Here's one resource, Constructing Isometric Grid Paper, A Computer Aid, but you can buy it at places that sell engineering drawing type supplies. Or at least you used to be able to. I would start at the bottom in the middle and darken in the edges to show which blocks are to be filled in. One problem with this is that you are kind of limited in complexity. If it's too complicated it will be tough to tell what is going on. Even if its pretty simple there are still going to be points at which clues overlap, and that is going to make it hard to understand. I like the idea that someone else had of using hex paper, I think that would be easier to do.
Well, I'm almost ashamed to say that I downloaded and watched it. I have never played CS, but I have occasionally played FPS, and I'll just say that it's almost impossible to tell what is going on. I think you would have to know the maps and the strategies in order for the video to be watchable and interesting. The problem I see is that the "live" game coverage is very split up by jump cuts between players on different teams and 3rd person cameras. The fact that the video resolution is much less then monitor resolution doesn't help as you can't really even see most of the players that are being shot at.
The better part is that post game commentary on the one part of the match. They show an overhead type view of the map, and where the players are as the action progresses. This would be a more interesting way of showing the match if it were interspersed with first person POV views of the action. With five players on a team it's very difficult to tell what is going on when you can only see one POV, or a third person POV where the players move around very fast. In a match that lasts a minute it is hard to have any kind of drama build up with a real time approach, instead the minute long match could be stretched to a five minute interspersed match and commentary format.
A more layed back approach to the coverage would be helpful in sorting out the action. I don't feel that the loss of the "live action" feel would really be a detriment as it mostly reminded me of the old Nickolodeon show Double Dare where the guy was just yelling all the time at things that weren't really all that crucial. If someone is yelling the whole time it's tough to tell what is important. Football commentary is the tone to shoot for, most of the time kind of laid back and more in depth, then raising in tone when a very important event occurs.
A corporation is just a piece of paper that says that such and such a name is registered to do business. All of the laws that attach to corporations go back to that charter. These charters are given out by the states and AFAIK there isn't any legal reason why the charter can't be revoked at will by the state. The problem is that the "owner" of the corporation is in stock, so punishing a corporation by revoking its charter would hurt shareholders who these days don't really have any idea what companies they own.
As far as I'm concerned that doesn't bother me to much, it's buyer beware. If a fund manager decides to buy Microsoft stock and doesn't bother to learn that they have unsavory business practices I have no problem with him losing his shirt along with everyone else's. There's far too little personal responsibility at stake when it comes to large amounts of money.
I've come up with the perfect solution! Instead of better educating children in the US, I'm suggesting that we start a government program that will provide FREE Playstations to the children of countries who challenge our lead in technology. In the long run giving the kids free Playstations is only going to cost us about $200 US, and we can probably get a good deal that includes a bunch of games. That's much cheaper than providing a quality education. What we really need in conjunction is a program to identify the best and brightest in China and India so that we don't spend so much. We also might want to consider a program that sends them role-playing materials and anime dvds.
I think there are some studies somewhere that link balance to improving thinking abilities. Take some Tai Chi or something.
Meditation seems like it could be a good thing to do. You just have to try to figure out which kind of meditation you should do. I like zazen.
If you haven't done drugs maybe you could try that. Don't get addicted or anything, but try 'em out. I would include alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine along with all the others in this experiment. I think this can bring a certain sense of perspective. I don't recommend doing ANY drugs (including alcohol, nicotine or caffeine) to someone who has pre-existing mental instability. In that case the brain is producing it's own novelty, it would be a shame to mess with it.
Readd books that you don't agree with and try to make yourself agree with them. Or you can do the same thing with political talk shows. I do this with Rush Limbaugh, but if you are conservative you could maybe read Al Franken or something. Good for developing flexibility.
Try fasting for a couple of days. It can bring about a change of viewpoint on your normal daily state.
