My only problem with that is if they start to use those keywords to profile me. I don't want google or any one for that mater knowing that I recieved 210 e-mails with the word f**k in them over the last two months.`
If you don't want computerized algorithms running over your e-mail on a daily basis, there are two things you should do;
Run your own e-mail server
PGP-encrypt all outgoing / request (demand) all incoming mail be likewise encrypeted.
Otherwise, I hate to say it, but your e-mail is analyzed by every server it passes through. As for profiling, well, that's the norm. But think of it this way - you're getting e-mail for free. What did you expect? They give you 1 gigabyte of free storage on a highly advanced, redundant, failure-resistant geographically diverse network for... FREE. If they profile you, sorry, but you have no right to blow the "Privacy" trumpet. You get what you pay for.
Speaking of which, I have a million invites if anyone wants one....
OOOH! A million invites? Man, can you send one over at "incredibly@gullible.bandwagon.biz"? That'd be awesome! Then I'd be cool, tech-sheik, and the envy of both my friends (even the non-geek!). Boy, Gmail, now I can finally get laid! Thanks a million man!
And what version of the history books are you using?
{sigh} So many threads of argument would be spared if people would read first what they're replying to before they fly off the handle;
Yes, Saddam was a bad guy who we didn't like and did awful, awful things to his people,
but he was no imminent threat to the United States the way Hitler, fascism,...
Did I just hear a bubble burst? Perhaps an apology is in order, m'dear netzien.
Emphasis added. You can read the actual indictment at...
Yes, I'm going to believe an indictment made by the government we're discussing in this story. Remember - the government who not only lie to its citizenry but do everything in their power to cover up said lies?
So I'm more than sure they wouldn't, oh, lie to connect these two uber-evil groups in order to make the citizens even more angry with them collectively; especially considering Dubya's "Wag The Dog"-esque make a war effort.
Oh, wait, I forgot - there are weapons of mass^H^H^H^H^H... many mistreated people! Yeah! That's why we're here! We're here to stop the evil Oceana! They must be stopped! Oceana is our enemy! We are at war with Oceana! Eurasia is evil! We, allied with Oceana must destroy Eurasia!
Christ man, wake up and smell the dictatorship. Atleast our Prime Minister was elected.
I would never, ever consider moving somewhere where I couldn't. It just demonstrates a government's utter contempt for its citizenry. I guess we'll never be neighbors.
Quoth Homer; Do you want the King of England to come here and push you around? Do you? Huh? Do you?
How often do you and your compatriots use your firearms to defend yourselves against, or otherwise duly influence your government? (You did well against the Patriot Act and DMCA; I must commend you)
Now ask how often firearms are used against your fellow citizens. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your family.
Seems to me that the 2nd amendment (an antiquity of your constitution) is just an excuse to arm yourselves against your neighbors of whom you are so afraid.
McDonald's had repeatedly been warned about their coffee in and out of court before this. This was not the first suit against them for hot coffee burning people.
...
This falls under the category that protects the average person from Big Corp, Inc. that cuts corners and doesn't worry about customer safety. This has nothing to do with intelligence, at least not on the woman's side.
Yes. Let's just make everything cold, bland and sterile covered in soft padding to protect the non-thinkers amongst us. Let's allow these people to pro-create and further compound the problem of rapidly diminishing intellect on our planet.
BTW - "cuts corners"? They're spending more money on electrical bills to keep the coffee hot! But of course, it's the Evil Corporation's fault for giving in to the majority public's demands.
But please; spout more cliches. Did the government have a hand in this? Where does McD's keep its black helicopters? Grow up.
Where else was she supposed to put it? I've been in cars where cup holders are almost inaccessable, and in no car would it have been as convienient as right in front of you. I would bet that if someone would follow you through a typical day, you'd do many things that are at least as dangerous. Furthermore, I bet tons of people *still* do the exact same thing she did without incident.
A million flies can't be wrong.
Yes, every day people jaywalk, put hot coffee between their legs, drive too fast, run with scissors, or any number of other stupid things. Here's the rub; if you hurt yourself (as your parents always said you would) while performing one of these acts of mild retardation it's still your fault.
