When governments enter the private sector they behave very similarly to monopolies, because they aren't playing with their own money.
WTF are you talking about? The only way a government can behave like a monopoly is by legislating one. Otherwise, anyone can step in and provide competing service.
Now, the government does tend to behave like a business with deep pockets, because, often times, that's exactly what they have. But throwing around the word 'monopoly' in this case simply dilutes the term.
You, as a human being, are prone to believe in fairies, UFOs, and all manner of other irrational things, too. That doesn't make them true. You have a brain. Use it.
What you suggest would require real-time image analysis of all IM traffic for content... how does that sound even remotely realistic? It would require *massive* computing resources utilizing algorithms that are probably cutting edge at best, non-existent at worst, all to block content that it's not even clear the PRC government even gives a damn about.
Far more likely (particularly since he was on a mobile) is that the connection dropped out, or a router died somewhere, or the IM server he connects to died, or any number of other possibilities, and it just happened to occur at the time when you sent the image. It's called a coincidence. They happen ever day. Irrational humans, like yourself, tend to attribute them to fate, god, conspiracy theories, and who knows what else, but that doesn't make them any less coincidental or any more meangingful.
Well, first off, of the nations that currently possess nukes, most of them wouldn't attack the US for a variety of reasons, most of them economic (Russia, China, UK, France, India, probably Pakistan). The rest don't have the capability to deliver the payload directly to US soil (Pakistan (I think) and NK).
This leaves two options: concealed or otherwise disguised weapons (eg, the oft-cited cargo-container-bomb), or "rogue states". And tell me, how, exactly, does the US building more nukes protect it from either of these situations?
Feel free to mod me down, I was reacting to the use of the word "antibiotic" (teach me to trust the frickin' article summary). Overuse of anti-virals could certainly contribute to an increased population of anti-viral resistant strains, which is definitely a concern when looking at the potential for pandemics.
Did it occur to you that there simply may not be as many Chinese-language websites (which are ranked higher on google.cn) which contain those particular photos, for whatever reason?
Here's a fun concept for you: appeal to false authority. Because that's the fallacy you're committing there.
And the fallacy you've committed is decrying a theory without even reading about it, let alone understanding it. Tell me, which is worse?
Anything else is just taking a guess. So exactly what there says that you should automatically stop thinking for yourself and take his unproven ideas for absolute truth?
I don't recall saying that. My point is that, with absolutely no basis in actual fact, you've decided to disregard what is, on the surface, a reasonably valid theory (to me, anyway), based on your personal "feelings". Meanwhile, those far more educated than you in the subject matter consider it a valid area of research. So, what makes you believe that you're qualified to disregard their theories out of hand? Other than, of course, sheer arrogance, which you apparently possess in spades.
I'll go with how the brain actually seems to work.
And now you claim to know how the brain works. Are you really *that* arrogant? Yikes...
BTW, I might point out that people like you used to discount quantum theory. "The world around me doesn't work that way, so it can't possibly be true!" they would say. Guess who was right?
What you're talking about, here, is a cuetone, and does not show up at the user end. As you mention, they are used by the operator to insert local ads where the network has allocated space. Unfortunately, even if the tones made it to the house, since they are, AFAIK, only used for local avails, they'd only help you skip those low budget local commercials... which, now that I think about it, would be pretty sweet...
On the backend MythTV server you're running in your basement, which contains all the storage and video capture cards, and is connected to the frontends over cat5e, or maybe 802.11a/g, depending on the environment and usage patterns.
Honestly, anyone obssessed with noise would be an idiot to build a combined frontend/backend system.
Which really illustrates a point, here... yes, the advertisers could probably come up with a way to work around these various technologies, but they'd probably generate significant consumer backlash as a result. Further, it would require the whole industry to adopt these approaches... otherwise, people will just change the channel.
which detects and overwrites network and affiliate commercials with their own (usually very cheaply done) local commercials.
Umm, dude, that isn't anything new. Local avails have existed on cable television for a long time. Most major cable operators offer local avail insertion to companies, and insert those ads in slots marked by the network for local insertion. If they did anything else, they'd seriously piss off the networks, likely resulting in losing the rights to rebroadcast the content.
I'm surprised the major broadcast networks haven't tried displaying commercials at the bottom and/or top of the screen for the duration of the entire program - be difficult to block that using a DVR; Myth might be able to do block them with some fancy programming though.
a) It would piss people off. Ads are bad enough already without having distracting banners on-screen. b) It would require fancy programming at all. Just crop the video. Voila, done.
Heck, you could probably automagically detect where the ad banner is by doing image analysis to determine sudden changes in image content, though I suspect that wouldn't be necessary (since such a thing would likely be a fixed size in a fixed location on-screen).
Basically, it puts timestamps in the database for the start and end of a commercial. You can then set myth to automatically skip them during playback, or, as I do, play them, and then I use the remote to skip the commercial.
And, of course, you can optionally edit the resulting cutlist, and then use it during the transcoding phase when producing an archival copy (for, say, burning to DVD).