Doing things you don't ordinarily do can impact your brain. Like driving a different way home from work. Or going for a walk. Once I went around trying to do everything backwards as accurately as possible. It amazed me how difficult this was. A complete reverse order is wasn't my first intuition of doing something backwards. Doing something as simple as opening a door in reverse has some hidden steps that you don't really think about.
Kind of cliche, but you could try "Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation" by Christopher Hyatt (I think) It has some interesting exercises you can do to limber your brain up. I wouldn't buy it unless you are actually going to do the exercises though. It's kind of long-winded and new-agey at points, though
Whether or not you take my advice, I wouldn't let the Slashdotters who are giving you a hard time get you down. A good number of the people who hang out on here are cynical asshats.
The largest portion of water used in the US is for agriculture. Most of this is in the west. This is because without irrigation it's hard to grow much of anything in a desert. The proportion of consumptive use in the west is 90% for agriculture.
1996 USGS water use survey
As the population expands in the west this agriculture becomes less and less sustainable.
!?!?!?
Democracy is a system of government. In a democracy people directly elect their representatives in government. Democracy has nothing to do with the economic system which the county happens to have. America is a republic. It has been a republic since the first constitution. We don't directly elect our representatives,we elect people who choose them for us.
The USSR didn't invade Grenada. They may have provided funding to the insurgents who took over Grenada, I don't know. There were a few Cuban military advisors (I'm pretty sure the number was less then 100) on Grenada at the time that the US invaded, but that was the extent of actual foreign troops.
Facts? I see no facts here! Come on, Find some statistics.
Wrong! Most of the shares are owned by individuals through:
1. pension funds
2. 401k plans
3. mutual funds
Institutional investors, such as those university endowments, own a much much smaller amount of stock than you think.
Most stock owners are way way below the millionaire level.
Get some facts and quit parroting democrat liberal mantra bs lines.
The majority of stockholders in number may be below millionaire level, but I doubt they own the majority of stocks. If 100 million lower income Americans own an average of $1000 in stocks and 1000 other Americans own an average of $1 billion in stock, then "most stock owners are way below millionaire level." It just so happens that the 1000 people own 10 times more then the 100 million
people. Isn't it fun to mislead with statistics? Don't feed me your rich peoples propaganda crap! Question the authorities that are feeding you such BS statistics.
It's more likely that India is going to buy cheap stuff from China then expensive stuff from the US. The balance they talk about in the article comes from India outsourcing jobs to the US in areas where Indians can't produce as well. Perhaps, we have better investment banking, or lawyers. The US can't compete in most export markets that aren't heavily subsidized (such as agriculture.) Other countries have too much of an edge in cheap labor and nonexistant environmental standards. We have to rely on our vaunted world class educational system to keep our edge on the world market. Umm... maybe Burger King is hiring.
That's not true at all. Government money goes in an unequal proportion to the rich, not the poor. In any government transaction there are two parties, the government and whoever they pay the money to. Welfare may be the only government program that pays poor people more then the rich. Twenty percent of the US budget goes to pay interest to the rich people who hold the federal debt. I don't give a rat's ass if a bunch of Arabs want to blow each other up, but Amoco sure does. All that money spent on "Ensuring Global Dominance?" I don't need global dominance, but Halliburton does. My interest in global dominance ends at the Risk board. What OS does the US government buy? It's the one Bill Gates made. So much for me getting as much federal money as Bill Gates. You may bring up Social Security, but payroll taxes only apply to the first $90,000 of income. Besides the fact that poor people today pay 50% more Social Security then is needed to cover current obligations so that the President can run up an enormous deficit to give a trillion dollar in tax cuts to billionaires. Google for the federal budget, read through it, and then try to tell me that poor people are getting all the money. It ain't true. And the rich don't pay most of the taxes, the middle class does. They get socked with the most payroll taxes, and they have less recourse to tax shelters to avoid paying income tax.
