Because we have a government that caters to what the corporations want, not what is best for the people or the country.
Case A, we put both products on the market (incandescent and flourescent light bulbs), present all the pros and cons of each to the public, and let them make an informed choice. Of course, most people make an uninformed decision based solely on short-term gains.
Case B, we make it impossible to know the difference between the products (cloned and/or genetically engineered foods versus others) because the government thinks people cannot make a rational decision when presented with the information necessary to make an informed choice.
I'm not saying case A or case B is better. Actually, wait, I am - case A is by far better. I'd rather have the government enforce truth in labeling and engage in customer education, both of which I consider good uses of the federal and state governments, instead of banning things left and right.
I've replaced some of our bulbs with CFLs - especially the lights that I tend to leave on more often. However, for a few of the fixtures, such as the main one over the stairs (that also lights up much of the lower floor and is on most nights), I've replace 2/3 with CFLs but left the last as a 60W incandescent. It turns on right away, and adds some yellow to the light. Half a second later I get the rest of the light and it is bright enough to fill the space.
Our front porch light has been a CFL since the day we moved in - and is actually the only one I've ever had die. The street lights leave our porch in a dark shadow at night, so that light is on 24/7 for safety/security. With a CFL in there, it takes no more power than an incandescent would use running just in the evenings. (The first bulb lasted IIRC 4.5 years, and cost $1.99 from IKEA. It's replacement is still going strong.)
Americans get their freedom of speech, which apparently overrides all other rights in criminal cases Not at all. The judge in a case can issue a gag order, and even seal indictments, evidence, etc., to prevent anyone involved from talking or leaking information.
On the other hand, if information is leaked, the papers usually have the right to publish it. The person who leaked it may be in contempt of court and headed to jail, but the paper or journalist won't get into trouble unless they refuse to name a source.
It is freedom of the press that is paramount in this example. Free speech can be curtailed if the judge feels that it would lead to the violation of another right, such as due process.
I played a paladin as a tank for the first year+ of release. I quit after Blizzard came out and said "paladins should only tank in some 5-man content when the group can't find a warrior or a druid."
Now it seems they've reneged on that promise and made some changes to boost tanking. Any paladins out there see improvements that would make it worth coming back? I'm looking for a role as a 5-10-man main tank and a raid off tank, with healing as a backup when off tanking isn't necessary.
The studio says, if you want this "cool" channel, you have to take these "sucky" channels too.
Exactly. Moreover, this might or might not be legal.
A year or two ago, when Dish Network and Viacom talks broke down, Dish Network pulled all the Viacom channels. They eventually settled, but one of Echostar / Dish Network's biggest bargaining chips was a pending lawsuit claiming that Viacom was engaged in monopolistic trade practices. Namely, as the sole provider of products such as Comedy Central, Viacom has a "copyright" enforced monopoly. In order to carry Comedy Central, Echostar also must purchase less popular stations and include them in their packages. Per the Monopolistic and Restrictive Trade Practices act, a company cannot withhold access to one product that has a monopoly to force sales of other products.
This lawsuit was dropped when Echostar and Viacom settled, so this has never been tested in court. (Maybe the court would find that copyright cannot produce a monopoly covered by the MRTP act. Maybe not.)
Anyways, Congress has looked at forcing cable ala carte before. That was probably just a PR stunt, or the entertainment industry hadn't fully paid off McCain that year.
Re:Publicly traded companies and their spam
on
Buy Low, Spam High
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· Score: 1
Basically, if you purchase a stock for any other reason than "Gee, this looks like a solid company with a good product" then it is illegal.
Unless your reason is "Gee, with this stock I'll gain controlling interest, then I can take it off the market, fire its workforce, borrow lots of money, liquidate its assets, pay myself a large 'finders fee', and sell the carcass."
Yes, I've searched for my name, but I've found about a dozen others around the world with my same name (where are the privacy implications in that?).
Have you also searched for "Pizza Hut near ?" Voila, all those others with the same name are eliminated; it is clear that the search was about you. Piece together more searches, and it becomes clear that it was you, not about you. Then anything else you have ever searched for is correlated as well.
It isn't any one search that causes a privacy concern. As others point out, some search engines let you see what people are searching for, either a single search at random, or as aggregate data. However, no one else correlates all the searches from the same person into one list, easily identifiable as such.
