Nope, the pot stamp laws are still on the books and enforced in many states. It's easier to prosecute someone for tax evasion then pot dealing so they're kept around. The drug scheduling was developed to harminoze and simplify the laws on the books at the time of passage, not due to any overturned laws by the Supreme court.
I can't find anything to verify your statement. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places. From what I know about the 1937 marihuana [sic] tax act suggests that it was overturned by the supreme court and later repealed by the drug abuse prevention act of 1970. Here's a wiki article that discusses the 1937 act and its repeal.
Where are cannabis prohibition laws still being enforced as tax law?
Much like you, I can't believe your statement got such high moderation points.
First off, just because something is a matter for civil courts does not mean it's not illegal. Civil court cases are still based on laws and statues. Illegal means "forbidden by law or statute." Also, you used the term "civil crime", which actually is a contradiction in terms. If something is a matter of civil court, it's not a "crime."
And while it varies from country to country, in some of those countries it is also a criminal offense.
I had a hard time swallowing the linked analysis after the author states "I am not a lawyer"...so his legal opinion on this matter weighs in somewhere between irrelevant and worthless. How many people have been prosecuted for downloading under these statutes?
In Massachusetts, signals are NOT a courtesy but the Law. If you cause an accident because of a failure to signal, you're going to A) Get cited and B) Pay all the damages.
Indeed. In VA, failure to signal is grounds for a reckless driving citation -- not a civil citation (like a speeding ticket), but a class 1 misdemeanor that could result in suspension of a license and a criminal record. In any case, my question was rhetorical; I'm pretty sure that it's law in all 50 states.
Wow, if you're constantly reacting last minute like that, then you must be part of the problem. Are you near-sighted or something? I grew up driving in New York, on Long Island, New York City, Queens. I've lived in DC and surrounding areas. I've driven in Miami, San Fran, Seattle. I haven't had a chance yet to drive in LA. I've also driven in 3rd world countries where people have habits that would utterly blow your mind (Right turns from left lanes, driving in reverse on major roads, no headlights, 6 cars abreast in 3 lanes, I saw all 4 of these just TONIGHT on my way home). I can count on one hand the times that I've had to do an emergency maneuver because something unexpected happened, and I'm a pretty aggressive driver. Every other time, I use my turn signals. Where I live now, I'm not just the minority; I'm the ONLY ONE who uses them; I can drive home from work and be the only person I can see who signals the entire way.
As far as I'm concerned, signalling is the easiest thing you can do to avoid accidents. Accidents are caused by something unexpected happening. If you telegraph your intentions, others know what you're doing, and have more time to react to you.
Its not like you have to reach anywhere. stick your finger out and flip it up or down. pretty easy.
Umm...+1
Grandparent sounds like he is either too lazy to be bothered or just can't look far enough ahead to use his turn signals. I grew up in the DC area, as well as lived & drove in Boston and NYC for a number of years. I travel all around the country for business, and drive in these cities. There are very few situations where turn signals are impractical. Even when driving aggressively in traffic, the least one can do is let people around know what one's intentions are. I mean, it's not just a courtesy -- it really comes down to safety. We are talking about piloting a 1.5-2.5 ton machine up to a hundred and something MPH. I worked as an EMT for a few years, and can impart this: cars are dangerous, even minor crashes involve the body sustaining extremely high G's. Using a turn signal can prevent many accidents, save lives, and is not impractical in any way.
If one has to think about whether or not the road is deserted or crowded in determining whether or not to use their indicators, that person is doing it wrong. If in the habit of automatically signaling for every turn and/or lane change, it eliminates any need to think about it -- and there is never any question. It is the law in all 50 states, no?
There's a lot of mail admins out there - and a lot who consider a quick & dirty mail relay running Linux and ClamAV to be a pretty good first line of defense against email-borne trojans and virii. Seeing as ClamAV doesn't have a daemon mode, and end users in any large organisation can seldom be trusted to run their own AV scans as required[1] that's pretty much the biggest use for it.
ClamAV does have a daemon mode. Are you thinking of a local Windows client? Realtime filesystem scanning?
There were some movies an owner of a BMW with iDrive placed on the Internet because he was unhappy with the performance of the car's computer system. It would randomly open and close doors, for instance, while the car was parked. I'm not sure it did that when the car was moving, but in any case, MS's iDrive left a lot to be desired in the early days (and it still does according to Jeremy Clarkson). MS only wrote the first generation of iDrive. Subsequent versions (starting in 2004) run on Wind River's VxWorks.
Your point is trivial. You've crossed from raising a point that may be semi-reasonable to something totally pedantic. Has a case of a cannabis/THC overdose been recorded in human history? Has anyone died from cannabis smoke inhalation (and I'm not talking about a malignant cancer, which is still a stretch)? Do you honestly think that smoking ones self to death is a valid point with regard to the legislation of cannabis when an instance has never been recorded? If so, would you regulate something like...firewood by the same standard?
Marijuana is also far safer than alcohol.
I take exception to that. Alcohol causes plenty of problems, but lung cancer isn't one of them. Any time you inhale something that is burning incompletely, you inhale all kinds of things that don't belong in your lungs, and risk developing lung cancer as your living tissue tries to deal with the solid (and gaseous) waste that doesn't belong there.
