Err, you do realize that for $40, the best graphics card you can buy is either Nvidia 5xxx series (may be 6200LE) or ATI 95xx series, right? You tell me how many frames per second you get with that running 3D games at 1600 by 1200 resolution. You would be lucky to get 10 to 15.
I also believe 100% that vinyl is inherently better-sounding than digital recordings.
Well, that's the whole point isn't it? What you BELIEVE is not necessarily true.
It makes perfect sense...
A lot of things makes perfect sense when you first hear it; world is flat, intelligent design, psychic abilities, etc... Just because it makes "sense" does not make it so. Otherwise, you would be able to demonstrate it in a repeatable test.
Waving your data around isn't going to change anyone's opinion,
If you ignore facts when it does not fit your "reality", then that is really YOUR problem, not his.
Speaking of a double blind test, do one. Let me know how it goes. There is not a SINGLE scientific, peer-reviewed study that says humans can discern CD "distortions". Show me a single study that says ANY human can discern a sound from vinyl and a CD recording of that vinyl.
You experience means nothing. People will believe in all kinds of fantastical things that are not true. If it is so obvious, show me a test result.
When you teach 1000 machines to add 1+1, the answer will ALWAYS be 2. If you teach 1000 humans the same thing, a small percentage will come up with answers other than 2.
Humans have very strong pattern matching instinct that will readily distort reality to fit the "mental" image of how "things should be".
If you believe that analog is better, it does not matter if it is true or not, you will "hear" the difference.
Any single site (or even multiple sites) can show wildly varied statistics based on whatever quirk that site may have (which he demonstrated by sharing his own site traffic that shows significantly smaller Mac traffic).
You are just posting an anecdotal evidence. An anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal, not scientific at all.
Unless you manage 1000's of sites, your specific example really doesn't tell us anything.
Windows DVRs: Uh... Go go gadget DRM! Aw, crap!
Would it kill you to at least KNOW what the hell you are talking about before posting mindless dribble like this?
You can skip 30 seconds with MCE just by pressing the skip button. You can even customize the skip duration so that you can skip the entire 2 minute ad block by a single click.
Perhaps you can explain how ordinary police work will be effective against large groups of insurgents roaming the back roads of Afghanistan and the back alleys of Baghdad armed to teeth with automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenades, and suicide truck bombers.
That is why we send an ARMY over there and not police.
When we have Afghanistant insurgents roaming on the Broadway - NY, then, at that point, we should declare a war. Until then, this is merely an annoyance that comes with a complex society and should be dealt such with a police force.
There have been less than 3000 people killed by terrorist since 2001. Thousand times more people have been killed on the highways since then. Should we be declaring war on cars and deploy National Guard on the highways? The chances of ANY ONE of us getting attacked by terrorist is minute. The response should be in proportion to that.
I for one, will LOVE to have this device as soon as it is available. IF it has automatic synching.
I subscribe to Yahoo Music Service (it was cheap when paid for the year in full), and the biggest complaint I have about the service is that I have to synch my portable player at least once a month or the subscription goes dead.
And that always seems to happen when I am not near my PC or laptop.
If this device can automatically synch my subscription by itself every month, so that I do not have to worry about it. That alone would make it a must buy for me. I couldn't care less about song sharing, I already have access to all the songs I want.
I read your posting, there is no mention about any specific GM protein identified to be allergic.
You are basically saying that "Oh my God! We can transfer a protein and it COULD be allergic".
That is a TERRIBLE reason to stop GM cultivation. Sure, it COULD happen, it does not mean it WILL happen. It also assumes that the current method of breeding is incapable of producing products that will cause allergic reactions. And that is PATENTLY false. Just look at the peanut, it has been modified through many many many years of genetic selections. Do you think wild nuts grow this big? Just because you do something "naturally" does not mean that some harmful results will NOT happen.
For your argument to be valid, you would have to prove that GM process is somehow MORE likely to introduce allergic proteins. But that obviously is false when GM process is gene specific while genetic breeding is pretty much a random scattershot.
