Immune system just doesn't work well for fighting off certain bacteria, such as tuberculosis and antharax. Also, a lot of hospital infections happen to elderly, AIDS patients and otherwise people with weak immune system. Even with a booster, it would be better to develop substances that kill bacteria directly.
Possibly, but getting used to a particular body image and behavior from childhood makes it easier to carry on this role as an adult. Also, a surgery will be way more mentally traumatic for a teenager than for a newborn. I mean we are talking about cutting off a weewee! As for gays, fortunately they have a community of peers where they can express themselves, and in everyday life they look just like regular men with private lives that are not anyone's business. I don't think they should come to a mainstream party dressed in pink and expect me to socialize with them.
You do realize that the lack of social life is entirely your choice? Join a class in community college and ask others to do homework together afterwards. Take some ballroom dance and yoga classes. If you feel shy, have a couple of drinks at a party before socializing. Whatever you think of your own appearance and social skills, there are plenty of persons of your opposite/preferred sex and certainly friend material of the same caliber. Get your grooves back together.
So you want a game system that costs just as much as a game-capable PC, has games that cost twice more than PC games, plays protected movies that you can not enjoy on the go and requires you to buy a separate PC and/or PVR? We should boycott both Microsoft and Sony until they come up with a better format. Nintendo may be more acceptable, since its much cheaper than a PC and has a technically unique controller, but they are being assholes by using an idiotic name in the US to please Chinese and artificially limiting supply and forcing hapless families to pay twice the price online.
the idea that society has a right to say "you don't fit into our binary system, so we'll cut up your body and then pretend that you do (even though you really still don't)" is outrageous
"Society" may not have a right to force one to have surgery, but certainly individuals have freedom to choose whom they interact with on their personal time. We have deep-rooted instinct to treat man and women differently and unfortunately, even if we get over (also instinctual) discomfort at the sight of something "other", we are at a loss on how to interact with these people. Do I complement this person's dress or thump their shoulder? Will they mind if I swear? Do I ask them to leave when I change cloth? This is for SF Bay Area adults. If we talk about teenagers in school or less educated places, the person risks being physically assaulted on weekly basis.
I don't know about personal feelings of the individual, but if you do manage to look somewhere in the range of clearly male and female and adopt the matching demeanor, you will have a much better casual social life than if you are "left as you are". You may not get hit on much, but at least man and woman will treat you just like one of your chosen gender. You can have regular friends and strike conversations at parties. Not that many people actually have a need to look closely at your privates.
Basically, either choice is difficult. But deciding that your kid is going to fight the society no matter what, is also making a decision for someone else.
True if your life and freedom are at stake. But, it's illegal for someone to pursue legal action without a good faith that allegations are true and substantiated by compelling evidence. If RIAAs evidence is shaky (no infringing files on your system, unsecured network, error-prone ISP's logging, spyware known to connect to P2P, use of your PC by many people), you can get big punitive damages later as well as put RIAA witnesses in PMINTA federal penitentiary for perjury.
This is the least of these kids problems. One of the kids has genitals which are in between penis and vagina. Both have inconsistent genetic makeup which is bound to cause health or at least fertility issues. Imagine living a life where you are called "a very special and wonderful person", but no personal life or even ability to enter either public restroom without people looking at you dubiously.
First of all, it probably costs a little bit to get a lawyer to compose an effective C&D letter to RIAA
Say what? Any moderately educated person can read the TFA and compose a similar letter with details adjusted to relate to their case. If you are NOT using P2P, you should also be able to win the case without a lawyer. Just hand over your original hard drive and ask them to show evidence of infringement. If you ARE pirating, I guess you do have to pay fine, lawyer fees or both.
You may not be able to play a CD now without a CD player. So what? Get a CD player.
True, but after you borrowed your friend's CD player for an hour, you can easily play music on a tape or MD. If I can borrow my friend's computer with iTunes and transfer the movie to tape or DVD, this will solve all my problems.
Most products you buy do not have a guaranteed useful lifetime.
Don't know, most of mine come with a 3 year warranty. And after that, if they break down, I have an option to repair it myself or bring it to a 3rd party shop. I can not just write my own AAC player or download one from sourceforge after I buy a new computer and Apple's DRM servers are no longer up.
Yeah, but you have to be a customer for somebody unless you live in a log cabin. I think most of us agree that it's a more pleasant experience to be a customer of Google and YouTube compared to Viacom. By rewarding the former, we can hope that the later will make watching their content a more convenient and less irritating experience.
Content providers are not currently required to make non-DRM original available for archiving. And, as I mentioned, warez sites are not guaranteed to be stable enough to be preserved for posterity.
