Ah. Well, hindsight is 20/20, but the lesson to take away from it is never agree to give anybody money for anything unless you receive the product immediately upon payment (retail), or you have a written contract they can't renege on.
Sadly, far too many people don't learn that lesson until it's too late. I'm glad you were able to scare the bullies enough that they weren't able to get the extra money.
Let your credit card go unpaid for a few months, and see what happens to your security clearance.... If you don't lose it, then your clearance isn't as high as you think it is.
In the cardholder agreements for most credit cards, you are liable for $50 of any fraudulent transaction if it happens before you report the card stolen. If it happens after you report it stolen, you're not liable. They can put through a $1500 charge, and you won't have to pay $1450 of it, but you will still be on the hook for $50 if you didn't report the card stolen. It's no coincidence that the purchase limit on the RFID method of payment is $50. Whether you're taking a moral/ethical stand against it is irrelevant... by using the card in the first place you're agreeing to those terms, and if you disagree with them, then you should cancel your card. Or, like I did, call them and ask them to send you one without an RFID.
Read your cardholder agreement. $50 is usually the personal liability on fraudulent charges.
The field is very short, approx 6".
With their reader. With an off-the-shelf reader with a much higher transmit power, not so much.
Mastercard sent me one of those 3 years ago... I cancelled the card, because they wouldn't send me one that didn't have it. Visa sent me one a month ago, and it was a 5 minute conversation to convince them that they should send me one that didn't have it. They're providing them for convenience, but they're well aware of what the technology is actually capable of. There's a reason it's become so much easier to get a card without an RFID in it.
A fundemental principle is innocence until being proven guilty. Such a scheme gives a large disincentive to actually fight for your innocence. It is also too easily abused withthe police and prosecutors happy to keep stacking up the charges to make the bargain look like a better option.
And if you actually are innocent, a good lawyer will tell you to refuse the deal and take it to court.
But if capitalizing on the accused's inability to weather the risks and costs of trial are an unacceptable tactic, doesn't that mean plea deals by prosecutors are also unacceptable?
Not really... in theory, plea bargains are offered as a way to save money for all involved. Prosecution *usually* has a very strong case against the person being offered a plea bargain, and the chances of a "not guilty" verdict is usually slim. A good lawyer would tell a person being offered a deal to reject it otherwise. It's also usually not offered for major crime or for people considered at risk to repeat offend, at least not around here. It's a way of saying "look, we got you but we don't think you're a risk. we have to punish you with something, so take this deal and everybody walks away happy."
It's also worth noting that plea bargains do not always originate from the prosecution. A lot of times, it's actually the defense that approaches the prosecution and offers to make a deal.
*In most western countries outside of the US, this sort of behaviour is called "extortion".
Even in the US it's called that, and should be considered illegal. Especially if you'd originally agreed, in writing, to pay $6000 for the job and had never signed anything agreeing to increase the estimate.
Though Ubuntu should be able to live boot on it... I don't want to start *that* argument (personally I loathe all the crap that gets loaded with Ubuntu by default), but it's a good launch point for somebody who's new to Linux.
If you need something lighter, you can try Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux.
Instead of buying computers built to last a year so you'll buy them over and over again, people are buying computers that actually have durability. Hence, less buys.
More that computers simply *are* lasting longer.... unless your OS is festooned with viruses or you want to play the latest and greatest games on the market, there is absolutely no reason you can't do everything most users do with computers on a 8-year old hardware. And the first of those issues can be addressed by either reinstalling the OS or simply fixing it (or paying somebody to do so).
Couple that with a more "savvy" user who's more likely to be aware that viruses exist and Windows offering people free antivirus, and it means that the majority of PC users simply have no impetus to buy a new computer: their old one is good enough for angry birds and facebook.
Except that the birth control issue in Africa has nothing to do with capitalism, which kinda negates the point he was trying to make.... That's not capitalism at all, it's religious stupidity coupled with a culture that's set up to keep women down.
No, I think he was right... if they have a way to check for that kind of thing without letting a high-school dropout look at naked pictures of me, then I'm good with it.
The problem is, they've had a way to do that for decades... drug/bomb dogs have a *much* higher success rate than any technological innovation that's been introduced since, with the possible exception of the metal detector. Couple the two together, and you have a solution that's much cheaper than the current theatre, and much more effective. Sadly, low tech options don't usually increase their share price.
