>the cameramen? lighting guys? set dressers? continuity staff? scriptwriters?
Judging from the quality of the scripts, I'd say scriptwriters do their job sitting in a jacuzzi with three girls, trying really hard to figure out which line of coke they should sniff first.
In my experience, it's exactly the opposite. I find that while mplayer can handle any format I dish out (and I play a lot!), windblowz media player half of the time refuses to play video files, doing a useless "web-services driver lookup". I guess those formats aren't MS-approved. Tough shit. I've gone to some lengths and downloaded driver packs that all divx/xvid/whatever flavors - and it still wouldn't work. I won't even get started with subtitle support.
With enourmous amount of industry lobbying and general public not knowing any better, I don't see any way for a legislative body to reduce copyright protection term. None. This could happen if the public became suddenly sensitive to this issue, but since the same media companies are also controlling majority of information channels (i.e. TV, news media sites), such awareness will not appear any time soon. So buckle up and get ready to be taken for a ride by the "content gods": they'll tell you what to watch and how much to pay for it.
Ever tried putting a PowerBook next to, let's say, Dell laptop and just looking at it ? It sure feels magical in comparison. Even if buying Apple laptops for the purposes of running Windows won't be too popular, my hope is that it will force PC laptop manufacturers to do a better job. Also, I find it odd that at this point, Apple, who's facing almost no compentition within its potential customer base, managed to design much better product than any of the dozen PC laptop manufacturers that have been competing with eachother for a decade.
sane error messages when using templates
on
GCC 4.0 Preview
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I wish the compiler would output sane error messages on compiling code that uses a lot of templates (i.e STL). At least fixing it so that the line numbers are shown during debugging would be a huge improvement!
First of all investors buying stock does not result in products or services generated. It is only if the company is able to sell additional stock and then put it to a good use you might see that happen.
Second, although stock market is not a true "zero sum" game, it's much closer to that then what you've described. In your example the person who bought the shares last payed for the entire game (up to that point), and if the stock tanks he'll be in the loosing position.
Finally, I think the post was drawing parallels between traiditonal gambling and formalized "speculation" on the stock market. I don't see much difference either. Back on the IPO example where one purchases IPO shares with hopes of selling them quickly for a larger amount. Even if this is done based on some nontrivial calculations/knowledge/etc., how's that different from a poker player who's calculated his odds before making his move ?
How about the Great Seal Bug used by the soviets ?
It was passive, and had to be illuminated by a certain frequencey to work. It was used for more than ID purposes though:)
Re:He seems a dangerous driver (serious)
on
LA to Oregon at Mach 9
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· Score: 2, Informative
More to the point, these rules are not enforced by police, and most drivers are not even aware of them.
Another factor compounding the problem is low speed limits - a person going 55mpg in a leftmost lane has all reason to believe that noone should have a right to pass him.
Sadly, Hitler was not taken seriously, even though the insanity of his intentions could be clearly seen from Mein Kampf (his book). Germans considered him a joke and did not concern themselves with his increasing popularity. It doesn't take much brains to screw things up - just hand power to people with interior motives. Next thing you know, they'll be starting wars and convincing public of the necessity of their crusade.
Good point, I find myself annoyed every time as well. The problem is that even taxes on trivial over-the-counter goods vary depending on what you buy and where you buy. You want to get that 99c burger - no, it's actually $1.06, unless you're in an airport, than it's an extra 25c, or something like that. It's obviously unreasonable to expect a person to know the details of the merchant taxes. So what's stopping businesses from making up their own "Best Buy tax" or something like that, and marking down their ad prices by 50% + taxes ? Or call them fees, whatever. And the only way we're going to get rid of this is to have a law that would force all local merchants to advertize the final price. But that would be an unreasonable requirement for, let's say, online marchants since they might sell products to different states, and would have to pay (as opposed to charge) different amounts of state sales tax.
Hmm, if they can think of something to invent, didn't they just invented it? I thought an invention was essentially something new that nobody thought about before
That's a common misconception - dreaming up some gizmo is not nearly the same as actually inventing it. This is especially obvious for vague wishes such as the one suggested by Mr. Trump. All of revolutionary inventions of the past are rightfully attributed to the people who managed to implement the dreams. Today things a starting to look different. A guy like Billy G. can write a book about talking eyeglasses, patent the idea and have everyone congratulate him on his newest "invention". And a dozen years later some poor sucker will actually build these talking glasses, just to have everyone (including the faithful lawyers) point out to him that it has already been "invented".
>Another example, you own a field and someone grows weed on it, does that make you liable? I double that, too...
