The article was wrong on many counts, even more so than Bill Gates. And Bill never called himself a futurist anyway. The best example I read was about wireless networking, which they called him out for being wrong on. Well, wired IS many, many times faster than wireless, so it sounds like he was correct. He might have missed it with wireless being unusual and expensive for videos (hell, Verizon charges $30 on top of basic service, so I wouldn't call that CHEAP, but not really expensive either) but the overall flavor was right.
I usually RTFA, but gave up on this piece of trash part way through. Articles like this are why/. readers don't RTFA. That and being lazy.
You think Phillip Morris should be allowed to kill babies since cigarette taxes are so high?
Now, lets be fair about it. Those babies that start smoking at 3 years old likely won't die until they are in their 20s, so to be fair, they are only killing adults.
No. This is the Internet. We can't allow people being wrong here slide. What would generate the entertainment here if we behaved like mature, reasonable adults?
You forgot to invoke Godwin Law, or at the very least, compare me to the godless Communists in Soviet Russia.;)
My observations (ie: opinions based on anecdotal observation) is that:
1. The higher the education, the less likely someone is to be a practicing Christian or Jew (Muslims seem to buck this trend) 2. Atheists/deists/pantheists/etc tend to have an average education level higher than the general public. Perhaps this is because the more educated you become, the more likely you are to question the status quo. It does NOT mean that religious people are dumb, however. 3. The world is getting more and more educated, and this trend is likely to continue, on average, into the future.
This would tell me that that some form of deism, pantheism/panentheism or atheism would be more common, although not necessarily the majority. (Buddhism and Taoism would be constant with this as well). Personally, I lean deist. I think an architect makes sense from a scientific point of view (although there is no direct evidence as of yet), and I can't see a 'god' that gets involved with day to day matters. Pray for a miracle? Does that mean that god saved little Mary from leukemia with a miracle, but not Sally because Sally's parents are Buddhists and they didn't pray to the right god? That would be a deity that picks winners and losers, or to put it another way, malevolent.
THAT is the big problem I have with the Abrahamic religions in general, and I have read the bible many times (raised Catholic) and read the koran a few times as well (know thy enemy): The Abrahamic religions make god sound like a vengeful asshole. That just makes no sense if "god" is all knowing, all powerful and all merciful, which they all claim he is. Anyway, if I'm wrong, oh well, I guess I will be smoking a turd in purgatory for half a forever.;)
So you are saying that cars are like peacock feathers? Makes sense in an indirect kind of way, at the most base level it can be indicative of an ability to provide. At least the guy driving the Humvee knew how to drive, whereas the wannabe guitarist couldn't play. That is what makes it particularly douche-ee.
What amazes me most, besides the sheer inconsideration, is that they buy coffee or food in the cafe and yet can't afford to get fucking internet at home.
I think most of those people *DO* have internet access at home, but if you contact your "important foreign friend" at a cafe, then you can be a true poser, wannabe and a douche, all in one quick single effort.
It's kinda like a guy I knew about in high school. He walked around carrying a guitar, IN PUBLIC (mall, etc.). Some girls seemed to think it was cool (ie: the ones with really low self esteem, but they are the ones that usually smoke and poke). Thing is, he didn't know a single cord. So yes, he was a complete douche bag, but he was a douche bag that was working his way around the bases more often than the rest of us.
It is called "context" and "familiarity". If I tell you I like to listen to "Elvis", you can safely assume I mean "Elvis Presley", not "Elvis Costello". If I say "I admire the Madonna", or if I say "I like that new tune from Madonna", you can likely tell which Madonna I am referring to.
And last but not least, if you are at a construction site and hear someone yell "Hey Jesus! Where have you been??", it is likely NOT the second coming of the Christian Christ.
Sad you got mod'ed down. While I'm not a fan of the idea of killing off Christians (the Romans tried that, and the Christians eventually took over, so you can't "kill" a religion), I do agree there are some issues with "modern" religion. I strongly believe in freedom of religion, but I can't help but think that some time in the future (50 years/500 years/who knows) that mankind is going to say "wtf were we thinking?", and just as we have cast aside Roman and Greek mythology as a religion, I believe the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) will also be set aside.