Calling it "far safer" than alcohol is like saying that bungee jumping is far safer than sky diving, or that a vegetarian diet is much more healthy than a mixed diet that includes meat. Each choice has its own risks. Just because many people smoke cannabis for THC intake doesn't mean that everyone does. Eating cannabis is safe, and the lethal dose is far more than a human is physically capable of consuming. Now, if a person chokes while trying to overdose, that's a different story. In any case, in the united states, we generally don't regulate anything as illegal to possess just because igniting it and inhaling the smoke is linked to cancer. That would be silly...right?
Here's something worth bearing in mind: I'm not doing Blu-ray. I looked at the three formats a month or two ago, DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray, and decided that I felt HD-DVD was a clear step up from DVD, whereas Blu-ray was a step down. (For my logic, see here.) The studios "making the choice for me" doesn't mean I'm breathing a sigh of relief and rushing out to buy a Blu-ray drive, it means they'll be seeing less of my money, especially if they decide to drop DVD as well.
I read your journal entry and I tend to agree with you...at least on paper. From an end-user experience, the two formats have shown to be nearly identical. I have a HD DVD/BD combo drive in my computer. At first, both formats were a severe pain in the ass. I run one video output to an HDMI flat panel display and another to a straight DVI flat-panel monitor. It doesn't complain if I disable the DVI monitor and only run to the HDMI display. However, if my non-HDMI monitor is enabled (regardless of whether or not the video was streamed to the non-HDMI device), AACS-protected video would not play. Certain titles were somehow sensitive to the version of my video driver as well. Eventually, all DRM problems became a non-issue when I installed AnyDVD HD.
So what does this all mean?
Like I said, both formats are identical from an end-user experience
Out-of-the-box, the DRM is equally intrusive on either format (again, from an end-user standpoint -- technically, they're different)
Circumvention of DRM on either format is trivial, making it a non-issue for computer viewers
If both formats can hang in there long enough for multi-format readers/players to become ubiquitous, disc format will become irrelevant for just about everyone. Other than the fact that BD is more propritary, and includes additional license costs, I don't care who wins. They both look and sound equally great, and they both suck in the same ways.
Agree on the quality of standard DVD's with a good HD set and player... But there is another issue too. I won't buy an HD player until I can be sure I can make media backups 100% of the time like I can with standard DVD's. THAT, more than anything else, is what is holding me back.
I've been disappointed with upscanned DVD's. Readers can't magically produce data (resolution) where it didn't exist. The upconverting only applies to the output signal. There is no comparison between watching native HD media (in 1920x1080) and watching 720x480 DVD's, the former just looks worlds better.
I think that the amount of HD DVD/Blu Ray rips currently available on the torrent sites speaks volumes for the ability to back up the new formats. There is even commercial software that will back your movies up. Check out AnyDVD HD. There is free stuff available on the Doom9 forums, but AnyDVD appears to be seamless.
The next issue is storage space. A pure rip of the new formats yields anywhere from 20-45 GB on your hard drive. You can recompress w/ H.264 down to the size of a DVD5 or DVD9, but these tend to experience at least some color banding on gradients, especially with DVD5's. In any case, backups are still do-able with the current technology. The LG combo BR/HD reader has popped up for as little as $225. Still expensive for a reader, but this has been steadily coming down in price. You'll also need a good video card with full hardware H.264/HD support. Modern PCIe ATI cards are supposed to be the best, and I've had mixed results with a newer nVidia card.
With regards to DRM...in my lifetime, I cannot to think of a single example where any copy protection/DRM scheme has completely succeeded. I would bank on the trend continuing. AACS was supposed to be unbreakable. With its end-to-end hardware protection along with OS support, many believed that AACS would neither be broken nor circumvented. It didn't take long for this belief to be proven wrong.
Since this is Slashdot, I suppose that a lame disclaimer is in order. I have neither admitted to nor condoned any illegal activity on this public forum. Furthermore (for those who are really looking for a really stupid and pointless argument) there is no information presented here to indicate that myself or the parent resides in a country where US copyright policy applies.
Riding a bike, between two cars, ON THE DIVIDING LINE, is legal in California?? That is quite nutty.
Or were you saying that bikes are allowed to ride two-to-a-lane in CA, thus countering my claim that very few states allow side-by-side driving?
I've got news for you. FL is another state that allows it. That doesn't make it common. Nor a particularly bright idea. Now, a motorcycle highway certainly wouldn't need the same width as a standard highway, but two-to-a-standard-sized-lane is pretty close considering there's no metal frame surrounding the driver and the "sub"-lanes aren't marked.
Yes, lane splitting is legal in CA (or more accurately; it isn't explicitly illegal, is common in heavy traffic, and is tolerated by police provided that it is done safely). The practice is actually considered quite safe when the rider is not exceeding traffic speed by more than 25-30 MPH and drivers expect it. I believe that it is not tolerated when traffic is moving faster than 35-40 MPH. The accident statistics for lane-splitters are surprisingly low.
Riding 2-abreast is legal in a number of US states, but isn't such a great idea (IMO). When riding with others, I prefer to ride offset (that is, each rider alternating lane position rather than in a single-file line or two-abreast). It increases visibility and gives more room to maneuver.