Actually copyright is what they would have to use, I think. To patent Windows itself they would have to publish (to the patent office) the source code. Then they would be able to have sole use of the source code for a period of time (I think its 7 years, but they may have upped it.) At the end of that time it would be in the public domain. They could also file for vague patents on processes, but again they would have to publish the processes. I'm not sure what the law is for trade secrets, but I think that the actual law only applies to the person who stole the source code. After that they would have to use copyright law.
Freedom in America is an illusion, and has been for quite some time. You can choose Coke or Pepsi. You can vote Republicrat or Democan. You can get your news from CNN or Fox News. If you define freedom as being the ability to make legitimate choices there's not really too much left. Back in the day if you didn't feel like paying rent you could just head for the horizon. Now if you head for the horizon you get arrested for trespassing.
All I have to say is thank god you can still smoke marijuana in your own home. Oh wait, you can't legally do that. Well, at least you can politically protest without being shot with less lethal ammunition. Oh wait, you can't do that either. Well, at least we still have to freedom to travel where ever we want (unless we happen to have an Arabic last name.) In college towns you can't even drink a beer in your own yard without getting harassed. Freedom in America has been on a downhill slide pretty much since it's inception, and I don't really see much being done about it.
A lot of these new programs aren't actually operated by the government. That's because the government isn't allowed to do some of these things by law. They hire private companies because private companies can do whatever the hell they want. This isn't the only company working on projects that are similar to this. Slashdot's headlines since TIA went down in flames are full of them.
The things is, this is nothing new. I had seen proposals for commercial versions of this for a long time. Cell phones that advertise for businesses that you happen to be near, in car navigation systems that advertise for restaurants you are driving by. I would be very surprised if credit card companies haven't been selling all kinds of information to marketing agencies, as well as other financial companies. I tend to agree with people that say the US sold it's right to privacy a long time ago for easy credit. The only right we may be able to claim is transparency to see what happens to our data, and I don't see anyone pushing for that. David Brin wrote an interesting book called The Transparent Society where he explored transparency as an alternative to privacy. I'm really getting tired of people bitching about the government invading our privacy when the government is 30 years behind the private sector. It's not like anyone is using this information with our best interests at heart, unless you think getting more advertising is neat.
People bring up this case all the time without taking the time to find out what the details were. When it was all said and done no one got "filthy rich" off that case. The original damages awarded by the jury were reduced by the judge. And the woman who spilled the coffee had third degree burns all over her legs. You could spill coffee from your home coffee maker on your legs all day long and not get anything worse then a big red patch of skin.
I think that in order to appeal they should have to up the ante. Say for each appeal you get a possible 25% added to the maximum fine. They could even fine extra for each motion filed. They could tack on extra fine based on the amount of delay. Right now they have no reason not to appeal. Even just from inflation the fine they would have to pay is 3 to 4% less each year they can put off paying it.
A NetMD minidisc player copies songs from a computer to a player at up to 32 times playback speed. The earlier MD players didn't copy any faster then a regular playback. The rate of transfer depends on the compression. At the rate of compression that is similar to a 128 MP3 the transfer rate is 16x. This better improve by a lot with the new MD format, because at 16 times it seems to take a long time. I'd hate to think how long it would take to fill up a 1GB disk at that rate.
I bought a MD about a year ago, and the software it came with does allow you to make more then one copy of a given song with some restrictions. If you import a CD into the Jukebox software it converts the songs into Sony's ATRAC format and it allows you to "check out" each song up to three times onto different MDs. If you import an MP3 from your current collection it just sits there unconverted until you try to "check out" the song to a Minidisc at which point the song is converted to ATRAC and you can "check out" the ATRAC copy 3 different times. Vut since the MP3 doesn't have any protection on it you can reimport the same MP3 as many times as you want. So to get around the limitation on checking out to many copies of a song from a CD you own all you have to do is convert it to MP3 first. They even tell you that you can do it that way in the manual that comes with the player.
