The solar constant - flux from the Sun - changes about a tenth of a percent over the solar cycle. Over the past 300 years, that's about the same order of magnitude as the total systematic change: about a tenth of a percent to a half a percent.
Yet you conveniently leave out the following sentences from your quote of the Wikipedia article.
There are no direct measurements of the longer-term variation and interpretations of proxy measures of variations differ. Solar variation has probably been the cause of some climate change, for example during the Maunder minimum.
Hmm...now why didn't you mention that little gem? Tell you what, let's just gloss over that and move on, forgetting that our historical knowledge of solar cycles is not even 30 years old, yet you're attempting to extrapolate data from the beginning of the industrial era.
Remind me again why you think this is so preposterous? We've raised the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide on this planet by 35%. Thirty-five percent! Yah. I think that might outdo a 0.1 to 0.5% increase in the solar constant.
In order to bear out your "35%" figure, you'd need to first state what the starting point was. Has it increased 35% since yesterday? Last year? A decade ago? 200 million years? This statement is so lacking in any substance that I'm inclined to disregard it completely. However, you must've gotten the figure from somewhere (hopefully not your nether regions) so I'm going to give you this opportunity to state where you came by the figure and what time period you're referring to.
However, in the meantime, let's cut to the chase a bit and see if this helps you any: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1 .html. I'd consider the DoE a fairly reliable resource. According to it, global CO2 concentrations increased from about 270 ppmv to about 320ppmv between 1750 and 1950, with a sharp rise after that. This is clearly the impact of fossil fuel burning. Seems like a locked-up case for the "climate change" argument, then, doesn't it? But the end of the report says this:
Given the natural variability of the Earth's climate, it is difficult to determine the extent of change that humans cause. In computer-based models, rising concentrations of greenhouse gases generally produce an increase in the average temperature of the Earth. Rising temperatures may, in turn, produce changes in weather, sea levels, and land use patterns, commonly referred to as "climate change."...
... However, there is uncertainty in how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases. Making progress in reducing uncertainties in projections of future climate will require better awareness and understanding of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the behavior of the climate system.
So, the DoE says CO2 might be doing this, but then again it might not. It's quite clear we don't fully grasp the situation of what makes our climate tick. Will reducing CO2 emissions curb the warming trend? Nobody can say yes or no to this. Indeed, if you want to examine the fringes of either side of this argument, you'll find some people say we need some sort of global warming to occur to offset a larger, longer cooling cycle the earth is going through. I don't happen to buy this argument either, and for exactly the same reason: lack of damning evidence.
You're claiming the CO2 levels track with the temperature changes. But, during that same time period (1950-present), untold millions of men have also lost their hair due to balding. Clearly balding is the cause of global warming! Toupee's for everyone! Don't you see how silly it is to tie everything to one variable when in fact there are billions of variables here? You're starting with a preconceived notion (CO2 is causing warming) and backtracking through your (sparse) data to prove it.
Yes - there was massive global vulcanism over a long time period that caused huge heating via CO2 release. It was called the Permian extinction.
Actually, we don't know why there was such a massive CO2 outbreak. If you'd RTFA, you'd know that vulcanism could not account for it all. There is speculation it could have something to do with massive amounts of methane being released from the oceans. However, nobody really knows why it happened. You are included in that group, by the way.
The problem is that our CO2 emissions are affecting the atmosphere as if it was.
Really? Prove it! You're the one making the statements here, buddy. Back them up. Show me incontrivertible evidence that manmade CO2 emissions are causing similar effects and you'll win a Nobel prize. You won't, though, because you can't. Far greater minds than yours have worked on this problem and been unable to come to a consensus conclusion. You are not special, so quit acting like you've somehow got it all figured out.
65 million years ago, there was phenomenal explosion due to an asteroid impact. Nothing us humans could do now could get within a thousandth of that effect.
I'll stop the quoting right here and just comment that your "let's set off all our nukes" argument is both silly and poorly applied. You are arguing for a drastic economic change for the world, a change that will have amazingly harsh reprecussions everywhere that qualify as catastrophes all on their own. You have backed up this "call to action" with...nothing. No facts. No figures. Nothing that can be verified. You freely admit your knowledge of the earth's atmosphere is incomplete, yet you're simultaneously claiming to know it all to the point where you can specifically state man is making the planet dangerously warmer. Orwell would be proud of your ability to hold two contradictory premises in your head at once and yet not recognize the contradiction.
It's this simple: if you're going to argue for a big change, you need big evidence. You don't have it. Go find and then get back with me.
The point you seem to want to ignore that even though we can't do a huge amount, we need only do a little to shake up the climate a fraction to make life seriously difficult for a large proportion of humanity.
Really? Prove it! Note that I'd hardly qualify setting off every nuke on the planet as "a little shake up." Furthermore, if you'd bothered to read some of the earlier articles I've shown you, you'd have seen that global CO2 levels and temperature fluctuations haven't always been in sync. Sometimes temps have risen without CO2 increases, other times temps have dropped despite them. All this points to the fact that our models for understanding the climate are woefully inadequate. But don't let that stop you from feeling full of self-confidence in them.
Are you willing to risk a thousandth of that effect? A millionth?
Do you know how many people might die of starvation if, for example, internal combustion engines were outlawed? How many people will freeze to death if coal-fired power plants are shut down? Sure, it won't hurt developed nations that much (more in the pocketbook than anything else), but other nations would be devastated. You could kill hundreds of thousands -- perhaps even millions -- with such stuff as CO2 emission bans due to increased costs of transporting food.
As with any risk, a thorough analysis must be made to determine (a) if the risk is real and (b) what are the costs of mitigating it. (A) has not yet been proven in any way at all. We have models, assumptions, projections, guesses, and wild speculation...but no solid evidence that says, yes, indeed, we humans are hurting the planet in a way that is dangerous and potentially unrecoverable, and the only method to correct the situation is to drastically curb the use of fossil fuels. You keep nimbly attempting to sidestep this point, and I'm going to keep right on dragging you back to
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
Ahh...it's so nice to have current news that just illustrates the silliness of your argument. So, if you read here, you see that there was massive global warming 247 million years ago that caused a great deal of death planetwide. So, tell me about all those coal plants, SUV's, and other modern-day accoutrements that existed 'way back when that caused such hideous global warming 247 million years ago. I'm sure they'll dig up a Ford Explorer fossil anyday now. Or (gasp!) could it be that global warming has happened before -- and may be happening again -- all without any ounce of input from us puny humans? Nah, that'd just torpedo your entire argument, wouldn't it? Can't have that, so let's move along...move along...
While your average run-of-the-mill "I'm on the internet" environmentalist may not be aware of those factors, most of the current research is.
But all of this research assumes a correct model of the atmosphere, and scientists have no such thing. We have approximations, with millions of variables in the mix. How does the earth's cloud cover affect its albedo? What effects do warming have on cloud cover? What about ocean currents, the prime (terrestrial) driver of our atmosphere? What about the unexpected long and large increase in solar maxima during this latest cycle? How has the sun's output varied in the past vis-a-vis its current variations?
This is but a minor, insignificant, beyond miniscule sampling of the questions we have no answers for, and any one of them could complelely throw the entire global warming question out of whack. It could be we've already passed the point of no return on CO2. It could be we never will, that the earth will be self-correcting for whatever us puny humans can do to it. It could be we're doomed anyway because the warming has nothing to do with human activities. Nobody can prove a single one of these assumptions, however, and anyone who claims they can has an equal-but-opposite researcher who can take the exact same numbers and come up with a completely different conclusion. In short, we don't know enough to be making any pronouncements, especially ones that have far-reaching negative effects on economies -- and thus people's lives -- worldwide.
Now there's a vocal subset of the environmentalists who say we ought to curb CO2 anyway, just in case. Well, I don't have cancer right now, but maybe I just get on chemotherapy...just in case, you know. After all, just because it'll cause my hair to fall out, make me vomit constantly, and make me susceptible to all sorts of diseases and maladies doesn't mean it's not a good idea "just in case," right? This is the logic of the "just in case" argument, where the results of the "treatment" may actually be worse than the malady you're trying to cure. It's doubly stupid if there is no malady to cure, or if you're trying to cure the wrong one.
Look, there is no sane person on the planet that would be opposed to reducing CO2 emissions if it were proven beyond a doubt that it's going to kill us all. The fact that there are so many people and scientists against the concept is because nobody has come forth with such proof. Personally I'd be in favor of increased usage of nuclear power, but that's something the enviro-nuts have all but killed in the U.S. I can only assume they want us to go back to living in caves lit by firelight...except that fire is a CO2 emitter...hmmm...maybe they want us to just return to darkness and live in the trees again. Evolution at its finest, I see.
Funny, because you're completely (and purposefully) ignoring it.
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
Oh no no no sir...you've got it all wrong here. You see, it is you who is propounding the idea that we need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to curb climate change, not I. I am saying there is not enough data to make such a conclusion. The burden of proof is on you, dear sir, to provide unquestionable, unassailable, irrefutable evidence backed by broad, overwhelming, near-total scientific consensus that there is a need to reduce CO2 emissions as you advocate. When you provide it, I will promptly, fully, and without reservation endorse the concept of reducing CO2 emissions. Until then, you're spouting poppycock with no proof. You, like thousands of others, are guessing about the cause. If you're going to advocate such sweeping ideas like banning or significantly curbing CO2 worldwide -- and the associated negative effects that could cause global economic catastrophe, especially for developing nations who are huge CO2 polluters -- you'd better have mighty good evidence supporting your position. You don't, and neither does anyone else.