What is this "less road space" business people keep throwing out here. Most states require bikes to occupy one full lane, just like a car. Very few allow side-by-side driving (it's really quite dangerous, you know. )
NONE allow between-the-lanes driving that may bikers seem to be getting away with. And if they did, it wouldn't be very helpful as it forces the rest of the drivers to slow down, forming extremely inefficient traffic waves for miles behind. Untrue. Lane splitting is legal in California.
Theres more to torque than just the max amount. Its no use if it maxes at 10,000 rpm and is only a few hundred rpm wide. Car engines have a MUCH wider torque curve than almost all bike engines and they develop it lower down, especially diesels. Truck and bus engines take it even further.
OK, let's look at another comparison:
Yamaha YZF-R6 (600 CC Japanese supersport bike - very powerful, not particularly torquey relative to HP) Chevrolet LS1
Is the LS1's torque curve flatter? Yes, definitely. It builds power in quite a linear fashion too. However, the R6 has a pretty flat torque curve for an I4 motorcycle. Also notice that the torque curve on the LS1 is really between 2200 RPM and 4600 RPM. The peak of the R6's torque curve is between 9500 and 13000 RPM, and it's arguable that the R6 makes significant torque starting at around 4250 RPM. So we're really talking about 2200 RPM power band on the LS1 versus a 3500 RPM peak powerband R6. The total power band on the R6 is about 8750 RPM. One way or the other, it's quite a bit wider than the V8, even though it doesn't make torque right off the line. I'd take a stock R6 any day over any stock Camaro in a drag race - no question. Shoot, I think that my lowly SV650 commuter bike can take your Camaro in a drag race. Ever see a stock LS1-powered car wheelie off the line?
Bringing diesels into the equation is almost laughable when we're talking about a usable power band. To be fair, maybe I'm taking your statement out of context. Anyway, I'm a huge fan of diesels, and they've become quite a bit better lately (in passenger cars). They do make their torque quite low, but the power band on turbo-diesels is (historically) incredibly narrow. This is one of the reasons why large trucks have three ranges of gears (18 speeds). They have around 100 RPM of power, then they must shift.
Is it just that these small displacement/high compression/high revving motors need to wind up before they can produce impressive torque figures that you don't like? If that's the case, you may be judging from paper alone without any real experience. It all happens so quickly that as a rider, I barely notice...and we haven't even begun to talk about throttle response (I'd put these bikes up against an LS1 in that department). Don't get me wrong, the LS1 is a great motor. There's definitely something to be said for the grin that a V8 can put on one's face. However, when you look at the facts, the opinions that you're laying down just don't add up against any kind of objective data.
"how about comparing it with a car of similar performance?"
An average bike does 0-60 in about 5 seconds. My camaro could do that and still hit 30mpg on a good day and it weighed 1600kg. How can a 160kg bike of the same performance only get less than twice the mpg? Sorry , something doesn't add up.
A vehicle such as a bike that is that light with a cross sectional area that small should have far far better mpg than perhaps 50% more than a car weighing 10 times more and 4 or 5 times the frontal area (and hence air resistance). The fact that bikes don't says a lot about their inefficient (and torque-free) engines.
Have you been on a modern motorcycle? In any case, I disagree with your assessment -- it sounds like you're ignoring real math here. Where do you get your average 0-60 figures? I'd estimate that most 500-1000cc bikes get to 60 in closer to 3.5-4 seconds. My 25-year-old 500cc Honda cruiser can scoot to 60 in less than 5 seconds. Even modern power cruisers (yes, more than 1000 cc) tend to get up to the sixty-mark in under 5 seconds (according to this article, HD V Rod hits 60 in 4.26 seconds, Honda VTX does it in 4.45, Suzuki Boulevard M109 does 60 in 3.89 -- I could go on) -- and these bikes are significantly heavier than 160 kg.
Regarding your perceived inefficiency of motorcycle engines, I have to disagree again...even on your torque jab. Let's look at the lowly Suzuki SV650, a commuter bike with an older 650cc v-twin motor (disclaimer: I ride one of these). According to Wikipedia, its 650cc motor outputs 47.2 lb-ft of torque. An econobox like the Suzuki Swift (again, according to wikipedia) has a 1300 cc motor and outputs 83 lb-ft of torque. SV650 outputs.073 Lb-ft per cc while econobox outputs.064 Lb-ft per cc. The torque figures on your LS1 motor don't fare any better against a motorcycle engine. Citing wikipedia (yet again) the 5.7L Camaro LS1 made 365 Lb-ft of torque in its final form - not too shabby. Similar to the Suzuki Swift, it makes.064 Lb-ft per cc. Motorcycles don't look so torque-free now, right? In a bhp/liter comparison, there is absolutely no comparison (mainly due to their ability to rev) - motorcycles even beat up on modern forced-induction bhp/liter numbers.
At speed, motorcycles lose some of their efficiency due to wind resistance caused by the exposed rider and mechanical parts. Surface area doesn't matter as much in that case. I'd wager if we looked at fuel economy per weight or economy per passenger (in a car with 4-passengers) most cars on the road would win. However, when comparing a single rider to a single occupant in a car, motorcycles win the MPG equation hands-down.
Don't get me wrong, I still love cars. In terms of performance, they tend to be able to out-corner and out-brake motorcycles. However, I'm under no illusion that most cars have an edge in acceleration or fuel economy over motorcycles. It just isn't so.
If I were to guess why theater attendance is a bit down from a decade ago, I'd point to gas prices, and less spending money, but also to the fact that with videogames and the internet there is more competing for our entertainment dollar (or hour) than there was 10 years ago.
