And had we treated it as just a law enforcement issue how many more attacks would have been dealing with by now? How many blow like that can our civilization endure without either collapsing or becoming a police state? I'd rather not sit by and find out, better to accept the reality that War was upon us and get serious about winning it.
> Wow, your sane, calm, and carefully-reasoned response has totally convinced me.
That was a flame, not reasoned debate. I'm just damned tired of variations of this same meme showing up here with increasing frequency. Be good when this election season is finally over and/. can get back to news for nerds instead of a slightly less demented version of Daily Kos.
That said, I meant every word of it. I think Reagan's solution was the correct one. Don't negotiate with evil; confront it, call it out AS evil with as much firmness of conviction as can be mustered. If we can open that argument up I'm convinced it will be as easy to convince the undecided that the core of the Democratic party is indeed evil as it was to win the argument the Soviet Union was utterly Evil.
Once Reagan declared the Soviet Union the "focus of evil in the modern world" it forced all of their supporters into the no-win scenario of either arguing that the genocidal madmen running a prision nation were not actually evil, or conceding the point and declaring for the forces of darkness. Even the famed forked tongues of French diplomacy could't manage to defend the Soviets and they found their countrymen not quite so craven as to declare "To Evil!" to appease the Russian Bear. From that everything else followed.
Both the Soviet Union and the modern American Democratic Party are based on the same wicked ideas. Win that argument and I don't give a damned about winning any arguments with Democrats. The Democratic Party is currently the focus of Evil in the world and must be destroyed. End it and Al Queda no longer matters, any who don't figure out the jig is up can be hunted down at our leisure. Just like Vietnam was a battle in the Cold War where the dying was there but the war was fought here against the enemy within. The good guys lost that battle, but Reagan later won the bigger theater wide struggle with but a word. But he didn't end the War, the same war rages on. It is time to end this madness before it consumes our civilization. Reagan had the right idea, he just didn't see the logical next step.
Talk about fear of competing ideas, you Libs need a mirror. Variations of this story appear here and on every libtard site every few weeks now, claiming conservative ideas are the result of mental defect. Because if you can keep that idea formly in yer heads you can justify the childish antics you guys normally do when exposed to a different set of ideas, shout it down. Because if the other side is mentally ill there isn't a reason to even allow them to speak.
To a liberal, 'diversity' is defined as all colors, gender identities and faiths all thinking exactly alike. Because the one thing liberalism can't tolerate is reasoned debate since the whole system is based on emotion.
No, I don't think liberalism is a mental illness in return. I think it is evil. You guys have free will, you chose the wrong side. Of course you convince yourselves that notions like good and evil are outdated because few will admit to serving evil so you solve that problem by handwaving the whole question away.
> If you want Windows, don't you want "real" Windows...
Exactly. The only reason to suffer with a Microsoft OS is the applications. And on a netbook the big one is the browser. The cut down thing they call IE on WinCE isn't going to be much competition whem stacked up against Firefox on Linux.
> Nuke plants? Maybe some IFRs, but Solar Thermal is the real long term win.
No it isn't. Solar can't be the solution unless we were willing to fill a substantial fraction of the surface area of the earth with collectors and the greens will never allow that. Remember that we aren't just talking about replacing current electrical use. If we are serious about getting off the carbon powered economy we have to have enough additional capacity to plug our entire transportation system into the electric grid. Solar just isn't up to that load, at least earth based collectors aren't.
The only way to get power in that kind of quantity is harnessing the atom. Fission for now, fusion as soon as possible. And unlike all these gaywad green energy sources that are possible but not actually invented yet, we already know how to build safe reliable nuke plants and we have ample reserves of fuel to last until we get the breakthrough on fusion.
> Damn! I guess those people doing it should just stop, and give up the checks they're > getting from the electric company for pumping more energy into the grid than they're > pulling out. Bastards! They should know that it is impossible.
Yup. That is exactly what should happen. Stop the government subsidies these folks are leeching from the taxpayer so they can get the egoboo of being greener than thou. To actually run a house on the energy collected by a PV array you have to replace everything in it to be ultra low power, go totally ultrakill on the insulation and generally spend far more than you have any reasonable hope of recovering. And you still have to change your lifestyle to be constantly aware of energy consumption and available capacity, whcih is why almost every system is grid tied and few even have local storage capacity. No currently installed PV system makes economic sense if grid power is available if the subsidies are removed. PV does make sense in remote areas where the grid is unavailable or unreliable. It is possible that PV will get practical at some future point as prices drop, efficiency improves and appliances get more efficient. But it ain't now.
But the total bitch of it is that the second PV gets practical the Greens will turn on it just like they have every other 'green' tech they have pushed. You can even find greens agitating against geothermal!
> This kid's solar cell adds UV light to the mix. The UV spectrum is much broader and > more energetic than the visible spectrum, so a 500x gain over current commercially > available PV cells (note, they don't claim 500x better than the *best* commercially > available PV cells) is plausible.
