None the less, I am not supporting the NFL's ban on showing the game on big screens. If people want to gripe that the NFL has some stupid rule about how big your TV can be, fine.
What I object to is that the issue is that CHURCHES can't do it. This attitude that churches should not have to play by the same rules as everyone else drives me up the wall. The suggestion that the legislature should amend federal law to create ANOTHER carve-out for churches is ridiculous.
Since most people are apparently too stupid to notice how the greedy bastards are taking away their freedoms, maybe this will wake more than a few of them up.
Oh wait, you meant the greedy bastards were the NFL?
Why?
Being a church is not a free pass to just do whatever you want. It might be a free pass to not pay taxes, but it doesn't mean you get to take someone else's show or movie and charge admission to watch it, anymore than it means your priest can borrow my car to run church errands without asking and then return it without even filling up the gas tank.
The NFL spends a lot of time, effort and money putting together a football league. If the church wants to use the NFL's football games to attract more members to the church, and charge the people coming to the party to pay for that outreach program, then the church can pay to use the NFL's programming.
You can't just violate someone else's copyright and then act like THEY'RE the asshole by playing the "But I'm a church!" card. Well, I suppose you can, and I guess it's sad that the "I'm a church!" card works in this country and the "I'm a college student!" card doesn't.
I wonder what would happen if churches started giving away free MP3's of popular songs.
I know I'm way late on the reply here, but......What's inherently bad about killing off other species? Species die off all the time.
Now, I agree that if you believe that (number of species) is better than (number of species minus 1) as a matter of morality, then killing off species is bad.
But beyond that, what's inherently wrong with killing off a species or 10? Killing species doesn't have to be bad for us. Killing off some species would probably be good for us. So if we annihilate the malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and millions of us don't die from malaria, and we otherwise don't notice, maybe killing off the mosquitoes was a GOOD thing?
The greatest video games system of all time is the Wii - it has revolutionized the way people interact with the console.
The only difference between all the other game systems is graphics and buttons. Difference between an Atari 2600 and NES/Genesis? More graphics and buttons. NES and SNES/Dreamcast/Playstation? Graphics and buttons. SNES/Playstation/Dreamcast and N64/PS2/XBox? Graphics and buttons. N64/PS2/XBox and PS3/XBox360? Graphics and buttons.
But the Wii is fundamentally different. It's the realization of what the power glove was meant to be. There hasn't been that kind of revolution in gaming since Pong. Maybe the advent of games where you could save your game (with code or battery) from one session to the next. But other than that, it's all graphics and buttons.
It used to be that if you had a patent, you could force an injunction prohibiting anyone from infringing on it while the patent was contested. Even if, two years later, your patent is rightly ruled invalid, you've already destroyed the company producing a legitimate product, and the threat of that was enough to blackmail companies into paying lots and lots of cash to the patent trolls.
Supreme Court fixed that last year though, and now judges have a lot more options available to them than just issuing a 'do not produce, use or sell' injunction. That takes most of the teeth out of the blackmailing attempt, so I'm not sure what this is going to get the patent trolls this time around except large legal bills.
Apparently the patent troll office didn't realize the rules have changed.
As a guy who has been full-time salaried, a contractor, self-employed, and part-time salaried while contracting/self-employed, I can tell you that 1099 is not universally better than W2.
For one, being a contractor is inefficient use of resources. Companies with employees have efficient structures in place to manage those employees - from paying them to health insurance to retirement plans.
For two, at-will employment cuts both ways - sure, you can be laid off at any time, but you can also leave at any time too. And you probably have fewer job transitions with at-will employment than you do with contract employment. Hiring and firing employees is expensive, and companies would like to avoid that expense. If they're going to be laying off employees, chances are they're going to be not renewing contracts as well.
For three, ever tried to get your own health insurance when you're not 18-29, single, male, and healthy? My wife has scoliosis and steel rods in her back - and a full-time job just for the health insurance.
For four, being a contractor just doesn't fit a lot of people's mindsets. They just want regular employment - show up, do the work, get a paycheck. For a lot of people, that's LESS stressful than trying to negotiate contracts all the time.
The EU and the US (two of the world's most free-market oriented organizations) have subsidies for farmers because history has proven their necessity over and over.
In the US at least, we have subsidies for farmers because rural agricultural states have disproportionate representation in our government.
Your statement makes the presumptuous assumption that cheap books provide more societal benefit than local book stores
Actually, no, it doesn't. My statement makes the assumption that societal benefit is best measured by what society wants to pay for. If the members of the society would rather get cheap books from Amazon than more expensive books from their local book store, then my assumption is that it is best to give society what it wants.
Bigger selection, lower prices - what's not to like?