My friend was having a party at her house, and left before it was over. Cops came by 3 times because neighbours complained about the noise, and guess what.. my friend, who wasn't even around during all this got the ticket and even had to do community service. This might be a silly example, but it's just to show that laws don't always support remote analogies.
US has a fine track record of respecting privacy as long as it doesn't cost much. Child porn is a problem that has been around for a while, and people are not shocked by its presence, so the validity of a tool like freenet can still be argued in such contexts. But all it takes is a more sensitive topic, for example, terrorism. Just throw a bone to the media and watch them drag Freenet (or almost anything else novel or esoteric) through the streets of Salem onto that faithful post with a flaring fire under it.
Perhaps Independent Artists would find it even easier, and also profitable to sell plain'ol mp3s on web sites. Offer free samples too... this will lead to an increasing popularity of music review sites that are government by their taste in music instead of their hunger for cash. Just think of all the benefits the consumer gets:
*. Nobody tries to trick you into liking some crappy teenage superstar singers, or some other artist who's display of talent is comparable to an average answering machine recording.
*. No fat record companies to fill the airtime of 90% of radio stations with their tasteless excuses for music that no one wants to buy. We might even acquire radio DJs that can actually pick songs on their own instead of reading them from the list that their idiot manager has supplied them with, based on the latest profit optimization algorithm.
*. You don't have to spend half of your stipend on buying music - it doesn't have to cost that much !
Music is an art. Pieces that are "produced" to make money are not. A record company exec, posing as a master of taste and people's desires, will push along anything that sells. Yes, a real-life Barbie with a sexy voice sells, but this has nothing to do with music. I am quite certain that a majority (of the./ crowd, anyhow) would not hesitate making a choice between simply seeing such a star naked, and never hearing her "music" again.
So I propose to come up with a different term for commercial singers - "artist" is utterly misleading.
>the cameramen? lighting guys? set dressers? continuity staff? scriptwriters?
Judging from the quality of the scripts, I'd say scriptwriters do their job sitting in a jacuzzi with three girls, trying really hard to figure out which line of coke they should sniff first.
In my experience, it's exactly the opposite. I find that while mplayer can handle any format I dish out (and I play a lot!), windblowz media player half of the time refuses to play video files, doing a useless "web-services driver lookup". I guess those formats aren't MS-approved. Tough shit. I've gone to some lengths and downloaded driver packs that all divx/xvid/whatever flavors - and it still wouldn't work. I won't even get started with subtitle support.
Pretty nice. Although, from what I remember Alias Wavefront pattented such "conext menus" that expand around the mouse button in their Maya software :/
in other words, they're goign to sell terminals that connect to a multi-node server. Of course, since it's MS Windows, it's revolutionary :/
With enourmous amount of industry lobbying and general public not knowing any better, I don't see any way for a legislative body to reduce copyright protection term. None.
This could happen if the public became suddenly sensitive to this issue, but since the same media companies are also controlling majority of information channels (i.e. TV, news media sites), such awareness will not appear any time soon.
So buckle up and get ready to be taken for a ride by the "content gods": they'll tell you what to watch and how much to pay for it.
Mrs Krabappel: Now who's calculator can tell me what seven times eight is?
Milhouse: Oh oh oh, low battery!
Mrs Krabappel: Whatever
(bell rings)
If he's after a record, he should've included it in his slashdot submission
Ever tried putting a PowerBook next to, let's say, Dell laptop and just looking at it ? It sure feels magical in comparison.
Even if buying Apple laptops for the purposes of running Windows won't be too popular, my hope is that it will force PC laptop manufacturers to do a better job.
Also, I find it odd that at this point, Apple, who's facing almost no compentition within its potential customer base, managed to design much better product than any of the dozen PC laptop manufacturers that have been competing with eachother for a decade.
I wish the compiler would output sane error messages on compiling code that uses a lot of templates (i.e STL). At least fixing it so that the line numbers are shown during debugging would be a huge improvement!
Ohh, just a few more decades and we'll have a viable test bed right here on earth.
Don't forget that most of major Apache projects are staffed by IBM employees.
And many of us are just as weary of our tax dollars being used to influence internal events of other countries.
Say, like sinking $200 billion to remove some irrelevant dictator in a middle-eastern country ?
First of all investors buying stock does not result in products or services generated. It is only if the company is able to sell additional stock and then put it to a good use you might see that happen.
Second, although stock market is not a true "zero sum" game, it's much closer to that then what you've described. In your example the person who bought the shares last payed for the entire game (up to that point), and if the stock tanks he'll be in the loosing position.
