"Another issue is that the stuff inside steak that's "tasty", also happens to be bad for you if it's a significant portion of your diet."
And that is preciesly why textured vegetable protien will probably never exclipse meat. The only two ways are if meat becomes so expensive that no one can afford it (unlikely - fish and chicken are *cheap*) or they can make vegetables taste the same. I seriously doubt either. Health reasons will never be enough.
Now, I use things like tofu all the time as an additive to meat dishes - a good way to add protien and fill you up and taste good. But it rarely makes up more than 25%, after that us non-vegetarians that are looking for "meat" taste start to notice. (note, this is to *replace* meat as opposed to a dish that is intended to be tofu). As you say with "tasty" - it's not just texture and the "tasty" bits are fat and such.
I like vegetables, but I like them as vegetables. I've yet to find any that are a reasonable substitute for meat. In fact any that are even remotely a substitute. I'm not knocking a vegetarian lifestyle - my mother is nearly one (she doesn't like meat too much) - but it would be difficult in the extreme to have a vegatable mimic the taste of the protiens and such you are complaining about. I would rather just let the things be veggies and enjoy that. I'm as much a carnivore as any American, yet i've gone weeks without meat because I've found some new class of vegetable dishes that are great (not vegetables trying to replace meat, but ones that celebrate being vegetables).
Vegetarians trying to convince people to eat less (or no) meat would be better off focusing on good, pure vegetable dishes than vegetable protien that kinda taste and sorta feels like meat. Your never gonna win the meat crowd with veggie burgers however much they fullfill that role in you (what makes a convert happy typically isn't what converts people). Arguments about health and aquifers are about as effective as "It taste so much better" is at making you eat lots of meat. Better to attack what they are caring about than what you care about.
Blame it on internet marketing, not the fact that you have a movie about snakes on a plane.
Really - even on places it has gotten high ratings it is because that group of people enjoy totally crappy movies and liked the audience heckling the movie. They liken it to Rocky Horror Pickture Show (so crappy it is entertaining) or Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the audience heckling). If that's you thing - OK, but the majority of people will just think it is crap. If you like it because of the heckling, your only going to get a night or two of that, then boring.
I never could figure out why they were spending so much on such a crappy thing. Heck, they even payed some political bloggers to commercial it. Porbably the absolutely worst audience for a campy movie about snakes on a plane. Try commercialing movies that fit what bloggers and thier audience enjoy and see if you do not get a better response (you know, what good advertising usually is considered).
You ought to see our dogs - point to a spot Say "treat" and they run right to the spot you point. They then circle out trying to find said food.
You also ought to watch some types of hunting dogs in action, most of the pointers and retrievers do quite well with pointing. Heck, the pointers even, well, point. And they do that with no training whatsever, you training is to get them to only point animals you are itnerested in otherwise they will point butterflies, rabbits, squirrils, bees, or any thing they see moving.
Also watch some dog shows - pointing at spots has the dog sit where the person points at - that would mean they understood the directional meaning of a point quite well.
Our cats have never followed a finger being pointed, but nearly all the dogs we have had would for food. Our hunting dogs definatly did. Of course, the cats ignore anything and everything you try and get them to do so it's hard to know if they understand it or not.
I'm not anything close to the people who think dolphins are really really intelligent (though Douglas Adams makes a pretty good case), but IRTFA and I can not see how this is a serious article.
It ends: "Manger also points to the tuna industry, which under consumer pressure has gone to great lengths to prevent dolphins from being caught and killed by accident in nets.
"If they were really intelligent, they would just jump over the net because it doesn't come out of the water," he said."
Umm, yea, they would if they ware smart? *sigh* - how did this make *any* news at all. Even assuming that the gist of the article is true (about the different types of brain material) the rest is crap - was it "peer reviewed" (as the article points out) by other idiots? Maybe it is all a Rovian plot to discredit Aljazeera.net? I can not take the article and it's contents with any real sense of belief - it is so idiotic that I can not trust the rest of it. That's not to say they are incorrect - just that this individual article is is pure crap and one should not use it to base any belief on.
I don't know how you put it to them so don't take the following as a criticism. You may very well do this and just be unlucky.
Did you, perhaps, talk to them like you would us on slashdot? Remember, even to us conservatives here (and most consevative websites) you tend to be preaching to the choir on this particular issue. The last line you quote: "You will merely have rented them until the march of technology locks you out of enjoying the content any further" is something of a hyperbole. For one thing I don't think it was the companies want - though it is definatly the outcome of what they want. I think they are either looking at thier loss of monopoly (if it's easy to produce, easy to distrbute, and easy to market what are they useful for) or (and this is the logical meaning of "or") simply see the ability to control the market like never before. What was said may very well be, and probably is, in thier wet dreams but I think the relatives are correct in that the govt will not allow it. Mostly because at that point too many people will ignore it and forces the govt can not control will occur (notice that the govt never touches those forces - too easy to see they *really* only have power because we agree they do).
The danger is that they get something less than that - that would be sustainable.
The best way to deal with it is just tell the basic facts. "The screen is changing brightness because they do not want you to run you DVD player to you VCR" - "why" - "because they do not want you to copy it for any reason and running it through your VCR would allow it". If they argue simply say "Ok, go do it then" and drop it.
I tried for years to get them to understand. Calm talks about RIAA/MPAA and content control, rants about it, everything I could think of was dismissed. I finally took this tact - don't argue with them. It just sets you up to be easily ignored. Agree with them and tell them to go do what it is they think they really can. Answer thier questions and little more (be totally factual and non-ranty, unless you can quote it directly do not say it however true what you are saying is - "You can not purchase that equipment due to the DMCA because it may be used to circumvent a copy protections scheme, yes I understand you have a legitimate need for it"). In my case nearly all my family dislikes the RIAA/MPAA and "rights management". They don't really know much more than they can not do what they think they should be able to do - but that's good enough. They even tend to *think* when they hear crap the industry spews out - it's funny to hear what a few years ago was me being a crazy ranter now being what they are saying. But then, there are some that you can do nothing about. Leave them be - in the long run you will look better for it, you suddenly become reasonable and people will listen.
You will never find a "master" at what they do that does not practice and have lots of experience. That is, of course, a given. I don't think any one says otherwise - to a large extent the article implies it. No coach thinks raw talent alone will win the olympics, it takes practice, practice, practice, and more practice.
It also requires Chess to be a near perfect look into intellect and ability - the author obviously understands this as roughly half the article is an attemp to prove it. If this is not true then the whole theory falls apart and I do not think enough is shown for this to be true (not being in that field I do not know if it is considered a given, but again I doubt it is. I can not see chess having much bearing to archery).
I can assure you that innate talent exists. It is not hard to find. I have two fairly good archery students - one shoots only the one day of our course and the other shoots at home every day. If hard work and focus was the deciding factor the wrong one is getting much higer scores.
We can all find people in our own schooling that exemplifies this. In science/math courses I did very very little and was generally one of the higer grades. I knew quite a number of people who were obsessed and spent WAY more time than I ever did who never came anywhere close to my ability. I knew people who surpassed me that worked less and some that worked more. Of course I still spent quite a bit of time at it. I could not learn how something worked without reading about it or taking it apart, yet I needed only to do so once or twice. Some could do it hundreds of times and never get it, some would only need to get halfway before they understood it. That's innate talent.
It's so trivial to find people that break this theory I can not see how it is talked about much. Obviously hard work will get you a long ways, pure talent on never using it is horrid, and pure talent with hard work is what makes world champions. I can (and have) practiced enough to be a champion in Archery, I'm nowhere close and I'll never be - I just can not hold the bow steady enough. No amount of practice will overcome it.