Is that France has a pile of protectionist laws screwing up their economy and this is just one of them.
Amazon isn't selling at a loss. They're just selling at a price that some stores don't want to compete with. And French law, instead of giving the consumer the right to buy where they can get something the cheapest, instead forces the consumer to pay more for a product than they need to.
You'd think it was pretty silly if the US had a federal law that said that you could only sell a product for no less than 5% of MSRP, wouldn't you? And you'd think it was ESPECIALLY silly if that law only applied to particular products?
Well, except agriculture, but there we just write checks to producers.
People are not allowed to use technical assistance in competitions. You wouldn't let someone run the 100 meters with shoes with wheels and a gasoline engine, would you?
While the limbs this fellow is using are not as good as gasoline engines, they are still apparently better than natural limbs - an advantage other athletes can not overcome without amputating their legs.
It's the same logic used in regards to banning steroids - you shouldn't have to destroy your body to have a chance at winning.
Slashdot Mirror
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4229536&page=1
None the less, I am not supporting the NFL's ban on showing the game on big screens. If people want to gripe that the NFL has some stupid rule about how big your TV can be, fine.
What I object to is that the issue is that CHURCHES can't do it. This attitude that churches should not have to play by the same rules as everyone else drives me up the wall. The suggestion that the legislature should amend federal law to create ANOTHER carve-out for churches is ridiculous.
Since most people are apparently too stupid to notice how the greedy bastards are taking away their freedoms, maybe this will wake more than a few of them up.
Oh wait, you meant the greedy bastards were the NFL?
Why?
Being a church is not a free pass to just do whatever you want. It might be a free pass to not pay taxes, but it doesn't mean you get to take someone else's show or movie and charge admission to watch it, anymore than it means your priest can borrow my car to run church errands without asking and then return it without even filling up the gas tank.
The NFL spends a lot of time, effort and money putting together a football league. If the church wants to use the NFL's football games to attract more members to the church, and charge the people coming to the party to pay for that outreach program, then the church can pay to use the NFL's programming.
You can't just violate someone else's copyright and then act like THEY'RE the asshole by playing the "But I'm a church!" card. Well, I suppose you can, and I guess it's sad that the "I'm a church!" card works in this country and the "I'm a college student!" card doesn't.
I wonder what would happen if churches started giving away free MP3's of popular songs.
I know I'm way late on the reply here, but... ...What's inherently bad about killing off other species? Species die off all the time.
Now, I agree that if you believe that (number of species) is better than (number of species minus 1) as a matter of morality, then killing off species is bad.
But beyond that, what's inherently wrong with killing off a species or 10? Killing species doesn't have to be bad for us. Killing off some species would probably be good for us. So if we annihilate the malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and millions of us don't die from malaria, and we otherwise don't notice, maybe killing off the mosquitoes was a GOOD thing?
Bloody? Fishy? ...
Wrong on so many levels...
Just wait a week and it'll be fine.
PHP 5 was a MAJOR over-haul, biggest since PHP 4.
One can only guess when the next major overhaul will be. Who knows, it might even be PHP 6.
Comparing Vista to Linux is like comparing Linux 2.6 to Microsoft Operating Systems.
if you're in an auto accident, you're much more likely to say "he hit me" than "his car hit my car".
Actually, that's more because the other guy is mad, and has a temper.
The greatest video games system of all time is the Wii - it has revolutionized the way people interact with the console.
The only difference between all the other game systems is graphics and buttons. Difference between an Atari 2600 and NES/Genesis? More graphics and buttons. NES and SNES/Dreamcast/Playstation? Graphics and buttons. SNES/Playstation/Dreamcast and N64/PS2/XBox? Graphics and buttons. N64/PS2/XBox and PS3/XBox360? Graphics and buttons.
But the Wii is fundamentally different. It's the realization of what the power glove was meant to be. There hasn't been that kind of revolution in gaming since Pong. Maybe the advent of games where you could save your game (with code or battery) from one session to the next. But other than that, it's all graphics and buttons.
Let's say you make $25,000 a year and would just like your kid to have internet access so he's on even footing with the other kids at school.
It shouldn't cost you an extra $600/year.
If songwriters want my money, they can write songs I'm willing to pay for and distribute them in a manner that makes the price attractive.
It is not my fault that the music industry fucked up their distribution model so bad that they need a government mandated tax to stay alive.
I have a better idea. Just let people copy songs for non-commercial purpose for free NO MATTER WHAT. Real artists can still sell tickets to concerts.
I already have XP. Isn't that the Vista update?
It used to be that if you had a patent, you could force an injunction prohibiting anyone from infringing on it while the patent was contested. Even if, two years later, your patent is rightly ruled invalid, you've already destroyed the company producing a legitimate product, and the threat of that was enough to blackmail companies into paying lots and lots of cash to the patent trolls.
