You are a fucking dumbass because I was specifically talking about a subset of people being AMERICANS. So I was comparing the indiscriminate killing of AMERICANS versus the discriminate killing of AMERICANS, not the whole human population. At least you got modded to zero where your stupidass comment belongs.
So when they turned the centrifuge off and took the chickens out were they able to walk straight or did they resemble a drunken person trying to walk like the guy in the following video http://www.videotiger.com/funnydrunkmanvideo.shtml? I hope they recorded when they took the chickens out and will sometime post it on the internet!
There is no difference between the two and you're an ass for thinking there is.
What the hell are you talking about? Next time read the context of my post, if you had you would see your example holds no water since I was talking about the indiscriminate killing of Americans versus the discriminate killing of only certain American's which for my example I used Americans who support abortion. The reason for the attacks on abortion supporters is because of what they believe, not their nationality. The violent anti-abortion groups could give two shits about what nationality the abortion supporters are while Islamic militants only care that you are American or support America in some way. Therefore one group is discriminately killing American's (violent anti-abortion groups) while the latter is indiscriminately killing American's (hijacking planes, bombing US embassies, etc).
Get your head out of your own ass next time before calling other people asses when you can't comprehend what they are saying in the first place.
But this goes beyond extra checking, doesn't it? This was an outright denial of service, so to speak.
Outright denial of service is wrong, but that is not what always happens. Most of the time they just do some extra checking, I wanted to mention that in case you didn't read the article.
What about the Muslim equivalent to "John Smith"? Many deeply religious societies reuse the same names, to the point where people will change their names to honor someone else.
If there is a John Smith on the watch list then hell yeah I think anyone with that name should be investigated further. What these companies are doing is wrong by not using both first and last name and also by flat out denying service, if they don't deny service unless they determine for sure that the person is the one on the list then I don't see anything wrong however.
On another note, I know names like Muhhamed,etc. are religious in nature but how many people change their full names because of religious reasons? I am curious since I do not know of any.
I disagree strongly. Most terrorist attacks are committed by the U.S. government. If your definition of terrorist includes Arabs only, then yes, you're right. But if you're definition of terrorist defines the act without regard to race, religion, or ethicity, then you need to think about it more.
My definition of terrorism is groups that kill solely out of hatred of other human beings. The US government is not in Iraq because we hate Iraqi's, we are their because we took a dangerous man out of power who was not adhering to the agreements in the treaty from the first time we invaded Iraq.
Do you even give a shit? Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed in the first year of the "liberating" of Iraq. Do you honestly believe all these people were guilty of any crime against the U.S., other than their thoughts?
Yes, I do give a shit but it is not like they did not know an attack was coming. If I knew where I lived was about to be bombarded with gun fire and bombs I would get the hell out of there until things settled down. It is very unfortunate innocents were killed but you also have to remember that a lot of them were killed because the Iraqi military specifically located themselves close to civilians in places such as hospitals and mosques. That is evil in itself right there and the US tried to limit collateral damage but it is impossible to not have any.
So you admit that since most of the people committing these crimes are of a certain racial or regilious heritage, that it's OK to subject them (and those with names that suggest they belong to those heritages) to additional inconvenience and scrutiny, and to prevent them from using certain services that other people enjoy without a problem, because... there are alternative services they can use? "Separate but equal." I like it!
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I meant that using both the first and last name of known terrorists to filter people is OK in my opinion, just not only one or the other. If someone named Osama Bin Laden is supposed to receive a money order I see no reason why some extra checking is not warranted since that is the name of a known terrorist. So, if your name is Osama Bin Laden and you don't like waiting a little longer to use a service then use another service that does not check the names. It is not like there are no other options available and this is a good way of making it harder for known terrorists to receive funds.
What part of only going after Americans isn't being discriminate?
I meant the reasons for the attacks of the violent anti-abortion groups are not indiscriminate, they are specifically targetting places/people that support abortion while many Islamic militant attacks just go after Americans in general. I know you are being pedantic but this is a stupid place to do that since it makes sense for these relatively small groups based in America to go after American targets. People with the same mindsets attack abortion clinics in other country's as well so if you group them together by reason of attack they are not specifically going after American targets. This is not so for Islamic militants, they specifically go after American's and anyone who does not hold the same beliefs they have.
Non-pedantically, though, when one burns down a building that's part of a strip mall, and destroys several other buildings at the same time, that kinda starts pushing the bounds of being discriminate.
