Some solutions to make the rich pay more: 1.If you buy shares, bonds, or any other instrument, you pay the same tax on that as any other thing you buy, same with services. So if you buy a car, you pay tax. If you buy a computer you pay tax. If you buy a haircut, you pay tax. If you buy car repairs, you pay tax. If you buy internet access you pay tax. If you buy a sign-up to the local baseball team for your kid, you pay tax. then 2.At the end of the financial year, if you hold any money in savings, you pay a tax (matching the tax on goods and services) to prevent the rich from just sticking money in the bank (or in a vault at their mansion ala Scrooge McDuck or Richie Rich)
There were (or are) a number of technologies that basically work like a CRT but with each pixel having an individual red/green/blue electron gun. Whatever happened to that?
Why has no-one proceeded with that as a viable technology (I would guess that it has most of the advantages of CRT with very few of the disadvantages like the size)
I believe that writing to your congressmen and senators is still legal over there so do it. Write a physical letter, they seem to be less likely to get ignored. If enough people say "this issue is important enough to affect my vote in the upcoming election", politicians may sit up and take notice.
As an Aussie with an upcoming election, can someone tell me how to find out which local politicians I should write to and what sort of things to say to express why ACTA is a bad idea without sounding like someone who just wants to download big media corp content without paying for it.
Why cant Microsoft invest whatever money is necessary to make IE8 "IE6 mode" 100% compatible with IE6. Then, they no longer need to write security patches and other things on the ancient (in tech terms) codebase that is IE6.
What google is doing is not E-E-E, they are simply using the best tool for the job. The difference in bandwidth usage of H.264 vs Theora is not acceptable to Google for YouTube. They have said they plan to support Theora in Chrome (from what I remember).
Plus they just bought On2 and may well make On2 VP6, VP7 or VP8 available under a liberal license (meaning Chrome, FFMPEG, Firefox, Opera etc could support those codecs too). Assuming On2 is right and VP8 does beet H.264, Google could adopt VP8 for YouTube instead of H.264 and offer limited H.264 streaming for those devices (like TVs and phones) that cant be updated to support VP8.
People using IE or would be directed to install to play the content.
I bet the amount of piracy that has happened since Blu-Ray and AACS came out that would have been prevented by this change (i.e. no 1080 output over unprotected outputs) is essentially zero.
Anyone who wants to pirate will likely A.Use a ripping program (perhaps on a copy of the disk they rented from Blockbuster or Netflix) or B.Download a copy from the internet
Ripping programs exist (or if they dont they likely will soon) that can run on Windows and can do single-click ripping of Blu-Ray disks into a file that you can then play with a suitable player (removing all the protection including AACS, BD+, ICT, Macrovision and Region flags in the process)
And with the growth of HTPCs methods to easily play the pirated content back on the 50" TV in the media room will continue to grow.
Several higher end electronics companies (Panasonic for example) have stopped selling to online-only stores.
Too many people go into the B&M store, get the product demo, show the online-only store price and ask for a price match and then (when they are inevitably refused), go to the online only store and buy the product.
Plus Borg chambers will prepare the kids for life working as an unskilled worker flipping burgers at McDonald's (or more likely special synthetic burgers that taste vaguely like Big Mac's but are really synthetic goop of all the nutrients some government scientist has said we need)
Many high end software packages require dongles to work (e.g. high end 3d or CAD/CAM packages). And those have been cracked same as any other DRM solution.
Its nasty stuff like this that makes me not want to buy their games anymore.
The EA DRM as applied to Red Alert 3 is acceptable as I only need to connect to the internet once to authenticate the game AND I can un-authenticate that copy anytime to install on another PC or reinstall Windows or etc. (the DRM system in question uses hardware activation to lock the game to your PC)
This kind of DRM that requires a permanent internet connection just to play the single player is NOT something I will accept and I would hope enough people say "NO" to ubisoft to make them rethink the decision and move to a more acceptable form of DRM (be it CD/DVD checks, hardware-linked activation or whatever else)
One of the reasons Photoshop is so good for output to print media is that Adobe works with manufacturers of output devices and inks (from cheap inkjets through to million dollar printing presses) to make sure that Photoshop has accurate color mapping tables. That way when you print your magazine or whatever, it will look correct on the output device you are using.
