I remember when I could not afford a 2 gig hard drive. I remember how hard it was filling my hard drive with useless programs and games. Now I have 2 gigs for email!!
I am suprised the RIAA has not gone after email companies yet, they have to be an attractive target. It is going to be an easy way of sharing MP3's. I might have a CD, rip the best songs to MP3's and email all my friends. Hell, maybe we'll even form an email group that does nothing but share MP3's. I wonder if the RIAA will come after them if that becomes the next trend.
Why on earth would a person need 2 gigabytes for email? If it is a company, they must have their own storage, nobody would want to trust a free email account for buisness.
Is there any technology that a sender can use to nuke their own email after a set amount of time? Any technology that can disallow for an email to be copied or saved? I would like to see a streaming DRM email system, where I can control how my content is used. For example, I don't want past girlfriends posting emails I sent them 5 years ago, especially to girls I am now interested in.
Back in the days of paper, people had document shredders, if they did not want a record of a conversation it was easy to convey information without having a record.
Why is it states are passing referendums, public referendums, where homosexual marrige is outlawed by votes over 80%?
Because the U.S. is full of prejudiced, racist, intolerant, uneducated, fuckheads
Mmm-hmmmm. So you want to tell 80% of the people to go fuck themselves? You want to tell 80% of the people they have to accept it if a purvert moves in next door. It is not going to happen. It is going to make for more violence.
But just because most people are unethical and want to tell other people what is and is not morally right and wrong (as if they were some sort of authority) a few of us like to vote our consciences, even if we are a minority. You see a hundred years ago the majority of people thought black people were an inferior race.
Black is not a choice. Homosexuality is. Plus, homosexuality is purverted. It is no different than people who want to have sex with children, or people who want to have sex with animals. It is wrong.
Most of the homosexuals I know who would consider raising children are considerably better people than, well, than I suspect you are given what you just said about them
There is no way in hell society should let faggots adopt kids. Gays are sick twisted purverts. We are one step away from letting every freak fetish become acceptable.
Homosexuality has been illegal for thousands of years. They should be whipped and tortured for being so sick.
You know faggots are the ones who made AIDS. It was not a disease drug addicts had until faggots started sharing their needles. If you remember, the first people in the USA with AIDS were ALL faggots. Rock Hudson, Liberachie, all of them.
I hope all you fucking fruitloops leave the USA. Go to London. You'll fit in better over there.
Throw all the PR people and lawyers in the ocean
on
Paul Graham on PR
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Good PR firms use the same strategy: they give reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients.
This seems like a contridiction. PR people don't lie, they tell selective truths.
It is like the late night commercials for diet products. "WE GAURENTEE YOU'LL LOSE 20 POUNDS IN 2 WEEKSidividual results will vary"
Why don't we call PR firms what they really are? They are designed to confuse people. Even when they are giving you the truth, they are not giving you the whole truth. Imagine if our court system was run that way. "Mr. Simposn was seen in that neighborhood wearing a brown blazer that brought out his eyes and smile that all people love. yada...yada...yada... and Mr. Simpson wishes to express deep condolences to the Brown family."
It is the same problem I have with FOX news, they spin the news so much, editorialize the news, and people use that information when voting. Even the "left" they bring on FOX news are really more moderate conservative arguing with right wing conservatives. What do you get? People think that anything more left than "moderate conservative" if extreme left wing. So the moderate liberal is now an extreme left winger. By changing names and labels, they have changed politics. Will we every get good old democrats, in the tradition of LBJ and JFK, the ones who believe in the great society? Or will we keep getting Clintons who are more republican than democrat.
Let's say you have a picture of your partner on your desk. You might be told that personal pictures are "inappropriate"... even though others have pictures of their wives or husbands on their desks. You might be passed over for promotion, get your hours cut, or fired for "poor performance" or "poor attitude."
If I own a company, I can hire anyone I want. If I don't want homosexuals in my company, that is my right. It is the exact same thing like the boy scouts, saying they will not let anyone who is gay join their organization. The boy scouts were sued and the boy scouts won. It is called private organizations.
Homosexuality is a disease. The only thing changing is a very small number of people are giving lots of money to politicians trying to change laws. If you look at the DSM-III, before the 4th edition, you will see homosexuality listed as a disease. For those who don't know, the DSM is what psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose psychological disease, it is like the Physicians Desk Reference. What changed for the DSM-IV? Homosexual lobby groups forced the definition to change.
Why is it states are passing referendums, public referendums, where homosexual marrige is outlawed by votes over 80%?? It is because the people don't want homosexuals in their community. It is like alcoholics or any other disease which is a choice.
