And unauthorized redistribution is a felony. It always was. We always knew it, we've been watching VHS tapes for decades, and I know that I read that warning at least once. I really hope that you're not just figuring out about it now. Just because you don't believe it's right doesn't mean that it's not the law. It's a felony. It doesn't make anyone anyone's henchman. It means that the police are doing their jobs.
They drive which shows stay and which ones get cancelled. If a show you like is cancelled based on this incorrect data, that's enough reason to care.
So what? How is that relevant to this discussion? He was making a point that Nielson ratings are irrelevant for ad revenue purposes and using it to justify pirating copyrighted content. That has absolutely nothing to do with what you just said.
Get it straight: possession is 99% of ownership. I possess this movie, so I own it, I can copy it, I can rip it, I can play it, and I can share it.
I'm not so sure about that. Copyright law definitely says you're wrong. You're just being idealitic...which is entirely impractical here. Try explaining this to any sane judge -- they'd likely call you something along the lines of a very clever dumbass (as they throw the book at you...you're not outsmarting anyone there, and they tend to dislike people who try).
How does one possess copyright? Under what authority is copyright granted? Constitutional authority only covers inventors and creators. Constitutional authority says nothing about the corporate entities who purchase the first copy of a work and mass produce it.
Our laws do not begin and end with the constitution. The federal government makes laws every day that don't touch the constitution (it's become necessary for reasons of interstate commerce and practicality, since it takes quite some time to pass a constitutional amendment...and there is noteworthy support in the Constitution [and widely discussed in the Federalist Papers] for the federal government making laws to support, and regulate interstate trade...it's been pretty abused, IMO...but copyright law is not one of those abuses.). Our society has decided to treat copyrights as commodities (and there is quite a bit of case law to support this), and laws have been formed around this, I'd say that makes it legit. People have bought and sold rights for years. It's not the first company to buy a copy who gets the rights. It's the first company who buys the rights who gets the rights. There's a huge difference. Come on...you know better than that.
For a civil case, you can file a complaint, hire an attorney, and the court can send a summons to the alleged perp. The OP was right. The police are becoming paid corporate henchmen.
Yes...for a civil case, you can file a complaint. But if someone is violating your IP, there is a criminal recourse. You know the dumb FBI warning at the beginning of VHS' and DVD's? That's informing you that the owner has a criminal recourse against you under US law. Just because copyright owners have chosen not to press criminal charges does not mean that it's neither possible nor acceptable. You knew about it 20 years ago when VHS hit the mainstream...this shouldn't be a surprise.
The police are not corporate henchmen any more than they would be your henchmen if you filed criminal charges against a burglar who broke into your house (you can file civil charges too).
I'm all for F/OSS in the workplace. However, if you can't afford to roll your own core business applications (as well as the ability to support and maintain them), you don't have much choice other than buying the shrinkwrapped stuff. Want to use ADP's PC Payroll? You're stuck with the Windows platform (desktop and backend). If you want Linux desktops and Windows desktops, you either have to hire or train staff to support both. Much of this doesn't make financial sense. Furthermore, if you've got your hads full with other stuff, I really don't recommend writing any custom software. People generally don't budget in the time (and/or money) involved with developing custom applications.
Not that there's anything wrong with F/OSS...but the fact is that it isn't always practical for every business yet. If/when you do start moving to F/OSS, it will help you tremendously to choose the most mainstream products available. When you scale your IT group up, it's helpful to use software that people tend to know...much easier to hire and train new employees.
Was it? Really? Or was it to prevent those ideas from becoming free, as they should have been?
This is Steamboat Willie/Mickey Mouse that we're discussing, right? Well, I'm not all that upset for that not being in the public domain...but your point is taken. I guess it's not a perfect world. Like I said, I'm with you that the extensions are bullshit...but then again, the spirit of copyright law really has changed.
You go on and on about how the government is the problem not the free market. Notice his references to censorship, "Palladium authenication becomes law", and a bit tax?
Yah, I didn't miss that. It was a solid point. I didn't say that our system is not without problems...but I honestly felt like he was just whining and not trying to understand how things work.
If those pirated copies are full scans that contain the ads, then what's the difference between taping them off the air (legal) versus off the internet (not legal)?