Prove it. You claim it is a lie - then please provide numbers of papers for and against.
If you weren't so blind to things around you (or living in an echo chamber) you'd be aware there are vastly differing opinions on global warming/climate change/whatever. Since you've obviously been content to arrive at your predetermined conclusion, I have no doubt you haven't bothered to research anything that disagrees with said conclusion. However, I'll do you the service of puncturing your self-insulated little bubble with the results of a quick Google search:
This is just a quick sample of the 3,940,000 hits I got searching for global warming facts and myths. Seeing as how you're utterly unaware of nearly 3.5 million websites devoted the concept of disagreement over global warming/climate change/whatever, I can only conclude that you're either too stupid to search for it, too apathetic to care, or too biased to risk exposing yourself to contrary opinions. I'll be generous and say it's the latter, but you feel free to give me reason to change that assumption.
Of course they don't! The sun is warming up very slowly over a period of hundreds of millions of years.
Perhaps you are unaware of the concept of solar maxima and minima. As it just so happens, we're in the middle of an unusually long warming period for old Sol. But please, don't let facts like that distract you from your logic-lite argument.
Yes, because it is pretty constant.
No, it's not. See prior comment.
Of course I haven't! Periodic fluctuations in solar intensity are common and - guess what? They have of course been taken into account! And guess what else? They don't account for anything like the warming that has been taking place.
And I'm so glad you're the one and only person on the planet that's been charged with the responsiblity of making this conclusion. No doubt the thousands of other climatologists who diagree with you are wrong, despite their years of experience and walls full of degrees. You, sir, know it all and have all the answers. I'm sure you sleep well at night knowing that.
Now, on a more serious note, did you know there's a lot of grants out there for folks willing to study global warming/climate-change/whatever? But did you know that lots of these grants are coming from people that want the end results to be human-caused climate change (alternative energy crowds, anti-capitalists, etc.)? Many prominent climatologists that don't agree with the it's-all-caused-by-humans crowd have bemoaned that many of their peers are snapping up such tainted grants simply because it gets them more grant money. It's like Microsoft funding a study on Windows vs. Linux security. Would you trust the results if it said Microsoft was better?
The facts of the matter are this: for every it's-all-human global warming proponent there's also another equally-qualified opponent who can make a scientific argument to the contrary. The claim that there is "scientific consensus" supporting manmade climate change is the biggest lie there is right now. The biosphere of our planet is an amazingly complex system that we don't even begin to understand. To claim we know it all and can thus say that this caused that is the height of arrogance and hubris.
Yet the "environmentalist" crowd consistently ignore this fact when saying global warming/climate change/whatever-we're-calling-it-this-week is caused my humans...or to be more specific, it's caused by those evil, capitalistic Americans who are the enemies of the neo-Socialist movement that has emerged from what used to be a credible crowd of tree-huggers.
No; it is realistic and correct. We have already had a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere in terms of CO2 concentration - the main source of warming.
So a billion or so of us pitiful human beings in our SUV's are having more impact on this planet than a thermonuclear furnace with the mass of 1.3 million earths outputting 2.8 x 10^26 Watts a meere eight light-minutes away? A furnace you admit is growing warmer? Pardon me if I guffaw lightly in your direction. While CO2 may be a greenhouse gas, and we may be adding it to our atmosphere, to say that we are the sole cause of this when the sun is heating up at the same time smacks of blinders on your part. You appear to have completely disregarded the possibility that the Earth may be heating up largely or solely because of the increased solar output. If so, we could do all the CO2 reductions we want -- wrecking billions of dollars worth of industry, putting millions out of work globally, both possibly causing mass starvation, privation, and so forth -- and it wouldn't help a bit. Yet you're all too willing to scream at the top of your lungs "we don't fully understand what's going on, but by God we're going to find some way to penalize those capitalists for their energy greed!"
And environmentalists wonder why they're frequently branded as wackos.
But paying too little virtually guarantees that they will be worse.
I doubt that. Being a theater usher isn't exactly a booming career path these days. It attracts talent that would otherwise be saying "would you like fries with that?" If you've ever run a business, you know that (a) it's not possible to make these jobs high paying and (b) the quality you can afford is so low already that there's little to be lost by paying minimum wage.
If people would stop buying that crap (what, you can't go 2 hours without eating something?), then prices would come down.
No, a lot of other things would happen first. If people quit paying to go to the movies, the first thing that would happen is that all the indepedent theater chains would go out of business. If the trend continued, the small- and medium-sized chains would go out. If it kept on, the major chains would start to fold. Then -- and only then -- would it start to radically affect Hollywood to the point where it might get the message. A lot of people -- thousands nationwide -- would get hurt long before Hollywood ever started getting remotely discomfitted.
The theaters can't control the quality of the movies, but they do control what movies get how many screens for how long. Much of this is decided by popularity, so not going to bad movies would be a step in the right direction ("If the movie stinks, just don't go!"). However, the theaters sometimes do things that defy all profit - take Serenity for example. Theaters started dropping Serenity after two or three weeks, when it was making more money per screen than many movies with many more screens.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but most of the showings I've been to lately wouldn't have been affected by removing half of the seats. Except for something like Harry Potter on opening weekend, do theaters ever fill up?
Those times when the house is packed are the only times when the theater gets significantly ahead of the cost/profit curve. Seats can't be easily added and removed, meaning you have to design for your maximum capacity. Your point (that theaters rarely fill) is well taken, but the economics of the situation demand that theater owners pack their theater seats together like coach on an airline.
I would rather pay a slightly higher ticket price and not get ads beamed at me than pay for the advertising through product prices.
Then you are a significant minority. Most people would not rather pay higher prices, and theater chains that have tried this have seen people defect to other theaters. The ads are annoying to everyone, but the unwashed masses just don't seem to think it's annoying enough to pay an extra fifty cents or a dollar per ticket to get around them.
Advertising is a scam - who do you think pays for the ads? More ads equals more costs, more waste, and more annoyance.
The ads are paid for by the company advertising the product or service. You should've known that already. And obviously the company doing the advertising feels it's worthwhile because they're payin
No, you merely have the illusion of choice: Pepsi vs. Coke, Apple vs. Microsoft, Verizon vs. Sprint vs. T-Mobile, etc. In each case, big players collude to reduce real choice and keep real competitors out of the market. Often, that kind of collusion doesn't even require explicit communication: every one of the big players already knows what's in the best interest of the established players and acts accordingly.
[sigh] You can lead a Slashdotter to logic but you cannot make him think.
You're forgetting the one choice that no one can deny you, the one choice that is always yours to make: you can refuse to purchase the wares they are offering! Build a model airplane! Fly a kite! Play golf! Go for a walk! Collect butterflies! Use your goddam head as something other than a counterbalance for your torso! Have human beings such as you really degenerated so far as to be mere sheep? Are you unable to conceive of the fact that you are in charge of your life, that you make the choices? My God, your response has got to be the single most apathetic thing I've read all day long. Please, get a grip on your life and re-assert some control of your surroundings.
I mean this in all seriousness and not as a flame. If you're so far gone that you cannot grasp the concept of personal responsiblity, you need some serious help.
Your comment about the power of choice, unfortunately, is theoretically fine but practically irrelevant. The US consumer really doesn't have the power of choice.
Not true. Until Congress passes a law forcing me to buy X number of movies and CD's every month, I have the right to refuse to purchase entertainment. There! That wasn't so hard, was it? You're acting like entertainment is something as essential as air, water, food, or clothing. It isn't. I can entertain myself by taking a walk, playing with my kids outside, or any number of ways that don't involve me paying someone else. If you're trying to spin this as some Western lack of freedom, you're barking up the wrong tree. Also, your allusion to war and money is a bit specious.
This is because any given consumer has the power of choice, but consumers en masse do exactly what they're told.
Sheep get what sheep deserve, then. I will have no part of it if and when I choose to opt out. Until then, DRM isn't causing me any headaches at all. All my gear is current with HDCP from end to end. If things get too intrusive beyond just that, I'll simply take my ball and go elsewhere. If things get really annoying, consumers will do this en masse despite any marketing.
So in conculsion, it is about power, from the point of view that it is about money and money is power.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret that seems to have elluded you: power is not taken. Power is given. The media conglomerates have power (or money if you choose to use the terms interchangeably) because consumers give them money (aka "power"). Consumers can, if they so choose, vote with their wallets and put the conglomerates in their place.
Movement of this type is already being observed in the form of lower CD sales and lower box-office receipts. True, there's no widespread revolt, but that's because, to most people, copying a DVD isn't something they even care about doing. Rip it to a PC? Give me a break. Outside of the tech community, nobody gives a damn about that. The new DRM will, if anything, give legal owners more legal rights to make personal copies. I'd prefer no DRM at all, of course, but when faced with DVD's which have no legal means of copying and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DRM which allows personal copies, it's quite clear the latter is better than the former.
They do force people to buy their products. They simply make sure that the competition doesn't exist. And that is the why they need power.
So, who comes to your door with a gun and forces you to buy a DVD or get shot in the head?
Oh, you mean that doesn't happen? Then that must mean -- gasp! -- you choose to buy what they're selling. There, now...that wasn't so hard, was it? Thinking comes naturally after you do it for a while.
Seriously, though, competition has nothing to do with this. Entertainment is an optional part of life. You can live without it, hence my statement that the entertainment industry needs us more than we need it. If consumers boycotted everything tomorrow, the entire industry would collapse in a month. Yet if you went a month without buying a movie, going to the theater, or buying a CD, would you die of it?