I seriously doubt that it has anything to do with gas prices. For most people it's still a negligible amount of money compared to the cost of movie tickets for a family. What's an extra $1 or $2 in gas compared to $40 in movie tickets and $25 in theater snacks? Anecdotally, I can't think of anyone I know who won't go out to a movie because the gas is just too expensive.
Regarding your other points, they do make sense. The entertainment value of a movie theaters is relatively low on a cost-per-hour basis. The value of a video game (not factoring in the cost of the required hardware) is significantly higher.
The whole point of this whole charade was never to actually win. They had to have known at some level from the beginning that it could never win, but that would only matter if they cared. The whole point was to create an illusion in the press that SCO had a potentially lucrative lawsuit, bumping up the stock price for the insiders who through their carefully-reported regular stock divestments made a crap-load of cash, and in the process keeping Boies' firm employed and large SCO paychecks coming in. Thus all the delay tactics they used, and FUD released in the media -- the longer the charade continued, the longer they could profit from it.
The real question at this point is if there will ever be any comeuppance for Darl, Boies, and everyone else involved in this little scam. Which insiders? Any major shareholder's sales must be reported, and this information is publicly available. Last I checked, Darl didn't sell any of his stock when it was up. No other member of the senior management team did either. I'm guessing that they couldn't sell because the SEC would have been up their cracks for a pump-and-dump scam. The SEC isn't that dumb.
Personally, I'm 100% in favour of hardware companies being pressured to make energy efficient video cards, CPU's and consoles. This can only be a good thing, unless of course, your mom is currently paying your electricity bills.
The article has nothing to do with putting pressure on the industry. It's about poor methodology and inappropriately tagging high-profile businesses in order to generate more buzz. They did the same thing with Apple, and later admitted to doing exactly this.
Also remember that profit isn't evil, earnings do not equal evilness...although a $15.5M annual budget is entirely significant, and it takes a whole lot less to bully companies like they are. The criticism of Greenpeace does not have to do with their stated motives. At first-glance, they appear to be well-meaning and with good intentions. However, upon closer inspection, it seems a little more like Greenpeace is less of an environmental activism group and more of an anti-corporate/anti right-wing group. The latter isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that they can't just come out and say it rather than hiding behind environmental ideals is disturbing.
The programmers cost Microsoft a lot.
The hardware costs their customers a lot.
The logic is that it's better for millions of computer users to be out of pocket by a few hundreds each, than it is for Microsoft to be out of pocket for a few hundred million.
When you're a monopoly, you can make products that suit you, not your customers.
You make an interesting point. I don't necessarily agree with your assessment though, and I think that that our differences may come down to differing opinions over how businesses tend to work. A business will generally price their products based upon a pre-defined profit margin. That means that if the business has to pay more (for R&D, production, distribution, outside licensing, taxes, etc), those costs tend to be handed down to the consumer. It doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not a company is a monopoly. Profit margin on software is a tricky thing, since a heavy percentage of the costs are one-time (development). However, a software shop must also consider long-term costs -- such as bug fixes, updates, etc. In most cases, both hardware and development costs are absorbed by the customers at the end of the day. Customers may be willing to spend a bit more on hardware, especially in a server environment, where Microsoft knows that they need to work hard in order to be competitive.
Kind of off-topic -- but this is one of the reasons why I'm so opposed to copy protection and DRM. As a legitimate customer, why should I have to shoulder the cost of obtrusive copy protection and DRM when pirates neither have to deal with these, nor pay for the product in the first place? (Especially considering that I've yet to see a documented case of copy protection actually stopping determined IP abusers). Remember, the cost of DRM and copy protection, like any other software technology, is passed onto the consumer.
Sorry, I've lost you. CDs haven't averaged $15 for a while; the stuff on the Amazon top 100 tends to be $10 - $11 per CD, with the exception of the double discs, CD+DVD, etc. Amazon buys the CDs for $8 - $10. That $8 - $10 is all that the record company sees.
Sorry. My numbers were totally off the cuff - I haven't bought a CD in a while.
I agree that the record companies have screwed themselves. They could have owned that market had they not missed the punch on selling online music directly. They'll have a very difficult time competing with ITMS.
Online distribution will eventually eclipse physical distribution. Production is getting cheaper and cheaper now. Production and distribution are a major part of the lending in that business. The only thing that the old record companies have left is recruiting and promotion.
According to Vivendi, they pull in ~$0.70 per song, while apple pulls in around $0.29 a song (well, TFA cites euros -- but I'd wager that the margins in USD sales are identical). I wonder how different that is from the model of physical distribution. I'll bet that the IP owners make more on the CD. It probably costs less than $0.40 to press a polycarbonate CD (total guess w/ nothing to back my numbers up), presuming that you're doing more than 5000 at a time. Add in another buck for packaging, and another few bucks for distribution. You're up to maybe $3.50 (again, total guess) out of a $15 average album. That comes out to netting (before paying royalties, etc) around 78 cents on the dollar - about 8 percent better better than the iTunes model, and that is before you factor in the fact that we're comparing a per song cost to a per-disc cost.
