I don't find Asus support to be that bad. They answer the phone in less than 5 mins usually, and if the tier-1 support guys can't help you then they elevate you to tier-2 within 2-3 mins and you can talk to them. Pretty decent support arrangement if you ask me.
What really disappoints me is that Soundstorm(tm) is still being ignored. Many people buying these boards are gamers, and it's a massive drawback knowing that you'll have to drop another $100-$200 on a crappy Creative soundcard. The NForce2 boards were wonderful home-theater solutions with built in dolby decoders. Not even Creative's most expensive boards can do that. It always depresses me when technology appears to devolve rather than improve like it's supposed to.
With the incoming PCI-E boards, and the lack of Soundstorm integration with the new NForce chipsets....I'm sad to say that my AMD days are probably over for the next few years. Hello Intel....again...*sigh*.
There are some new advances in the field of dual-monitor applications however.
I was speaking with a guy on IRC the other day who is planning on using 2 21" LCD screens as his display. This will allow him to watch fullscreen letterbox DVDs on his comp by spanning across the two screens.
I asked him about the big black bar running down the center of his 'screen' from where the two monitors join, and he says it's only about 3cm because of how the LCD screens are designed. He also said that after a while he just got used to it.
I wish the LCD/monitor industry would advance at a faster pace(bigger, better screens, for a lot less money). Memory, cpu's, harddrive have all made incredible advances over the last 20 years....screens are still very behind =(.
It's pretty telling when someone would rather have a black bar in the middle of his screen than use a standard 21".
I thought only Bush wanted to take away freedoms and civil liberties, not the enlightened, peaceful Europeans. Just goes to show that the "Bush is worse than Hitler", anti-Patriot Act, war protesting Euro-trash aren't more free than us Americans after all.:)
Umm, the parent poster may not have put this as delicately as he could have, but he has a very legitimate point. One of the main reasons the Bush supporters are sobering up is because world opinion of Bush is so low. He is largely viewed as an irresponsible, arrogant, self-assured jackass who had no business being elected in the first place. John Ashcroft is a direct result of Bush's presidency, and it's been Ashcroft(and other republican leadship, i.e. Orin Hatch) who's spearheaded the campaign to squash consumer rights.
What's even more scary is that 40-60% of the over 250 million americans are considering reelecting Bush in November. If european leadership continues to follow suit with the US by sacrificing individual rights and freedoms in order to increase profits for large corporations, what kind of message is that going to send to us? That it's ok to do these things?
Many of us in the US need the rest of the world to stand up against this kind of tyranny. Please don't just roll over and say 'it must be okay because america is doing it'. It's not ok, and many of the more civilized european countries need to do thier part to make clear that people should come before greedy corporations.
Now that Steam has pioneered the biggest online game delivery system to date, is it as simple as that?
Not really, since 99% of people only know about steam because they enjoy playing counter-strike(which valve did not in any way have the forsight to create). The fact that we can patch a little easier through steam every few weeks is almost irrelevant.
Read my concerns about the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
Valve has been kicking themselves for years because they failed to capitalize more on counter-strike. So they've spent that time trying to find a way to ensure that if a 'CS phenomenon' occurs with half-life 2, they will be there to rake in the proceeds. Unforunately they fail to understand that cost is a major barrier for entry. Since counter-strike was freely available and a great game, it became very popular.
Has anyone else read this agreement? Should Valve change it?
Only if they want to stay relevant in the FPS world past a few more years.
If you love Valve's games but you've never religiously kept an eye on your credit card statement, maybe this will give you more reason.
This is good advice for Valve too, especially if they're interested in making payroll.
I think this was laughed out by gamers, as Valve's games releases haven't exactly been particularly regular (or on time), and there's been no mention of a subscription in the final offers.
Let's hope so. Half-life was a great game to be sure, but the only thing that made it a phenomenon was its ease of modification. Enter TFC, CS, etc. If Valve in any way impedes that creative process with Half-Life 2, they can be sure that someone else will be more than happy to fill thier shoes.
No, it tells you an election is coming up and they don't want to be asked about this in the last 30 days before people vote.
That is all that has happened, nothing else.
That is probably the most relevant post you'll see in this thread. Don't read the article with a sigh of relief and attribute it to the long overdue arrival of common sense on capital hill.
