It's often satisfying in its own childish way to trash on Bush for all the personal reasons-- the fake cowboy stuff, manipulation of 9/11, etc.-- but most often, the strongest argument against him is purely economic. His numbers simply do not add up.
This is a great example of the ways in which big business can manipulate government to its advantage.
It's perfectly within reason that copyright holders can sue, , in civil suits, to stop the unauthorized distribution of their works. Copyright violation is a matter between two parties: the copyright holder and the violator.
But with a law like this, the onus to police copyright matters falls on the government, and not the copyright holder.
What we're seeing is a push by big business, through legislation, to reduce their attorney fees. When copyright matters are criminal cases, not civil actions, the violators are punished-- justly or not-- at the expense of government, rather than at the expense of the corporation.
You're saying that there is no money there, but it's being spent, anyways?
No. The trust fund is filled with government bonds. In other words, today's government is indeed borrowing from the Social Security trust, but those bonds have value. (An "I.O.U.," as many on this thread have put it, sounds worthless; the reality, called a "government bond," which you and I could buy ourselves and expect a lifetime ~3% return, most certainly is not.)
Social Security is kept in a seperate account from the general fund. You can argue the merits of this, but it's not as if the money has simply disappeared.
Unless the government defaults on its bonds (and no politician in his right mind would ever advocate that), the Social Security trust does indeed have assets. When you factor in the projected revenue of workers' contributions, there will be enough money in the system to support Social Security for a good seventy years.
And that's even with the coming onslaught of baby boomer retirements. The lurking disaster is the possibility of starving the system, by diverting incoming funds to privatized accounts.
As things are running right now, the Social Security trust fund is large enough to keep running for seventy years, because of a small increase in the SS tax during the Reagan administration. That increase was designed to prevent the exact sort of problem you're worried about.
The way you phrase your question implies to me that you already know the answer you'd prefer: Privatization, which is something President Bush has been promising since his 2000 campaign.
Unfortunately, privatizing Social Security now would require one of two things: benefit cuts, or a massive infusion of government cash. The money going into the system now supports today's seniors, as it always has; to take away that money (and place it in private accounts) would leave a gaping hole in the system until people your age retire and can access those accounts.
Most estimates I've read indicate that, to cover this hole, the government would have to pay about $2 trillion.
Incidentally, allowing people to invest their Social Security funds would mean that many, many people lose that money, as any investor in the stock market might. The Social Security system is a safety net, but with a privatized system it would disappear for the people without investing experience-- the poor, the people who need the safety net the most.
So, because these documents were forged, it means George W. Bush honorably and fully completed his commitment to the National Guard, right?
Of course not. But, as is the custom with our current administration, the most effective way to suppress the message is to conduct a smear campaign against the messenger.
Such is the cult of personality surrounding George W. Bush: Because Bush cannot be flawed in any way, those that suspect he is must be destroyed. (I'm thinking of Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Dan Rather, and any other number of smaller government employees, economists, journalists, etc.)
But you can't entirely blame Bush's people. Why not do what works, if you can get away with it?
This whole forged documents story is endemic of a systemic failure in our print and television media-- a failure that allows any number of major scandals to go unreported, that allows lies to pass under the guise of "viewpoints," that focuses on real or imagined personality traits rather than issues.
I will register my disgust in the proper way: through my vote....But it's not as if I really trust that anymore, either.
A friend once told me, after watching Mel Brooks' commentary on the Spaceballs DVD, that Brooks said he'd wanted to do a sequel.
The title he wanted to use, though, wasn't Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money, as Yogurt had prophesized. He wanted the title to be Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2.
I don't think you're going to find any single source that's never been accused of bias. There's just too many viewpoints out there-- and any source that tries to go straight down the middle of the road, like CNN, tends to be pretty dry.
So, my solution: Read a lot. I mean, a lot, and, by exposure to many viewpoints, you'll be better off when it comes time to form your own opinions.
If you don't want to spend the time on all of those, though, I recommend Slate. It leans slightly left, but has good analysis from both sides of the aisle.
Read, read, read. Don't assume you're getting the whole story from a single source.
If eric@gmail.com has used his address for anything confidential and is erased, eric-else comes and register eric@gmail.com and gets this guys personal information....