The fact there is no 7" iPad has nothing to do with Nexus 7 sales, because I think it's a pretty safe bet that given all the other factors out there to make a tablet purchase decision based on, the availability of one size versus another is pointless.
Yes, and no. There are absolutely other factors out there, but it becomes a use case scenario. The reason I won't buy a 7" tablet is because I already have an e-book reader and an Android cell phone. I'm carrying the cell phone anyway, and 7" isn't enough of an improvement over the screen on the cell phone for me to want to carry it as well. I'm on the fence right now about whether I want to buy a tablet, when I already own a 13" ultraportable laptop (I do have a specific use in mind, I'm just trying to decide if it's worth the expense when I have other ways of completing the task), but if I were to buy one, it would be a 10" display.
Some people buy tablets because they're the cool thing to have. Those people will almost universally buy an iPad, and it becomes a non-issue. Some people buy them because they actually have a need for it, and for those people the form factor of the device (read: screen size) will probably be the main deciding factor. If they can't get a device in a screen size that's useful to them, there's no point in buying the device. The general consumer doesn't really care whether it's iOS or Android, as long as it does what they want it to do. Most people are happily oblivious to the walled garden, and in fact think that it's a good thing as long as it doesn't prevent them from playing Angry Birds or getting on Facebook.
As for bigotry, I've expressed none.... her/his/its
Riiiiiiight.... no bigotry at all..... People *love* being referred to as "it".
I've simply stated that gender is based on chromosomes
It isn't. Gender is based on neurochemistry and the psychological definition of "self". Sex is the word you're looking for, and it isn't based on chromosomes, it's based on hormones. Every fetus starts as female in early development, and the "male" ones become male in response to hormone triggers. It's this natural biological response to hormones that makes sex reassignment through hormone replacement therapy possible. While we've found a trend in that males generally have one set of chromosomes, females have another, we've also found that it's not universal. The truth is, at this point we don't actually know what causes those hormones to trigger in utero, though it's clearly more than genetics. You simply can't make an argument that sex is solely defined by genetics, because the evidence is clear that it isn't.
just look at Chaz Bono, but Chaz was born with XY combo, making her a girl
You're not even making the genetic argument correctly... XX = female, XY = male, though as I've pointed out, not always and there's a large amount of variation. You're also misgendering Chaz, quite deliberately. He has made it quite clear that he prefers to be referred to using male pronouns. Out of courtesy and respect for him as a human being, you have an obligation to respect that even if you don't agree with it... that you're not doing it... well... I'll draw your attention to the first thing I said in this post. Nope. No evidence of bigotry or willful ignorance at all in what you're saying....
Gender is DNA, X and Y Chromosomes. Anything else is not scientific and is religious in nature (ie Belief system). Yes, I'm aware of Chromosomal Defects that create an extra X or Y Chromosome, but those are genetic deformities (like Down's Syndrome), and are easily mapped via DNA sequencing.
The problem with defining a person's sex in terms of DNA is that there's not really any rhyme or reason to how a person's DNA determines their outward physical appearance. You mention people with an extra X or Y, but there's a *much* wider gamut of possible combinations... XX and XY are the two most people know about. There's also XYY, XXX, XXY, YYY and YY, all of which are common enough that you almost certainly know somebody who has one of these conditions. There's also XX males, and XY females... that is to say, people whose body followed a normal "male" phenotype even though they're genetically XX, and people whose body is "female" even though they're genetically XY. Then you have syndromes like androgen insensitivity syndrome, or hyperproduction of androgens, which can cause an otherwise normal body to develop "incorrectly". Then you have the wide gamut of intersex conditions that occur even in people who are not genetically "abnormal". Simply put, sex is not a binary, even at a genetic level.
What determines outward sexual appearance during fetal development is hormones, not genetics. The hormones are usually a response to certain genetic triggers, but not always. Sometimes the "wrong" hormones trigger, and sometimes they don't trigger at all. When a person undergoes sex reassignment, their hormones are replaced years before they undergo any surgery (and they may not have any surgery at all). The body develops secondary sex characteristics of their preferred sex... if it was strictly a genetic question as you seem to think, that wouldn't be possible. People born female would never grow a beard as they transition, and people born male would never grow breasts. And yet they do. Their bodies undergo other changes as well, as the hormones are replaced... skin changes texture/appearance, body hair changes distribution and texture, pubic hair grows in a different pattern, the eyes change structure, so does the brain... really, shouldn't hormones be the determining factor, if you're going to make that argument... oh wait... hormones are too easy to change, so I guess that wouldn't work with your bigotry.