I drive as a courier. I drink a lot of coffee. I've doctored a lot of coffee. She had dozens of options for adding cream, sugar, sweetner et al. to her coffee. In no particular order, some possibilities off the top of my head;
Stand at the counter inside and complete her work prior to departure. This would have the added benefeit that everything added to coffee cools it down thereby negating the risk. It would turn from a hospital stay to an "Ouch" and a "Damnit"
Cup holder / other interior surface including a book, breifcase, or flat surface perched on your lap. I use a MapArt large-print edition "Toronto And Area" map book to create a table surface on my legs. It'll take the brunt of the spill (and give me an excuse to get the new edition).
Hood, trunk, roof of the car. Stretch your legs, damnit. Relaxed lifestyles, lack of excersize and walking aids lead to the atrophying of muscles in old age. It's good for you.
Don't remove the entire lid. She's 70+ years of age, right? I'm sure she's developed the ability to pour cream/sugar through the mouth opening of a cup lid.
The floor. Yes, it is a possibility even for a 6'2" 240lb gentleman like myself.
Driver holds cup while passenger adds ingedients. Teamwork. They teach it in elementary school.
Allow the coffee to cool before mussing with it.
Order the coffee the way you like it in the first place. (Gee, that averts the whole situation now, doesn't it?)
The laws of physics prevent coffee from reaching absurd temperatures, therefore McDonald's were within the same bounds as other restaurants. I've had coffee several times from carts and restaurants that I had to allow to sit - even with cream and sugar - before it was drinkable.
The case had no merits. All those mentioned were a combination of lack of personal responsibility or legal hooplah. The woman did something careless (and stupid), got injured, suffered the consequences and then decided someone else should be held responsible for her actions. For whatever reasons people may come up with, it was a ridiculous sum of money to demand and she appeared to make no efforts or indications that she would give the money to a deserving party (eg; a burn unit or similar). Now we can add selfish to her list of stellar qualities.
Consider the character of "Joe Camel" who was specifically tailored to attract those presumed to be too irrational to be trusted to guide their own lives (minor children).
Bullshit. They had a product, a marketting campaign and a mascott. They marketted their product in order to make money. That's how capitalism works. If somebody doesn't like it - tough cookies.
The tobacco lawsuits are bunk. "Everybody told me these were bad but I used them anyways and now I'm sick and want money." Tough shit. People back in WWII called cigarettes "coffin nails". I don't think there are many people alive today who don't realize that smoking is bad.
Do something that makes you sick, injured, or causes your own death and it's your bed to sleep in.
A note to all complainants; STOP SUING PEOPLE. Personal responsibility. It's not a tough concept. Learn it. Teach it to others.
As to this yahoo, he's an idiot. Plagiarism has been taught to be illegal through highschool and post-secondary education systems for decades. He's a moron who deserves to be shot and hung, and I can only hope employers have the common sense to recognize his name and he becomes the pariah he so rightly deserves to be.
most of the USA and Anglophone-Canada is more or less the same.
Tell dat to a Newfinlander, eh?
Bay, da East Coost as a deffern't accint den deh rest uh Canadah.
It's good that you narrowed it to anglophone Canada; we have a very large segment we like to call "Quebec" that has a radically different accent. As a result, however, there are a lot of people in and around la Belle Province that speak English ("Hanglish") with a distinct French accent ("Montreal accent", as my friend from dere puts it).
The difference becomes really apparent when you phone customer service and are greeted with "Allo, mynameees.... Ow may eye elp yoooo?"
I've also noticed that some people from the left coast (west coast - British Columbia) tend to have more laid back speech; almost a drawl. Nowhere near as defined as Texas, but more subtle. (We Canucks don't like to be obtuse, eh)
Re:Isn't the point of velcro
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Metal Velcro
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· Score: 1
Btw, in Sweden we call this "kardborreband" (kardborre is a flower, look here: http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nordflor/pics/4.jpg, and "band" means, hmm, eh, band. A quite logical name for it.). Don't know what that flower is called in english but I guess most of you have got one of those stuck in your clothes or on your dog...:)
Here in the Great White North, they're generally referred to as "burs", as from the burdock plant.