Preface: My name is Eric.
I was given the opportunity to get a beta test account, so I naturally tried "eric@gmail.com."
No go-- the system told me it wouldn't allow any user names less than six letters.
So I can guarantee your story will never happen exactly as you describe it.
Submit a Better Business complaint in from the website www.bbb.org
I'm sure this would not be the first contact Microsoft has had with the Better Business Bureau. They probably won't run and cower.
Dispute this fee with your credit card company.
Disputing the fee may work, but... it's messy. The credit card companies tend to favor the consumer in disputes, but it may not be worth the massive headache to the consumer over the money. (What kind of money are we talking about here? How much does Xbox Live cost, anyways?)
A company simply can not charge you for services you no longer need.
A company can, in fact, charge you for services you no longer need, if you agreed to those terms in the first place.
Just because it's their policy to charge you doens't mean that it was... morally right.
This matters how?
Let's face it, folks, the guy's on shaky ground here-- he should have acted sooner. No matter how satisfying it may be to have one more way story that points out Microsoft screwing the little guy, that's not the dynamic at play.
I know it's labeled a "simulation," but that's just an easy label to give based on its name. (What is the definition of an RTS anyways? You could take the term several ways, and the article doesn't really define it...)
If it counts, it'd be the only game on the table that's not about battle in one way or another.
SimCity was great. SimCity 2000 was better, because its gameplay was considerably deeper. (SC 3000 went a bit too far, I thought, into micromanagement; and so the first sequel in the series reigns to this day.)
You can debate whether or not it's a good thing that the games never really end. I've probably devoted more hours on individual cities than I have on any other single RTS game. I usually only give up when the map is completely urban and completely developed.
It's the sort of game you want to give to kids, because it's not zero-sum and it's not violent.
The graphics are really blocky on a large monitor these days, but the gameplay is as fun as it ever was. (Best of all, you can find it really cheap anywhere that sells old jewel case-only software titles.)
didd you see the link at the bottom of booble labeled 'sense of humor'
Labeling the site a parody does not make it so.
This case is fairly cut and dry, but Booble is trying to nudge it into a gray area because of the legal protection and goodwill afforded parodies that they otherwise wouldn't receive.
Unfortunately, this arbitrary label doesn't change the fact that they are a business, looking to profit, and doing so by taking advantage of Google's good name and trademarked logo and design.
If you think Booble is "commenting" on Google, what comment is being made?
If Booble were simply a search engine, I could see some merit in their argument. But as many posters have noted, their search sucks, and is beside the point. The Booble page is a storefront.
I like my CDs. I like being able to take something home from the store, and having something in my hand in case my computer crashes.
It's nice that iTunes is getting publicity-- it's a great service, it really is. But I don't want the CD format to die, and I don't think most consumers do, either.
The advantage of iTunes is choice beyond the traditional ways of buying music. What makes the online music phenomenon nice is the flexibility, not simply the elimination of physical media.
As I was making price tags for the cable aisle one day, I starting comparing retail and cost. On average, the markup of cables was around 1800% of cost. I'm not exaggerating.
It's a ripoff, yeah, just like those huge CD binders for which they charge $50, but pay $15, or most anything in the Accessory aisle.
It's not totally unjusified, though-- the reason cables are so marked up (and the reason they try to push them on you) is to make up for very low profit margins elsewhere in the store.
The average profit on, say, your average Compaq box is something like $50. If one of those walks out of the store without being paid for, you've gotta sell fifteen more to make up for it. Factor in employee costs and whatnot, and they don't really make any money selling computers. (This made it especially aggravating when Joe Schmoe thought he could haggle prices on the things, as if it were a car.)
Anyways, I'm not apologizing. They're still ripping you off, if all you need is a cable.
On the last day before I quit, I went through that same cable aisle and bought one of just about everything on the shelf-- employees could buy everything at cost. I figured that paying $50 for twenty cables in advance would be better than paying the same for two cables down the line, when I would be desperate and without the discount.
You're on to something, but I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding in general with a bunch of the posts.