Nope. There is a reason most land and upper water based life has eyes operating in or near the part of the spectrum our eyes utilize. Because most of the solar energy hitting the earth is focused in that part of the EM spectrum. Yes you can get some additional energy from harvesting the UV and IR portions but it ain't nowhere near enough to get a 500% increase over the low effecieny of that cheap ass cell in our pocket calculator. And if you make a more reasonable comparison to solar cells that have actually been deployed in real PV applications a 500% improvement should be cause for healthy scepticism, but might be possible. A 500x improvement is just a bad joke, but slashdot types fall for these scams every couple of weeks. Because they WANT to believe, Because they want to be good little greens but at the same time they don't want to give up the Plasma TV and Blue-Ray player and central air/heat.
> 1) This absorbs both visible and UV light. Let's assume that's a factor of 2 improvement. > 2) Although TFA fails to mention it, his cell is very large with ~250x the surface area of a traditional cell.
No, solar cells are typically judged based on the percentage of the energy hitting them that comes out the leads as usable electrical energy. Current cells already convery double digit percentages of the total energy hitting their surface so a 500x increase just isn't possible. But this is the eternal dream of the solar nuts that pops up on slashdot like clockwork every week or two, that some tech miracle will let us put solar cells on our roof and then we can do away with all that carbon based economy stuff because not only can we power our homes we can charge our tiny little scooters we will now call cars. Not happening, and anyone who can do math knows it because the energy density on a rooftop isn't enough, even with 100% efficiency which isn't going to be approached in our lifetime.
If you want to end the carbon economy and stop sending Sagan's of cash to people who want to cut our heads off there is only one short term solution. We need an Apollo type national commitment to building Nuke plants. Second we need to divert every research dollar available to fusion. And I mean EVERY available dollar. Freeze every other research at 75% of current dollars, AIDS, green tech, EVERYTHING included and start ramping up research on fusion just as fast as the projects can get vetted and construction underway. The only other research priority would be batteries. We know everything else about making a practical all electric vehicle.
> The first thing the right-wing talking heads will do is say, "AHA! I knew it! > You !@%!$s were all part of the liberal conspiracy!!"
Of course they would. After about a week of gloating and saying "I told you so" that would kinda get stale and everybody could just move on. And I assert that the world would be a better place afterwards. So if you guys could just suck it up and take that week of well deserved gloating you would be doing your part to improve things.
But look on the bright side. Once TV news faces it's bias it can do what newspapers have always done, actually endorse candidates for office! Yes, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC's editorial boards could endorse Obama and Fox could endorse McCain. Doubtful PBS and NPR could openly endorse Obama but everyone pretty much knows they are to the left of MSNBC and perhaps a smidge to the right of the Daily Worker.
> So I assume then you want Fox News and "Bill O'Reily (R)" to start doing the same...
O'Reilly isn't a news guy, he is up front about being on the opinion side of the line. And I really wouldn't want him with an R after his name anyway, he is more of a P for populist, but more than anything he is a blowhard self promoter.
But on your larger point, yea Fox is guilty of having their entire primetime lineup all partisan talking heads. Just like CNN. The difference is Fox doesn't demand their hosts hide their biases while over at CNN their hosts are equally biased but deny it with every fiber of their beings. As for MSNBC, they still pay lip service to denying their bias but everybody else just accepts them as the Kos/DU network now. They are really close to coming out now, this election cycle might just do it, and I'll be happy when it happens.
And it isn't just the big money hosts who should come clean, it is the editors and field reporters as well. More bias occurs down in the ranks than in the anchor chair and on that score Fox is currently head and shoulders above their competitors. Actual reported stories on Fox are better examples of journalism than the rest while CNN still leads in being able to smother a large breaking story with boots on the ground. So for me I favor Fox for general news reporting but when something major blows I flip to CNN. Primetime on all of em is a big wasteland of shouting. MSNBC though isn't really good for much of anything unless you like Olberman or like watching Dateline reruns and reality shows about prison life. To be a serious news channel ya really need to be able to spring for a 24/7 sat transponder.
> You get much better information from someone you know is biased than when their bias is hidden, even if your own biases don't match.
Exactly. Which is why the MSM will continue to bleed until one of two things occur:
1. They admit their biases like newspapers of old did. I want to see "Wolf Blitzer (D)" on the screen. Then he would be freed from the transparent lie that he is objective and could get on with it. We as viewers could then accept what he does and where he is coming from when he is 'reporting.'
2. Really become objective. Primetime news with real journalism where you get the who what when why and how without mixing in commentary and bloviating. No talking points, no spin, no talking heads shouting, almost no horserace coverage. Real backgrounders on issues and where candidates have voted in the past, where they stand now and their explanation for any change.
Number two has less odds of occuring than monkeys flying from my butt so if the MSM plans on surviving it is option 1 or bust.