1. LaunchBar 2. Default Folder 3. ASM 4. LiteSwitch (I use Adobe apps and don't want to learn new selection-tool-switching habits) 5. FruitMenu 6. WindowShade 7. Little Snitch 8. Net Monitor 9. Eudora 10. Mozilla
Duh... you do know that even most 20 year old automatics have a so called "sport mode" which will let you take advantage of higher revs?
Besides, if you take into account modern automatics like Audi's DSG (IMHO not available in the US, but can shift faster than any race driver will ever by able to) you can see that manuals are definitely NOT the future.
[...]
Nope. I've proven this time after time against people who were talking exactly like you and wouldn't even admit that they're slower than an automatic when I had clearly beaten them.
I'd like to re-iterate the question; did you "clearly beat them" in a like make and model vehicle? When driving a manual, I've "clearly beaten" people in cars with bigger/faster engines simply because their automatics couldn't keep up with my shifting. On the straight-away, they'd oft keep up with me but as soon as cornering was introduced they'd see nothing but my tail lights. (Racing isn't just about 1/4 mile acceleration. Give me a funny car with any transmission and I'll beat anything you've got any day of the week)
So if we're going to talk about features not found in most consumer vehicles, why don't we discuss manual transmission advances like Shiftronics? There are new Audis, BMWs, etc. with shift paddles on the wheel, shiftronics on the otherwise automatic (for the casual driver), or even dual-mode paddle and manual stick.
With advancements in manual (primarily computer assisted) transmissions, you don't HAVE to take your foot off the gas pedal to shift gears and you still get all the control a manual typically affords (shifting at your desired rev point, down-shifting for corners or engine braking, etc.).
The manual gets faster 1/4 mile times IN THEORY. In practice, however, 99 percent of people won't get better times because they can't change gears like a professional fulltime race driver.
I had to come back to this and respond, even though I'll be undoing a much-needed moderation to do so;
Sorry, but I just have to disagree. Give me 2-3 days with a new manual and I'll be able to drive it efficiently. Give me 2-3 weeks with the same car and I'll consider myself 'race ready', which includes power and down shifting effectively.
No, you don't have to be as good as Paul Tracy in order to be faster in the 1/4 mile (or a typical street drag race, as is the norm) than some schmoe with an automatic. Even using heavy acceleration by holding to the floor (engaging "passing gear"), the auto still tends to shift more conservatively than a manual's operator thereby allowing them to take advantage of the higher revs.
I've proven this theory empirically time and time again. Your 99% figure is obviously a case of 84% of statistics being totally false|made up on the spot.
Well, you might be able to get a second phone line for less.
I thought of that as well, but in Canada (with taxes and all) a second line will cost ~$25-30. Paying a $20 premium in price over something that, in reality (save for people who perhaps have home offices w/ fax machines, but even then they're in the same boat - can't receive faxes while on the net) offers no real benefeit. In actuality, the high-speed connection would likely be more helpful to the home office.
I see people ripping the pages out of laser printers before the printer has pushed it all the way out. Probly does them no end of damage but since the page is already completely pritned by the point the person has enough grip on the page to pull it all out people keep doing it:-(
I see it all the time. Not only from students (read: people who aren't expected to learn better) but from teachers (read: people who are supposed to impart said knowledge). The fact that the printer emits a mechanical grinding noise when this happens appears to bear little significance for people. I used to explain to the teachers that it wasn't in our IT budget to replace these units, and that it would instead come from their departmental budget. Sometimes they stopped doing it. Mostly they stopped doing it while I was around.
Now that I think about it, though, it does sound similar to the noise a typical typewriter made when the page was removed, and that didn't seem terribly offensive to people either. Hmm. I'm thinking the solution is for laser printer manufacturers (though it would affect their bottom line wrt replacement gears and rollers) to install a rough, uneven pair of metal gears. G'head; pull it out now. Hear that sound? That's the sound of IMPENDING DOOM!
Hah! I used too low resolution (only 1280x1024:-P) to spot anything more than his left hand. You can't even troll right.
D'oh! One of Mozilla's recent additions bit me in the {eh-hem} ass!
It kindly (per my request) scaled the image to fit nicely in my browser window! By the time I'd confirmed my suspicions, my DSL soared to unprecidented speed levels and there it was in all its (morning) glory!
