You have a very interesting post, and the website you linked to really intregued me... I have to take issue with some of their points:
TEN REASONS TO KEEP THE PENNY
The penny greatly facilitates commerce.
The U.S. Mint produces between 10 billion to 13 billion pennies annually to meet broad public demand.
Oh, the public demand it do they? It's not just because the pennies are legal tender, and the stores LOVE to price things at 99c just to make it seem like you're getting a bargain at under a dollar is it?
Most Americans still "count their pennies."
A recent poll by Opinion Research Corporation found that more than 70% of Americans support keeping the penny in circulation. Not surprisingly, that same poll showed that those with the least annual income found the penny most valuable.
Because of the ill-formed view that with the penny around they're getting things cheaper... but really, what does a penny buy these days? Nothing!
When the economy slows, Americans count their pennies and cash them in. There is a flow of coinage from American homes into the economy confirmed by statistics showing a correlation between U.S. Mint demand for new pennies and the GDP rate.
Um... with such wonderfully backed up statistics like that who could argue... I'm sure the same stats also show that there's a relationship between all notes and coins demand and the GDP...
Elimination of the penny would lead to higher prices.
Prices would be rounded to the nearest five cents, resulting in higher prices. Professor Raymond Lombra, Pennsylvania State University, testified before Congress in 1990 that this "rounding tax" could cost Americans $600 million annually.
It could cost that much, or maybe it won't... Rounding doesn't always work UP, it also works DOWN. Those that can least afford things tend to buy in bulk (At least they should anyway), and so the final cash register price will be a conglomeration of all of those $9.99s etc... until you end up with a bill like $50.42... and guess what? That'll get rounded DOWN to $50.40!
Elimination of the penny will hurt charitable causes.
Organizations like Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Salvation Army rely heavily on donations from the collection of pennies. Recently, the Dallas-based Kindness Foundation raised over $14,400, a penny at a time, for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Yeah, or perhaps people will donate MORE, as the lowest amount they can donate is increased, so they can't cop out by giving only a few pennies... maybe instead they'll give a few dimes..
Abolishing the penny could erode consumer confidence in the economy.
A 1990 General Accounting Office report found people were fearful their money may not go as far if the penny was eliminated because prices would be rounded to the nearest five cents. The report noted this "rounding" made many Americans feel they are being "ripped off" by being charged higher prices.
Well, we can't avoid false views can we... the same 'hysteria' went around Australia for a while when the 1 and 2c coins were removed from circulation, but they turned out to be false fears.
Elimination of the penny will hurt those who can afford it least, the poor and elderly.
Increased prices due to "rounding" would fall disproportionately on those least able to afford it because they make more small cash purchases.
As mentioned above ROUNDING WORKS BOTH WAYS. Geeze... and can we get more emotional in our points people? the 'poor and elderly'... fine work there.
The penny produces a profit for the Treasury.
Seigniorage, the revenue derived from the difference between the face value of coins and the cost of their mintage, produced more than $25 million for the Treasury last year -- from the penny alone.
hate telephones of any kind. It's an intrusive device. It's push content.
I love email.
Erm, so you hate phones... but you like e-mail... so, say, when someone is have a seisure/heart attack/has been bitten by a snake etc. has just happened at your place you'd rather send an e-mail to the hospital to have them send an ambulance would you?
You point out a lot of the annoying behaviour people exhibit with phones, and mobile phones can be regarded as of limited use... but at the same time, when used responsibly, they are a very useful tool.
Because you egocentric maniac deem yourself too important and you have to feed your monster ego by carrying something that keeps the world in touch with you.
And your enormouse ego deems youself too important to ever be interrupted by anyone at all. Everyone has to wait for YOU to PUSH something to THEM! There has to be a push one way, otherwise you'll both just be leaving messages on each others phones and never speaking in person... You're the type of person that loves to have multiple part e-mail conversations to get across a point or answer a question that could have been handled in a couple of minutes.