Be prepared to do whatever you can to defend your online rights in 30 days. If you still think this is just a bunch of hype, or don't understand what is at stake, please take a moment to read this article.
The Betamax ruling is the only thing that protects your right to own a VCR, tape recorder, CD-burner, DVD-burner, iPod, or TiVo. It's that important. But new legislation that's being pushed through the Senate by lobbyists for the music and movie industries would override the Betamax decision and create a huge liability for any business that makes products which can copy sound or video. This legislation (formerly known as the INDUCE Act) would essentially give Hollywood veto power over a huge range of new technologies.
Another great quote which describes the situation well:
Is Congress Insane?
You might think so at first glance. Voters, technology experts, public interest groups, and electronics manufacturers all oppose these efforts to weaken Betamax. So why is it still happening? Because the major record labels and the movie studios-- the same companies that opposed the Betamax ruling-- make huge donations to the re-election campaigns of the Senators who are sponsoring this legislation. And most members of Congress assume this is a non-controversial issue, off the radar of most voters. If they can please their donors without a big fuss, they will. It's bad policy, but until we start making noise, it's smart politics.
Good Riddance Gator/Claria. The world will truly be a better place
Yes, but these kinds of laws set a very dangerous precedent for all of us. Putting people in jail for distributing spyware is very irresponsible. Fine them to death so they can't make payroll, whatever, but jail time?
What if the next law throws you in jail for trading music? Or for selling software that conflicts with someone else's very dubious software patent?
Time and again congress has demostrated that it is completely incompetant with regard to information technology. They are ill informed, have no expertise or training with technology, and seem only interested in extending the paradigm of centralized control into the internet. Which is exactly the opposite of what makes the internet great.
The last thing I want to do is defend spyware vendors, but going from discussing a bill to imposing jail sentences in less than a week is scary. These people just seem to love sending people to jail. America has the highest number of citizens in jail per-capita of any country in the world. Applauding moronic laws like this is just giving them permission to raise that statistic even higher.
And it's not going to go any farther. On an average day, you're lucky to receive about 200 watts/m2 of sun power. The rest of the energy (about 1.3kw/m2) is lost to diffusion and blockage by the atmosphere.... We've discussed this before on Slashdot, and it has been felt that Sun power could be a great "fuel saver" idea for hydrogen cars. But moving something the size of a modern car is going to require more energy than you can collect from sunlight. (IIRC, ~2 kw to cruise and 10kw to accelerate a small car.)
There's a very workable compromise you're overlooking.
All you would need to do is roof your home with solar panels. Then install a hydrogen tank/refueling system in your garage that is connected to the water supply. Over the course of a 4-5 days(a pretty conservative average fillup time for most of us) the hydrogen unit would produce a full tank of 'gas'. Then just refuel the hydrogen tank in your car as per normal.
No more stopping at the filling station, and no more $2.50 a gallon for gas.
Will this advance revolutionize chemistry and computing the way electric gates revolutionized electronics and computing? Will 'fluid programmers' give new meaning to "flowchart"?"
How fast could this ever be? Neat, but I dunno how this could ever be put to a practical use. Cool hack none the less.
In all likelyhood this will never be used as a replacement for silicon. It's much more likely that stuff like this will be used in bioinformatics & pharmacuetical circles in order to perform massively parallel tests on different molecular combinations.
If there are over 1,000,000 molecular permutations of a particular family of drugs(or DNA). Perhaps this kind of computer could rapidly cycle through all such combinations. Maybe the testing reaction could be performed with a liquid-mechanical ALU of sorts. Then the results could be stored in a liquid memory bank where they could be reviewed. Perhaps indicator dyes, or electrical dyes could be used to signal positive/negative results. *shrug*
Because we all know that passing laws to make, say, speeding in cars, murder, fraud etc. illegal has put an end to all those activities.
Yeah, all of these anti-P2P laws are starting to look a lot like prohibition era stuff. Everyone will keep doing it, they'll just be pushed more and more underground and out of site in order to do it. Hopefully this country will come to its senses and embrace the value of abundance, like it did in repealing the prohibition laws.
remember that when you hear someone tell you you will "waste your vote" if you don't vote D or R.