Coaches and teachers say this because after running thousands of people through thier programs it is obvious that a thing called "talent" exists.
And, lastly, they gloss over that all of thier examples were considered prodigies even before they invested years and years of hard work, to be a world champion requires both. The study pre-assumes that talent is the same, notes that practice is different so it *must* be the cause (how can you say that with more than one variable?). How about we try and hold everything that affects the outcome constant that we can (practice, initial novice level, user motivation, etc) and see if everyone performs at the same level. I bet they do not. Right now there are too many variables from the study listed to draw any conclusion - talent could very well still play a large role, it has not been ruled out. Just as it is obvious that hard work is needed to be a world champion it should be obvious that not including talent will make talent irrelevant in thier study. Unless you control or adjust for a variable you *can not* make any conclsuion on how much it affects your outcome.
These guys were getting too close for comfort (to note, I have absolutely nothing to do with this site - I just googled it). With looming Freedom of Information act requests the only option was to "loose" the films lest the community can finally find the films. This is has been the time honored way the govt covers everything up. Expect to see more about this "loss" as we move forward with investigating.
I mean, who here *really* thinks that NASA would just conveniently loose just the moon landings when there is so much controversy. Not just the first one, but *all* of them. Now they can just claim whatever they want and there is no way to track them.
This is just further proof that Aliens have visited the planet, after all there was no other reason they would try and shift the focus away from places like Roswell, add in that it "proved" that we were alone you got a tidy package.
Well, either that or 1960's film storage wasn't too good and they are underfunded. Sad to see it go, at least there are other films of it so it's not a total loss. Hopefully little was totally lost, it's sad to realise how little of our civilisation will remain for historians and how quick it occurs now.
I don't really know. From the details given in the article the Police were a bunch of incompetant idiots (that is even more incompetant than a normal idiot).
However, all we hear from are the parents and the kids - not the best of sources as to what happened. Is there another story? Maybe, maybe not. The only thing we hear from police is that they though about charging them with something more (the part about what they did still came from the children)
I know I've seen some, shall we say, creative descriptions of acts. It's not uncommon to hear family and friends describe a murderer as a really nice guy that you would have never thought anything about. Only to find out they were arrested/convicted 10 times for assault with a deadly weapon, one for rape, three times for animal cruelty (sometimes *really* horrid stuf), and a list that goes on and on and on (and all violent). You wonder why they didn't lock the person under the freaking jail. I'm sure we have all seen some little kid do something horrid only to have them lie to their parents and thier parents defend them.
And then, maybe it is *exactly* what is described. I could be - I wouldn't put it past any police to do so. Just as the above example we have all seen All-Go police that do really really stupid agressive moves.
As is usual for any story that is written in this type of context (pushing you towards a viewpoint instead of simply stating facts and only telling one side of the story) I will reserve full judgment until I hear more. I can't think of anything that would really mitigate it - but just because I can not doesn't mean it isn't there. I feel *really* uncomfortable getting too riled up about writing meant to rile people up. Unfortunatly I doubt we will ever know more than than the totally lopsided story we read here - at least give us a paragraph on the police departments response (even if they only pick out the crappiest and weakest part).
Of course, this is the UK so I'm happy to bash them (I'm an American - I get it too much and I like to dish it out sometimes). Dang Limey's - all they do is arrest poor little kids just doing normal kid stuff:)
China and India throw a monkey wrench in many things out there. There are *a lot* of people getting ready to consume resources like any westerner (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I reckon at least doubling the population of resource eaters). I suspect that we will not really work to solve them until hit by them, but in the mean time it will suck.
This is true for oil, ethanol, hydrogen, geothermal, tidal, wind, nuclear, and pretty much everything there is (I guess the amount of solar available is fixed based on area under the sun, that's about the only one I can think of and it's currently not efficient enough). The old saying of "There is no such thing as a free lunch" is especially true in energy (the whole three laws of thermodynamics ensure that).
I can't say which one will end up working. For general energy needs I can not see anything other nuclear working - though then waste will need to be addressed (while currently quite effecient it is a different story when a few billion more people use electricity like there is no tomorrow). As for personal locomotion - I don't know. I would guess anything over hydrogen will die, there just is not enough (I read a few years ago that old oil fields were refilled and the way oil is produced was being re-researched - even if true it still isn't enough). Of course there is the whole "other" classification which I really hope holds something we can find in time.
I don't mean to sound like someone who thinks our energy consumption is going to kill us - I do not (I know I used some language that implied that - that was intentional as when those countries fully come one line we will have a problem). I just do not think we have really been hit by the crunch yet. I think it will take that before we meet our needs for a longer term. Nor do I mean to imply I oppose such a thing, after it is all over I think humans will be in a *MUCH* better place - I just hope I live to see the whole cycle.
However, the virtual actor doesn't fare so well signing autographs, making appearances, and quite a few other things that real poeple do. Plus it seems that having a "realistic" fantasy (in the sense that it is physically possible) with a particular actor motivates a alot of stardom. For many shows this is most of the popularity, even the fans don't care much for the story.
Plus we would loose all the nice scandals - but I'm not too sure if this would be an overall plus or minus.
I do believe this type of stuff will really help small production films. I'm not so certain how it would work out for major shows - it may be that even with 50% of the current popularity it would still be such a profit maker that they wouldn't care (just like the mentioned reality shows - they are just so cheap to produce it doesn't take much audience to make a lot of money). Though in the long run that just leaves open a great void for another form of entertainment to rule, at the least such lowered production and distribution costs would really reduce the studios influence (much as what the RIAA is currently thinking of with home studios and digital distribution).
You are not making much sense, you begin by ranting that teaching kids the right thing and trusting them is what you should be doing. You then complain that the lunch lady should have no say in it, which she doesn't in this system along with some other things this system does not do (and those reasons are why it is evil). You then champion not trusting them to purchase the correct foods so you pack thier lunches.
I fail to see how restricting thier diet by packing thier lunch and not allowing them to purchase food you do not approve of is any different than not allowing them to purchase food you do not approve of at school. In either case you are not trusting them, in one you are using an automated system and in the other you are using a manual system. And it's not like the manual system garners a higher level of interaction with your kid, it's just shifting where the "no" is said.
Personally I would prefer the automated system from the two - less crap for the kid to keep track of and the possibility of a larger variety of foods (lots of foodstuff you can not easily package in the morning to be ate later). Though I would just assume let them choose from the schools menu and not worry too much about it, that has seemed to work for many a year - society has not collapsed yet.
"When do you think movies were good? The 90's? The 80's? Look at the top ten list from just about any week from any year."
Good? Never. I know that's what the original article said but I would rather use the term "not suck". For that I would say the mid to early 90's back through the 80's (I can't speak before then as I was too young to be much of a movie go-er and now only watch the quality stuff that lasted or really campy cult movies). At least once a month there was something worth getting out to see, usually twice. I may forget it two weeks later, but I was still entertained and didn't feel ripped off. And if you liked Indie films even more often
Now, not nearly so common. Indie films have been pretty constant - no real degredation there. But mainstream films have slid a great deal. The quality of the median is MUCH lower now (however, a good movies are still just as good and being made). That's why I think the Great Quest for Constant Profit is the root cause - Indies typically can not operate in that mode, they have to stay creative. This differs from simply wanting and trying for profits in that they try to come up with a formula for a profitable film and produce mostly that. Creative works are a gamble, they tend to really bust or really make money. Most of the currect crap is garunteed to make some return on the investment, currently studios only want this type of movie.