Here's the problem. Vivendi didn't create the market. They bitched when people took their IP without paying after they couldn't match the public demand for downloadable music. After the continued failure of the industry to create a viable pay-per-download model, a number of third parties stood up and created a new market. Prices were negotiated, and deals were made. Now that Apple's music store has become the most popular digital music store, the IP owners are complaining that Apples margins are just too high. Mind you, this is after Apple invested in the ITMS code, physical infrastructure, client code, players, bandwidth, etc.
Remember that Vivendi used to (in essence) be the sole distributor of their product. They were unable to modernize, and Apple has become a distributor for 15% of Vivendi's property. I just don't see why Vivendi has any course to complain. If Vivendi pulls out of ITMS, the real loser will be Vivendi, since it is currently the most lucrative download market in existence. Bad business. Those guys really know how to whine and make noise. Remember the whining about cassette tape? To Vivendi, I say: cry me a river.
The total costs per person include personal expenditures, government expenditures, and corporate expenditures. All combined, the US is almost twice as expensive as the next closest. Even with all of our uninsured.
I just want to know how much this would take out of my paycheck to cover this. You can do the math any way you want, but I'm interested in the bottom line, especially compared to my current healthcare costs. You've done everything but answer my question.
What we need is a system like France's (yes, I know France is a dirty word, but hey...). Canada's is too hostile to supplimental insurance. Britain's is too minimal on its basic coverage. Germany's is too convoluted and inefficient. I think France got it pretty close to just right. They're a little too lenient on allowing unneccessary visits, but that's a mistake we could avoid here, and is relatively minor in the scheme of things. And despite the cost of living in France, and the fact that France isn't exactly famed for healthy food, their healthcare costs are less than half of ours and their life expectancy longer.
What are the marginal tax rates in those countries?
Sadly, they did fold like a bunch of zombies over speed limits when the feds threatened to pull highway funding.
I thought that speed limits were reapplied in Montana due to a state supreme court ruling that 'reasonable and prudent' was "so vague that it violates the Due Process Clause... of the Montana Constitution." (wiki link).
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I can't find anything to verify your statement. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places. From what I know about the 1937 marihuana [sic] tax act suggests that it was overturned by the supreme court and later repealed by the drug abuse prevention act of 1970. Here's a wiki article that discusses the 1937 act and its repeal.
Where are cannabis prohibition laws still being enforced as tax law?
Walter, this is not a guy who built the railroads, here, this is a guy who spied on my satellites!
First off, just because something is a matter for civil courts does not mean it's not illegal. Civil court cases are still based on laws and statues. Illegal means "forbidden by law or statute." Also, you used the term "civil crime", which actually is a contradiction in terms. If something is a matter of civil court, it's not a "crime."
But it's kind of a moot point. As you didn't specify the country you are in, I'm going to have to assume the US. Here's a post explaining why downloading copyrighted material IS a criminal offense in the US:
http://innovationlost.org/free-the-lyrics/2006/04/23/copyright-infringement-is-a-criminal-offense/
And while it varies from country to country, in some of those countries it is also a criminal offense.
I had a hard time swallowing the linked analysis after the author states "I am not a lawyer"...so his legal opinion on this matter weighs in somewhere between irrelevant and worthless. How many people have been prosecuted for downloading under these statutes?
Indeed. In VA, failure to signal is grounds for a reckless driving citation -- not a civil citation (like a speeding ticket), but a class 1 misdemeanor that could result in suspension of a license and a criminal record. In any case, my question was rhetorical; I'm pretty sure that it's law in all 50 states.
As far as I'm concerned, signalling is the easiest thing you can do to avoid accidents. Accidents are caused by something unexpected happening. If you telegraph your intentions, others know what you're doing, and have more time to react to you.
Its not like you have to reach anywhere. stick your finger out and flip it up or down. pretty easy.
Umm...+1
Grandparent sounds like he is either too lazy to be bothered or just can't look far enough ahead to use his turn signals. I grew up in the DC area, as well as lived & drove in Boston and NYC for a number of years. I travel all around the country for business, and drive in these cities. There are very few situations where turn signals are impractical. Even when driving aggressively in traffic, the least one can do is let people around know what one's intentions are. I mean, it's not just a courtesy -- it really comes down to safety. We are talking about piloting a 1.5-2.5 ton machine up to a hundred and something MPH. I worked as an EMT for a few years, and can impart this: cars are dangerous, even minor crashes involve the body sustaining extremely high G's. Using a turn signal can prevent many accidents, save lives, and is not impractical in any way.
If one has to think about whether or not the road is deserted or crowded in determining whether or not to use their indicators, that person is doing it wrong. If in the habit of automatically signaling for every turn and/or lane change, it eliminates any need to think about it -- and there is never any question. It is the law in all 50 states, no?
ClamAV does have a daemon mode. Are you thinking of a local Windows client? Realtime filesystem scanning?
Your point is trivial. You've crossed from raising a point that may be semi-reasonable to something totally pedantic. Has a case of a cannabis/THC overdose been recorded in human history? Has anyone died from cannabis smoke inhalation (and I'm not talking about a malignant cancer, which is still a stretch)? Do you honestly think that smoking ones self to death is a valid point with regard to the legislation of cannabis when an instance has never been recorded? If so, would you regulate something like...firewood by the same standard?
I take exception to that. Alcohol causes plenty of problems, but lung cancer isn't one of them. Any time you inhale something that is burning incompletely, you inhale all kinds of things that don't belong in your lungs, and risk developing lung cancer as your living tissue tries to deal with the solid (and gaseous) waste that doesn't belong there.
