As others have stated, the queen of Canada (and Australia, New Zealand, etc) is not defined as the Queen of England. They just happen to be following the same lineage at the moment.
If the current, shared royal family dies out, there is no reason Canada would adopt the same royal family as England.
Another situation where they could diverge is the sovereign of England is also the Head of the Church of England. In theory, if the Queen (or her successor) converted to Islam, or some other religion, then she would cease to be the Queen of England, but she would remain the Queen of Canada.
> I'll tell you: it's the kind of country that, 138 years later, still prints their colonial ruler's face on their money
That statement is correct except for two minor inacuracies 1) The image isn't of the Queen of England, but rather the Queen of Canada (so it isn't a colonial ruler) 2) it isn't the image from 138 years ago, but rather of the current Canadian head of state.
I am sure that there are some countries who do put images of centuries old rulers on the back of their coins, but it isn't Canada.
His main point seems to be that modern games give people the freedom to do whatever they want, and it is the gamers that choose to cause violence. This is of course, bullshit. Of the three games he focuses on, I have only played GTA, but while that games does allow you to do many things, the majority of the things it lets you do are violent. Where is the option to bring peace between the clans through negotiation? Where is the option to join the police, and help deal with the clan warfare through proper authorities? Going further, where is the option to help out the poor and homeless at the soup kitchen? Where is the option to move out to the suburbs, and get a real job, have some kids? Where is the option to travel to other countries, learn new languages, trek across the Andes?
While its true that fucking a hooker, then killing her to get the money back is not part of the main game of GTA3, and was only discovered by some sicko, there is no option to give her some of the hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars that you end up with up with to sponsor her through college.
I like GTA, and I don't think that violent video-games necessarily cause people to be violent, however it is very naïve to say that games like GTA are completely neutral, and it is games that make them violent
If you don't have enough respect for your argument to take the 5% extra effort it takes for correct grammar, then why should anyone else? For my job, I read tens of thousands of documents. I often come across spelling or grammatical mistakes. These not only make the author look immature or ignorant, but they can often change the meaning of the document. Generally I can tell what they meant to say, but frequently what they actually said is quite different.
I don't consider misplacing commas or semi-colons to be a large problem. I find it frustrating when people misuse apostrophes, or their sentence structure is completely broken.
In a quick test, it seemed like all podcasts were automatically treated as bookmarkable. I haven't tested to see whether this transfers to the ipod or not.
The original gameboy had a 4MHz processor, the DS has two processors, a 66MHz and a 33MHz. If you could offload the audio processing to the slower one, there is certainly enough grunt to emulate the game boy. (Remember a 100MHz Pentium could emulate a SNES)
I think it is naïve to expect networks to commit to making 3 seasons of an unproven TV show. Along with the few good shows that get cancelled after a few episodes, there are a lot of very crappy programs that are cancelled quickly too (watch the first episode of the new Family Guy to get a sense of just what Fox has cancelled in the last few years) I think your second point is right on the money though. They should at least treat the show with respect. This is especially true of shows like Firefly, which have an ongoing story line. You can imagine how successful the Lord of the Rings trilogy would have been if they released Return of the King first because it had a cool fight scene... or if George Lucas started the Starwars trilogy by jumping in the middle with episode 4, or something crazy like that.
If have virtually no use for it, then why did you bother downloading/installing it? If you only have use for a small/insignificant part of it, then why not use another program instead. A typical example is using the Gimp rather than pirating Photoshop. Sure the Gimp's feature set is much more primative than Photoshop, and its interface leaves much to be desired, but it does most things that people pirate Photoshop for.
I agree that the numbers that some software companies quote as losses are bullshit, but the justifications that most people use to pirate software are equally bullshit. If you choose to pirate software, don't try to justify it by saying that you are not stopping them selling the software to other people, or you would never had bought it anyway, just acknowledge what you are doing, and choose to do it anyway, or not.
Well, the average IQ is, by definition, always 100. In addition to that, studies have consistently shown that each generation's IQ level is about 10 higher than their parent's generation, (if measured on the same tests, at the same scale.) Of course, as others have said, IQ tests are much better at testing people's ability to take IQ tests, than any intelligence measurement.
