The expected rewards and the cost are the utility value of the money, which does not necessarily scale linearly with the dollar amount of the money. To give an extreme example, if I need $1000 today, and otherwise will die a horrible death, but only have $100, and my only opportunity to make money is to play a game which pays $1000 on a $100 bet 1/20th of the time, it would be entirely rational for me to play. In that case, the utility value of $1000 is much more than ten times the utility value of $100.
Lottery playing is not necessarily irrational even if most people who play the lottery are acting irrationally. While many parts of our society treat the utility/dollar curve as linear for the sake of simplicity, that isn't inherently true.
2. Create a government owned website similar to PayPal. Make a law that US citizens can gamble on the internet if they use this site. Collect a percentage of money in and out. Spend immense new tax revenues lavishly on junkets and reelection.
Isn't keeping your money in PayPal enough of a gamble already?
You can't legislate morality? I thought that's what we did everyday when we decide that murder, stealing, rape, etc. is wrong and make them illegal.
There exist reasons to make murder, theft, and rape illegal that aren't dependant on moral concerns, though moral concerns can certainly bolster the case for making them illegal. The grandparent was apparently attempting to claim that there's no reason to make pornography illegal except for moral concerns, which would make this a case of legislating morality, if true. I'm not convinced it is true, however; it's not something I've made up my mind about.
Which is not to say that I support censorship. It's just important to remember that legality, ethics, and morality are different, but often interrelated subjects.
"democracy
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives."
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law:
"democracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"
So, we fall under the dictionary definition of a democracy. What we are not is a direct democracy.
Even under your definitions, however, the USA is a democratic republic, which would mean a question of something being undemocratic would be perfectly valid.
The difficulty of installing Windows is irrelevant. Most people never install their OS, so what matters is the low commercial availability of pre-installed Linux and the reasons for it.
True enough. The standard use for the Windows CDs is not an install, but a reinstall.
Installation of software - again, this is irrelevent. Most people don't install most of their software. Most of the software that they start out using is preinstalled, and I've never heard anybody saying, "I don't want to use Linux because it's hard to install new applications." It's a bogon.
I assume you're talking about the corporate environment, where people don't install their own software, and techs are instead responsible. People install their own software in the home environment all the time.
Anyways, addressing the myths of why people don't use Linux misses the point. If Linux advocates actually want people to switch to Linux, they need to give people reasons to switch, not counter-arguments to reasonds to use Windows. "It's basically as good as Windows" is not a battlecry that's going to get anyone but the technophiles to switch.
Linux needs a killer feature. There's lots of those for Linux as a server OS: better stability, more user control, and plenty more. The only selling point for Linux on the desktop that most people actually care about is that it's free. And if you then take into account that most people don't see the cost of Windows because it comes bundled with their machine, and our society equates free with worthless, the Linux has a problem.
I'm not an anti-Linux advocate. I want Linux to do well, because given some time to mature, I think it represents the future of operating systems. But arguing that Linux is finally not too much worse to use than Windows isn't going to be a winning argument.
Please tell me, have you ever heard of a company dropping prices because their sales went up?! The very thought of it is insane.
As insane as it may seem to you, being able to have low prices due to having a large number of units sold is the motivation behind mass production. And there's plenty of examples of this happening. Electronic devices are routinely introduced with high initial prices which then fall as enough sales are made to pay for R&D. The price drop that occurs as something becomes a commodity is very common.
There's plenty of faulty logic behind the "piracy causes high prices" argument, but your point isn't one of them.
Piracy, like ad blocking, in the end, is caused by social dynamics that no single invididual bucking a trend could ever hope to reverse.
I could just as easily say that people arguing that people shouldn't pirate/people shouldn't block ads/people shouldn't jaywalk is also caused by social dynamics that no single individual bucking a trend could ever hope to reverse. If you're unwilling to believe that individual action could result in social change, then why are you bothering to get involved? You're welcome to be cynical, to believe that nothing we do can change the world, but you shouldn't expect everyone else to do the same. But then, there's not much that I, just one man, can do to stop people like you shouting others down;).
2) Wonder how many others would've been without it?