You're also mixing "sex" with "gender". Gender is psychology, sex is physiology. If you're going to make an argument based on physiology, use the right fucking word.
I don't know about the hate, but I will say that this is a divisive area and will create disdain with a portion of their user base. The country is about half split on the issue with alternatives to google popping up all the time.
The split isn't quite as pronounced as you think... of the overall total population, yeah, I'd believe a 50/50 split. Of the demographics that Google is going after, however, I'd think it's closer to 80% in support of equal rights, if not higher. The younger generation, by and large, just doesn't care what happens in your bedroom. Give it a few more years, and the most vocal anti-gay activists will either be outed as gay themselves, or will die off, and 20 years from now it will be a complete non-issue. That's not even considering the rest of the civilized world, where it's already a complete non-issue.... at the end of the day, this will probably earn them more customers than it will cost them.
The difference is that steampunk is not defined by setting, but rather by use of devices that defy science (even future science). I don't think of it so much as a genre, but as an excuse for poor creativity.
Steampunk, list most subgenres within the science fiction/fantasy umbrella, has little or nothing to do with the technology described... it's a backdrop for the story actually being told. Done well, it's fun and whimsical. Done badly... well... ever seen Wild Wild West? If you're getting hung up on the "science" of it, you're missing the point completely.
Most people who say "I do not pay because it is not worth it", merely say that because they are used to getting it for free.
No.... I do not pay for modern recordings, because they really aren't worth it. Modern recordings sound like shit. If I can't get 'em for free, I'll stick with radio. Until the recording industry pulls their heads out of their collective asses, however, I'm not going to spend money on a recording that was engineered at the behest of a moron. As they're "remastering" old recordings and rereleasing them with this crap, it means that I have probably already bought my last CD ever from mainstream producers. (there are still indy producers who know what music is supposed to sound like, and I do still buy discs from them).
Seriously... that phone right there, and the fact that Apple has never sued over it, makes it quite obvious that this has nothing to do with them trying to protect their intellectual property. It is functionally identical to the Galaxy SII that they threw a shitfit over and it came out a month before the SII... the front face and UI have the same basic design: the only real differences are that it's slightly thicker, it has a slightly slower processor, and the screen is a lower resolution and slightly smaller. The software at launch time was nearly identical (and *was* identical on the points Apple sued over).
If this was *really* about their software patents, they would have sued over that one, too, but since you can get an Ace for $100 new without a contract ($225 at launch time), they didn't sue.
btw -- if you don't do any gaming on your phone, that phone is quite adequate. The UI is zippy enough, has the same hardware-accelerated bling from a higher end phone, and you can buy it without a contract and not break the bank. I have one, and I am happy with it. There's no ICS update for it, but Gingerbread supports all the features I want out of a phone.:)
Probably not without penalties... depends on the nature of the contract. If I were the one writing it, I would draft a short-term renewable contract for each sales order, and when Apple orders a new batch, accepting the order renews the contract for that batch. If Samsung were to reject the sales order, in this sense, the contract wouldn't be broken, because there's nothing in the contract which guarantees that I have to accept your next sales order.
That being said, even if there would be penalties against Samsung for breaking the contract, the damage that it would do to Apple would be significant and possibly unrecoverable for their market position. It may be worth it anyway, if Apple keeps going for injunctions against Samsung competing on the open market.
Problem is it's all low grade bitrates only useful for the $3.99 earbuds. Private sharing groups are still where it's at for FLAC or super high bitrate high end ripped music.
You probably already have all of the high end ripped music that will ever exist... there's no point in using a high end codec on a recording that was compressed during the sound mixing stage.
That's not even vaguely true. Not even a little bit. The terms that most companies use is "we would rather not spend cash so how about we work out a cross-licensing deal for some of our patents". Apple, on the other hand a) has plenty of cash to pay licensing fees and b) would rather develop a competitive edge over their competition that differentiates them. Thus, they don't want to cross license - they just want to cut a check _AS IS THEIR RIGHT_. The amount being asked by Samsung and Motorola are what they consider to be unfair and unreasonable and are inherently discriminatory since they specifically target Apple.
