Actually, it is not a government proceeding - at least not any more than if those same representatives went to a restaurant.
By the rules of the House of Representatives the house is in recess. (and the cameras and mics have always been turned off when the house is at recess)
If you can get all of the information out of a book that you needed from a small snippet, you were not going to be buying the book in any case - you would go to the library and photocopy the page (which is, except in rare circumstances, most certainly fair use.)
The only difference is now, you have a much better chance of being able to find out that the snippet of information exists in that book, whereas before you would likely never know that that information even existed in that book.
The courts have not ruled anything of the sort. Disclosure laws have in fact been upheld by the courts numerous times (including the Citizens United decision).
The only reason that "Super PACs" do not have to disclose their donors is because there is no law requiring 501(c)(4) organizations to disclose their donors. Of course, currently neither party really wants that little hole closed, so no bills requiring that have made it anywhere in congress.
Any store that did that would immediately lose my business. I have a job where I spend a lot of time on-call and I am not going to risk missing a call just because some store wants to keep me from checking the prices of their competitors.
And Steam subtracts value as well, because with those CDs and DVDs you have trouble with can be resold if you decide you don't have any use for them anymore. Steam takes away this right even for games you have purchased the CDs for (if it uses Steamworks you have no resale rights).
1. You are at the mercy of Steam - with the EULA they are within their rights remove your access to games you have already purchased, or even start charging you an access fee to continue having access to those games - and your only recourse is you can cancel your account.
2. Steamworks completely removes your rights under the First Sale Doctrine. Once you have started using a Steamworks game you no longer have any rights whatsoever to transfer your license to another user.
It is one thing to sell Steamworks games through Steam, but when they are selling these products at retail, without warning that they are denying the end user a right that they otherwise have with any other retail product... and still want to charge full retail price while selling such an encumbered product.
Sorry, having my patches sent to me automatically (along with advertising for other games I might enjoy) is not worth me giving up my rights as a consumer.
I don't know that we need a better electorate as we need a better election system. With a plurality voting system in general if you are not voting for one of the two major parties you vote is meaningless, so most people will vote against the person they dislike the most rather than actually voting for who they prefer (and it is much easier to get people to hate your opponent than it is to get people to actually like you).
If we had some sort of preferential voting system there would be more incentive for candidates to actually voice opinions to try to get approval rather than simply attacking their opponent. Unfortunately, the parties in power have a vested interest in keeping the voting system the way it is, and most Americans lack the knowledge of game theory needed to understand why the voting method should be changed, much less what it should be changed to.
The disk may cost very little in material cost, but that is only part of the cost of a physical disk - you also have the manufacturer's overhead (it takes more space to manufacture disks than it takes to stream media), the storage and distribution costs to get the disks to the retailer, the retailer's overhead.
Also, it has been reported that it costs Netflix under 10 cents to stream an HD movie. The biggest cost for Netflix to stream a movie to you is the licensing fee they are paying to have the right to stream it to you.
Actually, Coke started the switch to HFCS nearly 5 years before the introduction of new coke - and had completely switched from cane sugar to HFCS over six months before Check the snopes article on the subject
What that article fails to mention is that the "containment building" was a simple thin metal building, as opposed to the 3-6ft steel-reinforced concrete that every civilized country outside of the former soviet bloc uses.
And I see nothing there that supports your claim that it was a "excellent design"
Lets see, no containment (because that would have been expensive - though it would have kept everyone around the plant safe), a slow control rod insertion mechanism - combined with a flawed graphite tip control rod - that means that the reactions actually increase when the control rods are being inserted...
Sorry, that does not qualify as an "excellent design"
The only reason you pay that much for gas is because your government places massive taxes on it.
You pay.684 euros per litre in fuel tax and then add a 19% VAT tax over the entire ammount.
That means that out of the $9.50/gallon about $5.50 of it is taxes. Of course this also means that you don't notice the actual fuel price as much (it is 80-90% of the cost in the US, it is less than 50% of the cost in the netherlands)
That is a really bad idea. Saying that someone should loose a patent if they don't produce the product is a good way for small inventors to get completely screwed out of their ideas.