Same thing in music. Video games are rapidly moving towards that too. Personally I think it will cycle around again to make decent movies again - it's like the chinese resturaunt down the street from me that cooks with high quality food until thier customer base grows large, then cheap until it drops to maximise profits (I know for a fact they do this, one of my better friends in high school is thier son). I don't think they are conciously doing this, I just think the market will push it in that direction.
To some extent I agree with what you wrote. FFVII definatly was much better, and the hard bosses were really hard. Though you picked it for a reason - it's one of the few that doesn't fit what I said.
Take, for example, archery. The overiding truth is that as long as you do the same thing exactly the same everytime it doesn't matter what you do. I will assure you that whatever wacky thing you decide is correct some pro somewhere had won a large tournement doing exactly that. However, that one person is known because they do that one particular wonky thing and they most likely are not consistent. Otherwise you could cut the heads off all the hundreds of pros and 99.9% of them would all look identical.
One can find the exceptions - someone mentioned the Resident Evil series - but that doesn't invalidate that 99% of the other games do what I said. It's getting better to some extent, but Americans are still seen as stupid and many games a dumbed down for no real reason other than "Americans are stupid" - some to a great extent. I've known too many turned off by RPG's for the very reason that foreign companies changed thier games to think it is just Americans don't like (or can not handle) RPG's.
"By your theory Earthbound should have done every bit as well as it did in japan. However, the game tanked badly. I was one of the, oh, maybe 5 people in the USA to buy that game. It was awesome, btw, but that's not the point."
Not really. I pretty much only play RPG's - you can count the non-RPG games I really like on your fingers (I think more than five, I know less than 10. I began playing in the 80's on a 2600). However, I was never fond of the earthboubd series. Not because of complexity - I found them quite simple - but because I hated the story. I didn't care about anyone or anything in the game - it's complexity had nothing to do with it. I figured that was most likely a cultural thing, I could see that it was a well done "something", but that something was something I didn't care for (to use another analogy I hate cheesecakes. I'm enough of a chef/cook I can taste quality vs crap even if I do not like a particular taste). I suspect that was true beyond just me.
Look at the Nippon Ichi games that are in the US. Were it not for Atlas these games would never have been seen - yet they have made quite a bit of profit and sold many units. I can't say they are particularly complex games (I've played MUCH more comples games - many developed in the US for the US), but the reason they were not imported was that American audiences were not "smart" enough to deal with them. Sales proved this to be false, they could be proved false over and over and over and the stereotype will remain.
Like it or not, Japanese see American gamers as stupid an not able to handle most "real" games. It's systemic in the industry. It will be for quite a number of years.
The very popular Final Fantasy series has very much seen this. We, in the US, never saw quite a few of the releases. For much the same reason - we are seen as too stupid. Later releases have been adjusted to meet both our markets.
The interesting question is: is this true? I don't really think so, Imports/unedited releases are too popular when available. IMO people are mostly just people - difficulty doesn't matter much. Culture references very much are important, but that is very different from complexity.
Lets put it this way: were there to be a "white" and "black" version of a US game release where the black version was VERY simplified from the white persons games for the same reasons would we accept it? Not in the least - and rightfully so. There may be some culture difference (maybe one prefers FPS over RPGS) but complexity and ability to understand it is not one of them.
I've always found it intereseting what prejudices are accepted and which are not. Not just in the above example (dark colored skin vs light colored), but in any of them. West vs east, tech vs non tech, color of skin, rural vs city, religious vs non-religious, or any number of classes that are compared. Pretty much everyone has them - I do. I try to root them out but am shown that I haven't found one from time to time. For whatever reason it seems to be human nature to group - some can try and identify it, some can not. And, in some cases, the groups are even accurate (if they are accurate to ignore them is horrid/destructive policy).
While there may very well be some cultural differences (maybe westerners do actually prefer FPS and simple games over easterners - though I'm not sure that's true), it's not because one can not handle them. I don't like art films - I can quite follow them and understnad them - however I still don't like anything but simple minded movies (I do, however, like complex books).
Re:That's great and all, but...
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Growing Insulin
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· Score: 2, Informative
My father is self employeed (to note, anyone that talks of govt assistance go check what assitance you can get as a business owner - you know: they are all rich and can afford anything) and has to get his own insurance. As a diabetic that has had bypass surgery that is not easy - what he can get pays for no medicine at all. It will only pay for in patient surgery.
His monthly insulin bill is around 600 dollars a month (total medication is ~1500, insurance is another ~900). While I'm sure that he would also like to have his diabetes cured, I think he would care quite a bit if this went down in price like this sounds like it should.
Maybe you don't care, maybe your insurance covers the expense or you don't need that much. But for a few million people this will really benefit them and make thier lives much easier. Personally I'm pretty happy that some people out there can look to more than simply what affects them (or thier wants only) and not go for the Cure or nothing approach.
It's hard to tell exactly where people stand on this based on what has been written, but I think I tend to be somewhere in between the two stances argued so far. It's possible both of the arguments are really just restating the samething in different ways or totally disagree with what I'm about to write.
If I spend 3 billion dollars to map NYC to within a meter for a game I expect my data set to be legally protected. Really, that should be a no brainer. I'm not liscensing they layout - just liscensing the amount of work/money I have done. If you choose to donate time to *my* project that is your choice.
OTOH I don't own the layout of NYC - there is nothing to protect (nor should there be) someone else from doing the same thing. Even if it turns out to be 100% exactly what I have - as long as you came up with it one your own. I can't see how someone would think they can own that type of data.
To use the currect DB example - you shouldn't be able to own the knowledge that Band A wrote song B and it matches some hash of a given CD. That's like owning the layout to New York. However, if some company gathered all the information into a place then *that particular* database should not be copied. That is - having FreeDB simply run a script to query CDDB should be able to be made illegal, some one querying freedb to make thier own should be able to be illegal. If you don't like thier rules (and they fall within legal limits - obviously requiring ownership of your first born to access the DB shouldn't be legal). If you want one with a different liscense collect the data yourself.
But then, that's not really the scope of the original article - they seem to accept that CDDB liscense is legal. At issue is that a group that professes "free" isn't what some contributors call "Free". I don't really have a dog in the fight, I've never cared one way or another - but hey, this is slashdot and I still have an opinion. Before I submit to anything I generally make sure I accept thier liscense - I don't find it entirely honest to submit then complain that it isn't what you want and try and force change. I tend to agree with the original article - it should be free-er especially given how they collect thier data. However that affects my desire to contribute, not complaining after the fact.
Meh, I don't really see the point to much of the arguments. Databases should be legally protected (copyright or whatever is needed). The individual facts should not be legally protected (unless there is an overriding need of privacy such as facts like SSN's or credit card numbers). Read licenses before submitting work, if you don't like them don't submit work. If you really dislike them - start your own project. It seems pretty simple - someone violated any of the rules and you owned it you would be ticked (and I mean "you" as the current reader) - no reason to think that you should be able to violate it when it's against someone else.
I've never found American footbal to be equipment bound. The vast majority of it is safety oriented, more expensive just lasted longer or there was some comfort value in the cheapest stuff (like shoes). The comfort/durability issue was just as strong in soccer.
My high school team went from a 3/7 record to state semi finals in about 5 years - all on the same equipment. What changed was two things - first and foremost we got lucky to have a group of about 6 key players who were *relly* good and a change in pre-season workouts. We had full setups of cheap to quite expensive and I can not fathom what the expensive had over the cheap (other than durability and comfort in a few cases).
