These channels make their money through advertising.
As was brought up elsewhere in this discussion, PVRs do not skew ad statistics. If my Tivo records a show (with commercials) then Nielsen counts me as a viewer. Whether I actually watch the commercials is not reported to the powers that be and is for all purposes irrelevant. Until they change the way they count viewers, then PVR's have absolutely no impact on advertising revenue.
If nobody watched the shows, then these channels would go out of business.
Absolutely correct, but this is in no way influenced by the use of PVRs.
I'd really like to know how the myth of ever-present blue screens keeps getting perpetuated.
How about some systemic issues that onyl seem to crop up with windows machines? Try this nVidia loop error here. Ever try to change from an AGP video card to a PCI one or visa versa in 2k/XP? I've has BSODs on 2k/XP on several different platforms (HP/Compaq/Dell/IBM/Gateway) for literraly hundereds of different reasons. Our VP/IS won't let the company go XP for this very reason. They have tested it and it didn't pass. 2k with SP3 is the minimum allowed windows operating system.
I agree that 2k is miles ahead of 9x in stability, but I don't think you can easily dissmiss the BSOD.
It's certainly interesting to think about, but the problem with assuming that things needed to be created is this...
Uh.... He got there by himself!
Actually, there are quite a few religions that have ideas about this. But the fact is that there are assumptions made on both the religon and science sides.
But attempting to put forth that such a creator must exist because something must have started it all is jumping a bit too far, in my opinion.
And I feel that it's preposterous to think that the marvelous complexity and beauty that exists in the life we see on the earth could be random chance. Which is what I love about the world right now. Everyone can espouse whatever ides they want and it is OK. We don't have anyone trying to control our thoughts or ideas (at least directly).
I don't think science is going to ever answer the question completely. Even the Big Bang theory does not discount the possibility of a creator.
I agree but I don't think the point of scientific research should be to discount God or visa versa. Instead we should be tolerant of other opinions and ideas and even encourage the exchange thereof. Yeah Internet!
Who we are is intelligent beings who can form ideas based on either what we see and can test, or form ideas based on what we make up.
That seems kind of limiting. There are many ways that we form ideas: socialization, directly from information sources (libraries, interviews, etc) both of which require critical thinking and/or some form of faith on what information is being presented. Almost nothing is directly learned. Most people who make it through high school only get a chance to directly test some very basic theories. Certainly not evolution. Even college students don't get to test complex theories like evolution. Just about everyone has to take it on faith (however little) because we don't have direct evidence, only the word of others. We have access to their results and experimentation methods and usually hear from others in the field on their results.
The only difference between science and religion is the number of people who profess to follow their respective precepts. Science currently has hold of the majority of mainstream thinking and the ear of the masses. It wasn't always the case and in fact was the opposite relatively recently. Perception is all that makes science more highly regarded than religion. Evidence is defined by those who claim to have it. The problem comes from a desire to "indipendantly verify" ideas apart from God's word or the traditions of religionists.
That being said, let me state that I wholey appreciate the scientific method and the rewards we have gained from using it. In fact, man has benefitted greatly from science and I look forward to many more insights and truth revealed through science.
Why should we favor ideas that are based in observation and tested over time? Because those ideas work way way better than the rest.
Perhaps. Certainly it seems to work better with the wisdom that we currently have. If anything, science should teach us that nothing is static and that change (even change to the way we look at things and observe things) is the only constant.
The honest answer is "I don't know." But we might figure it out eventually.
Neither do I, but I know that the truth exists and that we can attain it either through divine enlightenment or through steady prodding and poking with our own methods.
It seems a lot harder to accept religionist views than man's wisdom. At least rationally speaking. Man has collected a lot of evidence and made many observations. One of the things that perplexes me is that science must be based on observation and a theory that makes predictions that are accurate. Unfortunately, we have no observations from before recorded history began a few thousand years ago. Eveything else is speculation, informed speculation granted but speculation nonetheless.
Someone who says that "god did it" cannot make a justification for that. There's no support or reason for their hypothesis that god did it.
