These are all really good indicators of trouble. You really hit the nail on the head here. I have been through this several times myself. Another indicator that I've seen is when a company starts selling off longer term type assets (land, buildings, etc.)
Right. For people just starting a music collection, perhaps subscription is better, but I have a large collection and as I get older, I find that I buy less and less new music. So, I think subscription would be a very bad model for me.
Besides, he said, it would be dangerous to have a weapon-toting robot that could open fire on its own. ''You need to have a man in the loop," he said.
The article says that the robot would not return fire, it would just pinpoint where the shooting is coming from. So, why does it need to be a robot exactly? Why wouldn't it just be a comptuer with some cameras and microphones?
One idea is that our soldiers could have a chip in their dogtags that the robot could identify so as to not shoot at them. Then you would have the problem of the enemy stealing people's dog tags, but maybe you could deactivate that code once you knew the enemy had the tag.
How long til someone figures out how to mod the hardware to prevent the disc from being destroyed?
Couldn't they have just done the same thing using CD-RW and having the player write zeros over the disc as it plays? Or did I just guess how this works?
the Soviet Union (the only actual geostrategic threat the United States has ever faced)
I disagree with this part of your statement. I think the British in the early 1800s clearly qualified as a "geostrategic threat". I also think Spain did too when we were at war with them. (Spain was a big traditional European power who had colonies all over the world. The US was not yet an international power.)
such as curbing Soviet expansionism (see the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Did the Soviets not take over Afghanistan anyway?
The U.S. chose to defeat the USSR and drop Taiwan, because the potential for the two bloc system to turn into a "hot war" and destroy the world was of greater concern than the legal status of Taiwan's sovereignty under international law.
We should have never allowed the nationalist chinese to lose the chinese civil war in the first place. In the second place, being a fair whether aly of countries like Taiwan is the root cause of many of the credibility problems the US has.
If they do not want to deal with Apple, Microsoft is their only viable alternative. And frankly, even with all of Apple's success, there are a lot of people waiting for Microsoft to take over music. Imagine this scenario:
1. Microsoft creates an iTunes knock off application with a subscription based music store embedded in it. 2. They bundle it on every PC, pre-loaded. You can't start up the PC without having to at least be asked about setting up a music subscription. 3. The subscription price gives you access to some huge amount of music - perhaps all RIAA songs past, present, and future for $20/month. 4. These songs are all DRM managed in WMV format and play on any "Plays for Sure" device. 5. Micorosft has default links in their app or browser taking you to retail ourlets that sell "Plays for Sure" devices. They make sure they cover cars, stereo components, and also portable players & phones. In fact, you can setup your music library in MSTunes and hot sync it wirelessly to your car stereo. 6. Perhaps they get Creative to offer a "trade-in your iPod" program.
Wal-mart was, and is, not a national or regional monopoly
No, but they are a local monopoly in many of the places they operate. If you've lived in small towns, you've probably seen their influence. I lived in a town where there was literally no other place to shop for most items. I saw them come to town, take over the building that had previously had a Gibson's in it, then a few years later they built a new store. A few years later built an even bigger new store that had groceries in it. When they were all done, they were the only grocer in town except for one small store in an area of town that had lots of elderly people in it who couldn't drive to Wal-mart. BR When I lived there, my shopping chocies were Wal-Mart, drive 2 hours to get to a major city, or do without.
That's kind of a dumb model - you want it the other way around. You want the thing they buy once to be a loss leader, but the thing they keep paying for to make you money...
That's a very good point. I thought that communism in Cuba would have ended when the Soviet block collapsed, but I was wrong. I still predict that communism in Cuba is unlikely to outlive Castro by very much. We'll see.
OTOH, Cuba is not on the road to becoming a global superpower and the blockade of trade with Cuba has meant that in the long run communism is probably doomed there.
that our country decided to hang the Taiwanese out to dry by engaging with China. Taiwan should be our real aly and we shouldn't be trading with China at all. If we had pursued that policy, I think that the PRC goverment would have fallen when the rest of the communist block fell and China would be free by now.
I suggest you read some books on economics. The "capitalist system" was based on observing what works and what does not work and then creating a "system" around the ideas that seem to work which resulted in a very powerful economic system (Western Capitalist countries). Communism was based on pure wishful thinking.
The basic difference between the two is that in a capitalist system, the government should be looking at how various monetary policies affect the economy and learning from mistakes. The reality is that is exactly what happens. The kind of problems we had in the 1930s were exaserbated by specific laws and monetary policies. The people that run the Treasury department and the Federal Reserve have skills and knowledge to do their job. They can descriminate between what works and what doesn't work. They have a basic philosophy of falsifiability. Meaning that if someone is shown to be a problem, they don't do that anymore. That's why you see the Fed raising interest rates to cool the economy and lowering them to heat it up. They can also control the money supply, etc.
We have other laws such as SEC regulations that try to prevent things that are not only unfair trading practices, but have been shown to be bad for the economy overall. Not that there aren't cases where people can abuse the law, but we try to prevent that from happening.
