In other news, the European Union is launching an investigation into the monopoly that smart people have on the job market. According to recent statistics, 90% of employees in the technology industry have IQs over 100, while less than 2% have IQs less than 80. According to the complaint filed by the representatives for the mentally challenged, smart people continually engage in anticompetitive behavior to keep the mentally challenged out of the job market. Of particular note is the amount of bundling that most smart people force on their employers; it is common for a smart person to be able to communicate effectively, write complete sentences, perform multiple job functions and assist others on the job. Additionally, smart people continually refuse to work with those less intelligent, monopolizing even the hiring process to do so, instead of remaining interoperable with them.
European commissioner Neelie Kroes has expressed deep anger at smart people's obvious monopolization of the job market and abuse of that monopoly to keep the mentally challenged from being hired. She has vowed to investigate and take whatever action is necessary to reduce smart people's stranglehold on competition, including both fines and the prescription of neuroinhibitors to put them on an equal footing with the mentally challenged. She then said that success would be when less than 50% of the world's employees had IQ's greater than 100.
Most of these professional gamers have a rigorous physical training schedule as well, in order to keep reflexes sharp and endurance high. They also tend to have planned diets for similar reasons.
Members of a church have to pay taxes as well, unless I have been tricked into paying taxes all of these years when I did not have to. Or are you saying that when a bunch of people get together and form a community of like-minded individuals who contribute part of thier incomes to a collective pool used to help that community (and, in the case of churches, many others outside of it), their incomes should be taxed twice?
Exactly. These charges are there and people are still paying them, so obviously they are not excessive. If the charges were too high, why would people pay them? Obviously the charges are considered reasonable for the provided services (or, the people on these plans are mentally unstable and continue to pay prices they deem unreasonable for the services provided even though they have no obligation to do so?).
You have thirty days to validate your installation. If the server goes down one day, you just validate the next day. If the server goes down for thirty days, you are screwed, but the likelihood of that happening is quite small.
It depends on whether you are talking about the common definition of stealing or the legal definition of stealing. Legally, stealing, or rather theft, requires a deprevation of property, so downloading music is not stealing in a legal sense. However, stealing, as in the English word, is defined as "to appropriate (property, ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment," or "to take without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force," based upon the dictionaries I have available to me. Downloading music falls under either of those definitions, and this is what people typically mean when they accuse of stealing music.
No, he's comparing it based on whether or not it is in the core API. A DX10 card MUST support the entire DX10 feature set to be a DX10 card. OpenGL extensions do not need to be implemented on every card. In addition, the implementations that exist can be and are different among different manufacturers, and even individual cards from a single manufacturer.
It is simple cost vs. risk assessment. Girls are far more likely to die from an HPV infection than boys. Thus, vaccinating all girls maximizes risk mitigation : cost. There is also not yet any evidence that the vaccine is effective for boys, or that it would prevent the spread of HPV to potential sexual partners.
Great job at turning this into a partisan issue. If you read the article though, this regulation is being pushed both by Republicans and Democrats.
Partisan hacks like you are what is wrong with this country.
I have three machines running Acrobat Reader 8 on Vista without problems. There's a lot of FUD and people talking out of their ass about application and hardware compatibility on Vista. Considering Acroread 8 is explicitly supported by Adobe on Vista, I would imagine the grandparent is one of them.
Here's an even better solution: spend one hour finding a game that does not require you to work in order to have fun. Then spend the extra two hours actually enjoying playing that game.
The bird flu of 1918 was probably the most deadly pandemic since the black death. Possibly AIDS has been more deadly, though not over as short a time. Not only was it incredibly deadly, but it killed off young, healthy people just as much as it killed off old, sickly people. That is why doctors and the media worry about the bird flu.
I was actually aware that sales tax was included in the product price in Europe, but I was still surprised at the prices. What I did not realize was that sales tax (or VAT, as it is called) is so outrageously high. $600 + 7% sales tax for my state = $642, cheaper than the PS3 in Europe even without tax. $770 - $650 = $120: 18% sales tax!