Finally, I think the post was drawing parallels between traiditonal gambling and formalized "speculation" on the stock market. I don't see much difference either. Back on the IPO example where one purchases IPO shares with hopes of selling them quickly for a larger amount. Even if this is done based on some nontrivial calculations/knowledge/etc., how's that different from a poker player who's calculated his odds before making his move ?
How about the Great Seal Bug used by the soviets ? :)
It was passive, and had to be illuminated by a certain frequencey to work. It was used for more than ID purposes though
Or how about this
More to the point, these rules are not enforced by police, and most drivers are not even aware of them.
Another factor compounding the problem is low speed limits - a person going 55mpg in a leftmost lane has all reason to believe that noone should have a right to pass him.
Dance revolution ? Uhh. I want Rainbow Six version that tracks my movements. I wouldn't mind all the running around. Better VR is needed though.
Still, "I know a genuine Panaphonix when I see one" :)
Sadly, Hitler was not taken seriously, even though the insanity of his intentions could be clearly seen from Mein Kampf (his book). Germans considered him a joke and did not concern themselves with his increasing popularity.
It doesn't take much brains to screw things up - just hand power to people with interior motives. Next thing you know, they'll be starting wars and convincing public of the necessity of their crusade.
Good point, I find myself annoyed every time as well. The problem is that even taxes on trivial over-the-counter goods vary depending on what you buy and where you buy. You want to get that 99c burger - no, it's actually $1.06, unless you're in an airport, than it's an extra 25c, or something like that. It's obviously unreasonable to expect a person to know the details of the merchant taxes.
So what's stopping businesses from making up their own "Best Buy tax" or something like that, and marking down their ad prices by 50% + taxes ? Or call them fees, whatever.
And the only way we're going to get rid of this is to have a law that would force all local merchants to advertize the final price. But that would be an unreasonable requirement for, let's say, online marchants since they might sell products to different states, and would have to pay (as opposed to charge) different amounts of state sales tax.
Hmm, if they can think of something to invent, didn't they just invented it? I thought an invention was essentially something new that nobody thought about before
That's a common misconception - dreaming up some gizmo is not nearly the same as actually inventing it. This is especially obvious for vague wishes such as the one suggested by Mr. Trump. All of revolutionary inventions of the past are rightfully attributed to the people who managed to implement the dreams. Today things a starting to look different.
A guy like Billy G. can write a book about talking eyeglasses, patent the idea and have everyone congratulate him on his newest "invention". And a dozen years later some poor sucker will actually build these talking glasses, just to have everyone (including the faithful lawyers) point out to him that it has already been "invented".
Try to visit MIT computer meuseum if your route will fall close to Boston.
>Another example, you own a field and someone grows weed on it, does that make you liable? I double that, too...
.. my friend, who wasn't even around during all this got the ticket and even had to do community service. This might be a silly example, but it's just to show that laws don't always support remote analogies.
My friend was having a party at her house, and left before it was over. Cops came by 3 times because neighbours complained about the noise, and guess what
US has a fine track record of respecting privacy as long as it doesn't cost much. Child porn is a problem that has been around for a while, and people are not shocked by its presence, so the validity of a tool like freenet can still be argued in such contexts. But all it takes is a more sensitive topic, for example, terrorism. Just throw a bone to the media and watch them drag Freenet (or almost anything else novel or esoteric) through the streets of Salem onto that faithful post with a flaring fire under it.
From the article:
team leader for Internet Security Systems' X-Force R&D unit, says researchers are studying the Trojan--currently dubbed 55808 for its Windows size
Why can't we have savvy journalists ? Why why why!? (*starts tearing what's left of his hair*)
Perhaps Independent Artists would find it even easier, and also profitable to sell plain'ol mp3s on web sites. Offer free samples too ... this will lead to an increasing popularity of music review sites that are government by their taste in music instead of their hunger for cash.
./ crowd, anyhow) would not hesitate making a choice between simply seeing such a star naked, and never hearing her "music" again.
Just think of all the benefits the consumer gets:
*. Nobody tries to trick you into liking some crappy teenage superstar singers, or some other artist who's display of talent is comparable to an average answering machine recording.
*. No fat record companies to fill the airtime of 90% of radio stations with their tasteless excuses for music that no one wants to buy. We might even acquire radio DJs that can actually pick songs on their own instead of reading them from the list that their idiot manager has supplied them with, based on the latest profit optimization algorithm.
*. You don't have to spend half of your stipend on buying music - it doesn't have to cost that much !
Music is an art. Pieces that are "produced" to make money are not. A record company exec, posing as a master of taste and people's desires, will push along anything that sells. Yes, a real-life Barbie with a sexy voice sells, but this has nothing to do with music. I am quite certain that a majority (of the
So I propose to come up with a different term for commercial singers - "artist" is utterly misleading.