What the MPAA wants to stop is Oscar screeners. These are DVDs and tapes sent to Academy members of movies that are eligible for Oscars. It's a way to get somebody to see your movie, without making them go to the theater.
(Screeners are a mixed blessing. Smaller movies benefit from them, because they are often shut out of the multiplex too quickly or may just work better on a smaller screen, such as Moulin Rouge or even The Pianist; they also serve to remind Academy members of the movies that aren't still in theaters in December and January, when the voting is done. On the other hand, home viewing dilutes the power of some movies, such as Lord of the Rings or Saving Private Ryan. Screeners are generally blamed for Shakespeare in Love winning out over Saving Private Ryan a few years ago, for the reasons I've listed.)
The problem is this: there are politics involved. It may not be fair, for example, that Seabiscuit will be on DVD at your local Blockbuster by the end of the year, and so Academy viewers will be able to watch that at home, but not anything that was released after summer or so. That's an unfair advantage.
And there's the question of whether or not screeners really prevent piracy anyways. A telesync is usually out before the movie's even in theaters, of course, and the selling of individual screener discs can be curtailed by putting a serial number on them and monitoring eBay.
The MPAA is somewhat like OPEC. You've got a coalition with similar interests but conflicts within the organization, and none of the members are hesitant to bend the rules for their own gain, if they can get away with it. And Oscar is more than enough motivation.
For some decent discussion of this, check out David Poland's Hot Button in the last week, particularly this column.
I wonder how this affects games that are supposedly already in development. Unreal 2 came and went, and they're milking all the good will they can out of the UT franchise, but that leaves the in-house project they've supposedly been developing for the next major iteration of the Unreal engine-- supposedly called, if memory serves, Unreal Warfare.
This was the game of the trio that always seemed the most interesting to me-- they talked about it being the most advanced of the three, what little snippets we got implied that it was far more ambitious, and, well, the name is simply the coolest.
The article (short as it is) says that Epic still holds the Unreal franchise, but I wonder if they won't be tempted to abandon it-- has anybody seen any new screens in the last, oh, year?-- for a bigger and better deal from their new patrons.
The bulb in the projector doesn't turn on and off continuously.
The film is pulled frame by frame in front of the lens, and you may get the impression of flicker, but that's only because of a misaligned shutter that's in front of the bulb-- it lets light through when the frame is aligned, and blocks the light as the next frame is being pulled down. This happens 24 times per second.
Movie projectors cheat by displaying every frame twice, which doubles the frame rate from 24 fps to 48 fps.
Wrong. They show 24 fps. (There's also a bit of black in between each frame, otherwise the eye would register a blur; but it's still 24fps.)
If the projector was run at normal speed and showed each frame twice, it would look like choppy slow motion. If it was run faster at 48 fps, the motion would be fast, like how you often see old silent pictures.
You would need a print with every frame printed twice in a row for it to work, and then a faster projector than is safe for most film.
There are certain camera systems under development which would shoot film at 48 fps, and you'd then need a projector that could show the film at 48fps, but the standard rate for cameras and projector for the last fifty years, everything you've ever seen in a cinema, has been 24fps.
Cinematographers also avoid certain shots, like rapidly panning from left to right, which look terrible on a movie screen.
It's called a swish pan, and it makes for a nice transition, if you cut in between two of them. But you don't have to, and it doesn't look "terrible."
Whoever modded you up is embarassingly ignorant of the topic at hand.
Intel doesn't have an x86-64 line of processors. They have an IA64 line of processors.
The two apparently aren't interchangable. There's a coming battle in which software companies have to choose between the two, or support both, which would be tough on both them and consumers.
Apparently, AMD's x86-64 set is easier to deal with, and more of a natural progression from where the processors are now. (It also apparently runs 32-bit code at rates comparable to 32-bit chips at the same clock speed.) Intel's IA-64 is a total reworking, and a bitch to work with, from what I've read.
In the end, it seems like the smart choice would be for everybody to toss their hat in with x86-64 (which means Intel would have to, as well, and essentially concede defeat and lose face); it probably won't happen, though, because Intel is Intel.
Check out this article at the Inquirer, which I've basically just paraphrased, but it does go into some interesting Windows 64 dealings.