Why would it be foolish? AOL search is just Google, anyway. AOL search is just Google search, except that they are also your ISP and can conclusively and definitively aggregate all of your searches and assign them a unique identifier, then release them to the public.
Using Google search and clearing your cookies, you cannot be definitively matched to what you look for.
The internet crowd aren't the kind of people that wade through the muck of humanity to see movies on opening weekend (unless the movie is really, really important).
(We tried to see SoaP Friday, but the Alamo Drafthouse was sold out, and I won't see movies anywhere else. We're planning to go tomorrow instead.)
>> It's very simple: Plasma's have a more blurry picture than LCD's.
Maybe that's what it is, then. Fair enough; I wanted a blurrier picture and I paid for it! I'm still happier with my purchase than I would have been with an LCD.;p
The IP address or user name of the person who searched has been removed, but it was replaced with a unique identifier that tracked all of the searches by the same person.
Many people search for things related to themselves. For example, if you have looked for a job in the last four years, you were foolish if you didn't search for your own name to see if your friends' blogs had descriptions of your late-night drinking binges and drug use. (You are probably foolish if you used AOL search to do this, but that's a different discussion.)
CNN ran a story where they were able to track down one older lady, just because she searched for her last name, searched for "drugstores near " or somesuch, and was the only person in her area with that name. They confirmed with her that the searches were hers. (She has a dog with problems urinating on her carpet, and she has friends with lots of diseases that she "researches" for them.) They picked someone to track down who hadn't searched for anything "naughty", but that doesn't mean they couldn't have if they had wanted to.
Maybe, but it was consistent across a variety of TVs.
Moreover, my experience matches with those who say that "LCD displays look poor in their non-native resolution". I've seen that before, in this thread even, and I've seen it often. Plasmas just don't look as bad playing non-native content. Maybe because plasma TVs are more expensive in general, all the vendors put better scalers in them. Maybe it's something inherent to the technology.
I ended up buying a Sony Wega plasma last year. I've been very happy; it was a refurbished unit of the old model, just replaced with a newer version, bought from a Sony outlet store. Needless to say I got a deal - it was about the same as an LCD would have been. And if there's one thing Sony can make right, it's their televisions/monitors. I just saw Sony has exited the plasma business; that's too bad as they had a great product.
I have a plasma TV, which I chose over rear projection, DLP, and LCD.
Why?
1. Rear projection CRT may look the best, but they are way too bulky for the space. I wanted a sleeker TV, not a bigger one than my old standard CRT.
2. My wife sees the rainbows on DLPs. It's less obvious with higher-priced models (where the color wheel spins faster), but it renders them unwatchable for fast content (like sports or action movies) for her.
3. Plasma versus LCD came down not to their performance with hi-def content, but with their performance with standard content. I've had my plasma TV for more than a year, and most stations I watch are still standard def. In my opinion, standard def TV looks better with plasma than with LCD. I looked at lots and lots of TVs, and I switched them in the stores to standard def broadcasts instead of leaving them on the hi-def channel the retailer wanted to show. Of course standard def content looks worse on a big-screen TV than on a small TV, but the static and artifact pixels were far more visible with LCD than with plasma.
This whole discussion is silly, anyway. Both types of TVs can play the same content, as can rear-projection TVs, DLPs, and even those polymer TVs in the Slashdot article yesterday. There's no reason they cannot all co-exist in the marketplace. As long as there are people like me who dislike LCDs, there will be a market for them. (I don't even use LCD computer monitors - CRTs still look so much better it's unbearable.)
The Colbert Report is a parody, and as such is 100% protected by the first amendment. Nothing at all will happen to it under any circumstances.
For fake news reports inserted as part of a standard new program, the punishment involved could fall under commercial fraud laws, which restrict free speech to benefit the public and consumer.
I have a coworker in his lower-40s. He worked in construction (owned his own wood deck building business) into his 30s, when he realized that A) the work wasn't getting easier, and B) he was getting older.
He went back to a tech school, got a 2-year degree, and became a darn good electronics technician at an R&D firm.
Then, a few years later, he went back to school again, this time working his way through an electrical engineering degree while holding down the full-time technician job. Next week, after getting one final foreign language credit, he'll graduate with an EE degree, and get "promoted" from technician to engineer.