They were still offered an option that would not have cost them anything out of pocket, and they rejected it. Samsung et. al. expecting to be paid for their work is not unreasonable, and IMO, they've gone *well* beyond what I would consider fair pricing by offering Apple an option that would have cost them nothing. Apple are the ones who rejected a fair offer.
Besides, if Samsung *really* wanted to be anti-competitive to Apple, they could simply decide that they're not going to sell LCD panels to Apple any more. There's nothing illegal about choosing not to do business with Apple, and if they did it, Apple would no longer be able to offer "Retina" displays on any of their equipment. You do realize that most of the hardware in an iPhone is manufactured by Samsung, and that it's only in the last few months that LG has been able to manufacture displays approaching the pixel density that Samsung has? Nobody else can do it yet. Samsung pulling out right about now could have a devastating effect on Apple's Back-to-school/Christmas product availability, as I'd be surprised if LG has enough capacity to meet the demand it would create yet.
BTW, there are those who would argue that something as obvious as including a search bar on the home screen of a phone shouldn't be patentable, and that if it is patentable, it should be included in FRAND as well.... That is what this injunction is over, you realize.... Apple doesn't like that other people are putting a search bar on the home screen (and it's not even required as part of the home screen, it's an app that's available), and so they are suing for a stop sell on Google's product. How is that *not* anti-competitive in your world?
I thought I made that clear - they're abusing FRAND patents. In my humble opinion, any company that abuses FRAND patents is the worst sort of offender, truly intent on stifling competition within an industry and guilty of the worst sort of anti-competitive behaviour deserving of swift and severe punishment from whatever trade organization can take action against them. If a company agrees to include their patented technology in an industry standard under FRAND terms and then renegs on those FRAND obligations, they are doing more harm to competition within an industry any any company possibly could. That, imho, makes them the true villains.
There's nothing in FRAND that says they have to give it away, only that they have to be reasonable with their licensing terms. The FRAND terms that *most* of the industry seems to have agreed on is "you don't sue us, we don't sue you". Apple is the one that doesn't like those terms, even though they were offered them.
First thing I would do is realize that fuel economy doesn't exist on a '77 GMC van. You can drive one of those down the highway and watch the fuel gauge creep towards empty at an alarming rate.
If you're going to "modernize" it with electrics, you may as well go all the way... install a proper electric battery system and an electric motor/drive system to replace the combustion engine. This will also give you a stable power supply from which you can run the other electronics you want to have. You can also outfit it with a generator and/or solar panels to use when it's parked, if you want to be able to recharge the batteries even partially while away from a charging plug.
We can find other, more reputable sources... start with the reference list on that Wikipedia article. You would do well to actually do some reading before you decide that it's automatically a bad thing. What has actually been seen is the exact opposite of what you seem to think would happen: because it can be obtained legally with a prescription, and because "addiction" is a legitimate reason for a prescription, the junkies are actually getting it from the hospital, and the overwhelming majority of them actually get addiction counseling and the help they need to break their addiction. In other words, the Netherlands, where heroin is essentially legal, has a *lower* percentage of hard drug users than the rest of the world, not higher.
while I agree with your point, it's worth mentioning one thing that is missing from your argument: tort reform. Countries like Canada, the UK, France, etc. certainly *do* have *much* lower per-capita health care coverage. They also have sane tort laws. You can't win a $50,000,000 settlement in court due to a minor malpractice in Canada, and as a result the doctors' malpractice insurance is *significantly* lower, and they don't need to pass that cost on to the patient.
Hopefully, with a universally accessible health care system in the US, the size of malpractice awards will decrease in time, but until it does the US system will necessarily cost more than the systems in other countries.
y'know, most of the arguments I've heard from the US against universal health care are the same ones the conservatives were levying against universal health care in Canada in the late 1940's-mid 1960's. 50 years down the road, of course, people realize how much of a good thing it actually is, and gods help any politician who comes out against it....
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Ah. Well, hindsight is 20/20, but the lesson to take away from it is never agree to give anybody money for anything unless you receive the product immediately upon payment (retail), or you have a written contract they can't renege on.