Backup to CD option allows you to treat iTMS tracks as either low-quality (if you recompress) or space consuming DRM-free music. The same can not be said about iTunes movies. Not only you are unable to make a backup, but you may not be able to play them NOW on a new computer without Internet connection. Effectively you are paying for a product with no guaranteed useful lifetime.
Initial versions of DRM were easily cracked. Current, hardware-based or cleverly obfuscated versions seem more resilient. I am not aware of any current cracks for iTunes 7, Windows Media 11 or XBOX360. Even if crack is available, websites with cracks or decrypted content constantly shift to evade takedown. This is hardly reassuring for long term preservation of popular culture.
The US should disolve reservations, the whole idea is utter bullshit.
Why is that? Nobody is forced to live on reservations, which are low-quality land to start with. Just because an injustice was done a couple of hundred years ago doesn't mean that correcting a small portion of it by helping people in question remember their original culture is a bad idea. If anything, American Indians should be allowed to practice sustainable hunting in national forests.
Why is that, surely they can be expelled from WTO for using increased profits it brings for oppressing their own population and violating international laws?
Others doing something illegal is no excuse for one's own illegal actions.
1. Will his "working poor" parents be able to setup a Linux disto? 2. How will this impact his job opportunities vs using the software that most companies use. "A great graphics designer with extensive experience in Magick"
It's called popular culture. To break in, you need to start with something people are already familiar with. You don't see many vampire novels that do not mention Vlad Dracula, and these days it would be tough to write a really successful magician novel that doesn't mention Harry Potter. Why do you think J.K.Rowling stuck with magic wands, unicorns, giants and house elves? She should have come up with her own ideas to sell books!
It's not a priority of companies like Microsoft to sell to poor people, say like 90% of russian population. Well-off individual should be indeed required to buy software for a limited (say, 7 years) duration of copyright. There is no point to impose this restriction on people who are not able to financially reward the content creator.
China has censorship, forced abortions and is threatening to invade an independent, peaceful nation. They are in WTO. India has widow burning and widespread starvation right next to prosperous technology parks. They are in WTO. If an organization puts copying mp3s above burning people alive, perhaps it's not in a decent country's interest to seek membership.
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Immune system just doesn't work well for fighting off certain bacteria, such as tuberculosis and antharax. Also, a lot of hospital infections happen to elderly, AIDS patients and otherwise people with weak immune system. Even with a booster, it would be better to develop substances that kill bacteria directly.
Possibly, but getting used to a particular body image and behavior from childhood makes it easier to carry on this role as an adult. Also, a surgery will be way more mentally traumatic for a teenager than for a newborn. I mean we are talking about cutting off a weewee! As for gays, fortunately they have a community of peers where they can express themselves, and in everyday life they look just like regular men with private lives that are not anyone's business. I don't think they should come to a mainstream party dressed in pink and expect me to socialize with them.
You do realize that the lack of social life is entirely your choice? Join a class in community college and ask others to do homework together afterwards. Take some ballroom dance and yoga classes. If you feel shy, have a couple of drinks at a party before socializing. Whatever you think of your own appearance and social skills, there are plenty of persons of your opposite/preferred sex and certainly friend material of the same caliber. Get your grooves back together.
So you want a game system that costs just as much as a game-capable PC, has games that cost twice more than PC games, plays protected movies that you can not enjoy on the go and requires you to buy a separate PC and/or PVR? We should boycott both Microsoft and Sony until they come up with a better format. Nintendo may be more acceptable, since its much cheaper than a PC and has a technically unique controller, but they are being assholes by using an idiotic name in the US to please Chinese and artificially limiting supply and forcing hapless families to pay twice the price online.
the idea that society has a right to say "you don't fit into our binary system, so we'll cut up your body and then pretend that you do (even though you really still don't)" is outrageous
"Society" may not have a right to force one to have surgery, but certainly individuals have freedom to choose whom they interact with on their personal time. We have deep-rooted instinct to treat man and women differently and unfortunately, even if we get over (also instinctual) discomfort at the sight of something "other", we are at a loss on how to interact with these people. Do I complement this person's dress or thump their shoulder? Will they mind if I swear? Do I ask them to leave when I change cloth? This is for SF Bay Area adults. If we talk about teenagers in school or less educated places, the person risks being physically assaulted on weekly basis.
I don't know about personal feelings of the individual, but if you do manage to look somewhere in the range of clearly male and female and adopt the matching demeanor, you will have a much better casual social life than if you are "left as you are". You may not get hit on much, but at least man and woman will treat you just like one of your chosen gender. You can have regular friends and strike conversations at parties. Not that many people actually have a need to look closely at your privates.
Basically, either choice is difficult. But deciding that your kid is going to fight the society no matter what, is also making a decision for someone else.