GIMP doesn't have that (or if it does, it most likely doesn't have the vast array of device support Photoshop has)
The #1 problem with recycling nuclear fuel is the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation (even more important with terrorist groups and rogue states wanting to get into the nuclear game)
Some claim its possible to make the output of the reprocessing process impossible to use for nuclear weapons but usable in a power reactor. That only assumes some smart scientist working for the Iranians or the North Koreans or whoever doesn't find a way to make the impossible possible (making the previously-thought-impossible possible is something science has been doing for centuries)
No-one in the US is going to consider modern technologies like breeders, thorium, CANADU, pebble bed etc because its far easier to convince people to accept a new reactor if its the same as the old one.
Politician: "See that reactor over there, the one that has been operating for 30 years without a problem? The company that owns it wants to build another one just like it right next to it, is that OK"
I bet if you took any field currently used to grow corn for ethanol, you could find another crop to grow on that field for ethanol use such that it produced more energy at the other end (i.e. after you subtract the amount of energy required in the production process).
Switchgrass and other types of biofuel are being suppressed because the big bio-tech firms like Monsanto dont profit from those (seed sales, chemical sales etc)
Although to be fair I have no idea how hard it is to take factories that turn corn into biofuel and make them able to turn other things into biofuel as well.
Try living in most parts of Southern California without a car and see how far you go. Not everywhere has the transport systems that cities like New York, Chicago and DC have.
"is not promoting some protocols over some others". Tell that to anyone who has bumped into the heavy manipulation of BitTorrent by Comcast and others.
My belief is that NO content is so bad that it justifies censorship of this kind. Even if it is Osama Bin Laden brutally raping and murdering little kids (to think of the most extreme example its possible to think of), those who host, share, create, post, publish and spread the content should be targeted. Censorship of the kind the government wants to introduce is NOT the answer.
As for those who say "I support the filtering system because it keeps my kids from getting at this kind of content" (or similar such statements), an opt-in filtering system will do exactly the same thing without subjecting everyone to censorship.
1.Telstra will appeal to the next court up (full bench of the federal court IIRC) 2.Telstra will continue to send C&D letters to anyone who is using the information from the phone book (including and especially anyone who implements a way to search said information by phone number) and 3.Telstra will lobby the government to pass new laws granting protection to phone books (with pressure comming from the TV networks to extend such information to program listings to overrule the IceTV case)
The cellphone ban exists for 2 reasons: 1.Although evidence to date hasn't backed up the "cellphones are dangerous to aircraft systems" argument, the testing that has been done has not tested all combinations of cellphones and aircraft systems (and seats where the cellphone user is sitting) and therefore there may be a situation where a cellphone sends out radiation that does interfere with an aircraft system. and 2.Regardless of the effect on aircraft systems, any cellphone would be seeing so many towers at once (if it wasnt too high up to see any at all) that it would cause issues with the mobile network.
As for security, show me any modern aircraft with a standard set of equipment present (even before baggage, cargo and passengers are loaded) and I can find ways to kill people with that equipment. Or even to damage the planes systems enough to cause serious problems for the pilots (especially if I can access the hatchways into the avionics bays, cargo areas etc)
Banning knitting needles, bottled water and nail files has done nothing to make flying safer. It was done to make the sheeple (who dont know any better) feel safer.
Although I dont support terrorism as such, if I was a terrorist, I would just strap as much explosive as possible to my body and walk into the security lines at JFK and then blow myself up. It would send the air transport network into chaos as passengers are concerned that their airport may be the next one hit.
Here in Australia, as a rule most cashiers dont generally handle the card (all the swipe machines are usually in places where the customer can see them, swipe and enter his pin)
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Some solutions to make the rich pay more:
1.If you buy shares, bonds, or any other instrument, you pay the same tax on that as any other thing you buy, same with services. So if you buy a car, you pay tax. If you buy a computer you pay tax. If you buy a haircut, you pay tax. If you buy car repairs, you pay tax. If you buy internet access you pay tax. If you buy a sign-up to the local baseball team for your kid, you pay tax.
then 2.At the end of the financial year, if you hold any money in savings, you pay a tax (matching the tax on goods and services) to prevent the rich from just sticking money in the bank (or in a vault at their mansion ala Scrooge McDuck or Richie Rich)
There were (or are) a number of technologies that basically work like a CRT but with each pixel having an individual red/green/blue electron gun.