I am suprised nobody has caught on to what is happening. The republican party found one single issue they can bank on. As long as the republicans supply a candidate who is for defending marrige as defined between a man and a woman, they will keep winning elections. It is the ONLY reason bush won the last election. In states where it was very close, and he could have lost, he got a refferendum on the ballot which caused record numbers to vote, and in massive proportions for Bush.
Microsoft wants to be known as socially responsible, but faced with a reduction of revenue, their greed took precedent and they became non-political on this issue.
Companies have no buisness lobbying for laws passed on social issues!! Since when can a software company give insightful input on matters of social law? That is something for the whole of society to decide, not big corporations.
How many states passed referendums outlawing gay marriges? And that was not done by the politicians, but was vote on by the people. I believe in some states the measure passed by over 80%, and you NEVER get that kind of support for anything.
America is becomming secular. That is wrong. Our stregnth is in our values.
I can understand the FBI warning, but I don't pay $20 for a DVD to watch ads for movies that are crappy/have no interest in
I don't think this law is going to help you much
The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (HR357) also would permit technologies that allow users to skip objectionable content in movies viewed at home.
I believe this act will be used by studios to make PG versions of their R rated movies. It will take out nudity and explicit language. They will do to movies what happened to music in the 90's. You will have a PG Eazy-E and an explicit one. I just wonder how many people will accidently buy the PG version, open it, realise what they did, try and take it back and be told they are stuck with the bad purchase.
I HATE the previews on DVD's that can not be skipped over. I preffer previews to be on a DVD in a "bonus" section. If the preview is forced on me, I get very frustrated, I have zero interest in what I am watching. If the preview is a bonus, then when I finish the movie, if I want to, I'll look at the trailers to see what else is out there. I find that a pleasurable experiance.
The worst offenders are Universal, that has a montage of thier past movies that can't be skipped over. I don't want to see 5 seconds of Jurastic park followed by 5 seconds of Nutty Professor, and so on, and so on, and so on. I hate that!
But since when do entertainment studios care what customers think. I believe it will get MUCH, MUCH worse. I believe the studio's will add commercials to DVD's that can't be skipped, just like the commericals in movie theaters. If Ford offers a dime for evey DVD with their Pick-up Truck commercial, and a studio expects to sell 30 million DVD's, that is $3,000,000 the studio makes for that one commercial. How do we combat profit?
I hate to say it, but I feel like people will start buying DVD players from Hong Kong that are region free (and can be set to a region too), and movies from websites located outside of the USA. There will be a market.
I'll give one more example of how the USA is going to force people to buy elsewhere. I purchased a $2000 laptop with a DVD drive. I am studying a foriegn language, and purchased movies from amazon.fr to help learn listening to the language. If I set my DVD drive to region 2 to watch a French movie, then later back to region 1 to watch an USA movie, one I do that 5 times my DVD locks so I can't change the region on it. WHY? The movies I am buying from France are not even available in the USA.
HHGG is really a parody of science fiction, or at least, science fiction written primarily for comdedic effect... or... really it's comedy that happens to be science fiction.
Ok, listen, it isn't really any of those things. It's a deep parable of man and his nonsensical attempts to control the uncontrollable universe.
I'll have to pick it up. It sounds like Catch-22 (the humor and the deep parable of man and his nonsensical attempts to control the uncontrollable).
Is it.... Yes, it's all the buzzwords! A giant swarm of them!
I liked playing around with Java and JSP. But I hate J2EE, it makes the simple so damn complex. I think very few people understand it inside and out, and most people just use the buzzwords. When I was studying J2EE, I started with EJB's, moved on to JNDI, and on and on and on. It never ended. My brain finally could take no more, and I went back to HTML programming and database sql contracts. When you learn SQL, you can work just about anywhere with any database. When you learn J2EE, you still have 5 more years of work ahead of you. And it is possible that what you learn TODAY might be obsolete TOMORROW.
I try and get most places to use a tomcat and JSP solution. If a small company wants J2EE, I tell them good luck finding someone.
I missed it. When I was younger, I was into all sorts of sci-fi. I loved TNG, I watched the original Battlestar Galactica. I read sci-fi books. But Hitchhiker's Guide never made it on my radar? Of the 10 or so people I knew in middle school who were into sci-fi, only 1 was into Hitchhiker's Guide.
What do people like so much about Hitchhiker's Guide, what is it about? How does he compare to other great writers?