All it would take is for someone who owns a gateway technology for your idea to refuse to sell or license to you, keeping you from producing your invention, loosing your patent, and then they can sell your product themselves.
For example, I make a device - that I own the patent for - and you discover a way to modify my device to make it 50% more efficient. Under today's laws you can patent that modification, which would keep me from using it without paying for it. Under your idea for reforming patents you would have to produce your modified device to be able to hold onto the patent - but you cannot produce your modified device unless I either license or sell my patented device to you - and I can just simply refuse to sell anything to you until you lose your patent for failure to produce your invention, then I can use your idea free of charge.
Perhaps you should go back and look at the voting records then. It was not passed by "a Republican House and Republican Senate" It was passed by Unanimous Consent - meaning nobody voted against it.
Forget about Republican Senate or Democtatic Senate, that was a complete Bi-Partisan House and Senate who passed it.
Don't try to just push the blame on to the Republicans, the Democrats are just as guilty (And don't forget, it was a Democtatic president who signed it into law)
What a free market does is maximize the performance/price point. A perfect market would not stabalize at no profit, because if there was no profit to be made, then the product would not get made.
In a free market there are two ways to increase your profits. 1: increase your sales (this can be done by advertising, lowering your price, making a better product than your competition, etc...) and 2: lower your costs (be more efficient in making your product).
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They are still working on automated vehicles. Doesn't anyone think about how easy it would be to turn an automated vehicle into a weapon?
Put a bomb in the trunk, use the automated vehicle to get it to the target, and a cell phone to track/detonate the bomb when it gets there...
And any image recognition system, once advanced enough, can be easily adapted to a targeting system.
Even if they don't want weapons, the technology they do continue to work on will sooner or later make it's way into weapons.
The only question is who will have access to them first.
Why not fix it? Because the politicians don't know how to.
I wonder if the FCC wants Amazon to stop selling the Fire TV devices as well - given that they are also capable of running Kodi...
Actually, it is not a government proceeding - at least not any more than if those same representatives went to a restaurant.
By the rules of the House of Representatives the house is in recess. (and the cameras and mics have always been turned off when the house is at recess)
Rich people don't pay taxes either..
And yet, the top 5% of taxpayers pay 57% of the US income taxes. (the top 1% pay 35% of the income taxes)
If you can get all of the information out of a book that you needed from a small snippet, you were not going to be buying the book in any case - you would go to the library and photocopy the page (which is, except in rare circumstances, most certainly fair use.)
The only difference is now, you have a much better chance of being able to find out that the snippet of information exists in that book, whereas before you would likely never know that that information even existed in that book.
I'm sure I'll "feel" much more comfortable having my head bumping against glass instead of bumping against a roof.
With the angle of that roof there is no way that there is enough room in the back seat for me to comfortably sit.
The courts have not ruled anything of the sort. Disclosure laws have in fact been upheld by the courts numerous times (including the Citizens United decision).
The only reason that "Super PACs" do not have to disclose their donors is because there is no law requiring 501(c)(4) organizations to disclose their donors. Of course, currently neither party really wants that little hole closed, so no bills requiring that have made it anywhere in congress.
Any store that did that would immediately lose my business. I have a job where I spend a lot of time on-call and I am not going to risk missing a call just because some store wants to keep me from checking the prices of their competitors.
And yet, that 24" Ultrasharp monitor still has lower dpi than my 7 year old 1600x1200 dell LCD...
No kidding, My dell from about 4 years ago had a 1680x1050 15.4" display, and I paid a bit over $600 for it.
I cannot find anything with an equivalent screen for under $1000 today. (and frighteningly few of them)
And Steam subtracts value as well, because with those CDs and DVDs you have trouble with can be resold if you decide you don't have any use for them anymore. Steam takes away this right even for games you have purchased the CDs for (if it uses Steamworks you have no resale rights).
And Steamworks enabled games won't let you resell the game even if you have the disc.
There are two problems I have with Steamworks.
1. You are at the mercy of Steam - with the EULA they are within their rights remove your access to games you have already purchased, or even start charging you an access fee to continue having access to those games - and your only recourse is you can cancel your account.
2. Steamworks completely removes your rights under the First Sale Doctrine. Once you have started using a Steamworks game you no longer have any rights whatsoever to transfer your license to another user.