I wouldn't see an ethical problem with leaving the ads in...but it rarely ever happens, and the only times I've seen it were in cases where the person who encoded the original show were too lazy (or inept) to cut the ads out. However, there's a big difference between recording a broadcast for personal use and redistributing someone else's content. After all, regardless of whether or not hte ads were included, the network still owns distribution rights to that show. They paid a handsome sum for it, and they feel that they should retain those rights. I may not respect it in my downloading, but I understand where they're coming from. Their actions may not be reasonable, but they do come from what seems like pretty reasonable logic.
As far as the Nielson ratings being a bunch of BS -- I'll give that to you...but accurate data isn't necessarily important to the marketplace. It's all about perceived value. When people thought that banner ads were effective, they were gold. When people stopped believing in them, they weren't worth crap, and a new advertising model had to be developed for ad-revenue based Internet. Who cares if the Nielson ratings actually have statistical significance. Advertisers generally believe it, and ad rates are based on them. When they cease to believe it, I'm sure that something else will take its place.
"Copyright Infringement" is an artifical construct.
Oh please, ownership itself is an artificial construct. If you're going to pass copyright off as bullshit, then you need to pass ownership of physical goods off as an artificial construct. Our entire system of laws is based around artificial constructs. For example, "rights" are an artificial construct.
That being said, I probably agree that the extension of copyrights is bullshit, and are certainly not within the spirit of the original law -- but you are not taking into account that the spirit of a law can change as we learn how it's being applied, understood, and used. It can also change as circumstances around it change (such as types of media, and technology). This has likely happened with every law...ever.
Copyright law benefits the copyright owners. That's abundantly clear. However, in the United States, commerce benefits us all. There is definitely room for both a copyright/copyleft model in the marketplace, as well as the public domain. Logicly, the point of extending copyrights was to keep those works in the marketplace -- it creates jobs and tax revenues and allows for government funded infrastructure.
Are the police becoming the henchmen for the corporations? Man, that would scare the shit out of me.
I wouldn't go that far. The police are here to enforce the law. Now I fully understand that IP theft is not the same as property theft...but violating IP rights is a type of theft, and that's a criminal offense (at least in the US). If you stole from me (IP or physical), I would likely contact the police and file criminal charges. The police would arrest you, and in the US, the district attorney would decide on whether or not to prosecute. That's the way it works here (and has worked here for some time). I don't know much about foreign laws, but I'm not so sure that pointing to illegal things should be considered illegal itself. I'm unaware of the details, but it will work itself out in court. The moral here is that if you don't want to be inconvenienced by the criminal justice system...well, not breaking the law is obvious, but to take it a step further, stay away from fringe activity on a massive scale. Eventually, someone was gonna challenge those guys -- in this case, they practically had a big red target painted on their backs for the IP owners to take pot shots at. Is any of this right on any side? Probably not -- but the lesson is clear, if you don't want to be dragged into it, stay away.
The police are there to do a job...I'd like to think that they'd do the same job for you or I regardless of whether or not we were incorporated to do business. I understand that this is a weak analogy, but take it for what it is -- if someone broke into your house, you can take them to civil court, but it's also your option to press criminal charges.
Maybe the cops should be, oh I dunno... stopping dangerous people, who carry out assault, rape, murder, abductions... nah, that's too easy right?
I don't think that their homicide department shut down for a day so they could arrest some folks for IP violations. I also don't think that they pulled their beat cops off of the street for this. Hell, they didn't even stop issuing speeding tickets that day.
The "Last frontier" is just about over. This Wild West as you put it is now becoming the new medium for corporations. Again.
You're sounding a little whiney here. New markets were created out of the Internet, and the perceptions of its capabilities...and in the United States, where the Internet was largely developed, we're a free-market economy. Did you expect that new businesses wouldn't grow out of this? Did you expect that existing businesses wouldn't try to latch onto this? What would you prefer? Did you expect that the government would develop this? Let me let you in on a little secret. Governments are generally worse than corporations. Don't forget that a vast majority of the Internet backbones in the US were financed and developed with private funds...and owned by corporations. The high speed internet that you get at your house was also developed, rolled out, and owned by corporations. They likely would not have developed without corporations (ie: we need to roll out high speed internet but can't afford to roll out new infrastructure to everyone's house...what lines do we own and how can we cheaply leverage them to provide high speed connectivity?)
Personally, I like being able to order movies from Netflix and crap from Amazon. I also like being to track my packages at FedEx. I have no problems with businesses owning this stuff.
I can't agree with the grandparent who called this the "last" frontier either -- to call this the last frontier would imply that we've seen everything that there is to see and there's nothing new on the horizon for humans. I also don't think that it's over. We have a long way to go to develop this thing into whatever we want it to be.
