They nail the AT&T's and Microsofts, and not the smalltown businesses owned by ma and pa (are there any left?), I don't have a problem with it at all. Go crooks go!
I've heard that they can build a White Knight big enough to carry a spaceship 3 times as big as the current one. Whether that means more people to the same altitude, or a crew of three into orbit...
The best part: We don't even have to invent wifi wallpaper! $22 sq ft, installed (in a hurry), and some rigged tests to show that it's working, and we're in the money. Have them pay in cash, upfront... it could be sweet. Out of town within a few days, and off to Vegas to blow it on liquor and women.
Oh way. You mean someone else invented wifi wallpaper?
Because selling MP3s would make a profit and reduce piracy. Now, if that is the case, you have to ask why they're following the course that they are...
The management in charge of locating and developing music talent might be a bunch of coked out lowlifes that would sell their own mothers into slavery for below market value, but the army of ravenous accountants, lawyers, and other denizens of hell are actually quite sharp. These people, given the 2 choices of "sell MP3s and make nice profits" and "continue with a 1970s business model and die" will choose the former *every* single time.
So, if they aren't making that choice, well then, it's because there is a third one. More so, we can deduce that this third choice is indeed more profitable than that first one, the "honest business" choice. How can that be so? Well, in short, it's the "dishonest business" method. First, you need to create a piracy crisis, but hell, that sort of fell into their laps. Second, you need to wait for technology to advance to where we have the capability of making (mostly) working DRM. Then, when you own everything, you can let the money roll in, and buy legislation when necessary to patch this or that hole that you missed.
"But NoMoreNicksLeft, if that is so, won't hackers break the new DRM?"
Maybe, but does it matter? You don't stop hackers from hacking by punishing them when they commit an infraction. No, they still have that annoying privacy in their home... too many will get away with it where you can't do anything about it. You go after the hive. If some web forum describes the hack, nail it to the wall. Co-opt the internet, make it too transparent. Spam up the email systems, so that everything concentrates to a few email services that are easily subpoenaed. You see, hackers work in groups. A DirecTV smart card takes dozens, if not hundreds, of engineers to produce. To have a fair shot at it, dozens of hackers need to work together. If you can divide them, well, barring that one in a billion genius, they are defeated. And while they're scrabbling around trying to make a comeback, you're building the nextgen smartcard with 1000 engineers...
"But NoMoreNicksLeft, if that is so, won't we just make our own music?"
Yeh, sure. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather listen to an enthusiastic amateur any day rather than some of this shit I hear on the radio. But in the coming years, they'll make that something that's legal only if you are *licensed*. And how will they do that? They'll tell you it's for your own good. Congress will decide the RIAA is raping too many musicians, so they'll try to protect you from this... even if it's really the RIAA pulling the strings, and it's to protect them from you. But even before that, DRM will get in the way. As little as 3 musical notes can be copyrighted, did you know that? Obviously, when you use the mixing software, it will be searching for you playing covers without a license. There are what, 13 notes total (I'm not musically talented) ? Do you think it's difficult for a machine to recognize notes, or a sequence of them? Especially 10 years from now, when all of this will go down? The software might just lock you out, or maybe report you, but the effect is the same... you won't be making music. Go on, search the thrift stores for a serviceable tape deck, and something to record onto. The future is bleak
Economists call this hoarding behavior a method of preserving a good for later use. If I buy up a million gallons of petrol, driving its price up double what it was last week, and I hold onto it 10 years until its 30 euros a gallon... that's not gouging at all. I just saved a million gallons of petrol for when we *really* needed it.
Same thing here. They are saving those master tapes for when we really need them. Keep your goddamn grubby paws out of the free market, you communist hippy!
PS This ruins the troll, but yes, I really will murder the first economics PhD I hear that repeats the bullshit aloud...
The Scottsdale residents have UHF video cameras in their bedrooms, and are concerned with people driving around with portable UHF TV's and watching them have wild monkey sex.