Look, just get off your ass and vote Kerry in so we can put a stop to this insanity(yes, it can get worse). Then spend the next 4 years trying to fix the 2-party system ok?
I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway.
Bush won't, but maybe Karl Rove or Arty will. This may sound like another one from the tinfoil crowd, but keep a lookout for the wireless radio reciever. It's a small device used today by many in the broadcasting industry. It's nearly unnoticable fitting inside the ear, providing the wearer with crystal clear radio-based audio.
It's _highly_ probable that Bush will be wearing a wireless earpiece for the debate. Bush will no doubt have some of the best debate people the republican party can buy telling him what to say through such an earpiece. I suppose Kerry could use the same thing, but then again he probably wouldn't need it.
Republicans are too afraid to let Bush do his own talking(understandably), which is why he has no input on speech writing etc. Shouldn't the american people hear what thier president has to say, rather than what the people who hold his leash tell him to say?
What's the point... the turn out for voting is always at an all time low... the system is flawed... we need a better system to elect people to
Yep, it's called the popular vote.
If the popular vote was implemented before 2000 we wouldn't be suffering from the insane megalomanical texan from hell(aka as 'w' in the sheep-fucker/slave master circles).
Unfortunately I live in a conservative state, where my voice won't be heard. It's really demoralizing to know that a few scattered no-consequence swing-states will determine our next president in november.
If the audio is Dolby Digital (AC3) then almost all soundcards...
Correct, but to get surround sound with games the multi-channel analog output from the game needs to be encoded into dolby digital in order to use the SP/DIF out.
But you might as well forget about high quality and impressive sound solutions such as the SoundStorm as nVidia and their motherboard partners in Taiwan don't seem to think this type of quality sound solution is important to consumers.
This is pretty sad news.
I have a $300 pair of headphones which simulate surround-sound along with my nForce2 mobo. I'm basically locked into upgrading with an nForce3 board in order to keep using these great headphones. (Because I need real-time dolby encoding in order to get surround in games w/ SP/DIF out).
Maybe the problem isn't that audio is a "forgotten component". Maybe it's just another example of a company(Sony) charging outrageous and prohibitive fees to use a licensed(dolby) technology. =(
What's the DOJ supposed to do? Sit around and not enforce federal law?
When corporations can buy laws in congress? Yes, I would hope any decent american would resist those laws.
The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress.
The real agenda is clamping down on the rights of the individual whilst letting companies get away with murder
Yep. But there's a way to fight back...India managed to oust the british occupation through non-violence. Ghandi's approach was simple but effective. He instructed india to ignore the british laws. Many were imprisoned and the jails quickly filled up, leaving the british unable to cope with the sheer volume of the insurrection.
Vivendi(an italian company), Sony(Japanese), and Bertlesman(German) have bought our legal system. John Ashcroft is on thier payroll. If you're upset that international cartels can buy our own government from us, and then use our tax dollars to sue and harass us, then do something about it.
Stand up against these kinds of scare tactics and bullying and we will get our country back again. The polls are one place to do this, but the most powerful democratic tool we have is the internet. Let's keep it that way.
Oh, and also, if it goes out of control and creates a small black hole that slowly starts consuming everything
We've already got that. It's called the Hubbert Peak
Those of us who haven't seen Farenheit 911 might wonder who would benefit most from $7/gallon gas prices...and who they have on thier payroll. Cancelling projects like these is one way to keep them happy.
"When p2p networks are outlawed, only outlaws will have p2p networks"
Pretty much,
"The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress."
Slashdot Mirror
What exactly is the turn-on about having a dolby decoder/encoder/whatever, esp. when you're stuck with the the ALC650 codec?
Seems like integrated audio is a real weird way to go about choosing your chipsets and especially CPU choice
I don't find Asus support to be that bad. They answer the phone in less than 5 mins usually, and if the tier-1 support guys can't help you then they elevate you to tier-2 within 2-3 mins and you can talk to them. Pretty decent support arrangement if you ask me.
What really disappoints me is that Soundstorm(tm) is still being ignored. Many people buying these boards are gamers, and it's a massive drawback knowing that you'll have to drop another $100-$200 on a crappy Creative soundcard. The NForce2 boards were wonderful home-theater solutions with built in dolby decoders. Not even Creative's most expensive boards can do that. It always depresses me when technology appears to devolve rather than improve like it's supposed to.