Whatever happened to that?
Why has no-one proceeded with that as a viable technology (I would guess that it has most of the advantages of CRT with very few of the disadvantages like the size)
I believe that writing to your congressmen and senators is still legal over there so do it. Write a physical letter, they seem to be less likely to get ignored. If enough people say "this issue is important enough to affect my vote in the upcoming election", politicians may sit up and take notice.
As an Aussie with an upcoming election, can someone tell me how to find out which local politicians I should write to and what sort of things to say to express why ACTA is a bad idea without sounding like someone who just wants to download big media corp content without paying for it.
Why cant Microsoft invest whatever money is necessary to make IE8 "IE6 mode" 100% compatible with IE6. Then, they no longer need to write security patches and other things on the ancient (in tech terms) codebase that is IE6.
I applied for a job there once. I am glad I didn't end up with it otherwise there is a good chance I may have ended up in all this mess.
What google is doing is not E-E-E, they are simply using the best tool for the job. The difference in bandwidth usage of H.264 vs Theora is not acceptable to Google for YouTube. They have said they plan to support Theora in Chrome (from what I remember).
Plus they just bought On2 and may well make On2 VP6, VP7 or VP8 available under a liberal license (meaning Chrome, FFMPEG, Firefox, Opera etc could support those codecs too). Assuming On2 is right and VP8 does beet H.264, Google could adopt VP8 for YouTube instead of H.264 and offer limited H.264 streaming for those devices (like TVs and phones) that cant be updated to support VP8.
People using IE or would be directed to install to play the content.
I bet the amount of piracy that has happened since Blu-Ray and AACS came out that would have been prevented by this change (i.e. no 1080 output over unprotected outputs) is essentially zero.
Anyone who wants to pirate will likely A.Use a ripping program (perhaps on a copy of the disk they rented from Blockbuster or Netflix) or B.Download a copy from the internet
Ripping programs exist (or if they dont they likely will soon) that can run on Windows and can do single-click ripping of Blu-Ray disks into a file that you can then play with a suitable player (removing all the protection including AACS, BD+, ICT, Macrovision and Region flags in the process)
And with the growth of HTPCs methods to easily play the pirated content back on the 50" TV in the media room will continue to grow.
Several higher end electronics companies (Panasonic for example) have stopped selling to online-only stores.
Too many people go into the B&M store, get the product demo, show the online-only store price and ask for a price match and then (when they are inevitably refused), go to the online only store and buy the product.
Plus Borg chambers will prepare the kids for life working as an unskilled worker flipping burgers at McDonald's (or more likely special synthetic burgers that taste vaguely like Big Mac's but are really synthetic goop of all the nutrients some government scientist has said we need)
The arcade guy is in a specialty market and probably gets a lot of business through word-of-mouth via arcade machine owners, web forums etc.
Plus there are unlikely to be any big megacorps trying to take away his business.
Many high end software packages require dongles to work (e.g. high end 3d or CAD/CAM packages). And those have been cracked same as any other DRM solution.
Its nasty stuff like this that makes me not want to buy their games anymore.
The EA DRM as applied to Red Alert 3 is acceptable as I only need to connect to the internet once to authenticate the game AND I can un-authenticate that copy anytime to install on another PC or reinstall Windows or etc. (the DRM system in question uses hardware activation to lock the game to your PC)
This kind of DRM that requires a permanent internet connection just to play the single player is NOT something I will accept and I would hope enough people say "NO" to ubisoft to make them rethink the decision and move to a more acceptable form of DRM (be it CD/DVD checks, hardware-linked activation or whatever else)
One of the reasons Photoshop is so good for output to print media is that Adobe works with manufacturers of output devices and inks (from cheap inkjets through to million dollar printing presses) to make sure that Photoshop has accurate color mapping tables. That way when you print your magazine or whatever, it will look correct on the output device you are using.