As far as alternatives go, I think that placing some kind of upper bound on the size and scope of corporations would be a good place to start. Adam Smith, who's concept of the invisble hand underlies a great deal of the faith in free market capitalism, also makes it pretty clear that the system that he describes only works if no one enterprise gets large enough that it can influence a distorting effect on the market. Once companies get big enough that they can change the laws to tilt the playing field in a way that benefits them (ala Enron, halliburton, et al) the invisible hand no longer operates to ensure that self interested action also pursues the gerneral good. I'm not even saying that I agree with Adam Smith, I'm just pointing out that a lot of what he said gets ignored.
The fact that cancer can grow faster then healthy cells and crowd them out is not an argument that cancer is better for the organism as a whole. I'm not a big fan of socialism, it's not an effective for of governments for humans (IMHO). On the other hand, I don't really think that capitalism has yet to be properly implemented either. Pure free market capitalism is as bad as socialism, if not worse. The 10,000 pound hog named Corporate America has jumped on the back of Uncle Sam, and we'll see exactly how long the ride lasts. I just wonder if we are going to be called the United States of Halliburton, or the United Stocks of America. Right wingers have been yelling about the dangers of Big Government for decades, I just wonder when they will wake up and realize that the real danger is Big Governbusiness.
We will probably just have to agree to disagree, because in a lot of situations I do think that people will pay for something that they could have for free. Especially if they think that the person who is the creator will directly benefit. Of course there are some people who won't, you seem to be in that camp, but I'm not. I'm not sure if either one of us is in the majority, however. Perhaps the majority lies somewhere in between. As for the "dim view of human nature routine," well the fact that you think it is hogwash kind of makes my point for me now doesn't it? I have, in my life at times, relied on the kindness of strangers, and I have seldom been disappointed.
And by the way, street musicians DO make a living from people who voluntarily pay for something that they could otherwise have for free.
"And your last comment of "The tinpot dictator was probably installed there by the US anyway, so the pitiful serfs are stuck with that until the US empire crumbles." shows just how much of a tool you are.
Touche! You have clearly wounded him with your stunning grasp of logic and reason! He said that therefore he must be a tool! Bravo! It's good to see that the old ad hominem attack is still being taught in schools these days.
"They may be exploiting the quality of life there, but, as a massive choice, people there have chosen to work at factories than work on farms. The question nobody who wants to denounce globalisation ever wants to ask is Why? Why did they choose to work at a factory than work where they did before? Why? Chinese factories do not go to cities with guns and tell people to work or die. They offer a certain compensation for labour, and people choose to accept it."
Well I'm not sure about China, but in a lot of places they can't work on the farm anymore because the farms are not econmically sustainable. You see, the US subsidises agriculture to the tune of umpteen billion dollars. This may not seem like too much to Americans, but to the poor farmers in poor countries it is a formidable disadvantage. Especially when you consider that the majority of these subsidies go to big corporate farms that grow products that compete rather directly with the poor farmers. Free Trade and all that. So these poor farmers can't farm, so what are they to do? Perhaps they can go to work in the factories. I'd say that answers fairly well the question of why they work in factories instead of farms.
And I'd say you haven't really been paying much attention to what the critics of globalisation have been saying if you didn't realize it. You probably just said to yourself "Globalization is good, Dan Rather says so, Tom Brokaw says so, Fox News says so, the New York Times says so. With all those authoritative voices saying the same thing how can they be wrong?" And so it goes.
P.S. I'm not really sure what the Campbellsville link has to do at all with corporations providing schools for children whose parents work in third world sweatshops, near as I can tell it's some kind of kids camp somewhere in the midwest.
The real funny part of this discussion is that you are discussing workers forming a union in a supposedly socialist country. Which is supposed to be a "Worker's Paradise." So much for that idea. But really China isn't any more successful then any other country at implementing socialism, the wealthy still want to hold on to what they have, and the poor still can't get any of it. Employee stock options are the most successful form of communism going, and those have taken a beating lately.