Bush is expected to sign a law that essentially makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail for a user to put a single 'copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released
I see 2 major problems with this law.
It costs over $20,000 a year to keep someone in jail. That is over $60,000 for three years of jail time, that is alot of money for Mr. Taxpayer.
Did Congress pass this law because it is a reasonable law, or did Congress pass this law because of lobbyists and to repay those who contributed to their campaign?
But this law is not going after someone just sharing. It seems to be going after those who share a movie, before it is released to the theaters.
Still, I wonder if this law is excessive. I would not be as troubled if I did not believe this law was passed for lobbyists, not for the public benifit. The only way to stop laws like this is for massive capmaign finance reform. Until then, groups like the RIAA will own members of Congress.
Amazing what your country can do when your government hasn't banned some science and forbidden the rest.
Me American. Thump bible. That cure all! Bush say so.
You can't seperate the ethical questions from the scientific ones. If you are pissed off at how society anwsers ethical questions, then offer something more insightful to the debate than"Me American. Thump Bible".
It is true in some instances a majority of the voters don't want scientific advancement at the cost of their moral values. Maybe stem cell research can save the lives of people with parkinsins disease. But does society want an added value to more aboritions "Hey, the dead baby was good for something after all, lets have more of them". Is a life a commodity?
Without ethics, it is possible we would have places where people would broker in body organs. Have an extra kidney? We're buying! The poorest would sell a kidney, and the richest would get his transplant. But we don't have that system because or values and ethics say it is wrong.
When it comes to any research, we have to identify how we will continue. To some it is oppressive, like when the FDA takes so long to approve a drug. To others it is needed caution.
So, how about explaining your position a little better? All I can tell from your original post is you seem to have anger toward the Bible and Bush.
So, I don't think joinlee.org would be such a bad place to donate to.
As a general rule of thumb, I don't donate to organizations. I'd rather give the money directly to who it helps. When I was younger, I gave money to a TV advertisment for saving the children in Africa, the one where they cliam that "for the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can feed a child in Africa". I was fumed when I found out that most of the money went to administrative costs, not to feed children. I would have done better finding a private family and sending them a check every month. I could have contacted a school or local village and sent money there. Instead, I sent it to an organization that was bloated. And in many cases, it is hard to tell how efficent an organization really is.
There is a second reason I don't donate to organizations. They often use thier money as leverage. I have heard of charity groups telling hospitals or universities "In order to be eligable to apply for a grant, you need to do X, Y, and Z to qualify". When I donate money, I am not trying to change society, I want one very specific thing done, to have more quality research. I don't want an organization telling a university "We'll fund your research if you... have more minority graduate students OR if you match our funding OR....".
Personally, I think I would probably prefer taking insulin to a number of immuno-depressing drugs.
The article said that in type 1 diabities, it is the immune system that attacks the pancreas. The cause of the disease is not the lack of insulin, it is the immune system destroying the pancreas.
I would agree with the basic premise. Supressing the immune system probably comes with many more problems. Those people don't want to get sick, they probably have to be more careful about being exposed to germs.
Lee Iacocca is trying to raise money for this research. More information can be found at
Jeez, another person on the internet asking for money. If people really want to support a cause, or illness, find a research hospital or university to donate to. Don't give money to a begger on the internet, no matter what they promise or say. Who knows. It might be a kid who's good at web site programming in his parents basement asking for money to help cure cancer.
The procedure was effective using less than half the mother's pancreas.
Is the pancreas like the liver, that if you take part out of a living human, transplant it in another person, both livers will grow back to their normal size. Will that happen with a pancreas, or is the mother stuck with 50% of her pancreas.
Nor is it clear whether the procedure would be as effective in people, like most of those with type 1 diabetes, whose own immune cells have destroyed their insulin-producing pancreatic cells.
How does this happen? Is this a problem with the immune system, or is it a problem with the pancreas?
If the immune system is responsible for the damage to the pancreas, then transplants won't work. We need to find out the cause.
If the problem is with the pancreas, I think a far more effective treatment will be genetic therapy. Since genes control how much of a protien or enzyme is made, if the gene is damaged due to mutation or any reason, that tissue might not function normally. If we can advance gene therapy, we can replace the malfunctioning DNA with working DNA.
I was told in high school health class that diabities is almost 100% due to diet or lack of exersize. I am glad to see we are getting better reasons than "he's fat and does not exersize, so that is why he got sick".
and we encouraged people to stick to creating the encyclopedia and not use the project as a debate forum.