I think I'll go cleanse myself now, a la Mr. Ventura.
Ok compare to right now. There is still massive price fixing, and the alternative (downloading the music) results in what? Being sued. Wait, someone remind me what it's called when you put someone in a position where someone's best choice is breaking a law? Oh yeah!
extortion n.
racketeer n.
entrap v.
Whew I'm glad we got THAT out of the way!
Congratulations! That straw-man was so well played I almost believed you!
Y'know, I hate that a new car costs $20k. The fact that the alternative (stealing it) results in jail time is wrong.
The point is that they have gotten away with charging us a LOT more than the CD costs and a LOT more profit than a tape brings in for years.
"Gotten away with"? This is a free capitalist society. Don't like the cost of CDs? Express your freedom - ride in the back of the bus! Don't buy CDs! Tell them if they want to keep your business they'll keep costs down (hey - maybe smaller returns would make them think twice about the untalented morons they're putting on posters). Competition isn't the only way to bring costs down. Herding the sheep who bitch and moan but continue to buy is an alternative.
If you're selling a $500 car, there's no legality preventing you from asking $5000, $9000, or even "$10m firm". The point is - nobody's forced to buy it. It's not a neccesity item like food or fuel (no, bottled water isn't a neccesity). So why force the RIAA to live by a different set of standards? Next time you want to buy a CD, consider if you can wait a few months until it's been back-shelved, buy it used (less effective; it drives up the used CD market which indirectly contributes to the new CD market), buy it on special, or don't buy it at all. Do not, however, sue them and complain that you voluntarily paid too much and only now realized that you can mass-produce a physical disc with content on it for, like, really really cheap.
I open a restaurant and serve reasonably decent food and folks come to eat at my restaurant. Someone else notices this and says, "Gosh, that corner must be a good location for a restaurant business" and he proceeds to open a restaurant across the street from mine. All of the customers move across the street and nobody comes to my restaurant any more because he serves better food.
Not quite the same thing (see, argument by analogy is a Bad Idea)
That's capitalism. You have to be better at something to succeed.
In the OP's example, however, his work was being used to make money for somebody else. "I can't write a love song so I'll just use this one." - fine for getting laid, but hardly ethical for building a career.
For the analogy to work, you'd have to find some way to truck the food out the back door and across the street (and, I suppose, add some salt).
His argument could have been differently stated to include better publicity, strong-arm tactics or other means this other gent could have used to become The Show and oust our poor, hungry friend from The Biz. The better voice, you see, is inconsequential to the argument.
The musicians are only entitled to pay for their labour. That, in their case means performances. LIVE performances. You charge at the gate and no issue with "stealing". Why? Simple. Beecause if they are using a recording of a performance they in effect are using someone's elses playback device (fully paid for by the listener) playing data from a media disk (also fully paid for). The performance is done by the machine not the musician. As such the entire industry system is based on a single performance and then a stream of endless payments for not performing it again is totally unrealistic.
A professional CD can take hundreds of hours by all band members and several technicians, and costs several tens of thousands of dollars to compose. Add to this the cost of artwork, CD duplication, packaging, shipping, storage, and you've got one whopper of a figure.
Couple that with the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of collective brain-hours spent creating the works even before the composing stage comes to pass. Factor in rehearsal time while you're at it.
Where's the remuneration for that?
Or I could get into the thousands of hours, sleepless nights, loans for equipment, fights, failed/cancelled gigs, auditions, demo tapes (production costs entirely stomached by the aspiring musician(s)) and countless other expenses entailed with beginning your career.
Every band is not Metallica who, in fact, also started small. They rehearsed in garages and dingy basements, played for crappy clubs for a couple hundred bucks and struggled to attain the millionaire status they enjoy today.
It's easy to justify not paying for music when you see the opulance that is the musician's life (especially when you, like me, know you don't have a hope in hell of acheiving it. I know I can't sing, but I admit it!:P ) but it's really easy to forget the musicians tentatively releasing their first album or the artists who are only beginning to repay debts from the early stages in their career. I believe it wasn't until their third sucessfull album that Nirvanna finally was able to leave behind their dingy appartments and debt.