You have the power of choice. Quit acting like someone else is forcing your hand and own up to the responsiblity of living.
I used to work at a theatre. The cokes and popcorn don't hardly cost anything, so I don't know what the problem is there.
Does the popcorn pop itself? Does it serve itself? Do the cash registers magically run themselves? The cost of the goods here is insignificant compared the overhead of serving it. The biggest portion of the concessions revenue goes to pay for employee overhead (i.e. salaries or hourly wages), not for the goods themselves.
But more to the point, they sell literal tons of that crap every night.
Yet theaters are not raking in millions of dollars in profit every evening. Ever stop to think about that? Ever wonder where all your ticket and concession revenues go? It can assure you it doesn't go into the theater manager's pocket. Rent, utilities, taxes, ongoing maintenance, licenses, film costs (the biggie), employee pay...all of that stuff has to be paid for before a single dime of profit is made.
Your thinking seems to have stopped at the point where you determined (a) the concession raw materials are cheap therefore (b) the inflated prices must mean theaters are rolling in dough. If this is the depth of your understanding of economics, you must be the product of a public school somewhere. I'm not blaming you for ignorance here; clearly you haven't been taught or exposed to basic economic theories of revenue, costs, and profit. That's depressingly common these days.
And ushers don't get paid squat. To up their pay would barely be a spit in the bucket.
You've obviously never run a theater, I see. But, allow me to acquaint you with a simple-yet-overlooked concept: if you're entire profit/loss hinges on a razor-thin margin, any increase in cost looms large. Dell, for example, may pay $40 for a motherboard in one of its workstations. If the vendor wanted Dell to pay $41 instead, that would "barely a spit in the bucket," right? Yet if Dell had to put a million of those motherboards in a million systems, Dell's costs have suddenly increased by $1 million. Think about that.
It's not the actual dollar amounts that count here, it's the margins. Theaters are extremely low-margin operations. The studios have made it so.
As for digital equipment, that's really Hollywood's problem. If they want the shows to go on, they should themselves pony up (or maybe cut a loan) to equip their distributors with the equipment required to move their product.
I agree. However, Hollywood has the trump card here in the fact that they can force the theaters to pretty much do whatever they want. No movies == theaters go out of business. This would hurt the studios as well, of course, but the theaters don't care about that; all they care about is not going out of business themselves.
Filmed entertainment is a narrow vertical market, frankly, and the money should move in both directions. Otherwise the whole hype-boom-DVD cycle of the theatre releases will be broken and filmmakers will be reduced to hawking their wares in a digitally flat marketplace.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Please clarify.
Finally to add to the parent poster, theatre owners should be shutting up loud patrons and kicking them out on the street without a refund to make the experience more pleasant for those of us who aren't immature assholes. I don't mind going to a kid's movie from time to time, but anything serious that requires my attention needs to be in a setting where I can pay attention. Otherwise, I'll just rent the DVD and watch it with noise-canceling headphones from my comfy chair.
As I stated in my prior post, I agree with this. However, when you've got a high-def screen at home that's measured in feet, not inches, you really have to think long and hard whether it's worth getting the family in the car, driving somewhere, dealing with lines, crowds, etc. We haven't darkened the door of a theater in quite some time (Batman Begins was the last one, I think), and I doubt that's going to change in the near future.
1. Pay the workers more than min wage. That way they're be cheerful and friendly to me.
Despite the popular misconception, theaters are not cash cows flush with funds. Paying people more is a good way to drastically increase overhead, which means you need higher ticket prices, higher concession prices, more ads before the movie, or some combination of all three.
Furthermore, paying someone more does not automatically mean they'll be better employees. If you doubt that, just compare a union worker with his or her non-union counterpart. The union workers usually have comfy union-negotiated salaries or hourly rates with generous benefits, shorter hours, longer breaks, and more vacation time. They also are generally less productive and more surly than non-union employees. I understand there are exceptions to every rule, but as a general rule, union employees make more and do less than non-union.
2. Don't make me pay insane prices for food/drink.
And why do you think things are so expensive? Because the theater owner has to pay for his fleet of Ferrari's in his garage? See comment #1, specifically the part about theaters not being big moneymakers to begin with. The theater essentially makes all its money off concessions. Ticket prices barely cover costs. No profit == theater closes down. Theaters cannot be run on welfare.
3. Start to use digital projectors. (Make the experience better with better looking films.)
Have you priced any of these things? Digital projectors for theaters can cost well into the six figures. Who's going to pay for all that? The theater owner who's barely covering costs already (and doing that by charging high prices for concessions, remember)? Not hardly. He's doing all he can not to go under ever time he shows a flop. The big chains are hurt quite a bit by this, but the little chains are being absolutely murdered by studio requirements for sound and picture upgrades that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per theater room. For a 24 screen megaplex you could be talking a few million dollars to upgrade the whole theater. Do you have any idea how many $5 cokes and $8 bags of popcorn you'd have to sell to recoup such a cost?
4. Show better films. (Talk to your friends in Hollywood, tell them to spend less of their budgets on marketing and more on the script.)
No argument there, but that's hardly something controllable by the theater owners.
5. Move the seats further apart. Make it a comfortable experience.
So you can fit fewer people into a theater, which means less revenue per showing, which means losses increase, which means either (a) higher ticket prices, (b) higher concession prices, (c) a combination of A and B, or (d) the theater goes out of business. There isn't some magical money tree growing in the theater manager's office, you know.
6. Fewer commericals. (More trailers instead.)
Which, again, reduces revenue. Are you willing to pay higher prices to get fewer ads? I'd bet not.
Look, I have a monster home theater setup. I rarely go to theaters anymore precisely because of the issues you cite above. However, I'm not naive enough to think all this is the fault of the theater owner. The majority of the issue sits with the studios requiring amazingly high fees for showing the movie, forcing the theater chains to charge what they do and show as many ads as they do just to cover costs and eek out a meager profit. The studios do this because they have to finance the next US$200 million Hollywood flop and pay the lead actor's US$100 million salary (see Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, etc.)
Blaming the theater for your above items is about as stupid as blaming the gas station for high gas prices. Or did you not know the average gas station makes about a 2-3 cent profit per gallon, nothing more? Like gas stations, theaters are at the end of a long chain of costs, trying to sell a product to you at a reasonable cost that allows them to stay in business and make a small amount of profit. Judge them a little less harshly in light of this if you don't mind.
It ain't about stopping ``piracy.'' Not even in the slightest. It's all about control, and the power that goes with it.
I cannot believe that. Power for power's sake? Why? You seem to think these guys are a kind of evil overlord trying to keep the peons in their place. That's about the silliest possible motivation there could be because it flies in the face of reality.
NO, what motivates these guys is money, pure and simple (not that there's anything wrong with that since I'm an ardent capitalist). They want to do whatever they can to make as much money as the can for as little cost as they can. Following that logic, we find that if something costs them money or reduces the amount of money they can make, they'll be against it. But here's what you fail to realize: the customer is in the driver's seat here, not the media moguls.
If DRM is too intrusive or obnoxious, consumers won't buy into it, especially since DVD's are already here and "good enough" for most folks. If the industry starts getting heavy handed with ICT, consumers can and quite likely will revolt. Then, faced with the prospect of losing money, the industry will capitulate. They need our dollars (or pounds, or Euros, or whatever) far more than we need them. Deep down, they know that. The problem is that most consumers don't know it yet. But if pushed, they will discover it quite fast.
It's not about power, it's about money. No matter what the media moguls do, the one thing they cannot do is force us to buy their products. We have the power of choice, they do not.
Copyright law was started so that content producers would have a limited time to recoup their cost before it became available for all to enjoy (a balance between the copyright holder and the general public ). In other words an incentive to develop public domain works.
Please find in my OP any possible statement that conflicts with what you just said. Oh, you can't, can you? You see, I don't disagree with what you say. I merely point out that, like most pro-social-benefit debaters, you forget that the creator of a copyrighted thing ought to have the opportunity to be recompensated or -- heaven forbid! -- profit from his or her creation. Social good be damned, people make new things because they want to make money from them. Altruism is really nice and all that but it rarely puts food on the table.
Let say I wanted to rip to a media server but it is not supported by the DRM. What then?
Are you really so shallow minded as to be unable to come up with a solution to this problem? Here, let me agitate your neurons a bit: if you don't like the DRM of a particular format, boycott the format! Encourage others to boycott it! If enough people show their displeasure, the media companies will have no choice but to respect the wishes of the consumer. But sitting around and bitching about how you want all things to be all your way all the time is kind of lazy and stupid. This is not Burger King. If you don't like that, go somewhere else. If there is nowhere else to go to get what you want, create it yourself. If others share your sentiments, millions would flock to your new business. Quit griping and do something constructive to change the equation.
This statement is incorrect, insofar as it applies to Western concepts of copyright.
No, it's not, as you're about to see based upon the very words I'm quoting from you.
Copyright law is there to ensure a flow from creative authors into the general culture of arts and science of a population. A culture which does not have a rich shared commons of cultural works will rot and die.
And who creates those ideas? Dust bunnies? The ideas and innovation comes from creators, and those creators are being protected by copyright law so that they can reap the benefits of their research, work, or whatever. Without such protections there would be little incentive to create, which would lead to your "rot and die" scenario.
Of course you have a right to it. The right to quote, excerpt, review, criticise, parody are enshrined (if you are a US citizen) in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. I can't stop you saying something because I said it first.