People need to be REASONABLE about REAL RISKS. Sure, there is a chance that some genetically modified plant can become a frankenstein and start eating humans, but the chances are much much higher that you will die from a nearby Supernova explosion.
Just blindly proposing a scenario without really calculating the real risks and saying that it is dangerous is stupid and irresponsible. I think/. can do better than that.
This is complete bollocks. How is this moderated Informative?
People are NOT allergic to peanuts. People are allergic to specific protein produced by peanuts. Just because you MAY borrow a gene from peanut does not mean you will automatically inherit the allergic protein as well.
In fact, since the peanut allegen is so well know, there is NO POSSIBLE way the GM producers will add such annoying protein to a modified rice. Why would they? They would liable for MILLIONS in damages (for knowingly adding stuff).
GM is effective because it is targeted, not a scattershot like breeding is. There is greater chance that you will produce a harmful allergic product using the traditional breeding method then target gene changes (because we only use genes where we know what their effect is).
FUD BS like yours is why there is unhealthy fear of GM products in the world today. Your FUD has no basis in science. Give me just ONE example where GM product caused allergic problems, just ONE!
Your post is nothing but a Troll and should be labeled as such.
And one more thing.
Even thought Gates and Buffets are giving vast majority of their fortunes away, that does not mean their children will be left to fend for themselves. And they will mulititude of advantages that normal folks (like me) can only dream about.
They will all be left with millions which will be millions more than I ever will see from my parents (of from my job).
And do you think those kids will have ANY problem getting into ANY university in the world? I think not.
When they graduate, do you think they will be sending out resumes? PUHLEEZE. Bill or Warrent will make a few phone calls and multitude of executive positions will be available for their choosing (if they decide not go in their family business). They will probably be offered multitude board positions. How many job offers did I get without many rounds of interviews and applications?....umm... NONE!
Even in the most democratic and open society like ours, there is still a class system. It might not be as brightly drawn as other cultures, but it is there noless.
Sorry, too hurry to paste, but I think my point is made.
I can make the same list with multimillionaires, there will just be tens of thousands instead of just hundreds.
I look at all the multimillionaires and vast majority of them are graduates of the finest universities in the country (mostly Ivy Leagues) which they could not have attended without years of private schooling and the fundings and backings of their parents. Just look at the percentage of Ivy League students whose parents also went to Ivy League, it is pretty damn high.
And when they graduate, they end up working for their parent's company or friends of their parent's who find them a nice cushy positions.
Sure, there are many entrepreneurs as well, but they also didn't have to knock down on hundreds of VC's trying to get funding. They already had trust fund for that.
Lastly, the more I hear about it, maybe we need to go back to having the Senators appointed by the state's legislature rather than general elections, that would keep them more loyal to their state's interest, rather than the national political parties' interests.
Okay now I am confused. I thought we are all agreeing that representatives from Alaska are evil PRECISELY because they are SO LOYAL to their state's interest (i.e. Bridge to Nowhere) and have no regard for nation's overall good (i.e. deficit).
The way to remedy abuses like this is simple. Make the congress more representative.
Guys like Ted Stevens and et al can pull of stuff like this because all it takes is their own effort to get a pork item into a bill. If Congress got rid of arcane rules and procedures and adopted a simple rule - nothing gets in a bill (especially earmarks) unless the majority of Senate/House votes for it. This may not stop pork all together, but it will greatly reduce truly abusive earmarks like "the Bridge to Nowhere".
Ted Stevens only represents 1/100th of Senate. Make him act like it and much of these problems would go away.
Yeah, and I'm sure that Apple's trying to market these commercials towards those that need office applications at home as opposed to the Mom-and-Pop types who just want a computer to surf the internet, and check/send e-mail from/to their kids.
Yeah, and I'm sure Mom-and-Pop types will be attracted to young slacker type (who always play their music too loud and do drugs) instead of the guy who basically look and act just like them.
C'mon, I am amazed at lengths Apple apologist will go to on this board.
But whatever, go outside and start counting the number of iPods you see.