I can think of lots of stuff which would realistically count towards intelligence, but "compress knowledge" is the kind of thing that just sounds unbelievably stupid.
Ooooh! Well, if you say it's stupid, then it must be true! I mean, I'm sure you hold a PhD in information theory and artificial intelligence, and as such, are in a perfect position to criticize this work, right? I'd hate to think you were attacking the work of someone far more educated than you in this subject matter out of sheer ignorance and stupidity.
Option 2 is also more economically sound. These environmental costs are referred to as negative externalities. A tax helps by placing the burden of these externalities back on the originator (in this case, the polluter), and allows the market to operate in a more honest and efficient way, because the cost of pollution is more accurately reflected in the cost of the end product.
Well, speaking for myself, I've upgraded my Debian install multiple times (including a move from XFree86 to Xorg, and a migration to udev) with essentially no problems. So I guess I'd have to disagree with your suggestion.
Save off your settings and personal files, wipe and reinstall.
Oh hell no. I'm not wasting days and days recovering my computer when I could just use a decent distribution (in my case, Debian) that properly handles upgrades. Personally, I've gone from Debian stable to testing to unstable with virtually no problems (just some minor font issues during the move to Xorg, but that was about it).
If you are a racist and participate in racist speech, you are just an idiot who is engaging in his right to speak his mind.
If you are a child pornographer and put pictures up on the internet, you are a criminal who is breaking the law.
Actually, in *both* cases, you're breaking the law (or have you never heard of hate speech laws?). The problem is, you've decided which laws you like and which you don't. That's your problem, not Google's.
See child pornography is illegal. The vast majority of people also consider it to be immoral. It is a specific act, however. You can think about child pornography all you want. You can dream about it. You can sing about it. You can write about it.
You can host pictures that you haven't taken!
No... wait... you can't. Because the government decided it's illegal. Even though the act of displaying those pictures is not hurting anyone.
More to the point, they're citizens of the countries they operate in, and are bound by laws accordingly. If you don't like to be censored, bitch to your government for passing hate speech laws.
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When governments enter the private sector they behave very similarly to monopolies, because they aren't playing with their own money.
WTF are you talking about? The only way a government can behave like a monopoly is by legislating one. Otherwise, anyone can step in and provide competing service.
Now, the government does tend to behave like a business with deep pockets, because, often times, that's exactly what they have. But throwing around the word 'monopoly' in this case simply dilutes the term.
You, as a human being, are prone to believe in fairies, UFOs, and all manner of other irrational things, too. That doesn't make them true. You have a brain. Use it.
What you suggest would require real-time image analysis of all IM traffic for content... how does that sound even remotely realistic? It would require *massive* computing resources utilizing algorithms that are probably cutting edge at best, non-existent at worst, all to block content that it's not even clear the PRC government even gives a damn about.
Far more likely (particularly since he was on a mobile) is that the connection dropped out, or a router died somewhere, or the IM server he connects to died, or any number of other possibilities, and it just happened to occur at the time when you sent the image. It's called a coincidence. They happen ever day. Irrational humans, like yourself, tend to attribute them to fate, god, conspiracy theories, and who knows what else, but that doesn't make them any less coincidental or any more meangingful.
And this was modded insightful... *sigh*
Well, first off, of the nations that currently possess nukes, most of them wouldn't attack the US for a variety of reasons, most of them economic (Russia, China, UK, France, India, probably Pakistan). The rest don't have the capability to deliver the payload directly to US soil (Pakistan (I think) and NK).
This leaves two options: concealed or otherwise disguised weapons (eg, the oft-cited cargo-container-bomb), or "rogue states". And tell me, how, exactly, does the US building more nukes protect it from either of these situations?
Yes, but you as a human being have reason to see intelligence in coincidence. That being the ever tricksome human brain.
Feel free to mod me down, I was reacting to the use of the word "antibiotic" (teach me to trust the frickin' article summary). Overuse of anti-virals could certainly contribute to an increased population of anti-viral resistant strains, which is definitely a concern when looking at the potential for pandemics.
Oh for god sake, who asked you to inject facts into what is clearly an article targeted at fear mongering?
I call bullshit. There's no way they could, in real time, pull out your image, flag it as porn, and disconnect him.
Did it occur to you that there simply may not be as many Chinese-language websites (which are ranked higher on google.cn) which contain those particular photos, for whatever reason?
Here's a fun concept for you: appeal to false authority. Because that's the fallacy you're committing there.
And the fallacy you've committed is decrying a theory without even reading about it, let alone understanding it. Tell me, which is worse?
Anything else is just taking a guess. So exactly what there says that you should automatically stop thinking for yourself and take his unproven ideas for absolute truth?
I don't recall saying that. My point is that, with absolutely no basis in actual fact, you've decided to disregard what is, on the surface, a reasonably valid theory (to me, anyway), based on your personal "feelings". Meanwhile, those far more educated than you in the subject matter consider it a valid area of research. So, what makes you believe that you're qualified to disregard their theories out of hand? Other than, of course, sheer arrogance, which you apparently possess in spades.
I'll go with how the brain actually seems to work.