Very true. However, you are citing only a few cases that are allowed (relatively speaking) without restriction. You could not, for example, copy a book I had written word for word and sell it. In fact, there are cases where even speaking words that are trademarked or copyrighted by someone else can get you in hot water. If you need evidence of this, look up cases involve Michael Buffer (the "let's get ready to rumble!" guy at boxing matches) where other entertainers have utter "his" famous words and shortly thereafter were sued for it. This is, I admit, an extreme case, but it is useful to illustrate the extremes when discussing just how far this kind of law goes. Note that I didn't say I agreed with these kinds of sweeping powers, I'm merely stating that case law exists which supports it.
Fair Use is what stops copyright becoming censorship. Can you imagine not being able to quote people like Martin Luther King, or John F Kennedy, in print, online, or whatever? I choose the examples deliberately, since the King estate in particular is quite hot on ensuring that Dr Kings full speeches are paid for.
And you have a problem with this...why? If Dr. King's estate wishes to make his speeches expensive property to make use of, that is their right. It is also your right as a consumer to refuse to use such material. Free market forces define the value of anything, even speeches. If Dr. King's family prices the speech too high, it won't sell, therefore they -- like movie and music moguls -- have a vested interest in pricing it for the market. This is not censorship, it is capitalism. Now you can argue that someone could make the price ridiculously high to create censorship in the guise of capitalism, but one needn't go through that kind of trouble to censor. If I want to prevent anyone from seeing or using a copyrighted work, I merely withdraw it and prosecute those who try to violate the withdrawal.
Should visually impaired people not be allowed to enjoy books because suitable media were thought to be of insufficient economic value to the original producer?
Find me the clause in the Constitution that guarantees blind people the right to force publishers to publish Braille versions of all books and articles, even though the expense of doing so is so great that the publisher will very likely be unable to recoup the costs. If you can find that clause, I'll happily support your point of view.
Happiness is something you have the right to pursue. You do not, however, have a guaranteed right to obtain it. Remember that next time.
What you describe here is more properly covered under patent law, not copyright law. You cannot copyright a drug.
It was a poor analogy, I admit. However, it shouldn't take much brain power on your part to understand that the principle I was discussing applies to books, movies, and music. If it requires great effort to create something but little effort to duplicate it, copyright law is
Bragging about owning equipment that has HDMI jacks is meaningless unless all of the equipment in the chain of a proper home theater (display, output device, receiver, deinterlacer, upscaler, whatever) are HDCP-compliant. If you can do that, consider yourself very lucky.
Then color me lucky because I spent the extra dough to get a receiver that supports HDMI/HDCP switching. The full chain of my equipment is HDCP-capable all the way through. Then again, no piece of gear in the chain is older than six months, so I can understand why you feel this is the exception, not the rule.
I have nothing against ads, just annoying ones. Ads are what makes the net go round.
Hence Adblock Plus's ability to whitelist sites/ads that you don't mind supporting. I've got most of my usual haunts that don't have annoying ads whitelisted. They have earned my support.
This is truly the reason why I gave up IE and went whole-hog to Firefox. This plugin can be coupled with another, Filterset.G (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph p?id=1136), to get automatic updates of add blocklists. It also supports whitelisting, something the stock Adblock does not. It also blocks flash ads.
With Adblock Plus and Filterset.G, it's a rare page that I have to view that has any ads on it at all. And it's as easy as loading two plugings. These are the first two things I put into Firefox when I load it.
Flashblock is great but it only blocks Flash. Adblock Plus does that one better by blocking Flash ads and not other bits of Flash. Highly recommended.
Copyright is a law of Balance between the Copyright Holder and the consumer.
I believe it is you who is being shortsighted here. Copyright law exists to protect and benefit the copyright holder, nobody else. The purpose of a copyright is to allow the inventor, creator, or producer of a thing (be it tangible or intangible) a means by which he or she can recover any costs incurred during the creative process. For example, a drug company can spend a billion dollars researching a cure for a particular disease. If a competing drug company could then immediately copy that formula the day it's released, it could sell it much cheaper than the creator due to not having to have done any R&D. The creating company would go bankrupt immediately...except for the fact that no company would bother creating anything so expensive in the first place because there is no way to recoup development costs.
Movies cost tens -- sometimes hundreds -- of millions of dollars to create. No movie studio would ever produce a $300+ million epic like Lord of the Rings if it knew it would be copied and freely distributed the instant it was released. Now, in a perfect world where everyone could be trusted to never give away such content for free, there'd be no need for DRM. However, since there's a vocal group of nutcases who insist on thinking they have some free "right" to the fruits of other's labor without compensating them for it, we get crap like CSS and DRM. Gee, thanks Mr. Pirate. We're all so grateful.
Part of that balance allows Fair Use.
Go read up on copyright law a bit and try to define the term "Fair Use." It's all well and good to throw the term around here like everyone knows what it means, but in truth the term is completely nebulous. It is completely open to interpretation, as is proven by the amazingly broad number of decisions made on it over the years.
Do I want Fair Use? Sure I do. Do I have a right to it? No, I do not.
The copyright holder then decides they only want to collect the cash, and not allow the fair use.
The copyright holder has that right, as it is intrisic to being the copyright holder. It doesn't matter one iota how you want it, it only matters how the copyright holder wants it. If you disagree with the copyright holder, you can exercise your right to not purchase the damned thing. Purchasing something like a DVD is the legal equivalent to accepting a contract of use as defined by the copyright holder, and this has been proven in court. You, on the other hand, want to win both sides of the argument: you want to be able to have the copyrighted works but not be bound by the terms of the copyright. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. In this respect you are no different from the copyright holder you claim to despise.
If the media companies don't put the balance back in copyright, the consumers will do it for them, and failing that *eventually* the courts will.
It is highly doubtful the courts will do any such thing. There is too much existing case law in favor of the copyright holder. It's what is referred to as "good law" in the sense that there's case built on case built on case backing up the decision. Overturning that is a rare thing.
You are right about one thing in this whole argument though: reform will come via consumers. Through piracy? No! That will simply give the RIAA/MPAA more and more legal ammunition to get new laws passed for more intrusive and obnoxious restrictions -- and make no mistake they will get it because piracy is both illegal and immoral, two things no elected official will ever endorse. What will work however is a boycott of some sort. Then, when the movie and music moguls complain about sagging sales, they won't be able to say "but it's not because we produce crappy products encumbered with noxious copy protection, it's because of piracy!" Pirates never understand this, of course, which is why we keep ge
Look, the whole DRM issue has been beaten to death on/. more than once, and the discussion almost always focuses on the negatives: downconverting from HD to SD resolution for non-HDMI-compliant devices, inability to make totally unencumbered copies, etc. All of these are at least somewhat valid complaints. I'm would be particularly irritated if I had purchased a non-HDMI big screen set or projector about a year ago only to find out I can't watch pre-recorded HD stuff on it. Good thing I don't have any of that gear; all my stuff (incl. the 72" widescreen) has HDMI.
But let's not lose sight of some of one of the biggest positives of the new DRM. For one thing, it will let you do something you cannot legally do now, namely making a copy of your disc. Limited copying is allowed by the new DRM, and you don't need any (illegal) program like DeCSS to do it. There's been no disclosure exactly how liberal the copying will be, but since it's currently impossible to copy today's DVD's without running afoul of the DMCA, anything is an improvement. Sure, it's not as good as a totally unencumbered copy, but we can thank pirates for the lack of this.
I'm quite sure the DRM will be cracked at some point, and I'll be more than happy when that happens (not because I want to pirate movies but because I want the maximum amount of flexibility in viewing the movie). However, such cracks will only see use by hackers, not the general public. The fact that this DRM will allow non-technical people to make backups of their movies is a step forwards, not backwards.
From the case you describe it doesn't sound like your machine is hung. Instead it sounds like either it's taking a long time to get the data or it's timing out in some fashion. Again, Windows will give you the appearance that it's hanging because EXPLORER.EXE (which runs the GUI, File Explorer, and a whole lot of other things I wish it didn't) gets hung up. Restarting EXPLORER.EXE will work in some circumstances, but it has some nasty side effects (task tray items are killed, for example).
Actually pulling up taskmanager.exe by way of Ctrl-Alt-Delete will allow you to start a command shell.
While this is true, it's almost impossible to recover the GUI using this method. At best you can get the box to shut down gracefully for a restart. What would be really nice is if MS would provide a method to re-launch the GUI after it's crashed. Then we'd really have Windows more or less on equal footing with *nix/XWindows at least from a crash recovery perspective.
The problem with MS's version was that the whole freaking system crashed if IE crashed.
This isn't entirely correct. EXPLORER.EXE, which is tied in with IE and is largely responsible for the GUI, can be crashed by IE. This mucks up the GUI to the point where the system is apparently hung. However, the NTOSKRNL.EXE almost never gets faulted by these kinds of crashes and, in reality, continues to run even though the interface is completely hosed. This is analogous to crashing XWindows in Unix in the sense that X can be completely hung but system processes underneath it continue to function normally. The difference is that a Ctrl-Alt-Bksp will kill X and give you a command prompt, whereas Windows has no such option. There has been talk in the past of Microsoft releasing a command-line version of Windows Server (i.e. the GUI is optional), but AFAIK, that's just been talk with no real action.
Note that crashes that do fully lock up a Windows box are almost always caused by faulty drivers, usually video drivers because these run in kernel space. Linux is just as susceptible to faulty drivers as Windows is. I've had a number of servers up and croak with a KERNEL PANIC because of a faulty RAID driver. Dodgy hardware, poor cooling, overclocking, etc. also locks up boxes but this isn't a Windows-only phenomenon by any means.
