This is actually the best post I've seen on this topic so far. I do have some minor issues with it though
1) Ada is cumbersome, especially when you are dealing with character strings of variable length.
String issues are the single biggest bugaboo I've seen Cish programmers have with Ada. Ada's built in strings are fixed-sized and sized perfectly to their contents (no Cish null terminator). You'd think this would be a trivial difference, but it completely changes how (and when) you need to create and handle your strings. People who insist on handling strings the same way they would in C get really frustrated.
Fortunately Ada, like C++, comes with a variable-length string class in its built in class libraries.
2) Garbage collection is managed by hand.
You have to be kind of careful here, as different people think different things when you say "Garbage collection". If you mean you can't allocate memory with abandon and expect the runtime to automaticly generate cleaup code for you like Java does, that's true (unless you run on the JVM, then it works just like Java). But this is no different than how C and C++ work.
But there are tricks. For instance, if you declare an access type with a limited scope, there are ways to get all objects of that type to be automaticly garbage-collected when that type goes out of scope. Since you can declare functions in other functions (which C's don't allow), this is more useful that you might at first think.
4) Programs in Ada tend to be HUGE!!!. That's the big one. I'm talking about source code size here, not binary size, which is reasonable.
That's more a reflection of Ada's users than the language. DoD programs tend to be huge. Ada was built to help make huge programs like that managable. There's really nothing stopping an Ada program from being small, except the deveoplers themselves.
Your other points are bang-on. I think they are working on an update for the language that will allow Java-ish notation for calling class methods, but the current syntax is not typical. A lot of people are syntax-fixated enough that this really puts them off.
Interestingly, 42 is not listed in/usr/include/sysexits.h on neither Solaris, nor FreeBSD, nor Linux...
Well of course you wouldn't want to *list* 42 as a possible exit code. If you did that, we'd be continually getting our Ada programs interrupted by Vogon destructor fleets.
But not in the country you might think of. I visited Texas.
There's your problem right there. Texas is about the last place I'd suggest a Frenchman go for a good friendly time. Pretty much the entire Old South you'd be liable to find unfriendly, but Texans tend to have an extra bit of swagger that would make them particularly forward about it.
Dallas and the rural areas thereabout would be about the worst part of Texas for you too. Its very conservative there, and very culturaly homogenious.
2004 was right when Bush's war stared going seriously south too. They woulda been a bit upset and looking for someone else to blame. (Obviously the screw-ups can't be *our* fault. It must be all you doubters who didn't believe hard enough.).
Only a tiny fraction of the members of underrepresented minority groups who take AP exams take the tests in one of those four affected subject areas, he said.
Directing their limited resources in ways that proportionally help minority groups is an admirable goal in general. I think its horribly misapplied here though. In the case of CS, the lack of minority students (US citizens at least) going into the field is in and of itself a huge problem. Actually, "huge problem" isn't strong enough. Its a national disgrace. That is the problem that needs to be addressed. Admittedly, this is more an issue for schools than the College Board. But removing AP support doesn't seem like a helpful move. For a smart but poor kid that's now one more expensive college class they are going to have to borrow money to take.
A woman's POV isn't worth much on what attracts women?
That'd be like a fisherman choosing his bait based on what an individual fish he found seems to like, rather than talking to other fisherman (particularly those experienced on fishing the same body of water).
I once had a single co-worker who found (through extensive trial and error) that he had much more success in bars saying he was a Wal-Mart greeter than an engineer. So I hope you'll forgive my scepticism.
If you are impregnated against your will or your pregnancy is causing long term medical issues or death then the option should be available.
I would argue that this is actually a pro-choice opinion too. The chief difference comes in whether you think that the final decision on the appropriateness of this option should rest with the woman whose life this directly effects, or with a relatively disinterested government.
- Rotlicht Tycoon. (Red Light Tycoon.) Yep, it's about running a brothel. I'm guessing you wouldn't buy that for your kids either;)
Well, it sounds stupid, so no I wouldn't. However, I wouldn't stop them from using their own money on it like I did w/ Prison Tycoon. The only thing you could tell me that would put it into that territory would be that slavery is involved in the gameplay, or perhaps slapping around the 'ho's to keep them in line. Ick, what nasty stuff to be contemplating.