It is one thing to sell Steamworks games through Steam, but when they are selling these products at retail, without warning that they are denying the end user a right that they otherwise have with any other retail product... and still want to charge full retail price while selling such an encumbered product.
Sorry, having my patches sent to me automatically (along with advertising for other games I might enjoy) is not worth me giving up my rights as a consumer.
And 12 years after unveiling what is still the best selling personal computer of all time Commodore International went bankrupt.
Just because you are successful now does not mean you will continue to be. Ask Blockbuster...
Actually you are wrong there. The largest government increases and largest spending excesses in history have come under the current administration.
I don't know that we need a better electorate as we need a better election system. With a plurality voting system in general if you are not voting for one of the two major parties you vote is meaningless, so most people will vote against the person they dislike the most rather than actually voting for who they prefer (and it is much easier to get people to hate your opponent than it is to get people to actually like you).
If we had some sort of preferential voting system there would be more incentive for candidates to actually voice opinions to try to get approval rather than simply attacking their opponent. Unfortunately, the parties in power have a vested interest in keeping the voting system the way it is, and most Americans lack the knowledge of game theory needed to understand why the voting method should be changed, much less what it should be changed to.
The disk may cost very little in material cost, but that is only part of the cost of a physical disk - you also have the manufacturer's overhead (it takes more space to manufacture disks than it takes to stream media), the storage and distribution costs to get the disks to the retailer, the retailer's overhead.
Also, it has been reported that it costs Netflix under 10 cents to stream an HD movie. The biggest cost for Netflix to stream a movie to you is the licensing fee they are paying to have the right to stream it to you.
Actually, Coke started the switch to HFCS nearly 5 years before the introduction of new coke - and had completely switched from cane sugar to HFCS over six months before Check the snopes article on the subject
What that article fails to mention is that the "containment building" was a simple thin metal building, as opposed to the 3-6ft steel-reinforced concrete that every civilized country outside of the former soviet bloc uses.
And I see nothing there that supports your claim that it was a "excellent design"
Excellent design?
Lets see, no containment (because that would have been expensive - though it would have kept everyone around the plant safe), a slow control rod insertion mechanism - combined with a flawed graphite tip control rod - that means that the reactions actually increase when the control rods are being inserted...
Sorry, that does not qualify as an "excellent design"
The only reason you pay that much for gas is because your government places massive taxes on it.
.684 euros per litre in fuel tax and then add a 19% VAT tax over the entire ammount.
You pay
That means that out of the $9.50/gallon about $5.50 of it is taxes. Of course this also means that you don't notice the actual fuel price as much (it is 80-90% of the cost in the US, it is less than 50% of the cost in the netherlands)
That is a really bad idea. Saying that someone should loose a patent if they don't produce the product is a good way for small inventors to get completely screwed out of their ideas.
All it would take is for someone who owns a gateway technology for your idea to refuse to sell or license to you, keeping you from producing your invention, loosing your patent, and then they can sell your product themselves.
For example, I make a device - that I own the patent for - and you discover a way to modify my device to make it 50% more efficient. Under today's laws you can patent that modification, which would keep me from using it without paying for it. Under your idea for reforming patents you would have to produce your modified device to be able to hold onto the patent - but you cannot produce your modified device unless I either license or sell my patented device to you - and I can just simply refuse to sell anything to you until you lose your patent for failure to produce your invention, then I can use your idea free of charge.
See the problem here?
Perhaps you should go back and look at the voting records then. It was not passed by "a Republican House and Republican Senate" It was passed by Unanimous Consent - meaning nobody voted against it.
Forget about Republican Senate or Democtatic Senate, that was a complete Bi-Partisan House and Senate who passed it.
Don't try to just push the blame on to the Republicans, the Democrats are just as guilty (And don't forget, it was a Democtatic president who signed it into law)
What a free market does is maximize the performance/price point. A perfect market would not stabalize at no profit, because if there was no profit to be made, then the product would not get made.
In a free market there are two ways to increase your profits. 1: increase your sales (this can be done by advertising, lowering your price, making a better product than your competition, etc...) and 2: lower your costs (be more efficient in making your product).