And now you claim to know how the brain works. Are you really *that* arrogant? Yikes...
BTW, I might point out that people like you used to discount quantum theory. "The world around me doesn't work that way, so it can't possibly be true!" they would say. Guess who was right?
What you're talking about, here, is a cuetone, and does not show up at the user end. As you mention, they are used by the operator to insert local ads where the network has allocated space. Unfortunately, even if the tones made it to the house, since they are, AFAIK, only used for local avails, they'd only help you skip those low budget local commercials... which, now that I think about it, would be pretty sweet...
On the backend MythTV server you're running in your basement, which contains all the storage and video capture cards, and is connected to the frontends over cat5e, or maybe 802.11a/g, depending on the environment and usage patterns.
Honestly, anyone obssessed with noise would be an idiot to build a combined frontend/backend system.
Which really illustrates a point, here... yes, the advertisers could probably come up with a way to work around these various technologies, but they'd probably generate significant consumer backlash as a result. Further, it would require the whole industry to adopt these approaches... otherwise, people will just change the channel.
which detects and overwrites network and affiliate commercials with their own (usually very cheaply done) local commercials.
Umm, dude, that isn't anything new. Local avails have existed on cable television for a long time. Most major cable operators offer local avail insertion to companies, and insert those ads in slots marked by the network for local insertion. If they did anything else, they'd seriously piss off the networks, likely resulting in losing the rights to rebroadcast the content.
I'm surprised the major broadcast networks haven't tried displaying commercials at the bottom and/or top of the screen for the duration of the entire program - be difficult to block that using a DVR; Myth might be able to do block them with some fancy programming though.
a) It would piss people off. Ads are bad enough already without having distracting banners on-screen.
b) It would require fancy programming at all. Just crop the video. Voila, done.
Heck, you could probably automagically detect where the ad banner is by doing image analysis to determine sudden changes in image content, though I suspect that wouldn't be necessary (since such a thing would likely be a fixed size in a fixed location on-screen).
Basically, it puts timestamps in the database for the start and end of a commercial. You can then set myth to automatically skip them during playback, or, as I do, play them, and then I use the remote to skip the commercial.
And, of course, you can optionally edit the resulting cutlist, and then use it during the transcoding phase when producing an archival copy (for, say, burning to DVD).
I can think of lots of stuff which would realistically count towards intelligence, but "compress knowledge" is the kind of thing that just sounds unbelievably stupid.
Ooooh! Well, if you say it's stupid, then it must be true! I mean, I'm sure you hold a PhD in information theory and artificial intelligence, and as such, are in a perfect position to criticize this work, right? I'd hate to think you were attacking the work of someone far more educated than you in this subject matter out of sheer ignorance and stupidity.
Option 2 is also more economically sound. These environmental costs are referred to as negative externalities. A tax helps by placing the burden of these externalities back on the originator (in this case, the polluter), and allows the market to operate in a more honest and efficient way, because the cost of pollution is more accurately reflected in the cost of the end product.
Well, speaking for myself, I've upgraded my Debian install multiple times (including a move from XFree86 to Xorg, and a migration to udev) with essentially no problems. So I guess I'd have to disagree with your suggestion.
Save off your settings and personal files, wipe and reinstall.
Oh hell no. I'm not wasting days and days recovering my computer when I could just use a decent distribution (in my case, Debian) that properly handles upgrades. Personally, I've gone from Debian stable to testing to unstable with virtually no problems (just some minor font issues during the move to Xorg, but that was about it).
Wait wait... his arguments are that:
1) IE doesn't support the new mimetype.
2) Browsers generate errors.
Well, 1) is certainly legitimate. I wonder if this is fixed in IE7?
But 2? FFS, how lazy are you? God forbid you should open your HTML in a browser and test it before deploying it in the wild.
You must be from UK/Europe, where you need to check over your shoulders before laughing...
As opposed to the US, where you could simply be sued for millions of dollars?
But please read what I mean, not just the very letters I use to convey my message.
Yeah, but your message doesn't make any damn sense. See, you have this wonderful thing called a 'brain'. You can use it to either:
1. Ignore what you're being "fed".
2. Close your eyes, place your fingers in your ears, and chant "LA LA LA".
This is also known as "personal responsibility". I know, it can be an alien concept, especially if you're an American.
If you are a racist and participate in racist speech, you are just an idiot who is engaging in his right to speak his mind.
If you are a child pornographer and put pictures up on the internet, you are a criminal who is breaking the law.
Actually, in *both* cases, you're breaking the law (or have you never heard of hate speech laws?). The problem is, you've decided which laws you like and which you don't. That's your problem, not Google's.
See child pornography is illegal. The vast majority of people also consider it to be immoral. It is a specific act, however. You can think about child pornography all you want. You can dream about it. You can sing about it. You can write about it.
You can host pictures that you haven't taken!
No... wait... you can't. Because the government decided it's illegal. Even though the act of displaying those pictures is not hurting anyone.
See how they're the same?
More to the point, they're citizens of the countries they operate in, and are bound by laws accordingly. If you don't like to be censored, bitch to your government for passing hate speech laws.