Great, there are a lot of iPods. But what if the only reason iPods are popular is because they were sold at below actual cost? I am not saying that Apple DID sell iPods cost, but just saying "Their products are popular, so they cannot be cheating" is not a good argument.
Also this is Apple who is doing their own internal investigation, not someone else who caught them in the act. This is them saying "wait, I think we made a mistake." From other comments I've read, this seems to not be a big deal (certainly not on the scale of Enron) and if Apple makes ammends and says basically, "we screwed up but now we've fixed it," I give them a lot of credit.
I call SHENANIGANS!!!
BULLSH!@T!!! Apple is reporting this now BECAUSE the heat is on. Many prominent high-tech firms have been exposed by press to have backdated their stock option grants. BECAUSE OF THOSE INCIDENTS, EVERY high-tech company is reviewing their OWN financial records for stock option backdating abuses, not just Apple. If Apple didn't investigate their own, they would have been exposed anyway. This is just Apple covering their tracks best they can, not because they are so "honest and forthright".
PUHLEEZE... if they were REALLY honest, they would have reported this BEFORE the stock option scandal exploded. They didn't and they CERTAINLY do not deserve any credit.
Look, Apple makes some great products. But that should not put blinds over our eyes when it comes to corporate abuse. Saying "they are not as bad as Enron" is not something that you should be proud about. Hell, even Microsoft is better than Apple on this issue - THAT is how BAD it really is.
So let say even if you got rid of the 80% of the title and you only keep the 20% that actually makes money. Let's say it costs twice as much since you are losing the cost benefits from scaling (unlikely, it probably would be closer to 20 ro 30% increase in cost, but lets just assume the worst). That would STILL BE 60% LESS to maintain then the old infrastructure with 80% catalog that lost money.
First, it is more than 3 megabytes of storage since you need to store the original in non-compressed format (you can do lossless, but it is a wash since then you have to spend more CPU cycles) PLUS any number of formats you support.
Then you can add the prices for the cached sites all around the world. You maybe able to get around not caching unpopular titles, but when the user tries that unpopular title for the time and it takes considerably longer time than other regular titles, they bitch, and they bitch LOUD.
And you have to remember that vast majority of the catalog never gets touched - about 80%. That means 80% of your on-going maintenance cost is for stuff that you never sell.
Even if the per-track monthly cost is in the micro-cents, they add up fast when they are in millions.
It does not take much money to get the song in the database. However, there are A LOT of songs that practically never get touched (I used to workf for a music distribution company). I would say there were about 80% of the catalog that averaged less than 1 download per month.
So I have spent (and spending) about 80% of my capital investment, and more importantly, on going maintenance cost, for stuff that hardly ever get touched.
These items will NEVER break even (due to the maintenance - ie. power, share of IT, etc.).
No, Apple is not happy about carrying a huge inventory of tracks that rarely, if EVER, get downloaded. But it is part of doing business.
The tracks that get almost no play still takes space on your hard drive, eats space on your index, require time to enter information, etc.
It is highly unlikely that 80% or greater number of tracks in iTunes will every sell enough to recoup the costs.
Only reason they do it is because the other 20% or so more than make up for the rest and you need to be able to say "we have over 2 million tracks" to get people to come to your site (just so that they can come and download exactly the same songs everyone else is downloading).
Seriously, you should read Quantum Mechanics in depth, not just browsing some magazine or newspaper articles.
We have a VERY good understanding of how brain works mechanically (basically collection of neurons). What we don't have a good understanding is how those mechanical parts get interpreted into psychological phenomena such as feelings, memory, consciousness, etc. The quantum effect would be mechanical, not psychological. And the fact that brain works in macro-scale (cell level) cancels out any quantum effect.
Just because something cannot be ruled out conclusively does not mean that it is likely or even possible.
Again, saying that Quantum Mechanics may allow brain to perform ESP is just as valid as there are invisible pink unicorn standing next to you right now. You cannot prove that it is not so, but does not mean that it has any validity.
The issue is whether quantum entanglement can be a foundation for aligning two information systems. We have a very poor understanding of how the chemical and physical connections between neurons affect conscious thought, let alone the role quantum entanglement may play in the workings of a human mind.