Protecting against wardriving is as simple as not using wifi, if you're too stupid to secure it.
What strikes me as funny, is that a party that can continually get on the ballot of 45+ states still needs to jump through hoops. Why not for the Republicrats to do the whole signature thing? Why do they get a free pass?
Of course the republicrats can restrict their debates however they wish. They can't accept federal funds to pay for all the setup, and then exclude other candidates however. Which is what this university is doing. If it were private money, that would be different...
My point was that religious beliefs are a delusion. It should be pretty scary to you that not even psychiatrists can find a meaningful distinction between religious delusions (a 'loving' God ruthlessly flooded the entire planet and murdered trillions of innocent animals, crackers turn to flesh in my mouth, you'll spend an eternity burning in hell for inserting your penis into another man) and the delusions of the truly insane (the CIA is controlling my mind via my radio).
Nice of you to pick the craziest, most undefendable beliefs as an example. What do they call that, the strawman argument?
Why don't you tell me why it's also just as crazy to forgive, and love one another, or that if we work hard and be good people that there may be a paradise waiting for us all? Those are pretty unrealistic also, are they delusions?
Why is it that you, the smart atheist, have so much trouble discerning metaphor from literal truths, or so much difficulty seeing that rituals and tradition give people comfort, but that it's not the fundamental part of what might make religion a good thing?
Seriously though, someone in early childhood really hurt you, didn't they. Shame, that.
How is this a troll? Overrated might be hard to dispute, flamebait might even be concievable (lord knows there are any number of idiots ready to defend the "system") but troll?
We need more than just getting the quantity of voters higher. In case no one has noticed.
Amazingly enough, alot of what you say can also be used against the big bang theory. Is it now also a religious delusion?
No modern religion claims that god makes it rain. That religion was once used to explain things that could otherwise have been explained better only says something about how unwilling primitive people were to explore reasoning.
But, if you insist on using that line of reasoning, isn't it only fair to subject science to the same thing? I mean, if Zeus is going to be responsible for lightning bolts (incorrect), then shouldn't we dig up all the early paleontological reconstructions and ridicule them? Oops, that dead guy thought that animals evolved simply because they decided mutate? And the other one thought that random mutations could possibly explain such rapid evolution?
There is something more to the universe, than the cold lifeless mechanisms that some insist is all thats there. Even I can agree to that much.
But you really shouldn't jump to conclusions. I'm not christian, muslim, or anything else. I'm wavering between atheist and agnostic. But I didn't forfeit any intuition, flexibility, or just plain common sense to be able to claim membership in those two clubs.
Oh, btw. If you're definition of mental illness would include my previous post as a sympton, you're really wound too tight. Did Father Callahan molest you or something?
I don't have to prove that God doesn't exist. Christians are the ones making the ridiculous claims, they are the ones who need to prove it. When I claim that the entire universe was in fact created by an all-powerful space duck with an insatiable appetite for spaghetti, then it's my turn to cough up some evidence.
Well, it's obvious that the most fundamental questions about the universe remain unanswered to some people's satisfaction, mine included. The big bang may describe the first split second, but doesn't really explain anything other than there was nothing, and then all of the sudden there is something. And in the vaguest sense, it is somewhat hard to deny that it certainly seems like there may be a creator of some sort. So, in the most general sense, a religionist isn't all that crazy, imo.
I don't fault the christians for thinking anything along this line of thought. What I do fault them for, is co-opting it. It's possible that the creator I am hypothesizing is their Satan... as possible as any other identity. But whenever science says something that might support such, even the slightest little tidbit, they jump all over it, claiming it as proof that their YWHW/Jehovah/Hallelujah is the creator being implied. Which is ridiculous.
Even if I can, for the sake of the argument, accept that *a* god might exist, what makes them think that it is their own? Isn't more reasonable to suppose that if something like that exists, that there are many, rather than one? A universe that only has a single star, anywhere, is much more bizarre than our own with quadrillions of suns. And this is only a single issue.