GIMP doesn't have that (or if it does, it most likely doesn't have the vast array of device support Photoshop has)
paint.net is GREAT, it handles all the stuff I need natively including transparent PNGs and DirectX DDS texture files.
The #1 problem with recycling nuclear fuel is the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation (even more important with terrorist groups and rogue states wanting to get into the nuclear game)
Some claim its possible to make the output of the reprocessing process impossible to use for nuclear weapons but usable in a power reactor. That only assumes some smart scientist working for the Iranians or the North Koreans or whoever doesn't find a way to make the impossible possible (making the previously-thought-impossible possible is something science has been doing for centuries)
No-one in the US is going to consider modern technologies like breeders, thorium, CANADU, pebble bed etc because its far easier to convince people to accept a new reactor if its the same as the old one.
Politician:
"See that reactor over there, the one that has been operating for 30 years without a problem? The company that owns it wants to build another one just like it right next to it, is that OK"
Yeah but nuclear reactors can produce 24/7//365. Solar panels can only produce when the sun is shining.
Its almost impossible to find jobs around here where they dont want someone with 3-years commercial experience in
I bet if you took any field currently used to grow corn for ethanol, you could find another crop to grow on that field for ethanol use such that it produced more energy at the other end (i.e. after you subtract the amount of energy required in the production process).
Switchgrass and other types of biofuel are being suppressed because the big bio-tech firms like Monsanto dont profit from those (seed sales, chemical sales etc)
Although to be fair I have no idea how hard it is to take factories that turn corn into biofuel and make them able to turn other things into biofuel as well.
Try living in most parts of Southern California without a car and see how far you go.
Not everywhere has the transport systems that cities like New York, Chicago and DC have.
"is not promoting some protocols over some others". Tell that to anyone who has bumped into the heavy manipulation of BitTorrent by Comcast and others.
My belief is that NO content is so bad that it justifies censorship of this kind.
Even if it is Osama Bin Laden brutally raping and murdering little kids (to think of the most extreme example its possible to think of), those who host, share, create, post, publish and spread the content should be targeted. Censorship of the kind the government wants to introduce is NOT the answer.
As for those who say "I support the filtering system because it keeps my kids from getting at this kind of content" (or similar such statements), an opt-in filtering system will do exactly the same thing without subjecting everyone to censorship.
1.Telstra will appeal to the next court up (full bench of the federal court IIRC)
2.Telstra will continue to send C&D letters to anyone who is using the information from the phone book (including and especially anyone who implements a way to search said information by phone number)
and 3.Telstra will lobby the government to pass new laws granting protection to phone books (with pressure comming from the TV networks to extend such information to program listings to overrule the IceTV case)
The cellphone ban exists for 2 reasons:
1.Although evidence to date hasn't backed up the "cellphones are dangerous to aircraft systems" argument, the testing that has been done has not tested all combinations of cellphones and aircraft systems (and seats where the cellphone user is sitting) and therefore there may be a situation where a cellphone sends out radiation that does interfere with an aircraft system.
and 2.Regardless of the effect on aircraft systems, any cellphone would be seeing so many towers at once (if it wasnt too high up to see any at all) that it would cause issues with the mobile network.
As for security, show me any modern aircraft with a standard set of equipment present (even before baggage, cargo and passengers are loaded) and I can find ways to kill people with that equipment. Or even to damage the planes systems enough to cause serious problems for the pilots (especially if I can access the hatchways into the avionics bays, cargo areas etc)
Banning knitting needles, bottled water and nail files has done nothing to make flying safer. It was done to make the sheeple (who dont know any better) feel safer.
Although I dont support terrorism as such, if I was a terrorist, I would just strap as much explosive as possible to my body and walk into the security lines at JFK and then blow myself up. It would send the air transport network into chaos as passengers are concerned that their airport may be the next one hit.
Here in Australia, as a rule most cashiers dont generally handle the card (all the swipe machines are usually in places where the customer can see them, swipe and enter his pin)