And to anyone else reading who is Muslim, Christian or Jewish, don't bother replying to debate this. I fully support your right to worship as you please, I simply think you are mistaken, just as you think I am mistaken. It isn't personal, and I'm not an atheist (more of a pan-deist). That's whats great about being Free (as in speech). We can just agree to disagree.
Sure! You can be vegan, vegetarian, Atkintarian, or even a bear that catches live salmon swimming upstream in your bare mouth. Eating spaghetti (preferably with a nice red wine) is a common way to show deference to the FSM, but it isn't required. And by the way, Atkins makes a decent low carb pasta, although the sauce will still set you back some sugar carbs unless you get low sugar sauce. Even on Atkins, you have to splurge a *little*, and if my memory serves me right, wine in moderation is also considered ok, at least every now and then. All are welcome.
Because THEY are making the profit. Here in NC, alcohol is considered so evil, that only The State is allowed to sell it. In both cases, it is a scam for politicians to insure that the government makes the money instead of private businesses (ie: socialism), and it is easy to get the votes from people who are against gambling and alcohol, because "at least the state is making sure people aren't abusing it", which should send you into a laughing fit.
Here in NC, the justification for the lotto was that it became the "Education Lottery" (ie: think of the children). This way they can give "extra money" to schools. Of course, general funding goes down as it supplanted by the lotto money, so the net result is that the money really goes to the general fund, but unfortunately, most people just don't understand this shell game even if you explain it. "Well, its a good thing we gots the lottery! They cut the budget and the lotto money will make up the difference! Think of dah chilren!"
The worse abuse is that part of the justification was "well, people are going to gamble anyway, we are just providing an outlet". Then wtf do you need to advertise? Why do you need to drum up new business, if your goals are so honorable and only to take care of existing demand? Again, it is a socialistic way to control something popular and take the profit, where it can be divided up by special interests as pay back for the money that lobbyists invested in our elected officials.
You do know that followers of Islam are not supposed to eat any port products right?
Woosh, that was part of the joke. Jews aren't supposed to eat pork either, but go to any buffet in Vegas and try counting all the people eating bacon and wearing yamakas. And Muslims are allowed to eat pork if no other food is available anyway (cite: The Quran 2:173). Technically, Christians are not supposed to eat pork either:
The pig also because it is a splitter of the hoof but there is no cud. It is unclean for you. None of their flesh must you eat and carcass you must not touch. " Deuteronomy 14:8
Fortunately, I'm a Pastafarian, so I can eat wtf I want. And while I won't get 72 virgins, there is a beer volcano and a stripper factory in our heaven.
To quote: "The U.S. system of units is similar to the British Imperial system.[4] Both systems derive from the evolution of local units over the centuries, as a result of standardization efforts in the United Kingdom; the local units themselves mostly trace back to Roman and Anglo-Saxon units."
And from the metric system article: "The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement, first adopted by France in 1791"
I am pretty sure our old outdated American system of units predates the metric system of measuring units. And you seem to be misunderstanding the Mendenhall Order. "In 1866 the Congress passed a law which allowed, but did not require, the use of the metric system. Included in the law was a table of conversion factors between the traditional and metric units" This just establishes official translation between the two methods that already existed. While the "official" standards of the system has drifted some over the years, " The Mendenhall order amounted to a formal announcement of a change that had already occurred (Mendenhall 1893)." That doesn't change the fact that the pound, pint, peck, etc. were in use in the US for at least a full century before France adopted the metric system.
Nice link, thanks. They still aren't sure exactly the method that caused Mars to lose its atmosphere, but that pages shows some interesting probabilities.
I have an idea! Let's ensure that every single child born and/or raised in the USA comes before all the dying jungle babies or fly in the eye africans. Fix our country first, then piss away our taxes on "developing nations" dying jungle babies.
