Furthermore, when you buy a TV, you are BUYING A TV. When you buy a computer game, you are buying the license to use that game. So, if the company does not make a replacement available at very diminished cost, you would be forced to relicense an item for which you already had a valid license.
>By that token, Sony should replace your TV free-of-charge if you hit it with a baseball bat!
Yes, they should--if it costs them less than 50 cents to produce the whole damn thing.
If the game industry wants to protect their IP while still not looking like the bad guy, they should just allow you to mail in a damaged original CD and they can priority mail you a new original as a trade. After all, if you're dumb enough to destroy or scratch up a disk, you deserve the punishment of not playing your game for a week or so. I have never had a CD become unusable--people I know who take the CD out of the machine and throw it onto a dusty desk have lost CDs. The CD case is there for a reason!
>Sure it doesn't beat my Linux boxes which have stayed up for years at a time, but it's no where near the "crashing all the time" reports that I've read.
Of course, considering the recent reports about kernel bugs, unless your Linux box is sitting unconnected to any networks, years of uptime may not make you the smartest admin. Just an observation.
Along the same lines, if technology advanced enough that you could download memories from the brain of someone with extremely good memory, would the brain be an illegal recording device? I read once that your brain can recall almost everything. Some of the material merely needs coaxing out (like with hypnosis). Hmmm....
Or maybe the parenthetical notation didn't convey the same meaning to everyone reading. It is not unreasonable to think that the parens indicated "substitute any car name here." So, if I'm an idiot, it is only for responding to an Anonymous Coward in the first place. However, that would make you twice the idiot for responding to a response to an Anonymous Coward.
The way you spelled the "bathroom tissue" brand implies that you only listen to the radio. It's C-h-a-r-m-i-n. Perhaps you were confusing it with the word "shaman," a mystic-minded medicine man.
Well, I suppose that would depend on whether you were having a normal conversation or presenting at a science conference... The fact is, I know people who use the term "bike" for both, and leave it up to you to read your mind as to which they are talking about. It is so much simpler if everyone just uses the proper words for things. A two-wheeled vehicle propelled by a pedaling action is a bicycle. A two-wheeled vehicle propelled by fuel is a motorcycle. Any other usage is really just asking for trouble.
No, it's caused because two groups of people who are capable of getting along on a personal level are being manipulated by their leaders. Until each groups leader recognizes the right of the other party to a sovereign state, the problems will not go away.
There is some distinction between right to use land and ownership of land. It's subtle, but I think it explains a lot of the situations involving Native Americans and land ownership. I have read more historically-accurate depictions of the process, but I have always been amused by the monologue made by the elderly Indian chief in "Ernest Goes to Camp." "Who can own a flower, who can own a tree?...", etc.
Actually, I think history will show that we have sometimes gone through the motions of signing treaties with other countries without obtaining congressional ratification. These treaties are, in fact, not law in the United States until such time that they are ratified. So, the international community may see us as responsible to follow the treaty, but no American citizen can be made to follow the terms of an unratified treaty.
Is it possible to make flash memory wipe itself after the last picture was taken? (This is supposing the pictures themselves are not stored on the same flash memory chips). I'm just curious. I don't know if my idea is any better, but I'm a college junior:)
I thought that maybe that's what you meant, but then I second-guessed myself. I'd have to look at an illustration of the situation, I guess. I can't quite visualize how you would pre-determine the beam's possible path. I'm not sure these terms are correct in this context, but I'm going to use them since they are familiar to me....if the azimuth and elevation could both vary on the "beam," wouldn't the area that could be hit any part of earth visible from the moon?
>I think the FUD slashdot users have built into this system can now safely be ignored.
Why is it that you assume it is FUD? 20% of the intensity of noon-time sunlight, before coming through earth's atmosphere, is A LOT of energy. Consider this quote: "The United States receives more energy in the form of sunlight in less than forty minutes than it does from all the fossil fuels it burns in a year." (http://www.solarquest.com/schoolhouse/quest.asp?i d=1434)
If you think this is FUD, go outside with a small magnifying glass on a sunny day (this will work even if it is cold). Focus the sunlight on some part of your skin in the smallest point of light you can get. Then count to the highest number you can before you start screaming in pain. If you get to 100, I'll be very surprised.
I'm no bleeding-heart liberal atomic-energy-hater. However, I must say that our past shows our inability to look past the "Wow!" factor of new technology. As Murphy's law says, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. You can argue with me all you want, but the simple fact is that all technology comes with tradeoffs. Please, just contemplate that for a while.
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Furthermore, when you buy a TV, you are BUYING A TV. When you buy a computer game, you are buying the license to use that game. So, if the company does not make a replacement available at very diminished cost, you would be forced to relicense an item for which you already had a valid license.
>By that token, Sony should replace your TV free-of-charge if you hit it with a baseball bat! Yes, they should--if it costs them less than 50 cents to produce the whole damn thing.
I overlooked one small item. The manufacturer should not charge for this service.
I agree that open sores are a bad thing. Neosporin works wonders.