Yeah, every piece of mail should be picked up one-by-one by a courier, who will then accompany the postcard on the Concorde to its destination, so that he may hand-deliver it (on a satin pillow) within 48 hours from when you placed it in your mailbox and affixed the $0.37 stamp.
Wait, wait, my mistake-- what I should have said was "You need to get your head out of your ass, and realize that the post office deals with a greater volume than you could probably imagine."
I suppose the system could work like you say it should, but, all logistics considered, there probably couldn't be any guarantee that your letter would reach its destination within, say, eleventy bajillion years.
Sony would never flat-out authorize something like that. They can forbid it and then look the other way, of course, if it makes gamers happy and brings more players into the fold, but they would never want to make it an authorized practice for the simple reason that they would then have to assume legal responsibility for it.
Everybody's already mentioned dupe bugs. And what about if a server's down? Are you costing a user potential earnings? Are you then responsible? And who dictates prices, and what about when somebody gets ripped off? How does this relate to online gambling?
Nope. Sony's got it much easier saying "This is just a game. If something breaks, or doesn't go your way, it's no real loss to you."
This being Slashdot, my first assumption is that you're thinking of educating them on Linux / open source / etc.
If this is the case, don't be so sure of yourself. If you're not the head of the IT department, I would either:
1. Talk to whomever is the head of the IT department; if they're unaware of open source options, discuss, but don't impose your ideology for the sake of imposing your ideology, or
2. Keep your head down, as it could very well be out of place for you to assume you have any say in your company's direction.
If you are the head of IT, then you should already have the ear of the highers-up, if it's not entirely your decision to make.
I suppose the simple answer is: Don't neglect the chain of command. If you're perceived as an uppity, out-of-line employee, it's going to overshadow your message.
Slashdot Mirror
Because I hate going to the theater to see... uh, Linux binaries.
It's often satisfying in its own childish way to trash on Bush for all the personal reasons-- the fake cowboy stuff, manipulation of 9/11, etc.-- but most often, the strongest argument against him is purely economic. His numbers simply do not add up.
See Paul Krugman of the New York Times for the most compelling case. His book, The Great Unraveling, is invaluable.
This is a great example of the ways in which big business can manipulate government to its advantage.
It's perfectly within reason that copyright holders can sue, , in civil suits, to stop the unauthorized distribution of their works. Copyright violation is a matter between two parties: the copyright holder and the violator.
But with a law like this, the onus to police copyright matters falls on the government, and not the copyright holder.
What we're seeing is a push by big business, through legislation, to reduce their attorney fees. When copyright matters are criminal cases, not civil actions, the violators are punished-- justly or not-- at the expense of government, rather than at the expense of the corporation.
Quoth you:
There is no Social Security trust fund...
and
The current SS surplus gets spent, not saved...
You're saying that there is no money there, but it's being spent, anyways?
No. The trust fund is filled with government bonds. In other words, today's government is indeed borrowing from the Social Security trust, but those bonds have value. (An "I.O.U.," as many on this thread have put it, sounds worthless; the reality, called a "government bond," which you and I could buy ourselves and expect a lifetime ~3% return, most certainly is not.)
Social Security is kept in a seperate account from the general fund. You can argue the merits of this, but it's not as if the money has simply disappeared.
Unless the government defaults on its bonds (and no politician in his right mind would ever advocate that), the Social Security trust does indeed have assets. When you factor in the projected revenue of workers' contributions, there will be enough money in the system to support Social Security for a good seventy years.
And that's even with the coming onslaught of baby boomer retirements. The lurking disaster is the possibility of starving the system, by diverting incoming funds to privatized accounts.
The threat to Social Security is overhyped.
As things are running right now, the Social Security trust fund is large enough to keep running for seventy years, because of a small increase in the SS tax during the Reagan administration. That increase was designed to prevent the exact sort of problem you're worried about.
The way you phrase your question implies to me that you already know the answer you'd prefer: Privatization, which is something President Bush has been promising since his 2000 campaign.
Unfortunately, privatizing Social Security now would require one of two things: benefit cuts, or a massive infusion of government cash. The money going into the system now supports today's seniors, as it always has; to take away that money (and place it in private accounts) would leave a gaping hole in the system until people your age retire and can access those accounts.