First of all, you are an asshole and a troll. Second, it was developed by seniors at Colorado State University, not the USAF or a direct " 'merican gubbermint program'. Not every part of the US is equal to Manhattan, so it *might* be useful in remote areas of Alaska or even remote sections of the upper plains states and parts of Canada. But if it isn't, so what. It was a college project by these seniors, and it looks like they came up with an interesting concept that might be useful, or lead to something useful, for someone, somewhere. It is unique enough to be patented, and if it isn't useful, then the market will decide, as no one will further develop or buy them.
Go ahead and cry about "our country", but wtf have YOU done lately to help infant mortality or the other problems you are bitching about in the USA?
And keep in mind that traveling supersonic uses twice the fuel vs. subsonic anyway. Add more miles and fuel costs 3x-4x a regular flight. Even with these designs that *promise* 70% less fuel used, it's still more fuel and pollution for a little convenience.
Terrorism? Seems to be a charge frivolously bandied around by the US a lot these days, ask anyone who has been in Guantanamo, or extraordinarily renditioned to Syria while transiting JFK en route home to Canada.
That is a straw man argument. You can't be given the death penalty for simple terrorism in the US. Please show me where there has been a district attorney who has even TRIED to get a death penalty punishment for someone other than 1st degree murder. While I am against the death penalty, that doesn't change the fact that a DA can only ask for the death penalty under a very strict set of circumstances. Hacking isn't one of them. And it isn't optional.
I remember a BBS around 1993-94 that's claim to fame was that it had a gigabyte of files. A whole gigabyte!!!
Back then, that wasn't that much space. I had a 2 line BBS back then (IBM PS/1 386SX16, 1MB RAM, 80MB HD, DOS 5, QEMM, Deskview, EzyComm), and had several SCSI CDROM drives connected. You could buy CD's for BBSes that had tons of shareware, drivers, pr0n, whatever. Just 4 of those CDs at.65GB each comes to 2.6GB of files, and that is if you have NOTHING on the hard drive.
Back then, I made my own custom SCSI cables (really) and had the whole thing patched up with duct tape and tin foil. Again, really. System never went down. I could actually account for every K of RAM, as it took some doing to make it all work. It was actually pretty fast for what it was. I ended up moving it to a 486 because the IBM only had two slots (scsi card & 2nd modem), but then the interweb took off. Lots of places had over 2GB of files, although most didn't have 1GB of filez.
The law in most areas regards "time" the same as a tangible item, as there is a fixed amount of it, and the punishment for stealing $500 worth of bread is the same as stealing $500 worth of "time". Any time you start comparing pirating to theft, you should expect that others will react as such. By the same token, everyone would easily agree that BOOTLEGGING a video, ie: selling copies without authorization and PROFITING from the work of others, is and should be a crime, as you ARE taking away the copyright holder's ability to make a profit (obviously, the person who bought was willing to pay at least something for the work.)
I don't download songs or movies (really). I download TV shows simply because it is the most convenient way to watch them. Yes, they are commercial free, but it wouldn't bother me if they had commercials. I also watch TV via Hulu and rent my DVR from the cable company, but I seldom use it if I can catch a torrent. This is still considered a crime in the USA, even though all the shows I download were broadcast over the airwaves for free to anyone with a television AND I pay for the cable to access these shows anyway, I just prefer them as a file on my computer so I can watch them more easily, and watch episodes sequentially. Please do tell me how this is compared to theft of anything.
More to the point, I would argue that "theft" *is* deprivation, either of Things, Money or Time, with the understanding that Time = Money as a limited commodity. Taking away the distributor's "right" to decide how their art is viewed might be argued as infringing their rights, but not theft. In the 1960s, poll taxes were used to infringe on the rights of black Americans to vote, but that isn't theft either, it was a violation of their civil rights. An odd and extreme example, but demonstrative, nonetheless. What I am taking away from the copyright holder is, well, nothing in my case. I could accomplish the same thing legally with my DVR and simply fast forward through the commercials. I *choose* to get them via torrent because it is a better product, at the same price. There is no victim in my case, except me being branded as a criminal for downloading TV shows that are already given over the air for free.
Slashdot is notorious for spreading this incorrect information, and it needs to stop. Theft of time/labor is also a crime, at least in two state, and a Google search for "theft of labor" reveals many more citations for you to peruse.
