Remember that's at the official government exchange rate. Communist and other heavily socialized governments use that to get loads of real, hard Western currency. The exchange rates are massive ripoffs, and the government keeps the vast difference since they spend money in the west to buy generators, missles, missle plans, presidents, whatever. It's all costly.
I was watching the BBC when in Europe in 1990 or 91 when the official BBC news threw in the towel on the billion debate. Already John Major used billion in the US sense all the time during Prime Minister's Questions.
> That's more than twice the main span of the
> Golden Bridge Gate (1.28 km)
The Golden Gate Bridge is a twinkie bridge that only impresses Californians.
The Macinac bridge between the upper and lower penninsulas of Michigan is well over a mile between the two towers, and, until this Sicily-to-Italy bridge gets built, has the longest stretch of road between two towers as far as I know.
> Deep Blue does not exhaustively search the entire move tree.
I believe I read somewhere that if the entire universe were packed solid with a computer made of neutron-sized elements, it still couldn't play a perfect game even if given the entire age of the universe to make one move.
Not even close.
Re:Here's a clue: birth freaking control.
on
First Arcology?
·
· Score: 1
Just what we need. A nation of well over a billion people, and not enough women to go around.
Nah, that nation will never go on a rampage in 10-15 years...
> FPS games, like Quake and Unreal, succeed
> because in multiplayer mode, you are going
> against the best AI available - humans.
I agree, although there is something to be said for the idiot-minded AI of Serious Sam on Serious mode. They just run at you by the dozens. Of course, you get the most powerful weapons of any FPS I've seen this side of a quadded Thunderbolt...quite the opposite of Unreal's AI, where they would avoid where you pointed, cool, but unrealistic.
> The funny part was where Jordan said, "Now we
> will have free speech, now we will have
> independence of the media."
That was rather incredible, given that they immediately fired all the on-air reporters who were heavily criticising the government.
It's like firing George Will, Sam Donaldson, the McLauchlin Group, John Stossel, and the entire 60 Minutes staff, and inserting a newcast of the boat-rocking Barbara Walters and no-holds-barred Katie Couric. Now we have independence of the media.
Someone in that corporation must owe a huge favor to the new leaders in government, or has been given the nudge-nudge, wink-wink that if things go to crap, well, who was friendly to the new totalitarians when they didn't have to be?
I would like to add that even small ownership of, say, a TV station gets you very little.
Where I live, they added a new broadcast station about ten years ago that was an unused frequency. That station couldn't hook up with any of the networks. What do stations like that broadcast? Home shopping channels and religious broadcasting (both masterfully tuned to sucking the life savings out of old people.)
Whooo hooo! Life without the big media moguls is grand!
Let's also not forget the formula for success isn't just "better", but cost as well.
MS OS still sucks compared to a Mac, but MS OS is better in that many other applications are available, and a WinTel box is still $1k cheaper than a comparable Mac box. Guess what wins out? Now do the same analysis with free Linux, disregarding the physical box cost, and note that "better" means also easier to use, and you'll see why Linux ain't going anywhere any time soon, either.
> And you know what the result has been? Local
> radio is now monopolized by a few huge
> corporations
And they all play Britney songs because that's what the masses desire. That may upset their intellectual superiors, but it's very, very little-d democratic. Those of socialist bent should love the current state of things. A capitalist does. "Feed 'em what they want," both sides agree.
> Its been almost as successful as
> electricity deregulation [in California, presumably]
The massive failure of electrical deregulation is because it was only partial deregulation, and the results were predictable.
They set up a situation identical to areas with rent control. Demand keeps growing, but the profit motive is completely eviscerated. Thus capitalism CANNOT respond by new power plants (als hindered by nonsensical environmental laws, sorry, regulations.) What happens when there is demand but no profit (incentive) for people to build new supplies (apartments, electrical plants)? Shortage, and that means cost skyrockets and/or shortages appear, right on perfect economic schedule (pronounce that "shedule" for maximum effect.)
Of course, California isn't the world, and outstate is trying to keep up, but, although there is financial incentive to build new power plants to supply you, it is stupid for them to do so when California might chang its laws any day, thus allowing native companies to start building plants again, cutting out the legs from under the outstate power companies. Therefore they don't build more either, and just run up the rates to California.
This simple economic analysis is nothing new, peeps. It's been around for the better part of a century. That modern socialists would haul the entire population down this road is so knowingly irresponsible as to be darned near treasonous. And all because a few votes can be gotten from the average bozo who can't see beyond the end of their nose.
Worse, if radio stations, owned by a few or owned by many, all played Britney songs because that's what brought in the most $$$, I doubt Ayn Rand would have had a problem with that.
In fact, she felt radio frequencies should be owned like plots of land, sold and traded with no strings attached, not licensed from the government.