> Did farmers and ranchers in 19th century Kansas have time to be informed citizens?
Yes. At least the ones who counted. First off, rememeber only landowners could vote in the days of the Old Republic. Second people were a lot better educated. Third they were a people worthy of the Blessings of Liberty.
But no, they didn't have to be experts on every minor subject to pick good leaders. They picked sound men with a good set of guiding principles and allowed them to REPRESENT them.
Consider our debased Democracy in contrast:
1. The Federalist Papers (and the Anti Federalist) were basically op-ed pieces that ran in local newspapers. Ordinary citizens of the day read them, debated them and understood them. Today 50% of people who will vote come November would be incapable of reading them at all, fewer still would understand the arguments in them and only a tiny minority would choose to read something at that depth.
2. Now we allow any warm body (felons excluded in some states) to vote. 40% of our citizens pay zero federal income tax, yet they get to vote bread and circuses from others. We can't screen out people on any sane basis, land ownership, literacy, mental fitness (excepting the most extreme cases), etc.
3. We allowed the socialists to take over the education of our young decades ago and are now reaping the destruction in civic knowledge caused by the idiocy of our grandparents.
4. We allowed the socialists to control Hollywierd. They gave us a culture that glorifies ignorance.
McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, we already lost because it is now just a question of going to Hell by the scenic or express route. Issues haven't really been discussed so far in this campaign and it is a pretty safe bet they won't come up before election day. Differences in political philosophy won't be discussed where non-wonk votors might hear either.
Nope, it is all who can bribe more votors with other people's money. It can be no other way since the minority of thoughtful votors who study issues, the qualifications of the candidates and such will be totally drowned out at the ballot box by the dependent masses who know they can only exist on the public teat and every politicial aims their efforts at attracting those votors.
If any effort at reform is to succeed it has to be attack that problem, but the trick is to get the drooling masses to vote in reform that would end their free ride. Not happening, thus we are doomed.
> There's doing the legal thing, and then there's doing the right thing.
What the hell are you talking about? Didn't you get the memo from Stallman? The phrase "Intellectual Property" is bad exactly because it leads to the kind of mushy thinking in your post.
Sorry, Heart doesn't "own" their songs as they would real property. Their label doesn't either, it only owns the COPYRIGHT. Copyright is just an artificial monopoly on reproduction and public performance that says neither can be done without a license from the rights holder. Public perfornance rights are done on established rules that can't discriminate against some users in the way the Wilson sisters (and apparently you) would like them to. You pay a set fee and you can use it for a public event. Any other situation combined with perpetual copyright (which is what we now have since the Mouse will NEVER be public domain) would upend civilization as we know it.
Using a song in another work like a TV show, commerial, etc. does generally require specific licensing because the negotiations get complex. On the other hand if you really want a song you can hire some guys to do a cover of it under statuatory licensing rules and buy the rights to the new recording.
> It's easier to get a pirated copy and continue using the same knowledge set of skills, > techniques and software than it is to totally convert to another operating system.
Kid, I have some bad news for you. If you are worried about your 'skills' you needn't worry because you obviously aren't earning your living from them. Otherwise you would know how stupid you sound. Try installing that piratebay copy of XP in a work environment and watch what happens. First disgruntled ex employee that is, ya know clueful enough to listen to the radio or read a magazine, sees that 1-800 get revenge AND a cash reward hotline to nark out pirate copies and your employer is in a world of pain and you are out of a job.
Of course this isn't a problem in your bedroom/dorm but this is the time to upgrade your skills for the world of tomorrow... where with a little luck Microsoft won't be a monopoly anymore.
If 'Publius' spammed my inbox with the Federalist Papers I'd want the asshole's account yanked as much as the latest grow yer tool spam. Spam is unsolicited broadcast mail, period. Zero tolerance.
The correct way to publish would be for Hamilton & friends to open a blog under the Publius pseudonym.
Yes. YouTube was lousy with the stuff. You could find the stuff without much effort.
>...this just sounds kind of like a silly policy that states the obvious.
It should have been obvious, but it wasn't. This actually is a major policy change for Google. And it isn't like they had a leg to stand on, because they DO censor YouTube already. Ask anybody who has ever posted a politically incorrect video, especially one critical of the Islamic terrorists, about how open Google is. It was only a matter of somebody with enough standing to call them out on it, once Lieberman shined a light on em the rats had to run.
> Is it really that hard for them to make Ubuntu an option in the OS choice box?
Yes it is. Because above all else, end users MUST NEVER become aware of the amount Windows adds to the sticker price. That is what is behind all of these games. Windows must be an invisible component lest users begin questioning why they must buy Windows and keep on rebuying it with each and every hardware purchase. The entire monopoly depends upon this, thus Microsoft would mercilessly punish any OEM who broke that rule.
> I think, then, their trial of selling Linux machines failed because they failed to make > it a compelling option to the buyer, either financially or otherwise (limited options.)