- It devotes resources to fighting a strawman. Many of the "man has no effect" crowd still believe that global warming is happening, and even possibly could be due to CO2 emissions. However, the only evidence of such is correlative, the same kind of evidence used to show that carry/conceal laws reduce violence or the rise of secularism leads to moral decay like school shootings. If global warming is really caused by increased solar output or the natural flow of climate change, resources need to be dedicated to mitigating these risks instead of an all-out war against a strawman.
- It assumes that alternative energy sources are environmentally better. Nuclear is great, but still carries the risk of meltdown (almost nil with modern reactor technologies), the problem of waste, and the security risk of the reactor or its materials being used by enemies in an attack. Hydro is clean, but absolutely rapes the upstream and particularly downstream river ecosystems where it is placed. Wind is clean but unreliable, and also has a yet poorly understood effect on the planet's natural energy transfer.
- It assumes that the as of yet poorly understood effects of global warming are worth drastic costs or lifestyle changes. Even rabid environmentalists are loathe to change their lifestyle in anything but a token fashion to reduce energy usage.
I am all for reducing our impact on the environment. I drove a grand total of 400 miles last year (yes, that's 4 and two 0's, or less than two tanks of gas). My electric bill is under $60/mo even in the dead of winter when I use heat. I am all for investing sensibly in alternative energy sources and environmental research. What I am not for is putting all of the eggs in one basket for a sensationalized, polarized, poorly understood response to something we have not even confirmed is the enemy.
There's a wee bit of difference between an application with a bug (and a not terribly popular application at that), which only affects that application, and a bug in the video card driver, which affects the entire system.
When was Iraq supposed to be 'fun'? It was necessary, not fun (necessary, both in that it was mandated by a UN resolution and that Iraq had spent quite long enough under Saddam). Considering Iraq just held its first free election, I think it is safe to say that the United States' actions have had some good come of them. As opposed to France, which was content to supply Iraq with weapons in exchange for oil. Talk about no blood for oil, eh?
Err... it depends on what kind of porn it is. There's lots and lots of mentally scarring porn out there. Take the goatse man, or tubgirl, as an example. There's plenty of stuff on the Internet I wish I had never seen as an adult, much less as a child. I agree with you that the charge is unreasonable, however.
Your argument bifurcates honesty into two extremes: honest people, and non-honest people. In reality, there is a continuum of honesty, with people who are always honest, to people who are honest unless they see a great value to be gained, to people who are dishonest unless provided encouragement otherwise, to dishonest people. The locks on your door are a deterrent. Without locks, all but the most honest people may be tempted to steal something from your house. There is little risk in walking into someone's unlocked house, snatching a laptop or jewelry box, and then walking out. The risk/reward ratio is good, so a lot more people may consider it. By putting locks on your doors, you increase the risk of stealing something from your house. Now, a potential thief must break in and consider the increased risk of getting caught or leaving compromising evidence in the process. Fewer will be willing to take the risk.
This is the idea behind DRM -- not to put a stop to all illegal media transfer, but to provide a deterrent that will encourage the more honest in the continuum to fairly pay for their media. The problem with it, in my opinion, is this. For a house, there is really no reason for an honest person to ever enter your house when you are not home. Thus, your door locks generally do not prevent valid, appropriate use of your home. DRM, on the other hand, does prevent valid, appropraite uses of digital media, including but not limited to making a backup copy, and being able to play the media on whatever device you so desire. If DRM were implemented better and more standardized, many of these problems could be solved and it would be much more similar to locks on a house.
Maybe his choice has changed, like mine has. Years ago, OpenGL was the superior 3D API -- it was faster and easier to program for. OpenGL has been evolving very slowly, while Direct3D evolved quickly to take advantage of advances in video card technology. As well, the APIs have improved rapidly. Direct3D also has better docs. I'd say since DirectX 8, D3D has been the superior API. If only D3D were cross platform...
I don't know about 'aren't any other compelling reasons to upgrade', but as far as being able to play next-gen video content, that's entirely correct. With these regulations in place, content providers will feel safe releasing content at will for the Vista platform. More interesting -- content providers will not feel safe releasing content for other platforms, unless they implement similar protections. In essence, you will only be able to play this content legally on Windows Vista. Good luck getting someone to switch to Mac or Linux if they want to play high definition video using their computer.