To put it another way, if you work minimum wage at Burger King and you download $200,000 worth of music, have you really deprived the music industry of $200,000? No. That's why I find the numbers they spread around about the cost of "piracy" to be misleading.
That's not entirely correct. You have something you didn't pay for. The logic here, as is the logic behind all capitalistic intentions, is "I made it, you pay for it or you don't get to enjoy it."
The problem here is the gray area caused by the non-physical nature of digital file sharing. If I could find a way to make a perfect replica of a Sony television without ever removing the original from the store, I'd still be sued because they designed the technology. Well, an artist composed the lyrics and music to the songs so many of us have on our hard drives.
The RIAA discussing this issue as theft, piracy, et al. is causing problems in that it's got even us confused. We can't justify ourselves except to point at the dictionary and say "We didn't do that!"
We are, however, illigitimately enjoying the non-free works of artists (and Britney Spears). So what, rock superstars don't get their third Porsche while we drive beaters that are in the shop more than out. Boo-hoo, right?
It was put better in the movie "Rock Star" than I could put it, so I'll try to approximate;
[You] aren't selling music, you're selling an image. Young girls want to have sex with you and young boys want to be you.
In reality, a lot of the drive that makes popular music is the rock star image and life style. Overdoses are still news. DUI, drunk and disorderly conduct, loud parties, fast cars and hot women (or vice-versa) are all part of the image we buy into and part of the phenom that allows the newest BigBand tune to play on the radio for weeks on end. Scamming agents are also a well-known part of the music industry. Going back to the first days of marketted music we can find examples of agents who screw artists out of as much money as (in)humanly possible. The RIAA is just the modern, mega-conglomerate version of the slick, greasy back-room dwelling agent.
So by not giving money to these celiebrities and citing freedom you're attempting to change the face of not only the basis of our economy (capitalism), but the basis of the music industry as we know it.
Re:Or, this can IMPROVE your car
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Hack Your Car
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· Score: 1
You pulled that "100 hp" out of the air: nowhere in the article is such a claim made.
Actually, I believe he got it from the parent comment to which he responded.
How does one go about locating a reputable and internationally active law firm that could handle this case?
How else is one supposed to ask the question "how do I find such a lawyer?"
Here in the Great White North, we have a miraculous invention we like to call the "Yellow Pages" (not to be confused with yellow snow, which you shouldn't involve yourself with). Listed in these "Yellow Pages" are reams of businesses and services such as, oh, I don't know, lawyers! Not only are there lawyers but there are legal advice companies who (wait! Somebody stop me!) specialize in (ohhh, this is too much!) LEGAL ADVICE!
There have been at least three major upgrades since then, but a brand like "Pentium" is too valuable to sacrifice to linguistic correctness, so each upgrade has had a variation of the original name. The current one is "Pentium III".
I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but it seems to me that the "Pentium 4" / "Pentium IV" has been out for quite some time now, n'est pas?
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't want computerized algorithms running over your e-mail on a daily basis, there are two things you should do;
Otherwise, I hate to say it, but your e-mail is analyzed by every server it passes through. As for profiling, well, that's the norm. But think of it this way - you're getting e-mail for free. What did you expect? They give you 1 gigabyte of free storage on a highly advanced, redundant, failure-resistant geographically diverse network for ... FREE. If they profile you, sorry, but you have no right to blow the "Privacy" trumpet. You get what you pay for.
OOOH! A million invites? Man, can you send one over at " incredibly@gullible.bandwagon.biz "? That'd be awesome! Then I'd be cool, tech-sheik, and the envy of both my friends (even the non-geek!). Boy, Gmail, now I can finally get laid! Thanks a million man!
{sigh} So many threads of argument would be spared if people would read first what they're replying to before they fly off the handle;
Did I just hear a bubble burst? Perhaps an apology is in order, m'dear netzien.
Yes, I'm going to believe an indictment made by the government we're discussing in this story. Remember - the government who not only lie to its citizenry but do everything in their power to cover up said lies?
So I'm more than sure they wouldn't, oh, lie to connect these two uber-evil groups in order to make the citizens even more angry with them collectively; especially considering Dubya's "Wag The Dog"-esque make a war effort.