Seriously, you should at least READ about Quantum Mechanics before spewing BS like this. Quantum effect only happens in INFINITESIMAL scale. The "physical" and "chemical" connections you are talking about has absolutely NOTHING to do with Quantum Mechanics.
You are treating Quantum Mechanics like some sort of a human-scale force. It is NOT! It is something very strange and very difficult concept to relate to the human-scale. Just because you "believe" it is transferable to human-scale does not make it so. There is a reason why Quantum effects were not observed until we were able to observe atomic-level particles.
Re:Oh, for crying out loud...
on
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Ummm... if you haven't noticed, we are talking about "graphic" program here.
You don't have to understand spelling or grammar to create pictures for the ads. That is what editors are for.
Even if it takes 100 times more energy to deliver a truck to NYC, it would STILL be more effecient than the suburbs.
A typical grocery store has thousands of customers. In a typical suburb, an average customer may drive 1 to 5 miles (both ways) to shop. When you multiply that by the number of customers, the delivery truck would have to drive hundreds of miles and spend ALL WEEK for the energy consumption to equal NYC grocery store where almost all customers either walk or take a subway/bus.
A mere mile or two saved by convenient access means NOTHING when you have to factor in the number of customers (which are MUCH larger).
Slashdot Mirror
Err, you do realize that for $40, the best graphics card you can buy is either Nvidia 5xxx series (may be 6200LE) or ATI 95xx series, right? You tell me how many frames per second you get with that running 3D games at 1600 by 1200 resolution. You would be lucky to get 10 to 15.
Well, that's the whole point isn't it? What you BELIEVE is not necessarily true.
It makes perfect sense...
A lot of things makes perfect sense when you first hear it; world is flat, intelligent design, psychic abilities, etc... Just because it makes "sense" does not make it so. Otherwise, you would be able to demonstrate it in a repeatable test.
Waving your data around isn't going to change anyone's opinion,
If you ignore facts when it does not fit your "reality", then that is really YOUR problem, not his.
Speaking of a double blind test, do one. Let me know how it goes. There is not a SINGLE scientific, peer-reviewed study that says humans can discern CD "distortions". Show me a single study that says ANY human can discern a sound from vinyl and a CD recording of that vinyl.
You experience means nothing. People will believe in all kinds of fantastical things that are not true. If it is so obvious, show me a test result.
Humans have very strong pattern matching instinct that will readily distort reality to fit the "mental" image of how "things should be".
If you believe that analog is better, it does not matter if it is true or not, you will "hear" the difference.
Any single site (or even multiple sites) can show wildly varied statistics based on whatever quirk that site may have (which he demonstrated by sharing his own site traffic that shows significantly smaller Mac traffic).
You are just posting an anecdotal evidence. An anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal, not scientific at all.
Unless you manage 1000's of sites, your specific example really doesn't tell us anything.
Won't seek a refund for $200k loss???
Bill, is that you?
You can skip 30 seconds with MCE just by pressing the skip button. You can even customize the skip duration so that you can skip the entire 2 minute ad block by a single click.
That is why we send an ARMY over there and not police.
When we have Afghanistant insurgents roaming on the Broadway - NY, then, at that point, we should declare a war. Until then, this is merely an annoyance that comes with a complex society and should be dealt such with a police force.
There have been less than 3000 people killed by terrorist since 2001. Thousand times more people have been killed on the highways since then. Should we be declaring war on cars and deploy National Guard on the highways? The chances of ANY ONE of us getting attacked by terrorist is minute. The response should be in proportion to that.
I for one, will LOVE to have this device as soon as it is available. IF it has automatic synching. I subscribe to Yahoo Music Service (it was cheap when paid for the year in full), and the biggest complaint I have about the service is that I have to synch my portable player at least once a month or the subscription goes dead. And that always seems to happen when I am not near my PC or laptop. If this device can automatically synch my subscription by itself every month, so that I do not have to worry about it. That alone would make it a must buy for me. I couldn't care less about song sharing, I already have access to all the songs I want.