Under communism, the leaders doggedly pursued policies that did not work. If someone were to say that they did not work, they would be imprisoned or executed. It is that kind of thinking where you can't tell the truth that causes problems.
Liberal = Someone who supports money for pornographic art and manditory sensativity training. Conservative = Someone who wants borrow zillions of dollars for the military to invade random countries that have never attacked us. Moderate = Anyone who supports 15-55% of your political positions. Communist = A hyperbolic name to call liberals. Facist = A hyperbolic name to call conservatives. Reform Party = Freak show of paranoid crazies who say the right things, but foam at the mouth while gettting into and out of and back into the race. Christian = Someone who hates fags. Constituency = Lobbyists. Voting = Picking the lesser of two evils. Supreme Court = An unelected bunch of ideologues who make decisions tangentally affecting your life. FCC = An unelected bunch of ideologues who make decisions directly affecting your life. Terrorists = Muslims
I think that comparing western Atheists to Russian/Chinese communists is kind of a wated effort. While yes, the communists did not believe in a diety, they did have an unwavering belief in an economic system that essentially does not work and there is no scientific evidence that it could work.
I think having strong beliefs in things without any evidence to support such belief is probably, on the whole, bad for you.
Hitler was neither a Christian, nor an Atheist. He believed in Aryanism which is certainly not what Atheists believe - nor is it what Christians believe. His beliefs, the beliefs of the Nazi Party and the Thule Society were very strange and were certainly "religious" in the sense that they had no basis in scientific or historical fact.
I do not think his beliefs are relevent to arguments about Chrisitianity vs. Atheism.
violence depicted in the bible may be also encourage violence in readers
No, because very few Christians read the bible and among those who do, very few take it seriously. If you took it literally, you would not live very long as the teachings of the bible are not very realistic to live by.
That's exactly the point. The government props up the RIAA/MPAA with immoral laws. They don't make money by pleasing their customers, they make it by illegal collusion to prevent the competition from being able to get movies into theaters and records into shops. The reason they hate the internet is that it helps put independent artists on a level playing field.
Slashdot Mirror
Music videos? Does MTV even play them anymore?
Yeah, what's up with that? How is it Music Television when there are just shows on there?
These are all really good indicators of trouble. You really hit the nail on the head here. I have been through this several times myself. Another indicator that I've seen is when a company starts selling off longer term type assets (land, buildings, etc.)
Right. For people just starting a music collection, perhaps subscription is better, but I have a large collection and as I get older, I find that I buy less and less new music. So, I think subscription would be a very bad model for me.
Uh, it was a long time ago. Like maybe a year and a half.
What, pray tell, is the difference?
A robot has a motor?
The "r" in robot is at the beginning of the word, whereas it is at the end of computer.
"Robot" sounds more sophisticated?
It plays the same games as the GameBoy Advance? I bought a gameboy system, I think maybe the DS or something. The games on it really sucked.
Besides, he said, it would be dangerous to have a weapon-toting robot that could open fire on its own.
''You need to have a man in the loop," he said.
The article says that the robot would not return fire, it would just pinpoint where the shooting is coming from. So, why does it need to be a robot exactly? Why wouldn't it just be a comptuer with some cameras and microphones?
One idea is that our soldiers could have a chip in their dogtags that the robot could identify so as to not shoot at them. Then you would have the problem of the enemy stealing people's dog tags, but maybe you could deactivate that code once you knew the enemy had the tag.
How long til someone figures out how to mod the hardware to prevent the disc from being destroyed?
Couldn't they have just done the same thing using CD-RW and having the player write zeros over the disc as it plays? Or did I just guess how this works?
The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market.
Not to mention the fresh assault on our landfills that this disc format will make!
the Soviet Union (the only actual geostrategic threat the United States has ever faced)
I disagree with this part of your statement. I think the British in the early 1800s clearly qualified as a "geostrategic threat". I also think Spain did too when we were at war with them. (Spain was a big traditional European power who had colonies all over the world. The US was not yet an international power.)
such as curbing Soviet expansionism (see the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Did the Soviets not take over Afghanistan anyway?
The U.S. chose to defeat the USSR and drop Taiwan, because the potential for the two bloc system to turn into a "hot war" and destroy the world was of greater concern than the legal status of Taiwan's sovereignty under international law.
We should have never allowed the nationalist chinese to lose the chinese civil war in the first place. In the second place, being a fair whether aly of countries like Taiwan is the root cause of many of the credibility problems the US has.
If they do not want to deal with Apple, Microsoft is their only viable alternative. And frankly, even with all of Apple's success, there are a lot of people waiting for Microsoft to take over music. Imagine this scenario:
1. Microsoft creates an iTunes knock off application with a subscription based music store embedded in it.
2. They bundle it on every PC, pre-loaded. You can't start up the PC without having to at least be asked about setting up a music subscription.
3. The subscription price gives you access to some huge amount of music - perhaps all RIAA songs past, present, and future for $20/month.
4. These songs are all DRM managed in WMV format and play on any "Plays for Sure" device.
5. Micorosft has default links in their app or browser taking you to retail ourlets that sell "Plays for Sure" devices. They make sure they cover cars, stereo components, and also portable players & phones. In fact, you can setup your music library in MSTunes and hot sync it wirelessly to your car stereo.