There is a saying, the victors often write history. With most encyclopedia's there is an editorial board that decides what gets in. It is often culture specific. The encyclopedia you will find at the State U will be very different than the encyclopedias you find at Universities in Iran. With this project, it says people write articles, and edit other peoples work. Does that mean I can edit your article? It would seem to be a breeding ground of fighting, flaming, and trolling.
For example, if someone wanted to write about the war in Iraq, and the first article was submitted by Osama Bin Laden, I am sure others would come be at the polar opposite.
, it's been hard to tell who the real innovaters are
Didn't Bill Gates steal DOS? Didn't Bill Gates break agreements with companies as soon as he got what he wanted? It seems to me that Microsoft is not as much an innovater as a company that aquires other peoples works.
It is like an episode of Bonanza that was on TV today. Joe Cartwright buys a wild black horse for $300, for a friend who really wanted it but could not be at the auction. While in town, Mr. Smith offers $500 to buy the horse and Joe Cartwright says "sorry, he's not for sale". Mr. Smith leaves very upset. The bartender comes up and tells Joe "Don't you know who that is! Mr. Smith owns this town". The next scene is of workers for Mr. Smith beating the stuffing out of Joe and taking the horse. The police shows up at Mr. Smiths house, and he says "I don't know anything about those people who stole the horse". It turns out the Sheriff of that little town is also on Mr. Smiths payroll. Luckily, Ben and Hoss show up in time to shoot all the bad guys and take back the horse.
Microsoft has all the lawyers. Microsoft has many lobbyists and has funded politicians to office. Who can stop Microsoft? If Microsoft does not make it, who can stop Microsoft from stealing it, sending a stream of lawyers to fight it, or calling in political favors?
People who would be purchasing a high-end camera like the D2X and D2H would probably only be doing so to use a high-end piece of software to manipulate the 12+MP digital images.
Everyone I know who spends mucho money on camera's has photoshop. It has been that way the past 10 years. Excluding support for photoshop from a camera is like blocking AOL from your modem. Sure, you got a modem, but there is a sizable chunk of people who won't use it.
I know Nikon wants to sell their own software. But forcing people is the wrong way.
I know this analogy is not 100% the same, but what Nikon is doing is like what a professional studio does. You pay them $400 for pictures. You then take the pictures to Walmart to make copies, but the guy working tells you they can't make copies of studio work.
Have you never heard of Skype? It's exactly what you describe.
However, the vast majority of people are still attached to the old telephone, myself included. I can't see using a PC with a headset or a microphone as a normal communications tool.
I've never heard of Skype. Are they free?
What I am talking about is more than a microphone and headset. I am talking about all the problems that need to be solved. Every service you have running on your computer makes it that much more vulnerable.
Maybe what we need is VoTCP. It is a suttle difference, but you would have a stateful connection, you could encrypt and error check. It might be a more secure connection than IP.
The reason packet8 and some are charging the USF fees is because they may be regulated in the future, in which case they want to be covered.. I can't blame them.. good grief it's what 50 cents or $1.00... it's still a TON cheaper then POTS...
While $0.50 might not be much to you, and you may wish to donate, people like me want to get something in return for a fee paid. If there is no expense to the company in the future, will they refund that $0.50 they take every month? Why don't they wait to charge the fee when they have the expense?
The other thing which makes me angry is when phone companies add charges, and give the charges names that appears to be a tax levied by government.
Several VoIP providers have started adding 'regulatory recovery fees' to their users' bills, even though the entire industry is unregulated.
If VoIP is really Voice over IP, why are there any fee's, why are there any regulations? Why can't someone make a device that records my voice in real time, sends it to a different computer, where it is played?
I am suprised there is not some DNS type scheme where people use their computers like a phone. Instead of calling a land line or cell phone, you use your computer to call some IP. What else would we need? Voice mail? Someone could make a program to watch a port for calls, and if not anwsered, then the stream is recorded into a mp3.
The only thing which worries me is abuse. People sniff networks. People try and gain access of computers using open ports. VoIP would require some trust.
If people wait for the telcom companies to take command of VoIP, we can expect another phone bill. Maybe comcast will offer a combined package that is difficult to opt out of, like the $10 off broadband if cable is purchased. Maybe they will add $10 more to your bill if you don't buy their VoIP.
I have no way of knowing, but at the rate technology is going right now, we'll probably have something capable of blowing the thing into gravel by 2035. Or at least something that we can knock it out of the way with.
I can't even imagine what things will be like in another 30 years...I mean, if in 1915 you told someone that in 30 years a bomb would be built powerful enough to flatten a small city, they'd laugh at you.