With the incoming PCI-E boards, and the lack of Soundstorm integration with the new NForce chipsets....I'm sad to say that my AMD days are probably over for the next few years. Hello Intel....again...*sigh*.
There are some new advances in the field of dual-monitor applications however.
I was speaking with a guy on IRC the other day who is planning on using 2 21" LCD screens as his display. This will allow him to watch fullscreen letterbox DVDs on his comp by spanning across the two screens.
I asked him about the big black bar running down the center of his 'screen' from where the two monitors join, and he says it's only about 3cm because of how the LCD screens are designed. He also said that after a while he just got used to it.
I wish the LCD/monitor industry would advance at a faster pace(bigger, better screens, for a lot less money). Memory, cpu's, harddrive have all made incredible advances over the last 20 years....screens are still very behind =(.
It's pretty telling when someone would rather have a black bar in the middle of his screen than use a standard 21".
I thought only Bush wanted to take away freedoms and civil liberties, not the enlightened, peaceful Europeans. Just goes to show that the "Bush is worse than Hitler", anti-Patriot Act, war protesting Euro-trash aren't more free than us Americans after all. :)
Umm, the parent poster may not have put this as delicately as he could have, but he has a very legitimate point. One of the main reasons the Bush supporters are sobering up is because world opinion of Bush is so low. He is largely viewed as an irresponsible, arrogant, self-assured jackass who had no business being elected in the first place. John Ashcroft is a direct result of Bush's presidency, and it's been Ashcroft(and other republican leadship, i.e. Orin Hatch) who's spearheaded the campaign to squash consumer rights.
What's even more scary is that 40-60% of the over 250 million americans are considering reelecting Bush in November. If european leadership continues to follow suit with the US by sacrificing individual rights and freedoms in order to increase profits for large corporations, what kind of message is that going to send to us? That it's ok to do these things?
Many of us in the US need the rest of the world to stand up against this kind of tyranny. Please don't just roll over and say 'it must be okay because america is doing it'. It's not ok, and many of the more civilized european countries need to do thier part to make clear that people should come before greedy corporations.
Would You Pay for Steam?
No.
Many users have discussed this possibility.
Then they're morons.
Now that Steam has pioneered the biggest online game delivery system to date, is it as simple as that?
Not really, since 99% of people only know about steam because they enjoy playing counter-strike(which valve did not in any way have the forsight to create). The fact that we can patch a little easier through steam every few weeks is almost irrelevant.
Read my concerns about the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
Valve has been kicking themselves for years because they failed to capitalize more on counter-strike. So they've spent that time trying to find a way to ensure that if a 'CS phenomenon' occurs with half-life 2, they will be there to rake in the proceeds. Unforunately they fail to understand that cost is a major barrier for entry. Since counter-strike was freely available and a great game, it became very popular.
Has anyone else read this agreement? Should Valve change it?
Only if they want to stay relevant in the FPS world past a few more years.
If you love Valve's games but you've never religiously kept an eye on your credit card statement, maybe this will give you more reason.
This is good advice for Valve too, especially if they're interested in making payroll.
I think this was laughed out by gamers, as Valve's games releases haven't exactly been particularly regular (or on time), and there's been no mention of a subscription in the final offers.
Let's hope so. Half-life was a great game to be sure, but the only thing that made it a phenomenon was its ease of modification. Enter TFC, CS, etc. If Valve in any way impedes that creative process with Half-Life 2, they can be sure that someone else will be more than happy to fill thier shoes.
No, it tells you an election is coming up and they don't want to be asked about this in the last 30 days before people vote.
That is all that has happened, nothing else.
That is probably the most relevant post you'll see in this thread. Don't read the article with a sigh of relief and attribute it to the long overdue arrival of common sense on capital hill.
Be prepared to do whatever you can to defend your online rights in 30 days. If you still think this is just a bunch of hype, or don't understand what is at stake, please take a moment to read this article.