Now, those pre-season workouts equipment mattered quite a bit. Better weight training systems, better health monitoring systems, and quite a bit of that type of stuff *really* can help. However, that is true of every physical sport on the planet (even archery or firearms marksmanship) - soccer and footbal about even (soccer is probably a little more important given thier play structure).
As someone else stated, things like golf *do* make a huge difference. Archery and firearms even class you based on equipment. However, american football doesn't tend to be any more equipment heavy than soccer. Comfort and durability are where the cost is at (shoes for both, helmets, pads, etc). Heck, in soccer there are shoes that are illegal because they offer too much of an advantage.
I guess I'll finish with: What excactly about US football is equipment bound? Which expensive equipment gives one football team advantage over another that soccer doesn't have the same issue?
... the US plans to do - something that doesn't reflect reality.
People try and fit things they do not understand into things they do. We all do it, many times with things called "analogies". I know some of the better description I had of networking revolved around analogies to roads - I had enough knowledge to know where those analogies failed. In this case regulation has always worked - why not now? After all it's just broadcasting and lines within thier control.
Unless you can frame it how they understand it (and in a way they care about, for example if cost is irrelevant then saying it's cheaper will persuade none) you are wasting breath/bandwidth/time.
This will continue to happen for some time. As the population that is comfortable with current technology comes into power it will recede. But then, there were be something new out there that gets the same treatment. It always has and it always will.
It's a fact of life. If you want to affect change you have to accept it and work within those strictures (that doesn't mean not try and change it, just accept it happens and work from there).
Accept what you can not change, strive to change what you can.
Another way of saying that is that perception trumps reality.
In some cases this isn't true (the bridge will take the load or not - your perception, model, calculations, etc are worthless if they are wrong). In some other things perception is God (usually questions that "feel" is the main term - for instance dating).
It's hard to convince people of spending power. Too many expect to always earn more and more but prices stay they same - not gonna happen. It's totally a "feel" question.
I've seen people complain that Guild Wars is too expensive at 50 dollars per expansion and no monthly fee. Never mind that the actual amount payed would be around 50% higher with a normal monthly fee and a normal expansion price (with the same content). People expect expansion to be 30 dollars, expect online RPGs to cost 10-15 dollars a month. Dropping the monthly fee is all well and good, but charging one months fee extra for an expansion (that is every 6-10 months) makes them feel bad - it still breaks what they expect. And that isn't even hard to figure, it doesn't take some nebulous "cost of living adjustment" magic. (and yes, some just do not feel it was worth either price - that's a different argument and is consistent)
There are archival quality optical media (including CD's and DVD's).
Samething happened with floppies. I've got old floppies that I payed $3.00+ *each* for that are well over 10 years old - still read. In fact, I've even removed the "platter" from the case, put it in another, and still have them read. I'm not alone in this.
However, I have the same brand of floppies that were purchased just a few years later that cost about $.25 each that were lucky to be readable months later. You could still purchase archival quality floppies for about $2.50 each, I have some that still read/write just fine.
Had similar experience with my CD's. My old ones, when they were 5 or six dollars a pop still read. New ones are just large floppies to carry something from computer to computer when I can't get a decent network connection between them. I've never had quality DVD's but I have seen them for sale.
Same with that "proven" thing called tapes. You get crap and great depending on what you want to pay for. They are no better or worse than optical formats.
Any of these types of media can be archival, though some more than others. Of them hard drives are about the most failure prone - too many moving parts in them. For real archival data storage (not home use) thier MTBF is horrid, you would be crazy to commit it to them - try archiving when you are using in the hundreds of them (the last place I worked had small data sets around 10 TB), not just two or three. They are great for shorter term stuff (say, weekly rotated backups that only stay around a month), great for home use (only have a few), and have a few other uses. Maybe if they produced a special archival hard drive that may change but I bet it would be cost prohibitive.
I have metal tapes and some optical media I would bet you could still read in hundred years (well, if you could find a reader, I can't with the tapes now though they just have old warez and shareware from the early 90's so I do not really care). Your just going to pay through the nose for them - no storage media that costs less than a hamburger is going to be archival quality. Even our mass produced paper and photos degrade fairly quickly. Very little of what we produce will be around 150 years from now unless someone spend a great deal of money to preserve it (then again, most of it was created as transitory anyway).
You can not look at mass produced crap in a small environment that is *intentionally* transitory (optimised for cost) and conclude the entire media is junk. You aren't stressing the media nor are you using the stuff meant to be good.
Large swatches of the US are not really applicable to this. It needs a high population density to work well. Thus it isn't used - even if available - for much of the country. Chances are, you don't live in someplace that most of your serices are available everywhere (and I say that not knowing where you live because it is true for most places). Gun ranges are ubiquitous here, I don't assume they are everywhere because they are here.
There are some large areas of the US that still do not have some modern services, some that do not have any. I have relatives that live on ancestral farms that have no external electricity or external running water - I can't see online groceries doing well there (though those people have satellite coverage run from house generators - they could actually order stuff online). Broadband coverage is still not everywhere - again our sprawl is to blame, let alone online grocery shopping.
In fact, I would guess that the majority of the US this isn't that great an idea. Unless it is really hard to get your local grocery store is MUCH more efficient and cheaper. Denser areas (such as the UK or New York City) I would guess this to be quite cost effective - probably more so than local shops.
For the most part I agree. But I don't think it is govt only, very few want to take responsibility. Most are afraid they will be high enough to take the blame, low enough to not get out of it.
Being a govt employee for a number of years I can see it. I didn't like signing for anything I wasn't 100% sure of - I could loose my job. Non Govt people wouldn't sign for anything either - they could be fined huge sums of money.
For example, a contractor would wants a signature like you state (lets, for a moment, assume that the individual in question had worked normally - I usually pulled 70-80 hour weeks. Some groups had no real accountability on work hours for reasons of responsibility, research groups were not one of them). I would sign it if the someone who said "I'm done and it works" says so. They generally refused to sign it too unless I took full credit.
Of course, I don't know you, some would sign it, I would sign anything I actually had authority and knowledge to certify (an idea that can tend to be rare amongst workers), so do not take it personally.
Essentially the system is such that no one wants to take authority. Most govt employees are paid horrid so they do no want to take responsibility. Most contrators liability is horrid so they don't want to either. It leads to what we have now. I can't blame most people - the system is geared towards producing that.
Don't get me started on in-govt work orders - you want terrible, have a NIC die and be in an office you can not lock the door. The only people that believe the process you have to go through are other govt employees - I've had few non-govt people remotely believe what you have to do and pay for. The 100 dollar screwdrivers popular in the 80's are a chip of the iceberg.
Years ago I read in a text book that the words spoken at most major discoveries were not "Eureka! I've found it!" but "That's interesting?" or "Oops!".
This has been well known for years by anyone that has done research. It's dramatic stories that make it otherwise. Really, research is quite boring story wise. If your going to tell about how *something* was created a great drive to find "it" is better than accidental discovery.
Duke 3d was the *third* game in the series, not the original. The original was a side scroller, people that played it generally know who Commander Keen is also. The Duke 3d guys were mastering potty training when the side scroller was released too.
That being said, hopefully it isn't in development. At the very least could you imagine how much of a dead end listing "Development lead on Duke Nukem Forever" would be? You wouldn't even get an "A" for effort. Plus at this point it probably gets better as publicity than anything - spend a few weeks making some "demo" or even just bother to say a remark on you get in all the gaming mags and the front page of places like Slashdot. Publicity one could not purchase. If you actually released the game you would go down as a "sad joke" instead of a funny one.