We also bought a SUSE loaded Thinkpad recently. Normally we do RedHat based distros but since this one did come with a supported load left it alone. Yes SUSE is different but the user adapted pretty quick.
The point of preload is not just to avoid giving Microsoft money, I'm smart enough to realize Lenovo almost certainly gave Microsoft their per unit tax (no amount of court orders will ever end that practice) but we got three other important things:
1. PRELOAD. Take it out, plug it in and go. Don't underestimate the value of that.
2. NO SUPRISES. If they are preloading Linux on it they won't suddenly switch vendors on wireless chipsets, etc. and hose you. Even if you decide you don't like the flavor of the month a vendor ships the odds are good you can load any other recent distro.
3. SUPPORT. If a vendor preloads Linux you can call them up and get warranty support without having to worry about reloading Windows before shipping it off or ensuring the drive is yanked out.
In the past we bought Thinkpads because they were the best hardware and nobody offered Linux as a supported option so their lack of that didn't hurt them. That isn't true anymore so future purchases won't go to them.
> Ultimately you figure out the browser is sufficient for the entire GUI.
As far as Google is concerned the browser is going to become the OS. If one defines Operating System to mean the software that controls the hardware, loads applications and gives those applications access to system resources Chrome and most modern browsers are getting darned close already. Imagine a netbook that boots a thin Linux layer underneath and Chrome where Chrome also acts as the window manager, probably loading up a 'start page' maximized. that provides the now typical netbook simplified UI. Remember that explorer.exe on Windows is just a fancy wrapper around IE on many incarnations, Nautilus and KDE's file manager are also web browsers.
Once a machine has no other visible native apps, the browser is the OS. I can see a day when even the applets in the system tray are browser popup windows running javascript or Java applications. Not sure I like it, but it is coming whether we graybeards like it or not.
> Following your logic, I should be allowed to open my own lab to examine DNA to > solve murders without involving the police.
Yes, exactly.
Of course the jury should also be informed that you have no formal training in forensics, no degree in chemistry, etc. Your lab isn't certified by ANY reputable standards body, you have no clue as to proper procedure in establishing and maintaining a proper paper trail for your evidence, etc. So yes you should be able to play at being a CSI so long as you don't violate anyone else's rights collecting your evidence. Remember that the State does rightly retain a few exclusives even in most libertarianish worldviews, like the power to issue search warrants, etc. But don't expect to put too many bad guys away unless you can actually demostrate some competence.
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> If you have an HDTV with HD programming, DVD's don't look very good anymore.
What is that? HD programming was a momentary blip, now it's almost gone. Replaced with overcompressed crap on cable and multiple subprograms on over the air. Because in the end more channels with a pretty good picture brings in a lot more money than one superior quality picture. Premium (HBO, etc) and PPV still get some bits thrown at them but their picture quality will also decline over time, just a bit slower and will always get more than non-remium channels. So by the time most people have HD sets their question is going to be, "Eh? What's the big deal?"
The real problem is HD is better than SD but it is just a waypoint. The origional HD 720p and 1080i have already fallen, forcing a round of hardware refreshing before HD even got going. But HD still isn't as good as even 35mm film so HD and BluRay aren't going to last, now that we have jumped to digital and forsaken NTSC the res and codec wars are only going to intensify. And you videophiles are welcome to spend the early adopter money to push the tech, I'm probably keeping my 32inch tube until it breaks though.
> However with blu-ray disks, i cannot picture the average consumer, or even
> the less common nerder consumer giving a damn over the inability to copy
> 40gig movies to their computer or to where ever.
Forget the nerds, the problem is the people who casually copy DVDs, often for sensible reasons like CHILDREN. DVDs and children are a sure fire way to lose titles. So a lot of people make copies for the kids. Others make copies for their portable media players. As soon as a potential BD customer realizes they will have to buy a BD copy (at a premium) and a DVD print of the same movie they ain't going to be all that interested unless they are the sort of hard core video quality freak that has a bunch of laserdiscs already. (assuming they are old enough)
People won't buy players while there are only a few overpriced titles in stores and the titles won't be cheap and plentiful until lots of people have players.
They really should have seen this problem coming and planned from day one on making flippies. Origionally a lot of DVDs had widescreen/fullscreen on opposite sides because that was a problem at one time. Stores didn't want to stock both formats. So now what we need is DVD on one side and BlueRay on the other. Yes the BD copy could be a shovelware edition on most back catalog and the A features could support two SKUs to allow the BD version to sell for enough more to justify the extra expenses in mastering the additional BD exclusive bonus features.
The other option is really cheap players. And it looks like they are finally realizing they need the players to sell for less. They need a 'bridge' player that optimizes the experience with component to sell to all those folks who bought big TVs before HDMI was finalized. Then they need really cheap ones that perhaps only does S-Video/Composite for second rooms. Forget the super picture quality, just lemme play my damned discs in the back bedroom or kids room without paying a crapload for a player or having to buy both DVD and BD copies. Especially since the copy restrictions prevent duping off a spare copy myself.