I don't know if I agree with that. Certainly you could argue that they could not make a scientific justification, but religionists have plenty of justifications up their sleeves. Each person has a reason for thinking the way they do, from genetics and environment to upbringing and socialization. Who are we to judge the correctness of any one belief just because of our contrived scientific process? This has been the cause of many conflict and pain in the world, so much so that I attempt to refrain from such thinking wherever possible.
Just so you know, I am a partisan on this subject on the side that believes in God. But that does not mean that I am seeking to strengthen my ideals through debate or to pull down yours. I am, however extremely curious to understand how others view this classic question, "Where did I come from?".
I believe that his statement was meant to be a very generic demonstrative example
I agree. However, the root of his argument lends to my questions. Where did it start? I feel like man just doesn't understand enough about where we came from and where we are going to get all worked up about creation vs. evolution. They are ideas that some people believe in. I say let them believe and as we understand more and more, the answers will sort themselves out regardless of outcome.
I don't like ID because it's a gross misuse of mathematics and logic
I guess I am not that familiar with the specifics of ID theories, but I did get some insight from the linked article. Certainly, you and everyone else is entitled to their opinions. Personally, I believe in God and the He created the universe. Every theory is just conjecture no matter how hard we try to fit it into a box that we understand. Therefore, there is some element of faith or belief in the unknown for any of the origin of life/man arguments.
See - the algorithm is quite a lot different from random chance. If I were just to use the million monkeys algorithm, it's take a lot longer than lunch.
Granted, but my question in essence is where did the algorithm come from? I guess it's like asking where did gravity come from or why do atoms interact the way they do. (We keep trying to explain it by breaking the atoms into smaller and smaller pieces without apparent end.) But therein lies a fundamental question that science has yet to my eyes even begun to answer. Where did it all start? Even the religionists answer "God", is at least an answer... If there are others who have a scientific answer, then by all means, let's have it. I try to remain open minded but not gullible. So far science has yet to sway me as it relies to heavily on its own merits.
OK, I read the articles and still have a question for you. Mr. Orr states the following: "So, if we start with SATHINKS, at the next step we'll randomly change only the first two letters; and if those changes yield MQTHINKS, then at the next step we'll randomly change only the second letter. This two-step evolutionary algorithm of mutation plus selection arrives at the phrase METHINKS... with surprising speed." He is trying to show that evolution can reasonably attain certain desired DNA combinations in a relatively short time frame.
My questions is this: If you notice that he started with "SATHINKS" which is very close to the desired output. This brings up a fundamental question (which is the one I am asking you): Where do evolutionary theorists say life started? What did we have first? I have read about the primordial soup theory and that scientists have had some success in getting amino acids to form from what they think the early earth was like. So we are first making a set of assumptions about the early earth and second that a set of random events produced life capable of evolving into man. Is this what evolutionary biologists believe? Thank you for helping me understand.
I first delved into the world of OCR back in 98 with this product and havn't turned back. The current version is made by scansoft (the same makers as OmniPage), this product is much better. Even PCWorld has a review of it (March 2000).
It achieves 98% accuracy on typed text and can handle graphics, bullets and tables. These were big plusses for me. I still use the 98 version and have very few complaints. Dirty pages can be a problem, but it has frequently amazed me in how it catches characters in the midst of goop.
the trick was to use a gray scale scan or text mode, Also I scan at 300 DPI , I find it's important to give the OCR as much info as possible to work from.
I agree. The right settings are very important. I recommend some serious tweaking before you get to hard and heavy with it. For plain text, the above works great, although I sometimes prefer 150dpi. For anything with tables and graphics, 300dpi is a must. A good scanner can make a big difference too. My work uses network ready scanners that copy the file to a network share and the software picks up the files automatically. Very efficient.
First, decide what it is you want most to achieve happiness. Don't even start school until you decide that.
I second that. I started college when I first got out of High School and hated it. Ironically, I was an aerospace eng major. I had a full ride scholarship in the Air Force and was going to be a pilot (that part I loved). Then Clinton cut the military in half and with it, my scholarship. So I had to quit school and re-evaluate my life. I got into computers and now have 7 years experience, a full-time job, wife and kids and I am just now getting back to school. This time, I have finally figured out whay I *want* to do. I love going to class and can't wait to finish so I can change careers.
Bottom line is you need to love what you are studying or you may end up hating your degree in the end.