- Klo Tycoon. (Toilet Tycoon) Yep, you're running a public toilet in that one.
E.g., "Chemist Tycoon" may get extra penalty points for being yet another attempt to cash in on the "tycoon" title.... But honestly it doesn't sound any worse than, say, Shopping Centre Tycoon, Restaurant Tycoon (if I recall its title right) or the two dozen other Tycoon games.
The worst I ever saw was "Prison Tycoon". Sit back and think about making a game of that for a minute. I can't think of a single facet of such a game that wouldn't be morally reprehensible. It holds the honor of being the only computer game I've ever refused to allow my kids to purchase.
"Chemist Tycoon" sounds kinda cool and fun by comparison.
This was a little surprising to me as well, but ATI had about 20% of the market during 2007.... GPU Market Share
That isn't even the whole story. Don't forget that they are a major player in the motherboard chipset space too with their nForce lines for both Intel and AMD processors. I'm using one in my home Vista rig. That probably accounts for at least 8 more "nVidia drivers" on my machine alone.
You went in the wrong direction in my opinion. I left UAC on but run as a normal user so anytime the UAC pops up I have to type in the admin password. It is how I know that software is either written incorrectly or trying to do something I probably don't approve of.
*ding**ding**ding* We have a winner!
This is exactly how things should be run. Unlike previous versions of MS's OS, you can actually get things done without Admin privs in Vista. Dropping to "root" (I even renamed the admin account "root" on my rig) is now easy to accomplish when you need to, like it has always been in Unix. You can run any program from it shortcut as root, and even if you don't do that a program will usually ask for the root password if it needs extra privs to do something.
Thus you should never give a normal Vista user account admin privs. You wouldn't dream of performing all your normal user operations on Unix from the root account would you? Not if you have half a brain. Well, now Microsoft has finally caught up with the 1970's. Be radical and take the leap with them.:-)
BTW: Any time you see someone complaining about the "Allow or Deny" dialogs, you've found someone running as Administrator. They shouldn't be doing this in the first place, so I usually don't listen past that point.
Also, there's the thought that I might want to re-claim rights for Good as well as Evil: for example, if Evil Megacorp swiped the work and tried to pass it of as their own (and to assert rights over it).
That's actually a *feature* of Public Domain. If you don't want Evil Megacorp doing that, keep your copyright.
Parallel programming is going to be a HUGE deal in coming years, and current languages don't handle it well - threading is complicated and prone to errors, leading to product delays. Erlang... Unfortunately, the language also has a high barrier to entry as it is not Algol-based (like C, C++, Java, etc. are).
Hmmm. It sounds like you should consider looking at Ada. Its Algol-based, and has threading designed in from the start as a first-class part of the language.
Its also a supported part of GCC, so a compiler is freely available for most platforms. For the windows version, go to The Mingw Download site and search for "gcc-ada".
Out of interest, how do you put copyrighted content into the public domain? Seriously, what's the statute or case law on that one?
A damn good question. When I was a kid, public domain was the default, and you had to explicitly say if you wanted to keep copyright. Now you get a copyright automaticly and its a total PITA to get rid of the damn thing if you don't want it.
I did a lot of research on this the first time it came up. This area is sort of a "bug" in copyright law. The usual method for working out such issues is through the courts, but I guess suits over PD works don't occur that often.
I include a file (where one usually includes the licenseing file) disclaiming and and all interest in the software and contributing it to the Public Domain, in my best rendition of lawyer-eese. Ditto with file headers. I'm not sure how well that would stand up in court, were I to sustain a brain injury and turn into "Evil T.E.D." one day. It should at least be pretty clear what I was intending to do.
It would be nice to have some boilerplate I could use that passed muster from an actual copyright lawyer.
I absolutely *hate* talking to computers. There's no quicker way to piss me off than to put one of those voice rec systems on your PBX with no way to just hit the buttons on my phone.
Talking isn't just the "interface method" we use with other human beings. There's a social aspect to it. Talking to someone implies a certian relationship. If I'm asking for help, then my standing is implicitly lower than the other party's. If you force me to verbally ask a stupid computer for help, you are effectively forcing me up-front to declare myself lower than an appliance before you will consider helping me. I have to do it out-loud too, for everyone around to hear. Otherwise the dumb computer has trouble understanding. What a really great customer service idea! Insult and humiliate them first thing when they get on the phone.