The Betamax ruling is the only thing that protects your right to own a VCR, tape recorder, CD-burner, DVD-burner, iPod, or TiVo. It's that important. But new legislation that's being pushed through the Senate by lobbyists for the music and movie industries would override the Betamax decision and create a huge liability for any business that makes products which can copy sound or video. This legislation (formerly known as the INDUCE Act) would essentially give Hollywood veto power over a huge range of new technologies.
Another great quote which describes the situation well:
Is Congress Insane?
You might think so at first glance. Voters, technology experts, public interest groups, and electronics manufacturers all oppose these efforts to weaken Betamax. So why is it still happening? Because the major record labels and the movie studios-- the same companies that opposed the Betamax ruling-- make huge donations to the re-election campaigns of the Senators who are sponsoring this legislation. And most members of Congress assume this is a non-controversial issue, off the radar of most voters. If they can please their donors without a big fuss, they will. It's bad policy, but until we start making noise, it's smart politics.
Good Riddance Gator/Claria. The world will truly be a better place
Yes, but these kinds of laws set a very dangerous precedent for all of us. Putting people in jail for distributing spyware is very irresponsible. Fine them to death so they can't make payroll, whatever, but jail time?
What if the next law throws you in jail for trading music? Or for selling software that conflicts with someone else's very dubious software patent?
Time and again congress has demostrated that it is completely incompetant with regard to information technology. They are ill informed, have no expertise or training with technology, and seem only interested in extending the paradigm of centralized control into the internet. Which is exactly the opposite of what makes the internet great.
The last thing I want to do is defend spyware vendors, but going from discussing a bill to imposing jail sentences in less than a week is scary. These people just seem to love sending people to jail. America has the highest number of citizens in jail per-capita of any country in the world. Applauding moronic laws like this is just giving them permission to raise that statistic even higher.
And it's not going to go any farther. On an average day, you're lucky to receive about 200 watts/m2 of sun power. The rest of the energy (about 1.3kw/m2) is lost to diffusion and blockage by the atmosphere. ...
We've discussed this before on Slashdot, and it has been felt that Sun power could be a great "fuel saver" idea for hydrogen cars. But moving something the size of a modern car is going to require more energy than you can collect from sunlight. (IIRC, ~2 kw to cruise and 10kw to accelerate a small car.)
There's a very workable compromise you're overlooking.
All you would need to do is roof your home with solar panels. Then install a hydrogen tank/refueling system in your garage that is connected to the water supply. Over the course of a 4-5 days(a pretty conservative average fillup time for most of us) the hydrogen unit would produce a full tank of 'gas'. Then just refuel the hydrogen tank in your car as per normal.
No more stopping at the filling station, and no more $2.50 a gallon for gas.
Will this advance revolutionize chemistry and computing the way electric gates revolutionized electronics and computing? Will 'fluid programmers' give new meaning to "flowchart"?"
How fast could this ever be? Neat, but I dunno how this could ever be put to a practical use. Cool hack none the less.
In all likelyhood this will never be used as a replacement for silicon. It's much more likely that stuff like this will be used in bioinformatics & pharmacuetical circles in order to perform massively parallel tests on different molecular combinations.
If there are over 1,000,000 molecular permutations of a particular family of drugs(or DNA). Perhaps this kind of computer could rapidly cycle through all such combinations. Maybe the testing reaction could be performed with a liquid-mechanical ALU of sorts. Then the results could be stored in a liquid memory bank where they could be reviewed. Perhaps indicator dyes, or electrical dyes could be used to signal positive/negative results. *shrug*
This guy became the "first peacetime atom bomb" fatality by dropping a brick on a ball of plutonium.
There was a film called "Fat Man and Little Boy" which included this very incident.
The guy who died of overexposure was played by John Cusack.
Because the 'High Temperature' in HTS is a temperature of 77K/-196C. Still very cool, but not the everday-device changing tech we're waiting for.
Ah ok, well that answers that.
AMSC's first generation HTS wire, based on a multi-filamentary composite architecture, is capable of carrying over 140 times the
power of copper wires of the same dimensions.
Umm, not to go overboard here or anything, but isn't this like one of the most significant engineering breakthroughs in the last 100 years or so?
How about a new microprocessor fab process using this material?
Because we all know that passing laws to make, say, speeding in cars, murder, fraud etc. illegal has put an end to all those activities.