Of course, this whole post is probably illegal anyway due to the DMCA. I would post anonymously but the karma is worth time in prison and $1/2 million fine.
Not only can you get a NetWare client for the MAC (OS X) but you can download the demo from an ASP page. For those who don't want to bother with the reg info, here is the link to download it directly. The serial they gave me was 9602-3082-0060-5950-2. I assume it is time limited or some such other nonsense.
I'm concerned that reusing the same value over and over is a security risk.
Perhaps, I'm no crypto expert but I bet that because the protocol is https, the transaction is the same. Logically, Yahoo would not implement a secure way to login and not provide a way to ensure that it was used securely.
That's certainly your prerogative, but I contend that it's still poor development policy.
Perhaps, but passwords give access to send as well as receive. Much more important to encrypt passwords than the spam I get. Since it's free, I don't complain. Like I said, if I want to send something that is sensitive, I don't use Yahoo mail.
I've had pretty good experience with gmx.net
I will have to check them out. Even so, the internet free ride is over and I don't see it coming back any time soon.
True, but they don't make secure login the default, and once you've signed in, it immediately drops you back into a non-secure connection to read your e-mail.
Bookmark fixes that and I don't care about my Yahoo mail for evesdroppers. I have a paid for ISP for that.
Why is it never thought that much of the Old Testament could in fact be parable like tales to describe the concepts of creation, instead of the actual fact of it?
Wouldn't it be nice if we had someone who could speak with God to clarify this? Like a prophet or something. IIRC, Moses spoke with God "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." I wonder if he asked Him about things like this. Too bad there is no one alive today that can speak with God...
Basically, the Sun's gravity is not helping, at all. The object's in orbit. Gravity's going to keep it in orbit, and not pull it closer to the Sun. You've got to do that, by eliminating its tangential velocity. And that's a hell of a lot of energy.
Keeping something in orbit is harder than knocking it down. Talk to any NASA engineer and they will say that it takes half the energy manpower and money to de-orbit anything. Granted we are talking about earth orbit, but the principle is the same. Sure you have 26-30km/s of orbital velocity. Big deal. You don't need to cut 100% of the speed to get a sun bound trash unit headed for impact. It didn't take exorbitent amounts of cash to send probes to Mercury or Venus or to insert SOHO in between the Sun and the Earth. Why would it be big bucks to go all the way to the Sun? Orbital mechanics isn't *that* hard. Slingshot off Venus and Mercury and you are almost there. Even if you put the stuff in a sub-Mercury orbit, it would burn up just as neatly. Piece of cake if you ask me.
The biggest cost has always been getting out of the Earth's gravity well. This elevator removes most of that cost. The rest is just academics.
What does it take to get results from the people that we voted into power?
One of the hardest questions to answer in the American Republic. Perhaps it would help if we realized how difficult it is for the people to understand the perspective of their elected representatives. Most reps were elected because the majority of their district agreed with their veiws enough to vote for them. Or conversely, they disagreed with their rival(s) enough to want to vote for any one else. This causes the electee to take a very 'don't rock the boat' way of doing business on the hill. They don't want to make very many waves with their constituents or at least compared to their apparent rivals. Add that to the fact that most American's have a very short attention span when it comes to politics, they only have to be really careful around election time. During an off year, like this one, they tend to be more controversial because the people by and large will forget when their time to re-run is up. This is what the reps see (mostly).
Assuming that all the people are voting their conscience and putting aside all consipiracy theories about how the system is broken, we would see that the people are just getting what they asked for. If we elect corrupt representatives, we will get corrupt laws. Too bad it's not that simple.
IP laws have come into fruition only since the widespread use of digital technology has increased. The same technology that makes it easier for producers to author their works, makes it easier to transport, copy and store them. As was pointed out in Ms. Ian's article, the industry response has been to attempt control through legislation. That has proven to only infuriate the people as is evidenced by a decrease in their sales and an increase in their use of P2P software to obtain music. While I don't mean to directly coorespond the two, it is an interesting coincidence nontheless.
One of the great things about gravity shielding would be for people to be able to travel at high accelerations...