It all depends on who you ask. Back in 1915 we had the infrastructure in place for what played out in years to follow. If we did not invest in making a nuclear bomb, I am sure Feynman, Oppenheimer, and the gang would have thought up something else.
It was a new time in the 1915's, factories, assembly lines and the such were starting to change society.
I don't know how much you can predict, but I would bet in 1915 if you told Henry Ford a bomb would be ready in 30 years that would destroy a city, he would have believed it possible, and depending on your salesmanship, he might have invested.
What we need in the next 10 years is more space exploration, more testing of new shuttles. Once we get the infrastructure in place, we can solve problems as they come.
The exact effects of any impact would have varied based on the asteroid's composition, and the location and angle of impact. Any impact would have been extremely detrimental to an area of thousands of square kilometers, but would have been unlikely to have long-lasting global effects, such as the precipitation of an impact winter.
I wonder if people will build more bunkers. I know a person who owns a house, and there is a bunker in the back yard, from the days of a USSR nuclear strike threat (Back in the 70's and early 80's the drill for a nuclear strike was to climb under the desk in the school). It looks kinda flimsy to me, I am guessing the salesperson was real good. It looks more like a shed that is half way in the ground.
But, if someone wanted to make a good bunker, not just to ease the mind, but something to survive in, how deep would it need to be? I live on flat land, so I can not tunnle into a mountain, which I would assume to be the best choice. What is needed for a good oxygen supply, can you generate your own, or do you need an exhaust? How long would you need to stay underground, and where would you store the water and food? And would you have more than one exit out of the bunker, in case one side suffers damage and is burried under?
I think it would be cool to have a series of bunkers, with some pre-picked neighbors, people you trust. Have 7 or 8 bunkers, maybe a mile apart, each one acting as a node. The chances for survival would increase, and the time would pass quicker.
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I am suprised the RIAA has not gone after email companies yet, they have to be an attractive target. It is going to be an easy way of sharing MP3's. I might have a CD, rip the best songs to MP3's and email all my friends. Hell, maybe we'll even form an email group that does nothing but share MP3's. I wonder if the RIAA will come after them if that becomes the next trend.
Why on earth would a person need 2 gigabytes for email? If it is a company, they must have their own storage, nobody would want to trust a free email account for buisness.
Back in the days of paper, people had document shredders, if they did not want a record of a conversation it was easy to convey information without having a record.
Mmm-hmmmm. So you want to tell 80% of the people to go fuck themselves? You want to tell 80% of the people they have to accept it if a purvert moves in next door. It is not going to happen. It is going to make for more violence.
But just because most people are unethical and want to tell other people what is and is not morally right and wrong (as if they were some sort of authority) a few of us like to vote our consciences, even if we are a minority. You see a hundred years ago the majority of people thought black people were an inferior race.
Black is not a choice. Homosexuality is. Plus, homosexuality is purverted. It is no different than people who want to have sex with children, or people who want to have sex with animals. It is wrong.
There is no way in hell society should let faggots adopt kids. Gays are sick twisted purverts. We are one step away from letting every freak fetish become acceptable.
Homosexuality has been illegal for thousands of years. They should be whipped and tortured for being so sick.
You know faggots are the ones who made AIDS. It was not a disease drug addicts had until faggots started sharing their needles. If you remember, the first people in the USA with AIDS were ALL faggots. Rock Hudson, Liberachie, all of them.
I hope all you fucking fruitloops leave the USA. Go to London. You'll fit in better over there.
This seems like a contridiction. PR people don't lie, they tell selective truths.
It is like the late night commercials for diet products. "WE GAURENTEE YOU'LL LOSE 20 POUNDS IN 2 WEEKS idividual results will vary"
Why don't we call PR firms what they really are? They are designed to confuse people. Even when they are giving you the truth, they are not giving you the whole truth. Imagine if our court system was run that way. "Mr. Simposn was seen in that neighborhood wearing a brown blazer that brought out his eyes and smile that all people love. yada...yada...yada... and Mr. Simpson wishes to express deep condolences to the Brown family."
It is the same problem I have with FOX news, they spin the news so much, editorialize the news, and people use that information when voting. Even the "left" they bring on FOX news are really more moderate conservative arguing with right wing conservatives. What do you get? People think that anything more left than "moderate conservative" if extreme left wing. So the moderate liberal is now an extreme left winger. By changing names and labels, they have changed politics. Will we every get good old democrats, in the tradition of LBJ and JFK, the ones who believe in the great society? Or will we keep getting Clintons who are more republican than democrat.