I visit www.cnn.cm two to three times a month. It really depends on the speed I'm typing, whether I'm paying attention, and the keyboard I'm using.
(After typing the "www," all the remaining letters are on the bottom row, except that "o." My work desktop keyboard has more resistance than my laptop, so when I bounce my finger up to the top row to hit the "o," it may depress at home but miss at work. My right index finger isn't exactly my strongest finger.;p )
And it isn't lazy. Folks who type without looking at either the keyboard or the screen are usually considered the better typists. (Assuming they are accurate, of course!) Call it "bad," but not "lazy."
>> Why should reporters be free not to testify when the rest of us can be compelled to do so? Why should they be able to refuse to testify to illegal activities?
If journalists must surrender everything they do to the government, then they are not free to talk to those unwilling to talk to the government.
We have some protections, too. The rest of us cannot be compelled to testify either, if doing so would implicate ourselves. We don't stack rocks on people until they confess anymore.
Yeah, what's the point of having USRDA for nutrients, fat, cholesterol, etc., when they aren't enforced? The government should just jail anyone who eats a cheeseburger./sarcasm
>> I am definately not fat or over weight, and I try to eat healthy as often as I can.
Keep in mind, your metabolism is going to crash down sometime in the next 3-4 years. You can keep eating the exact same foods as you do now, and you'll suddenly start gaining weight on it.
For the percentage of kids who aren't overweight (as kids), I think this is the biggest problem. If you aren't prepared for it, you end up gaining 20 pounds in your early 20s, and can waste far too much of your life overweight before you can work them off.
Re:nobody's going to stop buying SUVs
on
The Hybrid Scooter
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· Score: 1
I drive a Miata. Most SUVs would go up and over my car if they hit me. It might flip them over, and maybe hurt them badly if they aren't wearing a seat belt. I wouldn't know; I'd be dead from having them drive over my head.
Slashdot Mirror
And how long until we genetically engineer a monkey with, say, 200 copies of this gene?
Uplift, here we come.
Adjectives don't get plurals. The plural of LEGO brand building block is LEGO brand building blocks. ~
Yeah, excepts it sounds less bad for my country when I said it. ;p
But yes, I think you nailed it.
Because we have a government that caters to what the corporations want, not what is best for the people or the country.
Case A, we put both products on the market (incandescent and flourescent light bulbs), present all the pros and cons of each to the public, and let them make an informed choice. Of course, most people make an uninformed decision based solely on short-term gains.
Case B, we make it impossible to know the difference between the products (cloned and/or genetically engineered foods versus others) because the government thinks people cannot make a rational decision when presented with the information necessary to make an informed choice.
I'm not saying case A or case B is better. Actually, wait, I am - case A is by far better. I'd rather have the government enforce truth in labeling and engage in customer education, both of which I consider good uses of the federal and state governments, instead of banning things left and right.
I've replaced some of our bulbs with CFLs - especially the lights that I tend to leave on more often. However, for a few of the fixtures, such as the main one over the stairs (that also lights up much of the lower floor and is on most nights), I've replace 2/3 with CFLs but left the last as a 60W incandescent. It turns on right away, and adds some yellow to the light. Half a second later I get the rest of the light and it is bright enough to fill the space.
Our front porch light has been a CFL since the day we moved in - and is actually the only one I've ever had die. The street lights leave our porch in a dark shadow at night, so that light is on 24/7 for safety/security. With a CFL in there, it takes no more power than an incandescent would use running just in the evenings. (The first bulb lasted IIRC 4.5 years, and cost $1.99 from IKEA. It's replacement is still going strong.)
Americans get their freedom of speech, which apparently overrides all other rights in criminal cases
Not at all. The judge in a case can issue a gag order, and even seal indictments, evidence, etc., to prevent anyone involved from talking or leaking information.
On the other hand, if information is leaked, the papers usually have the right to publish it. The person who leaked it may be in contempt of court and headed to jail, but the paper or journalist won't get into trouble unless they refuse to name a source.
It is freedom of the press that is paramount in this example. Free speech can be curtailed if the judge feels that it would lead to the violation of another right, such as due process.
I played a paladin as a tank for the first year+ of release. I quit after Blizzard came out and said "paladins should only tank in some 5-man content when the group can't find a warrior or a druid."