At the risk of sounding like Howard Dean, you have the power here. If you understand the technology, make it work for you. If you have a good idea, put it to work -- there's plenty to do. If you think that all of the ideas are gone, and that it's the evil corporations fault...well, it's not their fault -- it's just your lack of imagination.
Fox should be fucking thrilled that I am watching their shows and would go so far as to download the episodes to keep current.
Interesting logic...but it I'm not sure that I agree that it works quite like that. Fox doesn't make shows just so you'll like them and keep current with them. Rupert Murdoch could give two shits about whether Garcia who posts on/. keeps current with their content. They make shows so you will watch the ads that they air...this way, they make money. This is the basis of their revenue stream. When you download their shows, they don't get that revenue. Now, they can accept this and move on to other forms of revenue, such as ads inline with their shows and further product placement -- but I'd rather not see that.
Look, I'm not anti-download, and I'm not anti-PVR...but it's important that we not bullshit ourselves about this stuff. Pre-empting a show is their perogative. It's their content and they can legally do whatever they want with it. They can give it to everyone in Illinois, and withhold it from everyone elsewhere for no particular reason...and you have absolutely no right to do anything about it other than go to Illinois and watch there or wait until the DVD comes out. Downloaded shows are somewhat problematic, since they typically have all of the ads stripped from them, and again, the ads are the only source of revenue for the show.
If you're going to pirate their content...fine -- recgonize it and move on. But all I'm saying is that it doesn't do your intellect any justice by acting like you're doing Fox a favor when you download pirated copies of their content.
It's not the burning that is the problem (outside of NO2 and SO2 creation); it's the buring of fossil fuels that add CO2 that is the problem.
I'm no scientician, but if you burn organic fuels, they release CO2 the same way fossil fuels do...the same way that burning wood or anything else releases CO2. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding...are you suggesting that the crops grown for fuel will pull in enough atmospheric carbon to offset the cost of burning it? I'm not sure that I'm inclined to believe that based solely on antecdotal evidence. Can you post any links?
Also, remember that fossil fuels are part of the carbon cycle...all on a moderate geological delay of course, but it is all part of the bigger picture.
Anyway, I'm pretty curious about where you're coming from on this.
At least show us the path and let us work around the problem, if it's not practical to develop a flawless pathfinding AI.
FWIW, there is a way to do this in C&C Generals (and Zero Hour). I believe that if you alt-click, it will show the path, and set waypoints for your units.
however do keep in mind that some hardware is built around the idea that it will work between a maxium and minium temperature. At lower temperatures electrical wires have less resistance and it could do some damage (theoretically of course) to some electronic components.
This guy is spot on.
Humidity is always a concern. Flooding is also a concern. What kind of slab is the garage built on? Also, check the operating specifications for your hardware. It should be in the manual or on the website. Your hard drive(s) has moving parts, so it will have minimum and maximum ambient operating temperatures. Definitely make sure you're within those parameters.
Incarceration would likely drop(who knows, maybe drug use leads to violent crime irrespective of current laws...) but the activities that are currently considered crimes would likely increase...It is less clear how decriminalization will effect the rates of crimes related to laws that are not changed.
I can't tell whether your post is pragmatic, or succumbing to FUD. Our current prohibition laws are totally unscientific as it stands (and they were in the '30s when it all began). Our justification for them are either based on falsehoods, or based purely moral principles without any scientific basis (leading back to the false justifications). Furthermore, current data suggests that legalization and/or decriminalization would show a decrease in said drug use.
I am not, however recommending that we replace a senseless policy with another senseless policy. Of course study is warranted...but the opponents of changing our policy repeatedly refuse to accept any pragmatic data. In fact, they fabricate their own "facts" in order to contradict to this data (no idea what that site's all about...just the first link from a Google search).
Part of the problem is that the people in the US government (ONDCP, DEA, and those under the curtain of DH&HS) will do anything to keep their budgets and jobs. This includes fabricating data which the Congress relies on and results in poor lawmaking. Ultimately, this needlessly puts otherwise productive members of society in jail. I'd like to target both the hypocrisy and the jerks who purvey it in our reform of drug law.
What if Coke decides they want the linkage and pays BigPond an "undisclosed amount" for 75% of searches for "soft drink" to end up pointing to cocacola.com?