I'm all for responsible phone usage, but I'm also against people such as yourself who decide that they get to filter everyone's contact to them... stop stroking your own ego.
if you don't want the pennies just don't take them
Erm... and progressivly loose money on every transaction just like the store wants you too. So they get their 'It's not really $10, it's $9.99' to make people think it's cheaper, and then people end up leaving the 1c anyway... hmmmm... that's a win win for them. (And yes, I know if it's advertised as $9.99 it won't really COST $9.99 due to America's infuriating habit of not including sales tax in the prices... my god how stupid is that? I actually LIKED starbucks because it included tax in the prices, so what you saw was what you paid.)
Or just quit collecting them in your pocket, spend them on your next cash purchase that isn't an even multiple of 5 cents (that's what I do).
All well and good, but the previously mentioned issue of the tax not being advertised means that it's really hard to work out how much an item is going to be before you come to pay for it... so rather than holding up the line while you count out the pennies...
Getting rid of them would just effectively raise prices on everything by several cents (by as much as 7 or 8 cents AU).
It wasn't that long ago that we got rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins and there was the usual dramatic shite on 'current affair' programs etc which went on about how expensive everything would become, but it never really happened. Things are round up or down depending on which they're closer to. If you buy a collection of items that come to $19.92 you get it for $19.90, if it comes to $19.98 you pay $20 and so on...
Of course, if you pay for most things with credit card or EFTPOS you don't have to worry about that at all, as there is no rounding required with electronic transactions.
Basically you've outlined all these 'work arounds' you have to come up with to avoid the issue that pennies are a useless denomination with no real value at all... stop hanging on to them for no good reason.
So instead you have a heavy pocket full of pennies!:)
Man, that was the single thing that pissed me off the most about using money in the states, those damn pennies... get rid of them! Each week I'd accumulate a ridiculous weight in 1c coins... So I'm very happy to be back in Australia where the lowest denomanation we have is the 5c, much less in the way of change.
Also, I found it really hard to come by dollar coins while I was there... I knew you guys had them, but all I seemed to end up with was a wallet fat with dollar notes and pennies... urgh!
The AC stated the sizes of the notes only differ in length, there's no issue with having them in the wallet, they're easy to have in there... and so much easier to choose the notes you want without having to take them all out and rifle through them to find the 20 instead of the 1 (We have no 1 dollar notes, we have $1 and $2 coins, much better to use).
As for the clear window, they just have some differing white symbols on them... all the notes also have all the other useful security measures: Micro printing Water marks Some patterns printed on each side, that when you hold to the light they should match up to each other... which helps ensure that they were printed accurately
The first plastic note we had (The old $5) had a hologram on it, but that came off too easily, so was scrapped.
But the plastic money we have allows you to instantly see the difference between notes (Different colours and sizes), instantly tell that it's the real deal or a really expensive counterfeit (the clear plastic window), and it is just like having paper money in the way it handles, except that it's more durable (you can put it through the wash etc)
The problem with US money (and I've lived there for a while), is that all the notes look about the same, all are the same colour, they wear out very quickly, and they're very easy to counterfeit. (At least to the point of using in everyday money transactions... how many checkout chicks carefully look over every note?)
OK, I have no need for a Palm Pilot, I don't always carry my phone around with me, but I always wear my watch... now if my watch can hold 128Meg of stuff... that's damn handy... I can have useful tools on there, or funny video clips/trailers etc... just very darn cool.
And my thoughts on the look... it's a nice looking watch.
And having a floppy in your pocket is never going to allow you to date 'hotties' now is it?
*Man trundles by on a Segway*
*BASH! BASH! BASH! YOINK!*
*Hops on Segway*
*Trundle*
*Trundle*
*Man gets up off footpath and starts walking after you on the Segway*
Him:"Come back here!"
You:"Oh crap!"
*He ambles up to you and starts ambling along beside you*
H:"So... thought you could steal my mightly Segway did you? Thought I wouldn't be able to catch you hey?"
Y:"Crap, crap, crap!"
*You look everywhere for some way to make it go faster, an accelerator, a button... anything*
H:"Come on... just get off"
Y:*whimper*
yet he insists that all the big insights be his and his alone
Yet in the Article, he states:
"It would have been impossible for me to predict where Buffy's character would go by the end of the series because the character is informed by so many things. You have to find out what people respond to, you have to find out what works on the show, what aspects make sense, what your meaning is. "
So, that would seem to suggest that there's a fairly substantial feedback loop going on there between himself, the viewers and others...