Calling it "far safer" than alcohol is like saying that bungee jumping is far safer than sky diving, or that a vegetarian diet is much more healthy than a mixed diet that includes meat. Each choice has its own risks. Just because many people smoke cannabis for THC intake doesn't mean that everyone does. Eating cannabis is safe, and the lethal dose is far more than a human is physically capable of consuming. Now, if a person chokes while trying to overdose, that's a different story. In any case, in the united states, we generally don't regulate anything as illegal to possess just because igniting it and inhaling the smoke is linked to cancer. That would be silly...right?
Here's something worth bearing in mind: I'm not doing Blu-ray. I looked at the three formats a month or two ago, DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray, and decided that I felt HD-DVD was a clear step up from DVD, whereas Blu-ray was a step down. (For my logic, see here.) The studios "making the choice for me" doesn't mean I'm breathing a sigh of relief and rushing out to buy a Blu-ray drive, it means they'll be seeing less of my money, especially if they decide to drop DVD as well.
I read your journal entry and I tend to agree with you...at least on paper. From an end-user experience, the two formats have shown to be nearly identical. I have a HD DVD/BD combo drive in my computer. At first, both formats were a severe pain in the ass. I run one video output to an HDMI flat panel display and another to a straight DVI flat-panel monitor. It doesn't complain if I disable the DVI monitor and only run to the HDMI display. However, if my non-HDMI monitor is enabled (regardless of whether or not the video was streamed to the non-HDMI device), AACS-protected video would not play. Certain titles were somehow sensitive to the version of my video driver as well. Eventually, all DRM problems became a non-issue when I installed AnyDVD HD.
So what does this all mean?
If both formats can hang in there long enough for multi-format readers/players to become ubiquitous, disc format will become irrelevant for just about everyone. Other than the fact that BD is more propritary, and includes additional license costs, I don't care who wins. They both look and sound equally great, and they both suck in the same ways.
I've been disappointed with upscanned DVD's. Readers can't magically produce data (resolution) where it didn't exist. The upconverting only applies to the output signal. There is no comparison between watching native HD media (in 1920x1080) and watching 720x480 DVD's, the former just looks worlds better.
I think that the amount of HD DVD/Blu Ray rips currently available on the torrent sites speaks volumes for the ability to back up the new formats. There is even commercial software that will back your movies up. Check out AnyDVD HD. There is free stuff available on the Doom9 forums, but AnyDVD appears to be seamless.The next issue is storage space. A pure rip of the new formats yields anywhere from 20-45 GB on your hard drive. You can recompress w/ H.264 down to the size of a DVD5 or DVD9, but these tend to experience at least some color banding on gradients, especially with DVD5's. In any case, backups are still do-able with the current technology. The LG combo BR/HD reader has popped up for as little as $225. Still expensive for a reader, but this has been steadily coming down in price. You'll also need a good video card with full hardware H.264/HD support. Modern PCIe ATI cards are supposed to be the best, and I've had mixed results with a newer nVidia card.
With regards to DRM...in my lifetime, I cannot to think of a single example where any copy protection/DRM scheme has completely succeeded. I would bank on the trend continuing. AACS was supposed to be unbreakable. With its end-to-end hardware protection along with OS support, many believed that AACS would neither be broken nor circumvented. It didn't take long for this belief to be proven wrong.
Since this is Slashdot, I suppose that a lame disclaimer is in order. I have neither admitted to nor condoned any illegal activity on this public forum. Furthermore (for those who are really looking for a really stupid and pointless argument) there is no information presented here to indicate that myself or the parent resides in a country where US copyright policy applies.
Or were you saying that bikes are allowed to ride two-to-a-lane in CA, thus countering my claim that very few states allow side-by-side driving?
I've got news for you. FL is another state that allows it. That doesn't make it common. Nor a particularly bright idea. Now, a motorcycle highway certainly wouldn't need the same width as a standard highway, but two-to-a-standard-sized-lane is pretty close considering there's no metal frame surrounding the driver and the "sub"-lanes aren't marked.
Yes, lane splitting is legal in CA (or more accurately; it isn't explicitly illegal, is common in heavy traffic, and is tolerated by police provided that it is done safely). The practice is actually considered quite safe when the rider is not exceeding traffic speed by more than 25-30 MPH and drivers expect it. I believe that it is not tolerated when traffic is moving faster than 35-40 MPH. The accident statistics for lane-splitters are surprisingly low.
Riding 2-abreast is legal in a number of US states, but isn't such a great idea (IMO). When riding with others, I prefer to ride offset (that is, each rider alternating lane position rather than in a single-file line or two-abreast). It increases visibility and gives more room to maneuver.
NONE allow between-the-lanes driving that may bikers seem to be getting away with. And if they did, it wouldn't be very helpful as it forces the rest of the drivers to slow down, forming extremely inefficient traffic waves for miles behind. Untrue. Lane splitting is legal in California.