What if Verisign decided that people really wanted all typo domains to go to their special search page...oh wait, they already did -- it was called Sitefinder. How is that any different from BigPond's redirection? Verisign claims that the majority of theis customers like Sitefinder, just like BigPond's customers. Hmm....
The entry costs have risen far too high and the established businesses are so well-grounded that no new entrant has any hope of competing - or at least, they might have a slender hope, but nobody's going to invest the required amount on the basis of a slender hope.
Translation: We're too lazy to work hard and start our own businesses. We're too lazy to try and raise the capital necessary. We're entitled to something more and we don't want to work hard for it...or it could be: I worked for some small startups who failed, and tried to start one that failed, therefore nobody can do it.
People start small businesses every day. Most of them fail. Some of them prosper. It's always worked this way. Sure, if you want to start a tier 1 ISP, you're going to need capital that's beyond the reach of most mere mortals' bank accounts. Does that mean that the system is hosed? No.
I also think that believing that government officials are more accountable than "corrupt" businesses is just insane. Federal personnel data shows that just 434 civilian federal workers were fired for poor performance in 2001. This is 434 out of how many? Hundreds of thousands? That's a piss-poor record. What are these federal workers accountable for? Certainly not the bottom line...and while the bottom line may not be the fairest metric, it's a start.
You offer absolutely no evidence that capitalism is less sustainable than socialism. We've got a standard of living in the USA that tends to show that your antecdotal evidence is just wrong. Sure, there is income disparity -- but that's part of the point of capitalism. There's nothing wrong with the fact that some people (for example, Bill Gates) have unimaginable amounts of money. That's his perogative...and if you want that, fine -- go after it. Good luck. If you don't, then don't.
No system is perfectly fair, and this one is certainly no exception. I'll never deny that. However, I think that you'll have to work a little harder to prove that it hasn't worked. You can try and point to things like the strong Euro and the weakening dollar, but you're going to have to come up with more than just short term trends...can't draw much from those. Thus far, you've come up with antecdotal evidence, and weak evidence at that. There are some good arguments for socialism (if there weren't, it wouldn't exist) -- you're just not hitting on them.
As long as the consumers keep buying products from them and workers keep applying for their jobs, they have absolutely no incentives to quit their practice. Any geek gamers out there willing to boycott EA's products until they change their ways?
About time someone had a free market opinion here. Why can't employers offer a crappy compensation package? Employees don't have to take it. The fact is that employees typically choose their industry. They choose the company that they work for. Most coders are compensated very generously.
Now, if labor laws are really being broken -- fine. However, 9 times out of 10, I am against regulation. Regulation essentially says that the market is not smart enough to sort itself out. (We are the market, remember -- we are smart enough to work this one out, right?) Nobody forces EA's products down out throats.
Now, I'm not saying that I support EA's work practices -- but I'm also not applying for a job there. Let's all take some responsibility for ourselves. If you're getting a shitty deal, find another job. Sure, it's not easy and probably less than fair -- but stop blaming everyone else for your choices in life. Nobody ever said that life was fair. If you're that pissed, work somewhere else and stop buying their games. Write EA letters explaining why you won't buy their games. Nothing makes a company move like a threat to their profit margin.
I guess that this can appear harsh and heartless to someone who is pro-regulation. But let's look at the facts. These people have a contract that says that they're OT-exempt. They took on the job knowing this, and worked the hours knowing this. Now, after they've worked all of those extra hours, they're coming back and screaming for more money like they were entitled to it in the first place. If they were entitled to it in the first place, they should have asked before working all of those hours. I wouldn't be so adamant about this unless it reminded me of something else that bugs me even more...like registering a patent, waiting for someone to put the hard work in by developing and marketing your idea until it's suffessful -- then suing for royalties. See the problem here?
Bush may have neoconservatives on his staff, but he is not a neoconservative. He's a social conservative who spends like a Democrat (a Democrat in Republican's clothing?).
Bush was never a neoconservative. It's my belief that after September 11th, he pulled a Kennedy and said (something along the lines of) no idea should be left off the table, and the worst thing that we can do here is nothing. (I suppose that he also took a page from Jimmy Carter's failure in the hostage crisis on the dosomethingism ideal). I can't say that I agree with his decision to listen to the neoconservatives, but I seriously do not believe that he's a neoconservative. Neocons don't care much about a conservative social policy like he does. Neocon's are like libertarians who don't care about domestic policy (well, as long as the policy is good for business and the economy) and also believe in preemptive wars, as opposed to Nixon's foreign policy which revolved around diplomacy.