There are of course more practical considerations too. Imagine the noise in a cubicle-filled workplace with everyone talking (or worse arguing with) their computers.
Apparently I must be weird though, because I'm always hearing all this breathless excitement about talking computer interfaces.
The LGPL is in no way "lesser" than its hideously deformed cousin the GPL.
Actually, I've found the LGPL almost totally useless. It works OK for C link libraries, but it has too many situations where it devolves into the GPL. If you include any LGPL C++ templates, then your program must be LGPL. If you use any LGPL Ada generics, your program must be LGPL. Its debateable whether simple C macros and #defines render you LGPL. Lisp macros are debateable too.
So LGPL really does not do what a lot of people seem to think it does.
You need to look at what you are trying to accomplish in picking a license. To keep things simple and within bounds I can understand, I only use one of three licenses (in order of restrictiveness):
If I don't want anyone doing anything with my code and making it non-GPL (eg: for stand-alone apps): GPL
If I don't want anyone doing anything with my code and making it non-GPL, but I want them to be able to *use* it as a library and release the product under any license they want (barring changes to my library): GPL with linking exception
If I want anyone to do anything they like with it, including possibly making trivial mods and re-releasing it as their own (eg: OS bindings that I don't want to support): Public Domain
I know other people have their own favorite licesnses, but those three I understand fairly well, the market understands fairly well, and they cover all my bases.
I think Cygwin's full of too many hacks to be a good starting point. For instance, Windows programs have no ability to fork
As fate would have it, I just stumbled over this posting from Linus yesterday. Its about the issues around making efficient Win32 ports of Git (the revision control system used for the Linux kernel). In particular, he complains about having to simulate fork+exec with CreateProcess, and with Windows filesystem operations in general.
Why do we see "democrats want to give everybody healthcare" and "republicans oppose science", but never "democrats want to increase government spending even more" or "republicans want to protect the environment"?
Perhaps because the former is true, while the latter is not?
but strangely the democrats always end up looking good, and the republicans always end up looking bad.
"Always?" Someone doesn't remember the 90's very well.
It is not the media's job to protect anyone from the PR consequences of their own stupid actions. Perhaps you want a news source that does that, but can the rest of us have a news source or two that just reports what's going on? Please?
All that is vanishing increasingly with more and more Socialist policies and our stretched budget.
That's a rather revisionist view of things. Our government at the time (under FDR) was far more socialistic in nature and philosophy than anything you see, or could concievably see, in the USA today. Labor unions were far more powerful, and the government had and exercised way more control over industry than it imagines itself to have these days. Price controls, manditory rationing, you name it.
If you want to argue that we've lost something in our ability to respond quickly to existential threats since the 40's, you'd have to base it on our current *lack* of socialistic values. I'm guessing you don't want to make that argument though.:-)
This has to be the best example of a truly insightful post I've seen in a long time.
However, I think you are being a bit too pessimistic. I was around in the 70's when serious commentators were asking if the Republican party was in its death throes. In the previous 30 years it had elected only 2 presidents and never controlled congress. Huge social strides were being made, and the Left seemed in total control. Wiser people argued that these things run in cycles, and that the Right would eventually come back.
Boy did they. I never lost faith that things would eventually swing back to Liberalism, but I did fear that it might not happen in my lifetime.
So now what has happened, almost 30 years later (on cue)? Bush and merry band have, through herculean efforts, pushed the pendulum as far to the right as they can shove it. But it is clear to anyone looking that they have nearly hit the stops. The American people are now starting to awaken and take a good look at what is going on, and they don't like it one bit. The pendulum is about to swing back with a vengence, and woe betide those in its way.