Sorry, but I call bullshit on you. Pirating a movie is not the same as Theft of Labor, and this is trivial to demonstrate that the law doesn't see it that way either. In all cases of Theft of Labor or Services, what you are stealing can't be replaced, time, as there are only so many hours in a day. Take your car to a garage, let them to a 4 wheel alignment but don't pay. THAT is Theft of Labor. When a movie is downloaded, you are not causing the artists to have to perform MORE work for each copy that is pirated. Their labor is the same whether or not the movie is downloaded 1x or 1 million x.
And Theft of Labor (or elsewhere called Theft of Services) is illegal in all states, not just two. It is usually considered about the same as Theft of Goods, as far as punishment goes. In both cases, you have deprived the person of their ability to either sell the item, or sell the service, as time itself is a commodity. Downloading movies doesn't fit this in any way, which would explain why there are separate laws for pirating movies. The two links you provided also make this clear.
They could STOP the flow if they wanted, they are trying to RECOVER the oil.
It isn't often that I say this, but you truly are an idiot. If they could stop it today, they would, regardless of cost. Even if the leak is 10x the estimate, 50,000 barrels a day, that is less than $4.5 million a day at $85 a barrel. That is nothing compared to the $20 to $100 BILLION or more it will take to fix this.
They are not worried about "losing" the oil. In 2007, the US used 20,680,000 barrels per day (cite). If this leak is 10x larger than reported, that would mean it equals.2% of national consumption. Not even a drop in the bucket. Do you realize how many hundreds of thousands of wells the US has, both on the sea and on land? And that most of our oil doesn't come from here anyway? The loss of this well doesn't hurt BP financially. Cleaning up the mess *does*.
Slashdot Mirror
The article was wrong on many counts, even more so than Bill Gates. And Bill never called himself a futurist anyway. The best example I read was about wireless networking, which they called him out for being wrong on. Well, wired IS many, many times faster than wireless, so it sounds like he was correct. He might have missed it with wireless being unusual and expensive for videos (hell, Verizon charges $30 on top of basic service, so I wouldn't call that CHEAP, but not really expensive either) but the overall flavor was right.
I usually RTFA, but gave up on this piece of trash part way through. Articles like this are why /. readers don't RTFA. That and being lazy.
You think Phillip Morris should be allowed to kill babies since cigarette taxes are so high?
Now, lets be fair about it. Those babies that start smoking at 3 years old likely won't die until they are in their 20s, so to be fair, they are only killing adults.
No. This is the Internet. We can't allow people being wrong here slide. What would generate the entertainment here if we behaved like mature, reasonable adults?
You forgot to invoke Godwin Law, or at the very least, compare me to the godless Communists in Soviet Russia. ;)
My observations (ie: opinions based on anecdotal observation) is that:
1. The higher the education, the less likely someone is to be a practicing Christian or Jew (Muslims seem to buck this trend)
2. Atheists/deists/pantheists/etc tend to have an average education level higher than the general public. Perhaps this is because the more educated you become, the more likely you are to question the status quo. It does NOT mean that religious people are dumb, however.
3. The world is getting more and more educated, and this trend is likely to continue, on average, into the future.
This would tell me that that some form of deism, pantheism/panentheism or atheism would be more common, although not necessarily the majority. (Buddhism and Taoism would be constant with this as well). Personally, I lean deist. I think an architect makes sense from a scientific point of view (although there is no direct evidence as of yet), and I can't see a 'god' that gets involved with day to day matters. Pray for a miracle? Does that mean that god saved little Mary from leukemia with a miracle, but not Sally because Sally's parents are Buddhists and they didn't pray to the right god? That would be a deity that picks winners and losers, or to put it another way, malevolent.
THAT is the big problem I have with the Abrahamic religions in general, and I have read the bible many times (raised Catholic) and read the koran a few times as well (know thy enemy): The Abrahamic religions make god sound like a vengeful asshole. That just makes no sense if "god" is all knowing, all powerful and all merciful, which they all claim he is. Anyway, if I'm wrong, oh well, I guess I will be smoking a turd in purgatory for half a forever. ;)
Actually, Christians are just fine eating pork. See Acts 10, Colossians 2:20-22, Mark 7:19 (among others).