For me, it's not that there might be a supernatural/supreme being of some sort, but all the politicalesque propaganda that they insist go along with it. There might be only one "good" god, or one god that I should want anything to do with, but only one god, period? Sounds more like a football fanatic claiming his team is the only one.
Oh, and I forgot. Keep in mind there are particles that have no anti-particles, just that neutrons don't belong in that category. Or maybe, technically, that those particles are their own anti-particles. Photons come to mind. Can't think of any others.
No problem then. Maybe I'm inaccurate... I've only my intuition to rely on when I imply that an anti-matter weapon wouldn't create too many radioactive daughter particles. Just have no clue how you'd even calculate it, though to me it seems rather insignificant. It's just that I did mention they'll exist... you can't have that much energy and weird particles flying around, and not cooking up something spicy in the rad department. I'm still rather certain that the bulk of it in a fission device (and fusion devices have a fission bomb at their core, folks) is unburnt fissile material from the core. Even with an extremely precise implosion, only the smallest fraction of plutonium atoms will be knocked apart, right?
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They nail the AT&T's and Microsofts, and not the smalltown businesses owned by ma and pa (are there any left?), I don't have a problem with it at all. Go crooks go!
I think I need to make room for another name on my hero's list.
Steve Wozniak
Seymour Cray
James P. Hogan
Burt Rutan
That last one seems to fit pretty well. Hmm, Maybe needs to be closer to the top though...
I'll bet $50 that Tier 2 makes it into orbit before the next shuttle. Anyone want to take me up on it?
I've heard that they can build a White Knight big enough to carry a spaceship 3 times as big as the current one. Whether that means more people to the same altitude, or a crew of three into orbit...
You can't find someone who doesn't want to learn, you have to create them.
Amazingly computers are easier to control than what library book a kid reads.
The best part: We don't even have to invent wifi wallpaper! $22 sq ft, installed (in a hurry), and some rigged tests to show that it's working, and we're in the money. Have them pay in cash, upfront... it could be sweet. Out of town within a few days, and off to Vegas to blow it on liquor and women.
Oh way. You mean someone else invented wifi wallpaper?
"And maybe we could cast Tom Hanks as Mr. Hanky's hospitalized friend, Kyle."
"Yes, but this christmas poo thing just doesn't work, Mr. Hanky needs to be a chimpanzee..."
"A talking chimpanzee!"
"Yes, by god, that's it! Mr. Hanky will be a talking chimpanzee!"
Working title: Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding.
Because selling MP3s would make a profit and reduce piracy. Now, if that is the case, you have to ask why they're following the course that they are...
The management in charge of locating and developing music talent might be a bunch of coked out lowlifes that would sell their own mothers into slavery for below market value, but the army of ravenous accountants, lawyers, and other denizens of hell are actually quite sharp. These people, given the 2 choices of "sell MP3s and make nice profits" and "continue with a 1970s business model and die" will choose the former *every* single time.
So, if they aren't making that choice, well then, it's because there is a third one. More so, we can deduce that this third choice is indeed more profitable than that first one, the "honest business" choice. How can that be so? Well, in short, it's the "dishonest business" method. First, you need to create a piracy crisis, but hell, that sort of fell into their laps. Second, you need to wait for technology to advance to where we have the capability of making (mostly) working DRM. Then, when you own everything, you can let the money roll in, and buy legislation when necessary to patch this or that hole that you missed.
"But NoMoreNicksLeft, if that is so, won't hackers break the new DRM?"
Maybe, but does it matter? You don't stop hackers from hacking by punishing them when they commit an infraction. No, they still have that annoying privacy in their home... too many will get away with it where you can't do anything about it. You go after the hive. If some web forum describes the hack, nail it to the wall. Co-opt the internet, make it too transparent. Spam up the email systems, so that everything concentrates to a few email services that are easily subpoenaed. You see, hackers work in groups. A DirecTV smart card takes dozens, if not hundreds, of engineers to produce. To have a fair shot at it, dozens of hackers need to work together. If you can divide them, well, barring that one in a billion genius, they are defeated. And while they're scrabbling around trying to make a comeback, you're building the nextgen smartcard with 1000 engineers...