Slashdot Mirror
"Another issue is that the stuff inside steak that's "tasty", also happens to be bad for you if it's a significant portion of your diet."
And that is preciesly why textured vegetable protien will probably never exclipse meat. The only two ways are if meat becomes so expensive that no one can afford it (unlikely - fish and chicken are *cheap*) or they can make vegetables taste the same. I seriously doubt either. Health reasons will never be enough.
Now, I use things like tofu all the time as an additive to meat dishes - a good way to add protien and fill you up and taste good. But it rarely makes up more than 25%, after that us non-vegetarians that are looking for "meat" taste start to notice. (note, this is to *replace* meat as opposed to a dish that is intended to be tofu). As you say with "tasty" - it's not just texture and the "tasty" bits are fat and such.
I like vegetables, but I like them as vegetables. I've yet to find any that are a reasonable substitute for meat. In fact any that are even remotely a substitute. I'm not knocking a vegetarian lifestyle - my mother is nearly one (she doesn't like meat too much) - but it would be difficult in the extreme to have a vegatable mimic the taste of the protiens and such you are complaining about. I would rather just let the things be veggies and enjoy that. I'm as much a carnivore as any American, yet i've gone weeks without meat because I've found some new class of vegetable dishes that are great (not vegetables trying to replace meat, but ones that celebrate being vegetables).
Vegetarians trying to convince people to eat less (or no) meat would be better off focusing on good, pure vegetable dishes than vegetable protien that kinda taste and sorta feels like meat. Your never gonna win the meat crowd with veggie burgers however much they fullfill that role in you (what makes a convert happy typically isn't what converts people). Arguments about health and aquifers are about as effective as "It taste so much better" is at making you eat lots of meat. Better to attack what they are caring about than what you care about.
Blame it on internet marketing, not the fact that you have a movie about snakes on a plane.
Really - even on places it has gotten high ratings it is because that group of people enjoy totally crappy movies and liked the audience heckling the movie. They liken it to Rocky Horror Pickture Show (so crappy it is entertaining) or Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the audience heckling). If that's you thing - OK, but the majority of people will just think it is crap. If you like it because of the heckling, your only going to get a night or two of that, then boring.
I never could figure out why they were spending so much on such a crappy thing. Heck, they even payed some political bloggers to commercial it. Porbably the absolutely worst audience for a campy movie about snakes on a plane. Try commercialing movies that fit what bloggers and thier audience enjoy and see if you do not get a better response (you know, what good advertising usually is considered).
You ought to see our dogs - point to a spot Say "treat" and they run right to the spot you point. They then circle out trying to find said food.
You also ought to watch some types of hunting dogs in action, most of the pointers and retrievers do quite well with pointing. Heck, the pointers even, well, point. And they do that with no training whatsever, you training is to get them to only point animals you are itnerested in otherwise they will point butterflies, rabbits, squirrils, bees, or any thing they see moving.
Also watch some dog shows - pointing at spots has the dog sit where the person points at - that would mean they understood the directional meaning of a point quite well.
Our cats have never followed a finger being pointed, but nearly all the dogs we have had would for food. Our hunting dogs definatly did. Of course, the cats ignore anything and everything you try and get them to do so it's hard to know if they understand it or not.
I'm not anything close to the people who think dolphins are really really intelligent (though Douglas Adams makes a pretty good case), but IRTFA and I can not see how this is a serious article.
It ends: "Manger also points to the tuna industry, which under consumer pressure has gone to great lengths to prevent dolphins from being caught and killed by accident in nets.
"If they were really intelligent, they would just jump over the net because it doesn't come out of the water," he said."
Umm, yea, they would if they ware smart? *sigh* - how did this make *any* news at all. Even assuming that the gist of the article is true (about the different types of brain material) the rest is crap - was it "peer reviewed" (as the article points out) by other idiots? Maybe it is all a Rovian plot to discredit Aljazeera.net? I can not take the article and it's contents with any real sense of belief - it is so idiotic that I can not trust the rest of it. That's not to say they are incorrect - just that this individual article is is pure crap and one should not use it to base any belief on.
I don't know how you put it to them so don't take the following as a criticism. You may very well do this and just be unlucky.
Did you, perhaps, talk to them like you would us on slashdot? Remember, even to us conservatives here (and most consevative websites) you tend to be preaching to the choir on this particular issue. The last line you quote: "You will merely have rented them until the march of technology locks you out of enjoying the content any further" is something of a hyperbole. For one thing I don't think it was the companies want - though it is definatly the outcome of what they want. I think they are either looking at thier loss of monopoly (if it's easy to produce, easy to distrbute, and easy to market what are they useful for) or (and this is the logical meaning of "or") simply see the ability to control the market like never before. What was said may very well be, and probably is, in thier wet dreams but I think the relatives are correct in that the govt will not allow it. Mostly because at that point too many people will ignore it and forces the govt can not control will occur (notice that the govt never touches those forces - too easy to see they *really* only have power because we agree they do).
The danger is that they get something less than that - that would be sustainable.
The best way to deal with it is just tell the basic facts. "The screen is changing brightness because they do not want you to run you DVD player to you VCR" - "why" - "because they do not want you to copy it for any reason and running it through your VCR would allow it". If they argue simply say "Ok, go do it then" and drop it.
I tried for years to get them to understand. Calm talks about RIAA/MPAA and content control, rants about it, everything I could think of was dismissed. I finally took this tact - don't argue with them. It just sets you up to be easily ignored. Agree with them and tell them to go do what it is they think they really can. Answer thier questions and little more (be totally factual and non-ranty, unless you can quote it directly do not say it however true what you are saying is - "You can not purchase that equipment due to the DMCA because it may be used to circumvent a copy protections scheme, yes I understand you have a legitimate need for it"). In my case nearly all my family dislikes the RIAA/MPAA and "rights management". They don't really know much more than they can not do what they think they should be able to do - but that's good enough. They even tend to *think* when they hear crap the industry spews out - it's funny to hear what a few years ago was me being a crazy ranter now being what they are saying. But then, there are some that you can do nothing about. Leave them be - in the long run you will look better for it, you suddenly become reasonable and people will listen.
You will never find a "master" at what they do that does not practice and have lots of experience. That is, of course, a given. I don't think any one says otherwise - to a large extent the article implies it. No coach thinks raw talent alone will win the olympics, it takes practice, practice, practice, and more practice.
It also requires Chess to be a near perfect look into intellect and ability - the author obviously understands this as roughly half the article is an attemp to prove it. If this is not true then the whole theory falls apart and I do not think enough is shown for this to be true (not being in that field I do not know if it is considered a given, but again I doubt it is. I can not see chess having much bearing to archery).
I can assure you that innate talent exists. It is not hard to find. I have two fairly good archery students - one shoots only the one day of our course and the other shoots at home every day. If hard work and focus was the deciding factor the wrong one is getting much higer scores.
We can all find people in our own schooling that exemplifies this. In science/math courses I did very very little and was generally one of the higer grades. I knew quite a number of people who were obsessed and spent WAY more time than I ever did who never came anywhere close to my ability. I knew people who surpassed me that worked less and some that worked more. Of course I still spent quite a bit of time at it. I could not learn how something worked without reading about it or taking it apart, yet I needed only to do so once or twice. Some could do it hundreds of times and never get it, some would only need to get halfway before they understood it. That's innate talent.
It's so trivial to find people that break this theory I can not see how it is talked about much. Obviously hard work will get you a long ways, pure talent on never using it is horrid, and pure talent with hard work is what makes world champions. I can (and have) practiced enough to be a champion in Archery, I'm nowhere close and I'll never be - I just can not hold the bow steady enough. No amount of practice will overcome it.