When I played Unreal Tournament regularly, ngWorldStats were incredibly cool. It used a modified chess ranking system. A highly ranked player kills a low-ranked player and little to no points are gained. Flip it around and a low-ranked player kills a high-ranked player, and that player receives points galore.
The local stats aren't important -- I liked the online stats, comparing me to other players. I liked knowing that I had a high efficency (high kill to loss ratio). I was totally tickled when I found myself inside the top 100 players for the month.
As far as privacy goes, I didn't care how many times I shot 1337h4x0rg4m3r, I didn't care if someone searched my nick and found that I was on an umpteen game losing streak. My name wasn't attached to the account -- just some funky nick. If I cared that much about privacy, I wouldn't have participated (it was optional on ~95% of the servers).
If Epic had got their crap together and made online stats work on UT2004 at release time, I'd probably still be playing. I love to know how I match up against other players...that's part of the fun. Am I dominating servers just because the people on those servers happen to suck, or can I hang with the players who are really good? A good online stats app can usually let a player know if they're as good as they think.
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And unauthorized redistribution is a felony. It always was. We always knew it, we've been watching VHS tapes for decades, and I know that I read that warning at least once. I really hope that you're not just figuring out about it now. Just because you don't believe it's right doesn't mean that it's not the law. It's a felony. It doesn't make anyone anyone's henchman. It means that the police are doing their jobs.
So what? How is that relevant to this discussion? He was making a point that Nielson ratings are irrelevant for ad revenue purposes and using it to justify pirating copyrighted content. That has absolutely nothing to do with what you just said.
I'm not so sure about that. Copyright law definitely says you're wrong. You're just being idealitic...which is entirely impractical here. Try explaining this to any sane judge -- they'd likely call you something along the lines of a very clever dumbass (as they throw the book at you...you're not outsmarting anyone there, and they tend to dislike people who try).
Our laws do not begin and end with the constitution. The federal government makes laws every day that don't touch the constitution (it's become necessary for reasons of interstate commerce and practicality, since it takes quite some time to pass a constitutional amendment...and there is noteworthy support in the Constitution [and widely discussed in the Federalist Papers] for the federal government making laws to support, and regulate interstate trade...it's been pretty abused, IMO...but copyright law is not one of those abuses.). Our society has decided to treat copyrights as commodities (and there is quite a bit of case law to support this), and laws have been formed around this, I'd say that makes it legit. People have bought and sold rights for years. It's not the first company to buy a copy who gets the rights. It's the first company who buys the rights who gets the rights. There's a huge difference. Come on...you know better than that.
Yes...for a civil case, you can file a complaint. But if someone is violating your IP, there is a criminal recourse. You know the dumb FBI warning at the beginning of VHS' and DVD's? That's informing you that the owner has a criminal recourse against you under US law. Just because copyright owners have chosen not to press criminal charges does not mean that it's neither possible nor acceptable. You knew about it 20 years ago when VHS hit the mainstream...this shouldn't be a surprise.
The police are not corporate henchmen any more than they would be your henchmen if you filed criminal charges against a burglar who broke into your house (you can file civil charges too).
I'm all for F/OSS in the workplace. However, if you can't afford to roll your own core business applications (as well as the ability to support and maintain them), you don't have much choice other than buying the shrinkwrapped stuff. Want to use ADP's PC Payroll? You're stuck with the Windows platform (desktop and backend). If you want Linux desktops and Windows desktops, you either have to hire or train staff to support both. Much of this doesn't make financial sense. Furthermore, if you've got your hads full with other stuff, I really don't recommend writing any custom software. People generally don't budget in the time (and/or money) involved with developing custom applications.
Not that there's anything wrong with F/OSS...but the fact is that it isn't always practical for every business yet. If/when you do start moving to F/OSS, it will help you tremendously to choose the most mainstream products available. When you scale your IT group up, it's helpful to use software that people tend to know...much easier to hire and train new employees.
This is Steamboat Willie/Mickey Mouse that we're discussing, right? Well, I'm not all that upset for that not being in the public domain...but your point is taken. I guess it's not a perfect world. Like I said, I'm with you that the extensions are bullshit...but then again, the spirit of copyright law really has changed.
Yah, I didn't miss that. It was a solid point. I didn't say that our system is not without problems...but I honestly felt like he was just whining and not trying to understand how things work.