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Yet you conveniently leave out the following sentences from your quote of the Wikipedia article.
Hmm...now why didn't you mention that little gem? Tell you what, let's just gloss over that and move on, forgetting that our historical knowledge of solar cycles is not even 30 years old, yet you're attempting to extrapolate data from the beginning of the industrial era.
Remind me again why you think this is so preposterous? We've raised the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide on this planet by 35%. Thirty-five percent! Yah. I think that might outdo a 0.1 to 0.5% increase in the solar constant.
In order to bear out your "35%" figure, you'd need to first state what the starting point was. Has it increased 35% since yesterday? Last year? A decade ago? 200 million years? This statement is so lacking in any substance that I'm inclined to disregard it completely. However, you must've gotten the figure from somewhere (hopefully not your nether regions) so I'm going to give you this opportunity to state where you came by the figure and what time period you're referring to.
However, in the meantime, let's cut to the chase a bit and see if this helps you any: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter
So, the DoE says CO2 might be doing this, but then again it might not. It's quite clear we don't fully grasp the situation of what makes our climate tick. Will reducing CO2 emissions curb the warming trend? Nobody can say yes or no to this. Indeed, if you want to examine the fringes of either side of this argument, you'll find some people say we need some sort of global warming to occur to offset a larger, longer cooling cycle the earth is going through. I don't happen to buy this argument either, and for exactly the same reason: lack of damning evidence.
You're claiming the CO2 levels track with the temperature changes. But, during that same time period (1950-present), untold millions of men have also lost their hair due to balding. Clearly balding is the cause of global warming! Toupee's for everyone! Don't you see how silly it is to tie everything to one variable when in fact there are billions of variables here? You're starting with a preconceived notion (CO2 is causing warming) and backtracking through your (sparse) data to prove it.
Yes - there was massive global vulcanism over a long time period that caused huge heating via CO2 release. It was called the Permian extinction.
Actually, we don't know why there was such a massive CO2 outbreak. If you'd RTFA, you'd know that vulcanism could not account for it all. There is speculation it could have something to do with massive amounts of methane being released from the oceans. However, nobody really knows why it happened. You are included in that group, by the way.
The problem is that our CO2 emissions are affecting the atmosphere as if it was.
Really? Prove it! You're the one making the statements here, buddy. Back them up. Show me incontrivertible evidence that manmade CO2 emissions are causing similar effects and you'll win a Nobel prize. You won't, though, because you can't. Far greater minds than yours have worked on this problem and been unable to come to a consensus conclusion. You are not special, so quit acting like you've somehow got it all figured out.
65 million years ago, there was phenomenal explosion due to an asteroid impact. Nothing us humans could do now could get within a thousandth of that effect.
I'll stop the quoting right here and just comment that your "let's set off all our nukes" argument is both silly and poorly applied. You are arguing for a drastic economic change for the world, a change that will have amazingly harsh reprecussions everywhere that qualify as catastrophes all on their own. You have backed up this "call to action" with...nothing. No facts. No figures. Nothing that can be verified. You freely admit your knowledge of the earth's atmosphere is incomplete, yet you're simultaneously claiming to know it all to the point where you can specifically state man is making the planet dangerously warmer. Orwell would be proud of your ability to hold two contradictory premises in your head at once and yet not recognize the contradiction.
It's this simple: if you're going to argue for a big change, you need big evidence. You don't have it. Go find and then get back with me.
The point you seem to want to ignore that even though we can't do a huge amount, we need only do a little to shake up the climate a fraction to make life seriously difficult for a large proportion of humanity.
Really? Prove it! Note that I'd hardly qualify setting off every nuke on the planet as "a little shake up." Furthermore, if you'd bothered to read some of the earlier articles I've shown you, you'd have seen that global CO2 levels and temperature fluctuations haven't always been in sync. Sometimes temps have risen without CO2 increases, other times temps have dropped despite them. All this points to the fact that our models for understanding the climate are woefully inadequate. But don't let that stop you from feeling full of self-confidence in them.
Are you willing to risk a thousandth of that effect? A millionth?
Do you know how many people might die of starvation if, for example, internal combustion engines were outlawed? How many people will freeze to death if coal-fired power plants are shut down? Sure, it won't hurt developed nations that much (more in the pocketbook than anything else), but other nations would be devastated. You could kill hundreds of thousands -- perhaps even millions -- with such stuff as CO2 emission bans due to increased costs of transporting food.
As with any risk, a thorough analysis must be made to determine (a) if the risk is real and (b) what are the costs of mitigating it. (A) has not yet been proven in any way at all. We have models, assumptions, projections, guesses, and wild speculation...but no solid evidence that says, yes, indeed, we humans are hurting the planet in a way that is dangerous and potentially unrecoverable, and the only method to correct the situation is to drastically curb the use of fossil fuels. You keep nimbly attempting to sidestep this point, and I'm going to keep right on dragging you back to
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
Ahh...it's so nice to have current news that just illustrates the silliness of your argument. So, if you read here, you see that there was massive global warming 247 million years ago that caused a great deal of death planetwide. So, tell me about all those coal plants, SUV's, and other modern-day accoutrements that existed 'way back when that caused such hideous global warming 247 million years ago. I'm sure they'll dig up a Ford Explorer fossil anyday now. Or (gasp!) could it be that global warming has happened before -- and may be happening again -- all without any ounce of input from us puny humans? Nah, that'd just torpedo your entire argument, wouldn't it? Can't have that, so let's move along...move along...
While your average run-of-the-mill "I'm on the internet" environmentalist may not be aware of those factors, most of the current research is.
But all of this research assumes a correct model of the atmosphere, and scientists have no such thing. We have approximations, with millions of variables in the mix. How does the earth's cloud cover affect its albedo? What effects do warming have on cloud cover? What about ocean currents, the prime (terrestrial) driver of our atmosphere? What about the unexpected long and large increase in solar maxima during this latest cycle? How has the sun's output varied in the past vis-a-vis its current variations?
This is but a minor, insignificant, beyond miniscule sampling of the questions we have no answers for, and any one of them could complelely throw the entire global warming question out of whack. It could be we've already passed the point of no return on CO2. It could be we never will, that the earth will be self-correcting for whatever us puny humans can do to it. It could be we're doomed anyway because the warming has nothing to do with human activities. Nobody can prove a single one of these assumptions, however, and anyone who claims they can has an equal-but-opposite researcher who can take the exact same numbers and come up with a completely different conclusion. In short, we don't know enough to be making any pronouncements, especially ones that have far-reaching negative effects on economies -- and thus people's lives -- worldwide.
Now there's a vocal subset of the environmentalists who say we ought to curb CO2 anyway, just in case. Well, I don't have cancer right now, but maybe I just get on chemotherapy...just in case, you know. After all, just because it'll cause my hair to fall out, make me vomit constantly, and make me susceptible to all sorts of diseases and maladies doesn't mean it's not a good idea "just in case," right? This is the logic of the "just in case" argument, where the results of the "treatment" may actually be worse than the malady you're trying to cure. It's doubly stupid if there is no malady to cure, or if you're trying to cure the wrong one.
Look, there is no sane person on the planet that would be opposed to reducing CO2 emissions if it were proven beyond a doubt that it's going to kill us all. The fact that there are so many people and scientists against the concept is because nobody has come forth with such proof. Personally I'd be in favor of increased usage of nuclear power, but that's something the enviro-nuts have all but killed in the U.S. I can only assume they want us to go back to living in caves lit by firelight...except that fire is a CO2 emitter...hmmm...maybe they want us to just return to darkness and live in the trees again. Evolution at its finest, I see.
I am fully aware of this.
Funny, because you're completely (and purposefully) ignoring it.
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
Oh no no no sir...you've got it all wrong here. You see, it is you who is propounding the idea that we need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to curb climate change, not I. I am saying there is not enough data to make such a conclusion. The burden of proof is on you, dear sir, to provide unquestionable, unassailable, irrefutable evidence backed by broad, overwhelming, near-total scientific consensus that there is a need to reduce CO2 emissions as you advocate. When you provide it, I will promptly, fully, and without reservation endorse the concept of reducing CO2 emissions. Until then, you're spouting poppycock with no proof. You, like thousands of others, are guessing about the cause. If you're going to advocate such sweeping ideas like banning or significantly curbing CO2 worldwide -- and the associated negative effects that could cause global economic catastrophe, especially for developing nations who are huge CO2 polluters -- you'd better have mighty good evidence supporting your position. You don't, and neither does anyone else.
Prove it. You claim it is a lie - then please provide numbers of papers for and against.
If you weren't so blind to things around you (or living in an echo chamber) you'd be aware there are vastly differing opinions on global warming/climate change/whatever. Since you've obviously been content to arrive at your predetermined conclusion, I have no doubt you haven't bothered to research anything that disagrees with said conclusion. However, I'll do you the service of puncturing your self-insulated little bubble with the results of a quick Google search:
Three Views on Global Warming
Research, and Life Experiences, Put Scientists at Odds
Science Has Spoken:
Global Warming Is a Myth
Myths of Global Warming
The global warming myth and its selfish defenders
This is just a quick sample of the 3,940,000 hits I got searching for global warming facts and myths. Seeing as how you're utterly unaware of nearly 3.5 million websites devoted the concept of disagreement over global warming/climate change/whatever, I can only conclude that you're either too stupid to search for it, too apathetic to care, or too biased to risk exposing yourself to contrary opinions. I'll be generous and say it's the latter, but you feel free to give me reason to change that assumption.
Of course they don't! The sun is warming up very slowly over a period of hundreds of millions of years.