If I own a company, I can hire anyone I want. If I don't want homosexuals in my company, that is my right. It is the exact same thing like the boy scouts, saying they will not let anyone who is gay join their organization. The boy scouts were sued and the boy scouts won. It is called private organizations.
Homosexuality is a disease. The only thing changing is a very small number of people are giving lots of money to politicians trying to change laws. If you look at the DSM-III, before the 4th edition, you will see homosexuality listed as a disease. For those who don't know, the DSM is what psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose psychological disease, it is like the Physicians Desk Reference. What changed for the DSM-IV? Homosexual lobby groups forced the definition to change.
Why is it states are passing referendums, public referendums, where homosexual marrige is outlawed by votes over 80%?? It is because the people don't want homosexuals in their community. It is like alcoholics or any other disease which is a choice.
I am suprised nobody has caught on to what is happening. The republican party found one single issue they can bank on. As long as the republicans supply a candidate who is for defending marrige as defined between a man and a woman, they will keep winning elections. It is the ONLY reason bush won the last election. In states where it was very close, and he could have lost, he got a refferendum on the ballot which caused record numbers to vote, and in massive proportions for Bush.
Companies have no buisness lobbying for laws passed on social issues!! Since when can a software company give insightful input on matters of social law? That is something for the whole of society to decide, not big corporations.
How many states passed referendums outlawing gay marriges? And that was not done by the politicians, but was vote on by the people. I believe in some states the measure passed by over 80%, and you NEVER get that kind of support for anything.
America is becomming secular. That is wrong. Our stregnth is in our values.
I don't think this law is going to help you much
The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (HR357) also would permit technologies that allow users to skip objectionable content in movies viewed at home.
I believe this act will be used by studios to make PG versions of their R rated movies. It will take out nudity and explicit language. They will do to movies what happened to music in the 90's. You will have a PG Eazy-E and an explicit one. I just wonder how many people will accidently buy the PG version, open it, realise what they did, try and take it back and be told they are stuck with the bad purchase.
I HATE the previews on DVD's that can not be skipped over. I preffer previews to be on a DVD in a "bonus" section. If the preview is forced on me, I get very frustrated, I have zero interest in what I am watching. If the preview is a bonus, then when I finish the movie, if I want to, I'll look at the trailers to see what else is out there. I find that a pleasurable experiance.
The worst offenders are Universal, that has a montage of thier past movies that can't be skipped over. I don't want to see 5 seconds of Jurastic park followed by 5 seconds of Nutty Professor, and so on, and so on, and so on. I hate that!
But since when do entertainment studios care what customers think. I believe it will get MUCH, MUCH worse. I believe the studio's will add commercials to DVD's that can't be skipped, just like the commericals in movie theaters. If Ford offers a dime for evey DVD with their Pick-up Truck commercial, and a studio expects to sell 30 million DVD's, that is $3,000,000 the studio makes for that one commercial. How do we combat profit?
I hate to say it, but I feel like people will start buying DVD players from Hong Kong that are region free (and can be set to a region too), and movies from websites located outside of the USA. There will be a market.
I'll give one more example of how the USA is going to force people to buy elsewhere. I purchased a $2000 laptop with a DVD drive. I am studying a foriegn language, and purchased movies from amazon.fr to help learn listening to the language. If I set my DVD drive to region 2 to watch a French movie, then later back to region 1 to watch an USA movie, one I do that 5 times my DVD locks so I can't change the region on it. WHY? The movies I am buying from France are not even available in the USA.
Ok, listen, it isn't really any of those things. It's a deep parable of man and his nonsensical attempts to control the uncontrollable universe.
I'll have to pick it up. It sounds like Catch-22 (the humor and the deep parable of man and his nonsensical attempts to control the uncontrollable).
I liked playing around with Java and JSP. But I hate J2EE, it makes the simple so damn complex. I think very few people understand it inside and out, and most people just use the buzzwords. When I was studying J2EE, I started with EJB's, moved on to JNDI, and on and on and on. It never ended. My brain finally could take no more, and I went back to HTML programming and database sql contracts. When you learn SQL, you can work just about anywhere with any database. When you learn J2EE, you still have 5 more years of work ahead of you. And it is possible that what you learn TODAY might be obsolete TOMORROW.
I try and get most places to use a tomcat and JSP solution. If a small company wants J2EE, I tell them good luck finding someone.
What do people like so much about Hitchhiker's Guide, what is it about? How does he compare to other great writers?
I see 2 major problems with this law.
But this law is not going after someone just sharing. It seems to be going after those who share a movie, before it is released to the theaters.