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, but I work with a number of lawyers. If a competent lawyer said to thier client that they don't have a case, most clients would say ok- forget the whole thing (and either drop the idea or go to a more sleazy lawyer). That is a great idea, but in reality, clients often instruct their lawyers to do things that they don't think should happen. With cases like this, it isn't a matter of the lawyer going to someone, and telling them to sue.
I would say most lawyers have earned thier reputation and only a few subdivisions of lawyers I have any respect for which are: criminal defense attorneys criminal prosecutors Contract Attorneys (handle mostly wills/corporate agreements/house buying and selling). So the criminal defence lawyers who cross examine victims of pedophillia until they crack and say whatever they can to get out of the situation are deserving of respect? Criminal prosecutors who pursue people even though they know that the person only shoplifted because they haven't eaten in a few days are deserving of respect? Contract attorneys who act on behalf of large corporations pressure individuals or small groups into signing unjust contracts are deserving of respect? While constitutional lawyers who work probono for 3 years to establish land rights for dispossessed aboriginal people are "sleazy lawyers"? legal aid lawyers who work tirelessly to ensure that a child's best interests are preserved are sleazy? Personal injury lawyers who defend individuals from frivolous lawsuits are sleazy? Personal injury lawyers who pursue actively negligent parties who are responsible for causing serious permanent disability in people are sleazy? Environmental lawyers who personally fund class action law suits against companies that knowingly contaminated a town's water supply are sleazy? Human rights lawyers who fight tyrannical governments, and force them to release political prisoners from torture and abuse are sleazy? Immigration lawyers who work long hours to get people who were tortured and abused asylum in less oppressive countries are sleazy? Tax lawyers who ensure that wealthy people pay their fair share of tax so as not to place an unfair burden on the poorer members of society are sleazy?
Anyway, I don't really have a point besides the kinds of prejudices that a lot of people have about lawyers are misplaced, or misunderstood. Western society would not exist if it were not for laws, and the lawyers who service them. While some lawyers are involved in law suits that are at best unfortunate, and at worst, highly unjust, it is extremely narrow-minded to argue all, or even most have lower moral standards than the average person.
I zoomed into a tiny (maybe 500 people) aboriginal commmunity about 80km north of Prince rupert, and it had all of the streets, and names... It also had the route the ferry took to get there.
"Sony also released a slightly updated HD walkman (translation) due to pressure from the iPod"
With businesses, pressure generally comes from companies with comparable marketshare... Ford might feel pressure from GM, Apple might feel pressure from Rio... Sony is so far out of the main music player game, that it is ludicrous to think they are feeling "pressure" from apple... that would be like saying Be was feeling pressure from Microsoft... This is just a result of Sony fatally mis-predicting the market.
I didn't think of uni-code... that is a very valid point
re: speed... I am not sure what you mean by "some implementations"... as far as I am aware, there is really only one implementation... The matroska people argue that a 10% (or however much it is) speed hit won't be significant in the long run, as computers get faster and faster. My computer is a relatively old one, which would explain why it can't handle matroska very well... but in any case, I have to wonder about the software produced by a group with such a philosophy.
OGM is not the same as Ogg... it's a long story, and isn't particularly interesting... and isn't even that relevant as they are both derived from the same source... but I digress: I consider ogg to be an avi replacement, because both formats excell in being very simple. AVI and Ogg don't try to do much at all... which makes them relatively easy to fully support... in contrast, matroska, quicktime, real, and mp4 try to do everything... which results in lots of groups implementing only parts of the formats... of course, avis simplicity has gotten it into trouble... by people breaking the format to do crazy stuff inside it... I am mainly thinking of the two channel avis... not to mention the vbr mp3 AVIs...
Sorry for the double post, but it needs to be formatted properly
Dirac + ogg in an mkv container could save your soul
I assume you mean Dirac + Vorbis in Matroska... Ogg is a container format like matroska... (what you said was akin to DivX + AVI in ASF:-p )
On a related topic, Matroska is an unfortunate format to use. It is very inefficient, both in CPU time, and in overhead. My computer can play a 640x480 divx in an avi, but can't play a 512x384 divx in matroska. Additionally, matroska has a higher file overhead than asf or quicktime.