So you are to keep all your personal information in the hands of the government, and the police, IRS, and so on all have access to it, but no one else does?
Which is to say, of course, that the people historically most likely to abuse that information are the ones telling you it's safe?
> there is no law of physical nature that prevents me...
Well, there is no law of physical nature that then prevents them from sneaking up behind you and OJ'ing your neck.
It's called civilization, folks. You set up rules that people can agree on. Hopefully they are logical rules, which is to say, things similar to the Golden Rule and Your Rights End Where My Nose Begins.
Anti-IP whines are nothing more than bleats about not being allowed by Daddy to copy others' months or even years of hard work with no consequences.
> What use do you have for your IP when you are dead?
You, none. People you might contract with, plenty.
They don't want your sudden death because you're a vegetarian on a low fat diet, stunting your nerve function briefly just as you step off a curb without paying attention to the oncoming bus, all making worthless their own development (read: $$$) based on exclusive access to your IP.
The 20 years or whatever gives them a minimum future guarantee on their contracts.
> Yeah, I use Windows. Why? 'Cos I program games and Linux sucks for that.
I don't even program games, just play 'em. Switched from Mac to PC some years ago based solely on game availability. Same reason I don't even have Linux installed at home. Buys me zero for daily home useage = games, surfing, and the occasional printing of a child's paper.
> and it isn't a reason for them to cripple my hardware and software.
Ahh, but therein lies the problem, and their argument. Would anybody seriously doubt that 99.9% of such hardware is used primarily to "infringe" on their music? It's just like Napster -- for every garage band song legally downloaded, there are thirty million downloads of "infringed" music.
Is that a sufficient argument to cripple hardware?
Slashdot Mirror
> It was British Telecom that holds a patent on
> hyperlinks, not the BBC.
Ehhh, they were both owned by the coercive monopoly UK, Inc.
> Of course, he did suggest things like
> nuclear-powered elevators, but it was 1957...
...and silly environmentalists weren't invented yet.
> Whoever lived at the top would be popular -
> "Join the mile-high club in the comfort of my
> bedroom".
Hehe, excellent opening line.
I wonder if it works in a Denver bar?
> That means they only gross about $77 a month.
Remember that's at the official government exchange rate. Communist and other heavily socialized governments use that to get loads of real, hard Western currency. The exchange rates are massive ripoffs, and the government keeps the vast difference since they spend money in the west to buy generators, missles, missle plans, presidents, whatever. It's all costly.
That's absolutely correct.
I was watching the BBC when in Europe in 1990 or 91 when the official BBC news threw in the towel on the billion debate. Already John Major used billion in the US sense all the time during Prime Minister's Questions.
> That's more than twice the main span of the
> Golden Bridge Gate (1.28 km)
The Golden Gate Bridge is a twinkie bridge that only impresses Californians.
The Macinac bridge between the upper and lower penninsulas of Michigan is well over a mile between the two towers, and, until this Sicily-to-Italy bridge gets built, has the longest stretch of road between two towers as far as I know.
> Deep Blue does not exhaustively search the entire move tree.
I believe I read somewhere that if the entire universe were packed solid with a computer made of neutron-sized elements, it still couldn't play a perfect game even if given the entire age of the universe to make one move.
Not even close.
Just what we need. A nation of well over a billion people, and not enough women to go around.
Nah, that nation will never go on a rampage in 10-15 years...
> alumiNIUM rot
That's what those foolish Europeans get for not using aluminum.
> FPS games, like Quake and Unreal, succeed
> because in multiplayer mode, you are going
> against the best AI available - humans.
I agree, although there is something to be said for the idiot-minded AI of Serious Sam on Serious mode. They just run at you by the dozens. Of course, you get the most powerful weapons of any FPS I've seen this side of a quadded Thunderbolt...quite the opposite of Unreal's AI, where they would avoid where you pointed, cool, but unrealistic.
> The funny part was where Jordan said, "Now we
> will have free speech, now we will have
> independence of the media."
That was rather incredible, given that they immediately fired all the on-air reporters who were heavily criticising the government.
It's like firing George Will, Sam Donaldson, the McLauchlin Group, John Stossel, and the entire 60 Minutes staff, and inserting a newcast of the boat-rocking Barbara Walters and no-holds-barred Katie Couric. Now we have independence of the media.
Someone in that corporation must owe a huge favor to the new leaders in government, or has been given the nudge-nudge, wink-wink that if things go to crap, well, who was friendly to the new totalitarians when they didn't have to be?
Very well said.
I would like to add that even small ownership of, say, a TV station gets you very little.
Where I live, they added a new broadcast station about ten years ago that was an unused frequency. That station couldn't hook up with any of the networks. What do stations like that broadcast? Home shopping channels and religious broadcasting (both masterfully tuned to sucking the life savings out of old people.)
Whooo hooo! Life without the big media moguls is grand!
