Here is the Canadian government summary report (annotated) that describes the logic behind the conclusion. You can accept or reject it at your discretion, but it does attempt to explain the very thing you're asking about.
The follies of English orthography achieve heights of linguistic pornography when the fish that you fry you spell g-h-o-t-i for pleasure instead of cryptography...
He doesn't claim to know everything; he claims NOT to know NOTHING (in contrast to the ironically ignorant generalization to which he was replying). A claim which, based on what he presents, is true. QED.
Truly. One $75 machine gun (yes, reliable ones can be had that cheaply in some places) would allow one to protect a lot of computers running unlicensed copies of windows...
FS' niche falls outside of the mainstream gamer culture, so it doesn't get much press. But lack of notoriety != lack of sales by any stretch. I know of many professional pilots who use FS to do ILS (Instrument Landing System) training, which cuts down on big-dollar simulator training times and improves checkride success rates considerably.
Labor of love or not, Microsoft would not have continued development of an unprofitable software product for 15+ years. It just wouldn't happen.
You can say what you want about wealth, but there is a fixed amount of natural, life-sustaining resources in the world, and printing more money isn't going to change that.
If this was true, we wouldn't be able to support 6.7+ billion people worldwide right now. In 50 years, we've seen a threefold expansion - that's nearly a 6% increase per year, on average.
In a way, you're correct; the resources are limited. However, ingenious creatures as we are, we continue to come up with new ways to more efficiently use the resources we do have, which has consistently outpaced the growth rate, and seems set to continue to do so for a while to come.
Add to that that there are some resources (including manpower) that actually do increase as time goes on (more people are born, and existing people have more output with each new periodic measure), and you can see that the economy still has room to grow.
Economics is not a zero-sum game. It never has been, and never will be. New resources are committed to the economy all the time.
"It is about the integrity of the Associated Press, they have to be strict otherwise people would be calling their photos into question the whole time."
.
...instead of just calling into question the integrity of their reporting, you mean?
You're right, they are very difficult to find. (OT: I have one for sale for considerably less than that. Anybody who is interested can email me.)
Re the GP's post: the PS2 is hardly a dead platform - even though people are steadily moving to the new generation of consoles, there are still millions in constant use and a thriving market for new and used games. This move by Sony will actually considerably extend the life of the PS2 platform, and I think it's a good thing - both for Sony and for those who can't (or won't) yet "upgrade" to a next gen.
You are so right. And it certainly doesn't help matters whatsoever that so few of the few decent movies that have come out in the past ten years have even been released on Blu-ray. About 80% of Blu-ray content is crap. Why on earth wouldn't they want to release their best stuff first? No wonder the format is suffering...
Ahh, that's why. The comment you were actually responding to was under the normal threshold, so it looked like you were responding to:
"Yep, if I am not mistaken, the right to bear arms is in the Bill of Rights so that the government will not be able to silence the will of the people and so that if the government gets screwy, we can have another revolution."
-
So you can see the source of the confusion.
I really, REALLY don't like the new/. layout. I much prefer the old one - there weren't nearly as many causes for technical misinterpretation (especially since regular misinterpretation is so rampant around here anyway).
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
-Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787.
...
Care to brush up on your US history and try again?
Repeat that to yourself the next time you see a product from LG, Kyocera, Hyundai, Samsung, or any of the thousands of other South Korean manufacturers that sell equipment to the 'western' world. Then divide that by the number of manufacturers from North Korea that sell things here. (I'll give you a hint: it's undefined.) If it weren't for US and UN intervention in Korea, the entire peninsula would very likely be under the oppressive thumb of the Kim family. I dare say that the Korean conflict paid off quite well for us in the long run.
I also dare say that the installation of democracy in Japan after World War II has had good effects as well.
And even Viêt Nam, which is still not democratic, is now part of the WTO and a heavy labor partner with the U.S. (I know a number of very small businesses who get parts and labor from Vietnamese businesses and families.)
So I think it's too early to tell what the long-term effects of the war in the Middle East will bring. (Although personally, I think the ideals that served us so well in the past have fallen by the wayside, which can never be a good thing.)