I wouldn't see an ethical problem with leaving the ads in...but it rarely ever happens, and the only times I've seen it were in cases where the person who encoded the original show were too lazy (or inept) to cut the ads out. However, there's a big difference between recording a broadcast for personal use and redistributing someone else's content. After all, regardless of whether or not hte ads were included, the network still owns distribution rights to that show. They paid a handsome sum for it, and they feel that they should retain those rights. I may not respect it in my downloading, but I understand where they're coming from. Their actions may not be reasonable, but they do come from what seems like pretty reasonable logic.
As far as the Nielson ratings being a bunch of BS -- I'll give that to you...but accurate data isn't necessarily important to the marketplace. It's all about perceived value. When people thought that banner ads were effective, they were gold. When people stopped believing in them, they weren't worth crap, and a new advertising model had to be developed for ad-revenue based Internet. Who cares if the Nielson ratings actually have statistical significance. Advertisers generally believe it, and ad rates are based on them. When they cease to believe it, I'm sure that something else will take its place.
Oh please, ownership itself is an artificial construct. If you're going to pass copyright off as bullshit, then you need to pass ownership of physical goods off as an artificial construct. Our entire system of laws is based around artificial constructs. For example, "rights" are an artificial construct.
That being said, I probably agree that the extension of copyrights is bullshit, and are certainly not within the spirit of the original law -- but you are not taking into account that the spirit of a law can change as we learn how it's being applied, understood, and used. It can also change as circumstances around it change (such as types of media, and technology). This has likely happened with every law...ever.
Copyright law benefits the copyright owners. That's abundantly clear. However, in the United States, commerce benefits us all. There is definitely room for both a copyright/copyleft model in the marketplace, as well as the public domain. Logicly, the point of extending copyrights was to keep those works in the marketplace -- it creates jobs and tax revenues and allows for government funded infrastructure.
I wouldn't go that far. The police are here to enforce the law. Now I fully understand that IP theft is not the same as property theft...but violating IP rights is a type of theft, and that's a criminal offense (at least in the US). If you stole from me (IP or physical), I would likely contact the police and file criminal charges. The police would arrest you, and in the US, the district attorney would decide on whether or not to prosecute. That's the way it works here (and has worked here for some time). I don't know much about foreign laws, but I'm not so sure that pointing to illegal things should be considered illegal itself. I'm unaware of the details, but it will work itself out in court. The moral here is that if you don't want to be inconvenienced by the criminal justice system...well, not breaking the law is obvious, but to take it a step further, stay away from fringe activity on a massive scale. Eventually, someone was gonna challenge those guys -- in this case, they practically had a big red target painted on their backs for the IP owners to take pot shots at. Is any of this right on any side? Probably not -- but the lesson is clear, if you don't want to be dragged into it, stay away.
The police are there to do a job...I'd like to think that they'd do the same job for you or I regardless of whether or not we were incorporated to do business. I understand that this is a weak analogy, but take it for what it is -- if someone broke into your house, you can take them to civil court, but it's also your option to press criminal charges.
I don't think that their homicide department shut down for a day so they could arrest some folks for IP violations. I also don't think that they pulled their beat cops off of the street for this. Hell, they didn't even stop issuing speeding tickets that day.
You're sounding a little whiney here. New markets were created out of the Internet, and the perceptions of its capabilities...and in the United States, where the Internet was largely developed, we're a free-market economy. Did you expect that new businesses wouldn't grow out of this? Did you expect that existing businesses wouldn't try to latch onto this? What would you prefer? Did you expect that the government would develop this? Let me let you in on a little secret. Governments are generally worse than corporations. Don't forget that a vast majority of the Internet backbones in the US were financed and developed with private funds...and owned by corporations. The high speed internet that you get at your house was also developed, rolled out, and owned by corporations. They likely would not have developed without corporations (ie: we need to roll out high speed internet but can't afford to roll out new infrastructure to everyone's house...what lines do we own and how can we cheaply leverage them to provide high speed connectivity?)
Personally, I like being able to order movies from Netflix and crap from Amazon. I also like being to track my packages at FedEx. I have no problems with businesses owning this stuff.
I can't agree with the grandparent who called this the "last" frontier either -- to call this the last frontier would imply that we've seen everything that there is to see and there's nothing new on the horizon for humans. I also don't think that it's over. We have a long way to go to develop this thing into whatever we want it to be.
At the risk of sounding like Howard Dean, you have the power here. If you understand the technology, make it work for you. If you have a good idea, put it to work -- there's plenty to do. If you think that all of the ideas are gone, and that it's the evil corporations fault...well, it's not their fault -- it's just your lack of imagination.