Coaches and teachers say this because after running thousands of people through thier programs it is obvious that a thing called "talent" exists.
And, lastly, they gloss over that all of thier examples were considered prodigies even before they invested years and years of hard work, to be a world champion requires both. The study pre-assumes that talent is the same, notes that practice is different so it *must* be the cause (how can you say that with more than one variable?). How about we try and hold everything that affects the outcome constant that we can (practice, initial novice level, user motivation, etc) and see if everyone performs at the same level. I bet they do not. Right now there are too many variables from the study listed to draw any conclusion - talent could very well still play a large role, it has not been ruled out. Just as it is obvious that hard work is needed to be a world champion it should be obvious that not including talent will make talent irrelevant in thier study. Unless you control or adjust for a variable you *can not* make any conclsuion on how much it affects your outcome.
These guys were getting too close for comfort (to note, I have absolutely nothing to do with this site - I just googled it). With looming Freedom of Information act requests the only option was to "loose" the films lest the community can finally find the films. This is has been the time honored way the govt covers everything up. Expect to see more about this "loss" as we move forward with investigating.
I mean, who here *really* thinks that NASA would just conveniently loose just the moon landings when there is so much controversy. Not just the first one, but *all* of them. Now they can just claim whatever they want and there is no way to track them.
This is just further proof that Aliens have visited the planet, after all there was no other reason they would try and shift the focus away from places like Roswell, add in that it "proved" that we were alone you got a tidy package.
Well, either that or 1960's film storage wasn't too good and they are underfunded. Sad to see it go, at least there are other films of it so it's not a total loss. Hopefully little was totally lost, it's sad to realise how little of our civilisation will remain for historians and how quick it occurs now.
I don't really know. From the details given in the article the Police were a bunch of incompetant idiots (that is even more incompetant than a normal idiot).
:)
However, all we hear from are the parents and the kids - not the best of sources as to what happened. Is there another story? Maybe, maybe not. The only thing we hear from police is that they though about charging them with something more (the part about what they did still came from the children)
I know I've seen some, shall we say, creative descriptions of acts. It's not uncommon to hear family and friends describe a murderer as a really nice guy that you would have never thought anything about. Only to find out they were arrested/convicted 10 times for assault with a deadly weapon, one for rape, three times for animal cruelty (sometimes *really* horrid stuf), and a list that goes on and on and on (and all violent). You wonder why they didn't lock the person under the freaking jail. I'm sure we have all seen some little kid do something horrid only to have them lie to their parents and thier parents defend them.
And then, maybe it is *exactly* what is described. I could be - I wouldn't put it past any police to do so. Just as the above example we have all seen All-Go police that do really really stupid agressive moves.
As is usual for any story that is written in this type of context (pushing you towards a viewpoint instead of simply stating facts and only telling one side of the story) I will reserve full judgment until I hear more. I can't think of anything that would really mitigate it - but just because I can not doesn't mean it isn't there. I feel *really* uncomfortable getting too riled up about writing meant to rile people up. Unfortunatly I doubt we will ever know more than than the totally lopsided story we read here - at least give us a paragraph on the police departments response (even if they only pick out the crappiest and weakest part).
Of course, this is the UK so I'm happy to bash them (I'm an American - I get it too much and I like to dish it out sometimes). Dang Limey's - all they do is arrest poor little kids just doing normal kid stuff
China and India throw a monkey wrench in many things out there. There are *a lot* of people getting ready to consume resources like any westerner (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I reckon at least doubling the population of resource eaters). I suspect that we will not really work to solve them until hit by them, but in the mean time it will suck.
This is true for oil, ethanol, hydrogen, geothermal, tidal, wind, nuclear, and pretty much everything there is (I guess the amount of solar available is fixed based on area under the sun, that's about the only one I can think of and it's currently not efficient enough). The old saying of "There is no such thing as a free lunch" is especially true in energy (the whole three laws of thermodynamics ensure that).
I can't say which one will end up working. For general energy needs I can not see anything other nuclear working - though then waste will need to be addressed (while currently quite effecient it is a different story when a few billion more people use electricity like there is no tomorrow). As for personal locomotion - I don't know. I would guess anything over hydrogen will die, there just is not enough (I read a few years ago that old oil fields were refilled and the way oil is produced was being re-researched - even if true it still isn't enough). Of course there is the whole "other" classification which I really hope holds something we can find in time.
I don't mean to sound like someone who thinks our energy consumption is going to kill us - I do not (I know I used some language that implied that - that was intentional as when those countries fully come one line we will have a problem). I just do not think we have really been hit by the crunch yet. I think it will take that before we meet our needs for a longer term. Nor do I mean to imply I oppose such a thing, after it is all over I think humans will be in a *MUCH* better place - I just hope I live to see the whole cycle.
However, the virtual actor doesn't fare so well signing autographs, making appearances, and quite a few other things that real poeple do. Plus it seems that having a "realistic" fantasy (in the sense that it is physically possible) with a particular actor motivates a alot of stardom. For many shows this is most of the popularity, even the fans don't care much for the story.
Plus we would loose all the nice scandals - but I'm not too sure if this would be an overall plus or minus.
I do believe this type of stuff will really help small production films. I'm not so certain how it would work out for major shows - it may be that even with 50% of the current popularity it would still be such a profit maker that they wouldn't care (just like the mentioned reality shows - they are just so cheap to produce it doesn't take much audience to make a lot of money). Though in the long run that just leaves open a great void for another form of entertainment to rule, at the least such lowered production and distribution costs would really reduce the studios influence (much as what the RIAA is currently thinking of with home studios and digital distribution).
You are not making much sense, you begin by ranting that teaching kids the right thing and trusting them is what you should be doing. You then complain that the lunch lady should have no say in it, which she doesn't in this system along with some other things this system does not do (and those reasons are why it is evil). You then champion not trusting them to purchase the correct foods so you pack thier lunches.
I fail to see how restricting thier diet by packing thier lunch and not allowing them to purchase food you do not approve of is any different than not allowing them to purchase food you do not approve of at school. In either case you are not trusting them, in one you are using an automated system and in the other you are using a manual system. And it's not like the manual system garners a higher level of interaction with your kid, it's just shifting where the "no" is said.
Personally I would prefer the automated system from the two - less crap for the kid to keep track of and the possibility of a larger variety of foods (lots of foodstuff you can not easily package in the morning to be ate later). Though I would just assume let them choose from the schools menu and not worry too much about it, that has seemed to work for many a year - society has not collapsed yet.
"When do you think movies were good? The 90's? The 80's? Look at the top ten list from just about any week from any year."
Good? Never. I know that's what the original article said but I would rather use the term "not suck". For that I would say the mid to early 90's back through the 80's (I can't speak before then as I was too young to be much of a movie go-er and now only watch the quality stuff that lasted or really campy cult movies). At least once a month there was something worth getting out to see, usually twice. I may forget it two weeks later, but I was still entertained and didn't feel ripped off. And if you liked Indie films even more often
Now, not nearly so common. Indie films have been pretty constant - no real degredation there. But mainstream films have slid a great deal. The quality of the median is MUCH lower now (however, a good movies are still just as good and being made). That's why I think the Great Quest for Constant Profit is the root cause - Indies typically can not operate in that mode, they have to stay creative. This differs from simply wanting and trying for profits in that they try to come up with a formula for a profitable film and produce mostly that. Creative works are a gamble, they tend to really bust or really make money. Most of the currect crap is garunteed to make some return on the investment, currently studios only want this type of movie.