Perhaps you are unaware of the concept of solar maxima and minima. As it just so happens, we're in the middle of an unusually long warming period for old Sol. But please, don't let facts like that distract you from your logic-lite argument.
Yes, because it is pretty constant.
No, it's not. See prior comment.
Of course I haven't! Periodic fluctuations in solar intensity are common and - guess what? They have of course been taken into account! And guess what else? They don't account for anything like the warming that has been taking place.
And I'm so glad you're the one and only person on the planet that's been charged with the responsiblity of making this conclusion. No doubt the thousands of other climatologists who diagree with you are wrong, despite their years of experience and walls full of degrees. You, sir, know it all and have all the answers. I'm sure you sleep well at night knowing that.
Now, on a more serious note, did you know there's a lot of grants out there for folks willing to study global warming/climate-change/whatever? But did you know that lots of these grants are coming from people that want the end results to be human-caused climate change (alternative energy crowds, anti-capitalists, etc.)? Many prominent climatologists that don't agree with the it's-all-caused-by-humans crowd have bemoaned that many of their peers are snapping up such tainted grants simply because it gets them more grant money. It's like Microsoft funding a study on Windows vs. Linux security. Would you trust the results if it said Microsoft was better?
The facts of the matter are this: for every it's-all-human global warming proponent there's also another equally-qualified opponent who can make a scientific argument to the contrary. The claim that there is "scientific consensus" supporting manmade climate change is the biggest lie there is right now. The biosphere of our planet is an amazingly complex system that we don't even begin to understand. To claim we know it all and can thus say that this caused that is the height of arrogance and hubris.
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up.
Yet the "environmentalist" crowd consistently ignore this fact when saying global warming/climate change/whatever-we're-calling-it-this-week is caused my humans...or to be more specific, it's caused by those evil, capitalistic Americans who are the enemies of the neo-Socialist movement that has emerged from what used to be a credible crowd of tree-huggers.
No; it is realistic and correct. We have already had a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere in terms of CO2 concentration - the main source of warming.
So a billion or so of us pitiful human beings in our SUV's are having more impact on this planet than a thermonuclear furnace with the mass of 1.3 million earths outputting 2.8 x 10^26 Watts a meere eight light-minutes away? A furnace you admit is growing warmer? Pardon me if I guffaw lightly in your direction. While CO2 may be a greenhouse gas, and we may be adding it to our atmosphere, to say that we are the sole cause of this when the sun is heating up at the same time smacks of blinders on your part. You appear to have completely disregarded the possibility that the Earth may be heating up largely or solely because of the increased solar output. If so, we could do all the CO2 reductions we want -- wrecking billions of dollars worth of industry, putting millions out of work globally, both possibly causing mass starvation, privation, and so forth -- and it wouldn't help a bit. Yet you're all too willing to scream at the top of your lungs "we don't fully understand what's going on, but by God we're going to find some way to penalize those capitalists for their energy greed!"
And environmentalists wonder why they're frequently branded as wackos.
But paying too little virtually guarantees that they will be worse.
I doubt that. Being a theater usher isn't exactly a booming career path these days. It attracts talent that would otherwise be saying "would you like fries with that?" If you've ever run a business, you know that (a) it's not possible to make these jobs high paying and (b) the quality you can afford is so low already that there's little to be lost by paying minimum wage.
If people would stop buying that crap (what, you can't go 2 hours without eating something?), then prices would come down.
No, a lot of other things would happen first. If people quit paying to go to the movies, the first thing that would happen is that all the indepedent theater chains would go out of business. If the trend continued, the small- and medium-sized chains would go out. If it kept on, the major chains would start to fold. Then -- and only then -- would it start to radically affect Hollywood to the point where it might get the message. A lot of people -- thousands nationwide -- would get hurt long before Hollywood ever started getting remotely discomfitted.
The theaters can't control the quality of the movies, but they do control what movies get how many screens for how long. Much of this is decided by popularity, so not going to bad movies would be a step in the right direction ("If the movie stinks, just don't go!"). However, the theaters sometimes do things that defy all profit - take Serenity for example. Theaters started dropping Serenity after two or three weeks, when it was making more money per screen than many movies with many more screens.
I saw Serenity and liked it so much I bought the DVD the instant it came out. You claim Serenity was pulling in more money per screen than any other. IMDB.com says Serenity cost about $40 million to make, yet pulled in only $25 million in theater sales during its 5 week run. By the end of the fifth week, revenue per week was down substantially. Admittedly the number of screens was down significantly as well, but the overall numbers would suggest Serenity was pulled from first-run theaters at about the right time. The early release of the DVD also factored into that equation, as theaters generally don't like carrying movies that have been released on DVD; it tends to radically kill ticket sales. Serenity will make back its money and then some via DVD sales, a trend that's becoming very common these days for anything that isn't a megablockbuster.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but most of the showings I've been to lately wouldn't have been affected by removing half of the seats. Except for something like Harry Potter on opening weekend, do theaters ever fill up?
Those times when the house is packed are the only times when the theater gets significantly ahead of the cost/profit curve. Seats can't be easily added and removed, meaning you have to design for your maximum capacity. Your point (that theaters rarely fill) is well taken, but the economics of the situation demand that theater owners pack their theater seats together like coach on an airline.
I would rather pay a slightly higher ticket price and not get ads beamed at me than pay for the advertising through product prices.
Then you are a significant minority. Most people would not rather pay higher prices, and theater chains that have tried this have seen people defect to other theaters. The ads are annoying to everyone, but the unwashed masses just don't seem to think it's annoying enough to pay an extra fifty cents or a dollar per ticket to get around them.
Advertising is a scam - who do you think pays for the ads? More ads equals more costs, more waste, and more annoyance.
The ads are paid for by the company advertising the product or service. You should've known that already. And obviously the company doing the advertising feels it's worthwhile because they're payin
No, you merely have the illusion of choice: Pepsi vs. Coke, Apple vs. Microsoft, Verizon vs. Sprint vs. T-Mobile, etc. In each case, big players collude to reduce real choice and keep real competitors out of the market. Often, that kind of collusion doesn't even require explicit communication: every one of the big players already knows what's in the best interest of the established players and acts accordingly.
[sigh] You can lead a Slashdotter to logic but you cannot make him think.
You're forgetting the one choice that no one can deny you, the one choice that is always yours to make: you can refuse to purchase the wares they are offering! Build a model airplane! Fly a kite! Play golf! Go for a walk! Collect butterflies! Use your goddam head as something other than a counterbalance for your torso! Have human beings such as you really degenerated so far as to be mere sheep? Are you unable to conceive of the fact that you are in charge of your life, that you make the choices? My God, your response has got to be the single most apathetic thing I've read all day long. Please, get a grip on your life and re-assert some control of your surroundings.
I mean this in all seriousness and not as a flame. If you're so far gone that you cannot grasp the concept of personal responsiblity, you need some serious help.
Your comment about the power of choice, unfortunately, is theoretically fine but practically irrelevant. The US consumer really doesn't have the power of choice.
Not true. Until Congress passes a law forcing me to buy X number of movies and CD's every month, I have the right to refuse to purchase entertainment. There! That wasn't so hard, was it? You're acting like entertainment is something as essential as air, water, food, or clothing. It isn't. I can entertain myself by taking a walk, playing with my kids outside, or any number of ways that don't involve me paying someone else. If you're trying to spin this as some Western lack of freedom, you're barking up the wrong tree. Also, your allusion to war and money is a bit specious.
This is because any given consumer has the power of choice, but consumers en masse do exactly what they're told.
Sheep get what sheep deserve, then. I will have no part of it if and when I choose to opt out. Until then, DRM isn't causing me any headaches at all. All my gear is current with HDCP from end to end. If things get too intrusive beyond just that, I'll simply take my ball and go elsewhere. If things get really annoying, consumers will do this en masse despite any marketing.
So in conculsion, it is about power, from the point of view that it is about money and money is power.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret that seems to have elluded you: power is not taken. Power is given. The media conglomerates have power (or money if you choose to use the terms interchangeably) because consumers give them money (aka "power"). Consumers can, if they so choose, vote with their wallets and put the conglomerates in their place.
Movement of this type is already being observed in the form of lower CD sales and lower box-office receipts. True, there's no widespread revolt, but that's because, to most people, copying a DVD isn't something they even care about doing. Rip it to a PC? Give me a break. Outside of the tech community, nobody gives a damn about that. The new DRM will, if anything, give legal owners more legal rights to make personal copies. I'd prefer no DRM at all, of course, but when faced with DVD's which have no legal means of copying and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DRM which allows personal copies, it's quite clear the latter is better than the former.
They do force people to buy their products. They simply make sure that the competition doesn't exist. And that is the why they need power.
So, who comes to your door with a gun and forces you to buy a DVD or get shot in the head?
Oh, you mean that doesn't happen? Then that must mean -- gasp! -- you choose to buy what they're selling. There, now...that wasn't so hard, was it? Thinking comes naturally after you do it for a while.
Seriously, though, competition has nothing to do with this. Entertainment is an optional part of life. You can live without it, hence my statement that the entertainment industry needs us more than we need it. If consumers boycotted everything tomorrow, the entire industry would collapse in a month. Yet if you went a month without buying a movie, going to the theater, or buying a CD, would you die of it?
You have the power of choice. Quit acting like someone else is forcing your hand and own up to the responsiblity of living.
I used to work at a theatre. The cokes and popcorn don't hardly cost anything, so I don't know what the problem is there.