Interesting logic...but it I'm not sure that I agree that it works quite like that. Fox doesn't make shows just so you'll like them and keep current with them. Rupert Murdoch could give two shits about whether Garcia who posts on /. keeps current with their content. They make shows so you will watch the ads that they air...this way, they make money. This is the basis of their revenue stream. When you download their shows, they don't get that revenue. Now, they can accept this and move on to other forms of revenue, such as ads inline with their shows and further product placement -- but I'd rather not see that.
Look, I'm not anti-download, and I'm not anti-PVR...but it's important that we not bullshit ourselves about this stuff. Pre-empting a show is their perogative. It's their content and they can legally do whatever they want with it. They can give it to everyone in Illinois, and withhold it from everyone elsewhere for no particular reason...and you have absolutely no right to do anything about it other than go to Illinois and watch there or wait until the DVD comes out. Downloaded shows are somewhat problematic, since they typically have all of the ads stripped from them, and again, the ads are the only source of revenue for the show.
If you're going to pirate their content...fine -- recgonize it and move on. But all I'm saying is that it doesn't do your intellect any justice by acting like you're doing Fox a favor when you download pirated copies of their content.
I was just gonna say...the rest of us'll have to turn our secondary MX off as well. The author may be hosting his email off of his cable modem.
I'm no scientician, but if you burn organic fuels, they release CO2 the same way fossil fuels do...the same way that burning wood or anything else releases CO2. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding...are you suggesting that the crops grown for fuel will pull in enough atmospheric carbon to offset the cost of burning it? I'm not sure that I'm inclined to believe that based solely on antecdotal evidence. Can you post any links?
Also, remember that fossil fuels are part of the carbon cycle...all on a moderate geological delay of course, but it is all part of the bigger picture.
Anyway, I'm pretty curious about where you're coming from on this.
Just a straight line...but you can be fairly certain about the path if you drop in enough waypoints.
FWIW, there is a way to do this in C&C Generals (and Zero Hour). I believe that if you alt-click, it will show the path, and set waypoints for your units .
This guy is spot on.
Humidity is always a concern. Flooding is also a concern. What kind of slab is the garage built on? Also, check the operating specifications for your hardware. It should be in the manual or on the website. Your hard drive(s) has moving parts, so it will have minimum and maximum ambient operating temperatures. Definitely make sure you're within those parameters.
So if your work machine has to run windows, set up something free (Linux, BSD, whatever) to run on VMware on top of Windows. It's a win-win!
;P
I can't tell whether your post is pragmatic, or succumbing to FUD. Our current prohibition laws are totally unscientific as it stands (and they were in the '30s when it all began). Our justification for them are either based on falsehoods, or based purely moral principles without any scientific basis (leading back to the false justifications). Furthermore, current data suggests that legalization and/or decriminalization would show a decrease in said drug use.
I am not, however recommending that we replace a senseless policy with another senseless policy. Of course study is warranted...but the opponents of changing our policy repeatedly refuse to accept any pragmatic data. In fact, they fabricate their own "facts" in order to contradict to this data (no idea what that site's all about...just the first link from a Google search).
Part of the problem is that the people in the US government (ONDCP, DEA, and those under the curtain of DH&HS) will do anything to keep their budgets and jobs. This includes fabricating data which the Congress relies on and results in poor lawmaking. Ultimately, this needlessly puts otherwise productive members of society in jail. I'd like to target both the hypocrisy and the jerks who purvey it in our reform of drug law.
What if Verisign decided that people really wanted all typo domains to go to their special search page...oh wait, they already did -- it was called Sitefinder. How is that any different from BigPond's redirection? Verisign claims that the majority of theis customers like Sitefinder, just like BigPond's customers. Hmm....
Translation: We're too lazy to work hard and start our own businesses. We're too lazy to try and raise the capital necessary. We're entitled to something more and we don't want to work hard for it...or it could be: I worked for some small startups who failed, and tried to start one that failed, therefore nobody can do it.
People start small businesses every day. Most of them fail. Some of them prosper. It's always worked this way. Sure, if you want to start a tier 1 ISP, you're going to need capital that's beyond the reach of most mere mortals' bank accounts. Does that mean that the system is hosed? No.