> Media histeria says violence and crime have gone up, facts say the opposite.
Don't change the subject by confusing general crime and crime involving firearms. A quick Google turns up hits from the BBC that GUN CRIMES have been increasing. Now maybe the BBC (I remember reports of them being banned from Royal Navy ships because they are considered too biased) is really a rightwing outfit involved in a vast Rovian conspiracy, but here in the reality where Spock doesn't have a beard nobody serious believes that so we can accept their publishing official government statistics, right? Granted the story I just found only reported single digit increases of 2 and 3% annually, but if the only purpose that might possibly justify the banning of all guns is to take guns entirely out of the crime equation, it seems to have been a miserable failure. Ten years after one of the most draconian gun grabs since the guy who must not be named for fear of Godwin's Law and gun crimes aren't even going down. And England is a frickin' island.
But even if crime committed with firearms were possible by a general bad it would be dangerous, immoral and evil. Fundamental human rights are not something to be so lightly traded away for some pipe dream of temporary safety.
But that is just a mental wankathon anyway because a ban can't work. It's simple logic. Criminals cannot be stopped from obtaining arms, they are outlaws. Simple compound word: OUT LAW, outside the law. If they are importing thousands of tons of illegal narcotics it doesn't take too much imagination to think they could stuff a few small arms into those shipments. And if you think a little more, in a total gun ban environment guns are probably worth far more than the same volume of cocaine. No, gun bans only disarm the law abiding so the inquiring mind is left wondering why are leftists the world over so obsessed with disarming the general populations the second they obtain enough political power to do so? The Federalist Papers provide sufficient explanation to anyone with an open enough mind to see the obvious.
> So, for example, people might be far more concerned about being killed in a 9/11 repeat (5000 people) rather than in an automobile accident..
Or some of might be willing to THINK. Fact is we got lucky on 9/11. I still remember watching the coverage that day, and everyone was expecting a much higher body count. We got a couple of very lucky breaks that day, including the heroism of Flight 93's passengers that avoided a hit on another DC landmark. But that is not all that important. The more severe damage that day was economic and mental. The world's economy tettered on the brink of disaster for days. And had we treated it as just a law enforcement issue how many more attacks would have been dealing with by now? How many blow like that can our civilization endure without either collapsing or becoming a police state? I'd rather not sit by and find out, better to accept the reality that War was upon us and get serious about winning it.
> Wow, your sane, calm, and carefully-reasoned response has totally convinced me.
That was a flame, not reasoned debate. I'm just damned tired of variations of this same meme showing up here with increasing frequency. Be good when this election season is finally over and /. can get back to news for nerds instead of a slightly less demented version of Daily Kos.
That said, I meant every word of it. I think Reagan's solution was the correct one. Don't negotiate with evil; confront it, call it out AS evil with as much firmness of conviction as can be mustered. If we can open that argument up I'm convinced it will be as easy to convince the undecided that the core of the Democratic party is indeed evil as it was to win the argument the Soviet Union was utterly Evil.
Once Reagan declared the Soviet Union the "focus of evil in the modern world" it forced all of their supporters into the no-win scenario of either arguing that the genocidal madmen running a prision nation were not actually evil, or conceding the point and declaring for the forces of darkness. Even the famed forked tongues of French diplomacy could't manage to defend the Soviets and they found their countrymen not quite so craven as to declare "To Evil!" to appease the Russian Bear. From that everything else followed.
Both the Soviet Union and the modern American Democratic Party are based on the same wicked ideas. Win that argument and I don't give a damned about winning any arguments with Democrats. The Democratic Party is currently the focus of Evil in the world and must be destroyed. End it and Al Queda no longer matters, any who don't figure out the jig is up can be hunted down at our leisure. Just like Vietnam was a battle in the Cold War where the dying was there but the war was fought here against the enemy within. The good guys lost that battle, but Reagan later won the bigger theater wide struggle with but a word. But he didn't end the War, the same war rages on. It is time to end this madness before it consumes our civilization. Reagan had the right idea, he just didn't see the logical next step.
Talk about fear of competing ideas, you Libs need a mirror. Variations of this story appear here and on every libtard site every few weeks now, claiming conservative ideas are the result of mental defect. Because if you can keep that idea formly in yer heads you can justify the childish antics you guys normally do when exposed to a different set of ideas, shout it down. Because if the other side is mentally ill there isn't a reason to even allow them to speak.
To a liberal, 'diversity' is defined as all colors, gender identities and faiths all thinking exactly alike. Because the one thing liberalism can't tolerate is reasoned debate since the whole system is based on emotion.
No, I don't think liberalism is a mental illness in return. I think it is evil. You guys have free will, you chose the wrong side. Of course you convince yourselves that notions like good and evil are outdated because few will admit to serving evil so you solve that problem by handwaving the whole question away.