I don't think he goes it entirely alone... And for the most part the real issues with the last couple of seasons have been with the actual dialogue or more specfic things with episodes, which come about from the actual writer of the script, and Joss doesn't seem to have written many of the later episodes at all.
Having said that the final season (I don't know what episode you're up to in the states, but we're only part way through in Aus) has been by and large painful to watch... It's really being that bad. I've been watching the last season of Angel, as I had stopped watching that, and I'm finding it FAR more enjoyable than the current Buffy.
There is something wrong... you're downloading a version so you can watch it again to notice what you missed the first time you saw it...
What you're supposed to do is go to the cinema again to see it again. Or wait until the DVD comes out and buy that.
If a movie is good enough to warrent multiple viewings immediately, then the film makers, who put a lot of time into the film, to make you want to watch it multiple times, should be compensated.
If you can wait, then you only pay once more, for the DVD, and can watch it as many times as you like.
Besides... surely the only VCD copies of it at the moment are those damn 'guy in cinema with camera filming the screen'... my god they're horrible to watch... and for a film like this, surely you're killing the exprience with such a viewing?
I'm actually more excited about Half Life 2 I think... especially after seeing that trailer... the environments look supurb... it just looks like it might be that touch better when it comes to being a real immesive experience.
That's my thinking to a degree... While CDs from MP3 are never going to be as good quality, and most albums aren't available in the lossless compression formats... but I live in hope.:)
A friend just bought the latest Massive Attack CD. When he got back from the store I asked if I could have a listen to it on my PC at work (NT4 *shudder*)... when I did it did not load my default Winamp, but instead automatically, with no prompting, installed its own player which proceded to crash... leaving me with no way of listening to the CD.
I've also come across this with some other CDs I own (Although not Norah Jones funnily enough).
Every time I buy a CD I rip it and store the CD away. This is so I can listen to the music I PAYED FOR while I'm at work without having to lug all my CDs around.
Also, I make copies of my CDs for use in the car. This is after having a company car broken into twice, where approx 100 CDs were stolen (My wife had the original CDs in those slip-case things in the glovebox)... so now we have a pile of original CD cases with no CDs in them.
I copy CDs so that I can listen to them without having the original that I paid for stolen or broken. Software that tries to stop me doing that... just kinda... PISSES ME OFF!
"Second Internet" - Man, how cool would that be... a completely underground (reverse pun intended... gettit... it's overgrou... oh never mind) Internet, detatched from the 'real' one...
In case of an all out war, the 'real' internet may be shut down, but this air based one could keep on keeping on... although without electricity after the war, only as long as all the laptop batteries lasted... so really only about 1 hour after the strike... just long enough for the users to start a thread: "Woh! What was that?" "Dunno... kinda bright though" "Dude... I think this is bad" "Yup" "BBFN"
You discount the PS2s huge library of games already availble for it... all those PS1 games people had, they still wanted to be able to play... so while they waited for the PS2 library to fill, they still had a new machine that they could play all their old games on. Plus, it had the established name. Parents buying for kids were instantly familiar with the Playstation name, and made the safe bet.
The XBox came to the market with very, very few games and no proven track record, so had/has to prove itself.
I tend to agree. Most 'legit' companies are quite good about e-mail. If they're not, they build up a lot of bad will. It's the public image moreso than laws that stop them spamming. (And I recently watched a show where they tested the theory by creating a number of e-mail addresses and disseminating the e-mail addresses in a variety of ways. Those that only gave their addresses to companies had far, far less spam than those who simply had their e-mail address viewable on the web by way of it being on a website or through use of Usenet)
These laws aren't really going to stop the current barrage of e-mail spam, as those doing the majority of it already are breaking the law. What it will do is give more room for companies to engage in 'spam' in a legal way... and this can only be bad.
As the article states though, there are loopholes... which include the companies that you've 'had a relationship with' including those you may have just visited and looked at (They've 'provided information', therefore you have a relationship). Or what about companies with multiple other company relationships? The bill is vague around this point and may allow a company that you have a valid relationship with decide to send you mails from all its associate companies... and you'd have to Opt out of each and every one of the associated companies.