"But NoMoreNicksLeft, if that is so, won't we just make our own music?"
Yeh, sure. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather listen to an enthusiastic amateur any day rather than some of this shit I hear on the radio. But in the coming years, they'll make that something that's legal only if you are *licensed*. And how will they do that? They'll tell you it's for your own good. Congress will decide the RIAA is raping too many musicians, so they'll try to protect you from this... even if it's really the RIAA pulling the strings, and it's to protect them from you. But even before that, DRM will get in the way. As little as 3 musical notes can be copyrighted, did you know that? Obviously, when you use the mixing software, it will be searching for you playing covers without a license. There are what, 13 notes total (I'm not musically talented) ? Do you think it's difficult for a machine to recognize notes, or a sequence of them? Especially 10 years from now, when all of this will go down? The software might just lock you out, or maybe report you, but the effect is the same... you won't be making music. Go on, search the thrift stores for a serviceable tape deck, and something to record onto. The future is bleak
Economists call this hoarding behavior a method of preserving a good for later use. If I buy up a million gallons of petrol, driving its price up double what it was last week, and I hold onto it 10 years until its 30 euros a gallon... that's not gouging at all. I just saved a million gallons of petrol for when we *really* needed it.
Same thing here. They are saving those master tapes for when we really need them. Keep your goddamn grubby paws out of the free market, you communist hippy!
PS This ruins the troll, but yes, I really will murder the first economics PhD I hear that repeats the bullshit aloud...
Better analogy yet:
The Scottsdale residents have UHF video cameras in their bedrooms, and are concerned with people driving around with portable UHF TV's and watching them have wild monkey sex.
Protecting against wardriving is as simple as not using wifi, if you're too stupid to secure it.
What strikes me as funny, is that a party that can continually get on the ballot of 45+ states still needs to jump through hoops. Why not for the Republicrats to do the whole signature thing? Why do they get a free pass?
Of course the republicrats can restrict their debates however they wish. They can't accept federal funds to pay for all the setup, and then exclude other candidates however. Which is what this university is doing. If it were private money, that would be different...
My point was that religious beliefs are a delusion. It should be pretty scary to you that not even psychiatrists can find a meaningful distinction between religious delusions (a 'loving' God ruthlessly flooded the entire planet and murdered trillions of innocent animals, crackers turn to flesh in my mouth, you'll spend an eternity burning in hell for inserting your penis into another man) and the delusions of the truly insane (the CIA is controlling my mind via my radio).
Nice of you to pick the craziest, most undefendable beliefs as an example. What do they call that, the strawman argument?
Why don't you tell me why it's also just as crazy to forgive, and love one another, or that if we work hard and be good people that there may be a paradise waiting for us all? Those are pretty unrealistic also, are they delusions?
Why is it that you, the smart atheist, have so much trouble discerning metaphor from literal truths, or so much difficulty seeing that rituals and tradition give people comfort, but that it's not the fundamental part of what might make religion a good thing?
Seriously though, someone in early childhood really hurt you, didn't they. Shame, that.
This is a repeat, since assholes moderated it as troll, when it's quite sincere. Wake up people, not everything controversial is a troll.
They've artificially reduced our choices to two sellouts that they pick, but voter turnout isn't high enough to legitimize the sham?
Why not just have them vote for me? It can be the whole Saddam Hussein thing, where 100% of the people vote, and vote correctly.
How is this a troll? Overrated might be hard to dispute, flamebait might even be concievable (lord knows there are any number of idiots ready to defend the "system") but troll?
We need more than just getting the quantity of voters higher. In case no one has noticed.
They've artificially reduced our choices to two sellouts that they pick, but voter turnout isn't high enough to legitimize the sham?
Why not just have them vote for me? It can be the whole Saddam Hussein thing, where 100% of the people vote, and vote correctly.