I would compare this to the military's term of collateral damage, if they could only damage the abortion clinics/people then they surely would but in some cases that is very hard to do. There still is a big difference between wanting to cause harm to ALL Americans (indiscriminate) and only wanting to cause harm to abortion supporters (discriminate).
Well, I'd start with the long list of anti abortion activists that terrorize american's every day.
While what you linked to is informative I don't designate it as indiscriminate since it is terrorists going after Americans who support abortion in some way. Islamic militants don't care about anything except that some of their targets have to be Americans. You don't see abortion activists blowing up airplanes or attacking US embassies, for the most part they go after the abortion clinics and workers at the abortion clinics. It is terrorism, but not indiscriminate terrorism and it still pales in comparison to the terrorism of Islamic militants.
Actually, most terrorists in the United States have been white Christians.
Of course most terrorists inside the US will be white Christians since approximately 70% of the US population is white non-hispanic and about 80% of the population is Christian. We are talking about ALL terrorist attacks against the United States and if you consider that then you will see the majority (and quite large majority) were carried out by militant Islamists. Take a look here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html
It is also true that the majority of terrorist attacks carried out worldwide are done by militant Islamists. They are violent by nature and it is no suprise that they are the leaders of most terrorist attacks.
If by the "current crop" you mean the "terrorists" who are fighting against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, yeah, those are mostly Arab and Muslim, but there's a good reason for that.
If you mean the terrorists on TV and in movies, then, yeah, I'll grant you that. Almost exclusively Muslim these days.
This is because it is actually true that the majority of terrorist attacks against the US (at least for the last ~30 years) were carried out by Muslims/Arabs. Of course there have been attacks that are exceptions to this rule but not many. If you have proof showing another group that has indiscriminately gone after Americans more often then I would love to see it.
As far as the article goes, I do think that filtering based on either first or last name is a bad idea but using both together from a list of known terrorists to do a little more checking doesn't seem bad to me. In the article it mentioned there are other ways to send money so if it is too much of a hassle then don't use the service.
Yes, you can get good deals there if you watch for discounted items, that does not get around the fact that they indeed ripoff and fuck over people. I used to love them for all of the sales they had and that was when I would go buy stuff until they ended up fucking me over one time. I needed a new cell phone and they had a $150 off deal on a $300 phone I really liked so I ended up buying it. The guy selling it to me conned me into getting a 2 year product service plan or whatever it is called because he said it was great, if anything at all happened I could come back to the store and get credit for $300 towards a new phone. He even mentioned stories of people he knew who had PSP's would get sick of there phone and put the phone in its charger and send electricity down both plug wires effectively destroying the phone and then they would return it for a newer phone with no problems.
Well, less than 2 MONTHS later the LCD screen went haywire and I couldn't even read anything on it anymore. So I brought it back and was getting helped by a friendly customer service representative who was about to give me a new phone when the manager walked by and noticed it was a cell phone return and asked about it. Then he turned to me and said "Your PSP is not valid for screen damage, sorry there is nothing we can do". There was some tiny part in the 10 pages of the contract that mentioned this although I was never informed about it when I signed the deal which is my fault but since I didn't crack the screen myself and it just stopped working I figured I would get some leeway. Obviously this pissed me off and I pleaded with him but he would not budge, I even went so far as to say I would be willing to purchase a new phone at the full price as long as I could transfer the 2 year PSP I paid for less than 2 months prior to the new phone. He said "tough luck", great customer service I tell you. I informed him I would never shop at best buy again and ended up purchasing a new phone from the Sprint store. That was 3 years ago and I have not spent a dime in best buy since, I have not even gone back to get any free stuff since they pissed me off so much. Screw them.
I knew you would mention that and should have addressed it in my original post. The reason I didn't is because most of the software written does not need that kind of responsibility and accountability since, for example, there is no possible way a problem with your text editor can kill you. Whoever is in charge of all the development still will be responsible for the accuracy and correctness of the final product however and if there are serious flaws in an application they signed off on you can bet your ass they will lose their job. There is no legal binding (as far as I know) responsibility but even so I think it would be damn hard for them to find a job being in charge of a potentially deadly application again in the future.
The software industry is still very new and has some catching up to do, and I think having some type of testing similar to other engineering fields would be great. It would also be great since it would allow only people who are certified to be able to work on software that has potential fatal consequences. The hard part is what exactly do you test for? Software Engineering does not have as many set "laws" such as the laws of physics etc that are standard and concrete. Since you are not professionally involved with software engineering you most likely have no idea how hard it would be to come up with such a test.