OPT OUT is not a good model. If a person wants to know things from a company, wants to have a relationship of that sort, then they should OPT IN.
So you say that you have no problem with companies you've voluntarily given your address to contacting you... I'm thinking you'll be ending up with e-mails from all sorts of companies you never new you had a 'relationship' with, or that you gave your e-mail to in the first place.
I was suprised I had to read down so far to see anything about Australian currency, considering it was the first country in the world to use entirely polymer notes for all its money. Here are the notes as we use them.
Using your analogy, as someone else has pointed out, against music simply provides us with the 'Radio' model... which is 'FREE' as you say tv is.
Yet in both of these models, your watching/listening is interrupted with ADS, which PAY for the shows/songs.
If you're trying to put this model onto music in general, and say that albums should be 'FREE', then we'd have CDs that were one half music, one half ads. And, just so you didn't skip the ad tracks, they'd pop up in the middle of songs.
Saying music should be 'FREE' is just plain wrong. Sure people should have the ability to provide their music for free if they want, and many do... but then they also only provide some of it, and ask for money for the entire album or whatever. No one can make a living from solely giving it all away for free.
To say that the real money is in putting on shows is also naive. Sure there is a lot of money to be made from touring, but it also costs a lot to go on tour in the first place. And to do that you need some up front cash... best provided by SELLING your music.
If you want a world where all music is 'FREE' but sponsered by advertising, you can have it. I'd rather pay the artists I like and respect so that I can have an album in the form in which they wanted it to be heard, from begining to end.
Ahhh, but I've played UT2003 on this machine, and that looks a whole lot better too!:) I'll have to keep looking for tweaks, cause at the moment, I'm not liking the game much!:(
Slashdot Mirror
You have a very interesting post, and the website you linked to really intregued me... I have to take issue with some of their points:
TEN REASONS TO KEEP THE PENNY
The penny greatly facilitates commerce.
The U.S. Mint produces between 10 billion to 13 billion pennies annually to meet broad public demand.
Oh, the public demand it do they? It's not just because the pennies are legal tender, and the stores LOVE to price things at 99c just to make it seem like you're getting a bargain at under a dollar is it?
Most Americans still "count their pennies."
A recent poll by Opinion Research Corporation found that more than 70% of Americans support keeping the penny in circulation. Not surprisingly, that same poll showed that those with the least annual income found the penny most valuable.
Because of the ill-formed view that with the penny around they're getting things cheaper... but really, what does a penny buy these days? Nothing!
When the economy slows, Americans count their pennies and cash them in. There is a flow of coinage from American homes into the economy confirmed by statistics showing a correlation between U.S. Mint demand for new pennies and the GDP rate.
Um... with such wonderfully backed up statistics like that who could argue... I'm sure the same stats also show that there's a relationship between all notes and coins demand and the GDP...
Elimination of the penny would lead to higher prices.
Prices would be rounded to the nearest five cents, resulting in higher prices. Professor Raymond Lombra, Pennsylvania State University, testified before Congress in 1990 that this "rounding tax" could cost Americans $600 million annually.
It could cost that much, or maybe it won't... Rounding doesn't always work UP, it also works DOWN. Those that can least afford things tend to buy in bulk (At least they should anyway), and so the final cash register price will be a conglomeration of all of those $9.99s etc... until you end up with a bill like $50.42... and guess what? That'll get rounded DOWN to $50.40!
Elimination of the penny will hurt charitable causes.
Organizations like Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Salvation Army rely heavily on donations from the collection of pennies. Recently, the Dallas-based Kindness Foundation raised over $14,400, a penny at a time, for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Yeah, or perhaps people will donate MORE, as the lowest amount they can donate is increased, so they can't cop out by giving only a few pennies... maybe instead they'll give a few dimes..
Abolishing the penny could erode consumer confidence in the economy.
A 1990 General Accounting Office report found people were fearful their money may not go as far if the penny was eliminated because prices would be rounded to the nearest five cents. The report noted this "rounding" made many Americans feel they are being "ripped off" by being charged higher prices.