Hypothetically, I'm all for it; it's a great thought exercise and leads to wonderful discussions. (Can you really call a universe that changes its rules 'static' or 'ever-state', and how does that change the theological argument?)
And if there were any sort of scientific evidence that this was the case, I would even be willing to discuss it on a practical level. But unfortunately, until something rather drastic happens, it remains just that - a proposal, a hypothetical, a thought experiment - which is exactly the same thing a theological belief is. And the thing about thought experiments is that without any sort of empirical evidence, every single one is as valid and likely as another. Which means that the possibility of God is every bit as real as the possibility of an ever-state, entropy-neutral universe.
Entropy is real and can be measured scientifically by any kid with a chemistry set. And all empirical evidence to date (as far as we can read it, anyway) points back to a singular event from a (perhaps asymptotically infinitely) lower-entropy source. So as enticing an idea is of a cyclic, ever-state universe, I think most people might get more benefit from believing in a god. But that's just my take.
Because, given what we "know" about the universe (which is precious little), entropy has existed for as far back as we can determine. But if you start with entropy in the current state, the further back you go in time, the larger the coherence the universe had to have. Infinitely far back (which is, by definition, a requirement for an ever-state universe) the universe must have been perfectly coherent, with its entire energy contained in a single spot. (Which, come to think of it, sounds an awful lot like some descriptions of gods, doesn't it?) And if it was perfectly coherent, what could possibly have made it become unstable enough to generate what we see today?
I see your point, but I think your analogy is slightly flawed.
For starters, I don't care what the terms of service say - any company infringing on my government-issued rights isn't getting any sympathy from me. Amy I not supposed to use my PSP for homebrew just because Sony doesn't like it? Or not install my extra legal OSX license on non-Apple hardware just because Apple says I shouldn't?
Second, this isn't a free-coffe and -beer scenario. As generous as your offer is, Netflix is not so giving. They are not giving these things away - they are renting them to me. What would you do if Blockbuster told you that the DVD you rented from the store could only be played between 1am and 6am on Thursday, and you could only play it on the DVD player in your basement next to the furnace? Just because a company claims something in their "terms of agreement" doesn't make it law - otherwise companies would be making the law, which they have no right to do.
The difference here is that Netflix has been given a tool to enable them to enforce something which isn't the law, and the community has responded by breaking that enforcement.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is the Canadian government summary report (annotated) that describes the logic behind the conclusion. You can accept or reject it at your discretion, but it does attempt to explain the very thing you're asking about.
The follies of English orthography
achieve heights of linguistic pornography
when the fish that you fry
you spell g-h-o-t-i
for pleasure instead of cryptography...
That's a mean thing to say, you insensitive cod!
You forgot to factor in the exchange rate.
10mi US = 100mi CN.
Of course, Canada is all metric now, so all bets are off.
Ich bin ein... Canadian??
He doesn't claim to know everything; he claims NOT to know NOTHING (in contrast to the ironically ignorant generalization to which he was replying). A claim which, based on what he presents, is true. QED.
That's because you forgot the sarcastimark: ~
Truly. One $75 machine gun (yes, reliable ones can be had that cheaply in some places) would allow one to protect a lot of computers running unlicensed copies of windows...
It's worse than that... I'm a litterer.
[Hey, it's not Natalie's Restaurant, but I chuckled.]
You could probably hack Virtual Desktop Manager to do it.
FS' niche falls outside of the mainstream gamer culture, so it doesn't get much press. But lack of notoriety != lack of sales by any stretch. I know of many professional pilots who use FS to do ILS (Instrument Landing System) training, which cuts down on big-dollar simulator training times and improves checkride success rates considerably.
Labor of love or not, Microsoft would not have continued development of an unprofitable software product for 15+ years. It just wouldn't happen.
An Éireannach tú?
You can say what you want about wealth, but there is a fixed amount of natural, life-sustaining resources in the world, and printing more money isn't going to change that.
If this was true, we wouldn't be able to support 6.7+ billion people worldwide right now. In 50 years, we've seen a threefold expansion - that's nearly a 6% increase per year, on average.
In a way, you're correct; the resources are limited. However, ingenious creatures as we are, we continue to come up with new ways to more efficiently use the resources we do have, which has consistently outpaced the growth rate, and seems set to continue to do so for a while to come.
