I don't know about y'all, but if a government type came up to me and said:
"Hey there, howzit? Listen, we need someone to go to Mars and do some scientific-type stuff. Thing is, there's only a 50% chance you'll make it back alive."
I'd be the FIRST one in line, how about you?
I wouldn't go to Mars, because I'm not a suicidal maniac. Why suffer a 50% chance of dying and a 100% chance of months of isolation and discomfort to do something which a remote-controlled toy car could do? Ego?
Or, for the cost of a manned mission to Mars, a few dozen remote-controlled toy cars, outfitted with as many cameras, chemical analysis sensors, and seismographs as you like.
This new discovery might be a proof that the Christian Religion has some false beliefs... I consider my self as a Christian, but I think we have the right to question some parts of the bible in the light of modern scientific discoveries
If you give a rat's ass about the goofy proto-science and dull genealogical records which comprise the Old Testament. Some of us just stick with the New, which is basically the important part.
It's better to spend $10k of your own money, and $10k of RIAA's money, and then either win, or lose your life savings of $2k, than to just give $12k.
Umm.... I'm willing to bet that the RIAA didn't settle for "your life savings, whatever they may be". If you lost, and the RIAA wanted $12K, and after legal fees you have $2K left, that means you're now $10K in debt.
Hint: a lawyer who advises you to settle when you have done nothing wrong is not a good lawyer.
What planet do you live on? Litigation is a fact of life - sometimes, people get sued. Your mission as a defendant is to make it go away. If you have a really strong case, you can make it go away by fighting and winning. If you don't, or you don't have any money, or your time is worth enough that it's too much trouble to fight it, you settle.
It works this way even in criminal cases. It's a cost-benefit analysis: do I plea-bargain to just pay a fine and get a slap on the wrist, or do I defend it and risk a higher penalty? Whether or not you did anything has little to do with it.
A good lawyer is one who advises you to settle when it would be in your best interest. Foolish pride has nothing to do with it.
Can somebody tell me why eBooks are better than audio content? What can possibly be done with electronic text, that cannot be accomplished through audio content?
I can read a page of a standard paperback book in about 30 seconds for fiction, or between 45 sec. and a minute for non-fiction.
Having a voice read that to me instead would be slow and tiresome.
Could someone please explain Utah's postal address system? I see addresses like "288 N 1460 W" all the time.
IANAUR, but my sister lives in Salt Lake City.
Apparently the place is a perfect grid (subject to geography), with 0,0 as the Temple in the center. So addresses are Cartesian. This just applies to Salt Lake City, not the whole state (unless other cities were designed in the same way).
I'll let an actual Utah resident fill in the proper details.
Hmmmm. This must be some new, European definition of "free" that hasn't yet spread to the US.
Shhhh! You're supposed to pretend that it's the United States which has been trying for centuries to become a fascist, totalitarian empire, and Europe which is trying desperately to preserve Western civilization. It's the new fad, you see.
ok... this is getting ridiculous... why should anyone that found a way to compromise security for a game be prosecuted in real life?!
Why should computer game servers be exempt from the usual laws about hacking into peoples' systems? Those who break into banks are prosecuted, if caught.
This person or persons compromised security, broke in and disrupted business operations, causing damages. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
encourage diverse, "fun" neighborhoods--residences and businesses intermingled, instead of huge, dull blocks of houses"
We had that. We left it. How come?
The inception of welfare created a vast new class of "permanent poor", with attendant crime and social collapse. Nobody else wanted to live anywhere near them if they could help it.
And the flight to the suburbs after the infamous school busing court cases of the 1960s and 1970s is fairly well documented, too.
About 12 people reproducing into 250,000 people so quickly: yes this is possible. if each woman produced as many children as could be done healthily, say 10, you could do it in 4 new generations
I am not a biologist, but if you generated 250,000 descendants from the same twelve people, wouldn't you have rather severe genetic problems from inbreeding?
I'm always thrilled to see Apple succeed at something, since I think they tend to make beautifully designed products. I just hope that this success isn't the event that keeps the parasitic recording industry form withering away.
Anything which encourages people to purchase music directly by cutting out the retail link can only help artists in the long run. If people get used to this kind of thing, they're much more likely to purchase music from independent artists someday - because independent artists will probably never be able to afford to get their CDs into record stores, but it won't be too much trouble for them to get onto download services.