Same thing in music. Video games are rapidly moving towards that too. Personally I think it will cycle around again to make decent movies again - it's like the chinese resturaunt down the street from me that cooks with high quality food until thier customer base grows large, then cheap until it drops to maximise profits (I know for a fact they do this, one of my better friends in high school is thier son). I don't think they are conciously doing this, I just think the market will push it in that direction.
To some extent I agree with what you wrote. FFVII definatly was much better, and the hard bosses were really hard. Though you picked it for a reason - it's one of the few that doesn't fit what I said.
Take, for example, archery. The overiding truth is that as long as you do the same thing exactly the same everytime it doesn't matter what you do. I will assure you that whatever wacky thing you decide is correct some pro somewhere had won a large tournement doing exactly that. However, that one person is known because they do that one particular wonky thing and they most likely are not consistent. Otherwise you could cut the heads off all the hundreds of pros and 99.9% of them would all look identical.
One can find the exceptions - someone mentioned the Resident Evil series - but that doesn't invalidate that 99% of the other games do what I said. It's getting better to some extent, but Americans are still seen as stupid and many games a dumbed down for no real reason other than "Americans are stupid" - some to a great extent. I've known too many turned off by RPG's for the very reason that foreign companies changed thier games to think it is just Americans don't like (or can not handle) RPG's.
"By your theory Earthbound should have done every bit as well as it did in japan. However, the game tanked badly. I was one of the, oh, maybe 5 people in the USA to buy that game. It was awesome, btw, but that's not the point."
Not really. I pretty much only play RPG's - you can count the non-RPG games I really like on your fingers (I think more than five, I know less than 10. I began playing in the 80's on a 2600). However, I was never fond of the earthboubd series. Not because of complexity - I found them quite simple - but because I hated the story. I didn't care about anyone or anything in the game - it's complexity had nothing to do with it. I figured that was most likely a cultural thing, I could see that it was a well done "something", but that something was something I didn't care for (to use another analogy I hate cheesecakes. I'm enough of a chef/cook I can taste quality vs crap even if I do not like a particular taste). I suspect that was true beyond just me.
Look at the Nippon Ichi games that are in the US. Were it not for Atlas these games would never have been seen - yet they have made quite a bit of profit and sold many units. I can't say they are particularly complex games (I've played MUCH more comples games - many developed in the US for the US), but the reason they were not imported was that American audiences were not "smart" enough to deal with them. Sales proved this to be false, they could be proved false over and over and over and the stereotype will remain.
Like it or not, Japanese see American gamers as stupid an not able to handle most "real" games. It's systemic in the industry. It will be for quite a number of years.
Many many video games have seen this treatment.
The very popular Final Fantasy series has very much seen this. We, in the US, never saw quite a few of the releases. For much the same reason - we are seen as too stupid. Later releases have been adjusted to meet both our markets.
The interesting question is: is this true? I don't really think so, Imports/unedited releases are too popular when available. IMO people are mostly just people - difficulty doesn't matter much. Culture references very much are important, but that is very different from complexity.
Lets put it this way: were there to be a "white" and "black" version of a US game release where the black version was VERY simplified from the white persons games for the same reasons would we accept it? Not in the least - and rightfully so. There may be some culture difference (maybe one prefers FPS over RPGS) but complexity and ability to understand it is not one of them.
I've always found it intereseting what prejudices are accepted and which are not. Not just in the above example (dark colored skin vs light colored), but in any of them. West vs east, tech vs non tech, color of skin, rural vs city, religious vs non-religious, or any number of classes that are compared. Pretty much everyone has them - I do. I try to root them out but am shown that I haven't found one from time to time. For whatever reason it seems to be human nature to group - some can try and identify it, some can not. And, in some cases, the groups are even accurate (if they are accurate to ignore them is horrid/destructive policy).
While there may very well be some cultural differences (maybe westerners do actually prefer FPS and simple games over easterners - though I'm not sure that's true), it's not because one can not handle them. I don't like art films - I can quite follow them and understnad them - however I still don't like anything but simple minded movies (I do, however, like complex books).
My father is self employeed (to note, anyone that talks of govt assistance go check what assitance you can get as a business owner - you know: they are all rich and can afford anything) and has to get his own insurance. As a diabetic that has had bypass surgery that is not easy - what he can get pays for no medicine at all. It will only pay for in patient surgery.
His monthly insulin bill is around 600 dollars a month (total medication is ~1500, insurance is another ~900). While I'm sure that he would also like to have his diabetes cured, I think he would care quite a bit if this went down in price like this sounds like it should.
Maybe you don't care, maybe your insurance covers the expense or you don't need that much. But for a few million people this will really benefit them and make thier lives much easier. Personally I'm pretty happy that some people out there can look to more than simply what affects them (or thier wants only) and not go for the Cure or nothing approach.
It's hard to tell exactly where people stand on this based on what has been written, but I think I tend to be somewhere in between the two stances argued so far. It's possible both of the arguments are really just restating the samething in different ways or totally disagree with what I'm about to write.
If I spend 3 billion dollars to map NYC to within a meter for a game I expect my data set to be legally protected. Really, that should be a no brainer. I'm not liscensing they layout - just liscensing the amount of work/money I have done. If you choose to donate time to *my* project that is your choice.
OTOH I don't own the layout of NYC - there is nothing to protect (nor should there be) someone else from doing the same thing. Even if it turns out to be 100% exactly what I have - as long as you came up with it one your own. I can't see how someone would think they can own that type of data.
To use the currect DB example - you shouldn't be able to own the knowledge that Band A wrote song B and it matches some hash of a given CD. That's like owning the layout to New York. However, if some company gathered all the information into a place then *that particular* database should not be copied. That is - having FreeDB simply run a script to query CDDB should be able to be made illegal, some one querying freedb to make thier own should be able to be illegal. If you don't like thier rules (and they fall within legal limits - obviously requiring ownership of your first born to access the DB shouldn't be legal). If you want one with a different liscense collect the data yourself.
But then, that's not really the scope of the original article - they seem to accept that CDDB liscense is legal. At issue is that a group that professes "free" isn't what some contributors call "Free". I don't really have a dog in the fight, I've never cared one way or another - but hey, this is slashdot and I still have an opinion. Before I submit to anything I generally make sure I accept thier liscense - I don't find it entirely honest to submit then complain that it isn't what you want and try and force change. I tend to agree with the original article - it should be free-er especially given how they collect thier data. However that affects my desire to contribute, not complaining after the fact.
Meh, I don't really see the point to much of the arguments. Databases should be legally protected (copyright or whatever is needed). The individual facts should not be legally protected (unless there is an overriding need of privacy such as facts like SSN's or credit card numbers). Read licenses before submitting work, if you don't like them don't submit work. If you really dislike them - start your own project. It seems pretty simple - someone violated any of the rules and you owned it you would be ticked (and I mean "you" as the current reader) - no reason to think that you should be able to violate it when it's against someone else.
I've never found American footbal to be equipment bound. The vast majority of it is safety oriented, more expensive just lasted longer or there was some comfort value in the cheapest stuff (like shoes). The comfort/durability issue was just as strong in soccer.
My high school team went from a 3/7 record to state semi finals in about 5 years - all on the same equipment. What changed was two things - first and foremost we got lucky to have a group of about 6 key players who were *relly* good and a change in pre-season workouts. We had full setups of cheap to quite expensive and I can not fathom what the expensive had over the cheap (other than durability and comfort in a few cases).