> If you want Windows, don't you want "real" Windows...
Exactly. The only reason to suffer with a Microsoft OS is the applications. And on a netbook the big one is the browser. The cut down thing they call IE on WinCE isn't going to be much competition whem stacked up against Firefox on Linux.
> Nuke plants? Maybe some IFRs, but Solar Thermal is the real long term win.
No it isn't. Solar can't be the solution unless we were willing to fill a substantial fraction of the surface area of the earth with collectors and the greens will never allow that. Remember that we aren't just talking about replacing current electrical use. If we are serious about getting off the carbon powered economy we have to have enough additional capacity to plug our entire transportation system into the electric grid. Solar just isn't up to that load, at least earth based collectors aren't.
The only way to get power in that kind of quantity is harnessing the atom. Fission for now, fusion as soon as possible. And unlike all these gaywad green energy sources that are possible but not actually invented yet, we already know how to build safe reliable nuke plants and we have ample reserves of fuel to last until we get the breakthrough on fusion.
> Damn! I guess those people doing it should just stop, and give up the checks they're
> getting from the electric company for pumping more energy into the grid than they're
> pulling out. Bastards! They should know that it is impossible.
Yup. That is exactly what should happen. Stop the government subsidies these folks are leeching from the taxpayer so they can get the egoboo of being greener than thou. To actually run a house on the energy collected by a PV array you have to replace everything in it to be ultra low power, go totally ultrakill on the insulation and generally spend far more than you have any reasonable hope of recovering. And you still have to change your lifestyle to be constantly aware of energy consumption and available capacity, whcih is why almost every system is grid tied and few even have local storage capacity. No currently installed PV system makes economic sense if grid power is available if the subsidies are removed. PV does make sense in remote areas where the grid is unavailable or unreliable. It is possible that PV will get practical at some future point as prices drop, efficiency improves and appliances get more efficient. But it ain't now.
But the total bitch of it is that the second PV gets practical the Greens will turn on it just like they have every other 'green' tech they have pushed. You can even find greens agitating against geothermal!
> This kid's solar cell adds UV light to the mix. The UV spectrum is much broader and
> more energetic than the visible spectrum, so a 500x gain over current commercially
> available PV cells (note, they don't claim 500x better than the *best* commercially
> available PV cells) is plausible.
Nope. There is a reason most land and upper water based life has eyes operating in or near the part of the spectrum our eyes utilize. Because most of the solar energy hitting the earth is focused in that part of the EM spectrum. Yes you can get some additional energy from harvesting the UV and IR portions but it ain't nowhere near enough to get a 500% increase over the low effecieny of that cheap ass cell in our pocket calculator. And if you make a more reasonable comparison to solar cells that have actually been deployed in real PV applications a 500% improvement should be cause for healthy scepticism, but might be possible. A 500x improvement is just a bad joke, but slashdot types fall for these scams every couple of weeks. Because they WANT to believe, Because they want to be good little greens but at the same time they don't want to give up the Plasma TV and Blue-Ray player and central air/heat.
> 1) This absorbs both visible and UV light. Let's assume that's a factor of 2 improvement.
> 2) Although TFA fails to mention it, his cell is very large with ~250x the surface area of a traditional cell.
No, solar cells are typically judged based on the percentage of the energy hitting them that comes out the leads as usable electrical energy. Current cells already convery double digit percentages of the total energy hitting their surface so a 500x increase just isn't possible. But this is the eternal dream of the solar nuts that pops up on slashdot like clockwork every week or two, that some tech miracle will let us put solar cells on our roof and then we can do away with all that carbon based economy stuff because not only can we power our homes we can charge our tiny little scooters we will now call cars. Not happening, and anyone who can do math knows it because the energy density on a rooftop isn't enough, even with 100% efficiency which isn't going to be approached in our lifetime.
If you want to end the carbon economy and stop sending Sagan's of cash to people who want to cut our heads off there is only one short term solution. We need an Apollo type national commitment to building Nuke plants. Second we need to divert every research dollar available to fusion. And I mean EVERY available dollar. Freeze every other research at 75% of current dollars, AIDS, green tech, EVERYTHING included and start ramping up research on fusion just as fast as the projects can get vetted and construction underway. The only other research priority would be batteries. We know everything else about making a practical all electric vehicle.
> So does anyone know what 3d shape he used to achieve a 500x efficiency gain?
Since solar cells passed .5% with the first one, unless this kid attends Hogwarts this story is just this week's solar snake oil.
> The first thing the right-wing talking heads will do is say, "AHA! I knew it!
> You !@%!$s were all part of the liberal conspiracy!!"
Of course they would. After about a week of gloating and saying "I told you so" that would kinda get stale and everybody could just move on. And I assert that the world would be a better place afterwards. So if you guys could just suck it up and take that week of well deserved gloating you would be doing your part to improve things.