Add to that that there are some resources (including manpower) that actually do increase as time goes on (more people are born, and existing people have more output with each new periodic measure), and you can see that the economy still has room to grow.
Economics is not a zero-sum game. It never has been, and never will be. New resources are committed to the economy all the time.
.
Re the GP's post: the PS2 is hardly a dead platform - even though people are steadily moving to the new generation of consoles, there are still millions in constant use and a thriving market for new and used games. This move by Sony will actually considerably extend the life of the PS2 platform, and I think it's a good thing - both for Sony and for those who can't (or won't) yet "upgrade" to a next gen.
You are so right. And it certainly doesn't help matters whatsoever that so few of the few decent movies that have come out in the past ten years have even been released on Blu-ray. About 80% of Blu-ray content is crap. Why on earth wouldn't they want to release their best stuff first? No wonder the format is suffering...
"Yep, if I am not mistaken, the right to bear arms is in the Bill of Rights so that the government will not be able to silence the will of the people and so that if the government gets screwy, we can have another revolution."
-
So you can see the source of the confusion.
I really, REALLY don't like the new /. layout. I much prefer the old one - there weren't nearly as many causes for technical misinterpretation (especially since regular misinterpretation is so rampant around here anyway).
-Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787.
Care to brush up on your US history and try again?
[citation needed]
...and depending on the governments, they have varying amounts of spin.
I also dare say that the installation of democracy in Japan after World War II has had good effects as well.
And even Viêt Nam, which is still not democratic, is now part of the WTO and a heavy labor partner with the U.S. (I know a number of very small businesses who get parts and labor from Vietnamese businesses and families.)
So I think it's too early to tell what the long-term effects of the war in the Middle East will bring. (Although personally, I think the ideals that served us so well in the past have fallen by the wayside, which can never be a good thing.)
Hypothetically, I'm all for it; it's a great thought exercise and leads to wonderful discussions. (Can you really call a universe that changes its rules 'static' or 'ever-state', and how does that change the theological argument?)
And if there were any sort of scientific evidence that this was the case, I would even be willing to discuss it on a practical level. But unfortunately, until something rather drastic happens, it remains just that - a proposal, a hypothetical, a thought experiment - which is exactly the same thing a theological belief is. And the thing about thought experiments is that without any sort of empirical evidence, every single one is as valid and likely as another. Which means that the possibility of God is every bit as real as the possibility of an ever-state, entropy-neutral universe.
Entropy is real and can be measured scientifically by any kid with a chemistry set. And all empirical evidence to date (as far as we can read it, anyway) points back to a singular event from a (perhaps asymptotically infinitely) lower-entropy source. So as enticing an idea is of a cyclic, ever-state universe, I think most people might get more benefit from believing in a god. But that's just my take.
Because, given what we "know" about the universe (which is precious little), entropy has existed for as far back as we can determine. But if you start with entropy in the current state, the further back you go in time, the larger the coherence the universe had to have. Infinitely far back (which is, by definition, a requirement for an ever-state universe) the universe must have been perfectly coherent, with its entire energy contained in a single spot. (Which, come to think of it, sounds an awful lot like some descriptions of gods, doesn't it?) And if it was perfectly coherent, what could possibly have made it become unstable enough to generate what we see today?
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN!
I see your point, but I think your analogy is slightly flawed.
For starters, I don't care what the terms of service say - any company infringing on my government-issued rights isn't getting any sympathy from me. Amy I not supposed to use my PSP for homebrew just because Sony doesn't like it? Or not install my extra legal OSX license on non-Apple hardware just because Apple says I shouldn't?
Second, this isn't a free-coffe and -beer scenario. As generous as your offer is, Netflix is not so giving. They are not giving these things away - they are renting them to me. What would you do if Blockbuster told you that the DVD you rented from the store could only be played between 1am and 6am on Thursday, and you could only play it on the DVD player in your basement next to the furnace? Just because a company claims something in their "terms of agreement" doesn't make it law - otherwise companies would be making the law, which they have no right to do.
The difference here is that Netflix has been given a tool to enable them to enforce something which isn't the law, and the community has responded by breaking that enforcement.