Now it seems they've reneged on that promise and made some changes to boost tanking. Any paladins out there see improvements that would make it worth coming back? I'm looking for a role as a 5-10-man main tank and a raid off tank, with healing as a backup when off tanking isn't necessary.
The studio says, if you want this "cool" channel, you have to take these "sucky" channels too.
Exactly. Moreover, this might or might not be legal.
A year or two ago, when Dish Network and Viacom talks broke down, Dish Network pulled all the Viacom channels. They eventually settled, but one of Echostar / Dish Network's biggest bargaining chips was a pending lawsuit claiming that Viacom was engaged in monopolistic trade practices. Namely, as the sole provider of products such as Comedy Central, Viacom has a "copyright" enforced monopoly. In order to carry Comedy Central, Echostar also must purchase less popular stations and include them in their packages. Per the Monopolistic and Restrictive Trade Practices act, a company cannot withhold access to one product that has a monopoly to force sales of other products.
This lawsuit was dropped when Echostar and Viacom settled, so this has never been tested in court. (Maybe the court would find that copyright cannot produce a monopoly covered by the MRTP act. Maybe not.)
Anyways, Congress has looked at forcing cable ala carte before. That was probably just a PR stunt, or the entertainment industry hadn't fully paid off McCain that year.
Basically, if you purchase a stock for any other reason than "Gee, this looks like a solid company with a good product" then it is illegal.
Unless your reason is "Gee, with this stock I'll gain controlling interest, then I can take it off the market, fire its workforce, borrow lots of money, liquidate its assets, pay myself a large 'finders fee', and sell the carcass."
That's perfectly legal.
Yes, I've searched for my name, but I've found about a dozen others around the world with my same name (where are the privacy implications in that?).
Have you also searched for "Pizza Hut near ?" Voila, all those others with the same name are eliminated; it is clear that the search was about you. Piece together more searches, and it becomes clear that it was you, not about you. Then anything else you have ever searched for is correlated as well.
It isn't any one search that causes a privacy concern. As others point out, some search engines let you see what people are searching for, either a single search at random, or as aggregate data. However, no one else correlates all the searches from the same person into one list, easily identifiable as such.
Why would it be foolish? AOL search is just Google, anyway.
AOL search is just Google search, except that they are also your ISP and can conclusively and definitively aggregate all of your searches and assign them a unique identifier, then release them to the public.
Using Google search and clearing your cookies, you cannot be definitively matched to what you look for.
Or maybe:
The internet crowd aren't the kind of people that wade through the muck of humanity to see movies on opening weekend (unless the movie is really, really important).
(We tried to see SoaP Friday, but the Alamo Drafthouse was sold out, and I won't see movies anywhere else. We're planning to go tomorrow instead.)
>> It's very simple: Plasma's have a more blurry picture than LCD's.
;p
Maybe that's what it is, then. Fair enough; I wanted a blurrier picture and I paid for it! I'm still happier with my purchase than I would have been with an LCD.
>>> so correct me if I'm wrong
You're wrong.
The IP address or user name of the person who searched has been removed, but it was replaced with a unique identifier that tracked all of the searches by the same person.
Many people search for things related to themselves. For example, if you have looked for a job in the last four years, you were foolish if you didn't search for your own name to see if your friends' blogs had descriptions of your late-night drinking binges and drug use. (You are probably foolish if you used AOL search to do this, but that's a different discussion.)
CNN ran a story where they were able to track down one older lady, just because she searched for her last name, searched for "drugstores near " or somesuch, and was the only person in her area with that name. They confirmed with her that the searches were hers. (She has a dog with problems urinating on her carpet, and she has friends with lots of diseases that she "researches" for them.) They picked someone to track down who hadn't searched for anything "naughty", but that doesn't mean they couldn't have if they had wanted to.
Maybe, but it was consistent across a variety of TVs.
Moreover, my experience matches with those who say that "LCD displays look poor in their non-native resolution". I've seen that before, in this thread even, and I've seen it often. Plasmas just don't look as bad playing non-native content. Maybe because plasma TVs are more expensive in general, all the vendors put better scalers in them. Maybe it's something inherent to the technology.