There's a set number of Nobel prizes a year. I'm guessing we would have had the same number of Nobel Laueates as we do now, barring any change due to multiple people sharing an award. Assuming, of course, that smoking pop recreationally even affects intelligence, which hasn't been proven.
Man did those things because the possible gains outweighed the possible pitfalls we could do a lot of things that would be incredibly stupid like kill half the worlds population with nukes, do you think we should? Technology!=progress, with great power comes great responsibility(and an even greater temptation to misuse that power)
None of the changes mentioned were done by all humans at the same time. Groups started experimenting with them, and they were able to out-compete groups that didn't. There were plenty of similar developements which didn't work better than what was used in the past, but they didn't stick around because they didn't work. But it's not like anyone sat down and mapped out the possible gains and the possible pitfalls, and made a decision for all of humanity to switch to agriculture.
Unfortunately, genetic engineering is capable of introducing changes that affect everyone in the world. As such, the strategies that don't work have the possibility of negatively affecting everyone.
So, yes, this is a case where some amount of caution isn't unreasonable. However, while the world may be small enough that we can all affect each other, it's too big to expect that this sort of thing won't happen, whether one group likes it or not. It is a situation with a real possibility of disaster.
And just to clarify, I'm not against genetic engineering. I'm not anti-technology. It's an exciting time to be alive, with all the risks associated with that.
You've fallen, as most do, into the realm of poor definitions that Skinner left the psychological community.
The _removal_ of an unpleasant stimulus is logically identical to the _reward_ of a pleasant stimulus. Similarly, any time you are performing a behavior, you are simultaneously _not_ performing its opposite. As such, reinforcement and punishment are logically identical.
Therefore, you end up in a situation in which you have to look at the subjective reality of the entity undergoing the reinforcement/punishment, as objective reality can't distinguish them.
So, does the rat think that it is removing the punishment of the electricified floor (negative reinforcement), or gaining a more comfortable floor (positive reinforcement). In the case of the rat, negative reinforcement is probably what most rats would infer.
People, being more complex than rats, end up in more entertaining circumstances. I have a friend, for example, who doesn't speed, not because she can't afford a speeding ticket, but because getting pulled over by the cops scares her, so she feels a great deal of anxiety whenever she speeds. As such, slow driving (reinforcement) removes the anxiety (negative), as an example of negative reinforcment. On the other hand, speeding (punishment) introduces encounters with the police, which she dislikes (positive), as an example of positive punishment.
So, if we have these lights that go red if you speed, how do people react? Some might notice that they get a lot of green lights, which they like (positive) whenever they drive the speed limit (reinforcement). Some might notice that they get less green lights (negative) when they speed (punishment). Some might notice that they get more red lights (positive) when they speed (punishment). And some might notice they have to stop less (negative) when they drive at the speed limit (reinforcment).
So, my point is, this is a hard example to classify.
As per your comment of expectation, expectation is inherintly wrapped up in all thinking behavior. If I expect floors to be electrified, then a non-electrified floor is a reward. If I expect floors to be non-electrified, then an electrified floor is a punishment. The expection of the person conducting the experiment is irrelevant, as for the classifications to be meaningfull you need to be dealing with the psychological reality of the subject.
To close, yes, I'm aware that psychology has standards for how it classifies things. I just think they're more a reflection of the existance of a standard, than they are of something meaningful. As such, expecting people who aren't indoctrinated into the culture to follow them is pedantic.
If you think that the American government cares about the safety of foreign nationals, then you clearly haven't been paying attention to the news lately. Take the first time you get clipped by an SUV as your warning.
The issue with the tobacco companies is not that they sell addictive and dangerous products, but that they lied about the addictiveness and danger of their products. So, it's possible to have issues with the tobacco companies and still be in favor of drug legalization, as long as the sale of what are now illegal drugs was done with an honest look at their effects.
As for most criminals being democrats, selling drugs is a felony, and felons can't vote. I really don't think many democrats got into office because of the support of the drug dealer community. I'd certainly want to see more than your unsupported claim as evidence.
As for energy causing warped spacetime, not a problem - it simply means we can achieve the same effect with a good release of energy, say a nuclear explosion. Not sure that this will make antigravity any more practical...