Yeah, all of these anti-P2P laws are starting to look a lot like prohibition era stuff. Everyone will keep doing it, they'll just be pushed more and more underground and out of site in order to do it. Hopefully this country will come to its senses and embrace the value of abundance, like it did in repealing the prohibition laws.
remember that when you hear someone tell you you will "waste your vote" if you don't vote D or R.
Look, just get off your ass and vote Kerry in so we can put a stop to this insanity(yes, it can get worse). Then spend the next 4 years trying to fix the 2-party system ok?
awesome, parent is flamebait, but the grandparent post is insightful - What is the CBS?
Getting there.
I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway.
Bush won't, but maybe Karl Rove or Arty will. This may sound like another one from the tinfoil crowd, but keep a lookout for the wireless radio reciever. It's a small device used today by many in the broadcasting industry. It's nearly unnoticable fitting inside the ear, providing the wearer with crystal clear radio-based audio.
It's _highly_ probable that Bush will be wearing a wireless earpiece for the debate. Bush will no doubt have some of the best debate people the republican party can buy telling him what to say through such an earpiece. I suppose Kerry could use the same thing, but then again he probably wouldn't need it.
Republicans are too afraid to let Bush do his own talking(understandably), which is why he has no input on speech writing etc. Shouldn't the american people hear what thier president has to say, rather than what the people who hold his leash tell him to say?
What's the point... the turn out for voting is always at an all time low... the system is flawed... we need a better system to elect people to
Yep, it's called the popular vote.
If the popular vote was implemented before 2000 we wouldn't be suffering from the insane megalomanical texan from hell(aka as 'w' in the sheep-fucker/slave master circles).
Unfortunately I live in a conservative state, where my voice won't be heard. It's really demoralizing to know that a few scattered no-consequence swing-states will determine our next president in november.
If the audio is Dolby Digital (AC3) then almost all soundcards...
Correct, but to get surround sound with games the multi-channel analog output from the game needs to be encoded into dolby digital in order to use the SP/DIF out.
But you might as well forget about high quality and impressive sound solutions such as the SoundStorm as nVidia and their motherboard partners in Taiwan don't seem to think this type of quality sound solution is important to consumers.
This is pretty sad news.
I have a $300 pair of headphones which simulate surround-sound along with my nForce2 mobo. I'm basically locked into upgrading with an nForce3 board in order to keep using these great headphones. (Because I need real-time dolby encoding in order to get surround in games w/ SP/DIF out).
Maybe the problem isn't that audio is a "forgotten component". Maybe it's just another example of a company(Sony) charging outrageous and prohibitive fees to use a licensed(dolby) technology. =(
What's the DOJ supposed to do? Sit around and not enforce federal law?
When corporations can buy laws in congress? Yes, I would hope any decent american would resist those laws.
The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress.
The real agenda is clamping down on the rights of the individual whilst letting companies get away with murder
Yep. But there's a way to fight back...India managed to oust the british occupation through non-violence. Ghandi's approach was simple but effective. He instructed india to ignore the british laws. Many were imprisoned and the jails quickly filled up, leaving the british unable to cope with the sheer volume of the insurrection.
Vivendi(an italian company), Sony(Japanese), and Bertlesman(German) have bought our legal system. John Ashcroft is on thier payroll. If you're upset that international cartels can buy our own government from us, and then use our tax dollars to sue and harass us, then do something about it.
Stand up against these kinds of scare tactics and bullying and we will get our country back again. The polls are one place to do this, but the most powerful democratic tool we have is the internet. Let's keep it that way.
If your answer is "The Oil Industry"...
No, actually my answer was The Saudis.
Oh, and also, if it goes out of control and creates a small black hole that slowly starts consuming everything
We've already got that. It's called the Hubbert Peak
Those of us who haven't seen Farenheit 911 might wonder who would benefit most from $7/gallon gas prices...and who they have on thier payroll. Cancelling projects like these is one way to keep them happy.
"When p2p networks are outlawed, only outlaws will have p2p networks"
Pretty much,
"The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress."
Everything will be half
Half the time
Half the money
Half the college experience.
Not everything, after you graduate you'll get:
All the un-employment
All the under-employment
All the outsourcing and H1Bs.