Why shouldn't they be opposed to commercial skipping?
I'm opposed to commercial skipping. It makes people do things like put ad banners on the bottom of the screen during my shows, and honestly, I'd rather be forced to stretch my legs for 2 minutes so I can grab a beer and negate the benefit of stretching my legs instead.
I don't think this case, and the participation of third parties, have anything to do with caring or a sense of family. "Cops" gets great ratings because everybody likes to see some asshole get taken down. A chance to be part of something like that is very tempting. I'd like to think that I'm above it, but I'm not.
As far as people actually wanting to directly help each other, tell it to Kitty Genovese.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel. If you take computer programming, the first thing they'll tell you to do is check if something you're trying to code has already been done, and if it has, use the old code. People don't want to pay you to rewrite and debug new code when you've already got something working. If the customer wanted to own the software, they could hire people to write it themselves, but instead they hire a contractor, who will retain the rights to sell it to others.
I guess a good analogy would be, you can buy a new car for 25 grand, or you can use a new car for 5 grand. While you can't resell the car, since you don't own it, you can use it as if it were yours. I'd take that deal.
Unfortunately the patent will probably limit design improvements by anyone other than the original inventor for the next twenty years or so
If he's smart, he'll license the idea to whoever wants to buy it and become a rich man - meaning anyone who has a good idea can get some capital and improve it if he tries.
Also, the patent wouldn't stop someone from working on the idea themself, if I'm not mistaken. It just keeps them from making money on it without his license. I think this is a good use of the patent system.
Oh, okay, so piracy is okay. Thank you for your social commentary "CmdrTaco," I'll be sure not to feel bad when I download it and the company doesn't get my money for a movie ticket or DVD purchase.
I don't feel quite so bad when I go to the theater and see they want $9.50 for a movie ticket. We're talking about capitalism at its best here. I'll take a look at what you're selling, and if I like it, I'll pay you what it's worth - whether it's $9.50 for a ticket to a movie I've been anticipating, 4 bucks to rent something I was kind of interested in but missed, or whatever the studios get from HBO out of my monthly fees. I give the various entertainment industries a pretty good chunk of my disposable income, and no - not every movie is worth my $9.50. Not even CLOSE. If the industries don't like me making an informed decision as to the quality of their product, maybe they should outlaw film critics too, and maybe make us sign a gag order before we can watch.
I don't know anyone who collects ripped movies. The few that I've downloaded, I erased after watching, and I eventually ended up paying to see the ones I enjoyed again. I'd have most likely never seen the rest. We're not talking about me taking something off a shelf and depriving someone else of the opportunity to buy it. We're talking about me knowing the quality of what I buy. Nearly every other industry is required, morally and usually legally, to give my money back if they sell me something of inferior quality. So what makes me a thief in this case?
Even at $3 each, it'd still be possible to copy a CD-- or even download it, if you can find it on the Internet-- faster and less expensively than you could drive to the store and buy it.
Okay, let's say you bought a cheap PC - 300 bucks. The burner's gonna put you out about another 50, let's say you get 100 blanks for 10 bucks or so, and broadband goes for 50 bucks or so. Your first 100 CDs, assuming you could find that much good music in a month, comes out to a bare minimum of 410 dollars, which, at your figure of $3 each, figuring for 7.5% sales tax, gets you 127 commercial CDs. You could obviously make it profitable over time, but if you factor in the cost of burning a coaster here and there and the value of your time, I really don't think it would be worth it. Not to mention CD-Rs aren't as durable in my experience, and I'm one of those people that likes the cover art and lyric sheets. The record companies aren't just gouging us, they're ripping most of the artists off too. I would love to see just one major band would go buy a commercial CD press and distribute their own albums. If they charged 5 dollars a disc, they'd make well over what they're getting from the record companies.
Lasers work on missiles because they have gobs of explosive and fiddly electronics packed in a small space, whereas an asteroid is a big dumb rock that doesn't care if it's 1% less massive when it hits the Earth.
I'll give you the point that we would have little chance of destroying an asteroid before it could hit Earth. However, you may have seen those things in science class, I forget what they're called, but they're little rotating black and white diamonds in a vacuum chamber that looks like a light bulb. They work because the black side of the diamond absorbs more light, converts it to heat, and excites what little air there is in the chamber, which hits the black side of the diamonds and turns the wheel. If we found a large object on course to hit Earth months or years in advance, we could potentially use a similar principle to constantly burn one "side" of the object and deflect it by a small amount, but perhaps enough to miss the Earth. The only problem I see with this idea is degradation and accuracy problems at that range - I know distance isn't as much of a factor in space, but it's still a factor - and the spin of the asteroid. I imagine in space, it would probably cool fast enough, and they could compensate for the effect.