By inventing consequences after the fact?
Amazingly enough, alot of what you say can also be used against the big bang theory. Is it now also a religious delusion?
No modern religion claims that god makes it rain. That religion was once used to explain things that could otherwise have been explained better only says something about how unwilling primitive people were to explore reasoning.
But, if you insist on using that line of reasoning, isn't it only fair to subject science to the same thing? I mean, if Zeus is going to be responsible for lightning bolts (incorrect), then shouldn't we dig up all the early paleontological reconstructions and ridicule them? Oops, that dead guy thought that animals evolved simply because they decided mutate? And the other one thought that random mutations could possibly explain such rapid evolution?
There is something more to the universe, than the cold lifeless mechanisms that some insist is all thats there. Even I can agree to that much.
But you really shouldn't jump to conclusions. I'm not christian, muslim, or anything else. I'm wavering between atheist and agnostic. But I didn't forfeit any intuition, flexibility, or just plain common sense to be able to claim membership in those two clubs.
Oh, btw. If you're definition of mental illness would include my previous post as a sympton, you're really wound too tight. Did Father Callahan molest you or something?
I don't have to prove that God doesn't exist. Christians are the ones making the ridiculous claims, they are the ones who need to prove it. When I claim that the entire universe was in fact created by an all-powerful space duck with an insatiable appetite for spaghetti, then it's my turn to cough up some evidence.
Well, it's obvious that the most fundamental questions about the universe remain unanswered to some people's satisfaction, mine included. The big bang may describe the first split second, but doesn't really explain anything other than there was nothing, and then all of the sudden there is something. And in the vaguest sense, it is somewhat hard to deny that it certainly seems like there may be a creator of some sort. So, in the most general sense, a religionist isn't all that crazy, imo.
I don't fault the christians for thinking anything along this line of thought. What I do fault them for, is co-opting it. It's possible that the creator I am hypothesizing is their Satan... as possible as any other identity. But whenever science says something that might support such, even the slightest little tidbit, they jump all over it, claiming it as proof that their YWHW/Jehovah/Hallelujah is the creator being implied. Which is ridiculous.
Even if I can, for the sake of the argument, accept that *a* god might exist, what makes them think that it is their own? Isn't more reasonable to suppose that if something like that exists, that there are many, rather than one? A universe that only has a single star, anywhere, is much more bizarre than our own with quadrillions of suns. And this is only a single issue.
For me, it's not that there might be a supernatural/supreme being of some sort, but all the politicalesque propaganda that they insist go along with it. There might be only one "good" god, or one god that I should want anything to do with, but only one god, period? Sounds more like a football fanatic claiming his team is the only one.
Kinda. I was hoping for (Score:5, Offtopic) though...
Maybe these Malaysians should be helping me build up metanet. They can't arrest you if they don't know who you are...
That works out to over $2 an hour, most weekdays. That's higher than the mexican minimum wage!
Phht. Four digit ID, wife, dog
^^^^^^^^^
You're not allowed to count bragging rights on the same thing twice.
Am I the only one that thinks the "E" in the Dell logo looks an awful lot like the "E" Enron logo?
Is it some sort of hidden sign?
Oh, and I forgot. Keep in mind there are particles that have no anti-particles, just that neutrons don't belong in that category. Or maybe, technically, that those particles are their own anti-particles. Photons come to mind. Can't think of any others.
No problem then. Maybe I'm inaccurate... I've only my intuition to rely on when I imply that an anti-matter weapon wouldn't create too many radioactive daughter particles. Just have no clue how you'd even calculate it, though to me it seems rather insignificant. It's just that I did mention they'll exist... you can't have that much energy and weird particles flying around, and not cooking up something spicy in the rad department. I'm still rather certain that the bulk of it in a fission device (and fusion devices have a fission bomb at their core, folks) is unburnt fissile material from the core. Even with an extremely precise implosion, only the smallest fraction of plutonium atoms will be knocked apart, right?