Oh, wait, I forgot - there are weapons of mass^H^H^H^H^H ... many mistreated people! Yeah! That's why we're here! We're here to stop the evil Oceana! They must be stopped! Oceana is our enemy! We are at war with Oceana! Eurasia is evil! We, allied with Oceana must destroy Eurasia!
Christ man, wake up and smell the dictatorship. Atleast our Prime Minister was elected.
Quoth Homer; Do you want the King of England to come here and push you around? Do you? Huh? Do you?
How often do you and your compatriots use your firearms to defend yourselves against, or otherwise duly influence your government? (You did well against the Patriot Act and DMCA; I must commend you)
Now ask how often firearms are used against your fellow citizens. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your family.
Seems to me that the 2nd amendment (an antiquity of your constitution) is just an excuse to arm yourselves against your neighbors of whom you are so afraid.
Yes. Let's just make everything cold, bland and sterile covered in soft padding to protect the non-thinkers amongst us. Let's allow these people to pro-create and further compound the problem of rapidly diminishing intellect on our planet.
BTW - "cuts corners"? They're spending more money on electrical bills to keep the coffee hot! But of course, it's the Evil Corporation's fault for giving in to the majority public's demands.
But please; spout more cliches. Did the government have a hand in this? Where does McD's keep its black helicopters? Grow up.
A million flies can't be wrong.
Yes, every day people jaywalk, put hot coffee between their legs, drive too fast, run with scissors, or any number of other stupid things. Here's the rub; if you hurt yourself (as your parents always said you would) while performing one of these acts of mild retardation it's still your fault.
I drive as a courier. I drink a lot of coffee. I've doctored a lot of coffee. She had dozens of options for adding cream, sugar, sweetner et al. to her coffee. In no particular order, some possibilities off the top of my head;
The laws of physics prevent coffee from reaching absurd temperatures, therefore McDonald's were within the same bounds as other restaurants. I've had coffee several times from carts and restaurants that I had to allow to sit - even with cream and sugar - before it was drinkable.
The case had no merits. All those mentioned were a combination of lack of personal responsibility or legal hooplah. The woman did something careless (and stupid), got injured, suffered the consequences and then decided someone else should be held responsible for her actions. For whatever reasons people may come up with, it was a ridiculous sum of money to demand and she appeared to make no efforts or indications that she would give the money to a deserving party (eg; a burn unit or similar). Now we can add selfish to her list of stellar qualities.
Bullshit. They had a product, a marketting campaign and a mascott. They marketted their product in order to make money. That's how capitalism works. If somebody doesn't like it - tough cookies.
The tobacco lawsuits are bunk. "Everybody told me these were bad but I used them anyways and now I'm sick and want money." Tough shit. People back in WWII called cigarettes "coffin nails". I don't think there are many people alive today who don't realize that smoking is bad.
Do something that makes you sick, injured, or causes your own death and it's your bed to sleep in.
A note to all complainants; STOP SUING PEOPLE. Personal responsibility. It's not a tough concept. Learn it. Teach it to others.
As to this yahoo, he's an idiot. Plagiarism has been taught to be illegal through highschool and post-secondary education systems for decades. He's a moron who deserves to be shot and hung, and I can only hope employers have the common sense to recognize his name and he becomes the pariah he so rightly deserves to be.
Tell dat to a Newfinlander, eh?
Bay, da East Coost as a deffern't accint den deh rest uh Canadah.
It's good that you narrowed it to anglophone Canada; we have a very large segment we like to call "Quebec" that has a radically different accent. As a result, however, there are a lot of people in and around la Belle Province that speak English ("Hanglish") with a distinct French accent ("Montreal accent", as my friend from dere puts it).
The difference becomes really apparent when you phone customer service and are greeted with "Allo, mynameees .... Ow may eye elp yoooo?"
I've also noticed that some people from the left coast (west coast - British Columbia) tend to have more laid back speech; almost a drawl. Nowhere near as defined as Texas, but more subtle. (We Canucks don't like to be obtuse, eh)
Here in the Great White North, they're generally referred to as "burs", as from the burdock plant.