Ogg is a good, basic format. It could be seen as a sturdy replacement for AVI. Matroska doesn't do anything beyond even the Quicktime format... and quicktime is vastly more efficient.
Anyway, moving on from that rant. I agree strongly with your other points. If you have a choice between two, largely equivalent codecs, one is unencumbered by laws and one is, why would you choose to use the one that is. Sure you might not get sued straight away, or even for a year or two, but why bother with that risk at all?
I am not particularly bothered with pirating certain commercial software, but if there is a free program that does everything I need, I will use that over a pirated of a commercial program. Why take the risk when there is another option?
Dirac + ogg in an mkv container could save your soul
I assume you mean Dirac + Vorbis in Matroska... Ogg is a container format like matroska... (what you said was akin to DivX + AVI in ASF:-p )
On a related topic, Matroska is an unfortunate format to use. It is very inefficient, both in CPU time, and in overhead. My computer can play a 640x480 divx in an avi, but can't play a 512x384 divx in matroska. Additionally, matroska has a higher file overhead than asf or quicktime.
Ogg is a good, basic format. It could be seen as a sturdy replacement for AVI. Matroska doesn't do anything beyond even the Quicktime format... and quicktime is vastly more efficient.
Anyway, moving on from that rant. I agree strongly with your other points. If you have a choice between two, largely equivalent codecs, one is unencumbered by laws and one is, why would you choose to use the one that is. Sure you might not get sued straight away, or even for a year or two, but why bother with that risk at all?
I am not particularly bothered with pirating certain commercial software, but if there is a free program that does everything I need, I will use that over a pirated of a commercial program. Why take the risk when there is another option?
Blibbler
as an addendum, with the changes to the limitations intrudoced with iTunes 4.5, (allowing 5 computers) there really is little legitimate reason to use Hymn to play music on extra iTunes... on the other hand, the arguably legitimate uses for Hymn, to play the aac tracks on devices other than an iPod and iTunes, they will continue to be able to play the Hymned tracks.
What are they going to do? If they go after apple now, will they go after microsoft next, because you can use IIS to serve mp3s? Are they going to go after Cisco for doing network stuff... because people can exchange mp3s on networks?
The iTunes streaming feature is not designed for piracy. at most they would make apple disable the streaming capabilities of the latest iTunes. I doubt that they would get an award of damages (could they prove that they sustained any damages from iTunes streaming?)
It is unlikely that a court case against apple over this would be successful. One of the reasons why the case against Napster was successful was it was clear that Napster was designed, from the start, to encourage copyright enfringement. There are plenty of legitimate uses for iTune's streaming capability... Also it is an unintentional side effect thta people are able to stream/download from all over the internet.
Not to mention that if it became an issue, Apple could just disable the sharing feature in future versions and avoid a negative decision.
DivX networks have only recently addopted.mp4... Its standard output is not.mp4 compliant though. I think that it can output true mpeg4 video, but it does not do it by default.
I conccur. But beyond that, what else _can_ they call it? MPEG1 had.mpg, even MPEG2 doesn't have a general extension (except perhaps.mpg too) some mpeg extensions that I have encountered recently include: m1v (mpeg1 video) m1a (mpeg1 audio) m2v (mpeg2 video) m2a (mpeg2 audio) mpv (I saw it as an mpeg2 video, but I am sure that it could also be a mpeg1 video) not to mention.vob
I am sure that there are plenty more where those came from... So what could mpeg4 use?
m4v? sounds like it is just the video.. remember, unlike any preivous mpeg format, the.mp4 format is very very broad, and can handle lots of different types of media. mg4? 4mg? they are all kinda dumb.
I am sure that.mp4 will create some confusion, but it is the only sensible option.
Copyright by individuals lasts for the duration of the person's life, plus 50 years. This means that it does not matter how long ago something was written, but rahter, how long ago the author died. IF copyright is owned by a corporation, its duration is a fixed period of years. 20 or 50... I can't remember.
Slashdot Mirror
As others have stated, the queen of Canada (and Australia, New Zealand, etc) is not defined as the Queen of England. They just happen to be following the same lineage at the moment.
If the current, shared royal family dies out, there is no reason Canada would adopt the same royal family as England.