Sadly, far too many people don't learn that lesson until it's too late. I'm glad you were able to scare the bullies enough that they weren't able to get the extra money.
Let your credit card go unpaid for a few months, and see what happens to your security clearance.... If you don't lose it, then your clearance isn't as high as you think it is.
In the cardholder agreements for most credit cards, you are liable for $50 of any fraudulent transaction if it happens before you report the card stolen. If it happens after you report it stolen, you're not liable. They can put through a $1500 charge, and you won't have to pay $1450 of it, but you will still be on the hook for $50 if you didn't report the card stolen. It's no coincidence that the purchase limit on the RFID method of payment is $50. Whether you're taking a moral/ethical stand against it is irrelevant... by using the card in the first place you're agreeing to those terms, and if you disagree with them, then you should cancel your card. Or, like I did, call them and ask them to send you one without an RFID.
It's limited to $50 transactions.
Read your cardholder agreement. $50 is usually the personal liability on fraudulent charges.
The field is very short, approx 6".
With their reader. With an off-the-shelf reader with a much higher transmit power, not so much.
Mastercard sent me one of those 3 years ago... I cancelled the card, because they wouldn't send me one that didn't have it. Visa sent me one a month ago, and it was a 5 minute conversation to convince them that they should send me one that didn't have it. They're providing them for convenience, but they're well aware of what the technology is actually capable of. There's a reason it's become so much easier to get a card without an RFID in it.
A fundemental principle is innocence until being proven guilty. Such a scheme gives a large disincentive to actually fight for your innocence. It is also too easily abused withthe police and prosecutors happy to keep stacking up the charges to make the bargain look like a better option.
And if you actually are innocent, a good lawyer will tell you to refuse the deal and take it to court.
But if capitalizing on the accused's inability to weather the risks and costs of trial are an unacceptable tactic, doesn't that mean plea deals by prosecutors are also unacceptable?
Not really... in theory, plea bargains are offered as a way to save money for all involved. Prosecution *usually* has a very strong case against the person being offered a plea bargain, and the chances of a "not guilty" verdict is usually slim. A good lawyer would tell a person being offered a deal to reject it otherwise. It's also usually not offered for major crime or for people considered at risk to repeat offend, at least not around here. It's a way of saying "look, we got you but we don't think you're a risk. we have to punish you with something, so take this deal and everybody walks away happy."
It's also worth noting that plea bargains do not always originate from the prosecution. A lot of times, it's actually the defense that approaches the prosecution and offers to make a deal.
*In most western countries outside of the US, this sort of behaviour is called "extortion".
Even in the US it's called that, and should be considered illegal. Especially if you'd originally agreed, in writing, to pay $6000 for the job and had never signed anything agreeing to increase the estimate.
http://bodhilinux.com/
Though Ubuntu should be able to live boot on it... I don't want to start *that* argument (personally I loathe all the crap that gets loaded with Ubuntu by default), but it's a good launch point for somebody who's new to Linux.
If you need something lighter, you can try Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux.
Instead of buying computers built to last a year so you'll buy them over and over again, people are buying computers that actually have durability.
Hence, less buys.
More that computers simply *are* lasting longer.... unless your OS is festooned with viruses or you want to play the latest and greatest games on the market, there is absolutely no reason you can't do everything most users do with computers on a 8-year old hardware. And the first of those issues can be addressed by either reinstalling the OS or simply fixing it (or paying somebody to do so).
Couple that with a more "savvy" user who's more likely to be aware that viruses exist and Windows offering people free antivirus, and it means that the majority of PC users simply have no impetus to buy a new computer: their old one is good enough for angry birds and facebook.
Except that the birth control issue in Africa has nothing to do with capitalism, which kinda negates the point he was trying to make.... That's not capitalism at all, it's religious stupidity coupled with a culture that's set up to keep women down.
No, I think he was right... if they have a way to check for that kind of thing without letting a high-school dropout look at naked pictures of me, then I'm good with it.
The problem is, they've had a way to do that for decades... drug/bomb dogs have a *much* higher success rate than any technological innovation that's been introduced since, with the possible exception of the metal detector. Couple the two together, and you have a solution that's much cheaper than the current theatre, and much more effective. Sadly, low tech options don't usually increase their share price.