Whoa, whoa, whoa....Are you trying to say the bible CONTRADICTS itself?!? Surely not!
So you are saying that cars are like peacock feathers? Makes sense in an indirect kind of way, at the most base level it can be indicative of an ability to provide. At least the guy driving the Humvee knew how to drive, whereas the wannabe guitarist couldn't play. That is what makes it particularly douche-ee.
Correct. Except he also didn't know a single chord. ;) Normally I wouldn't reply to a spelling correction, but that was at least amusing.
What amazes me most, besides the sheer inconsideration, is that they buy coffee or food in the cafe and yet can't afford to get fucking internet at home.
I think most of those people *DO* have internet access at home, but if you contact your "important foreign friend" at a cafe, then you can be a true poser, wannabe and a douche, all in one quick single effort.
It's kinda like a guy I knew about in high school. He walked around carrying a guitar, IN PUBLIC (mall, etc.). Some girls seemed to think it was cool (ie: the ones with really low self esteem, but they are the ones that usually smoke and poke). Thing is, he didn't know a single cord. So yes, he was a complete douche bag, but he was a douche bag that was working his way around the bases more often than the rest of us.
It is called "context" and "familiarity". If I tell you I like to listen to "Elvis", you can safely assume I mean "Elvis Presley", not "Elvis Costello". If I say "I admire the Madonna", or if I say "I like that new tune from Madonna", you can likely tell which Madonna I am referring to.
And last but not least, if you are at a construction site and hear someone yell "Hey Jesus! Where have you been??", it is likely NOT the second coming of the Christian Christ.
Sad you got mod'ed down. While I'm not a fan of the idea of killing off Christians (the Romans tried that, and the Christians eventually took over, so you can't "kill" a religion), I do agree there are some issues with "modern" religion. I strongly believe in freedom of religion, but I can't help but think that some time in the future (50 years/500 years/who knows) that mankind is going to say "wtf were we thinking?", and just as we have cast aside Roman and Greek mythology as a religion, I believe the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) will also be set aside.
And to anyone else reading who is Muslim, Christian or Jewish, don't bother replying to debate this. I fully support your right to worship as you please, I simply think you are mistaken, just as you think I am mistaken. It isn't personal, and I'm not an atheist (more of a pan-deist). That's whats great about being Free (as in speech). We can just agree to disagree.
Correction - while its popular to believe and in fact widely taught, the correct translation is actually 72 grapes - not virgins.
Thats probably a good thing, as likely the 72 virgins would have been /. readers anyway ;)
Sure! You can be vegan, vegetarian, Atkintarian, or even a bear that catches live salmon swimming upstream in your bare mouth. Eating spaghetti (preferably with a nice red wine) is a common way to show deference to the FSM, but it isn't required. And by the way, Atkins makes a decent low carb pasta, although the sauce will still set you back some sugar carbs unless you get low sugar sauce. Even on Atkins, you have to splurge a *little*, and if my memory serves me right, wine in moderation is also considered ok, at least every now and then. All are welcome.
The government is just fine with lotteries
Because THEY are making the profit. Here in NC, alcohol is considered so evil, that only The State is allowed to sell it. In both cases, it is a scam for politicians to insure that the government makes the money instead of private businesses (ie: socialism), and it is easy to get the votes from people who are against gambling and alcohol, because "at least the state is making sure people aren't abusing it", which should send you into a laughing fit.
Here in NC, the justification for the lotto was that it became the "Education Lottery" (ie: think of the children). This way they can give "extra money" to schools. Of course, general funding goes down as it supplanted by the lotto money, so the net result is that the money really goes to the general fund, but unfortunately, most people just don't understand this shell game even if you explain it. "Well, its a good thing we gots the lottery! They cut the budget and the lotto money will make up the difference! Think of dah chilren!"
The worse abuse is that part of the justification was "well, people are going to gamble anyway, we are just providing an outlet". Then wtf do you need to advertise? Why do you need to drum up new business, if your goals are so honorable and only to take care of existing demand? Again, it is a socialistic way to control something popular and take the profit, where it can be divided up by special interests as pay back for the money that lobbyists invested in our elected officials.