Barring of course the slight difference between gravity and inertia. Something tells me that anti-grav would not effect intertial forces in the slightest. Which is of course what you are talking about here.
My mom has used both napster and audiogalaxy (until both were shut down)
Sounds like you answered your own question. Even with a vast array of MP3 sites, the number of people donwloading versus buying is quite small. Napster at it's peak was about 10 million users. In 1990, there was a billion CD's sold worldwide. I don't have the numbers for last year but I am sure it is about the same, if not more.
...it requires some degree of patience and technical knowledge to find and download 650mb divx rips. But pirated music is very easy to find for even completely non-technical people.
Why one way for movies and another for MP3? From a tech savvyness perspective it should be the same... Right now, I can get both movies and music on Morpheus/Kazaa. Same interface, same technical skill. The real issue is patience. It takes me 2 minutes to download a song and most of a day to get a movie. That (and the quality thing) is the real issue to pirating movies.
You have to be wanting to blame the music industry and wanting to exonerate filesharing to not think that mp3s are negatively affecting music sales.
Not necessarily. There are other factors besides MP3s that one has to look at if we are to see the real picture. Several others have already mentioned them but here they are:
Cost vs. entertainment value. DVD upped the ante for everyone with their special features, non-linear viewing model and reduced wear. On top of that you get 2+hours of entertainment for ~$20. CDs give you max 74min for ~$20.
People have a stable amount of disposible income. They have to choose where to spend it and given the above, usually choose DVD over CD. I wish I have some survey statistics handy, but it seems logical.
I can hear most music on the radio for free. Granted I loose control and have to hear ads, but the latter is common of almost all entertainment forms. Movies will always require me to pay to see them (without addressing pirating).
Despite your assertions, most people who buy movies and music are not able or capable of getting pirated media. Therefore, pirating is a moot point. For those that are capable, I find it more common for people to follow the "try before you buy" method when it comes to music. I do. I have bought 10 CDs this year alone. Most after I have downloaded the MP3s and decided if I like it.
I won't tell you that MP3's aren't affecting CD sales. I will argue that the affect is minimal and that what the RIAA says about it is far from the truth.
Mormons are almost the mafia in scope of their deeds and power.
Sure we are off-topic but you started it...
Do you have examples? Obviously there is something specific that has created this vitriolic hatred in you. I fail to see how they are anything like the mafia.
Some of my extended family, however, has had to deal with their underhanded tactics of lies and threats as the church attempted to control their lives.
In what ways has the church "attempted to control their lives"? They are known for their missionary efforts. Is it the home teaching, the chastity, no alcohol/smoking/drugs, tithes? My experience has shown quite the opposite with the mormons. Perhaps you know of a test for one who is being mind controlled? How else would you know?
Slashdot Mirror
As was brought up elsewhere in this discussion, PVRs do not skew ad statistics. If my Tivo records a show (with commercials) then Nielsen counts me as a viewer. Whether I actually watch the commercials is not reported to the powers that be and is for all purposes irrelevant. Until they change the way they count viewers, then PVR's have absolutely no impact on advertising revenue.
If nobody watched the shows, then these channels would go out of business.Absolutely correct, but this is in no way influenced by the use of PVRs.
How about some systemic issues that onyl seem to crop up with windows machines? Try this nVidia loop error here. Ever try to change from an AGP video card to a PCI one or visa versa in 2k/XP? I've has BSODs on 2k/XP on several different platforms (HP/Compaq/Dell/IBM/Gateway) for literraly hundereds of different reasons. Our VP/IS won't let the company go XP for this very reason. They have tested it and it didn't pass. 2k with SP3 is the minimum allowed windows operating system.
I agree that 2k is miles ahead of 9x in stability, but I don't think you can easily dissmiss the BSOD.
Uh.... He got there by himself!
Actually, there are quite a few religions that have ideas about this. But the fact is that there are assumptions made on both the religon and science sides.
But attempting to put forth that such a creator must exist because something must have started it all is jumping a bit too far, in my opinion.
And I feel that it's preposterous to think that the marvelous complexity and beauty that exists in the life we see on the earth could be random chance. Which is what I love about the world right now. Everyone can espouse whatever ides they want and it is OK. We don't have anyone trying to control our thoughts or ideas (at least directly).