You are basically saying that "Oh my God! We can transfer a protein and it COULD be allergic".
That is a TERRIBLE reason to stop GM cultivation. Sure, it COULD happen, it does not mean it WILL happen. It also assumes that the current method of breeding is incapable of producing products that will cause allergic reactions. And that is PATENTLY false. Just look at the peanut, it has been modified through many many many years of genetic selections. Do you think wild nuts grow this big? Just because you do something "naturally" does not mean that some harmful results will NOT happen.
For your argument to be valid, you would have to prove that GM process is somehow MORE likely to introduce allergic proteins. But that obviously is false when GM process is gene specific while genetic breeding is pretty much a random scattershot.
People need to be REASONABLE about REAL RISKS. Sure, there is a chance that some genetically modified plant can become a frankenstein and start eating humans, but the chances are much much higher that you will die from a nearby Supernova explosion.
Just blindly proposing a scenario without really calculating the real risks and saying that it is dangerous is stupid and irresponsible. I think /. can do better than that.
People are NOT allergic to peanuts. People are allergic to specific protein produced by peanuts. Just because you MAY borrow a gene from peanut does not mean you will automatically inherit the allergic protein as well.
In fact, since the peanut allegen is so well know, there is NO POSSIBLE way the GM producers will add such annoying protein to a modified rice. Why would they? They would liable for MILLIONS in damages (for knowingly adding stuff).
GM is effective because it is targeted, not a scattershot like breeding is. There is greater chance that you will produce a harmful allergic product using the traditional breeding method then target gene changes (because we only use genes where we know what their effect is).
FUD BS like yours is why there is unhealthy fear of GM products in the world today. Your FUD has no basis in science. Give me just ONE example where GM product caused allergic problems, just ONE!
Your post is nothing but a Troll and should be labeled as such.
They will all be left with millions which will be millions more than I ever will see from my parents (of from my job).
And do you think those kids will have ANY problem getting into ANY university in the world? I think not.
When they graduate, do you think they will be sending out resumes? PUHLEEZE. Bill or Warrent will make a few phone calls and multitude of executive positions will be available for their choosing (if they decide not go in their family business). They will probably be offered multitude board positions. How many job offers did I get without many rounds of interviews and applications?....umm... NONE!
Even in the most democratic and open society like ours, there is still a class system. It might not be as brightly drawn as other cultures, but it is there noless.
I can make the same list with multimillionaires, there will just be tens of thousands instead of just hundreds.
I look at all the multimillionaires and vast majority of them are graduates of the finest universities in the country (mostly Ivy Leagues) which they could not have attended without years of private schooling and the fundings and backings of their parents. Just look at the percentage of Ivy League students whose parents also went to Ivy League, it is pretty damn high.
And when they graduate, they end up working for their parent's company or friends of their parent's who find them a nice cushy positions.
Sure, there are many entrepreneurs as well, but they also didn't have to knock down on hundreds of VC's trying to get funding. They already had trust fund for that.
I will see your Gates and Buffets and raise you with...