I could of course be wrong about this, but if I am I'm about the wrongest on anything that I have been in my entire life. The signs are all around. The last election 2006 was all set to be a good one for Republicans. Nearly all the vulnerable Congressional seats were Democratic held. Instead, they got waxed. They didn't just loose a bit more than they won, they *everything* that was competitive, and some that weren't supposed to be. *This* is the election where the vulnerable Republican seats were up, and if anything the mood in the electorate for them is worse now than it was in 2006. Twenty Nine Reps so far have announced that they aren't even going to try. Party identification is swinging Democrats' way. Young voters (the electorate of the future) are turning out to be overwhelmingly Democrat. The Rep's only hope for the future, our rapidly growing Hispanic population, they have spent the last 2 years insulting (with no signs of stopping). The count of Democrats voting in the primaries is shattering records. I'm not talking by 5 or 10%, but in some cases 300%! Nearly every state has had more voters in the Democratic primary than the Republican, even though both are contested and on the same day. In Georga (a solid Republican state since '76), *two* different Democrats got more votes than the entire Republician slate!
Still not impressed? The Democrats are actually raising more money. They have been since 2006. I always thought that was physically impossible. Even in the 70's when things were good, we had the people, they had the money. That's just the way things work. Well, apparently not anymore.
Now I'm normally the most pessimistic guy you can meet, but I just don't see how the Reps pull this one out. So personally, I'm sad for you that you left. Even if you aren't of the Left == good, Right == bad mindset that I am, its clear that something major is going on. I have never in my life seen anything like this. The closest equivalent was the mood around Regan's election back in '80. For better or worse, change is comming. This is a very exciting time.
He may well have said such things. However, as a supporter of all of the Bill of Rights (yes, including the second amendment), I don't think this is even close to the top of my list of concerns. If he wants to tilt at that windmill (neither the Congress nor the current right wing Supreme Court would allow something like this), and will in the process help restore the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, I'd consider it way more than a fair trade.
BTW: Since you were so worried about moderation, I will point out that I had mod points, disagreed with you heartily, and posted in rather than tried to mod-censor you.
So I was discussing this news with a couple of my friends as we'd all been interested in the game. Sadly, I will be in the middle of studying for PhD qualifiers instead of being able to play.
What?...Ohhh. I see. You actually think this means it is really going to come out on September 7th. How quaint.
You need to understand how to calculate actual release dates from announced release dates. What you do is take the delta between the last release date they announced and the current release date, divide by the delta between the release date announcements, and you arrive at an estimated slippage rate. Then you must integrate that against the number of days until the current official release date. The math is kinda complex, but I think you are more likely to have to worry about missing next MLK day to play it.
What happens when the number of people stealing outnumbers those buying to the point where these corps are actually losing money?
This sentence confused me. I honestly thought you were talking about shoplifters for a second.
Also, if you think about the financials for a second, the number of people not buying (for whatever reason) is really immatierial. Its the number of people who do buy that is the issue.
I think what you are shooting for is more along the lines of "What happens when the number of people buying gets so low that the corps are actually losing money?"
That's really not a horribly theoretical question. The various "media" companies have all had bad patches in the past where they lost money. So you just have to look at those to see what will happen. Basicly, they tend to become risk averse. For record companies, they'll only support artists that sold a zillion of their last album, and cookie-cutter manufactured bands that they know how to promote and sell already. For movies, you'll get nothing but sequels to movies that did well. For TV, you'll get a lot of cheap reality shows and formulaic sitcoms.
But one could also ask if the number of people "buying" through the old models will actually approach zero as you seem to be suggesting. I don't think it would, as long as there is still added value. For music, I personally like having a physical CD for my collection, with the official cover artwork and lyrics and all that (if its music I like enough, of course). For movies, you really can't beat the experience of watching in a theater on that humongous screen, at least for certian types of movies. For TV, the shows usually don't leak in advance, so if its something I'm excited about watching, I still want to see it live. I don't buy many DVD's, but the ones I do get I'd much rather spend the money and get the nice copy with the official artwork and added features. If its just something I want to see once maybe, I might download, but I wouldn't buy it either way.
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String issues are the single biggest bugaboo I've seen Cish programmers have with Ada. Ada's built in strings are fixed-sized and sized perfectly to their contents (no Cish null terminator). You'd think this would be a trivial difference, but it completely changes how (and when) you need to create and handle your strings. People who insist on handling strings the same way they would in C get really frustrated.
Fortunately Ada, like C++, comes with a variable-length string class in its built in class libraries.
You have to be kind of careful here, as different people think different things when you say "Garbage collection". If you mean you can't allocate memory with abandon and expect the runtime to automaticly generate cleaup code for you like Java does, that's true (unless you run on the JVM, then it works just like Java). But this is no different than how C and C++ work.