Most estimates I've read indicate that, to cover this hole, the government would have to pay about $2 trillion.
Incidentally, allowing people to invest their Social Security funds would mean that many, many people lose that money, as any investor in the stock market might. The Social Security system is a safety net, but with a privatized system it would disappear for the people without investing experience-- the poor, the people who need the safety net the most.
So, because these documents were forged, it means George W. Bush honorably and fully completed his commitment to the National Guard, right?
...But it's not as if I really trust that anymore, either.
Of course not. But, as is the custom with our current administration, the most effective way to suppress the message is to conduct a smear campaign against the messenger.
Such is the cult of personality surrounding George W. Bush: Because Bush cannot be flawed in any way, those that suspect he is must be destroyed. (I'm thinking of Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Dan Rather, and any other number of smaller government employees, economists, journalists, etc.)
But you can't entirely blame Bush's people. Why not do what works, if you can get away with it?
This whole forged documents story is endemic of a systemic failure in our print and television media-- a failure that allows any number of major scandals to go unreported, that allows lies to pass under the guise of "viewpoints," that focuses on real or imagined personality traits rather than issues.
I will register my disgust in the proper way: through my vote.
Slighty off-topic, but funny nonetheless:
A friend once told me, after watching Mel Brooks' commentary on the Spaceballs DVD, that Brooks said he'd wanted to do a sequel.
The title he wanted to use, though, wasn't Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money, as Yogurt had prophesized. He wanted the title to be Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2.
I don't think you're going to find any single source that's never been accused of bias. There's just too many viewpoints out there-- and any source that tries to go straight down the middle of the road, like CNN, tends to be pretty dry.
So, my solution: Read a lot. I mean, a lot, and, by exposure to many viewpoints, you'll be better off when it comes time to form your own opinions.
If you're asking about specifics, I try to take in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Drudge Report, Slate, Salon, Al-Jazeera, the International Herald-Tribune, and the Guardian. Of course, all of the above have their strengths and weaknesses.
If you don't want to spend the time on all of those, though, I recommend Slate. It leans slightly left, but has good analysis from both sides of the aisle.
Read, read, read. Don't assume you're getting the whole story from a single source.
Says AOL to itself:
Gee, where are we going to find an immense subscriber base with lots of money and little sense?
Where, dammit, WHERE?
"They can send a man to the moon, but they can't balance the damn checkbook?"
If eric@gmail.com has used his address for anything confidential and is erased, eric-else comes and register eric@gmail.com and gets this guys personal information. ...
Preface: My name is Eric.
I was given the opportunity to get a beta test account, so I naturally tried "eric@gmail.com."
No go-- the system told me it wouldn't allow any user names less than six letters.
So I can guarantee your story will never happen exactly as you describe it.
A few things:
Submit a Better Business complaint in from the website www.bbb.org
I'm sure this would not be the first contact Microsoft has had with the Better Business Bureau. They probably won't run and cower.
Dispute this fee with your credit card company.
Disputing the fee may work, but... it's messy. The credit card companies tend to favor the consumer in disputes, but it may not be worth the massive headache to the consumer over the money. (What kind of money are we talking about here? How much does Xbox Live cost, anyways?)
A company simply can not charge you for services you no longer need.
A company can, in fact, charge you for services you no longer need, if you agreed to those terms in the first place.
Just because it's their policy to charge you doens't mean that it was... morally right.
This matters how?
Let's face it, folks, the guy's on shaky ground here-- he should have acted sooner. No matter how satisfying it may be to have one more way story that points out Microsoft screwing the little guy, that's not the dynamic at play.
I know it's labeled a "simulation," but that's just an easy label to give based on its name. (What is the definition of an RTS anyways? You could take the term several ways, and the article doesn't really define it...)
If it counts, it'd be the only game on the table that's not about battle in one way or another.
SimCity was great. SimCity 2000 was better, because its gameplay was considerably deeper. (SC 3000 went a bit too far, I thought, into micromanagement; and so the first sequel in the series reigns to this day.)
You can debate whether or not it's a good thing that the games never really end. I've probably devoted more hours on individual cities than I have on any other single RTS game. I usually only give up when the map is completely urban and completely developed.