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In other news, the European Union is launching an investigation into the monopoly that smart people have on the job market. According to recent statistics, 90% of employees in the technology industry have IQs over 100, while less than 2% have IQs less than 80. According to the complaint filed by the representatives for the mentally challenged, smart people continually engage in anticompetitive behavior to keep the mentally challenged out of the job market. Of particular note is the amount of bundling that most smart people force on their employers; it is common for a smart person to be able to communicate effectively, write complete sentences, perform multiple job functions and assist others on the job. Additionally, smart people continually refuse to work with those less intelligent, monopolizing even the hiring process to do so, instead of remaining interoperable with them.
European commissioner Neelie Kroes has expressed deep anger at smart people's obvious monopolization of the job market and abuse of that monopoly to keep the mentally challenged from being hired. She has vowed to investigate and take whatever action is necessary to reduce smart people's stranglehold on competition, including both fines and the prescription of neuroinhibitors to put them on an equal footing with the mentally challenged. She then said that success would be when less than 50% of the world's employees had IQ's greater than 100.
Most of these professional gamers have a rigorous physical training schedule as well, in order to keep reflexes sharp and endurance high. They also tend to have planned diets for similar reasons.
Members of a church have to pay taxes as well, unless I have been tricked into paying taxes all of these years when I did not have to. Or are you saying that when a bunch of people get together and form a community of like-minded individuals who contribute part of thier incomes to a collective pool used to help that community (and, in the case of churches, many others outside of it), their incomes should be taxed twice?
Exactly. These charges are there and people are still paying them, so obviously they are not excessive. If the charges were too high, why would people pay them? Obviously the charges are considered reasonable for the provided services (or, the people on these plans are mentally unstable and continue to pay prices they deem unreasonable for the services provided even though they have no obligation to do so?).
You have thirty days to validate your installation. If the server goes down one day, you just validate the next day. If the server goes down for thirty days, you are screwed, but the likelihood of that happening is quite small.
It depends on whether you are talking about the common definition of stealing or the legal definition of stealing. Legally, stealing, or rather theft, requires a deprevation of property, so downloading music is not stealing in a legal sense. However, stealing, as in the English word, is defined as "to appropriate (property, ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment," or "to take without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force," based upon the dictionaries I have available to me. Downloading music falls under either of those definitions, and this is what people typically mean when they accuse of stealing music.
No, he's comparing it based on whether or not it is in the core API. A DX10 card MUST support the entire DX10 feature set to be a DX10 card. OpenGL extensions do not need to be implemented on every card. In addition, the implementations that exist can be and are different among different manufacturers, and even individual cards from a single manufacturer.
Indeed. To put it in perspective, the average GPU client is doing twice as well as the average PS3 client.
It is simple cost vs. risk assessment. Girls are far more likely to die from an HPV infection than boys. Thus, vaccinating all girls maximizes risk mitigation : cost. There is also not yet any evidence that the vaccine is effective for boys, or that it would prevent the spread of HPV to potential sexual partners.
Great job at turning this into a partisan issue. If you read the article though, this regulation is being pushed both by Republicans and Democrats. Partisan hacks like you are what is wrong with this country.
I have three machines running Acrobat Reader 8 on Vista without problems. There's a lot of FUD and people talking out of their ass about application and hardware compatibility on Vista. Considering Acroread 8 is explicitly supported by Adobe on Vista, I would imagine the grandparent is one of them.
Here's an even better solution: spend one hour finding a game that does not require you to work in order to have fun. Then spend the extra two hours actually enjoying playing that game.
I just updated my Linux kernel last week, and there's already a new version this week!! OMG!!!!! What is this world coming to?
You can. But if you don't want to pay the full price for getting access to every feature, there are other options available.
The bird flu of 1918 was probably the most deadly pandemic since the black death. Possibly AIDS has been more deadly, though not over as short a time. Not only was it incredibly deadly, but it killed off young, healthy people just as much as it killed off old, sickly people. That is why doctors and the media worry about the bird flu.