The fact there is no 7" iPad has nothing to do with Nexus 7 sales, because I think it's a pretty safe bet that given all the other factors out there to make a tablet purchase decision based on, the availability of one size versus another is pointless.
Yes, and no. There are absolutely other factors out there, but it becomes a use case scenario. The reason I won't buy a 7" tablet is because I already have an e-book reader and an Android cell phone. I'm carrying the cell phone anyway, and 7" isn't enough of an improvement over the screen on the cell phone for me to want to carry it as well. I'm on the fence right now about whether I want to buy a tablet, when I already own a 13" ultraportable laptop (I do have a specific use in mind, I'm just trying to decide if it's worth the expense when I have other ways of completing the task), but if I were to buy one, it would be a 10" display.
Some people buy tablets because they're the cool thing to have. Those people will almost universally buy an iPad, and it becomes a non-issue. Some people buy them because they actually have a need for it, and for those people the form factor of the device (read: screen size) will probably be the main deciding factor. If they can't get a device in a screen size that's useful to them, there's no point in buying the device. The general consumer doesn't really care whether it's iOS or Android, as long as it does what they want it to do. Most people are happily oblivious to the walled garden, and in fact think that it's a good thing as long as it doesn't prevent them from playing Angry Birds or getting on Facebook.
As for bigotry, I've expressed none.... her/his/its
Riiiiiiight.... no bigotry at all..... People *love* being referred to as "it".
I've simply stated that gender is based on chromosomes
It isn't. Gender is based on neurochemistry and the psychological definition of "self". Sex is the word you're looking for, and it isn't based on chromosomes, it's based on hormones. Every fetus starts as female in early development, and the "male" ones become male in response to hormone triggers. It's this natural biological response to hormones that makes sex reassignment through hormone replacement therapy possible. While we've found a trend in that males generally have one set of chromosomes, females have another, we've also found that it's not universal. The truth is, at this point we don't actually know what causes those hormones to trigger in utero, though it's clearly more than genetics. You simply can't make an argument that sex is solely defined by genetics, because the evidence is clear that it isn't.
just look at Chaz Bono, but Chaz was born with XY combo, making her a girl
You're not even making the genetic argument correctly... XX = female, XY = male, though as I've pointed out, not always and there's a large amount of variation. You're also misgendering Chaz, quite deliberately. He has made it quite clear that he prefers to be referred to using male pronouns. Out of courtesy and respect for him as a human being, you have an obligation to respect that even if you don't agree with it... that you're not doing it... well... I'll draw your attention to the first thing I said in this post. Nope. No evidence of bigotry or willful ignorance at all in what you're saying....
You're an idiot, and a troll.
That being said...
Gender is DNA, X and Y Chromosomes. Anything else is not scientific and is religious in nature (ie Belief system). Yes, I'm aware of Chromosomal Defects that create an extra X or Y Chromosome, but those are genetic deformities (like Down's Syndrome), and are easily mapped via DNA sequencing.
The problem with defining a person's sex in terms of DNA is that there's not really any rhyme or reason to how a person's DNA determines their outward physical appearance. You mention people with an extra X or Y, but there's a *much* wider gamut of possible combinations... XX and XY are the two most people know about. There's also XYY, XXX, XXY, YYY and YY, all of which are common enough that you almost certainly know somebody who has one of these conditions. There's also XX males, and XY females... that is to say, people whose body followed a normal "male" phenotype even though they're genetically XX, and people whose body is "female" even though they're genetically XY. Then you have syndromes like androgen insensitivity syndrome, or hyperproduction of androgens, which can cause an otherwise normal body to develop "incorrectly". Then you have the wide gamut of intersex conditions that occur even in people who are not genetically "abnormal". Simply put, sex is not a binary, even at a genetic level.
What determines outward sexual appearance during fetal development is hormones, not genetics. The hormones are usually a response to certain genetic triggers, but not always. Sometimes the "wrong" hormones trigger, and sometimes they don't trigger at all. When a person undergoes sex reassignment, their hormones are replaced years before they undergo any surgery (and they may not have any surgery at all). The body develops secondary sex characteristics of their preferred sex... if it was strictly a genetic question as you seem to think, that wouldn't be possible. People born female would never grow a beard as they transition, and people born male would never grow breasts. And yet they do. Their bodies undergo other changes as well, as the hormones are replaced... skin changes texture/appearance, body hair changes distribution and texture, pubic hair grows in a different pattern, the eyes change structure, so does the brain... really, shouldn't hormones be the determining factor, if you're going to make that argument... oh wait... hormones are too easy to change, so I guess that wouldn't work with your bigotry.