Another situation where they could diverge is the sovereign of England is also the Head of the Church of England. In theory, if the Queen (or her successor) converted to Islam, or some other religion, then she would cease to be the Queen of England, but she would remain the Queen of Canada.
> I'll tell you: it's the kind of country that, 138 years later, still prints their colonial ruler's face on their money
That statement is correct except for two minor inacuracies
1) The image isn't of the Queen of England, but rather the Queen of Canada (so it isn't a colonial ruler)
2) it isn't the image from 138 years ago, but rather of the current Canadian head of state.
I am sure that there are some countries who do put images of centuries old rulers on the back of their coins, but it isn't Canada.
how many studies are produced by creationists, or the oil lobbies' climatologists.
His main point seems to be that modern games give people the freedom to do whatever they want, and it is the gamers that choose to cause violence. This is of course, bullshit.
Of the three games he focuses on, I have only played GTA, but while that games does allow you to do many things, the majority of the things it lets you do are violent. Where is the option to bring peace between the clans through negotiation? Where is the option to join the police, and help deal with the clan warfare through proper authorities? Going further, where is the option to help out the poor and homeless at the soup kitchen? Where is the option to move out to the suburbs, and get a real job, have some kids? Where is the option to travel to other countries, learn new languages, trek across the Andes?
While its true that fucking a hooker, then killing her to get the money back is not part of the main game of GTA3, and was only discovered by some sicko, there is no option to give her some of the hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars that you end up with up with to sponsor her through college.
I like GTA, and I don't think that violent video-games necessarily cause people to be violent, however it is very naïve to say that games like GTA are completely neutral, and it is games that make them violent
If you don't have enough respect for your argument to take the 5% extra effort it takes for correct grammar, then why should anyone else? For my job, I read tens of thousands of documents. I often come across spelling or grammatical mistakes. These not only make the author look immature or ignorant, but they can often change the meaning of the document. Generally I can tell what they meant to say, but frequently what they actually said is quite different.
I don't consider misplacing commas or semi-colons to be a large problem. I find it frustrating when people misuse apostrophes, or their sentence structure is completely broken.
In a quick test, it seemed like all podcasts were automatically treated as bookmarkable. I haven't tested to see whether this transfers to the ipod or not.
The original gameboy had a 4MHz processor, the DS has two processors, a 66MHz and a 33MHz. If you could offload the audio processing to the slower one, there is certainly enough grunt to emulate the game boy. (Remember a 100MHz Pentium could emulate a SNES)
I think it is naïve to expect networks to commit to making 3 seasons of an unproven TV show. Along with the few good shows that get cancelled after a few episodes, there are a lot of very crappy programs that are cancelled quickly too (watch the first episode of the new Family Guy to get a sense of just what Fox has cancelled in the last few years)
I think your second point is right on the money though. They should at least treat the show with respect. This is especially true of shows like Firefly, which have an ongoing story line. You can imagine how successful the Lord of the Rings trilogy would have been if they released Return of the King first because it had a cool fight scene... or if George Lucas started the Starwars trilogy by jumping in the middle with episode 4, or something crazy like that.
If have virtually no use for it, then why did you bother downloading/installing it? If you only have use for a small/insignificant part of it, then why not use another program instead. A typical example is using the Gimp rather than pirating Photoshop. Sure the Gimp's feature set is much more primative than Photoshop, and its interface leaves much to be desired, but it does most things that people pirate Photoshop for.
I agree that the numbers that some software companies quote as losses are bullshit, but the justifications that most people use to pirate software are equally bullshit. If you choose to pirate software, don't try to justify it by saying that you are not stopping them selling the software to other people, or you would never had bought it anyway, just acknowledge what you are doing, and choose to do it anyway, or not.
There was an interview with the article's author on the media report last week. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript here
Well, the average IQ is, by definition, always 100.
In addition to that, studies have consistently shown that each generation's IQ level is about 10 higher than their parent's generation, (if measured on the same tests, at the same scale.)
Of course, as others have said, IQ tests are much better at testing people's ability to take IQ tests, than any intelligence measurement.
Don't worry, the rapture will be here any day now, and then all this "environment" nonsense will not matter.
any day now.
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, but I work with a number of lawyers.