But look on the bright side. Once TV news faces it's bias it can do what newspapers have always done, actually endorse candidates for office! Yes, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC's editorial boards could endorse Obama and Fox could endorse McCain. Doubtful PBS and NPR could openly endorse Obama but everyone pretty much knows they are to the left of MSNBC and perhaps a smidge to the right of the Daily Worker.
> So I assume then you want Fox News and "Bill O'Reily (R)" to start doing the same...
O'Reilly isn't a news guy, he is up front about being on the opinion side of the line. And I really wouldn't want him with an R after his name anyway, he is more of a P for populist, but more than anything he is a blowhard self promoter.
But on your larger point, yea Fox is guilty of having their entire primetime lineup all partisan talking heads. Just like CNN. The difference is Fox doesn't demand their hosts hide their biases while over at CNN their hosts are equally biased but deny it with every fiber of their beings. As for MSNBC, they still pay lip service to denying their bias but everybody else just accepts them as the Kos/DU network now. They are really close to coming out now, this election cycle might just do it, and I'll be happy when it happens.
And it isn't just the big money hosts who should come clean, it is the editors and field reporters as well. More bias occurs down in the ranks than in the anchor chair and on that score Fox is currently head and shoulders above their competitors. Actual reported stories on Fox are better examples of journalism than the rest while CNN still leads in being able to smother a large breaking story with boots on the ground. So for me I favor Fox for general news reporting but when something major blows I flip to CNN. Primetime on all of em is a big wasteland of shouting. MSNBC though isn't really good for much of anything unless you like Olberman or like watching Dateline reruns and reality shows about prison life. To be a serious news channel ya really need to be able to spring for a 24/7 sat transponder.
> You get much better information from someone you know is biased than when their bias is hidden, even if your own biases don't match.
Exactly. Which is why the MSM will continue to bleed until one of two things occur:
1. They admit their biases like newspapers of old did. I want to see "Wolf Blitzer (D)" on the screen. Then he would be freed from the transparent lie that he is objective and could get on with it. We as viewers could then accept what he does and where he is coming from when he is 'reporting.'
2. Really become objective. Primetime news with real journalism where you get the who what when why and how without mixing in commentary and bloviating. No talking points, no spin, no talking heads shouting, almost no horserace coverage. Real backgrounders on issues and where candidates have voted in the past, where they stand now and their explanation for any change.
Number two has less odds of occuring than monkeys flying from my butt so if the MSM plans on surviving it is option 1 or bust.
> Did farmers and ranchers in 19th century Kansas have time to be informed citizens?
Yes. At least the ones who counted. First off, rememeber only landowners could vote in the days of the Old Republic. Second people were a lot better educated. Third they were a people worthy of the Blessings of Liberty.
But no, they didn't have to be experts on every minor subject to pick good leaders. They picked sound men with a good set of guiding principles and allowed them to REPRESENT them.
Consider our debased Democracy in contrast:
1. The Federalist Papers (and the Anti Federalist) were basically op-ed pieces that ran in local newspapers. Ordinary citizens of the day read them, debated them and understood them. Today 50% of people who will vote come November would be incapable of reading them at all, fewer still would understand the arguments in them and only a tiny minority would choose to read something at that depth.
2. Now we allow any warm body (felons excluded in some states) to vote. 40% of our citizens pay zero federal income tax, yet they get to vote bread and circuses from others. We can't screen out people on any sane basis, land ownership, literacy, mental fitness (excepting the most extreme cases), etc.
3. We allowed the socialists to take over the education of our young decades ago and are now reaping the destruction in civic knowledge caused by the idiocy of our grandparents.
4. We allowed the socialists to control Hollywierd. They gave us a culture that glorifies ignorance.
McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, we already lost because it is now just a question of going to Hell by the scenic or express route. Issues haven't really been discussed so far in this campaign and it is a pretty safe bet they won't come up before election day. Differences in political philosophy won't be discussed where non-wonk votors might hear either.
Nope, it is all who can bribe more votors with other people's money. It can be no other way since the minority of thoughtful votors who study issues, the qualifications of the candidates and such will be totally drowned out at the ballot box by the dependent masses who know they can only exist on the public teat and every politicial aims their efforts at attracting those votors.
If any effort at reform is to succeed it has to be attack that problem, but the trick is to get the drooling masses to vote in reform that would end their free ride. Not happening, thus we are doomed.
> There's doing the legal thing, and then there's doing the right thing.
What the hell are you talking about? Didn't you get the memo from Stallman? The phrase "Intellectual Property" is bad exactly because it leads to the kind of mushy thinking in your post.
Sorry, Heart doesn't "own" their songs as they would real property. Their label doesn't either, it only owns the COPYRIGHT. Copyright is just an artificial monopoly on reproduction and public performance that says neither can be done without a license from the rights holder. Public perfornance rights are done on established rules that can't discriminate against some users in the way the Wilson sisters (and apparently you) would like them to. You pay a set fee and you can use it for a public event. Any other situation combined with perpetual copyright (which is what we now have since the Mouse will NEVER be public domain) would upend civilization as we know it.