OK, let's look at another comparison:
Yamaha YZF-R6 (600 CC Japanese supersport bike - very powerful, not particularly torquey relative to HP)Chevrolet LS1
Is the LS1's torque curve flatter? Yes, definitely. It builds power in quite a linear fashion too. However, the R6 has a pretty flat torque curve for an I4 motorcycle. Also notice that the torque curve on the LS1 is really between 2200 RPM and 4600 RPM. The peak of the R6's torque curve is between 9500 and 13000 RPM, and it's arguable that the R6 makes significant torque starting at around 4250 RPM. So we're really talking about 2200 RPM power band on the LS1 versus a 3500 RPM peak powerband R6. The total power band on the R6 is about 8750 RPM. One way or the other, it's quite a bit wider than the V8, even though it doesn't make torque right off the line. I'd take a stock R6 any day over any stock Camaro in a drag race - no question. Shoot, I think that my lowly SV650 commuter bike can take your Camaro in a drag race. Ever see a stock LS1-powered car wheelie off the line?
Bringing diesels into the equation is almost laughable when we're talking about a usable power band. To be fair, maybe I'm taking your statement out of context. Anyway, I'm a huge fan of diesels, and they've become quite a bit better lately (in passenger cars). They do make their torque quite low, but the power band on turbo-diesels is (historically) incredibly narrow. This is one of the reasons why large trucks have three ranges of gears (18 speeds). They have around 100 RPM of power, then they must shift.
Is it just that these small displacement/high compression/high revving motors need to wind up before they can produce impressive torque figures that you don't like? If that's the case, you may be judging from paper alone without any real experience. It all happens so quickly that as a rider, I barely notice...and we haven't even begun to talk about throttle response (I'd put these bikes up against an LS1 in that department). Don't get me wrong, the LS1 is a great motor. There's definitely something to be said for the grin that a V8 can put on one's face. However, when you look at the facts, the opinions that you're laying down just don't add up against any kind of objective data.
Err no , why would I be?
"how about comparing it with a car of similar performance?"
An average bike does 0-60 in about 5 seconds. My camaro could do that and still hit 30mpg on a good day and it weighed 1600kg. How can a 160kg bike of the same performance only get less than twice the mpg? Sorry , something doesn't add up.
A vehicle such as a bike that is that light with a cross sectional area that small should have far far better mpg than perhaps 50% more than a car weighing 10 times more and 4 or 5 times the frontal area (and hence air resistance). The fact that bikes don't says a lot about their inefficient (and torque-free) engines.
Have you been on a modern motorcycle? In any case, I disagree with your assessment -- it sounds like you're ignoring real math here. Where do you get your average 0-60 figures? I'd estimate that most 500-1000cc bikes get to 60 in closer to 3.5-4 seconds. My 25-year-old 500cc Honda cruiser can scoot to 60 in less than 5 seconds. Even modern power cruisers (yes, more than 1000 cc) tend to get up to the sixty-mark in under 5 seconds (according to this article, HD V Rod hits 60 in 4.26 seconds, Honda VTX does it in 4.45, Suzuki Boulevard M109 does 60 in 3.89 -- I could go on) -- and these bikes are significantly heavier than 160 kg.
Regarding your perceived inefficiency of motorcycle engines, I have to disagree again...even on your torque jab. Let's look at the lowly Suzuki SV650, a commuter bike with an older 650cc v-twin motor (disclaimer: I ride one of these). According to Wikipedia, its 650cc motor outputs 47.2 lb-ft of torque. An econobox like the Suzuki Swift (again, according to wikipedia) has a 1300 cc motor and outputs 83 lb-ft of torque. SV650 outputs .073 Lb-ft per cc while econobox outputs .064 Lb-ft per cc. The torque figures on your LS1 motor don't fare any better against a motorcycle engine. Citing wikipedia (yet again) the 5.7L Camaro LS1 made 365 Lb-ft of torque in its final form - not too shabby. Similar to the Suzuki Swift, it makes .064 Lb-ft per cc. Motorcycles don't look so torque-free now, right? In a bhp/liter comparison, there is absolutely no comparison (mainly due to their ability to rev) - motorcycles even beat up on modern forced-induction bhp/liter numbers.
At speed, motorcycles lose some of their efficiency due to wind resistance caused by the exposed rider and mechanical parts. Surface area doesn't matter as much in that case. I'd wager if we looked at fuel economy per weight or economy per passenger (in a car with 4-passengers) most cars on the road would win. However, when comparing a single rider to a single occupant in a car, motorcycles win the MPG equation hands-down.
Don't get me wrong, I still love cars. In terms of performance, they tend to be able to out-corner and out-brake motorcycles. However, I'm under no illusion that most cars have an edge in acceleration or fuel economy over motorcycles. It just isn't so.
I seriously doubt that it has anything to do with gas prices. For most people it's still a negligible amount of money compared to the cost of movie tickets for a family. What's an extra $1 or $2 in gas compared to $40 in movie tickets and $25 in theater snacks? Anecdotally, I can't think of anyone I know who won't go out to a movie because the gas is just too expensive.
Regarding your other points, they do make sense. The entertainment value of a movie theaters is relatively low on a cost-per-hour basis. The value of a video game (not factoring in the cost of the required hardware) is significantly higher.
Incompetent like a fox!
The whole point of this whole charade was never to actually win. They had to have known at some level from the beginning that it could never win, but that would only matter if they cared. The whole point was to create an illusion in the press that SCO had a potentially lucrative lawsuit, bumping up the stock price for the insiders who through their carefully-reported regular stock divestments made a crap-load of cash, and in the process keeping Boies' firm employed and large SCO paychecks coming in. Thus all the delay tactics they used, and FUD released in the media -- the longer the charade continued, the longer they could profit from it.