If a competent lawyer said to thier client that they don't have a case, most clients would say ok- forget the whole thing (and either drop the idea or go to a more sleazy lawyer).
That is a great idea, but in reality, clients often instruct their lawyers to do things that they don't think should happen. With cases like this, it isn't a matter of the lawyer going to someone, and telling them to sue.
I would say most lawyers have earned thier reputation and only a few subdivisions of lawyers I have any respect for which are:
criminal defense attorneys
criminal prosecutors
Contract Attorneys (handle mostly wills/corporate agreements/house buying and selling).
So the criminal defence lawyers who cross examine victims of pedophillia until they crack and say whatever they can to get out of the situation are deserving of respect?
Criminal prosecutors who pursue people even though they know that the person only shoplifted because they haven't eaten in a few days are deserving of respect?
Contract attorneys who act on behalf of large corporations pressure individuals or small groups into signing unjust contracts are deserving of respect?
While constitutional lawyers who work probono for 3 years to establish land rights for dispossessed aboriginal people are "sleazy lawyers"?
legal aid lawyers who work tirelessly to ensure that a child's best interests are preserved are sleazy?
Personal injury lawyers who defend individuals from frivolous lawsuits are sleazy? Personal injury lawyers who pursue actively negligent parties who are responsible for causing serious permanent disability in people are sleazy?
Environmental lawyers who personally fund class action law suits against companies that knowingly contaminated a town's water supply are sleazy?
Human rights lawyers who fight tyrannical governments, and force them to release political prisoners from torture and abuse are sleazy?
Immigration lawyers who work long hours to get people who were tortured and abused asylum in less oppressive countries are sleazy?
Tax lawyers who ensure that wealthy people pay their fair share of tax so as not to place an unfair burden on the poorer members of society are sleazy?
Anyway, I don't really have a point besides the kinds of prejudices that a lot of people have about lawyers are misplaced, or misunderstood. Western society would not exist if it were not for laws, and the lawyers who service them. While some lawyers are involved in law suits that are at best unfortunate, and at worst, highly unjust, it is extremely narrow-minded to argue all, or even most have lower moral standards than the average person.
I zoomed into a tiny (maybe 500 people) aboriginal commmunity about 80km north of Prince rupert, and it had all of the streets, and names... It also had the route the ferry took to get there.
"Sony also released a slightly updated HD walkman (translation) due to pressure from the iPod"
With businesses, pressure generally comes from companies with comparable marketshare... Ford might feel pressure from GM, Apple might feel pressure from Rio... Sony is so far out of the main music player game, that it is ludicrous to think they are feeling "pressure" from apple... that would be like saying Be was feeling pressure from Microsoft... This is just a result of Sony fatally mis-predicting the market.
I didn't think of uni-code... that is a very valid point
re: speed... I am not sure what you mean by "some implementations"... as far as I am aware, there is really only one implementation... The matroska people argue that a 10% (or however much it is) speed hit won't be significant in the long run, as computers get faster and faster. My computer is a relatively old one, which would explain why it can't handle matroska very well... but in any case, I have to wonder about the software produced by a group with such a philosophy.
OGM is not the same as Ogg... it's a long story, and isn't particularly interesting... and isn't even that relevant as they are both derived from the same source... but I digress:
I consider ogg to be an avi replacement, because both formats excell in being very simple. AVI and Ogg don't try to do much at all... which makes them relatively easy to fully support... in contrast, matroska, quicktime, real, and mp4 try to do everything... which results in lots of groups implementing only parts of the formats... of course, avis simplicity has gotten it into trouble... by people breaking the format to do crazy stuff inside it... I am mainly thinking of the two channel avis... not to mention the vbr mp3 AVIs...
Sorry for the double post, but it needs to be formatted properly
:-p )
Dirac + ogg in an mkv container could save your soul
I assume you mean Dirac + Vorbis in Matroska... Ogg is a container format like matroska... (what you said was akin to DivX + AVI in ASF
On a related topic, Matroska is an unfortunate format to use. It is very inefficient, both in CPU time, and in overhead. My computer can play a 640x480 divx in an avi, but can't play a 512x384 divx in matroska. Additionally, matroska has a higher file overhead than asf or quicktime.