Using a song in another work like a TV show, commerial, etc. does generally require specific licensing because the negotiations get complex. On the other hand if you really want a song you can hire some guys to do a cover of it under statuatory licensing rules and buy the rights to the new recording.
> It's easier to get a pirated copy and continue using the same knowledge set of skills,
> techniques and software than it is to totally convert to another operating system.
Kid, I have some bad news for you. If you are worried about your 'skills' you needn't worry because you obviously aren't earning your living from them. Otherwise you would know how stupid you sound. Try installing that piratebay copy of XP in a work environment and watch what happens. First disgruntled ex employee that is, ya know clueful enough to listen to the radio or read a magazine, sees that 1-800 get revenge AND a cash reward hotline to nark out pirate copies and your employer is in a world of pain and you are out of a job.
Of course this isn't a problem in your bedroom/dorm but this is the time to upgrade your skills for the world of tomorrow... where with a little luck Microsoft won't be a monopoly anymore.
If 'Publius' spammed my inbox with the Federalist Papers I'd want the asshole's account yanked as much as the latest grow yer tool spam. Spam is unsolicited broadcast mail, period. Zero tolerance.
The correct way to publish would be for Hamilton & friends to open a blog under the Publius pseudonym.
> Is this really necessary?
Yes. YouTube was lousy with the stuff. You could find the stuff without much effort.
>...this just sounds kind of like a silly policy that states the obvious.
It should have been obvious, but it wasn't. This actually is a major policy change for Google. And it isn't like they had a leg to stand on, because they DO censor YouTube already. Ask anybody who has ever posted a politically incorrect video, especially one critical of the Islamic terrorists, about how open Google is. It was only a matter of somebody with enough standing to call them out on it, once Lieberman shined a light on em the rats had to run.
> Is it really that hard for them to make Ubuntu an option in the OS choice box?
Yes it is. Because above all else, end users MUST NEVER become aware of the amount Windows adds to the sticker price. That is what is behind all of these games. Windows must be an invisible component lest users begin questioning why they must buy Windows and keep on rebuying it with each and every hardware purchase. The entire monopoly depends upon this, thus Microsoft would mercilessly punish any OEM who broke that rule.
> I think, then, their trial of selling Linux machines failed because they failed to make
> it a compelling option to the buyer, either financially or otherwise (limited options.)
We also bought a SUSE loaded Thinkpad recently. Normally we do RedHat based distros but since this one did come with a supported load left it alone. Yes SUSE is different but the user adapted pretty quick.
The point of preload is not just to avoid giving Microsoft money, I'm smart enough to realize Lenovo almost certainly gave Microsoft their per unit tax (no amount of court orders will ever end that practice) but we got three other important things:
1. PRELOAD. Take it out, plug it in and go. Don't underestimate the value of that.
2. NO SUPRISES. If they are preloading Linux on it they won't suddenly switch vendors on wireless chipsets, etc. and hose you. Even if you decide you don't like the flavor of the month a vendor ships the odds are good you can load any other recent distro.
3. SUPPORT. If a vendor preloads Linux you can call them up and get warranty support without having to worry about reloading Windows before shipping it off or ensuring the drive is yanked out.
In the past we bought Thinkpads because they were the best hardware and nobody offered Linux as a supported option so their lack of that didn't hurt them. That isn't true anymore so future purchases won't go to them.
> Ultimately you figure out the browser is sufficient for the entire GUI.
As far as Google is concerned the browser is going to become the OS. If one defines Operating System to mean the software that controls the hardware, loads applications and gives those applications access to system resources Chrome and most modern browsers are getting darned close already. Imagine a netbook that boots a thin Linux layer underneath and Chrome where Chrome also acts as the window manager, probably loading up a 'start page' maximized. that provides the now typical netbook simplified UI. Remember that explorer.exe on Windows is just a fancy wrapper around IE on many incarnations, Nautilus and KDE's file manager are also web browsers.
Once a machine has no other visible native apps, the browser is the OS. I can see a day when even the applets in the system tray are browser popup windows running javascript or Java applications. Not sure I like it, but it is coming whether we graybeards like it or not.
> Following your logic, I should be allowed to open my own lab to examine DNA to
> solve murders without involving the police.
Yes, exactly.
Of course the jury should also be informed that you have no formal training in forensics, no degree in chemistry, etc. Your lab isn't certified by ANY reputable standards body, you have no clue as to proper procedure in establishing and maintaining a proper paper trail for your evidence, etc. So yes you should be able to play at being a CSI so long as you don't violate anyone else's rights collecting your evidence. Remember that the State does rightly retain a few exclusives even in most libertarianish worldviews, like the power to issue search warrants, etc. But don't expect to put too many bad guys away unless you can actually demostrate some competence.