Lots of people will pay for something that they know they like even if they know they can get it for free. In fact, public radio in the United States is pretty much supported by people who know that they can get it for free but choose to pay anyway. Just because you have a somewhat dim view of human nature doesn't make it so. People can be quite generous towards someone who is doing something they consider worthwhile.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's one resource, Constructing Isometric Grid Paper, A Computer Aid, but you can buy it at places that sell engineering drawing type supplies. Or at least you used to be able to. I would start at the bottom in the middle and darken in the edges to show which blocks are to be filled in. One problem with this is that you are kind of limited in complexity. If it's too complicated it will be tough to tell what is going on. Even if its pretty simple there are still going to be points at which clues overlap, and that is going to make it hard to understand. I like the idea that someone else had of using hex paper, I think that would be easier to do.
Well, I'm almost ashamed to say that I downloaded and watched it. I have never played CS, but I have occasionally played FPS, and I'll just say that it's almost impossible to tell what is going on. I think you would have to know the maps and the strategies in order for the video to be watchable and interesting. The problem I see is that the "live" game coverage is very split up by jump cuts between players on different teams and 3rd person cameras. The fact that the video resolution is much less then monitor resolution doesn't help as you can't really even see most of the players that are being shot at.
The better part is that post game commentary on the one part of the match. They show an overhead type view of the map, and where the players are as the action progresses. This would be a more interesting way of showing the match if it were interspersed with first person POV views of the action. With five players on a team it's very difficult to tell what is going on when you can only see one POV, or a third person POV where the players move around very fast. In a match that lasts a minute it is hard to have any kind of drama build up with a real time approach, instead the minute long match could be stretched to a five minute interspersed match and commentary format.
A more layed back approach to the coverage would be helpful in sorting out the action. I don't feel that the loss of the "live action" feel would really be a detriment as it mostly reminded me of the old Nickolodeon show Double Dare where the guy was just yelling all the time at things that weren't really all that crucial. If someone is yelling the whole time it's tough to tell what is important. Football commentary is the tone to shoot for, most of the time kind of laid back and more in depth, then raising in tone when a very important event occurs.
A corporation is just a piece of paper that says that such and such a name is registered to do business. All of the laws that attach to corporations go back to that charter. These charters are given out by the states and AFAIK there isn't any legal reason why the charter can't be revoked at will by the state. The problem is that the "owner" of the corporation is in stock, so punishing a corporation by revoking its charter would hurt shareholders who these days don't really have any idea what companies they own.
As far as I'm concerned that doesn't bother me to much, it's buyer beware. If a fund manager decides to buy Microsoft stock and doesn't bother to learn that they have unsavory business practices I have no problem with him losing his shirt along with everyone else's. There's far too little personal responsibility at stake when it comes to large amounts of money.
I've come up with the perfect solution! Instead of better educating children in the US, I'm suggesting that we start a government program that will provide FREE Playstations to the children of countries who challenge our lead in technology. In the long run giving the kids free Playstations is only going to cost us about $200 US, and we can probably get a good deal that includes a bunch of games. That's much cheaper than providing a quality education. What we really need in conjunction is a program to identify the best and brightest in China and India so that we don't spend so much. We also might want to consider a program that sends them role-playing materials and anime dvds.
I think there are some studies somewhere that link balance to improving thinking abilities. Take some Tai Chi or something.
Meditation seems like it could be a good thing to do. You just have to try to figure out which kind of meditation you should do. I like zazen.
If you haven't done drugs maybe you could try that. Don't get addicted or anything, but try 'em out. I would include alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine along with all the others in this experiment. I think this can bring a certain sense of perspective. I don't recommend doing ANY drugs (including alcohol, nicotine or caffeine) to someone who has pre-existing mental instability. In that case the brain is producing it's own novelty, it would be a shame to mess with it.