Anyway, who wouldn't want to take Hoover Dam off the grid to power a giant array of lasers, just because it's friggin' cool?
I'd also like everyone to make a distinction between GWB and his cronies and the people/country of the USA. I'm sure a lot of the yahoos that voted for them in the first place are all in favor of any excuse to blow stuff up, but there are plenty of Americans who don't want to start poking at beehives any more than the rest of the world.
By designing their page how they see fit, they lose not only the blind, but a percentage of people with slow modems and some people that just don't like all the crap. Southwest is currently offering flights from southern California (where I live) to Las Vegas for 19.00 each way, plus taxes and all that. Maybe they have are other routes that make money, but that one doesn't. That's less than it would cost me in gas to drive there. I don't think it's much of an issue of whether they WANT to spend money on all the extras to bring in a few disabled people - it's whether they can. Airlines aren't exactly raking it in lately; even the big ones are hurting, and Southwest is not one of the big ones. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places that aren't friendly to blind people. I, on the other hand, plan to fly to Vegas sometime this year, and I happen to like the fact that I can do it for maybe 60 bucks after taxes. Southwest most likely reached those numbers by scraping bottom in every aspect of their business, and if that means they got a decent-looking website out of it, but it isn't accessible to blind people, well I'm sorry. Hire a reader.
Powered by a single engine from a Citation business jet, the Bird of Prey is pure prototype, with a maximum speed of 300 mph and a maximum altitude of 20,000 feet. Its take-off characteristics were "normal, but in slow motion," according to test pilot Joe Felock.
If we do end up in another war with Iraq, I hope they're not using this thing. You could take it down with some of the sportier WWII era planes I've read about.
I'm kind of getting tired of the damn teenage kids running into the theater and screaming to their friends from the wings and then running out.
I think this sort of thing is due to the fact that it's no longer PC to carry loaded weapons. You'd think twice about interrupting the movie for 500 people if you were standing next to someone else's silhouette outlined in bullet holes.
Degrading space travel? As far as I'm concerned, space travel will only get better, safer, and faster with every trip we make. I'm all in favor of anything that brings ME closer to getting a chance, instead of glorifying the privileged elite who have been lucky enough to be anointed by NASA.
Saturn is not the solution to putting anything permanent on the moon. Its own fuel takes up the vast majority of its payload; the Apollo vehicles were incredibly flimsy, and they just barely got back to Earth with a couple hundred pounds of moon rocks each. The ISS (or a station like it) would be necessary for establishing any sort of permanent settlement on the moon, with current technology. The Apollo program required a vehicle capable of breaking orbit, reaching the moon, and coming back, within the payload capacity of a Saturn V. If a vehicle could be assembled and fueled in orbit instead, it could have much more capacity for things like building materials, as well as support for more than a couple days' stay for two men. The ISS could make this possible.
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I'm opposed to commercial skipping. It makes people do things like put ad banners on the bottom of the screen during my shows, and honestly, I'd rather be forced to stretch my legs for 2 minutes so I can grab a beer and negate the benefit of stretching my legs instead.
As far as people actually wanting to directly help each other, tell it to Kitty Genovese.
You can't patent Cancer Mouse, but Danger Mouse is copyrighted? It sounds like some kind of discrimination to me.
I guess a good analogy would be, you can buy a new car for 25 grand, or you can use a new car for 5 grand. While you can't resell the car, since you don't own it, you can use it as if it were yours. I'd take that deal.
If he's smart, he'll license the idea to whoever wants to buy it and become a rich man - meaning anyone who has a good idea can get some capital and improve it if he tries. Also, the patent wouldn't stop someone from working on the idea themself, if I'm not mistaken. It just keeps them from making money on it without his license. I think this is a good use of the patent system.
I don't feel quite so bad when I go to the theater and see they want $9.50 for a movie ticket. We're talking about capitalism at its best here. I'll take a look at what you're selling, and if I like it, I'll pay you what it's worth - whether it's $9.50 for a ticket to a movie I've been anticipating, 4 bucks to rent something I was kind of interested in but missed, or whatever the studios get from HBO out of my monthly fees. I give the various entertainment industries a pretty good chunk of my disposable income, and no - not every movie is worth my $9.50. Not even CLOSE. If the industries don't like me making an informed decision as to the quality of their product, maybe they should outlaw film critics too, and maybe make us sign a gag order before we can watch.
