I don't know why people keep bagging ROTJ. So long as you remember to leave the room during the palace dance numbers and the Ewok scenes it's a fantastic movie. That and it features what is probably still the most awesome space battle of all time.
Taken to its logical conclusion, where anyone who wishes to watch movie X can easily pirate it, there is no longer an artificial scarcity and therefore no financial incentive to continue making movies. The vast majority of the movie production industry would simply cease to exist.
"And nothing of value was lost. The movie industry hasn't put out anything truly innovative in the past ten years." (Sorry, just thought I'd get that out of the way before some idiot tried to reply with a knee-jerk response like that)
The free distribution model works very well for software and arguably well for music (since unlike movies, music doesn't require a dedicated, co-ordinated production crew, and professional musicians can often make money from live performances). For other creative works such as scenario games and movies? Not so much. Empirical data would certainly seem to back that up.
You're probably still right in that it's not necessarily a matter of ethics, but piracy isn't likely to encourage more content creation.
Conversely, and closer to the GP's point, if you want to stick it to the MPAA man in the meantime, downloading such movies for now still gives mindshare and so isn't the best idea. Better to avoid them entirely.
The gameplay would be the same on a 386 with CGA graphics if you get down to it. A slight variant of the gameplay could be done over a TeleType terminal.
Unless you, like me, actually like better graphics. Speaking for myself, I like my gaming to be as immersive an experience as possible. This means smooth motion (which consoles historically do fairly well - if their frame rates are low they're at least consistently low), and realistic graphics and sound. Console games with their massive jaggy pixels, repeated textures and walled-in maps just don't create the sense of realism that PC games do. Sure, I like to break out some classic PC and console games from time to time but usually for novelty or nostalgic reasons.
Quality gameplay is a given. Games without good gameplay don't get a look in so that isn't a variable. Note this doesn't actually need to be innovative - just good. If you judge any creative work on original innovation alone you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Back in the day when DooM came out there was little you could do for immersion once you had a PC capable of 30fps at 320x200, and darkened the room. But it was the best we had back then, and I will continue to pursue the best gaming experiences of our time.
This. It's very tempting to just buy whatever is on special, but one should always factor in how long the product is expected to last.
And, buy local where possible. If you stop buying stuff made in China, those ships will have less need to cross the oceans in the first place. And, of course you'll be supporting your local economy.
The above paragraph doesn't apply if you live in China:)
Perhaps that Russian guy who a few days ago commented that Linux was near the end of its release cycle knew something!
In all seriousness, given the FUD Microsoft spreads about Linux to their customers, I wonder if this purchase has been working its way into their propaganda engine for a while.
Here I was hoping to see some kind of acknowledgement by the USB steering committee that the form factor is broken and a resolution to fix it in future revisions.
Of course I mean this: If you're going to design a connector that has to all intents and purposes 180 degree rotational symmetry externally, then for Bilbo's sake give it 180 degree rotational symmetry internally too!
Or, more simply: Since the connector looks like a rectangle from the outside, make it so you can plug it in right-way-up or upside-down and still work. Or key the actual shape of the connector so it's not ambiguous.
For an example of the former take the Mac Book power connectors. Since the pins are arranged palendromically you can plug it in, pull it out, flip it, plug it in again and it still works. An extreme example is round power connectors as found in most PC laptops. These can be rotated at any angle.
An example of the latter - Firewire or IEC connectors, that have clear right and wrong orientations.
Fine, but just be aware that if tradition means nothing there could well be a redefinition of, say, moon. Since the barycentre of our Moon and Earth is (just) beneath the surface of the Earth, we're probably safe for now, but it wouldn't take much of a change in definitions to re-classify Earth-Luna as a double-planet system. Making the Moon, well, no longer a moon.
(not that I think Pluto should be re-instated as a planet - I realise it was only ever just America's "Look, we can discover planets too")
I think you misunderstood. More CPU cores won't make that application, or more correctly that thread, any faster per se. They will, however allow other threads to continue running while the first CPU core is tied up with CPU-intensive virus scanning.
Well... yes. That's how every single real-time virus protection suite works. Files are scanned for viruses (using lookup tables and/or heuristics) before being passed back to the application.
That's also why for quite some time my company policy has been at least two CPU cores per computer - one for the virus scanner and the OS/apps can have the rest.