Readd books that you don't agree with and try to make yourself agree with them. Or you can do the same thing with political talk shows. I do this with Rush Limbaugh, but if you are conservative you could maybe read Al Franken or something. Good for developing flexibility.
Try fasting for a couple of days. It can bring about a change of viewpoint on your normal daily state.
Doing things you don't ordinarily do can impact your brain. Like driving a different way home from work. Or going for a walk. Once I went around trying to do everything backwards as accurately as possible. It amazed me how difficult this was. A complete reverse order is wasn't my first intuition of doing something backwards. Doing something as simple as opening a door in reverse has some hidden steps that you don't really think about.
Kind of cliche, but you could try "Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation" by Christopher Hyatt (I think) It has some interesting exercises you can do to limber your brain up. I wouldn't buy it unless you are actually going to do the exercises though. It's kind of long-winded and new-agey at points, though
Whether or not you take my advice, I wouldn't let the Slashdotters who are giving you a hard time get you down. A good number of the people who hang out on here are cynical asshats.
The largest portion of water used in the US is for agriculture. Most of this is in the west. This is because without irrigation it's hard to grow much of anything in a desert. The proportion of consumptive use in the west is 90% for agriculture. 1996 USGS water use survey As the population expands in the west this agriculture becomes less and less sustainable.
!?!?!? Democracy is a system of government. In a democracy people directly elect their representatives in government. Democracy has nothing to do with the economic system which the county happens to have. America is a republic. It has been a republic since the first constitution. We don't directly elect our representatives,we elect people who choose them for us.
The USSR didn't invade Grenada. They may have provided funding to the insurgents who took over Grenada, I don't know. There were a few Cuban military advisors (I'm pretty sure the number was less then 100) on Grenada at the time that the US invaded, but that was the extent of actual foreign troops.
Facts? I see no facts here! Come on, Find some statistics.
The majority of stockholders in number may be below millionaire level, but I doubt they own the majority of stocks. If 100 million lower income Americans own an average of $1000 in stocks and 1000 other Americans own an average of $1 billion in stock, then "most stock owners are way below millionaire level." It just so happens that the 1000 people own 10 times more then the 100 million people. Isn't it fun to mislead with statistics? Don't feed me your rich peoples propaganda crap! Question the authorities that are feeding you such BS statistics.
It's more likely that India is going to buy cheap stuff from China then expensive stuff from the US. The balance they talk about in the article comes from India outsourcing jobs to the US in areas where Indians can't produce as well. Perhaps, we have better investment banking, or lawyers. The US can't compete in most export markets that aren't heavily subsidized (such as agriculture.) Other countries have too much of an edge in cheap labor and nonexistant environmental standards. We have to rely on our vaunted world class educational system to keep our edge on the world market. Umm ... maybe Burger King is hiring.
That's not true at all. Government money goes in an unequal proportion to the rich, not the poor. In any government transaction there are two parties, the government and whoever they pay the money to. Welfare may be the only government program that pays poor people more then the rich. Twenty percent of the US budget goes to pay interest to the rich people who hold the federal debt. I don't give a rat's ass if a bunch of Arabs want to blow each other up, but Amoco sure does. All that money spent on "Ensuring Global Dominance?" I don't need global dominance, but Halliburton does. My interest in global dominance ends at the Risk board. What OS does the US government buy? It's the one Bill Gates made. So much for me getting as much federal money as Bill Gates. You may bring up Social Security, but payroll taxes only apply to the first $90,000 of income. Besides the fact that poor people today pay 50% more Social Security then is needed to cover current obligations so that the President can run up an enormous deficit to give a trillion dollar in tax cuts to billionaires. Google for the federal budget, read through it, and then try to tell me that poor people are getting all the money. It ain't true. And the rich don't pay most of the taxes, the middle class does. They get socked with the most payroll taxes, and they have less recourse to tax shelters to avoid paying income tax.