1 million songs at $0.99 is about $1 millions/week. Assuming that the demand stays constant?which is unlikely as there was probably pent-up demand, as well as let?s give it a try users in the first week?the total revenue for the year will be about $52 million. Although this sounds like an astounding success, it is less than 0.2 percent of Dell?s revenue (FY03 revenue $35.4 billion), and less than 0.02% of Walmart?s revenue ($218 billion). And it will only account for 1% of Apple?s revenue.
Note also that Apple doesn't keep the entire $0.99 - about $0.65 of it goes to the record label.
It's important however that this is very high-margin revenue. Apple's cost of sales here is recouping the cost of developing the service, plus the bandwidth, plus the credit card processing fees, plus the cost of having developers maintain the service. This has got to be pretty low compared to pressing CDs to put into cardboard boxes - let alone manufacturing computing machinery.
And Apple plans to roll it out to Windows users later this year - which should increase the revenue stream considerably.
I thought this iTunes thing was full of DRM gotchas, such as having to re-buy the songs if your computer died..? Are there really that many idiotic people around or am I just misinformed?
Many people insulate themselves against such problems by keeping backups on CD.
How much of this success is due to this being a truly significant advance in implementations versus Apple simply having a heavy presence in the market?
The secret is in the direct tie to iTunes. It's difficult to overstate how convenient it is to be able to shop for music within your music player as opposed to fiddling with some web-based download service.
This is the kind of thing which Apple's control over hardware, software, and consumer applications together permits it to excel at. What is astonishing is that Microsoft has proved so poor at this kind of coordination.
If you want to sell songs, you need to put in the extra work to grab the part of the clip that is most likely to get the listener's interest.
How on earth are they supposed to do that when they have 200,000 songs? Not to mention the fact that there are going to be lots of different opinions as to what the best part of the song it.
I can imagine being the customer service rep who has the job of sifting through emails like that.
"Dear Apple, I am very angry. My favorite song is 'Silver Squeeze' by the Banana Peppers. But you only have 'Toxic Shock Syndrome' and 'Gaetulian Iarbas' by them, and both of those are off a different and lame album! Also, they cut off 'Toxic Shock' right before the awesome vibraphone solo, and really the sample should be between 0:47 and 1:17 for the best effect. This is NOT FAIR to my favorite band. I DEMAND that you fix this IMMEDIATELY or I won't spend my $0.99 on you!!1!"
Not when I live within walking distance of two, and bicycling distance of many. I'm sorry you happen to be a slave to a motor vehicle. I should realize that not everyone is as lucky as me.
Hee hee hee! You sound like the guy from the Onion article who didn't own a television set.
"Are those celebrities you're discussing? I wouldn't know - I don't know who any of those people are. I don't own a television set. I'm sorry the rest of you are addicted to that sort of thing."
How is it equivocation to compare an Islamic militia that advocates the violent over throw of government to be replaced by an Islamic Theocracy with a Christian Militia that advocates the violent over throw of government to be replaced by a Christian Theocracy?
The question is not "which group's goal is more contemptible". The question is "which group is the greater danger". I am sure that somewhere there is a sect of Moonies that wants to take over the world too, but since they aren't killing anyone nobody cares.
Well, neither the US nor Al Qaeda signed a treaty that you can't fly planes into someone's buildings. So what makes the war of Al Qaeda against the US illegal?
The US doesn't care whether Al Qaeda terrorist attacks were "legal" or not. It cares about whether or not they will happen again.
"International law" is a silly game for people to play if they don't have to worry about whether anyone's trying to kill them. The League of Nations didn't do Abyssinia a whole lot of good - or the Rotterdammers, or the Chinese. In fact, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 outlawed war entirely. That's nice. That must be why there haven't been any wars since then.
Oh I get it, it's alright to hang out with Fundamentalist Christian Militias but not with Fundamentalist Islamic Militias (if in fact that is what he did, nothing has been proved yet).
I was intrigued by your equivocation, so I ran the numbers real fast. Here's what I came up with:
Number of American citizens slain by "fundamentalist Islamic militias" since Sept. 2001: at least 3,000.
Number of American citizens slain by "fundamentalist Christian militias" since Sept. 2001: approximately 0
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about y'all, but if a government type came up to me and said:
"Hey there, howzit? Listen, we need someone to go to Mars and do some scientific-type stuff. Thing is, there's only a 50% chance you'll make it back alive."
I'd be the FIRST one in line, how about you?
I wouldn't go to Mars, because I'm not a suicidal maniac. Why suffer a 50% chance of dying and a 100% chance of months of isolation and discomfort to do something which a remote-controlled toy car could do? Ego?
Or, for the cost of a manned mission to Mars, a few dozen remote-controlled toy cars, outfitted with as many cameras, chemical analysis sensors, and seismographs as you like.