I don't think science is going to ever answer the question completely. Even the Big Bang theory does not discount the possibility of a creator.I agree but I don't think the point of scientific research should be to discount God or visa versa. Instead we should be tolerant of other opinions and ideas and even encourage the exchange thereof. Yeah Internet!
That seems kind of limiting. There are many ways that we form ideas: socialization, directly from information sources (libraries, interviews, etc) both of which require critical thinking and/or some form of faith on what information is being presented. Almost nothing is directly learned. Most people who make it through high school only get a chance to directly test some very basic theories. Certainly not evolution. Even college students don't get to test complex theories like evolution. Just about everyone has to take it on faith (however little) because we don't have direct evidence, only the word of others. We have access to their results and experimentation methods and usually hear from others in the field on their results.
The only difference between science and religion is the number of people who profess to follow their respective precepts. Science currently has hold of the majority of mainstream thinking and the ear of the masses. It wasn't always the case and in fact was the opposite relatively recently. Perception is all that makes science more highly regarded than religion. Evidence is defined by those who claim to have it. The problem comes from a desire to "indipendantly verify" ideas apart from God's word or the traditions of religionists.
That being said, let me state that I wholey appreciate the scientific method and the rewards we have gained from using it. In fact, man has benefitted greatly from science and I look forward to many more insights and truth revealed through science.
Why should we favor ideas that are based in observation and tested over time? Because those ideas work way way better than the rest.Perhaps. Certainly it seems to work better with the wisdom that we currently have. If anything, science should teach us that nothing is static and that change (even change to the way we look at things and observe things) is the only constant.
The honest answer is "I don't know." But we might figure it out eventually.Neither do I, but I know that the truth exists and that we can attain it either through divine enlightenment or through steady prodding and poking with our own methods.
It seems a lot harder to accept religionist views than man's wisdom. At least rationally speaking. Man has collected a lot of evidence and made many observations. One of the things that perplexes me is that science must be based on observation and a theory that makes predictions that are accurate. Unfortunately, we have no observations from before recorded history began a few thousand years ago. Eveything else is speculation, informed speculation granted but speculation nonetheless.
Someone who says that "god did it" cannot make a justification for that. There's no support or reason for their hypothesis that god did it.I don't know if I agree with that. Certainly you could argue that they could not make a scientific justification, but religionists have plenty of justifications up their sleeves. Each person has a reason for thinking the way they do, from genetics and environment to upbringing and socialization. Who are we to judge the correctness of any one belief just because of our contrived scientific process? This has been the cause of many conflict and pain in the world, so much so that I attempt to refrain from such thinking wherever possible.
Just so you know, I am a partisan on this subject on the side that believes in God. But that does not mean that I am seeking to strengthen my ideals through debate or to pull down yours. I am, however extremely curious to understand how others view this classic question, "Where did I come from?".
I agree. However, the root of his argument lends to my questions. Where did it start? I feel like man just doesn't understand enough about where we came from and where we are going to get all worked up about creation vs. evolution. They are ideas that some people believe in. I say let them believe and as we understand more and more, the answers will sort themselves out regardless of outcome.
I don't like ID because it's a gross misuse of mathematics and logicI guess I am not that familiar with the specifics of ID theories, but I did get some insight from the linked article. Certainly, you and everyone else is entitled to their opinions. Personally, I believe in God and the He created the universe. Every theory is just conjecture no matter how hard we try to fit it into a box that we understand. Therefore, there is some element of faith or belief in the unknown for any of the origin of life/man arguments.
Granted, but my question in essence is where did the algorithm come from? I guess it's like asking where did gravity come from or why do atoms interact the way they do. (We keep trying to explain it by breaking the atoms into smaller and smaller pieces without apparent end.) But therein lies a fundamental question that science has yet to my eyes even begun to answer. Where did it all start? Even the religionists answer "God", is at least an answer... If there are others who have a scientific answer, then by all means, let's have it. I try to remain open minded but not gullible. So far science has yet to sway me as it relies to heavily on its own merits.