Actually copyright is what they would have to use, I think. To patent Windows itself they would have to publish (to the patent office) the source code. Then they would be able to have sole use of the source code for a period of time (I think its 7 years, but they may have upped it.) At the end of that time it would be in the public domain. They could also file for vague patents on processes, but again they would have to publish the processes. I'm not sure what the law is for trade secrets, but I think that the actual law only applies to the person who stole the source code. After that they would have to use copyright law.
Freedom in America is an illusion, and has been for quite some time. You can choose Coke or Pepsi. You can vote Republicrat or Democan. You can get your news from CNN or Fox News. If you define freedom as being the ability to make legitimate choices there's not really too much left. Back in the day if you didn't feel like paying rent you could just head for the horizon. Now if you head for the horizon you get arrested for trespassing.
All I have to say is thank god you can still smoke marijuana in your own home. Oh wait, you can't legally do that. Well, at least you can politically protest without being shot with less lethal ammunition. Oh wait, you can't do that either. Well, at least we still have to freedom to travel where ever we want (unless we happen to have an Arabic last name.) In college towns you can't even drink a beer in your own yard without getting harassed. Freedom in America has been on a downhill slide pretty much since it's inception, and I don't really see much being done about it.
A lot of these new programs aren't actually operated by the government. That's because the government isn't allowed to do some of these things by law. They hire private companies because private companies can do whatever the hell they want. This isn't the only company working on projects that are similar to this. Slashdot's headlines since TIA went down in flames are full of them.
The things is, this is nothing new. I had seen proposals for commercial versions of this for a long time. Cell phones that advertise for businesses that you happen to be near, in car navigation systems that advertise for restaurants you are driving by. I would be very surprised if credit card companies haven't been selling all kinds of information to marketing agencies, as well as other financial companies. I tend to agree with people that say the US sold it's right to privacy a long time ago for easy credit. The only right we may be able to claim is transparency to see what happens to our data, and I don't see anyone pushing for that. David Brin wrote an interesting book called The Transparent Society where he explored transparency as an alternative to privacy. I'm really getting tired of people bitching about the government invading our privacy when the government is 30 years behind the private sector. It's not like anyone is using this information with our best interests at heart, unless you think getting more advertising is neat.
People bring up this case all the time without taking the time to find out what the details were. When it was all said and done no one got "filthy rich" off that case. The original damages awarded by the jury were reduced by the judge. And the woman who spilled the coffee had third degree burns all over her legs. You could spill coffee from your home coffee maker on your legs all day long and not get anything worse then a big red patch of skin.
I think that in order to appeal they should have to up the ante. Say for each appeal you get a possible 25% added to the maximum fine. They could even fine extra for each motion filed. They could tack on extra fine based on the amount of delay. Right now they have no reason not to appeal. Even just from inflation the fine they would have to pay is 3 to 4% less each year they can put off paying it.
A NetMD minidisc player copies songs from a computer to a player at up to 32 times playback speed. The earlier MD players didn't copy any faster then a regular playback. The rate of transfer depends on the compression. At the rate of compression that is similar to a 128 MP3 the transfer rate is 16x. This better improve by a lot with the new MD format, because at 16 times it seems to take a long time. I'd hate to think how long it would take to fill up a 1GB disk at that rate.
I bought a MD about a year ago, and the software it came with does allow you to make more then one copy of a given song with some restrictions. If you import a CD into the Jukebox software it converts the songs into Sony's ATRAC format and it allows you to "check out" each song up to three times onto different MDs. If you import an MP3 from your current collection it just sits there unconverted until you try to "check out" the song to a Minidisc at which point the song is converted to ATRAC and you can "check out" the ATRAC copy 3 different times. Vut since the MP3 doesn't have any protection on it you can reimport the same MP3 as many times as you want. So to get around the limitation on checking out to many copies of a song from a CD you own all you have to do is convert it to MP3 first. They even tell you that you can do it that way in the manual that comes with the player.