It's the sort of game you want to give to kids, because it's not zero-sum and it's not violent.
The graphics are really blocky on a large monitor these days, but the gameplay is as fun as it ever was. (Best of all, you can find it really cheap anywhere that sells old jewel case-only software titles.)
didd you see the link at the bottom of booble labeled 'sense of humor'
Labeling the site a parody does not make it so.
This case is fairly cut and dry, but Booble is trying to nudge it into a gray area because of the legal protection and goodwill afforded parodies that they otherwise wouldn't receive.
Unfortunately, this arbitrary label doesn't change the fact that they are a business, looking to profit, and doing so by taking advantage of Google's good name and trademarked logo and design.
If you think Booble is "commenting" on Google, what comment is being made?
If Booble were simply a search engine, I could see some merit in their argument. But as many posters have noted, their search sucks, and is beside the point. The Booble page is a storefront.
How's that?
I like my CDs. I like being able to take something home from the store, and having something in my hand in case my computer crashes.
It's nice that iTunes is getting publicity-- it's a great service, it really is. But I don't want the CD format to die, and I don't think most consumers do, either.
The advantage of iTunes is choice beyond the traditional ways of buying music. What makes the online music phenomenon nice is the flexibility, not simply the elimination of physical media.
Wait until the story is duped a few times, they should all add up to the right number eventually.
I was a CompUSA drone for awhile there, too.
As I was making price tags for the cable aisle one day, I starting comparing retail and cost. On average, the markup of cables was around 1800% of cost. I'm not exaggerating.
It's a ripoff, yeah, just like those huge CD binders for which they charge $50, but pay $15, or most anything in the Accessory aisle.
It's not totally unjusified, though-- the reason cables are so marked up (and the reason they try to push them on you) is to make up for very low profit margins elsewhere in the store.
The average profit on, say, your average Compaq box is something like $50. If one of those walks out of the store without being paid for, you've gotta sell fifteen more to make up for it. Factor in employee costs and whatnot, and they don't really make any money selling computers. (This made it especially aggravating when Joe Schmoe thought he could haggle prices on the things, as if it were a car.)
Anyways, I'm not apologizing. They're still ripping you off, if all you need is a cable.
On the last day before I quit, I went through that same cable aisle and bought one of just about everything on the shelf-- employees could buy everything at cost. I figured that paying $50 for twenty cables in advance would be better than paying the same for two cables down the line, when I would be desperate and without the discount.
You're on to something, but I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding in general with a bunch of the posts.
What the MPAA wants to stop is Oscar screeners. These are DVDs and tapes sent to Academy members of movies that are eligible for Oscars. It's a way to get somebody to see your movie, without making them go to the theater.
(Screeners are a mixed blessing. Smaller movies benefit from them, because they are often shut out of the multiplex too quickly or may just work better on a smaller screen, such as Moulin Rouge or even The Pianist; they also serve to remind Academy members of the movies that aren't still in theaters in December and January, when the voting is done. On the other hand, home viewing dilutes the power of some movies, such as Lord of the Rings or Saving Private Ryan. Screeners are generally blamed for Shakespeare in Love winning out over Saving Private Ryan a few years ago, for the reasons I've listed.)
The problem is this: there are politics involved. It may not be fair, for example, that Seabiscuit will be on DVD at your local Blockbuster by the end of the year, and so Academy viewers will be able to watch that at home, but not anything that was released after summer or so. That's an unfair advantage.
And there's the question of whether or not screeners really prevent piracy anyways. A telesync is usually out before the movie's even in theaters, of course, and the selling of individual screener discs can be curtailed by putting a serial number on them and monitoring eBay.
The MPAA is somewhat like OPEC. You've got a coalition with similar interests but conflicts within the organization, and none of the members are hesitant to bend the rules for their own gain, if they can get away with it. And Oscar is more than enough motivation.
For some decent discussion of this, check out David Poland's Hot Button in the last week, particularly this column.
I wonder how this affects games that are supposedly already in development. Unreal 2 came and went, and they're milking all the good will they can out of the UT franchise, but that leaves the in-house project they've supposedly been developing for the next major iteration of the Unreal engine-- supposedly called, if memory serves, Unreal Warfare.