OK, I read the articles and still have a question for you. Mr. Orr states the following: "So, if we start with SATHINKS, at the next step we'll randomly change only the first two letters; and if those changes yield MQTHINKS, then at the next step we'll randomly change only the second letter. This two-step evolutionary algorithm of mutation plus selection arrives at the phrase METHINKS... with surprising speed." He is trying to show that evolution can reasonably attain certain desired DNA combinations in a relatively short time frame.
My questions is this: If you notice that he started with "SATHINKS" which is very close to the desired output. This brings up a fundamental question (which is the one I am asking you): Where do evolutionary theorists say life started? What did we have first? I have read about the primordial soup theory and that scientists have had some success in getting amino acids to form from what they think the early earth was like. So we are first making a set of assumptions about the early earth and second that a set of random events produced life capable of evolving into man. Is this what evolutionary biologists believe? Thank you for helping me understand.
I first delved into the world of OCR back in 98 with this product and havn't turned back. The current version is made by scansoft (the same makers as OmniPage), this product is much better. Even PCWorld has a review of it (March 2000).
It achieves 98% accuracy on typed text and can handle graphics, bullets and tables. These were big plusses for me. I still use the 98 version and have very few complaints. Dirty pages can be a problem, but it has frequently amazed me in how it catches characters in the midst of goop.
the trick was to use a gray scale scan or text mode, Also I scan at 300 DPI , I find it's important to give the OCR as much info as possible to work from.
I agree. The right settings are very important. I recommend some serious tweaking before you get to hard and heavy with it. For plain text, the above works great, although I sometimes prefer 150dpi. For anything with tables and graphics, 300dpi is a must. A good scanner can make a big difference too. My work uses network ready scanners that copy the file to a network share and the software picks up the files automatically. Very efficient.
I second that. I started college when I first got out of High School and hated it. Ironically, I was an aerospace eng major. I had a full ride scholarship in the Air Force and was going to be a pilot (that part I loved). Then Clinton cut the military in half and with it, my scholarship. So I had to quit school and re-evaluate my life. I got into computers and now have 7 years experience, a full-time job, wife and kids and I am just now getting back to school. This time, I have finally figured out whay I *want* to do. I love going to class and can't wait to finish so I can change careers.
Bottom line is you need to love what you are studying or you may end up hating your degree in the end.
Same is true in AR, TX, MO and of course UT.
And I suppose you have a brother named Jared?
Well at least you have your priorities straight.
Not only can you get a NetWare client for the MAC (OS X) but you can download the demo from an ASP page. For those who don't want to bother with the reg info, here is the link to download it directly. The serial they gave me was 9602-3082-0060-5950-2. I assume it is time limited or some such other nonsense.
Perhaps, I'm no crypto expert but I bet that because the protocol is https, the transaction is the same. Logically, Yahoo would not implement a secure way to login and not provide a way to ensure that it was used securely.
That's certainly your prerogative, but I contend that it's still poor development policy.Perhaps, but passwords give access to send as well as receive. Much more important to encrypt passwords than the spam I get. Since it's free, I don't complain. Like I said, if I want to send something that is sensitive, I don't use Yahoo mail.
I've had pretty good experience with gmx.netI will have to check them out. Even so, the internet free ride is over and I don't see it coming back any time soon.
Bookmark fixes that and I don't care about my Yahoo mail for evesdroppers. I have a paid for ISP for that.
Yahoo mail sucksSo does every other free e-mail service.
Wouldn't it be nice if we had someone who could speak with God to clarify this? Like a prophet or something. IIRC, Moses spoke with God "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." I wonder if he asked Him about things like this. Too bad there is no one alive today that can speak with God...
Keeping something in orbit is harder than knocking it down. Talk to any NASA engineer and they will say that it takes half the energy manpower and money to de-orbit anything. Granted we are talking about earth orbit, but the principle is the same. Sure you have 26-30km/s of orbital velocity. Big deal. You don't need to cut 100% of the speed to get a sun bound trash unit headed for impact. It didn't take exorbitent amounts of cash to send probes to Mercury or Venus or to insert SOHO in between the Sun and the Earth. Why would it be big bucks to go all the way to the Sun? Orbital mechanics isn't *that* hard. Slingshot off Venus and Mercury and you are almost there. Even if you put the stuff in a sub-Mercury orbit, it would burn up just as neatly. Piece of cake if you ask me.