That's negligence on the part of the parents, and has absolutely nothing to do with religion. Teens need to be educated on sex and I think you'll find most actually are.
While we're making up case studies, let's take your above case and say we discover that very thing happened, say, $YOUR_AGE_PLUS_9_MONTHS ago and the 15-year-old girl for whatever reason decided to keep the child. Is your life now somehow worth less than it would have been if you were conceived under different circumstances?
Never forget that the feminist over-simplification of abortion is exactly that. There are always at least two factors: the right of a woman to do what she wants with her body, and the right to life of another human being in her care.
And for embedded video in presentations. The scientific community is by and large moving away from MS Powerpoint for presenting papers, in favour of LaTeX with Beamer of Prosper classes to give projector-friendly PDFs. For short video clips [1] it's much cleaner to have it embedded in the document than to alt-tab to a pre-opened VLC session. More often than not, the FLV container format works much more reliably (and across more platforms) than others.
Still, I'm not sure why Adobe couldn't just include a partial Flash implementation - one that can decode video but not execute arbitrary code.
[1] Before anyone tries disputing this point, there is a place for video in scientific presentations. Think wave propagation through a 3-dimensional lattice rather than dancing kittens.
I would guess the ground. When a meteor hits land, a lot of the ejected material is from the ground, not the meteor itself. Rocks apparently have a lot of oxygen and carbon locked up in them.
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I don't know why people keep bagging ROTJ. So long as you remember to leave the room during the palace dance numbers and the Ewok scenes it's a fantastic movie. That and it features what is probably still the most awesome space battle of all time.
Which leads to my question:
As a citizen of the United States, what are you doing about it?
Okay, let's put it another way:
Taken to its logical conclusion, where anyone who wishes to watch movie X can easily pirate it, there is no longer an artificial scarcity and therefore no financial incentive to continue making movies. The vast majority of the movie production industry would simply cease to exist.
"And nothing of value was lost. The movie industry hasn't put out anything truly innovative in the past ten years."
(Sorry, just thought I'd get that out of the way before some idiot tried to reply with a knee-jerk response like that)
The free distribution model works very well for software and arguably well for music (since unlike movies, music doesn't require a dedicated, co-ordinated production crew, and professional musicians can often make money from live performances). For other creative works such as scenario games and movies? Not so much. Empirical data would certainly seem to back that up.
You're probably still right in that it's not necessarily a matter of ethics, but piracy isn't likely to encourage more content creation.
Conversely, and closer to the GP's point, if you want to stick it to the MPAA man in the meantime, downloading such movies for now still gives mindshare and so isn't the best idea. Better to avoid them entirely.
Quiet, you'll give the Pro-Choice brigade ideas.
The gameplay would be the same on a 386 with CGA graphics if you get down to it. A slight variant of the gameplay could be done over a TeleType terminal.
What was your point?
I hesitate to point this out, but:
Your Example 1 could describe most OSS games.
Your Example 2 could describe most commercial games.
Now go do a side-by-side comparison of the two, for any given genre.
And I say this as an OSS advocate.
Unless you, like me, actually like better graphics. Speaking for myself, I like my gaming to be as immersive an experience as possible. This means smooth motion (which consoles historically do fairly well - if their frame rates are low they're at least consistently low), and realistic graphics and sound. Console games with their massive jaggy pixels, repeated textures and walled-in maps just don't create the sense of realism that PC games do. Sure, I like to break out some classic PC and console games from time to time but usually for novelty or nostalgic reasons.
Quality gameplay is a given. Games without good gameplay don't get a look in so that isn't a variable. Note this doesn't actually need to be innovative - just good. If you judge any creative work on original innovation alone you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Back in the day when DooM came out there was little you could do for immersion once you had a PC capable of 30fps at 320x200, and darkened the room. But it was the best we had back then, and I will continue to pursue the best gaming experiences of our time.
Um, no the limitations are the University's fault. The University should know better than to use Microsoft for infrastructure.
Things just go from bad to worse for FriendFace.
Welcome to the modern economy, where "Brands" are traded between companies like baseball cards.
Disgusting, isn't it.
I... hope you're not trying to draw a link between gun control laws and suicide rate.
Please set my mind at ease.
Ah, but check the back. It was DESIGNED by Apple in sunny California, so everything's just fine!