Well, we can't avoid false views can we... the same 'hysteria' went around Australia for a while when the 1 and 2c coins were removed from circulation, but they turned out to be false fears.
Elimination of the penny will hurt those who can afford it least, the poor and elderly.
Increased prices due to "rounding" would fall disproportionately on those least able to afford it because they make more small cash purchases.
As mentioned above ROUNDING WORKS BOTH WAYS. Geeze... and can we get more emotional in our points people? the 'poor and elderly'... fine work there.
The penny produces a profit for the Treasury.
Seigniorage, the revenue derived from the difference between the face value of coins and the cost of their mintage, produced more than $25 million for the Treasury last year -- from the penny alone.
AAAAAhhh
He he... I said enormouse... that must be a large rodent of some kind. :)
hate telephones of any kind. It's an intrusive device. It's push content.
I love email.
Erm, so you hate phones... but you like e-mail... so, say, when someone is have a seisure/heart attack/has been bitten by a snake etc. has just happened at your place you'd rather send an e-mail to the hospital to have them send an ambulance would you?
You point out a lot of the annoying behaviour people exhibit with phones, and mobile phones can be regarded as of limited use... but at the same time, when used responsibly, they are a very useful tool.
Because you egocentric maniac deem yourself too important and you have to feed your monster ego by carrying something that keeps the world in touch with you.
And your enormouse ego deems youself too important to ever be interrupted by anyone at all. Everyone has to wait for YOU to PUSH something to THEM! There has to be a push one way, otherwise you'll both just be leaving messages on each others phones and never speaking in person... You're the type of person that loves to have multiple part e-mail conversations to get across a point or answer a question that could have been handled in a couple of minutes.
I'm all for responsible phone usage, but I'm also against people such as yourself who decide that they get to filter everyone's contact to them... stop stroking your own ego.
if you don't want the pennies just don't take them
Erm... and progressivly loose money on every transaction just like the store wants you too. So they get their 'It's not really $10, it's $9.99' to make people think it's cheaper, and then people end up leaving the 1c anyway... hmmmm... that's a win win for them. (And yes, I know if it's advertised as $9.99 it won't really COST $9.99 due to America's infuriating habit of not including sales tax in the prices... my god how stupid is that? I actually LIKED starbucks because it included tax in the prices, so what you saw was what you paid.)
Or just quit collecting them in your pocket, spend them on your next cash purchase that isn't an even multiple of 5 cents (that's what I do).
All well and good, but the previously mentioned issue of the tax not being advertised means that it's really hard to work out how much an item is going to be before you come to pay for it... so rather than holding up the line while you count out the pennies...
Getting rid of them would just effectively raise prices on everything by several cents (by as much as 7 or 8 cents AU).
It wasn't that long ago that we got rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins and there was the usual dramatic shite on 'current affair' programs etc which went on about how expensive everything would become, but it never really happened. Things are round up or down depending on which they're closer to. If you buy a collection of items that come to $19.92 you get it for $19.90, if it comes to $19.98 you pay $20 and so on...
Of course, if you pay for most things with credit card or EFTPOS you don't have to worry about that at all, as there is no rounding required with electronic transactions.
Basically you've outlined all these 'work arounds' you have to come up with to avoid the issue that pennies are a useless denomination with no real value at all... stop hanging on to them for no good reason.
So instead you have a heavy pocket full of pennies! :)
Man, that was the single thing that pissed me off the most about using money in the states, those damn pennies... get rid of them! Each week I'd accumulate a ridiculous weight in 1c coins... So I'm very happy to be back in Australia where the lowest denomanation we have is the 5c, much less in the way of change.
Also, I found it really hard to come by dollar coins while I was there... I knew you guys had them, but all I seemed to end up with was a wallet fat with dollar notes and pennies... urgh!
Or you could just switch to money that you can actually tell just by looking at that it's ligit... weird idea... but so much less hassle!
The AC stated the sizes of the notes only differ in length, there's no issue with having them in the wallet, they're easy to have in there... and so much easier to choose the notes you want without having to take them all out and rifle through them to find the 20 instead of the 1 (We have no 1 dollar notes, we have $1 and $2 coins, much better to use).