For the record;
I'd like to re-iterate the question; did you "clearly beat them" in a like make and model vehicle? When driving a manual, I've "clearly beaten" people in cars with bigger/faster engines simply because their automatics couldn't keep up with my shifting. On the straight-away, they'd oft keep up with me but as soon as cornering was introduced they'd see nothing but my tail lights. (Racing isn't just about 1/4 mile acceleration. Give me a funny car with any transmission and I'll beat anything you've got any day of the week)
So if we're going to talk about features not found in most consumer vehicles, why don't we discuss manual transmission advances like Shiftronics? There are new Audis, BMWs, etc. with shift paddles on the wheel, shiftronics on the otherwise automatic (for the casual driver), or even dual-mode paddle and manual stick.
With advancements in manual (primarily computer assisted) transmissions, you don't HAVE to take your foot off the gas pedal to shift gears and you still get all the control a manual typically affords (shifting at your desired rev point, down-shifting for corners or engine braking, etc.).
I had to come back to this and respond, even though I'll be undoing a much-needed moderation to do so;
Sorry, but I just have to disagree. Give me 2-3 days with a new manual and I'll be able to drive it efficiently. Give me 2-3 weeks with the same car and I'll consider myself 'race ready', which includes power and down shifting effectively.
No, you don't have to be as good as Paul Tracy in order to be faster in the 1/4 mile (or a typical street drag race, as is the norm) than some schmoe with an automatic. Even using heavy acceleration by holding to the floor (engaging "passing gear"), the auto still tends to shift more conservatively than a manual's operator thereby allowing them to take advantage of the higher revs.
I've proven this theory empirically time and time again. Your 99% figure is obviously a case of 84% of statistics being totally false|made up on the spot.
I thought of that as well, but in Canada (with taxes and all) a second line will cost ~$25-30. Paying a $20 premium in price over something that, in reality (save for people who perhaps have home offices w/ fax machines, but even then they're in the same boat - can't receive faxes while on the net) offers no real benefeit. In actuality, the high-speed connection would likely be more helpful to the home office.
I see it all the time. Not only from students (read: people who aren't expected to learn better) but from teachers (read: people who are supposed to impart said knowledge). The fact that the printer emits a mechanical grinding noise when this happens appears to bear little significance for people. I used to explain to the teachers that it wasn't in our IT budget to replace these units, and that it would instead come from their departmental budget. Sometimes they stopped doing it. Mostly they stopped doing it while I was around.
Now that I think about it, though, it does sound similar to the noise a typical typewriter made when the page was removed, and that didn't seem terribly offensive to people either. Hmm. I'm thinking the solution is for laser printer manufacturers (though it would affect their bottom line wrt replacement gears and rollers) to install a rough, uneven pair of metal gears. G'head; pull it out now. Hear that sound? That's the sound of IMPENDING DOOM!
D'oh! One of Mozilla's recent additions bit me in the {eh-hem} ass!
It kindly (per my request) scaled the image to fit nicely in my browser window! By the time I'd confirmed my suspicions, my DSL soared to unprecidented speed levels and there it was in all its (morning) glory!
I think I'll go cleanse myself now, a la Mr. Ventura.
"Your GUN is rubbing my HIP!"
Used CD, different CD, radio...
Psst; your straw's on fire.
Congratulations! That straw-man was so well played I almost believed you!
Y'know, I hate that a new car costs $20k. The fact that the alternative (stealing it) results in jail time is wrong.
"Gotten away with"? This is a free capitalist society. Don't like the cost of CDs? Express your freedom - ride in the back of the bus! Don't buy CDs! Tell them if they want to keep your business they'll keep costs down (hey - maybe smaller returns would make them think twice about the untalented morons they're putting on posters). Competition isn't the only way to bring costs down. Herding the sheep who bitch and moan but continue to buy is an alternative.
If you're selling a $500 car, there's no legality preventing you from asking $5000, $9000, or even "$10m firm". The point is - nobody's forced to buy it. It's not a neccesity item like food or fuel (no, bottled water isn't a neccesity). So why force the RIAA to live by a different set of standards? Next time you want to buy a CD, consider if you can wait a few months until it's been back-shelved, buy it used (less effective; it drives up the used CD market which indirectly contributes to the new CD market), buy it on special, or don't buy it at all. Do not, however, sue them and complain that you voluntarily paid too much and only now realized that you can mass-produce a physical disc with content on it for, like, really really cheap.