I was actually aware that sales tax was included in the product price in Europe, but I was still surprised at the prices. What I did not realize was that sales tax (or VAT, as it is called) is so outrageously high. $600 + 7% sales tax for my state = $642, cheaper than the PS3 in Europe even without tax. $770 - $650 = $120: 18% sales tax!
Why?
- It devotes resources to fighting a strawman. Many of the "man has no effect" crowd still believe that global warming is happening, and even possibly could be due to CO2 emissions. However, the only evidence of such is correlative, the same kind of evidence used to show that carry/conceal laws reduce violence or the rise of secularism leads to moral decay like school shootings. If global warming is really caused by increased solar output or the natural flow of climate change, resources need to be dedicated to mitigating these risks instead of an all-out war against a strawman.
- It assumes that alternative energy sources are environmentally better. Nuclear is great, but still carries the risk of meltdown (almost nil with modern reactor technologies), the problem of waste, and the security risk of the reactor or its materials being used by enemies in an attack. Hydro is clean, but absolutely rapes the upstream and particularly downstream river ecosystems where it is placed. Wind is clean but unreliable, and also has a yet poorly understood effect on the planet's natural energy transfer.
- It assumes that the as of yet poorly understood effects of global warming are worth drastic costs or lifestyle changes. Even rabid environmentalists are loathe to change their lifestyle in anything but a token fashion to reduce energy usage.
I am all for reducing our impact on the environment. I drove a grand total of 400 miles last year (yes, that's 4 and two 0's, or less than two tanks of gas). My electric bill is under $60/mo even in the dead of winter when I use heat. I am all for investing sensibly in alternative energy sources and environmental research. What I am not for is putting all of the eggs in one basket for a sensationalized, polarized, poorly understood response to something we have not even confirmed is the enemy.
There's a wee bit of difference between an application with a bug (and a not terribly popular application at that), which only affects that application, and a bug in the video card driver, which affects the entire system.
When was Iraq supposed to be 'fun'? It was necessary, not fun (necessary, both in that it was mandated by a UN resolution and that Iraq had spent quite long enough under Saddam). Considering Iraq just held its first free election, I think it is safe to say that the United States' actions have had some good come of them. As opposed to France, which was content to supply Iraq with weapons in exchange for oil. Talk about no blood for oil, eh?
Err... it depends on what kind of porn it is. There's lots and lots of mentally scarring porn out there. Take the goatse man, or tubgirl, as an example. There's plenty of stuff on the Internet I wish I had never seen as an adult, much less as a child. I agree with you that the charge is unreasonable, however.
This is the idea behind DRM -- not to put a stop to all illegal media transfer, but to provide a deterrent that will encourage the more honest in the continuum to fairly pay for their media. The problem with it, in my opinion, is this. For a house, there is really no reason for an honest person to ever enter your house when you are not home. Thus, your door locks generally do not prevent valid, appropriate use of your home. DRM, on the other hand, does prevent valid, appropraite uses of digital media, including but not limited to making a backup copy, and being able to play the media on whatever device you so desire. If DRM were implemented better and more standardized, many of these problems could be solved and it would be much more similar to locks on a house.
Maybe his choice has changed, like mine has. Years ago, OpenGL was the superior 3D API -- it was faster and easier to program for. OpenGL has been evolving very slowly, while Direct3D evolved quickly to take advantage of advances in video card technology. As well, the APIs have improved rapidly. Direct3D also has better docs. I'd say since DirectX 8, D3D has been the superior API. If only D3D were cross platform...
The problem with this theory is, neither does the PS3 or the Wii. The XBox 360 has more jRPGs (1) than either the PS3 (0) or the Wii(0).
I don't know about 'aren't any other compelling reasons to upgrade', but as far as being able to play next-gen video content, that's entirely correct. With these regulations in place, content providers will feel safe releasing content at will for the Vista platform. More interesting -- content providers will not feel safe releasing content for other platforms, unless they implement similar protections. In essence, you will only be able to play this content legally on Windows Vista. Good luck getting someone to switch to Mac or Linux if they want to play high definition video using their computer.
Who is "they"? Some TSA wage slave expresses his political views after looking through someone's baggage and suddenly "they" are after us?