This. It's very tempting to just buy whatever is on special, but one should always factor in how long the product is expected to last.
And, buy local where possible. If you stop buying stuff made in China, those ships will have less need to cross the oceans in the first place. And, of course you'll be supporting your local economy.
The above paragraph doesn't apply if you live in China :)
Perhaps that Russian guy who a few days ago commented that Linux was near the end of its release cycle knew something!
In all seriousness, given the FUD Microsoft spreads about Linux to their customers, I wonder if this purchase has been working its way into their propaganda engine for a while.
I posted a rant about this below, but you worded it much better and deserved the mod points.
I don't mind that it's symmetrical, but if it must be so, make the internals symmetric too, so you can plug it in either way.
Here I was hoping to see some kind of acknowledgement by the USB steering committee that the form factor is broken and a resolution to fix it in future revisions.
Of course I mean this:
If you're going to design a connector that has to all intents and purposes 180 degree rotational symmetry externally, then for Bilbo's sake give it 180 degree rotational symmetry internally too!
Or, more simply:
Since the connector looks like a rectangle from the outside, make it so you can plug it in right-way-up or upside-down and still work. Or key the actual shape of the connector so it's not ambiguous.
For an example of the former take the Mac Book power connectors. Since the pins are arranged palendromically you can plug it in, pull it out, flip it, plug it in again and it still works. An extreme example is round power connectors as found in most PC laptops. These can be rotated at any angle.
An example of the latter - Firewire or IEC connectors, that have clear right and wrong orientations.
Fine, but just be aware that if tradition means nothing there could well be a redefinition of, say, moon. Since the barycentre of our Moon and Earth is (just) beneath the surface of the Earth, we're probably safe for now, but it wouldn't take much of a change in definitions to re-classify Earth-Luna as a double-planet system. Making the Moon, well, no longer a moon.
(not that I think Pluto should be re-instated as a planet - I realise it was only ever just America's "Look, we can discover planets too")
Agreed 100%. They Live and the Evil Dead series are required watching for all fans of Duke Nukem.
I think you misunderstood. More CPU cores won't make that application, or more correctly that thread, any faster per se. They will, however allow other threads to continue running while the first CPU core is tied up with CPU-intensive virus scanning.
Well... yes. That's how every single real-time virus protection suite works. Files are scanned for viruses (using lookup tables and/or heuristics) before being passed back to the application.
That's also why for quite some time my company policy has been at least two CPU cores per computer - one for the virus scanner and the OS/apps can have the rest.
That's negligence on the part of the parents, and has absolutely nothing to do with religion. Teens need to be educated on sex and I think you'll find most actually are.
While we're making up case studies, let's take your above case and say we discover that very thing happened, say, $YOUR_AGE_PLUS_9_MONTHS ago and the 15-year-old girl for whatever reason decided to keep the child. Is your life now somehow worth less than it would have been if you were conceived under different circumstances?
Never forget that the feminist over-simplification of abortion is exactly that. There are always at least two factors: the right of a woman to do what she wants with her body, and the right to life of another human being in her care.
It depends on the nature of the work. Recordings, for example, are copyrighted in the UK for 50 years after the release.
Cliff Richard's Move It and Living Doll, released in 1959, are both in the public domain in the UK.
But your point still stands - even 50 years is far too long.
That's a well done example there, though I believe once motion is introduced (even at 10fps) the scene will become easier to recognize.
Anyone care to apply the same filter to a 20 second video clip?
And for embedded video in presentations. The scientific community is by and large moving away from MS Powerpoint for presenting papers, in favour of LaTeX with Beamer of Prosper classes to give projector-friendly PDFs. For short video clips [1] it's much cleaner to have it embedded in the document than to alt-tab to a pre-opened VLC session. More often than not, the FLV container format works much more reliably (and across more platforms) than others.
Still, I'm not sure why Adobe couldn't just include a partial Flash implementation - one that can decode video but not execute arbitrary code.
[1] Before anyone tries disputing this point, there is a place for video in scientific presentations. Think wave propagation through a 3-dimensional lattice rather than dancing kittens.
I would guess the ground. When a meteor hits land, a lot of the ejected material is from the ground, not the meteor itself. Rocks apparently have a lot of oxygen and carbon locked up in them.