Certification just does not yet exist and you are still wrong about them not being able to call themselves engineers because they sure as hell are engineers.
Unless you're designing CPU's, motherboards, or other electronic parts using knowledge gained as part of your Electrical Engineering degree, you are NOT and Engineer.
You don't have to deal with physical objects to be an engineer. Just because there does not yet exist an official test for "Software Engineer" does not mean that the job they do takes less skill than an ME, EE, or any other engineer. In fact, engineering software is harder since it does not deal with physical objects and it is not as easy to constrain potential probelms compared to physical objects.
From that wiki page mentioned above engineering is defined as:
"... the application of scientific and technical knowledge to solve human problems. Engineers use imagination, judgment and reasoning to apply science, technology, mathematics, and practical experience."
So just because you have some piece of paper because you took a test that certified you as a ME and the software industry does not have such a test does not mean that Software Engineers are not Engineers.
Now I know a lot of companies like to put engineer after a lot of positions for no reason and I could see how that may irritate you but if you were referring to software engineers you are way off base and need to quit thinking so highly of yourself just because you have some sheet of paper that is not available to another job position that in many cases has much harder problem to tackle.
Sorry guys but we have been using a similar system here in Budapest for two years. Maybe if you didn't spend so much time playing at being the world's policeman you wouldn't have to play catch up so often.
Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but how many transactions do you need to rack up for this system to pay for itself?
According to http://www.bcpassport.com/vital/driving.html#meter there are more than 6000 parking meters in Vancouver and they are in effect from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day of the year, I would think there would also be a mixture of 30 minute, 1 hour, and 2 hours meters.
So, lets say that they each average being used 5 times a day (probably a low estimate) by people using the pay by phone service. That would be 5 *.30 * 6000 = $9000/day and $3,285,000/year. That is not too bad for just one city and if you start getting a lot more cities to use the service it could be a huge cash cow.
Stockpiling these images isn't going to do anything at all.
Next time RTFA. They want to store mathematical signatures of the images, not the actual images themselves. Does anyone actually read the articles anymore?
No it wouldn't. Change a single pixel to a bit brighter or darker color, and the hash no longer matches - in fact, it won't be anywhere near the hash of the original image. No, you either keep the original images and do fuzzy matching, or this database won't be able to match anything.
While you are correct that editing the picture will make the hashes not match you are incorrect in assuming you must keep the original images to do fuzzy matching. The company I work for has a product that can do fuzzy matching without keeping the original picture and the product is immune to minor color changes and cropping. It also will match pictures that have been rotated/flipped.
We have also already set up the ability to use shared databases and the software does all of the tracking information automatically such as who added what images to the database and what their contact information is. I also want to say that the data that is shared about the image does not have the ability to recreate the original image. I think we need to get a hold of these people.
In fact, cables are more important than speakers. Shitty speakers can sound amazing with good cables and a modified amp with a couple of huge capacitors added. The emphasis on speakers as somehow the most important component of a system is quite wrong.
BULLSHIT. Unless you are using the lowest quality cables possible the quality of your speakers/amp/receiver will be the most important. Mid grade cables are fine for most people and the difference between them and "high end" (ripoff) cables most likely will not ever be noticeable. You sound like the type of person who will spend 5 times as much money for Monster Cables rather than get the cheaper yet equal pair of cables from Radio Shack because you somehow think it makes a difference in a typical setup.
You are completely wrong, most people don't give a shit about "bonus features". What made DVD take off was three things:
1) The picture/audio is way superior to VHS and does't degrade over time. 2) You can instantly jump to anywhere in the movie. 3) They are much smaller physical size.
Another nice thing is you don't have to rewind them. Bonus features are only nice for movies you really care about, the other 99% of the time they are a waste of space that could have been used to make the video/audio quality better.
About the only compelling thing in these new formats for me is data storage and back up, and I'm still not sure that they will be more cost effective than cheap raids or even external HDs.
I agree that the most compelling thing is for data storage and backup and another good use is an easy and cheap way to give someone else a copy of a pretty large amount of data. For example, if you are into HD video then it would be much cheaper to mail or hand someone a DVD(s) rather than an actual hard disk.
Slashdot Mirror
You are a fucking dumbass because I was specifically talking about a subset of people being AMERICANS. So I was comparing the indiscriminate killing of AMERICANS versus the discriminate killing of AMERICANS, not the whole human population. At least you got modded to zero where your stupidass comment belongs.
Nope, it is just because the majority of "terrorists" against American's in the last ~30 years have been Arab and militant Islamists.