The energy released from a nuclear explosion is from mass being converted to energy by either fission or fusion. The total energy in a nuclear weapon before it explodes is equal to the energy in a nuclear weapon after it explodes. Some of that energy has just been converted from being mass to heat and light. A nuclear explosion doesn't curve space any more than the nuclear weapon it came from.
At $10 a pound, who WOULDN'T want to replace all their steel rails with LiquidMetal? Maybe once they get the price down some, as they say they are trying, in a country where rail service is in better demand than the US. They would also need to fix the limitation of only being able to make inch-thick casts.
Of course, Atlas Shrugged would have been more entertaining if Rearden, like the LiquidMetal people, had first thought of using his metal for golf clubs. A key conflict could have been how most golf club manufacturers wouldn't use the metal, being too conservative, but one gutsy female executive is bold enough to use the new metal for her company's line of golf clubs. Will the government stop this highly influential golf club company from upsetting the balance away from the traditional metal companies towards Rearden Metal? How long will our courageous executive prop up the failing golf club industry, and the well being of the country that depends on it, instead of abandoning it?
Re:And why would this be a good thing?
on
Doom3 and OpenGL2.0
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That is a valid point regarding market share.
However, how many of those crappy built in video cards are going to be able to run Doom3? In the case of Doom 3 you won't get any more potential customers by supporting PCs with crappy built in cards. On the other hand, there are Linux and Mac users with nice graphics cards that are capable of handling the graphics in Doom 3, but can't do DirectX. So in the case of Doom 3 using OpenGL instead of DirectX makes sense even just from a marketshare perspective.
Most Slashdot readers probably live in that special country (point with the finger at it) where laws named "CBDTPA" and some other with lots of "S" are seriously considered, while the Gonvernment of that country at the same time claims "Freedom" as one of the highest (the highest?) values.
Those potential laws are very scary, yes. Of course, they would take many years to take effect. First, the technology would need to be designed and implemented. Even after that, everyone would have to replace every computer they own. That's a lengthy process, as you hardly need your newest, fastest computer to do file sharing.
I mean, do you really think that an organisation like the RIAA (or next time the MPAA) is incapable to cut off true peer2peer filesharing? Can't they hire some homeless CS students to monitor who (which ip) does what (which song/movie) and place a call to the ISP to cancel a cable/dsl/whatever subscription due to copyright infringement (the ISP probably would be happy to get rid of those bandwith hogs)? If that would be the case, who would risk to download anything from anywhere when she has to face being kicked by her ISP?
Please don't tell me about encrypted filesharing, it's not usable for at least the next five years (IMO). (Isn't strong encryption illegal anyway? Terrorists could use it..)
Well, you wouldn't want to use a CS student, you'd want to automate the process. But I get your point. Yes, it could be done, though, with no push being done in that direction, it should be some time before that is a reality. Potentially long enough for encrypted file transfer to become a reality. BTW, strong encryption is not illegal. The exportation of strong encryption is illegal (in the United States).
Just to clarify, I am not supporting piracy or theft of copyrighted material. My comment was more to the point that the RIAA is using a poor strategy when it comes to attempting to maintain its business. I would love a legal way to get music in a high quality format online for a reasonable price. I also think that the RIAA is damaging their ability to bring the popular file transfer programs into line with this, and are encouraging the creation of file transfer programs that will never be brought in line with it.
"The message is clear - there is no place on the Internet for services that exploit creators' work without fair compensation," added Edward P. Murphy, President and CEO, NMPA.
And thus, this sad chapter of history has ended. No longer can rufians download music on the internet, making the delivery channels of CD, tape, and vinyl the only channels, ensuring that the copyright holders recieve their fair compensation. The brief period of anarchy is at last over, likely forever.
Or, possibly, just possibly, decentralized services with no way to be shut down are still around, and will always be around, and the RIAA is trying to close the cell doors after the inmates have already taken over the prison.
Well, good luck to them. As they kill those services that have any sort of control mechanism in place, all that will remain is those services that they can't control, which are precisely those services which can't be used to make money for the publishing industry. What may have taken a decade of evolution from central-controlled P2P to fully-distributed P2P is being encouraged to take place in a couple of years. The dinosaurs aren't just being replaced by mammals, they're encouraging them to do it as quickly as possible.
"Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue... AAY!"
A similar quote can be produced for increasing car sales. Some popular things increase in popularity and some popular things stop being popular after a while.
The important detail is that the popularity of vinyl is easily explained in the context of dance music. This suggests that until a superior technology comes along to replace what vinyl provides (and neither cassette tapes or CDs fit this) vinyl records will continue to be sold. However, it is unlikely that this vinyl resurgence will continue in areas where CDs are demonstrably better (listening to music at home or in the car in the manner that 95+% do).
VHS tapes as well have this sort of niche that DVDs can't replace: recording shows off the air. Tivo is in many ways a superior alternative (though not in all ways, as it doesn't allow friends to share tapes), so it will probably continue to take market share away from VCRs.
Cost is also an issue with Tivos, something which is not the case with movies on VHS. There is no technical reason that DVD movies have to be more expensive that VHS movies. Because of the service component of Tivo, it's unlikely that Tivo could become less expensive than VCRs. Those digital TV recorders that do not depend on a central service have a better chance of eliminating VCRs, though the marketing reality may mean that they take a while to succesfully compete with Tivo.
Isn't this the creation of an underclass of humans whos purpose it is to serve the higher classes?
That's the issue of how the stem cells are procured. As mentioned in this comment there is a method of getting stem cells that doesn't rely on creating a brave-new-world style underclass.
Simply creating new organs in existing human beings (or mice) in no way creates an underclass.
It seems like the solution is not to outlaw stem cell research, but to ensure that procuring stem cells is done in an ethical manner. Differing opinions on what constitutes an ethical manner is what makes this such a sensitive subject.
From science fiction, the impression I always got was that the way handle the failure of a heart was either going to be transplant from a donor or the use of synthetic organs (e.g. artificial hearts). This seems like a more impressive technology, allowing the body to grow its own replacement, and a more natural one, by eliminating the risk of rejection of artificial substances or organs grown in a different body.
I did find some of the quotes from Professor Boyd somewhat melodramatic, though: "Without a functioning immune system you get a disease called death,"he said.
Still, an amazing discovery. Good luck to those doing cutting edge medical research.
A VCR is the easiest way to tune cable and get output that an Audio/Video Reciever can understand. Now, I'd love to find a small box that tunes cable, supports some of the nicer tuning features (favorite channels, last channel button, etc.), and doesn't cost too much. This would let me use my VCR for what it is intended: sitting there doing nothing while I use my DVD player.
Of course, the real question is who's behind the cameras
When are slashdotters going to stop adding these kind of remarks at the end of their news post? I'm getting tired of all the paranoia and propaganda that is around on Slashdot, even if it is justified sometimes.
Whether or not that comment is justified, I interpreted as being a misquote from the end of the article itself. The original line was:
"The question," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the electronic privacy group, "will always be who's behind the lens?"
No more radar guns for police (now you'll need an invisible car)
Using radar guns or laser based detectors is still going to be cheaper and more accurate. A 3D picture of the car speeding is just lots of extra information that isn't needed to determine that the car is speeding, so is a waste.
Fighter planes that don't need radar (but will need scads of cameras all over it -- both visible, infrared, and tetrawave)
This technology is unlikely to work reliably at a distance of a mile with "eyes" only as far apart as even each tip of a fighter's wings. Fighter planes are very narrow as compared to the distance they need to be able to "see".
Computerized athletic officiating (which may finally kill the politics of skating and gymnastics)
Just because computers can see people moving in 3D doesn't mean they know anything about gymnastics or skating. That is a significantly harder artificial intelligence problem.
Better identity recognition software (now you don't have to face the camera)
The software only works on shapes that it can see. If there is no camera that can see the front of your head, it won't know what your face looks like. I find it unlikely that we'll have software that can recognize people from the back of their head anytime soon.
Anyways, my argument is simply that just because we can collect 3D data more easily doesn't mean that any of the very difficult problems involved in analyzing 3D data have gotten any easier.
Most CD stores I've been to don't have a CD section, they have sections labeled with different genres of music and all they have there is CDs. There are rarely signs indicating that the products are CDs, as that is assumed. Best Buy and Wal Mart could follow this trend by simply labelling it as the "music" section.