The real question at this point is if there will ever be any comeuppance for Darl, Boies, and everyone else involved in this little scam. Which insiders? Any major shareholder's sales must be reported, and this information is publicly available. Last I checked, Darl didn't sell any of his stock when it was up. No other member of the senior management team did either. I'm guessing that they couldn't sell because the SEC would have been up their cracks for a pump-and-dump scam. The SEC isn't that dumb.
The article has nothing to do with putting pressure on the industry. It's about poor methodology and inappropriately tagging high-profile businesses in order to generate more buzz. They did the same thing with Apple, and later admitted to doing exactly this.
Also remember that profit isn't evil, earnings do not equal evilness...although a $15.5M annual budget is entirely significant, and it takes a whole lot less to bully companies like they are. The criticism of Greenpeace does not have to do with their stated motives. At first-glance, they appear to be well-meaning and with good intentions. However, upon closer inspection, it seems a little more like Greenpeace is less of an environmental activism group and more of an anti-corporate/anti right-wing group. The latter isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that they can't just come out and say it rather than hiding behind environmental ideals is disturbing.
The programmers cost Microsoft a lot.
The hardware costs their customers a lot.
The logic is that it's better for millions of computer users to be out of pocket by a few hundreds each, than it is for Microsoft to be out of pocket for a few hundred million.
When you're a monopoly, you can make products that suit you, not your customers.
You make an interesting point. I don't necessarily agree with your assessment though, and I think that that our differences may come down to differing opinions over how businesses tend to work. A business will generally price their products based upon a pre-defined profit margin. That means that if the business has to pay more (for R&D, production, distribution, outside licensing, taxes, etc), those costs tend to be handed down to the consumer. It doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not a company is a monopoly. Profit margin on software is a tricky thing, since a heavy percentage of the costs are one-time (development). However, a software shop must also consider long-term costs -- such as bug fixes, updates, etc. In most cases, both hardware and development costs are absorbed by the customers at the end of the day. Customers may be willing to spend a bit more on hardware, especially in a server environment, where Microsoft knows that they need to work hard in order to be competitive.
Kind of off-topic -- but this is one of the reasons why I'm so opposed to copy protection and DRM. As a legitimate customer, why should I have to shoulder the cost of obtrusive copy protection and DRM when pirates neither have to deal with these, nor pay for the product in the first place? (Especially considering that I've yet to see a documented case of copy protection actually stopping determined IP abusers). Remember, the cost of DRM and copy protection, like any other software technology, is passed onto the consumer.
Sorry. My numbers were totally off the cuff - I haven't bought a CD in a while.
I agree that the record companies have screwed themselves. They could have owned that market had they not missed the punch on selling online music directly. They'll have a very difficult time competing with ITMS.
Online distribution will eventually eclipse physical distribution. Production is getting cheaper and cheaper now. Production and distribution are a major part of the lending in that business. The only thing that the old record companies have left is recruiting and promotion.
According to Vivendi, they pull in ~$0.70 per song, while apple pulls in around $0.29 a song (well, TFA cites euros -- but I'd wager that the margins in USD sales are identical). I wonder how different that is from the model of physical distribution. I'll bet that the IP owners make more on the CD. It probably costs less than $0.40 to press a polycarbonate CD (total guess w/ nothing to back my numbers up), presuming that you're doing more than 5000 at a time. Add in another buck for packaging, and another few bucks for distribution. You're up to maybe $3.50 (again, total guess) out of a $15 average album. That comes out to netting (before paying royalties, etc) around 78 cents on the dollar - about 8 percent better better than the iTunes model, and that is before you factor in the fact that we're comparing a per song cost to a per-disc cost.
Here's the problem. Vivendi didn't create the market. They bitched when people took their IP without paying after they couldn't match the public demand for downloadable music. After the continued failure of the industry to create a viable pay-per-download model, a number of third parties stood up and created a new market. Prices were negotiated, and deals were made. Now that Apple's music store has become the most popular digital music store, the IP owners are complaining that Apples margins are just too high. Mind you, this is after Apple invested in the ITMS code, physical infrastructure, client code, players, bandwidth, etc.
Remember that Vivendi used to (in essence) be the sole distributor of their product. They were unable to modernize, and Apple has become a distributor for 15% of Vivendi's property. I just don't see why Vivendi has any course to complain. If Vivendi pulls out of ITMS, the real loser will be Vivendi, since it is currently the most lucrative download market in existence. Bad business. Those guys really know how to whine and make noise. Remember the whining about cassette tape? To Vivendi, I say: cry me a river.
The total costs per person include personal expenditures, government expenditures, and corporate expenditures. All combined, the US is almost twice as expensive as the next closest. Even with all of our uninsured.
I just want to know how much this would take out of my paycheck to cover this. You can do the math any way you want, but I'm interested in the bottom line, especially compared to my current healthcare costs. You've done everything but answer my question.
What are the marginal tax rates in those countries?
Sadly, they did fold like a bunch of zombies over speed limits when the feds threatened to pull highway funding.
I thought that speed limits were reapplied in Montana due to a state supreme court ruling that 'reasonable and prudent' was "so vague that it violates the Due Process ClauseWait, Bush's alterations of the truth aren't entertainment?