But there are tricks. For instance, if you declare an access type with a limited scope, there are ways to get all objects of that type to be automaticly garbage-collected when that type goes out of scope. Since you can declare functions in other functions (which C's don't allow), this is more useful that you might at first think.
That's more a reflection of Ada's users than the language. DoD programs tend to be huge. Ada was built to help make huge programs like that managable. There's really nothing stopping an Ada program from being small, except the deveoplers themselves.
Your other points are bang-on. I think they are working on an update for the language that will allow Java-ish notation for calling class methods, but the current syntax is not typical. A lot of people are syntax-fixated enough that this really puts them off.
Well of course you wouldn't want to *list* 42 as a possible exit code. If you did that, we'd be continually getting our Ada programs interrupted by Vogon destructor fleets.
There's your problem right there. Texas is about the last place I'd suggest a Frenchman go for a good friendly time. Pretty much the entire Old South you'd be liable to find unfriendly, but Texans tend to have an extra bit of swagger that would make them particularly forward about it.
Dallas and the rural areas thereabout would be about the worst part of Texas for you too. Its very conservative there, and very culturaly homogenious.
2004 was right when Bush's war stared going seriously south too. They woulda been a bit upset and looking for someone else to blame. (Obviously the screw-ups can't be *our* fault. It must be all you doubters who didn't believe hard enough.).
Directing their limited resources in ways that proportionally help minority groups is an admirable goal in general. I think its horribly misapplied here though. In the case of CS, the lack of minority students (US citizens at least) going into the field is in and of itself a huge problem. Actually, "huge problem" isn't strong enough. Its a national disgrace. That is the problem that needs to be addressed. Admittedly, this is more an issue for schools than the College Board. But removing AP support doesn't seem like a helpful move. For a smart but poor kid that's now one more expensive college class they are going to have to borrow money to take.
I'd have to think that once the female to male ratio rises to a certian point, that'll be all the "affirmative action" most guys will need.
That'd be like a fisherman choosing his bait based on what an individual fish he found seems to like, rather than talking to other fisherman (particularly those experienced on fishing the same body of water).
I once had a single co-worker who found (through extensive trial and error) that he had much more success in bars saying he was a Wal-Mart greeter than an engineer. So I hope you'll forgive my scepticism.
I would argue that this is actually a pro-choice opinion too. The chief difference comes in whether you think that the final decision on the appropriateness of this option should rest with the woman whose life this directly effects, or with a relatively disinterested government.
Well, it sounds stupid, so no I wouldn't. However, I wouldn't stop them from using their own money on it like I did w/ Prison Tycoon. The only thing you could tell me that would put it into that territory would be that slavery is involved in the gameplay, or perhaps slapping around the 'ho's to keep them in line. Ick, what nasty stuff to be contemplating.
OK. You got me beat on that one.
The worst I ever saw was "Prison Tycoon". Sit back and think about making a game of that for a minute. I can't think of a single facet of such a game that wouldn't be morally reprehensible. It holds the honor of being the only computer game I've ever refused to allow my kids to purchase.
"Chemist Tycoon" sounds kinda cool and fun by comparison.
That isn't even the whole story. Don't forget that they are a major player in the motherboard chipset space too with their nForce lines for both Intel and AMD processors. I'm using one in my home Vista rig. That probably accounts for at least 8 more "nVidia drivers" on my machine alone.
*ding**ding**ding* We have a winner!
This is exactly how things should be run. Unlike previous versions of MS's OS, you can actually get things done without Admin privs in Vista. Dropping to "root" (I even renamed the admin account "root" on my rig) is now easy to accomplish when you need to, like it has always been in Unix. You can run any program from it shortcut as root, and even if you don't do that a program will usually ask for the root password if it needs extra privs to do something.
Thus you should never give a normal Vista user account admin privs. You wouldn't dream of performing all your normal user operations on Unix from the root account would you? Not if you have half a brain. Well, now Microsoft has finally caught up with the 1970's. Be radical and take the leap with them.
BTW: Any time you see someone complaining about the "Allow or Deny" dialogs, you've found someone running as Administrator. They shouldn't be doing this in the first place, so I usually don't listen past that point.