ASA
This new discovery might be a proof that the Christian Religion has some false beliefs... I consider my self as a Christian, but I think we have the right to question some parts of the bible in the light of modern scientific discoveries
If you give a rat's ass about the goofy proto-science and dull genealogical records which comprise the Old Testament. Some of us just stick with the New, which is basically the important part.
ASA
Damn ignoramuses. You just cannot get proper education nowdays.
:-)
The plural of 'ignoramus' is 'ignorami'.
It's better to spend $10k of your own money, and $10k of RIAA's money, and then either win, or lose your life savings of $2k, than to just give $12k.
Umm.... I'm willing to bet that the RIAA didn't settle for "your life savings, whatever they may be". If you lost, and the RIAA wanted $12K, and after legal fees you have $2K left, that means you're now $10K in debt.
ASA
Hint: a lawyer who advises you to settle when you have done nothing wrong is not a good lawyer.
What planet do you live on? Litigation is a fact of life - sometimes, people get sued. Your mission as a defendant is to make it go away. If you have a really strong case, you can make it go away by fighting and winning. If you don't, or you don't have any money, or your time is worth enough that it's too much trouble to fight it, you settle.
It works this way even in criminal cases. It's a cost-benefit analysis: do I plea-bargain to just pay a fine and get a slap on the wrist, or do I defend it and risk a higher penalty? Whether or not you did anything has little to do with it.
A good lawyer is one who advises you to settle when it would be in your best interest. Foolish pride has nothing to do with it.
ASA
Can somebody tell me why eBooks are better than audio content? What can possibly be done with electronic text, that cannot be accomplished through audio content?
I can read a page of a standard paperback book in about 30 seconds for fiction, or between 45 sec. and a minute for non-fiction.
Having a voice read that to me instead would be slow and tiresome.
ASA
Could someone please explain Utah's postal address system? I see addresses like "288 N 1460 W" all the time.
IANAUR, but my sister lives in Salt Lake City.
Apparently the place is a perfect grid (subject to geography), with 0,0 as the Temple in the center. So addresses are Cartesian. This just applies to Salt Lake City, not the whole state (unless other cities were designed in the same way).
I'll let an actual Utah resident fill in the proper details.
ASA
Hmmmm. This must be some new, European definition of "free" that hasn't yet spread to the US.
Shhhh! You're supposed to pretend that it's the United States which has been trying for centuries to become a fascist, totalitarian empire, and Europe which is trying desperately to preserve Western civilization. It's the new fad, you see.
ASA
ok... this is getting ridiculous... why should anyone that found a way to compromise security for a game be prosecuted in real life?!
Why should computer game servers be exempt from the usual laws about hacking into peoples' systems? Those who break into banks are prosecuted, if caught.
This person or persons compromised security, broke in and disrupted business operations, causing damages. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
ASA
Also, I would like to commend the Wachowski brothers for acknowledging the existence of computers that aren't Macs.
Well, it is set in a dystopia.
ASA
encourage diverse, "fun" neighborhoods--residences and businesses intermingled, instead of huge, dull blocks of houses"
We had that. We left it. How come?
The inception of welfare created a vast new class of "permanent poor", with attendant crime and social collapse. Nobody else wanted to live anywhere near them if they could help it.
And the flight to the suburbs after the infamous school busing court cases of the 1960s and 1970s is fairly well documented, too.
ASA
About 12 people reproducing into 250,000 people so quickly: yes this is possible. if each woman produced as many children as could be done healthily, say 10, you could do it in 4 new generations
I am not a biologist, but if you generated 250,000 descendants from the same twelve people, wouldn't you have rather severe genetic problems from inbreeding?
ASA
if you insist on age as the only criterium
The singular of 'criteria' is 'criterion'.
Since the iTunes Music Store works only with iTunes... and iTunes is only available at present on the Macintosh...
I'm always thrilled to see Apple succeed at something, since I think they tend to make beautifully designed products. I just hope that this success isn't the event that keeps the parasitic recording industry form withering away.
Anything which encourages people to purchase music directly by cutting out the retail link can only help artists in the long run. If people get used to this kind of thing, they're much more likely to purchase music from independent artists someday - because independent artists will probably never be able to afford to get their CDs into record stores, but it won't be too much trouble for them to get onto download services.