Spinning for weeks on end would not make you dizzy?
So when they turned the centrifuge off and took the chickens out were they able to walk straight or did they resemble a drunken person trying to walk like the guy in the following video http://www.videotiger.com/funnydrunkmanvideo.shtml ? I hope they recorded when they took the chickens out and will sometime post it on the internet!
There is no difference between the two and you're an ass for thinking there is.
What the hell are you talking about? Next time read the context of my post, if you had you would see your example holds no water since I was talking about the indiscriminate killing of Americans versus the discriminate killing of only certain American's which for my example I used Americans who support abortion. The reason for the attacks on abortion supporters is because of what they believe, not their nationality. The violent anti-abortion groups could give two shits about what nationality the abortion supporters are while Islamic militants only care that you are American or support America in some way. Therefore one group is discriminately killing American's (violent anti-abortion groups) while the latter is indiscriminately killing American's (hijacking planes, bombing US embassies, etc).
Get your head out of your own ass next time before calling other people asses when you can't comprehend what they are saying in the first place.
But this goes beyond extra checking, doesn't it? This was an outright denial of service, so to speak.
Outright denial of service is wrong, but that is not what always happens. Most of the time they just do some extra checking, I wanted to mention that in case you didn't read the article.
What about the Muslim equivalent to "John Smith"? Many deeply religious societies reuse the same names, to the point where people will change their names to honor someone else.
If there is a John Smith on the watch list then hell yeah I think anyone with that name should be investigated further. What these companies are doing is wrong by not using both first and last name and also by flat out denying service, if they don't deny service unless they determine for sure that the person is the one on the list then I don't see anything wrong however.
On another note, I know names like Muhhamed,etc. are religious in nature but how many people change their full names because of religious reasons? I am curious since I do not know of any.
I disagree strongly. Most terrorist attacks are committed by the U.S. government. If your definition of terrorist includes Arabs only, then yes, you're right. But if you're definition of terrorist defines the act without regard to race, religion, or ethicity, then you need to think about it more.
My definition of terrorism is groups that kill solely out of hatred of other human beings. The US government is not in Iraq because we hate Iraqi's, we are their because we took a dangerous man out of power who was not adhering to the agreements in the treaty from the first time we invaded Iraq.
Do you even give a shit? Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed in the first year of the "liberating" of Iraq. Do you honestly believe all these people were guilty of any crime against the U.S., other than their thoughts?
Yes, I do give a shit but it is not like they did not know an attack was coming. If I knew where I lived was about to be bombarded with gun fire and bombs I would get the hell out of there until things settled down. It is very unfortunate innocents were killed but you also have to remember that a lot of them were killed because the Iraqi military specifically located themselves close to civilians in places such as hospitals and mosques. That is evil in itself right there and the US tried to limit collateral damage but it is impossible to not have any.
So you admit that since most of the people committing these crimes are of a certain racial or regilious heritage, that it's OK to subject them (and those with names that suggest they belong to those heritages) to additional inconvenience and scrutiny, and to prevent them from using certain services that other people enjoy without a problem, because... there are alternative services they can use? "Separate but equal." I like it!
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I meant that using both the first and last name of known terrorists to filter people is OK in my opinion, just not only one or the other. If someone named Osama Bin Laden is supposed to receive a money order I see no reason why some extra checking is not warranted since that is the name of a known terrorist. So, if your name is Osama Bin Laden and you don't like waiting a little longer to use a service then use another service that does not check the names. It is not like there are no other options available and this is a good way of making it harder for known terrorists to receive funds.
What part of only going after Americans isn't being discriminate?
I meant the reasons for the attacks of the violent anti-abortion groups are not indiscriminate, they are specifically targetting places/people that support abortion while many Islamic militant attacks just go after Americans in general. I know you are being pedantic but this is a stupid place to do that since it makes sense for these relatively small groups based in America to go after American targets. People with the same mindsets attack abortion clinics in other country's as well so if you group them together by reason of attack they are not specifically going after American targets. This is not so for Islamic militants, they specifically go after American's and anyone who does not hold the same beliefs they have.
Non-pedantically, though, when one burns down a building that's part of a strip mall, and destroys several other buildings at the same time, that kinda starts pushing the bounds of being discriminate.
I would compare this to the military's term of collateral damage, if they could only damage the abortion clinics/people then they surely would but in some cases that is very hard to do. There still is a big difference between wanting to cause harm to ALL Americans (indiscriminate) and only wanting to cause harm to abortion supporters (discriminate).