That means I'm going to have to start caring about it at some point, right?
That's actually a *feature* of Public Domain. If you don't want Evil Megacorp doing that, keep your copyright.
Hmmm. It sounds like you should consider looking at Ada. Its Algol-based, and has threading designed in from the start as a first-class part of the language.
Its also a supported part of GCC, so a compiler is freely available for most platforms. For the windows version, go to The Mingw Download site and search for "gcc-ada".
A damn good question. When I was a kid, public domain was the default, and you had to explicitly say if you wanted to keep copyright. Now you get a copyright automaticly and its a total PITA to get rid of the damn thing if you don't want it.
I did a lot of research on this the first time it came up. This area is sort of a "bug" in copyright law. The usual method for working out such issues is through the courts, but I guess suits over PD works don't occur that often.
I include a file (where one usually includes the licenseing file) disclaiming and and all interest in the software and contributing it to the Public Domain, in my best rendition of lawyer-eese. Ditto with file headers. I'm not sure how well that would stand up in court, were I to sustain a brain injury and turn into "Evil T.E.D." one day. It should at least be pretty clear what I was intending to do.
It would be nice to have some boilerplate I could use that passed muster from an actual copyright lawyer.
I absolutely *hate* talking to computers. There's no quicker way to piss me off than to put one of those voice rec systems on your PBX with no way to just hit the buttons on my phone.
Talking isn't just the "interface method" we use with other human beings. There's a social aspect to it. Talking to someone implies a certian relationship. If I'm asking for help, then my standing is implicitly lower than the other party's. If you force me to verbally ask a stupid computer for help, you are effectively forcing me up-front to declare myself lower than an appliance before you will consider helping me. I have to do it out-loud too, for everyone around to hear. Otherwise the dumb computer has trouble understanding. What a really great customer service idea! Insult and humiliate them first thing when they get on the phone.
There are of course more practical considerations too. Imagine the noise in a cubicle-filled workplace with everyone talking (or worse arguing with) their computers.
Apparently I must be weird though, because I'm always hearing all this breathless excitement about talking computer interfaces.
Actually, I've found the LGPL almost totally useless. It works OK for C link libraries, but it has too many situations where it devolves into the GPL. If you include any LGPL C++ templates, then your program must be LGPL. If you use any LGPL Ada generics, your program must be LGPL. Its debateable whether simple C macros and #defines render you LGPL. Lisp macros are debateable too.
So LGPL really does not do what a lot of people seem to think it does.
You need to look at what you are trying to accomplish in picking a license. To keep things simple and within bounds I can understand, I only use one of three licenses (in order of restrictiveness):
I know other people have their own favorite licesnses, but those three I understand fairly well, the market understands fairly well, and they cover all my bases.
That would permanently lower his constitution by one. I don't think Gary would want to live that way.
As fate would have it, I just stumbled over this posting from Linus yesterday. Its about the issues around making efficient Win32 ports of Git (the revision control system used for the Linux kernel). In particular, he complains about having to simulate fork+exec with CreateProcess, and with Windows filesystem operations in general.
Perhaps because the former is true, while the latter is not?
"Always?" Someone doesn't remember the 90's very well.
It is not the media's job to protect anyone from the PR consequences of their own stupid actions. Perhaps you want a news source that does that, but can the rest of us have a news source or two that just reports what's going on? Please?
That's a rather revisionist view of things. Our government at the time (under FDR) was far more socialistic in nature and philosophy than anything you see, or could concievably see, in the USA today. Labor unions were far more powerful, and the government had and exercised way more control over industry than it imagines itself to have these days. Price controls, manditory rationing, you name it.
If you want to argue that we've lost something in our ability to respond quickly to existential threats since the 40's, you'd have to base it on our current *lack* of socialistic values. I'm guessing you don't want to make that argument though.
This has to be the best example of a truly insightful post I've seen in a long time.
However, I think you are being a bit too pessimistic. I was around in the 70's when serious commentators were asking if the Republican party was in its death throes. In the previous 30 years it had elected only 2 presidents and never controlled congress. Huge social strides were being made, and the Left seemed in total control. Wiser people argued that these things run in cycles, and that the Right would eventually come back.
Boy did they. I never lost faith that things would eventually swing back to Liberalism, but I did fear that it might not happen in my lifetime.