If the game industry wants to protect their IP while still not looking like the bad guy, they should just allow you to mail in a damaged original CD and they can priority mail you a new original as a trade. After all, if you're dumb enough to destroy or scratch up a disk, you deserve the punishment of not playing your game for a week or so. I have never had a CD become unusable--people I know who take the CD out of the machine and throw it onto a dusty desk have lost CDs. The CD case is there for a reason!
Although binary and Morse code are both lossless, and sign language leaves some things to interpretation...
>he went out and got a 32" TV and laser-corrected his eyes.
Wow, amazing!! I've been wanting a 32" TV all my life! Are you Amish or something?
>Sure it doesn't beat my Linux boxes which have stayed up for years at a time, but it's no where near the "crashing all the time" reports that I've read.
Of course, considering the recent reports about kernel bugs, unless your Linux box is sitting unconnected to any networks, years of uptime may not make you the smartest admin. Just an observation.
Along the same lines, if technology advanced enough that you could download memories from the brain of someone with extremely good memory, would the brain be an illegal recording device? I read once that your brain can recall almost everything. Some of the material merely needs coaxing out (like with hypnosis). Hmmm....
So, if I can bait you to respond again, you'll be four times the idiot. Otherwise, I'm stuck at 3 times the idiot...but only on Slashdot.
Or maybe the parenthetical notation didn't convey the same meaning to everyone reading. It is not unreasonable to think that the parens indicated "substitute any car name here." So, if I'm an idiot, it is only for responding to an Anonymous Coward in the first place. However, that would make you twice the idiot for responding to a response to an Anonymous Coward.
The way you spelled the "bathroom tissue" brand implies that you only listen to the radio. It's C-h-a-r-m-i-n. Perhaps you were confusing it with the word "shaman," a mystic-minded medicine man.
Only the car manufacturer you are thinking of is actually... "built (Ford) tough."
Well, I suppose that would depend on whether you were having a normal conversation or presenting at a science conference... The fact is, I know people who use the term "bike" for both, and leave it up to you to read your mind as to which they are talking about. It is so much simpler if everyone just uses the proper words for things. A two-wheeled vehicle propelled by a pedaling action is a bicycle. A two-wheeled vehicle propelled by fuel is a motorcycle. Any other usage is really just asking for trouble.
I don't know about that...but I do know a guy who knows a guy who has a speech impediment that makes him have an Australian accent.
Yes, but motorcycle lacks the ambiguity.
I am a dwarf, but I prefer the term "little person." Please see our web site for a short introduction: http://www.lpaonline.org/.
No, it's caused because two groups of people who are capable of getting along on a personal level are being manipulated by their leaders. Until each groups leader recognizes the right of the other party to a sovereign state, the problems will not go away.
You, sir/ma'am, are an idiot.
There is some distinction between right to use land and ownership of land. It's subtle, but I think it explains a lot of the situations involving Native Americans and land ownership. I have read more historically-accurate depictions of the process, but I have always been amused by the monologue made by the elderly Indian chief in "Ernest Goes to Camp." "Who can own a flower, who can own a tree?...", etc.
Actually, I think history will show that we have sometimes gone through the motions of signing treaties with other countries without obtaining congressional ratification. These treaties are, in fact, not law in the United States until such time that they are ratified. So, the international community may see us as responsible to follow the treaty, but no American citizen can be made to follow the terms of an unratified treaty.
Is it possible to make flash memory wipe itself after the last picture was taken? (This is supposing the pictures themselves are not stored on the same flash memory chips). I'm just curious. I don't know if my idea is any better, but I'm a college junior :)
I thought that maybe that's what you meant, but then I second-guessed myself. I'd have to look at an illustration of the situation, I guess. I can't quite visualize how you would pre-determine the beam's possible path. I'm not sure these terms are correct in this context, but I'm going to use them since they are familiar to me....if the azimuth and elevation could both vary on the "beam," wouldn't the area that could be hit any part of earth visible from the moon?
Yes, it would be very trivial to evacuate all the people in an area in 1.28 seconds!
>I think the FUD slashdot users have built into this system can now safely be ignored.
i d=1434)
Why is it that you assume it is FUD? 20% of the intensity of noon-time sunlight, before coming through earth's atmosphere, is A LOT of energy. Consider this quote: "The United States receives more energy in the form of sunlight in less than forty minutes than it does from all the fossil fuels it burns in a year." (http://www.solarquest.com/schoolhouse/quest.asp?
If you think this is FUD, go outside with a small magnifying glass on a sunny day (this will work even if it is cold). Focus the sunlight on some part of your skin in the smallest point of light you can get. Then count to the highest number you can before you start screaming in pain. If you get to 100, I'll be very surprised.
I'm no bleeding-heart liberal atomic-energy-hater. However, I must say that our past shows our inability to look past the "Wow!" factor of new technology. As Murphy's law says, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. You can argue with me all you want, but the simple fact is that all technology comes with tradeoffs. Please, just contemplate that for a while.