Well, I'd start with the long list of anti abortion activists that terrorize american's every day.
While what you linked to is informative I don't designate it as indiscriminate since it is terrorists going after Americans who support abortion in some way. Islamic militants don't care about anything except that some of their targets have to be Americans. You don't see abortion activists blowing up airplanes or attacking US embassies, for the most part they go after the abortion clinics and workers at the abortion clinics. It is terrorism, but not indiscriminate terrorism and it still pales in comparison to the terrorism of Islamic militants.
Actually, most terrorists in the United States have been white Christians.
Of course most terrorists inside the US will be white Christians since approximately 70% of the US population is white non-hispanic and about 80% of the population is Christian. We are talking about ALL terrorist attacks against the United States and if you consider that then you will see the majority (and quite large majority) were carried out by militant Islamists. Take a look here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html
It is also true that the majority of terrorist attacks carried out worldwide are done by militant Islamists. They are violent by nature and it is no suprise that they are the leaders of most terrorist attacks.
If by the "current crop" you mean the "terrorists" who are fighting against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, yeah, those are mostly Arab and Muslim, but there's a good reason for that.
If you mean the terrorists on TV and in movies, then, yeah, I'll grant you that. Almost exclusively Muslim these days.
This is because it is actually true that the majority of terrorist attacks against the US (at least for the last ~30 years) were carried out by Muslims/Arabs. Of course there have been attacks that are exceptions to this rule but not many. If you have proof showing another group that has indiscriminately gone after Americans more often then I would love to see it.
As far as the article goes, I do think that filtering based on either first or last name is a bad idea but using both together from a list of known terrorists to do a little more checking doesn't seem bad to me. In the article it mentioned there are other ways to send money so if it is too much of a hassle then don't use the service.
Yes, you can get good deals there if you watch for discounted items, that does not get around the fact that they indeed ripoff and fuck over people. I used to love them for all of the sales they had and that was when I would go buy stuff until they ended up fucking me over one time. I needed a new cell phone and they had a $150 off deal on a $300 phone I really liked so I ended up buying it. The guy selling it to me conned me into getting a 2 year product service plan or whatever it is called because he said it was great, if anything at all happened I could come back to the store and get credit for $300 towards a new phone. He even mentioned stories of people he knew who had PSP's would get sick of there phone and put the phone in its charger and send electricity down both plug wires effectively destroying the phone and then they would return it for a newer phone with no problems.
Well, less than 2 MONTHS later the LCD screen went haywire and I couldn't even read anything on it anymore. So I brought it back and was getting helped by a friendly customer service representative who was about to give me a new phone when the manager walked by and noticed it was a cell phone return and asked about it. Then he turned to me and said "Your PSP is not valid for screen damage, sorry there is nothing we can do". There was some tiny part in the 10 pages of the contract that mentioned this although I was never informed about it when I signed the deal which is my fault but since I didn't crack the screen myself and it just stopped working I figured I would get some leeway. Obviously this pissed me off and I pleaded with him but he would not budge, I even went so far as to say I would be willing to purchase a new phone at the full price as long as I could transfer the 2 year PSP I paid for less than 2 months prior to the new phone. He said "tough luck", great customer service I tell you. I informed him I would never shop at best buy again and ended up purchasing a new phone from the Sprint store. That was 3 years ago and I have not spent a dime in best buy since, I have not even gone back to get any free stuff since they pissed me off so much. Screw them.
I knew you would mention that and should have addressed it in my original post. The reason I didn't is because most of the software written does not need that kind of responsibility and accountability since, for example, there is no possible way a problem with your text editor can kill you. Whoever is in charge of all the development still will be responsible for the accuracy and correctness of the final product however and if there are serious flaws in an application they signed off on you can bet your ass they will lose their job. There is no legal binding (as far as I know) responsibility but even so I think it would be damn hard for them to find a job being in charge of a potentially deadly application again in the future.
The software industry is still very new and has some catching up to do, and I think having some type of testing similar to other engineering fields would be great. It would also be great since it would allow only people who are certified to be able to work on software that has potential fatal consequences. The hard part is what exactly do you test for? Software Engineering does not have as many set "laws" such as the laws of physics etc that are standard and concrete. Since you are not professionally involved with software engineering you most likely have no idea how hard it would be to come up with such a test.
Certification just does not yet exist and you are still wrong about them not being able to call themselves engineers because they sure as hell are engineers.