Does the popcorn pop itself? Does it serve itself? Do the cash registers magically run themselves? The cost of the goods here is insignificant compared the overhead of serving it. The biggest portion of the concessions revenue goes to pay for employee overhead (i.e. salaries or hourly wages), not for the goods themselves.
But more to the point, they sell literal tons of that crap every night.
Yet theaters are not raking in millions of dollars in profit every evening. Ever stop to think about that? Ever wonder where all your ticket and concession revenues go? It can assure you it doesn't go into the theater manager's pocket. Rent, utilities, taxes, ongoing maintenance, licenses, film costs (the biggie), employee pay...all of that stuff has to be paid for before a single dime of profit is made.
Your thinking seems to have stopped at the point where you determined (a) the concession raw materials are cheap therefore (b) the inflated prices must mean theaters are rolling in dough. If this is the depth of your understanding of economics, you must be the product of a public school somewhere. I'm not blaming you for ignorance here; clearly you haven't been taught or exposed to basic economic theories of revenue, costs, and profit. That's depressingly common these days.
And ushers don't get paid squat. To up their pay would barely be a spit in the bucket.
You've obviously never run a theater, I see. But, allow me to acquaint you with a simple-yet-overlooked concept: if you're entire profit/loss hinges on a razor-thin margin, any increase in cost looms large. Dell, for example, may pay $40 for a motherboard in one of its workstations. If the vendor wanted Dell to pay $41 instead, that would "barely a spit in the bucket," right? Yet if Dell had to put a million of those motherboards in a million systems, Dell's costs have suddenly increased by $1 million. Think about that.
It's not the actual dollar amounts that count here, it's the margins. Theaters are extremely low-margin operations. The studios have made it so.
As for digital equipment, that's really Hollywood's problem. If they want the shows to go on, they should themselves pony up (or maybe cut a loan) to equip their distributors with the equipment required to move their product.
I agree. However, Hollywood has the trump card here in the fact that they can force the theaters to pretty much do whatever they want. No movies == theaters go out of business. This would hurt the studios as well, of course, but the theaters don't care about that; all they care about is not going out of business themselves.
Filmed entertainment is a narrow vertical market, frankly, and the money should move in both directions. Otherwise the whole hype-boom-DVD cycle of the theatre releases will be broken and filmmakers will be reduced to hawking their wares in a digitally flat marketplace.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Please clarify.
Finally to add to the parent poster, theatre owners should be shutting up loud patrons and kicking them out on the street without a refund to make the experience more pleasant for those of us who aren't immature assholes. I don't mind going to a kid's movie from time to time, but anything serious that requires my attention needs to be in a setting where I can pay attention. Otherwise, I'll just rent the DVD and watch it with noise-canceling headphones from my comfy chair.
As I stated in my prior post, I agree with this. However, when you've got a high-def screen at home that's measured in feet, not inches, you really have to think long and hard whether it's worth getting the family in the car, driving somewhere, dealing with lines, crowds, etc. We haven't darkened the door of a theater in quite some time (Batman Begins was the last one, I think), and I doubt that's going to change in the near future.
1. Pay the workers more than min wage. That way they're be cheerful and friendly to me.
Despite the popular misconception, theaters are not cash cows flush with funds. Paying people more is a good way to drastically increase overhead, which means you need higher ticket prices, higher concession prices, more ads before the movie, or some combination of all three.
Furthermore, paying someone more does not automatically mean they'll be better employees. If you doubt that, just compare a union worker with his or her non-union counterpart. The union workers usually have comfy union-negotiated salaries or hourly rates with generous benefits, shorter hours, longer breaks, and more vacation time. They also are generally less productive and more surly than non-union employees. I understand there are exceptions to every rule, but as a general rule, union employees make more and do less than non-union.
2. Don't make me pay insane prices for food/drink.
And why do you think things are so expensive? Because the theater owner has to pay for his fleet of Ferrari's in his garage? See comment #1, specifically the part about theaters not being big moneymakers to begin with. The theater essentially makes all its money off concessions. Ticket prices barely cover costs. No profit == theater closes down. Theaters cannot be run on welfare.
3. Start to use digital projectors. (Make the experience better with better looking films.)
Have you priced any of these things? Digital projectors for theaters can cost well into the six figures. Who's going to pay for all that? The theater owner who's barely covering costs already (and doing that by charging high prices for concessions, remember)? Not hardly. He's doing all he can not to go under ever time he shows a flop. The big chains are hurt quite a bit by this, but the little chains are being absolutely murdered by studio requirements for sound and picture upgrades that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per theater room. For a 24 screen megaplex you could be talking a few million dollars to upgrade the whole theater. Do you have any idea how many $5 cokes and $8 bags of popcorn you'd have to sell to recoup such a cost?
4. Show better films. (Talk to your friends in Hollywood, tell them to spend less of their budgets on marketing and more on the script.)
No argument there, but that's hardly something controllable by the theater owners.
5. Move the seats further apart. Make it a comfortable experience.
So you can fit fewer people into a theater, which means less revenue per showing, which means losses increase, which means either (a) higher ticket prices, (b) higher concession prices, (c) a combination of A and B, or (d) the theater goes out of business. There isn't some magical money tree growing in the theater manager's office, you know.
6. Fewer commericals. (More trailers instead.)
Which, again, reduces revenue. Are you willing to pay higher prices to get fewer ads? I'd bet not.
Look, I have a monster home theater setup. I rarely go to theaters anymore precisely because of the issues you cite above. However, I'm not naive enough to think all this is the fault of the theater owner. The majority of the issue sits with the studios requiring amazingly high fees for showing the movie, forcing the theater chains to charge what they do and show as many ads as they do just to cover costs and eek out a meager profit. The studios do this because they have to finance the next US$200 million Hollywood flop and pay the lead actor's US$100 million salary (see Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, etc.)
Blaming the theater for your above items is about as stupid as blaming the gas station for high gas prices. Or did you not know the average gas station makes about a 2-3 cent profit per gallon, nothing more? Like gas stations, theaters are at the end of a long chain of costs, trying to sell a product to you at a reasonable cost that allows them to stay in business and make a small amount of profit. Judge them a little less harshly in light of this if you don't mind.
It ain't about stopping ``piracy.'' Not even in the slightest. It's all about control, and the power that goes with it.
I cannot believe that. Power for power's sake? Why? You seem to think these guys are a kind of evil overlord trying to keep the peons in their place. That's about the silliest possible motivation there could be because it flies in the face of reality.
NO, what motivates these guys is money, pure and simple (not that there's anything wrong with that since I'm an ardent capitalist). They want to do whatever they can to make as much money as the can for as little cost as they can. Following that logic, we find that if something costs them money or reduces the amount of money they can make, they'll be against it. But here's what you fail to realize: the customer is in the driver's seat here, not the media moguls.
If DRM is too intrusive or obnoxious, consumers won't buy into it, especially since DVD's are already here and "good enough" for most folks. If the industry starts getting heavy handed with ICT, consumers can and quite likely will revolt. Then, faced with the prospect of losing money, the industry will capitulate. They need our dollars (or pounds, or Euros, or whatever) far more than we need them. Deep down, they know that. The problem is that most consumers don't know it yet. But if pushed, they will discover it quite fast.
It's not about power, it's about money. No matter what the media moguls do, the one thing they cannot do is force us to buy their products. We have the power of choice, they do not.
Copyright law was started so that content producers would have a limited time to recoup their cost before it became available for all to enjoy (a balance between the copyright holder and the general public ). In other words an incentive to develop public domain works.
Please find in my OP any possible statement that conflicts with what you just said. Oh, you can't, can you? You see, I don't disagree with what you say. I merely point out that, like most pro-social-benefit debaters, you forget that the creator of a copyrighted thing ought to have the opportunity to be recompensated or -- heaven forbid! -- profit from his or her creation. Social good be damned, people make new things because they want to make money from them. Altruism is really nice and all that but it rarely puts food on the table.
Let say I wanted to rip to a media server but it is not supported by the DRM. What then?
Are you really so shallow minded as to be unable to come up with a solution to this problem? Here, let me agitate your neurons a bit: if you don't like the DRM of a particular format, boycott the format! Encourage others to boycott it! If enough people show their displeasure, the media companies will have no choice but to respect the wishes of the consumer. But sitting around and bitching about how you want all things to be all your way all the time is kind of lazy and stupid. This is not Burger King. If you don't like that, go somewhere else. If there is nowhere else to go to get what you want, create it yourself. If others share your sentiments, millions would flock to your new business. Quit griping and do something constructive to change the equation.
I stopped reading your post entirely after the first paragraph.
Then it's obvious you are too ignorant of my opinion to reliably comment upon it. Yet you chose to do so anyway. What does that say about you?
This statement is incorrect, insofar as it applies to Western concepts of copyright.
No, it's not, as you're about to see based upon the very words I'm quoting from you.
Copyright law is there to ensure a flow from creative authors into the general culture of arts and science of a population. A culture which does not have a rich shared commons of cultural works will rot and die.
And who creates those ideas? Dust bunnies? The ideas and innovation comes from creators, and those creators are being protected by copyright law so that they can reap the benefits of their research, work, or whatever. Without such protections there would be little incentive to create, which would lead to your "rot and die" scenario.
Of course you have a right to it. The right to quote, excerpt, review, criticise, parody are enshrined (if you are a US citizen) in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. I can't stop you saying something because I said it first.