You do know that followers of Islam are not supposed to eat any port products right?
Woosh, that was part of the joke. Jews aren't supposed to eat pork either, but go to any buffet in Vegas and try counting all the people eating bacon and wearing yamakas. And Muslims are allowed to eat pork if no other food is available anyway (cite: The Quran 2:173). Technically, Christians are not supposed to eat pork either:
Fortunately, I'm a Pastafarian, so I can eat wtf I want. And while I won't get 72 virgins, there is a beer volcano and a stripper factory in our heaven.
To quote: "The U.S. system of units is similar to the British Imperial system.[4] Both systems derive from the evolution of local units over the centuries, as a result of standardization efforts in the United Kingdom; the local units themselves mostly trace back to Roman and Anglo-Saxon units."
And from the metric system article:
"The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement, first adopted by France in 1791"
I am pretty sure our old outdated American system of units predates the metric system of measuring units. And you seem to be misunderstanding the Mendenhall Order. "In 1866 the Congress passed a law which allowed, but did not require, the use of the metric system. Included in the law was a table of conversion factors between the traditional and metric units" This just establishes official translation between the two methods that already existed. While the "official" standards of the system has drifted some over the years, " The Mendenhall order amounted to a formal announcement of a change that had already occurred (Mendenhall 1893)." That doesn't change the fact that the pound, pint, peck, etc. were in use in the US for at least a full century before France adopted the metric system.
Nice link, thanks. They still aren't sure exactly the method that caused Mars to lose its atmosphere, but that pages shows some interesting probabilities.
Hah! I could gum through that cheap diamondillium Dyson Sphere with my dentures behind my back! What we need is my patented ultra hard Diamondium!
Of course. You know that 1 complaint = 1 billion people, right?
I hear they got 20 calls about that incident, which means that 20 billion people were offended by this.
I have an idea! Let's ensure that every single child born and/or raised in the USA comes before all the dying jungle babies or fly in the eye africans. Fix our country first, then piss away our taxes on "developing nations" dying jungle babies.
First of all, you are an asshole and a troll. Second, it was developed by seniors at Colorado State University, not the USAF or a direct " 'merican gubbermint program'. Not every part of the US is equal to Manhattan, so it *might* be useful in remote areas of Alaska or even remote sections of the upper plains states and parts of Canada. But if it isn't, so what. It was a college project by these seniors, and it looks like they came up with an interesting concept that might be useful, or lead to something useful, for someone, somewhere. It is unique enough to be patented, and if it isn't useful, then the market will decide, as no one will further develop or buy them.
Go ahead and cry about "our country", but wtf have YOU done lately to help infant mortality or the other problems you are bitching about in the USA?
Just remember, if you outlaw candy, only outlaws will have candy.
And keep in mind that traveling supersonic uses twice the fuel vs. subsonic anyway. Add more miles and fuel costs 3x-4x a regular flight. Even with these designs that *promise* 70% less fuel used, it's still more fuel and pollution for a little convenience.
Terrorism? Seems to be a charge frivolously bandied around by the US a lot these days, ask anyone who has been in Guantanamo, or extraordinarily renditioned to Syria while transiting JFK en route home to Canada.
That is a straw man argument. You can't be given the death penalty for simple terrorism in the US. Please show me where there has been a district attorney who has even TRIED to get a death penalty punishment for someone other than 1st degree murder. While I am against the death penalty, that doesn't change the fact that a DA can only ask for the death penalty under a very strict set of circumstances. Hacking isn't one of them. And it isn't optional.
I remember a BBS around 1993-94 that's claim to fame was that it had a gigabyte of files. A whole gigabyte!!!
Back then, that wasn't that much space. I had a 2 line BBS back then (IBM PS/1 386SX16, 1MB RAM, 80MB HD, DOS 5, QEMM, Deskview, EzyComm), and had several SCSI CDROM drives connected. You could buy CD's for BBSes that had tons of shareware, drivers, pr0n, whatever. Just 4 of those CDs at .65GB each comes to 2.6GB of files, and that is if you have NOTHING on the hard drive.