The biggest cost has always been getting out of the Earth's gravity well. This elevator removes most of that cost. The rest is just academics.
One of the hardest questions to answer in the American Republic. Perhaps it would help if we realized how difficult it is for the people to understand the perspective of their elected representatives. Most reps were elected because the majority of their district agreed with their veiws enough to vote for them. Or conversely, they disagreed with their rival(s) enough to want to vote for any one else. This causes the electee to take a very 'don't rock the boat' way of doing business on the hill. They don't want to make very many waves with their constituents or at least compared to their apparent rivals. Add that to the fact that most American's have a very short attention span when it comes to politics, they only have to be really careful around election time. During an off year, like this one, they tend to be more controversial because the people by and large will forget when their time to re-run is up. This is what the reps see (mostly).
Assuming that all the people are voting their conscience and putting aside all consipiracy theories about how the system is broken, we would see that the people are just getting what they asked for. If we elect corrupt representatives, we will get corrupt laws. Too bad it's not that simple.
IP laws have come into fruition only since the widespread use of digital technology has increased. The same technology that makes it easier for producers to author their works, makes it easier to transport, copy and store them. As was pointed out in Ms. Ian's article, the industry response has been to attempt control through legislation. That has proven to only infuriate the people as is evidenced by a decrease in their sales and an increase in their use of P2P software to obtain music. While I don't mean to directly coorespond the two, it is an interesting coincidence nontheless.
Heh, if anything, this sounds like a shill.
Big difference between a shill and a karma whore.
TeeHee...
He said 'epidermis'.
Your epidermis is showing!
One of the great things about gravity shielding would be for people to be able to travel at high accelerations...
Barring of course the slight difference between gravity and inertia. Something tells me that anti-grav would not effect intertial forces in the slightest. Which is of course what you are talking about here.
http://www.dominospizza.com Works just fine for me. I don't have to wait on hold forever and the pizza gets here in the same time. Real sweet huh?
Sounds like you answered your own question. Even with a vast array of MP3 sites, the number of people donwloading versus buying is quite small. Napster at it's peak was about 10 million users. In 1990, there was a billion CD's sold worldwide. I don't have the numbers for last year but I am sure it is about the same, if not more.
Why one way for movies and another for MP3? From a tech savvyness perspective it should be the same... Right now, I can get both movies and music on Morpheus/Kazaa. Same interface, same technical skill. The real issue is patience. It takes me 2 minutes to download a song and most of a day to get a movie. That (and the quality thing) is the real issue to pirating movies.
Not necessarily. There are other factors besides MP3s that one has to look at if we are to see the real picture. Several others have already mentioned them but here they are:
Cost vs. entertainment value. DVD upped the ante for everyone with their special features, non-linear viewing model and reduced wear. On top of that you get 2+hours of entertainment for ~$20. CDs give you max 74min for ~$20.
People have a stable amount of disposible income. They have to choose where to spend it and given the above, usually choose DVD over CD. I wish I have some survey statistics handy, but it seems logical.
I can hear most music on the radio for free. Granted I loose control and have to hear ads, but the latter is common of almost all entertainment forms. Movies will always require me to pay to see them (without addressing pirating).
Despite your assertions, most people who buy movies and music are not able or capable of getting pirated media. Therefore, pirating is a moot point. For those that are capable, I find it more common for people to follow the "try before you buy" method when it comes to music. I do. I have bought 10 CDs this year alone. Most after I have downloaded the MP3s and decided if I like it.
I won't tell you that MP3's aren't affecting CD sales. I will argue that the affect is minimal and that what the RIAA says about it is far from the truth.
Sure we are off-topic but you started it...
Do you have examples? Obviously there is something specific that has created this vitriolic hatred in you. I fail to see how they are anything like the mafia.
Some of my extended family, however, has had to deal with their underhanded tactics of lies and threats as the church attempted to control their lives.In what ways has the church "attempted to control their lives"? They are known for their missionary efforts. Is it the home teaching, the chastity, no alcohol/smoking/drugs, tithes? My experience has shown quite the opposite with the mormons. Perhaps you know of a test for one who is being mind controlled? How else would you know?