Let's also not forget the formula for success isn't just "better", but cost as well.
MS OS still sucks compared to a Mac, but MS OS is better in that many other applications are available, and a WinTel box is still $1k cheaper than a comparable Mac box. Guess what wins out? Now do the same analysis with free Linux, disregarding the physical box cost, and note that "better" means also easier to use, and you'll see why Linux ain't going anywhere any time soon, either.
> And you know what the result has been? Local
> radio is now monopolized by a few huge
> corporations
And they all play Britney songs because that's what the masses desire. That may upset their intellectual superiors, but it's very, very little-d democratic. Those of socialist bent should love the current state of things. A capitalist does. "Feed 'em what they want," both sides agree.
> Its been almost as successful as
> electricity deregulation [in California, presumably]
The massive failure of electrical deregulation is because it was only partial deregulation, and the results were predictable.
They set up a situation identical to areas with rent control. Demand keeps growing, but the profit motive is completely eviscerated. Thus capitalism CANNOT respond by new power plants (als hindered by nonsensical environmental laws, sorry, regulations.) What happens when there is demand but no profit (incentive) for people to build new supplies (apartments, electrical plants)? Shortage, and that means cost skyrockets and/or shortages appear, right on perfect economic schedule (pronounce that "shedule" for maximum effect.)
Of course, California isn't the world, and outstate is trying to keep up, but, although there is financial incentive to build new power plants to supply you, it is stupid for them to do so when California might chang its laws any day, thus allowing native companies to start building plants again, cutting out the legs from under the outstate power companies. Therefore they don't build more either, and just run up the rates to California.
This simple economic analysis is nothing new, peeps. It's been around for the better part of a century. That modern socialists would haul the entire population down this road is so knowingly irresponsible as to be darned near treasonous. And all because a few votes can be gotten from the average bozo who can't see beyond the end of their nose.
> Who controls the media doesn't bother me, who controls the food does.
And thank the FRIKKIN' LORD it's capitalists!
Food so cheap that extremely efficient farmers are going out of business because they can't compete with the extremely, extremely efficient farmers.
Food so cheap, a McDonald's worker can earn enough to feed their family of four for a day in one hour of work.
Worse, if radio stations, owned by a few or owned by many, all played Britney songs because that's what brought in the most $$$, I doubt Ayn Rand would have had a problem with that.
In fact, she felt radio frequencies should be owned like plots of land, sold and traded with no strings attached, not licensed from the government.
They all just wanna stick fags in their mouths and suck on 'em until the fag starts smoking.
So you are to keep all your personal information in the hands of the government, and the police, IRS, and so on all have access to it, but no one else does?
Which is to say, of course, that the people historically most likely to abuse that information are the ones telling you it's safe?
Oh come on! That's like saying Britney Spears lost all credibility when she quite Mickey Mouse and started singing songs other people wrote.
> there is no law of physical nature that prevents me...
Well, there is no law of physical nature that then prevents them from sneaking up behind you and OJ'ing your neck.
It's called civilization, folks. You set up rules that people can agree on. Hopefully they are logical rules, which is to say, things similar to the Golden Rule and Your Rights End Where My Nose Begins.
Anti-IP whines are nothing more than bleats about not being allowed by Daddy to copy others' months or even years of hard work with no consequences.
> What use do you have for your IP when you are dead?
You, none. People you might contract with, plenty.
They don't want your sudden death because you're a vegetarian on a low fat diet, stunting your nerve function briefly just as you step off a curb without paying attention to the oncoming bus, all making worthless their own development (read: $$$) based on exclusive access to your IP.
The 20 years or whatever gives them a minimum future guarantee on their contracts.
> Once you have sold it (or given it away), you
> have no say over its use.
I am free to attach conditions to the purchase. You can either agree or go to ache eee double-toothpicks, your free choice in a free society.
Is there no one on this planet who can challenge me? That's "Zod".
This sentence no humor.
> Yeah, I use Windows. Why? 'Cos I program games and Linux sucks for that.
I don't even program games, just play 'em. Switched from Mac to PC some years ago based solely on game availability. Same reason I don't even have Linux installed at home. Buys me zero for daily home useage = games, surfing, and the occasional printing of a child's paper.
You are not going to send me seventy million dollars, or everything you have, whichever is more.
What about the Space Shuttle? That thing re-enters the atmosphere at Mach 20-something.
> Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Of course monopolies don't offer choice. That's why socialism and communism are evil.
> and it isn't a reason for them to cripple my hardware and software.
Ahh, but therein lies the problem, and their argument. Would anybody seriously doubt that 99.9% of such hardware is used primarily to "infringe" on their music? It's just like Napster -- for every garage band song legally downloaded, there are thirty million downloads of "infringed" music.
Is that a sufficient argument to cripple hardware?