ASA
1 million songs at $0.99 is about $1 millions/week. Assuming that the demand stays constant?which is unlikely as there was probably pent-up demand, as well as let?s give it a try users in the first week?the total revenue for the year will be about $52 million. Although this sounds like an astounding success, it is less than 0.2 percent of Dell?s revenue (FY03 revenue $35.4 billion), and less than 0.02% of Walmart?s revenue ($218 billion). And it will only account for 1% of Apple?s revenue.
Note also that Apple doesn't keep the entire $0.99 - about $0.65 of it goes to the record label.
It's important however that this is very high-margin revenue. Apple's cost of sales here is recouping the cost of developing the service, plus the bandwidth, plus the credit card processing fees, plus the cost of having developers maintain the service. This has got to be pretty low compared to pressing CDs to put into cardboard boxes - let alone manufacturing computing machinery.
And Apple plans to roll it out to Windows users later this year - which should increase the revenue stream considerably.
ASA
I thought this iTunes thing was full of DRM gotchas, such as having to re-buy the songs if your computer died..? Are there really that many idiotic people around or am I just misinformed?
Many people insulate themselves against such problems by keeping backups on CD.
ASA
How much of this success is due to this being a truly significant advance in implementations versus Apple simply having a heavy presence in the market?
The secret is in the direct tie to iTunes. It's difficult to overstate how convenient it is to be able to shop for music within your music player as opposed to fiddling with some web-based download service.
This is the kind of thing which Apple's control over hardware, software, and consumer applications together permits it to excel at. What is astonishing is that Microsoft has proved so poor at this kind of coordination.
ASA
If you want to sell songs, you need to put in the extra work to grab the part of the clip that is most likely to get the listener's interest.
How on earth are they supposed to do that when they have 200,000 songs? Not to mention the fact that there are going to be lots of different opinions as to what the best part of the song it.
I can imagine being the customer service rep who has the job of sifting through emails like that.
"Dear Apple, I am very angry. My favorite song is 'Silver Squeeze' by the Banana Peppers. But you only have 'Toxic Shock Syndrome' and 'Gaetulian Iarbas' by them, and both of those are off a different and lame album! Also, they cut off 'Toxic Shock' right before the awesome vibraphone solo, and really the sample should be between 0:47 and 1:17 for the best effect. This is NOT FAIR to my favorite band. I DEMAND that you fix this IMMEDIATELY or I won't spend my $0.99 on you!!1!"
Not when I live within walking distance of two, and bicycling distance of many. I'm sorry you happen to be a slave to a motor vehicle. I should realize that not everyone is as lucky as me.
Hee hee hee! You sound like the guy from the Onion article who didn't own a television set.
"Are those celebrities you're discussing? I wouldn't know - I don't know who any of those people are. I don't own a television set. I'm sorry the rest of you are addicted to that sort of thing."
How is it equivocation to compare an Islamic militia that advocates the violent over throw of government to be replaced by an Islamic Theocracy with a Christian Militia that advocates the violent over throw of government to be replaced by a Christian Theocracy?
The question is not "which group's goal is more contemptible". The question is "which group is the greater danger". I am sure that somewhere there is a sect of Moonies that wants to take over the world too, but since they aren't killing anyone nobody cares.
Well, neither the US nor Al Qaeda signed a treaty that you can't fly planes into someone's buildings. So what makes the war of Al Qaeda against the US illegal?
The US doesn't care whether Al Qaeda terrorist attacks were "legal" or not. It cares about whether or not they will happen again.
"International law" is a silly game for people to play if they don't have to worry about whether anyone's trying to kill them. The League of Nations didn't do Abyssinia a whole lot of good - or the Rotterdammers, or the Chinese. In fact, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 outlawed war entirely. That's nice. That must be why there haven't been any wars since then.
Oh I get it, it's alright to hang out with Fundamentalist Christian Militias but not with Fundamentalist Islamic Militias (if in fact that is what he did, nothing has been proved yet).
I was intrigued by your equivocation, so I ran the numbers real fast. Here's what I came up with:
Number of American citizens slain by "fundamentalist Islamic militias" since Sept. 2001: at least 3,000.
Number of American citizens slain by "fundamentalist Christian militias" since Sept. 2001: approximately 0
Yep, about the same.
It's for forcing people who have firsthand evidence of a crime to testify.
That or for protecting them from the real kind of "disappearing", courtesy of the Mafia or Al-Qaeda.
ABW
So it's not quite as bad as sending people to the Gulag but it's not altogether nice, wouldn't you say?
What do you mean by 'not quite as bad'? Those sent to the Gulag were forced into years of manual labor. Many died of hunger, exhaustion, or exposure.
Your attempt at moral equivalence borders on the ridiculous.