Not quite the same thing (see, argument by analogy is a Bad Idea)
That's capitalism. You have to be better at something to succeed.
In the OP's example, however, his work was being used to make money for somebody else. "I can't write a love song so I'll just use this one." - fine for getting laid, but hardly ethical for building a career.
For the analogy to work, you'd have to find some way to truck the food out the back door and across the street (and, I suppose, add some salt).
His argument could have been differently stated to include better publicity, strong-arm tactics or other means this other gent could have used to become The Show and oust our poor, hungry friend from The Biz. The better voice, you see, is inconsequential to the argument.
A professional CD can take hundreds of hours by all band members and several technicians, and costs several tens of thousands of dollars to compose. Add to this the cost of artwork, CD duplication, packaging, shipping, storage, and you've got one whopper of a figure.
Couple that with the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of collective brain-hours spent creating the works even before the composing stage comes to pass. Factor in rehearsal time while you're at it.
Where's the remuneration for that?
Or I could get into the thousands of hours, sleepless nights, loans for equipment, fights, failed/cancelled gigs, auditions, demo tapes (production costs entirely stomached by the aspiring musician(s)) and countless other expenses entailed with beginning your career.
Every band is not Metallica who, in fact, also started small. They rehearsed in garages and dingy basements, played for crappy clubs for a couple hundred bucks and struggled to attain the millionaire status they enjoy today.
It's easy to justify not paying for music when you see the opulance that is the musician's life (especially when you, like me, know you don't have a hope in hell of acheiving it. I know I can't sing, but I admit it! :P ) but it's really easy to forget the musicians tentatively releasing their first album or the artists who are only beginning to repay debts from the early stages in their career. I believe it wasn't until their third sucessfull album that Nirvanna finally was able to leave behind their dingy appartments and debt.
That's not entirely correct. You have something you didn't pay for. The logic here, as is the logic behind all capitalistic intentions, is "I made it, you pay for it or you don't get to enjoy it."
The problem here is the gray area caused by the non-physical nature of digital file sharing. If I could find a way to make a perfect replica of a Sony television without ever removing the original from the store, I'd still be sued because they designed the technology. Well, an artist composed the lyrics and music to the songs so many of us have on our hard drives.
The RIAA discussing this issue as theft, piracy, et al. is causing problems in that it's got even us confused. We can't justify ourselves except to point at the dictionary and say "We didn't do that!"
We are, however, illigitimately enjoying the non-free works of artists (and Britney Spears). So what, rock superstars don't get their third Porsche while we drive beaters that are in the shop more than out. Boo-hoo, right?
It was put better in the movie "Rock Star" than I could put it, so I'll try to approximate;
[You] aren't selling music, you're selling an image. Young girls want to have sex with you and young boys want to be you.
In reality, a lot of the drive that makes popular music is the rock star image and life style. Overdoses are still news. DUI, drunk and disorderly conduct, loud parties, fast cars and hot women (or vice-versa) are all part of the image we buy into and part of the phenom that allows the newest BigBand tune to play on the radio for weeks on end. Scamming agents are also a well-known part of the music industry. Going back to the first days of marketted music we can find examples of agents who screw artists out of as much money as (in)humanly possible. The RIAA is just the modern, mega-conglomerate version of the slick, greasy back-room dwelling agent.
So by not giving money to these celiebrities and citing freedom you're attempting to change the face of not only the basis of our economy (capitalism), but the basis of the music industry as we know it.
Actually, I believe he got it from the parent comment to which he responded.
RTF...C?
Here in the Great White North, we have a miraculous invention we like to call the "Yellow Pages" (not to be confused with yellow snow, which you shouldn't involve yourself with). Listed in these "Yellow Pages" are reams of businesses and services such as, oh, I don't know, lawyers! Not only are there lawyers but there are legal advice companies who (wait! Somebody stop me!) specialize in (ohhh, this is too much!) LEGAL ADVICE!
I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but it seems to me that the "Pentium 4" / "Pentium IV" has been out for quite some time now, n'est pas?