Now, those pre-season workouts equipment mattered quite a bit. Better weight training systems, better health monitoring systems, and quite a bit of that type of stuff *really* can help. However, that is true of every physical sport on the planet (even archery or firearms marksmanship) - soccer and footbal about even (soccer is probably a little more important given thier play structure).
As someone else stated, things like golf *do* make a huge difference. Archery and firearms even class you based on equipment. However, american football doesn't tend to be any more equipment heavy than soccer. Comfort and durability are where the cost is at (shoes for both, helmets, pads, etc). Heck, in soccer there are shoes that are illegal because they offer too much of an advantage.
I guess I'll finish with: What excactly about US football is equipment bound? Which expensive equipment gives one football team advantage over another that soccer doesn't have the same issue?
... the US plans to do - something that doesn't reflect reality.
People try and fit things they do not understand into things they do. We all do it, many times with things called "analogies". I know some of the better description I had of networking revolved around analogies to roads - I had enough knowledge to know where those analogies failed. In this case regulation has always worked - why not now? After all it's just broadcasting and lines within thier control.
Unless you can frame it how they understand it (and in a way they care about, for example if cost is irrelevant then saying it's cheaper will persuade none) you are wasting breath/bandwidth/time.
This will continue to happen for some time. As the population that is comfortable with current technology comes into power it will recede. But then, there were be something new out there that gets the same treatment. It always has and it always will.
It's a fact of life. If you want to affect change you have to accept it and work within those strictures (that doesn't mean not try and change it, just accept it happens and work from there).
Accept what you can not change, strive to change what you can.
Another way of saying that is that perception trumps reality.
In some cases this isn't true (the bridge will take the load or not - your perception, model, calculations, etc are worthless if they are wrong). In some other things perception is God (usually questions that "feel" is the main term - for instance dating).
It's hard to convince people of spending power. Too many expect to always earn more and more but prices stay they same - not gonna happen. It's totally a "feel" question.
I've seen people complain that Guild Wars is too expensive at 50 dollars per expansion and no monthly fee. Never mind that the actual amount payed would be around 50% higher with a normal monthly fee and a normal expansion price (with the same content). People expect expansion to be 30 dollars, expect online RPGs to cost 10-15 dollars a month. Dropping the monthly fee is all well and good, but charging one months fee extra for an expansion (that is every 6-10 months) makes them feel bad - it still breaks what they expect. And that isn't even hard to figure, it doesn't take some nebulous "cost of living adjustment" magic. (and yes, some just do not feel it was worth either price - that's a different argument and is consistent)
There are archival quality optical media (including CD's and DVD's).
Samething happened with floppies. I've got old floppies that I payed $3.00+ *each* for that are well over 10 years old - still read. In fact, I've even removed the "platter" from the case, put it in another, and still have them read. I'm not alone in this.
However, I have the same brand of floppies that were purchased just a few years later that cost about $.25 each that were lucky to be readable months later. You could still purchase archival quality floppies for about $2.50 each, I have some that still read/write just fine.
Had similar experience with my CD's. My old ones, when they were 5 or six dollars a pop still read. New ones are just large floppies to carry something from computer to computer when I can't get a decent network connection between them. I've never had quality DVD's but I have seen them for sale.
Same with that "proven" thing called tapes. You get crap and great depending on what you want to pay for. They are no better or worse than optical formats.
Any of these types of media can be archival, though some more than others. Of them hard drives are about the most failure prone - too many moving parts in them. For real archival data storage (not home use) thier MTBF is horrid, you would be crazy to commit it to them - try archiving when you are using in the hundreds of them (the last place I worked had small data sets around 10 TB), not just two or three. They are great for shorter term stuff (say, weekly rotated backups that only stay around a month), great for home use (only have a few), and have a few other uses. Maybe if they produced a special archival hard drive that may change but I bet it would be cost prohibitive.
I have metal tapes and some optical media I would bet you could still read in hundred years (well, if you could find a reader, I can't with the tapes now though they just have old warez and shareware from the early 90's so I do not really care). Your just going to pay through the nose for them - no storage media that costs less than a hamburger is going to be archival quality. Even our mass produced paper and photos degrade fairly quickly. Very little of what we produce will be around 150 years from now unless someone spend a great deal of money to preserve it (then again, most of it was created as transitory anyway).
You can not look at mass produced crap in a small environment that is *intentionally* transitory (optimised for cost) and conclude the entire media is junk. You aren't stressing the media nor are you using the stuff meant to be good.
Large swatches of the US are not really applicable to this. It needs a high population density to work well. Thus it isn't used - even if available - for much of the country. Chances are, you don't live in someplace that most of your serices are available everywhere (and I say that not knowing where you live because it is true for most places). Gun ranges are ubiquitous here, I don't assume they are everywhere because they are here.
There are some large areas of the US that still do not have some modern services, some that do not have any. I have relatives that live on ancestral farms that have no external electricity or external running water - I can't see online groceries doing well there (though those people have satellite coverage run from house generators - they could actually order stuff online). Broadband coverage is still not everywhere - again our sprawl is to blame, let alone online grocery shopping.
In fact, I would guess that the majority of the US this isn't that great an idea. Unless it is really hard to get your local grocery store is MUCH more efficient and cheaper. Denser areas (such as the UK or New York City) I would guess this to be quite cost effective - probably more so than local shops.
For the most part I agree. But I don't think it is govt only, very few want to take responsibility. Most are afraid they will be high enough to take the blame, low enough to not get out of it.
Being a govt employee for a number of years I can see it. I didn't like signing for anything I wasn't 100% sure of - I could loose my job. Non Govt people wouldn't sign for anything either - they could be fined huge sums of money.
For example, a contractor would wants a signature like you state (lets, for a moment, assume that the individual in question had worked normally - I usually pulled 70-80 hour weeks. Some groups had no real accountability on work hours for reasons of responsibility, research groups were not one of them). I would sign it if the someone who said "I'm done and it works" says so. They generally refused to sign it too unless I took full credit.
Of course, I don't know you, some would sign it, I would sign anything I actually had authority and knowledge to certify (an idea that can tend to be rare amongst workers), so do not take it personally.
Essentially the system is such that no one wants to take authority. Most govt employees are paid horrid so they do no want to take responsibility. Most contrators liability is horrid so they don't want to either. It leads to what we have now. I can't blame most people - the system is geared towards producing that.
Don't get me started on in-govt work orders - you want terrible, have a NIC die and be in an office you can not lock the door. The only people that believe the process you have to go through are other govt employees - I've had few non-govt people remotely believe what you have to do and pay for. The 100 dollar screwdrivers popular in the 80's are a chip of the iceberg.
Years ago I read in a text book that the words spoken at most major discoveries were not "Eureka! I've found it!" but "That's interesting?" or "Oops!".
This has been well known for years by anyone that has done research. It's dramatic stories that make it otherwise. Really, research is quite boring story wise. If your going to tell about how *something* was created a great drive to find "it" is better than accidental discovery.
Duke 3d was the *third* game in the series, not the original. The original was a side scroller, people that played it generally know who Commander Keen is also. The Duke 3d guys were mastering potty training when the side scroller was released too.
That being said, hopefully it isn't in development. At the very least could you imagine how much of a dead end listing "Development lead on Duke Nukem Forever" would be? You wouldn't even get an "A" for effort. Plus at this point it probably gets better as publicity than anything - spend a few weeks making some "demo" or even just bother to say a remark on you get in all the gaming mags and the front page of places like Slashdot. Publicity one could not purchase. If you actually released the game you would go down as a "sad joke" instead of a funny one.