du Pont, Johnson, Lerner, Walton, Hostetter, Chambers, Anthony, Johnson, Dorrance, Marcus, Magness, Macmillan, Icahn, Lindner, Pohlad, Wang, Johnson, Gates, Koch, Feeney, Schwab, Weber, Spangler, McCaw, Carlson, Ziff, Sun, Geffen, Duffield, Koch, Rockefeller, Washington, Ziff, Newhouse, Fisher, Tyson, Hall, Bren, Fisher, Hamilton, Bronfman, Johnson, Gaylord, Broad, Haas, Gore, Blaustein, Busch, Smith (Dave), Brown, Hillenbrand, Hixon, Mead, Alfond, Bancroft, Gottwald, Hughes, Mellon, Schwan, Searle, Stuart, Smith (Byron), Horvitz, Jordan, Scripps (E.W.), Rockefeller, Pitcairn, Pulitzer, Gund, Weyerhaeuser, Temple, Upjohn, Haebler, Campbell, Norris, Bacardi, Clapp, Reed, McGraw, Cayre, Belfer, Lilly, De Young, Hoiles, Jenkins, Donnelley, Collier, Nordstrom, Dayton, Meijer, Lykes, Idema, Mennen, Chandler, Davis, Mellon, Schwan, Searle, Stuart, Smith (Byron), Horvitz, Jordan, Scripps (E.W.), Rockefeller, Pitcairn, Pulitzer, Gund, Weyerhaeuser, Temple, Upjohn, Sarofim, Mars, Geballe, Perdue, Lennon, Field, Soros, Lucas, Roberts, Moore, Getty, Simmons, Helmsley, Huizenga, Walton, Hillman, Kravis, Perot, Van Beuren, Getty, Scripps, Taylor, Cooke, Stephens, Vogel, Goodnight, Sorenson, Moran, Cargill, Van Andel, Pritzker, Jannard, Walton, Kroc, Tu, Sall, Abele, Mars, Macmillan, Louis Family, Simplot, Walton, Kluge, Huntsman, Jamail, Haas, Albertson, Murdoch, Tuchman, Troutt, Kerkorian, Goldsbury, Rockefeller, Tisch, Ellison, Bass, Lauder, Stern, Skaggs, Wexner, Crown, Rich, Cargill, Harbert, Pictet, Ingram, Davis, Malone, Anselmo, Greenberg, Dell, Bloomberg, Fribourg, Arison, Smith, Mellon, Allen, Keinath, Haas, Nicholas, Anschutz, Knight, Tisch, Lauren, Hearst, Hunt, Rowling, Rainwater, Devos, Scaife, Goldman, Bechtel, Pritzker, Haas, Ziff, Turner, Dedman, Bass, Galvin, Goizueta, Perelman, Lauder, Walton, Zell, Johnson, Newhouse, Lefrak, Bass, Hubbard, Bechtel, Spielberg, Ballmer, Levine, Redstone, Buffett, Schwartz, Waitt, Frist, Macmillan, Annenberg, Macmillan, Wrigley, Ford, Davidson, Hewlett, Rockefeller...
I can go on and on. Do you want some more?
Most people in US are rich because they were born rich. Yeah, some do go up and down the classes, but those are exceptions not rules.
Okay now I am confused. I thought we are all agreeing that representatives from Alaska are evil PRECISELY because they are SO LOYAL to their state's interest (i.e. Bridge to Nowhere) and have no regard for nation's overall good (i.e. deficit).
The way to remedy abuses like this is simple. Make the congress more representative.
Guys like Ted Stevens and et al can pull of stuff like this because all it takes is their own effort to get a pork item into a bill. If Congress got rid of arcane rules and procedures and adopted a simple rule - nothing gets in a bill (especially earmarks) unless the majority of Senate/House votes for it. This may not stop pork all together, but it will greatly reduce truly abusive earmarks like "the Bridge to Nowhere".
Ted Stevens only represents 1/100th of Senate. Make him act like it and much of these problems would go away.
Yeah, and I'm sure Mom-and-Pop types will be attracted to young slacker type (who always play their music too loud and do drugs) instead of the guy who basically look and act just like them.
But whatever, go outside and start counting the number of iPods you see.
Great, there are a lot of iPods. But what if the only reason iPods are popular is because they were sold at below actual cost? I am not saying that Apple DID sell iPods cost, but just saying "Their products are popular, so they cannot be cheating" is not a good argument.
Also this is Apple who is doing their own internal investigation, not someone else who caught them in the act. This is them saying "wait, I think we made a mistake." From other comments I've read, this seems to not be a big deal (certainly not on the scale of Enron) and if Apple makes ammends and says basically, "we screwed up but now we've fixed it," I give them a lot of credit.
I call SHENANIGANS!!! BULLSH!@T!!! Apple is reporting this now BECAUSE the heat is on. Many prominent high-tech firms have been exposed by press to have backdated their stock option grants. BECAUSE OF THOSE INCIDENTS, EVERY high-tech company is reviewing their OWN financial records for stock option backdating abuses, not just Apple. If Apple didn't investigate their own, they would have been exposed anyway. This is just Apple covering their tracks best they can, not because they are so "honest and forthright".