Ogg is a good, basic format. It could be seen as a sturdy replacement for AVI. Matroska doesn't do anything beyond even the Quicktime format... and quicktime is vastly more efficient.
Anyway, moving on from that rant. I agree strongly with your other points. If you have a choice between two, largely equivalent codecs, one is unencumbered by laws and one is, why would you choose to use the one that is. Sure you might not get sued straight away, or even for a year or two, but why bother with that risk at all?
I am not particularly bothered with pirating certain commercial software, but if there is a free program that does everything I need, I will use that over a pirated of a commercial program. Why take the risk when there is another option?
Dirac + ogg in an mkv container could save your soul I assume you mean Dirac + Vorbis in Matroska... Ogg is a container format like matroska... (what you said was akin to DivX + AVI in ASF :-p )
On a related topic, Matroska is an unfortunate format to use. It is very inefficient, both in CPU time, and in overhead. My computer can play a 640x480 divx in an avi, but can't play a 512x384 divx in matroska. Additionally, matroska has a higher file overhead than asf or quicktime.
Ogg is a good, basic format. It could be seen as a sturdy replacement for AVI. Matroska doesn't do anything beyond even the Quicktime format... and quicktime is vastly more efficient.
Anyway, moving on from that rant. I agree strongly with your other points. If you have a choice between two, largely equivalent codecs, one is unencumbered by laws and one is, why would you choose to use the one that is. Sure you might not get sued straight away, or even for a year or two, but why bother with that risk at all?
I am not particularly bothered with pirating certain commercial software, but if there is a free program that does everything I need, I will use that over a pirated of a commercial program. Why take the risk when there is another option?
Blibbler
as an addendum, with the changes to the limitations intrudoced with iTunes 4.5, (allowing 5 computers) there really is little legitimate reason to use Hymn to play music on extra iTunes... on the other hand, the arguably legitimate uses for Hymn, to play the aac tracks on devices other than an iPod and iTunes, they will continue to be able to play the Hymned tracks.
Blibbler
Interestingly, if you open the file in Quicktime, you can export and "pass through" the data to an mp4 file which iTunes will play without complaint.
If anything, this will just discourage Hymn from leaving information in the files which identifies them.
Blibbler
What are they going to do? If they go after apple now, will they go after microsoft next, because you can use IIS to serve mp3s? Are they going to go after Cisco for doing network stuff... because people can exchange mp3s on networks?
The iTunes streaming feature is not designed for piracy. at most they would make apple disable the streaming capabilities of the latest iTunes. I doubt that they would get an award of damages (could they prove that they sustained any damages from iTunes streaming?)
Blibbler
It is unlikely that a court case against apple over this would be successful. One of the reasons why the case against Napster was successful was it was clear that Napster was designed, from the start, to encourage copyright enfringement. There are plenty of legitimate uses for iTune's streaming capability... Also it is an unintentional side effect thta people are able to stream/download from all over the internet.
Not to mention that if it became an issue, Apple could just disable the sharing feature in future versions and avoid a negative decision.
Blibbler
DivX networks have only recently addopted .mp4 ... Its standard output is not .mp4 compliant though. I think that it can output true mpeg4 video, but it does not do it by default.
Blibbler
I conccur. But beyond that, what else _can_ they call it? .mpg, even MPEG2 doesn't have a general extension (except perhaps .mpg too) some mpeg extensions that I have encountered recently include: .vob
.mp4 format is very very broad, and can handle lots of different types of media.
.mp4 will create some confusion, but it is the only sensible option.
MPEG1 had
m1v (mpeg1 video)
m1a (mpeg1 audio)
m2v (mpeg2 video)
m2a (mpeg2 audio)
mpv (I saw it as an mpeg2 video, but I am sure that it could also be a mpeg1 video)
not to mention
I am sure that there are plenty more where those came from... So what could mpeg4 use?
m4v? sounds like it is just the video.. remember, unlike any preivous mpeg format, the
mg4? 4mg? they are all kinda dumb.
I am sure that
Blibbler
Copyright by individuals lasts for the duration of the person's life, plus 50 years. This means that it does not matter how long ago something was written, but rahter, how long ago the author died. IF copyright is owned by a corporation, its duration is a fixed period of years. 20 or 50... I can't remember.