Like the speed of light isn't fast enough for you?
Teleportation in this manner is still limited by the speed of light. The gains would be that you wouldn't need to occupy the space in between the two points while in transit and (at least for laser beams) you would not experience signal degredation because of intervening dust and such.
Quantum entanglement does not allow for superlinear communication.
From my own experience most software vendors actually limit their liability by way of the EULA (End User License Agreement).
This seems like a situation in which the government or extremely large corporations could use their grouped buying power to force changes. If government offices informed Microsoft that in one year they would no longer buy software that limited the liability of the designer, Microsoft would have to either improve their software, leave themselves open to lawsuits, or lose business.
Slashdot Mirror
The expected rewards and the cost are the utility value of the money, which does not necessarily scale linearly with the dollar amount of the money. To give an extreme example, if I need $1000 today, and otherwise will die a horrible death, but only have $100, and my only opportunity to make money is to play a game which pays $1000 on a $100 bet 1/20th of the time, it would be entirely rational for me to play. In that case, the utility value of $1000 is much more than ten times the utility value of $100.
Lottery playing is not necessarily irrational even if most people who play the lottery are acting irrationally. While many parts of our society treat the utility/dollar curve as linear for the sake of simplicity, that isn't inherently true.
There exist reasons to make murder, theft, and rape illegal that aren't dependant on moral concerns, though moral concerns can certainly bolster the case for making them illegal. The grandparent was apparently attempting to claim that there's no reason to make pornography illegal except for moral concerns, which would make this a case of legislating morality, if true. I'm not convinced it is true, however; it's not something I've made up my mind about.
Which is not to say that I support censorship. It's just important to remember that legality, ethics, and morality are different, but often interrelated subjects.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary:
"democracy
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives."
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law:
"democracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"
So, we fall under the dictionary definition of a democracy. What we are not is a direct democracy.
Even under your definitions, however, the USA is a democratic republic, which would mean a question of something being undemocratic would be perfectly valid.
True enough. The standard use for the Windows CDs is not an install, but a reinstall.
I assume you're talking about the corporate environment, where people don't install their own software, and techs are instead responsible. People install their own software in the home environment all the time.
Anyways, addressing the myths of why people don't use Linux misses the point. If Linux advocates actually want people to switch to Linux, they need to give people reasons to switch, not counter-arguments to reasonds to use Windows. "It's basically as good as Windows" is not a battlecry that's going to get anyone but the technophiles to switch.
Linux needs a killer feature. There's lots of those for Linux as a server OS: better stability, more user control, and plenty more. The only selling point for Linux on the desktop that most people actually care about is that it's free. And if you then take into account that most people don't see the cost of Windows because it comes bundled with their machine, and our society equates free with worthless, the Linux has a problem.
I'm not an anti-Linux advocate. I want Linux to do well, because given some time to mature, I think it represents the future of operating systems. But arguing that Linux is finally not too much worse to use than Windows isn't going to be a winning argument.
As insane as it may seem to you, being able to have low prices due to having a large number of units sold is the motivation behind mass production. And there's plenty of examples of this happening. Electronic devices are routinely introduced with high initial prices which then fall as enough sales are made to pay for R&D. The price drop that occurs as something becomes a commodity is very common.
There's plenty of faulty logic behind the "piracy causes high prices" argument, but your point isn't one of them.
I could just as easily say that people arguing that people shouldn't pirate/people shouldn't block ads/people shouldn't jaywalk is also caused by social dynamics that no single individual bucking a trend could ever hope to reverse. If you're unwilling to believe that individual action could result in social change, then why are you bothering to get involved? You're welcome to be cynical, to believe that nothing we do can change the world, but you shouldn't expect everyone else to do the same. But then, there's not much that I, just one man, can do to stop people like you shouting others down ;).
2) Wonder how many others would've been without it?
There's a set number of Nobel prizes a year. I'm guessing we would have had the same number of Nobel Laueates as we do now, barring any change due to multiple people sharing an award. Assuming, of course, that smoking pop recreationally even affects intelligence, which hasn't been proven.