Supreme Court fixed that last year though, and now judges have a lot more options available to them than just issuing a 'do not produce, use or sell' injunction. That takes most of the teeth out of the blackmailing attempt, so I'm not sure what this is going to get the patent trolls this time around except large legal bills.
Apparently the patent troll office didn't realize the rules have changed.
What is pretty interesting, however, is the mosquitoes don't seem to worry much about the millions of people they're removing from the ecosystem.
As a guy who has been full-time salaried, a contractor, self-employed, and part-time salaried while contracting/self-employed, I can tell you that 1099 is not universally better than W2.
For one, being a contractor is inefficient use of resources. Companies with employees have efficient structures in place to manage those employees - from paying them to health insurance to retirement plans.
For two, at-will employment cuts both ways - sure, you can be laid off at any time, but you can also leave at any time too. And you probably have fewer job transitions with at-will employment than you do with contract employment. Hiring and firing employees is expensive, and companies would like to avoid that expense. If they're going to be laying off employees, chances are they're going to be not renewing contracts as well.
For three, ever tried to get your own health insurance when you're not 18-29, single, male, and healthy? My wife has scoliosis and steel rods in her back - and a full-time job just for the health insurance.
For four, being a contractor just doesn't fit a lot of people's mindsets. They just want regular employment - show up, do the work, get a paycheck. For a lot of people, that's LESS stressful than trying to negotiate contracts all the time.
but nobody has taken up the issue of Amazon's deciding to pay the fine rather than obey the law.
Paying the fine IS obeying the law.
*NOT* paying the fine would be disobeying the law.
Del Monte closed, 10 years later the Interstate came, 10 years later Wal-Mart came. Guess which one had the downtown closed in a couple years?
I'm guessing the one that provided everything that the downtown did, but at lower prices.
The EU and the US (two of the world's most free-market oriented organizations) have subsidies for farmers because history has proven their necessity over and over.
In the US at least, we have subsidies for farmers because rural agricultural states have disproportionate representation in our government.
Your statement makes the presumptuous assumption that cheap books provide more societal benefit than local book stores
Actually, no, it doesn't. My statement makes the assumption that societal benefit is best measured by what society wants to pay for. If the members of the society would rather get cheap books from Amazon than more expensive books from their local book store, then my assumption is that it is best to give society what it wants.
Bigger selection, lower prices - what's not to like?
Its is not a law in place to keep tobacconists in business the way the French law is supposed to keep book stores in business.
Maybe the French law isn't about keeping book stores in business at all. Maybe it's about discouraging French citizens from reading.
Fortunately, French citizens can still learn how to surrender on television.
What's wrong with enslaving lazy people?
They get to be lazy and we get their cash. Win-win.
Is that France has a pile of protectionist laws screwing up their economy and this is just one of them.
Amazon isn't selling at a loss. They're just selling at a price that some stores don't want to compete with. And French law, instead of giving the consumer the right to buy where they can get something the cheapest, instead forces the consumer to pay more for a product than they need to.
You'd think it was pretty silly if the US had a federal law that said that you could only sell a product for no less than 5% of MSRP, wouldn't you? And you'd think it was ESPECIALLY silly if that law only applied to particular products?
Well, except agriculture, but there we just write checks to producers.
Considering that the reason is that you don't want to force people to cut off their legs to compete, no, because the same reason doesn't apply.
It might apply if people were having surgery to lengthen their legs.
Why is he being discriminated against?
People are not allowed to use technical assistance in competitions. You wouldn't let someone run the 100 meters with shoes with wheels and a gasoline engine, would you?
While the limbs this fellow is using are not as good as gasoline engines, they are still apparently better than natural limbs - an advantage other athletes can not overcome without amputating their legs.
It's the same logic used in regards to banning steroids - you shouldn't have to destroy your body to have a chance at winning.
The runner wasn't disqualified. The artificial limbs he had been using were prohibited.
It's still possible for the runner to compete, so long as he does not use equipment that gives him an unfair advantage.
Fortunately 64-bit numbers can now be handled by pcs, and can be used as an extended timestamp to get a few billion years of time.
Sure, we could to that, but then even if we use an unsigned number, we're still just going to be fucked again in AD 584,542,050,060.
And, by the way, 5+8+4+5+4+2+5+6 = 39, which is the number of weeks in a human pregnancy, which means the 2nd coming of Christ and the apocalypse.
All because programmers were too lazy to use 128-bit numbers to represent dates.
You forgot the most obvious - 853723: 8 + 5 + 3 + 7 = 23. This chicken farmer has a name: Topsy Kretts. Watch out!
What? It's TOTALLY Michael Jordan.