This was the game of the trio that always seemed the most interesting to me-- they talked about it being the most advanced of the three, what little snippets we got implied that it was far more ambitious, and, well, the name is simply the coolest.
The article (short as it is) says that Epic still holds the Unreal franchise, but I wonder if they won't be tempted to abandon it-- has anybody seen any new screens in the last, oh, year?-- for a bigger and better deal from their new patrons.
The bulb in the projector doesn't turn on and off continuously.
The film is pulled frame by frame in front of the lens, and you may get the impression of flicker, but that's only because of a misaligned shutter that's in front of the bulb-- it lets light through when the frame is aligned, and blocks the light as the next frame is being pulled down. This happens 24 times per second.
You may want to consult this article at How Stuff Works, specifically the fourth page, which deals with bulbs, shutters, etc.
What school was that?
Movie projectors cheat by displaying every frame twice, which doubles the frame rate from 24 fps to 48 fps.
Wrong. They show 24 fps. (There's also a bit of black in between each frame, otherwise the eye would register a blur; but it's still 24fps.)
If the projector was run at normal speed and showed each frame twice, it would look like choppy slow motion. If it was run faster at 48 fps, the motion would be fast, like how you often see old silent pictures.
You would need a print with every frame printed twice in a row for it to work, and then a faster projector than is safe for most film.
There are certain camera systems under development which would shoot film at 48 fps, and you'd then need a projector that could show the film at 48fps, but the standard rate for cameras and projector for the last fifty years, everything you've ever seen in a cinema, has been 24fps.
Cinematographers also avoid certain shots, like rapidly panning from left to right, which look terrible on a movie screen.
It's called a swish pan, and it makes for a nice transition, if you cut in between two of them. But you don't have to, and it doesn't look "terrible."
Whoever modded you up is embarassingly ignorant of the topic at hand.
Intel doesn't have an x86-64 line of processors. They have an IA64 line of processors.
The two apparently aren't interchangable. There's a coming battle in which software companies have to choose between the two, or support both, which would be tough on both them and consumers.
Apparently, AMD's x86-64 set is easier to deal with, and more of a natural progression from where the processors are now. (It also apparently runs 32-bit code at rates comparable to 32-bit chips at the same clock speed.) Intel's IA-64 is a total reworking, and a bitch to work with, from what I've read.
In the end, it seems like the smart choice would be for everybody to toss their hat in with x86-64 (which means Intel would have to, as well, and essentially concede defeat and lose face); it probably won't happen, though, because Intel is Intel.
Check out this article at the Inquirer, which I've basically just paraphrased, but it does go into some interesting Windows 64 dealings.
Yeah, every piece of mail should be picked up one-by-one by a courier, who will then accompany the postcard on the Concorde to its destination, so that he may hand-deliver it (on a satin pillow) within 48 hours from when you placed it in your mailbox and affixed the $0.37 stamp.
Wait, wait, my mistake-- what I should have said was "You need to get your head out of your ass, and realize that the post office deals with a greater volume than you could probably imagine."
I suppose the system could work like you say it should, but, all logistics considered, there probably couldn't be any guarantee that your letter would reach its destination within, say, eleventy bajillion years.
Sony would never flat-out authorize something like that. They can forbid it and then look the other way, of course, if it makes gamers happy and brings more players into the fold, but they would never want to make it an authorized practice for the simple reason that they would then have to assume legal responsibility for it.
Everybody's already mentioned dupe bugs. And what about if a server's down? Are you costing a user potential earnings? Are you then responsible? And who dictates prices, and what about when somebody gets ripped off? How does this relate to online gambling?
Nope. Sony's got it much easier saying "This is just a game. If something breaks, or doesn't go your way, it's no real loss to you."
If this is the case, don't be so sure of yourself. If you're not the head of the IT department, I would either:
If you are the head of IT, then you should already have the ear of the highers-up, if it's not entirely your decision to make.
I suppose the simple answer is: Don't neglect the chain of command. If you're perceived as an uppity, out-of-line employee, it's going to overshadow your message.