But that CO2 will sit there for thousands of years and eventually escape into the atmosphere. If the global warmers are correct, that will cause catastrophic warming, the sky will fall, plagues of locusts will eat our first-born, and all kinds of other nonsense. So nuclear waste is far safer in the long run.
"He was having problems opening a Word document. (a problem I have had many times with OO) That's one of the extra features bloating Office?"
Again, I've had no problems opening ordinary, everyay Word documents. I presume he's trying to open some complex Word document with Excel spreadsheets, Visual Basic macros, video files, flight simulators and all the other bloated Office nonsense embedded in it.
"Basically it's a usable free word processor, but it's definitely no Office 2003 replacement."
Maybe if you use those bazillion extra features that have bloated Microsoft Office to hundreds of megabytes, but I've yet to find anything that I want to do that Open Office can't do... I suspect that most people who just want a word processor to type average, ordinary documents will feel the same.
"If any of the governments of the world were thinking ahead though they would start investing very heavily in alternative power generation technology."
The Chinese are apparently investing heavily in building cheap, safe nuclear reactors. Hopefully they'll sell them to us, since the whacko lefties won't let us build our own to eliminate their 'global warming' bogeyman.
"The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day,"
Nonsense, of course. We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal.
"scientists who say otherwise are hired by special interest groups or oil companies"
You are parodying the lefties here and not being serious, I presume? That is, making fun of the fact that most scientists who claim that 'global warming' is a threat are being paid by governments to do 'global warming' research and would be out of a job if they didn't keep claiming that it's a big threat?
'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry around the world: if you wouldn't believe McDonalds if they said that their meals are good for you, why would you believe the global warming industry?
"Remember you CHOOSE to view the page they aren't forcing you to"
Remember, they put information on the web, we aren't forcing them to. If they don't want me to use the information however I choose to use it, they don't have to put it on the web.
One thing you can guarantee is that if web pages are given the ability to cripple your browser in this way, then it will be widely abused to eliminate fair use rights.
"If the British people don't like this, they should be doing something about it such as voting appropriately."
Yes. We could vote for the pro-Bush Tory party rather than the Pro-Bush Blair party. That would show them!
The British people have even less choice in the next election than the American people do in theirs: at least Kerry and Bush have some differences in their policies, whereas Blair and Howard have almost none.
"Take into consideration that the braking power you have when not accelerating (deccelerating from 50) is enhanced by the vacuum assist in the braking system."
Not all cars have vacuum-assisted brakes: mine doesn't, and it still stops at around 1g, at least from 60-70mph. I'd be interested to see the Renault road car that can accelerate at >1g at 60+ mph.
"The basis for allowing the FCC such power is that it is broadcast communications; and therefore since it is bouncing off the head of every one in the country, they should be able to control the content of the communication."
Why? Where do they get the right to tell Americans what they can and can't broadcast?
"The article says he tried stepping on the brakes, but that had no effect on the cruise control"
Cruise control wouldn't matter: I doubt there's a car on the planet that can out-accelerate its brakes at 120mph. This isn't another idiot who hit the gas pedal rather than the brakes and then complained that the brakes didn't work, is it?
Or does the car really have non-mechanical brakes? I guess maybe a fault with electronic ABS could disable them.
One difference is that they managed to do this for a small fraction of what NASA's engineering models predicted. It was similar for the DC-X: AFAIR NASA models predicted a development cost of a billion dollars or so, but the DC-X people actually managed to build it for about $40 million (though they got some cost savings from using engines they got cheap, AFAIR).
So it's pretty clear that if NASA had built Spaceship One it would probably have cost about a billion dollars. Sure, it would probably have a toilet, sauna and TV room on board, but it wouldn't have done any more than SS1 has, for many times the price.
"What is interesting is that in terms of costs, both efforts cost the $25 Million."
The X-15 program cost a heck of a lot more than $25,000,000... though it did make nearly 200 flights, rather than three.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter6.html: 'The program's total cost, including development and eight years of operations are usually estimated at $300 million in 1969 dollars. Each flight is estimated to have cost $600,000.'
So that would put X-15 development cost at about $180 million in 1969 dollars vs about $25 million in 2004 dollars for SS1. Whether it's a fair comparison is debatable, however, since the X-15 had to make high speed flights as well as high altitude flights.
"This would remove all financial motivation for most worldly pursuits. Why write software? Why write a book? Why create music?"
Right, because no-one ever wrote books or created music before copyright laws were introduced.
Do you really believe that no-one would write books, no-one would write software, no-one would make movies, and no-one would create music if there was no copyright law? The only people who would stop are the ones who do it purely for money, not the real artists.
"You have no right to be entertained. If no one wants to sell/give/whatever something to you. A bond of automatic entitlement doesn't immedietly form."
As usual, you're missing the entire point of copyright law. At least in America, copyright law was not introduced to give publishers a license to print money, it was introduced to encourage people to produce material which would then enter the public domain after a limited time.