Unless you're designing CPU's, motherboards, or other electronic parts using knowledge gained as part of your Electrical Engineering degree, you are NOT and Engineer.
You don't have to deal with physical objects to be an engineer. Just because there does not yet exist an official test for "Software Engineer" does not mean that the job they do takes less skill than an ME, EE, or any other engineer. In fact, engineering software is harder since it does not deal with physical objects and it is not as easy to constrain potential probelms compared to physical objects.
From that wiki page mentioned above engineering is defined as:
"... the application of scientific and technical knowledge to solve human problems. Engineers use imagination, judgment and reasoning to apply science, technology, mathematics, and practical experience."
So just because you have some piece of paper because you took a test that certified you as a ME and the software industry does not have such a test does not mean that Software Engineers are not Engineers.
Now I know a lot of companies like to put engineer after a lot of positions for no reason and I could see how that may irritate you but if you were referring to software engineers you are way off base and need to quit thinking so highly of yourself just because you have some sheet of paper that is not available to another job position that in many cases has much harder problem to tackle.
Sorry guys but we have been using a similar system here in Budapest for two years. Maybe if you didn't spend so much time playing at being the world's policeman you wouldn't have to play catch up so often.
Since when is Canada the world's policemen?
Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but how many transactions do you need to rack up for this system to pay for itself?
r there are more than 6000 parking meters in Vancouver and they are in effect from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day of the year, I would think there would also be a mixture of 30 minute, 1 hour, and 2 hours meters.
.30 * 6000 = $9000/day and $3,285,000/year. That is not too bad for just one city and if you start getting a lot more cities to use the service it could be a huge cash cow.
According to http://www.bcpassport.com/vital/driving.html#mete
So, lets say that they each average being used 5 times a day (probably a low estimate) by people using the pay by phone service. That would be 5 *
It won't store the actual images, just a mathematical representation of them. RTFA.
Stockpiling these images isn't going to do anything at all.
Next time RTFA. They want to store mathematical signatures of the images, not the actual images themselves. Does anyone actually read the articles anymore?
No it wouldn't. Change a single pixel to a bit brighter or darker color, and the hash no longer matches - in fact, it won't be anywhere near the hash of the original image. No, you either keep the original images and do fuzzy matching, or this database won't be able to match anything.
While you are correct that editing the picture will make the hashes not match you are incorrect in assuming you must keep the original images to do fuzzy matching. The company I work for has a product that can do fuzzy matching without keeping the original picture and the product is immune to minor color changes and cropping. It also will match pictures that have been rotated/flipped.
We have also already set up the ability to use shared databases and the software does all of the tracking information automatically such as who added what images to the database and what their contact information is. I also want to say that the data that is shared about the image does not have the ability to recreate the original image. I think we need to get a hold of these people.
Click the following link to read more: http://www.infinadyne.com/iCatch.html
$75k-125k+ salary per year and full benefits.
In fact, cables are more important than speakers. Shitty speakers can sound amazing with good cables and a modified amp with a couple of huge capacitors added. The emphasis on speakers as somehow the most important component of a system is quite wrong.
BULLSHIT. Unless you are using the lowest quality cables possible the quality of your speakers/amp/receiver will be the most important. Mid grade cables are fine for most people and the difference between them and "high end" (ripoff) cables most likely will not ever be noticeable. You sound like the type of person who will spend 5 times as much money for Monster Cables rather than get the cheaper yet equal pair of cables from Radio Shack because you somehow think it makes a difference in a typical setup.
You are completely wrong, most people don't give a shit about "bonus features". What made DVD take off was three things:
1) The picture/audio is way superior to VHS and does't degrade over time.
2) You can instantly jump to anywhere in the movie.
3) They are much smaller physical size.
Another nice thing is you don't have to rewind them. Bonus features are only nice for movies you really care about, the other 99% of the time they are a waste of space that could have been used to make the video/audio quality better.
I just thought I would tell you that your link to your "book about video compression!" does not work and 404's. You may want to fix that.
But the thing is, Joe Sixpack only bought an HDTV to watch the World Cup on
Joe six pack does not care about soccer. He would do this for the Super Bowl, World Series, or Daytona 500 though!
About the only compelling thing in these new formats for me is data storage and back up, and I'm still not sure that they will be more cost effective than cheap raids or even external HDs.
I agree that the most compelling thing is for data storage and backup and another good use is an easy and cheap way to give someone else a copy of a pretty large amount of data. For example, if you are into HD video then it would be much cheaper to mail or hand someone a DVD(s) rather than an actual hard disk.