As far as alternatives go, I think that placing some kind of upper bound on the size and scope of corporations would be a good place to start. Adam Smith, who's concept of the invisble hand underlies a great deal of the faith in free market capitalism, also makes it pretty clear that the system that he describes only works if no one enterprise gets large enough that it can influence a distorting effect on the market. Once companies get big enough that they can change the laws to tilt the playing field in a way that benefits them (ala Enron, halliburton, et al) the invisible hand no longer operates to ensure that self interested action also pursues the gerneral good. I'm not even saying that I agree with Adam Smith, I'm just pointing out that a lot of what he said gets ignored.
The fact that cancer can grow faster then healthy cells and crowd them out is not an argument that cancer is better for the organism as a whole. I'm not a big fan of socialism, it's not an effective for of governments for humans (IMHO). On the other hand, I don't really think that capitalism has yet to be properly implemented either. Pure free market capitalism is as bad as socialism, if not worse. The 10,000 pound hog named Corporate America has jumped on the back of Uncle Sam, and we'll see exactly how long the ride lasts. I just wonder if we are going to be called the United States of Halliburton, or the United Stocks of America. Right wingers have been yelling about the dangers of Big Government for decades, I just wonder when they will wake up and realize that the real danger is Big Governbusiness.
We will probably just have to agree to disagree, because in a lot of situations I do think that people will pay for something that they could have for free. Especially if they think that the person who is the creator will directly benefit. Of course there are some people who won't, you seem to be in that camp, but I'm not. I'm not sure if either one of us is in the majority, however. Perhaps the majority lies somewhere in between. As for the "dim view of human nature routine," well the fact that you think it is hogwash kind of makes my point for me now doesn't it? I have, in my life at times, relied on the kindness of strangers, and I have seldom been disappointed.
And by the way, street musicians DO make a living from people who voluntarily pay for something that they could otherwise have for free.
Touche! You have clearly wounded him with your stunning grasp of logic and reason! He said that therefore he must be a tool! Bravo! It's good to see that the old ad hominem attack is still being taught in schools these days.
Well I'm not sure about China, but in a lot of places they can't work on the farm anymore because the farms are not econmically sustainable. You see, the US subsidises agriculture to the tune of umpteen billion dollars. This may not seem like too much to Americans, but to the poor farmers in poor countries it is a formidable disadvantage. Especially when you consider that the majority of these subsidies go to big corporate farms that grow products that compete rather directly with the poor farmers. Free Trade and all that. So these poor farmers can't farm, so what are they to do? Perhaps they can go to work in the factories. I'd say that answers fairly well the question of why they work in factories instead of farms.
And I'd say you haven't really been paying much attention to what the critics of globalisation have been saying if you didn't realize it. You probably just said to yourself "Globalization is good, Dan Rather says so, Tom Brokaw says so, Fox News says so, the New York Times says so. With all those authoritative voices saying the same thing how can they be wrong?" And so it goes.
P.S. I'm not really sure what the Campbellsville link has to do at all with corporations providing schools for children whose parents work in third world sweatshops, near as I can tell it's some kind of kids camp somewhere in the midwest.
The real funny part of this discussion is that you are discussing workers forming a union in a supposedly socialist country. Which is supposed to be a "Worker's Paradise." So much for that idea. But really China isn't any more successful then any other country at implementing socialism, the wealthy still want to hold on to what they have, and the poor still can't get any of it. Employee stock options are the most successful form of communism going, and those have taken a beating lately.
Lots of people will pay for something that they know they like even if they know they can get it for free. In fact, public radio in the United States is pretty much supported by people who know that they can get it for free but choose to pay anyway. Just because you have a somewhat dim view of human nature doesn't make it so. People can be quite generous towards someone who is doing something they consider worthwhile.