So those people who have rights under copyright law also have an implicit responsibility to make that material available, otherwise if they could simply destroy all copies the day before copyright expired they would obviously have eliminated the entire reason why they were given that right to print money in the first place. As such, I can't see any reason why someone should not download material that the publisher is not releasing to buy.
"I give you exhibit A what's wrong with humanity"
No, what's wrong with humanity is people who expect to get rights without accepting the associated responsibilities.
"I'm aware that copyright is an artifical property right etc etc,"
So why even try to pretend that it's anything else?
"but most people don't have a problem with it in principle"
Then why do most people have no problem with, say, borrowing a friend's CD, taping it and listening to it in their car? Or with borrowing a tape of a TV show that someone recorded off-air (which I believe is technically illegal in a number of countries)?
The simple fact is that most people don't see 'copyright infringement' as a crime, and certainly don't regard it as immoral.
"People sue because they feel they have been wronged and want it righted."
No, they sue because it costs them nothing and they might get a ton of cash out of some defendant with big pockets. Rights has nothing to do with it.
Introduce a 'loser pays' system and people can sue as much as they want... but they won't do so unless they have a real case and aren't just relying on the jury being retards.
"99% of the people that regurgitate it have never bothered to read about the real damage done to this woman because McDonald's DID keep their coffee too hot"
Yes, because no-one could have guessed that driving along holding a cup of hot coffee between their legs might cause 'real damage' to them. In any rational country the whole case would have been thrown out on grounds of stupidity.
"If any of the stuff they cut actually made the movie better they would have left it in the theatrical edition."
Mmm, no the theatrical version was cut for time because you can't show a 4+ hour movie in a cinema today. Had there been no time limit, this probably would have been the version in the cinema.
"Remember these are not director's cuts where the director is given the freedom to include (or leave out, think Blade Runner) whatever he wants in the film"
Um, yes, it is.
So that post is 'insightful'? Should be moderated '-5, Talking Out Of Backside', IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
But that CO2 will sit there for thousands of years and eventually escape into the atmosphere. If the global warmers are correct, that will cause catastrophic warming, the sky will fall, plagues of locusts will eat our first-born, and all kinds of other nonsense. So nuclear waste is far safer in the long run.
"I'd like to see them try to extradite an infringer. :P"
Well, Bush _is_ looking for some other country to bomb before the election...
"He was having problems opening a Word document. (a problem I have had many times with OO) That's one of the extra features bloating Office?"
Again, I've had no problems opening ordinary, everyay Word documents. I presume he's trying to open some complex Word document with Excel spreadsheets, Visual Basic macros, video files, flight simulators and all the other bloated Office nonsense embedded in it.
"Most people create documents for others to view, and in today's corporate environment, that means .doc format."
.PDFs...
Maybe my employer is strange, but most documents I get to view in my corporate environment are
In what sense is the PDF exporter "non-working"? I use it often and haven't had any problems yet.
"Basically it's a usable free word processor, but it's definitely no Office 2003 replacement."
Maybe if you use those bazillion extra features that have bloated Microsoft Office to hundreds of megabytes, but I've yet to find anything that I want to do that Open Office can't do... I suspect that most people who just want a word processor to type average, ordinary documents will feel the same.
"If any of the governments of the world were thinking ahead though they would start investing very heavily in alternative power generation technology."
The Chinese are apparently investing heavily in building cheap, safe nuclear reactors. Hopefully they'll sell them to us, since the whacko lefties won't let us build our own to eliminate their 'global warming' bogeyman.
"The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day,"
Nonsense, of course. We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal.
"scientists who say otherwise are hired by special interest groups or oil companies"
You are parodying the lefties here and not being serious, I presume? That is, making fun of the fact that most scientists who claim that 'global warming' is a threat are being paid by governments to do 'global warming' research and would be out of a job if they didn't keep claiming that it's a big threat?
'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry around the world: if you wouldn't believe McDonalds if they said that their meals are good for you, why would you believe the global warming industry?
But they are trying to force me to use a crippled browser, whether or not I use their 'service'.
"Remember you CHOOSE to view the page they aren't forcing you to"
Remember, they put information on the web, we aren't forcing them to. If they don't want me to use the information however I choose to use it, they don't have to put it on the web.
One thing you can guarantee is that if web pages are given the ability to cripple your browser in this way, then it will be widely abused to eliminate fair use rights.
"If Google doesn't do that, then they cannot offer this service"
And? Why should my browser be broken just so Google can make money?
"If the British people don't like this, they should be doing something about it such as voting appropriately."
Yes. We could vote for the pro-Bush Tory party rather than the Pro-Bush Blair party. That would show them!
The British people have even less choice in the next election than the American people do in theirs: at least Kerry and Bush have some differences in their policies, whereas Blair and Howard have almost none.