I also think that believing that government officials are more accountable than "corrupt" businesses is just insane. Federal personnel data shows that just 434 civilian federal workers were fired for poor performance in 2001. This is 434 out of how many? Hundreds of thousands? That's a piss-poor record. What are these federal workers accountable for? Certainly not the bottom line...and while the bottom line may not be the fairest metric, it's a start.
You offer absolutely no evidence that capitalism is less sustainable than socialism. We've got a standard of living in the USA that tends to show that your antecdotal evidence is just wrong. Sure, there is income disparity -- but that's part of the point of capitalism. There's nothing wrong with the fact that some people (for example, Bill Gates) have unimaginable amounts of money. That's his perogative...and if you want that, fine -- go after it. Good luck. If you don't, then don't.
No system is perfectly fair, and this one is certainly no exception. I'll never deny that. However, I think that you'll have to work a little harder to prove that it hasn't worked. You can try and point to things like the strong Euro and the weakening dollar, but you're going to have to come up with more than just short term trends...can't draw much from those. Thus far, you've come up with antecdotal evidence, and weak evidence at that. There are some good arguments for socialism (if there weren't, it wouldn't exist) -- you're just not hitting on them.
About time someone had a free market opinion here. Why can't employers offer a crappy compensation package? Employees don't have to take it. The fact is that employees typically choose their industry. They choose the company that they work for. Most coders are compensated very generously.
Now, if labor laws are really being broken -- fine. However, 9 times out of 10, I am against regulation. Regulation essentially says that the market is not smart enough to sort itself out. (We are the market, remember -- we are smart enough to work this one out, right?) Nobody forces EA's products down out throats.
Now, I'm not saying that I support EA's work practices -- but I'm also not applying for a job there. Let's all take some responsibility for ourselves. If you're getting a shitty deal, find another job. Sure, it's not easy and probably less than fair -- but stop blaming everyone else for your choices in life. Nobody ever said that life was fair. If you're that pissed, work somewhere else and stop buying their games. Write EA letters explaining why you won't buy their games. Nothing makes a company move like a threat to their profit margin.
I guess that this can appear harsh and heartless to someone who is pro-regulation. But let's look at the facts. These people have a contract that says that they're OT-exempt. They took on the job knowing this, and worked the hours knowing this. Now, after they've worked all of those extra hours, they're coming back and screaming for more money like they were entitled to it in the first place. If they were entitled to it in the first place, they should have asked before working all of those hours. I wouldn't be so adamant about this unless it reminded me of something else that bugs me even more...like registering a patent, waiting for someone to put the hard work in by developing and marketing your idea until it's suffessful -- then suing for royalties. See the problem here?
Bush may have neoconservatives on his staff, but he is not a neoconservative. He's a social conservative who spends like a Democrat (a Democrat in Republican's clothing?).
Bush was never a neoconservative. It's my belief that after September 11th, he pulled a Kennedy and said (something along the lines of) no idea should be left off the table, and the worst thing that we can do here is nothing. (I suppose that he also took a page from Jimmy Carter's failure in the hostage crisis on the dosomethingism ideal). I can't say that I agree with his decision to listen to the neoconservatives, but I seriously do not believe that he's a neoconservative. Neocons don't care much about a conservative social policy like he does. Neocon's are like libertarians who don't care about domestic policy (well, as long as the policy is good for business and the economy) and also believe in preemptive wars, as opposed to Nixon's foreign policy which revolved around diplomacy.
When I played Unreal Tournament regularly, ngWorldStats were incredibly cool. It used a modified chess ranking system. A highly ranked player kills a low-ranked player and little to no points are gained. Flip it around and a low-ranked player kills a high-ranked player, and that player receives points galore.
The local stats aren't important -- I liked the online stats, comparing me to other players. I liked knowing that I had a high efficency (high kill to loss ratio). I was totally tickled when I found myself inside the top 100 players for the month.
As far as privacy goes, I didn't care how many times I shot 1337h4x0rg4m3r, I didn't care if someone searched my nick and found that I was on an umpteen game losing streak. My name wasn't attached to the account -- just some funky nick. If I cared that much about privacy, I wouldn't have participated (it was optional on ~95% of the servers).
If Epic had got their crap together and made online stats work on UT2004 at release time, I'd probably still be playing. I love to know how I match up against other players...that's part of the fun. Am I dominating servers just because the people on those servers happen to suck, or can I hang with the players who are really good? A good online stats app can usually let a player know if they're as good as they think.
As opposed to Bush's sham attempt to reinvent the Regan era. Either way, America (and presumably the world at-large) would have lost.