Back then, I made my own custom SCSI cables (really) and had the whole thing patched up with duct tape and tin foil. Again, really. System never went down. I could actually account for every K of RAM, as it took some doing to make it all work. It was actually pretty fast for what it was. I ended up moving it to a 486 because the IBM only had two slots (scsi card & 2nd modem), but then the interweb took off. Lots of places had over 2GB of files, although most didn't have 1GB of filez.
The law in most areas regards "time" the same as a tangible item, as there is a fixed amount of it, and the punishment for stealing $500 worth of bread is the same as stealing $500 worth of "time". Any time you start comparing pirating to theft, you should expect that others will react as such. By the same token, everyone would easily agree that BOOTLEGGING a video, ie: selling copies without authorization and PROFITING from the work of others, is and should be a crime, as you ARE taking away the copyright holder's ability to make a profit (obviously, the person who bought was willing to pay at least something for the work.)
I don't download songs or movies (really). I download TV shows simply because it is the most convenient way to watch them. Yes, they are commercial free, but it wouldn't bother me if they had commercials. I also watch TV via Hulu and rent my DVR from the cable company, but I seldom use it if I can catch a torrent. This is still considered a crime in the USA, even though all the shows I download were broadcast over the airwaves for free to anyone with a television AND I pay for the cable to access these shows anyway, I just prefer them as a file on my computer so I can watch them more easily, and watch episodes sequentially. Please do tell me how this is compared to theft of anything.
More to the point, I would argue that "theft" *is* deprivation, either of Things, Money or Time, with the understanding that Time = Money as a limited commodity. Taking away the distributor's "right" to decide how their art is viewed might be argued as infringing their rights, but not theft. In the 1960s, poll taxes were used to infringe on the rights of black Americans to vote, but that isn't theft either, it was a violation of their civil rights. An odd and extreme example, but demonstrative, nonetheless. What I am taking away from the copyright holder is, well, nothing in my case. I could accomplish the same thing legally with my DVR and simply fast forward through the commercials. I *choose* to get them via torrent because it is a better product, at the same price. There is no victim in my case, except me being branded as a criminal for downloading TV shows that are already given over the air for free.
Slashdot is notorious for spreading this incorrect information, and it needs to stop. Theft of time/labor is also a crime, at least in two state, and a Google search for "theft of labor" reveals many more citations for you to peruse.
Sorry, but I call bullshit on you. Pirating a movie is not the same as Theft of Labor, and this is trivial to demonstrate that the law doesn't see it that way either. In all cases of Theft of Labor or Services, what you are stealing can't be replaced, time, as there are only so many hours in a day. Take your car to a garage, let them to a 4 wheel alignment but don't pay. THAT is Theft of Labor. When a movie is downloaded, you are not causing the artists to have to perform MORE work for each copy that is pirated. Their labor is the same whether or not the movie is downloaded 1x or 1 million x.
And Theft of Labor (or elsewhere called Theft of Services) is illegal in all states, not just two. It is usually considered about the same as Theft of Goods, as far as punishment goes. In both cases, you have deprived the person of their ability to either sell the item, or sell the service, as time itself is a commodity. Downloading movies doesn't fit this in any way, which would explain why there are separate laws for pirating movies. The two links you provided also make this clear.
They could STOP the flow if they wanted, they are trying to RECOVER the oil.
It isn't often that I say this, but you truly are an idiot. If they could stop it today, they would, regardless of cost. Even if the leak is 10x the estimate, 50,000 barrels a day, that is less than $4.5 million a day at $85 a barrel. That is nothing compared to the $20 to $100 BILLION or more it will take to fix this.
They are not worried about "losing" the oil. In 2007, the US used 20,680,000 barrels per day (cite). If this leak is 10x larger than reported, that would mean it equals .2% of national consumption. Not even a drop in the bucket. Do you realize how many hundreds of thousands of wells the US has, both on the sea and on land? And that most of our oil doesn't come from here anyway? The loss of this well doesn't hurt BP financially. Cleaning up the mess *does*.