PUHLEEZE... if they were REALLY honest, they would have reported this BEFORE the stock option scandal exploded. They didn't and they CERTAINLY do not deserve any credit.
Look, Apple makes some great products. But that should not put blinds over our eyes when it comes to corporate abuse. Saying "they are not as bad as Enron" is not something that you should be proud about. Hell, even Microsoft is better than Apple on this issue - THAT is how BAD it really is.
So let say even if you got rid of the 80% of the title and you only keep the 20% that actually makes money. Let's say it costs twice as much since you are losing the cost benefits from scaling (unlikely, it probably would be closer to 20 ro 30% increase in cost, but lets just assume the worst). That would STILL BE 60% LESS to maintain then the old infrastructure with 80% catalog that lost money.
So what is your point?
Then you can add the prices for the cached sites all around the world. You maybe able to get around not caching unpopular titles, but when the user tries that unpopular title for the time and it takes considerably longer time than other regular titles, they bitch, and they bitch LOUD.
And you have to remember that vast majority of the catalog never gets touched - about 80%. That means 80% of your on-going maintenance cost is for stuff that you never sell.
Even if the per-track monthly cost is in the micro-cents, they add up fast when they are in millions.
It does not take much money to get the song in the database. However, there are A LOT of songs that practically never get touched (I used to workf for a music distribution company). I would say there were about 80% of the catalog that averaged less than 1 download per month.
So I have spent (and spending) about 80% of my capital investment, and more importantly, on going maintenance cost, for stuff that hardly ever get touched.
These items will NEVER break even (due to the maintenance - ie. power, share of IT, etc.).
The tracks that get almost no play still takes space on your hard drive, eats space on your index, require time to enter information, etc.
It is highly unlikely that 80% or greater number of tracks in iTunes will every sell enough to recoup the costs.
Only reason they do it is because the other 20% or so more than make up for the rest and you need to be able to say "we have over 2 million tracks" to get people to come to your site (just so that they can come and download exactly the same songs everyone else is downloading).
We have a VERY good understanding of how brain works mechanically (basically collection of neurons). What we don't have a good understanding is how those mechanical parts get interpreted into psychological phenomena such as feelings, memory, consciousness, etc. The quantum effect would be mechanical, not psychological. And the fact that brain works in macro-scale (cell level) cancels out any quantum effect.
Just because something cannot be ruled out conclusively does not mean that it is likely or even possible.
Again, saying that Quantum Mechanics may allow brain to perform ESP is just as valid as there are invisible pink unicorn standing next to you right now. You cannot prove that it is not so, but does not mean that it has any validity.
The issue is whether quantum entanglement can be a foundation for aligning two information systems. We have a very poor understanding of how the chemical and physical connections between neurons affect conscious thought, let alone the role quantum entanglement may play in the workings of a human mind.
Seriously, you should at least READ about Quantum Mechanics before spewing BS like this. Quantum effect only happens in INFINITESIMAL scale. The "physical" and "chemical" connections you are talking about has absolutely NOTHING to do with Quantum Mechanics.
You are treating Quantum Mechanics like some sort of a human-scale force. It is NOT! It is something very strange and very difficult concept to relate to the human-scale. Just because you "believe" it is transferable to human-scale does not make it so. There is a reason why Quantum effects were not observed until we were able to observe atomic-level particles.
You don't have to understand spelling or grammar to create pictures for the ads. That is what editors are for.
Not that it hurts, but that it is not required.
A typical grocery store has thousands of customers. In a typical suburb, an average customer may drive 1 to 5 miles (both ways) to shop. When you multiply that by the number of customers, the delivery truck would have to drive hundreds of miles and spend ALL WEEK for the energy consumption to equal NYC grocery store where almost all customers either walk or take a subway/bus.
A mere mile or two saved by convenient access means NOTHING when you have to factor in the number of customers (which are MUCH larger).