You're also mixing "sex" with "gender". Gender is psychology, sex is physiology. If you're going to make an argument based on physiology, use the right fucking word.
I don't know about the hate, but I will say that this is a divisive area and will create disdain with a portion of their user base. The country is about half split on the issue with alternatives to google popping up all the time.
The split isn't quite as pronounced as you think... of the overall total population, yeah, I'd believe a 50/50 split. Of the demographics that Google is going after, however, I'd think it's closer to 80% in support of equal rights, if not higher. The younger generation, by and large, just doesn't care what happens in your bedroom. Give it a few more years, and the most vocal anti-gay activists will either be outed as gay themselves, or will die off, and 20 years from now it will be a complete non-issue. That's not even considering the rest of the civilized world, where it's already a complete non-issue.... at the end of the day, this will probably earn them more customers than it will cost them.
The difference is that steampunk is not defined by setting, but rather by use of devices that defy science (even future science). I don't think of it so much as a genre, but as an excuse for poor creativity.
It's called "suspension of disbelief".
Steampunk, list most subgenres within the science fiction/fantasy umbrella, has little or nothing to do with the technology described... it's a backdrop for the story actually being told. Done well, it's fun and whimsical. Done badly... well... ever seen Wild Wild West? If you're getting hung up on the "science" of it, you're missing the point completely.
Most people who say "I do not pay because it is not worth it", merely say that because they are used to getting it for free.
No.... I do not pay for modern recordings, because they really aren't worth it. Modern recordings sound like shit. If I can't get 'em for free, I'll stick with radio. Until the recording industry pulls their heads out of their collective asses, however, I'm not going to spend money on a recording that was engineered at the behest of a moron. As they're "remastering" old recordings and rereleasing them with this crap, it means that I have probably already bought my last CD ever from mainstream producers. (there are still indy producers who know what music is supposed to sound like, and I do still buy discs from them).
Even when the cheap ones are functionally identical to the high end ones.
Seriously... that phone right there, and the fact that Apple has never sued over it, makes it quite obvious that this has nothing to do with them trying to protect their intellectual property. It is functionally identical to the Galaxy SII that they threw a shitfit over and it came out a month before the SII... the front face and UI have the same basic design: the only real differences are that it's slightly thicker, it has a slightly slower processor, and the screen is a lower resolution and slightly smaller. The software at launch time was nearly identical (and *was* identical on the points Apple sued over).
If this was *really* about their software patents, they would have sued over that one, too, but since you can get an Ace for $100 new without a contract ($225 at launch time), they didn't sue.
btw -- if you don't do any gaming on your phone, that phone is quite adequate. The UI is zippy enough, has the same hardware-accelerated bling from a higher end phone, and you can buy it without a contract and not break the bank. I have one, and I am happy with it. There's no ICS update for it, but Gingerbread supports all the features I want out of a phone. :)
CAN Samsung just pull out like that though?
Probably not without penalties... depends on the nature of the contract. If I were the one writing it, I would draft a short-term renewable contract for each sales order, and when Apple orders a new batch, accepting the order renews the contract for that batch. If Samsung were to reject the sales order, in this sense, the contract wouldn't be broken, because there's nothing in the contract which guarantees that I have to accept your next sales order.
That being said, even if there would be penalties against Samsung for breaking the contract, the damage that it would do to Apple would be significant and possibly unrecoverable for their market position. It may be worth it anyway, if Apple keeps going for injunctions against Samsung competing on the open market.
Problem is it's all low grade bitrates only useful for the $3.99 earbuds. Private sharing groups are still where it's at for FLAC or super high bitrate high end ripped music.