Enron execs, Martha Stuart and Bill Clinton are testimony that facts can stand on their own in court, apart from wealth or power.
True if your life and freedom are at stake. But, it's illegal for someone to pursue legal action without a good faith that allegations are true and substantiated by compelling evidence. If RIAAs evidence is shaky (no infringing files on your system, unsecured network, error-prone ISP's logging, spyware known to connect to P2P, use of your PC by many people), you can get big punitive damages later as well as put RIAA witnesses in PMINTA federal penitentiary for perjury.
Just the fact that if they are caught once, their whole business model is over.
This is the least of these kids problems. One of the kids has genitals which are in between penis and vagina. Both have inconsistent genetic makeup which is bound to cause health or at least fertility issues. Imagine living a life where you are called "a very special and wonderful person", but no personal life or even ability to enter either public restroom without people looking at you dubiously.
First of all, it probably costs a little bit to get a lawyer to compose an effective C&D letter to RIAA
Say what? Any moderately educated person can read the TFA and compose a similar letter with details adjusted to relate to their case. If you are NOT using P2P, you should also be able to win the case without a lawyer. Just hand over your original hard drive and ask them to show evidence of infringement. If you ARE pirating, I guess you do have to pay fine, lawyer fees or both.
Hey, shower in prison doesn't count.
Yes, but once upon a time people who wanted to enjoy that data were able to enjoy it on the medium of their choice.
You may not be able to play a CD now without a CD player. So what? Get a CD player.
True, but after you borrowed your friend's CD player for an hour, you can easily play music on a tape or MD. If I can borrow my friend's computer with iTunes and transfer the movie to tape or DVD, this will solve all my problems.
Most products you buy do not have a guaranteed useful lifetime.
Don't know, most of mine come with a 3 year warranty. And after that, if they break down, I have an option to repair it myself or bring it to a 3rd party shop. I can not just write my own AAC player or download one from sourceforge after I buy a new computer and Apple's DRM servers are no longer up.
Yeah, but you have to be a customer for somebody unless you live in a log cabin. I think most of us agree that it's a more pleasant experience to be a customer of Google and YouTube compared to Viacom. By rewarding the former, we can hope that the later will make watching their content a more convenient and less irritating experience.
Content providers are not currently required to make non-DRM original available for archiving. And, as I mentioned, warez sites are not guaranteed to be stable enough to be preserved for posterity.
Backup to CD option allows you to treat iTMS tracks as either low-quality (if you recompress) or space consuming DRM-free music. The same can not be said about iTunes movies. Not only you are unable to make a backup, but you may not be able to play them NOW on a new computer without Internet connection. Effectively you are paying for a product with no guaranteed useful lifetime.
Initial versions of DRM were easily cracked. Current, hardware-based or cleverly obfuscated versions seem more resilient. I am not aware of any current cracks for iTunes 7, Windows Media 11 or XBOX360. Even if crack is available, websites with cracks or decrypted content constantly shift to evade takedown. This is hardly reassuring for long term preservation of popular culture.
The US should disolve reservations, the whole idea is utter bullshit.
Why is that? Nobody is forced to live on reservations, which are low-quality land to start with. Just because an injustice was done a couple of hundred years ago doesn't mean that correcting a small portion of it by helping people in question remember their original culture is a bad idea. If anything, American Indians should be allowed to practice sustainable hunting in national forests.
While whites did enough evil, like stealing the whole country, American Indian writing systems were actually developed by missionaries.
That content can not be preserved at all. We'll be a civilization without written history, like American Indians.
and there's little that can be done about it now
Why is that, surely they can be expelled from WTO for using increased profits it brings for oppressing their own population and violating international laws?
Others doing something illegal is no excuse for one's own illegal actions.
It's a matter of legal debate
1. Will his "working poor" parents be able to setup a Linux disto?
2. How will this impact his job opportunities vs using the software that most companies use. "A great graphics designer with extensive experience in Magick"
It's called popular culture. To break in, you need to start with something people are already familiar with. You don't see many vampire novels that do not mention Vlad Dracula, and these days it would be tough to write a really successful magician novel that doesn't mention Harry Potter. Why do you think J.K.Rowling stuck with magic wands, unicorns, giants and house elves? She should have come up with her own ideas to sell books!
It's not a priority of companies like Microsoft to sell to poor people, say like 90% of russian population. Well-off individual should be indeed required to buy software for a limited (say, 7 years) duration of copyright. There is no point to impose this restriction on people who are not able to financially reward the content creator.
China has censorship, forced abortions and is threatening to invade an independent, peaceful nation. They are in WTO. India has widow burning and widespread starvation right next to prosperous technology parks. They are in WTO. If an organization puts copying mp3s above burning people alive, perhaps it's not in a decent country's interest to seek membership.