As for the clear window, they just have some differing white symbols on them... all the notes also have all the other useful security measures:
Micro printing
Water marks
Some patterns printed on each side, that when you hold to the light they should match up to each other... which helps ensure that they were printed accurately
The first plastic note we had (The old $5) had a hologram on it, but that came off too easily, so was scrapped.
But the plastic money we have allows you to instantly see the difference between notes (Different colours and sizes), instantly tell that it's the real deal or a really expensive counterfeit (the clear plastic window), and it is just like having paper money in the way it handles, except that it's more durable (you can put it through the wash etc)
The problem with US money (and I've lived there for a while), is that all the notes look about the same, all are the same colour, they wear out very quickly, and they're very easy to counterfeit. (At least to the point of using in everyday money transactions... how many checkout chicks carefully look over every note?)
OK, I have no need for a Palm Pilot, I don't always carry my phone around with me, but I always wear my watch... now if my watch can hold 128Meg of stuff... that's damn handy... I can have useful tools on there, or funny video clips/trailers etc... just very darn cool.
And my thoughts on the look... it's a nice looking watch.
And having a floppy in your pocket is never going to allow you to date 'hotties' now is it?
*Man trundles by on a Segway*
*BASH! BASH! BASH! YOINK!*
*Hops on Segway*
*Trundle*
*Trundle*
*Man gets up off footpath and starts walking after you on the Segway*
Him:"Come back here!"
You:"Oh crap!"
*He ambles up to you and starts ambling along beside you*
H:"So... thought you could steal my mightly Segway did you? Thought I wouldn't be able to catch you hey?"
Y:"Crap, crap, crap!"
*You look everywhere for some way to make it go faster, an accelerator, a button... anything* H:"Come on... just get off"
Y:*whimper*
yet he insists that all the big insights be his and his alone
Yet in the Article, he states:
"It would have been impossible for me to predict where Buffy's character would go by the end of the series because the character is informed by so many things. You have to find out what people respond to, you have to find out what works on the show, what aspects make sense, what your meaning is. "
So, that would seem to suggest that there's a fairly substantial feedback loop going on there between himself, the viewers and others...
I don't think he goes it entirely alone... And for the most part the real issues with the last couple of seasons have been with the actual dialogue or more specfic things with episodes, which come about from the actual writer of the script, and Joss doesn't seem to have written many of the later episodes at all.
Having said that the final season (I don't know what episode you're up to in the states, but we're only part way through in Aus) has been by and large painful to watch... It's really being that bad. I've been watching the last season of Angel, as I had stopped watching that, and I'm finding it FAR more enjoyable than the current Buffy.
There is something wrong... you're downloading a version so you can watch it again to notice what you missed the first time you saw it...
What you're supposed to do is go to the cinema again to see it again. Or wait until the DVD comes out and buy that.
If a movie is good enough to warrent multiple viewings immediately, then the film makers, who put a lot of time into the film, to make you want to watch it multiple times, should be compensated.
If you can wait, then you only pay once more, for the DVD, and can watch it as many times as you like.
Besides... surely the only VCD copies of it at the moment are those damn 'guy in cinema with camera filming the screen'... my god they're horrible to watch... and for a film like this, surely you're killing the exprience with such a viewing?
I'm actually more excited about Half Life 2 I think... especially after seeing that trailer... the environments look supurb... it just looks like it might be that touch better when it comes to being a real immesive experience.
What engine is HL2 using? Doom 3?
That's my thinking to a degree... While CDs from MP3 are never going to be as good quality, and most albums aren't available in the lossless compression formats... but I live in hope. :)
A friend just bought the latest Massive Attack CD. When he got back from the store I asked if I could have a listen to it on my PC at work (NT4 *shudder*)... when I did it did not load my default Winamp, but instead automatically, with no prompting, installed its own player which proceded to crash... leaving me with no way of listening to the CD.
I've also come across this with some other CDs I own (Although not Norah Jones funnily enough).
Every time I buy a CD I rip it and store the CD away. This is so I can listen to the music I PAYED FOR while I'm at work without having to lug all my CDs around.