I don't know anyone who collects ripped movies. The few that I've downloaded, I erased after watching, and I eventually ended up paying to see the ones I enjoyed again. I'd have most likely never seen the rest. We're not talking about me taking something off a shelf and depriving someone else of the opportunity to buy it. We're talking about me knowing the quality of what I buy. Nearly every other industry is required, morally and usually legally, to give my money back if they sell me something of inferior quality. So what makes me a thief in this case?
Okay, let's say you bought a cheap PC - 300 bucks. The burner's gonna put you out about another 50, let's say you get 100 blanks for 10 bucks or so, and broadband goes for 50 bucks or so. Your first 100 CDs, assuming you could find that much good music in a month, comes out to a bare minimum of 410 dollars, which, at your figure of $3 each, figuring for 7.5% sales tax, gets you 127 commercial CDs. You could obviously make it profitable over time, but if you factor in the cost of burning a coaster here and there and the value of your time, I really don't think it would be worth it. Not to mention CD-Rs aren't as durable in my experience, and I'm one of those people that likes the cover art and lyric sheets. The record companies aren't just gouging us, they're ripping most of the artists off too. I would love to see just one major band would go buy a commercial CD press and distribute their own albums. If they charged 5 dollars a disc, they'd make well over what they're getting from the record companies.
I'll give you the point that we would have little chance of destroying an asteroid before it could hit Earth. However, you may have seen those things in science class, I forget what they're called, but they're little rotating black and white diamonds in a vacuum chamber that looks like a light bulb. They work because the black side of the diamond absorbs more light, converts it to heat, and excites what little air there is in the chamber, which hits the black side of the diamonds and turns the wheel. If we found a large object on course to hit Earth months or years in advance, we could potentially use a similar principle to constantly burn one "side" of the object and deflect it by a small amount, but perhaps enough to miss the Earth. The only problem I see with this idea is degradation and accuracy problems at that range - I know distance isn't as much of a factor in space, but it's still a factor - and the spin of the asteroid. I imagine in space, it would probably cool fast enough, and they could compensate for the effect.
Anyway, who wouldn't want to take Hoover Dam off the grid to power a giant array of lasers, just because it's friggin' cool?
I'd also like everyone to make a distinction between GWB and his cronies and the people/country of the USA. I'm sure a lot of the yahoos that voted for them in the first place are all in favor of any excuse to blow stuff up, but there are plenty of Americans who don't want to start poking at beehives any more than the rest of the world.
By designing their page how they see fit, they lose not only the blind, but a percentage of people with slow modems and some people that just don't like all the crap. Southwest is currently offering flights from southern California (where I live) to Las Vegas for 19.00 each way, plus taxes and all that. Maybe they have are other routes that make money, but that one doesn't. That's less than it would cost me in gas to drive there. I don't think it's much of an issue of whether they WANT to spend money on all the extras to bring in a few disabled people - it's whether they can. Airlines aren't exactly raking it in lately; even the big ones are hurting, and Southwest is not one of the big ones. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places that aren't friendly to blind people. I, on the other hand, plan to fly to Vegas sometime this year, and I happen to like the fact that I can do it for maybe 60 bucks after taxes. Southwest most likely reached those numbers by scraping bottom in every aspect of their business, and if that means they got a decent-looking website out of it, but it isn't accessible to blind people, well I'm sorry. Hire a reader.
Powered by a single engine from a Citation business jet, the Bird of Prey is pure prototype, with a maximum speed of 300 mph and a maximum altitude of 20,000 feet. Its take-off characteristics were "normal, but in slow motion," according to test pilot Joe Felock.
If we do end up in another war with Iraq, I hope they're not using this thing. You could take it down with some of the sportier WWII era planes I've read about.
I think this sort of thing is due to the fact that it's no longer PC to carry loaded weapons. You'd think twice about interrupting the movie for 500 people if you were standing next to someone else's silhouette outlined in bullet holes.
Degrading space travel? As far as I'm concerned, space travel will only get better, safer, and faster with every trip we make. I'm all in favor of anything that brings ME closer to getting a chance, instead of glorifying the privileged elite who have been lucky enough to be anointed by NASA.
You slashdotted John Carmack! You bastards!
Saturn is not the solution to putting anything permanent on the moon. Its own fuel takes up the vast majority of its payload; the Apollo vehicles were incredibly flimsy, and they just barely got back to Earth with a couple hundred pounds of moon rocks each. The ISS (or a station like it) would be necessary for establishing any sort of permanent settlement on the moon, with current technology. The Apollo program required a vehicle capable of breaking orbit, reaching the moon, and coming back, within the payload capacity of a Saturn V. If a vehicle could be assembled and fueled in orbit instead, it could have much more capacity for things like building materials, as well as support for more than a couple days' stay for two men. The ISS could make this possible.