Very true. However, you are citing only a few cases that are allowed (relatively speaking) without restriction. You could not, for example, copy a book I had written word for word and sell it. In fact, there are cases where even speaking words that are trademarked or copyrighted by someone else can get you in hot water. If you need evidence of this, look up cases involve Michael Buffer (the "let's get ready to rumble!" guy at boxing matches) where other entertainers have utter "his" famous words and shortly thereafter were sued for it. This is, I admit, an extreme case, but it is useful to illustrate the extremes when discussing just how far this kind of law goes. Note that I didn't say I agreed with these kinds of sweeping powers, I'm merely stating that case law exists which supports it.
Fair Use is what stops copyright becoming censorship. Can you imagine not being able to quote people like Martin Luther King, or John F Kennedy, in print, online, or whatever? I choose the examples deliberately, since the King estate in particular is quite hot on ensuring that Dr Kings full speeches are paid for.
And you have a problem with this...why? If Dr. King's estate wishes to make his speeches expensive property to make use of, that is their right. It is also your right as a consumer to refuse to use such material. Free market forces define the value of anything, even speeches. If Dr. King's family prices the speech too high, it won't sell, therefore they -- like movie and music moguls -- have a vested interest in pricing it for the market. This is not censorship, it is capitalism. Now you can argue that someone could make the price ridiculously high to create censorship in the guise of capitalism, but one needn't go through that kind of trouble to censor. If I want to prevent anyone from seeing or using a copyrighted work, I merely withdraw it and prosecute those who try to violate the withdrawal.
Should visually impaired people not be allowed to enjoy books because suitable media were thought to be of insufficient economic value to the original producer?
Find me the clause in the Constitution that guarantees blind people the right to force publishers to publish Braille versions of all books and articles, even though the expense of doing so is so great that the publisher will very likely be unable to recoup the costs. If you can find that clause, I'll happily support your point of view.
Happiness is something you have the right to pursue. You do not, however, have a guaranteed right to obtain it. Remember that next time.
What you describe here is more properly covered under patent law, not copyright law. You cannot copyright a drug.
It was a poor analogy, I admit. However, it shouldn't take much brain power on your part to understand that the principle I was discussing applies to books, movies, and music. If it requires great effort to create something but little effort to duplicate it, copyright law is
Bragging about owning equipment that has HDMI jacks is meaningless unless all of the equipment in the chain of a proper home theater (display, output device, receiver, deinterlacer, upscaler, whatever) are HDCP-compliant. If you can do that, consider yourself very lucky.
Then color me lucky because I spent the extra dough to get a receiver that supports HDMI/HDCP switching. The full chain of my equipment is HDCP-capable all the way through. Then again, no piece of gear in the chain is older than six months, so I can understand why you feel this is the exception, not the rule.
I have nothing against ads, just annoying ones. Ads are what makes the net go round.
Hence Adblock Plus's ability to whitelist sites/ads that you don't mind supporting. I've got most of my usual haunts that don't have annoying ads whitelisted. They have earned my support.
Download it here: http://p2.forumforfree.com/adblock-plus-05111-rele ased-vt352-adblockplus.html
h p?id=1136), to get automatic updates of add blocklists. It also supports whitelisting, something the stock Adblock does not. It also blocks flash ads.
This is truly the reason why I gave up IE and went whole-hog to Firefox. This plugin can be coupled with another, Filterset.G (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.p
With Adblock Plus and Filterset.G, it's a rare page that I have to view that has any ads on it at all. And it's as easy as loading two plugings. These are the first two things I put into Firefox when I load it.
Flashblock is great but it only blocks Flash. Adblock Plus does that one better by blocking Flash ads and not other bits of Flash. Highly recommended.
Copyright is a law of Balance between the Copyright Holder and the consumer.
I believe it is you who is being shortsighted here. Copyright law exists to protect and benefit the copyright holder, nobody else. The purpose of a copyright is to allow the inventor, creator, or producer of a thing (be it tangible or intangible) a means by which he or she can recover any costs incurred during the creative process. For example, a drug company can spend a billion dollars researching a cure for a particular disease. If a competing drug company could then immediately copy that formula the day it's released, it could sell it much cheaper than the creator due to not having to have done any R&D. The creating company would go bankrupt immediately...except for the fact that no company would bother creating anything so expensive in the first place because there is no way to recoup development costs.
Movies cost tens -- sometimes hundreds -- of millions of dollars to create. No movie studio would ever produce a $300+ million epic like Lord of the Rings if it knew it would be copied and freely distributed the instant it was released. Now, in a perfect world where everyone could be trusted to never give away such content for free, there'd be no need for DRM. However, since there's a vocal group of nutcases who insist on thinking they have some free "right" to the fruits of other's labor without compensating them for it, we get crap like CSS and DRM. Gee, thanks Mr. Pirate. We're all so grateful.
Part of that balance allows Fair Use.
Go read up on copyright law a bit and try to define the term "Fair Use." It's all well and good to throw the term around here like everyone knows what it means, but in truth the term is completely nebulous. It is completely open to interpretation, as is proven by the amazingly broad number of decisions made on it over the years.
Do I want Fair Use? Sure I do. Do I have a right to it? No, I do not.
The copyright holder then decides they only want to collect the cash, and not allow the fair use.
The copyright holder has that right, as it is intrisic to being the copyright holder. It doesn't matter one iota how you want it, it only matters how the copyright holder wants it. If you disagree with the copyright holder, you can exercise your right to not purchase the damned thing. Purchasing something like a DVD is the legal equivalent to accepting a contract of use as defined by the copyright holder, and this has been proven in court. You, on the other hand, want to win both sides of the argument: you want to be able to have the copyrighted works but not be bound by the terms of the copyright. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. In this respect you are no different from the copyright holder you claim to despise.
If the media companies don't put the balance back in copyright, the consumers will do it for them, and failing that *eventually* the courts will.
It is highly doubtful the courts will do any such thing. There is too much existing case law in favor of the copyright holder. It's what is referred to as "good law" in the sense that there's case built on case built on case backing up the decision. Overturning that is a rare thing.
You are right about one thing in this whole argument though: reform will come via consumers. Through piracy? No! That will simply give the RIAA/MPAA more and more legal ammunition to get new laws passed for more intrusive and obnoxious restrictions -- and make no mistake they will get it because piracy is both illegal and immoral, two things no elected official will ever endorse. What will work however is a boycott of some sort. Then, when the movie and music moguls complain about sagging sales, they won't be able to say "but it's not because we produce crappy products encumbered with noxious copy protection, it's because of piracy!" Pirates never understand this, of course, which is why we keep ge
Look, the whole DRM issue has been beaten to death on /. more than once, and the discussion almost always focuses on the negatives: downconverting from HD to SD resolution for non-HDMI-compliant devices, inability to make totally unencumbered copies, etc. All of these are at least somewhat valid complaints. I'm would be particularly irritated if I had purchased a non-HDMI big screen set or projector about a year ago only to find out I can't watch pre-recorded HD stuff on it. Good thing I don't have any of that gear; all my stuff (incl. the 72" widescreen) has HDMI.
But let's not lose sight of some of one of the biggest positives of the new DRM. For one thing, it will let you do something you cannot legally do now, namely making a copy of your disc. Limited copying is allowed by the new DRM, and you don't need any (illegal) program like DeCSS to do it. There's been no disclosure exactly how liberal the copying will be, but since it's currently impossible to copy today's DVD's without running afoul of the DMCA, anything is an improvement. Sure, it's not as good as a totally unencumbered copy, but we can thank pirates for the lack of this.
I'm quite sure the DRM will be cracked at some point, and I'll be more than happy when that happens (not because I want to pirate movies but because I want the maximum amount of flexibility in viewing the movie). However, such cracks will only see use by hackers, not the general public. The fact that this DRM will allow non-technical people to make backups of their movies is a step forwards, not backwards.
From the case you describe it doesn't sound like your machine is hung. Instead it sounds like either it's taking a long time to get the data or it's timing out in some fashion. Again, Windows will give you the appearance that it's hanging because EXPLORER.EXE (which runs the GUI, File Explorer, and a whole lot of other things I wish it didn't) gets hung up. Restarting EXPLORER.EXE will work in some circumstances, but it has some nasty side effects (task tray items are killed, for example).
Actually pulling up taskmanager.exe by way of Ctrl-Alt-Delete will allow you to start a command shell.
While this is true, it's almost impossible to recover the GUI using this method. At best you can get the box to shut down gracefully for a restart. What would be really nice is if MS would provide a method to re-launch the GUI after it's crashed. Then we'd really have Windows more or less on equal footing with *nix/XWindows at least from a crash recovery perspective.
The problem with MS's version was that the whole freaking system crashed if IE crashed.
This isn't entirely correct. EXPLORER.EXE, which is tied in with IE and is largely responsible for the GUI, can be crashed by IE. This mucks up the GUI to the point where the system is apparently hung. However, the NTOSKRNL.EXE almost never gets faulted by these kinds of crashes and, in reality, continues to run even though the interface is completely hosed. This is analogous to crashing XWindows in Unix in the sense that X can be completely hung but system processes underneath it continue to function normally. The difference is that a Ctrl-Alt-Bksp will kill X and give you a command prompt, whereas Windows has no such option. There has been talk in the past of Microsoft releasing a command-line version of Windows Server (i.e. the GUI is optional), but AFAIK, that's just been talk with no real action.
Note that crashes that do fully lock up a Windows box are almost always caused by faulty drivers, usually video drivers because these run in kernel space. Linux is just as susceptible to faulty drivers as Windows is. I've had a number of servers up and croak with a KERNEL PANIC because of a faulty RAID driver. Dodgy hardware, poor cooling, overclocking, etc. also locks up boxes but this isn't a Windows-only phenomenon by any means.