6. Perhaps they get Creative to offer a "trade-in your iPod" program.
How long can Apple hold out against that?
Wal-mart was, and is, not a national or regional monopoly
No, but they are a local monopoly in many of the places they operate. If you've lived in small towns, you've probably seen their influence. I lived in a town where there was literally no other place to shop for most items. I saw them come to town, take over the building that had previously had a Gibson's in it, then a few years later they built a new store. A few years later built an even bigger new store that had groceries in it. When they were all done, they were the only grocer in town except for one small store in an area of town that had lots of elderly people in it who couldn't drive to Wal-mart.
BR
When I lived there, my shopping chocies were Wal-Mart, drive 2 hours to get to a major city, or do without.
That's kind of a dumb model - you want it the other way around. You want the thing they buy once to be a loss leader, but the thing they keep paying for to make you money...
Think Different.
That's a very good point. I thought that communism in Cuba would have ended when the Soviet block collapsed, but I was wrong. I still predict that communism in Cuba is unlikely to outlive Castro by very much. We'll see.
OTOH, Cuba is not on the road to becoming a global superpower and the blockade of trade with Cuba has meant that in the long run communism is probably doomed there.
that our country decided to hang the Taiwanese out to dry by engaging with China. Taiwan should be our real aly and we shouldn't be trading with China at all. If we had pursued that policy, I think that the PRC goverment would have fallen when the rest of the communist block fell and China would be free by now.
Thanks, Nixon (for nothing).
I suggest you read some books on economics. The "capitalist system" was based on observing what works and what does not work and then creating a "system" around the ideas that seem to work which resulted in a very powerful economic system (Western Capitalist countries). Communism was based on pure wishful thinking.
The basic difference between the two is that in a capitalist system, the government should be looking at how various monetary policies affect the economy and learning from mistakes. The reality is that is exactly what happens. The kind of problems we had in the 1930s were exaserbated by specific laws and monetary policies. The people that run the Treasury department and the Federal Reserve have skills and knowledge to do their job. They can descriminate between what works and what doesn't work. They have a basic philosophy of falsifiability. Meaning that if someone is shown to be a problem, they don't do that anymore. That's why you see the Fed raising interest rates to cool the economy and lowering them to heat it up. They can also control the money supply, etc.
We have other laws such as SEC regulations that try to prevent things that are not only unfair trading practices, but have been shown to be bad for the economy overall. Not that there aren't cases where people can abuse the law, but we try to prevent that from happening.
Under communism, the leaders doggedly pursued policies that did not work. If someone were to say that they did not work, they would be imprisoned or executed. It is that kind of thinking where you can't tell the truth that causes problems.
That's because any injury people received from DOS was self-inflicted.
Liberal = Someone who supports money for pornographic art and manditory sensativity training.
Conservative = Someone who wants borrow zillions of dollars for the military to invade random countries that have never attacked us.
Moderate = Anyone who supports 15-55% of your political positions.
Communist = A hyperbolic name to call liberals.
Facist = A hyperbolic name to call conservatives.
Reform Party = Freak show of paranoid crazies who say the right things, but foam at the mouth while gettting into and out of and back into the race.
Christian = Someone who hates fags.
Constituency = Lobbyists.
Voting = Picking the lesser of two evils.
Supreme Court = An unelected bunch of ideologues who make decisions tangentally affecting your life.
FCC = An unelected bunch of ideologues who make decisions directly affecting your life.
Terrorists = Muslims
if he wasn't Christian, the liberals would not have a problem with the guy
I suspect you are trolling. Regardless, all of the presidents we have had at least in the 20th/21st century have been Christians.
There was this guy you might remember who was President a while back called Jimmy Carter who was extremely liberal and a Christian.
I guess they aren't worried about Netscape anymore.
I think that comparing western Atheists to Russian/Chinese communists is kind of a wated effort. While yes, the communists did not believe in a diety, they did have an unwavering belief in an economic system that essentially does not work and there is no scientific evidence that it could work.
I think having strong beliefs in things without any evidence to support such belief is probably, on the whole, bad for you.
Hitler was neither a Christian, nor an Atheist. He believed in Aryanism which is certainly not what Atheists believe - nor is it what Christians believe. His beliefs, the beliefs of the Nazi Party and the Thule Society were very strange and were certainly "religious" in the sense that they had no basis in scientific or historical fact.
I do not think his beliefs are relevent to arguments about Chrisitianity vs. Atheism.
violence depicted in the bible may be also encourage violence in readers
No, because very few Christians read the bible and among those who do, very few take it seriously. If you took it literally, you would not live very long as the teachings of the bible are not very realistic to live by.
That's exactly the point. The government props up the RIAA/MPAA with immoral laws. They don't make money by pleasing their customers, they make it by illegal collusion to prevent the competition from being able to get movies into theaters and records into shops. The reason they hate the internet is that it helps put independent artists on a level playing field.
This is exactly the reason why you didn't see Motorola or Apple running ads about the Pentium bug. Glass houses, throwing stones, etc.