Still, I wonder if this law is excessive. I would not be as troubled if I did not believe this law was passed for lobbyists, not for the public benifit. The only way to stop laws like this is for massive capmaign finance reform. Until then, groups like the RIAA will own members of Congress.
Me American. Thump bible. That cure all! Bush say so.
You can't seperate the ethical questions from the scientific ones. If you are pissed off at how society anwsers ethical questions, then offer something more insightful to the debate than"Me American. Thump Bible".
It is true in some instances a majority of the voters don't want scientific advancement at the cost of their moral values. Maybe stem cell research can save the lives of people with parkinsins disease. But does society want an added value to more aboritions "Hey, the dead baby was good for something after all, lets have more of them". Is a life a commodity?
Without ethics, it is possible we would have places where people would broker in body organs. Have an extra kidney? We're buying! The poorest would sell a kidney, and the richest would get his transplant. But we don't have that system because or values and ethics say it is wrong.
When it comes to any research, we have to identify how we will continue. To some it is oppressive, like when the FDA takes so long to approve a drug. To others it is needed caution.
So, how about explaining your position a little better? All I can tell from your original post is you seem to have anger toward the Bible and Bush.
As a general rule of thumb, I don't donate to organizations. I'd rather give the money directly to who it helps. When I was younger, I gave money to a TV advertisment for saving the children in Africa, the one where they cliam that "for the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can feed a child in Africa". I was fumed when I found out that most of the money went to administrative costs, not to feed children. I would have done better finding a private family and sending them a check every month. I could have contacted a school or local village and sent money there. Instead, I sent it to an organization that was bloated. And in many cases, it is hard to tell how efficent an organization really is.
There is a second reason I don't donate to organizations. They often use thier money as leverage. I have heard of charity groups telling hospitals or universities "In order to be eligable to apply for a grant, you need to do X, Y, and Z to qualify". When I donate money, I am not trying to change society, I want one very specific thing done, to have more quality research. I don't want an organization telling a university "We'll fund your research if you... have more minority graduate students OR if you match our funding OR....".
The article said that in type 1 diabities, it is the immune system that attacks the pancreas. The cause of the disease is not the lack of insulin, it is the immune system destroying the pancreas.
I would agree with the basic premise. Supressing the immune system probably comes with many more problems. Those people don't want to get sick, they probably have to be more careful about being exposed to germs.
Jeez, another person on the internet asking for money. If people really want to support a cause, or illness, find a research hospital or university to donate to. Don't give money to a begger on the internet, no matter what they promise or say. Who knows. It might be a kid who's good at web site programming in his parents basement asking for money to help cure cancer.
Is the pancreas like the liver, that if you take part out of a living human, transplant it in another person, both livers will grow back to their normal size. Will that happen with a pancreas, or is the mother stuck with 50% of her pancreas.
Nor is it clear whether the procedure would be as effective in people, like most of those with type 1 diabetes, whose own immune cells have destroyed their insulin-producing pancreatic cells.
How does this happen? Is this a problem with the immune system, or is it a problem with the pancreas?
If the immune system is responsible for the damage to the pancreas, then transplants won't work. We need to find out the cause.
If the problem is with the pancreas, I think a far more effective treatment will be genetic therapy. Since genes control how much of a protien or enzyme is made, if the gene is damaged due to mutation or any reason, that tissue might not function normally. If we can advance gene therapy, we can replace the malfunctioning DNA with working DNA.
I was told in high school health class that diabities is almost 100% due to diet or lack of exersize. I am glad to see we are getting better reasons than "he's fat and does not exersize, so that is why he got sick".
There is a saying, the victors often write history. With most encyclopedia's there is an editorial board that decides what gets in. It is often culture specific. The encyclopedia you will find at the State U will be very different than the encyclopedias you find at Universities in Iran. With this project, it says people write articles, and edit other peoples work. Does that mean I can edit your article? It would seem to be a breeding ground of fighting, flaming, and trolling.
For example, if someone wanted to write about the war in Iraq, and the first article was submitted by Osama Bin Laden, I am sure others would come be at the polar opposite.
Didn't Bill Gates steal DOS? Didn't Bill Gates break agreements with companies as soon as he got what he wanted? It seems to me that Microsoft is not as much an innovater as a company that aquires other peoples works.