Also, I make copies of my CDs for use in the car. This is after having a company car broken into twice, where approx 100 CDs were stolen (My wife had the original CDs in those slip-case things in the glovebox)... so now we have a pile of original CD cases with no CDs in them.
I copy CDs so that I can listen to them without having the original that I paid for stolen or broken. Software that tries to stop me doing that... just kinda... PISSES ME OFF!
Right... I'm going home.
Which is far funnier than me mistyping Ta Ta For Now as Bye Bye For Now... :)
"Second Internet" - Man, how cool would that be... a completely underground (reverse pun intended... gettit... it's overgrou... oh never mind) Internet, detatched from the 'real' one...
In case of an all out war, the 'real' internet may be shut down, but this air based one could keep on keeping on... although without electricity after the war, only as long as all the laptop batteries lasted... so really only about 1 hour after the strike... just long enough for the users to start a thread:
"Woh! What was that?"
"Dunno... kinda bright though"
"Dude... I think this is bad"
"Yup"
"BBFN"
As both IGN and Gamespot charge to see them :(
You discount the PS2s huge library of games already availble for it... all those PS1 games people had, they still wanted to be able to play... so while they waited for the PS2 library to fill, they still had a new machine that they could play all their old games on. Plus, it had the established name. Parents buying for kids were instantly familiar with the Playstation name, and made the safe bet.
The XBox came to the market with very, very few games and no proven track record, so had/has to prove itself.
I tend to agree. Most 'legit' companies are quite good about e-mail. If they're not, they build up a lot of bad will. It's the public image moreso than laws that stop them spamming. (And I recently watched a show where they tested the theory by creating a number of e-mail addresses and disseminating the e-mail addresses in a variety of ways. Those that only gave their addresses to companies had far, far less spam than those who simply had their e-mail address viewable on the web by way of it being on a website or through use of Usenet)
These laws aren't really going to stop the current barrage of e-mail spam, as those doing the majority of it already are breaking the law. What it will do is give more room for companies to engage in 'spam' in a legal way... and this can only be bad.
As the article states though, there are loopholes... which include the companies that you've 'had a relationship with' including those you may have just visited and looked at (They've 'provided information', therefore you have a relationship). Or what about companies with multiple other company relationships? The bill is vague around this point and may allow a company that you have a valid relationship with decide to send you mails from all its associate companies... and you'd have to Opt out of each and every one of the associated companies.
OPT OUT is not a good model. If a person wants to know things from a company, wants to have a relationship of that sort, then they should OPT IN.
So you say that you have no problem with companies you've voluntarily given your address to contacting you... I'm thinking you'll be ending up with e-mails from all sorts of companies you never new you had a 'relationship' with, or that you gave your e-mail to in the first place.
I was suprised I had to read down so far to see anything about Australian currency, considering it was the first country in the world to use entirely polymer notes for all its money. Here are the notes as we use them.
...Now there's a pretty fun thing to do. :)
Using your analogy, as someone else has pointed out, against music simply provides us with the 'Radio' model... which is 'FREE' as you say tv is.
Yet in both of these models, your watching/listening is interrupted with ADS, which PAY for the shows/songs.
If you're trying to put this model onto music in general, and say that albums should be 'FREE', then we'd have CDs that were one half music, one half ads. And, just so you didn't skip the ad tracks, they'd pop up in the middle of songs.
Saying music should be 'FREE' is just plain wrong. Sure people should have the ability to provide their music for free if they want, and many do... but then they also only provide some of it, and ask for money for the entire album or whatever. No one can make a living from solely giving it all away for free.
To say that the real money is in putting on shows is also naive. Sure there is a lot of money to be made from touring, but it also costs a lot to go on tour in the first place. And to do that you need some up front cash... best provided by SELLING your music.
If you want a world where all music is 'FREE' but sponsered by advertising, you can have it. I'd rather pay the artists I like and respect so that I can have an album in the form in which they wanted it to be heard, from begining to end.
Ahhh, but I've played UT2003 on this machine, and that looks a whole lot better too! :) I'll have to keep looking for tweaks, cause at the moment, I'm not liking the game much! :(