Man did those things because the possible gains outweighed the possible pitfalls we could do a lot of things that would be incredibly stupid like kill half the worlds population with nukes, do you think we should? Technology!=progress, with great power comes great responsibility(and an even greater temptation to misuse that power)
None of the changes mentioned were done by all humans at the same time. Groups started experimenting with them, and they were able to out-compete groups that didn't. There were plenty of similar developements which didn't work better than what was used in the past, but they didn't stick around because they didn't work. But it's not like anyone sat down and mapped out the possible gains and the possible pitfalls, and made a decision for all of humanity to switch to agriculture.
Unfortunately, genetic engineering is capable of introducing changes that affect everyone in the world. As such, the strategies that don't work have the possibility of negatively affecting everyone.
So, yes, this is a case where some amount of caution isn't unreasonable. However, while the world may be small enough that we can all affect each other, it's too big to expect that this sort of thing won't happen, whether one group likes it or not. It is a situation with a real possibility of disaster.
And just to clarify, I'm not against genetic engineering. I'm not anti-technology. It's an exciting time to be alive, with all the risks associated with that.
You've fallen, as most do, into the realm of poor definitions that Skinner left the psychological community.
The _removal_ of an unpleasant stimulus is logically identical to the _reward_ of a pleasant stimulus. Similarly, any time you are performing a behavior, you are simultaneously _not_ performing its opposite. As such, reinforcement and punishment are logically identical.
Therefore, you end up in a situation in which you have to look at the subjective reality of the entity undergoing the reinforcement/punishment, as objective reality can't distinguish them.
So, does the rat think that it is removing the punishment of the electricified floor (negative reinforcement), or gaining a more comfortable floor (positive reinforcement). In the case of the rat, negative reinforcement is probably what most rats would infer.
People, being more complex than rats, end up in more entertaining circumstances. I have a friend, for example, who doesn't speed, not because she can't afford a speeding ticket, but because getting pulled over by the cops scares her, so she feels a great deal of anxiety whenever she speeds. As such, slow driving (reinforcement) removes the anxiety (negative), as an example of negative reinforcment. On the other hand, speeding (punishment) introduces encounters with the police, which she dislikes (positive), as an example of positive punishment.
So, if we have these lights that go red if you speed, how do people react? Some might notice that they get a lot of green lights, which they like (positive) whenever they drive the speed limit (reinforcement). Some might notice that they get less green lights (negative) when they speed (punishment). Some might notice that they get more red lights (positive) when they speed (punishment). And some might notice they have to stop less (negative) when they drive at the speed limit (reinforcment).
So, my point is, this is a hard example to classify.
As per your comment of expectation, expectation is inherintly wrapped up in all thinking behavior. If I expect floors to be electrified, then a non-electrified floor is a reward. If I expect floors to be non-electrified, then an electrified floor is a punishment. The expection of the person conducting the experiment is irrelevant, as for the classifications to be meaningfull you need to be dealing with the psychological reality of the subject.
To close, yes, I'm aware that psychology has standards for how it classifies things. I just think they're more a reflection of the existance of a standard, than they are of something meaningful. As such, expecting people who aren't indoctrinated into the culture to follow them is pedantic.
If you think that the American government cares about the safety of foreign nationals, then you clearly haven't been paying attention to the news lately. Take the first time you get clipped by an SUV as your warning.
The issue with the tobacco companies is not that they sell addictive and dangerous products, but that they lied about the addictiveness and danger of their products. So, it's possible to have issues with the tobacco companies and still be in favor of drug legalization, as long as the sale of what are now illegal drugs was done with an honest look at their effects.
As for most criminals being democrats, selling drugs is a felony, and felons can't vote. I really don't think many democrats got into office because of the support of the drug dealer community. I'd certainly want to see more than your unsupported claim as evidence.
At $10 a pound, who WOULDN'T want to replace all their steel rails with LiquidMetal? Maybe once they get the price down some, as they say they are trying, in a country where rail service is in better demand than the US. They would also need to fix the limitation of only being able to make inch-thick casts.
Of course, Atlas Shrugged would have been more entertaining if Rearden, like the LiquidMetal people, had first thought of using his metal for golf clubs. A key conflict could have been how most golf club manufacturers wouldn't use the metal, being too conservative, but one gutsy female executive is bold enough to use the new metal for her company's line of golf clubs. Will the government stop this highly influential golf club company from upsetting the balance away from the traditional metal companies towards Rearden Metal? How long will our courageous executive prop up the failing golf club industry, and the well being of the country that depends on it, instead of abandoning it?