I ended up buying a Sony Wega plasma last year. I've been very happy; it was a refurbished unit of the old model, just replaced with a newer version, bought from a Sony outlet store. Needless to say I got a deal - it was about the same as an LCD would have been. And if there's one thing Sony can make right, it's their televisions/monitors. I just saw Sony has exited the plasma business; that's too bad as they had a great product.
I have a plasma TV, which I chose over rear projection, DLP, and LCD.
Why?
1. Rear projection CRT may look the best, but they are way too bulky for the space. I wanted a sleeker TV, not a bigger one than my old standard CRT.
2. My wife sees the rainbows on DLPs. It's less obvious with higher-priced models (where the color wheel spins faster), but it renders them unwatchable for fast content (like sports or action movies) for her.
3. Plasma versus LCD came down not to their performance with hi-def content, but with their performance with standard content. I've had my plasma TV for more than a year, and most stations I watch are still standard def. In my opinion, standard def TV looks better with plasma than with LCD. I looked at lots and lots of TVs, and I switched them in the stores to standard def broadcasts instead of leaving them on the hi-def channel the retailer wanted to show. Of course standard def content looks worse on a big-screen TV than on a small TV, but the static and artifact pixels were far more visible with LCD than with plasma.
This whole discussion is silly, anyway. Both types of TVs can play the same content, as can rear-projection TVs, DLPs, and even those polymer TVs in the Slashdot article yesterday. There's no reason they cannot all co-exist in the marketplace. As long as there are people like me who dislike LCDs, there will be a market for them. (I don't even use LCD computer monitors - CRTs still look so much better it's unbearable.)
The Colbert Report is a parody, and as such is 100% protected by the first amendment. Nothing at all will happen to it under any circumstances.
For fake news reports inserted as part of a standard new program, the punishment involved could fall under commercial fraud laws, which restrict free speech to benefit the public and consumer.
Agreed.
I have a coworker in his lower-40s. He worked in construction (owned his own wood deck building business) into his 30s, when he realized that A) the work wasn't getting easier, and B) he was getting older.
He went back to a tech school, got a 2-year degree, and became a darn good electronics technician at an R&D firm.
Then, a few years later, he went back to school again, this time working his way through an electrical engineering degree while holding down the full-time technician job. Next week, after getting one final foreign language credit, he'll graduate with an EE degree, and get "promoted" from technician to engineer.
It is to cost the western world:
A) Money
B) The freedoms we claim to champion
As can be seen by the infighting in Iraq, they don't fight "for" anyone but themselves.
I visit www.cnn.cm two to three times a month. It really depends on the speed I'm typing, whether I'm paying attention, and the keyboard I'm using.
;p )
(After typing the "www," all the remaining letters are on the bottom row, except that "o." My work desktop keyboard has more resistance than my laptop, so when I bounce my finger up to the top row to hit the "o," it may depress at home but miss at work. My right index finger isn't exactly my strongest finger.
And it isn't lazy. Folks who type without looking at either the keyboard or the screen are usually considered the better typists. (Assuming they are accurate, of course!) Call it "bad," but not "lazy."
Maybe we'll just all pay Circuit City to rip them for us.
>> Why should reporters be free not to testify when the rest of us can be compelled to do so? Why should they be able to refuse to testify to illegal activities?
Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press...
If journalists must surrender everything they do to the government, then they are not free to talk to those unwilling to talk to the government.
We have some protections, too. The rest of us cannot be compelled to testify either, if doing so would implicate ourselves. We don't stack rocks on people until they confess anymore.
Yeah, what's the point of having USRDA for nutrients, fat, cholesterol, etc., when they aren't enforced? The government should just jail anyone who eats a cheeseburger. /sarcasm
>> I am definately not fat or over weight, and I try to eat healthy as often as I can.
Keep in mind, your metabolism is going to crash down sometime in the next 3-4 years. You can keep eating the exact same foods as you do now, and you'll suddenly start gaining weight on it.
For the percentage of kids who aren't overweight (as kids), I think this is the biggest problem. If you aren't prepared for it, you end up gaining 20 pounds in your early 20s, and can waste far too much of your life overweight before you can work them off.
I drive a Miata. Most SUVs would go up and over my car if they hit me. It might flip them over, and maybe hurt them badly if they aren't wearing a seat belt. I wouldn't know; I'd be dead from having them drive over my head.