So now what has happened, almost 30 years later (on cue)? Bush and merry band have, through herculean efforts, pushed the pendulum as far to the right as they can shove it. But it is clear to anyone looking that they have nearly hit the stops. The American people are now starting to awaken and take a good look at what is going on, and they don't like it one bit. The pendulum is about to swing back with a vengence, and woe betide those in its way.
I could of course be wrong about this, but if I am I'm about the wrongest on anything that I have been in my entire life. The signs are all around. The last election 2006 was all set to be a good one for Republicans. Nearly all the vulnerable Congressional seats were Democratic held. Instead, they got waxed. They didn't just loose a bit more than they won, they *everything* that was competitive, and some that weren't supposed to be. *This* is the election where the vulnerable Republican seats were up, and if anything the mood in the electorate for them is worse now than it was in 2006. Twenty Nine Reps so far have announced that they aren't even going to try. Party identification is swinging Democrats' way. Young voters (the electorate of the future) are turning out to be overwhelmingly Democrat. The Rep's only hope for the future, our rapidly growing Hispanic population, they have spent the last 2 years insulting (with no signs of stopping). The count of Democrats voting in the primaries is shattering records. I'm not talking by 5 or 10%, but in some cases 300%! Nearly every state has had more voters in the Democratic primary than the Republican, even though both are contested and on the same day. In Georga (a solid Republican state since '76), *two* different Democrats got more votes than the entire Republician slate!
Still not impressed? The Democrats are actually raising more money. They have been since 2006. I always thought that was physically impossible. Even in the 70's when things were good, we had the people, they had the money. That's just the way things work. Well, apparently not anymore.
Now I'm normally the most pessimistic guy you can meet, but I just don't see how the Reps pull this one out. So personally, I'm sad for you that you left. Even if you aren't of the Left == good, Right == bad mindset that I am, its clear that something major is going on. I have never in my life seen anything like this. The closest equivalent was the mood around Regan's election back in '80. For better or worse, change is comming. This is a very exciting time.
He may well have said such things. However, as a supporter of all of the Bill of Rights (yes, including the second amendment), I don't think this is even close to the top of my list of concerns. If he wants to tilt at that windmill (neither the Congress nor the current right wing Supreme Court would allow something like this), and will in the process help restore the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, I'd consider it way more than a fair trade.
BTW: Since you were so worried about moderation, I will point out that I had mod points, disagreed with you heartily, and posted in rather than tried to mod-censor you.
What?
You need to understand how to calculate actual release dates from announced release dates. What you do is take the delta between the last release date they announced and the current release date, divide by the delta between the release date announcements, and you arrive at an estimated slippage rate. Then you must integrate that against the number of days until the current official release date. The math is kinda complex, but I think you are more likely to have to worry about missing next MLK day to play it.
Ahh, to be young and idealistic again.
This sentence confused me. I honestly thought you were talking about shoplifters for a second.
Also, if you think about the financials for a second, the number of people not buying (for whatever reason) is really immatierial. Its the number of people who do buy that is the issue.
I think what you are shooting for is more along the lines of "What happens when the number of people buying gets so low that the corps are actually losing money?"
That's really not a horribly theoretical question. The various "media" companies have all had bad patches in the past where they lost money. So you just have to look at those to see what will happen. Basicly, they tend to become risk averse. For record companies, they'll only support artists that sold a zillion of their last album, and cookie-cutter manufactured bands that they know how to promote and sell already. For movies, you'll get nothing but sequels to movies that did well. For TV, you'll get a lot of cheap reality shows and formulaic sitcoms.
But one could also ask if the number of people "buying" through the old models will actually approach zero as you seem to be suggesting. I don't think it would, as long as there is still added value. For music, I personally like having a physical CD for my collection, with the official cover artwork and lyrics and all that (if its music I like enough, of course). For movies, you really can't beat the experience of watching in a theater on that humongous screen, at least for certian types of movies. For TV, the shows usually don't leak in advance, so if its something I'm excited about watching, I still want to see it live. I don't buy many DVD's, but the ones I do get I'd much rather spend the money and get the nice copy with the official artwork and added features. If its just something I want to see once maybe, I might download, but I wouldn't buy it either way.