That is a valid point regarding market share.
However, how many of those crappy built in video cards are going to be able to run Doom3? In the case of Doom 3 you won't get any more potential customers by supporting PCs with crappy built in cards. On the other hand, there are Linux and Mac users with nice graphics cards that are capable of handling the graphics in Doom 3, but can't do DirectX. So in the case of Doom 3 using OpenGL instead of DirectX makes sense even just from a marketshare perspective.
Just to clarify, I am not supporting piracy or theft of copyrighted material. My comment was more to the point that the RIAA is using a poor strategy when it comes to attempting to maintain its business. I would love a legal way to get music in a high quality format online for a reasonable price. I also think that the RIAA is damaging their ability to bring the popular file transfer programs into line with this, and are encouraging the creation of file transfer programs that will never be brought in line with it.
And thus, this sad chapter of history has ended. No longer can rufians download music on the internet, making the delivery channels of CD, tape, and vinyl the only channels, ensuring that the copyright holders recieve their fair compensation. The brief period of anarchy is at last over, likely forever.
Or, possibly, just possibly, decentralized services with no way to be shut down are still around, and will always be around, and the RIAA is trying to close the cell doors after the inmates have already taken over the prison.
Well, good luck to them. As they kill those services that have any sort of control mechanism in place, all that will remain is those services that they can't control, which are precisely those services which can't be used to make money for the publishing industry. What may have taken a decade of evolution from central-controlled P2P to fully-distributed P2P is being encouraged to take place in a couple of years. The dinosaurs aren't just being replaced by mammals, they're encouraging them to do it as quickly as possible.
The important detail is that the popularity of vinyl is easily explained in the context of dance music. This suggests that until a superior technology comes along to replace what vinyl provides (and neither cassette tapes or CDs fit this) vinyl records will continue to be sold. However, it is unlikely that this vinyl resurgence will continue in areas where CDs are demonstrably better (listening to music at home or in the car in the manner that 95+% do).
VHS tapes as well have this sort of niche that DVDs can't replace: recording shows off the air. Tivo is in many ways a superior alternative (though not in all ways, as it doesn't allow friends to share tapes), so it will probably continue to take market share away from VCRs.
Cost is also an issue with Tivos, something which is not the case with movies on VHS. There is no technical reason that DVD movies have to be more expensive that VHS movies. Because of the service component of Tivo, it's unlikely that Tivo could become less expensive than VCRs. Those digital TV recorders that do not depend on a central service have a better chance of eliminating VCRs, though the marketing reality may mean that they take a while to succesfully compete with Tivo.
Simply creating new organs in existing human beings (or mice) in no way creates an underclass.
It seems like the solution is not to outlaw stem cell research, but to ensure that procuring stem cells is done in an ethical manner. Differing opinions on what constitutes an ethical manner is what makes this such a sensitive subject.
From science fiction, the impression I always got was that the way handle the failure of a heart was either going to be transplant from a donor or the use of synthetic organs (e.g. artificial hearts). This seems like a more impressive technology, allowing the body to grow its own replacement, and a more natural one, by eliminating the risk of rejection of artificial substances or organs grown in a different body.
I did find some of the quotes from Professor Boyd somewhat melodramatic, though: "Without a functioning immune system you get a disease called death,"he said.
Still, an amazing discovery. Good luck to those doing cutting edge medical research.
A VCR is the easiest way to tune cable and get output that an Audio/Video Reciever can understand. Now, I'd love to find a small box that tunes cable, supports some of the nicer tuning features (favorite channels, last channel button, etc.), and doesn't cost too much. This would let me use my VCR for what it is intended: sitting there doing nothing while I use my DVD player.
"The question," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the electronic privacy group, "will always be who's behind the lens?"
Most CD stores I've been to don't have a CD section, they have sections labeled with different genres of music and all they have there is CDs. There are rarely signs indicating that the products are CDs, as that is assumed. Best Buy and Wal Mart could follow this trend by simply labelling it as the "music" section.