"Take into consideration that the braking power you have when not accelerating (deccelerating from 50) is enhanced by the vacuum assist in the braking system."
Not all cars have vacuum-assisted brakes: mine doesn't, and it still stops at around 1g, at least from 60-70mph. I'd be interested to see the Renault road car that can accelerate at >1g at 60+ mph.
"The basis for allowing the FCC such power is that it is broadcast communications; and therefore since it is bouncing off the head of every one in the country, they should be able to control the content of the communication."
Why? Where do they get the right to tell Americans what they can and can't broadcast?
Scary... I didn't realise that non-mechanical brakes were that widespread.
"however the breaking and power steering systems operate off of the battery"
So a flat battery means you no longer have any brakes?
"The article says he tried stepping on the brakes, but that had no effect on the cruise control"
Cruise control wouldn't matter: I doubt there's a car on the planet that can out-accelerate its brakes at 120mph. This isn't another idiot who hit the gas pedal rather than the brakes and then complained that the brakes didn't work, is it?
Or does the car really have non-mechanical brakes? I guess maybe a fault with electronic ABS could disable them.
"SS1 has no control thrusters."
AFAIR it does, but they're cold gas thrusters, so not very powerful.
One difference is that they managed to do this for a small fraction of what NASA's engineering models predicted. It was similar for the DC-X: AFAIR NASA models predicted a development cost of a billion dollars or so, but the DC-X people actually managed to build it for about $40 million (though they got some cost savings from using engines they got cheap, AFAIR).
So it's pretty clear that if NASA had built Spaceship One it would probably have cost about a billion dollars. Sure, it would probably have a toilet, sauna and TV room on board, but it wouldn't have done any more than SS1 has, for many times the price.
"What is interesting is that in terms of costs, both efforts cost the $25 Million."
The X-15 program cost a heck of a lot more than $25,000,000... though it did make nearly 200 flights, rather than three.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter6.html:
'The program's total cost, including development and eight years of operations are usually estimated at $300 million in 1969 dollars. Each flight is estimated to have cost $600,000.'
So that would put X-15 development cost at about $180 million in 1969 dollars vs about $25 million in 2004 dollars for SS1. Whether it's a fair comparison is debatable, however, since the X-15 had to make high speed flights as well as high altitude flights.
"This would remove all financial motivation for most worldly pursuits. Why write software? Why write a book? Why create music?"
Right, because no-one ever wrote books or created music before copyright laws were introduced.
Do you really believe that no-one would write books, no-one would write software, no-one would make movies, and no-one would create music if there was no copyright law? The only people who would stop are the ones who do it purely for money, not the real artists.
"You have no right to be entertained. If no one wants to sell/give/whatever something to you. A bond of automatic entitlement doesn't immedietly form."
As usual, you're missing the entire point of copyright law. At least in America, copyright law was not introduced to give publishers a license to print money, it was introduced to encourage people to produce material which would then enter the public domain after a limited time.
So those people who have rights under copyright law also have an implicit responsibility to make that material available, otherwise if they could simply destroy all copies the day before copyright expired they would obviously have eliminated the entire reason why they were given that right to print money in the first place. As such, I can't see any reason why someone should not download material that the publisher is not releasing to buy.
"I give you exhibit A what's wrong with humanity"
No, what's wrong with humanity is people who expect to get rights without accepting the associated responsibilities.
"I'm aware that copyright is an artifical property right etc etc,"
So why even try to pretend that it's anything else?
"but most people don't have a problem with it in principle"
Then why do most people have no problem with, say, borrowing a friend's CD, taping it and listening to it in their car? Or with borrowing a tape of a TV show that someone recorded off-air (which I believe is technically illegal in a number of countries)?
The simple fact is that most people don't see 'copyright infringement' as a crime, and certainly don't regard it as immoral.
"People sue because they feel they have been wronged and want it righted."
No, they sue because it costs them nothing and they might get a ton of cash out of some defendant with big pockets. Rights has nothing to do with it.
Introduce a 'loser pays' system and people can sue as much as they want... but they won't do so unless they have a real case and aren't just relying on the jury being retards.
"99% of the people that regurgitate it have never bothered to read about the real damage done to this woman because McDonald's DID keep their coffee too hot"
Yes, because no-one could have guessed that driving along holding a cup of hot coffee between their legs might cause 'real damage' to them. In any rational country the whole case would have been thrown out on grounds of stupidity.
"If any of the stuff they cut actually made the movie better they would have left it in the theatrical edition."
Mmm, no the theatrical version was cut for time because you can't show a 4+ hour movie in a cinema today. Had there been no time limit, this probably would have been the version in the cinema.
"Remember these are not director's cuts where the director is given the freedom to include (or leave out, think Blade Runner) whatever he wants in the film"
Um, yes, it is.
So that post is 'insightful'? Should be moderated '-5, Talking Out Of Backside', IMHO.