You probably already have all of the high end ripped music that will ever exist... there's no point in using a high end codec on a recording that was compressed during the sound mixing stage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
That's not even vaguely true. Not even a little bit. The terms that most companies use is "we would rather not spend cash so how about we work out a cross-licensing deal for some of our patents". Apple, on the other hand a) has plenty of cash to pay licensing fees and b) would rather develop a competitive edge over their competition that differentiates them. Thus, they don't want to cross license - they just want to cut a check _AS IS THEIR RIGHT_. The amount being asked by Samsung and Motorola are what they consider to be unfair and unreasonable and are inherently discriminatory since they specifically target Apple.
They were still offered an option that would not have cost them anything out of pocket, and they rejected it. Samsung et. al. expecting to be paid for their work is not unreasonable, and IMO, they've gone *well* beyond what I would consider fair pricing by offering Apple an option that would have cost them nothing. Apple are the ones who rejected a fair offer.
Besides, if Samsung *really* wanted to be anti-competitive to Apple, they could simply decide that they're not going to sell LCD panels to Apple any more. There's nothing illegal about choosing not to do business with Apple, and if they did it, Apple would no longer be able to offer "Retina" displays on any of their equipment. You do realize that most of the hardware in an iPhone is manufactured by Samsung, and that it's only in the last few months that LG has been able to manufacture displays approaching the pixel density that Samsung has? Nobody else can do it yet. Samsung pulling out right about now could have a devastating effect on Apple's Back-to-school/Christmas product availability, as I'd be surprised if LG has enough capacity to meet the demand it would create yet.
BTW, there are those who would argue that something as obvious as including a search bar on the home screen of a phone shouldn't be patentable, and that if it is patentable, it should be included in FRAND as well.... That is what this injunction is over, you realize.... Apple doesn't like that other people are putting a search bar on the home screen (and it's not even required as part of the home screen, it's an app that's available), and so they are suing for a stop sell on Google's product. How is that *not* anti-competitive in your world?
I thought I made that clear - they're abusing FRAND patents. In my humble opinion, any company that abuses FRAND patents is the worst sort of offender, truly intent on stifling competition within an industry and guilty of the worst sort of anti-competitive behaviour deserving of swift and severe punishment from whatever trade organization can take action against them. If a company agrees to include their patented technology in an industry standard under FRAND terms and then renegs on those FRAND obligations, they are doing more harm to competition within an industry any any company possibly could. That, imho, makes them the true villains.
There's nothing in FRAND that says they have to give it away, only that they have to be reasonable with their licensing terms. The FRAND terms that *most* of the industry seems to have agreed on is "you don't sue us, we don't sue you". Apple is the one that doesn't like those terms, even though they were offered them.
First thing I would do is realize that fuel economy doesn't exist on a '77 GMC van. You can drive one of those down the highway and watch the fuel gauge creep towards empty at an alarming rate.
If you're going to "modernize" it with electrics, you may as well go all the way... install a proper electric battery system and an electric motor/drive system to replace the combustion engine. This will also give you a stable power supply from which you can run the other electronics you want to have. You can also outfit it with a generator and/or solar panels to use when it's parked, if you want to be able to recharge the batteries even partially while away from a charging plug.
Seriously? Not even basic research?
We can find other, more reputable sources... start with the reference list on that Wikipedia article. You would do well to actually do some reading before you decide that it's automatically a bad thing. What has actually been seen is the exact opposite of what you seem to think would happen: because it can be obtained legally with a prescription, and because "addiction" is a legitimate reason for a prescription, the junkies are actually getting it from the hospital, and the overwhelming majority of them actually get addiction counseling and the help they need to break their addiction. In other words, the Netherlands, where heroin is essentially legal, has a *lower* percentage of hard drug users than the rest of the world, not higher.
while I agree with your point, it's worth mentioning one thing that is missing from your argument: tort reform. Countries like Canada, the UK, France, etc. certainly *do* have *much* lower per-capita health care coverage. They also have sane tort laws. You can't win a $50,000,000 settlement in court due to a minor malpractice in Canada, and as a result the doctors' malpractice insurance is *significantly* lower, and they don't need to pass that cost on to the patient.
Hopefully, with a universally accessible health care system in the US, the size of malpractice awards will decrease in time, but until it does the US system will necessarily cost more than the systems in other countries.
y'know, most of the arguments I've heard from the US against universal health care are the same ones the conservatives were levying against universal health care in Canada in the late 1940's-mid 1960's. 50 years down the road, of course, people realize how much of a good thing it actually is, and gods help any politician who comes out against it....