It is like an episode of Bonanza that was on TV today. Joe Cartwright buys a wild black horse for $300, for a friend who really wanted it but could not be at the auction. While in town, Mr. Smith offers $500 to buy the horse and Joe Cartwright says "sorry, he's not for sale". Mr. Smith leaves very upset. The bartender comes up and tells Joe "Don't you know who that is! Mr. Smith owns this town". The next scene is of workers for Mr. Smith beating the stuffing out of Joe and taking the horse. The police shows up at Mr. Smiths house, and he says "I don't know anything about those people who stole the horse". It turns out the Sheriff of that little town is also on Mr. Smiths payroll. Luckily, Ben and Hoss show up in time to shoot all the bad guys and take back the horse.
Microsoft has all the lawyers. Microsoft has many lobbyists and has funded politicians to office. Who can stop Microsoft? If Microsoft does not make it, who can stop Microsoft from stealing it, sending a stream of lawyers to fight it, or calling in political favors?
Everyone I know who spends mucho money on camera's has photoshop. It has been that way the past 10 years. Excluding support for photoshop from a camera is like blocking AOL from your modem. Sure, you got a modem, but there is a sizable chunk of people who won't use it.
I know Nikon wants to sell their own software. But forcing people is the wrong way.
I know this analogy is not 100% the same, but what Nikon is doing is like what a professional studio does. You pay them $400 for pictures. You then take the pictures to Walmart to make copies, but the guy working tells you they can't make copies of studio work.
However, the vast majority of people are still attached to the old telephone, myself included. I can't see using a PC with a headset or a microphone as a normal communications tool.
I've never heard of Skype. Are they free?
What I am talking about is more than a microphone and headset. I am talking about all the problems that need to be solved. Every service you have running on your computer makes it that much more vulnerable.
Maybe what we need is VoTCP. It is a suttle difference, but you would have a stateful connection, you could encrypt and error check. It might be a more secure connection than IP.
While $0.50 might not be much to you, and you may wish to donate, people like me want to get something in return for a fee paid. If there is no expense to the company in the future, will they refund that $0.50 they take every month? Why don't they wait to charge the fee when they have the expense?
The other thing which makes me angry is when phone companies add charges, and give the charges names that appears to be a tax levied by government.
If VoIP is really Voice over IP, why are there any fee's, why are there any regulations? Why can't someone make a device that records my voice in real time, sends it to a different computer, where it is played?
I am suprised there is not some DNS type scheme where people use their computers like a phone. Instead of calling a land line or cell phone, you use your computer to call some IP. What else would we need? Voice mail? Someone could make a program to watch a port for calls, and if not anwsered, then the stream is recorded into a mp3.
The only thing which worries me is abuse. People sniff networks. People try and gain access of computers using open ports. VoIP would require some trust.
If people wait for the telcom companies to take command of VoIP, we can expect another phone bill. Maybe comcast will offer a combined package that is difficult to opt out of, like the $10 off broadband if cable is purchased. Maybe they will add $10 more to your bill if you don't buy their VoIP.
I can't even imagine what things will be like in another 30 years...I mean, if in 1915 you told someone that in 30 years a bomb would be built powerful enough to flatten a small city, they'd laugh at you.
It all depends on who you ask. Back in 1915 we had the infrastructure in place for what played out in years to follow. If we did not invest in making a nuclear bomb, I am sure Feynman, Oppenheimer, and the gang would have thought up something else.
It was a new time in the 1915's, factories, assembly lines and the such were starting to change society.
I don't know how much you can predict, but I would bet in 1915 if you told Henry Ford a bomb would be ready in 30 years that would destroy a city, he would have believed it possible, and depending on your salesmanship, he might have invested.
What we need in the next 10 years is more space exploration, more testing of new shuttles. Once we get the infrastructure in place, we can solve problems as they come.
I wonder if people will build more bunkers. I know a person who owns a house, and there is a bunker in the back yard, from the days of a USSR nuclear strike threat (Back in the 70's and early 80's the drill for a nuclear strike was to climb under the desk in the school). It looks kinda flimsy to me, I am guessing the salesperson was real good. It looks more like a shed that is half way in the ground.
But, if someone wanted to make a good bunker, not just to ease the mind, but something to survive in, how deep would it need to be? I live on flat land, so I can not tunnle into a mountain, which I would assume to be the best choice. What is needed for a good oxygen supply, can you generate your own, or do you need an exhaust? How long would you need to stay underground, and where would you store the water and food? And would you have more than one exit out of the bunker, in case one side suffers damage and is burried under?
I think it would be cool to have a series of bunkers, with some pre-picked neighbors, people you trust. Have 7 or 8 bunkers, maybe a mile apart, each one acting as a node. The chances for survival would increase, and the time would pass quicker.