Having personally had several different types of unmanned drones fly in support of me in Iraq, I have to say a few things for the record. 1) They are not silent, and people start to hide as soon as they hear it. 2) The most useful thing on them is the camera, not the missile; their ability to sit over a target for long period of times and provide full-motion video to the ground commander (me) is invaluable, because it means less surprises.
These things are primarily surveillance assets, the whole hellfire missile thing is just a nice addition.
1. Go to meeting filled with people who want nothing more in life than to make money.
2. Tell everyone that even though sex and violence sells video games faster than cocaine at a country club, they should abandon the business model.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Yeah, I read most of it during the course of a research project about computers and education for one of my classes. Very easy to read, and you get some startling facts about education in America.
"Fans" support bands a whole lot more directly by going to shows and buying merchandise. CD royalties pay musicians squat (My skewed and biased memory tells me it's on the order of $.10 per album, or less). Tours are where musicians in general make their bank.
... I was told, by boilerplate, "freeware is written by 'hackers' and is riddled with security holes..."
I work as an office worker (a summer job; pretty much just an errand boy) for the U.S. Air Force. In order to get on the network, I had to take this computer-based training thing that more or less explained USAF/DOD computing policy and network usage policy and whatnot. In there, it straight-up said freeware and open source software has more security holes and is more vulnerable to and exploits than proprietary software.
Most of the computer-people I spoke with there (I work in a Communications and Information section) about Linux seemed more averse to it because it's just different. Too scared to learn a new way to do things.
Hey, I don't even like computers. They give me repetitive strain injuries, bad posture, and headaches. And on top of all that they make me lazy (aka I read slashdot rather than getting work done). I think computers are terrible... but I'm an addict, which is why I'm here.
If I pirate, it is because it is a way to have way more stuff than I would ever concievably purchase. There's no way I EVER purchase 800 albums or 150 movies.
Thanks to the fact that the movie industry is NOT reacting completely like the RIAA (except for that whole DeCSS mess, which pisses me off), I actually go to see movies at the theater. And thanks to the lack of quality control amongst many divx encodings combined with the huge file size, I go to video stores and rent movies.
Oh wait, this was about the whole "screener" thing. If they want to cut out the screeners, that's their right. It would certainly eliminate all the DVD rips that come out before the movie is released. I'm not that shameless of a pirate that I'm going to comlain that the movie industry can't deprive me of my right to have a dvd-quality illegal pre-release of whatever movie is out. I think they're just afriad that these pirated screeners cuts into movie theater profits. Which, I guess, is a perfectly valid worry. I just hope it results in lower theater prices; I'm tired of paying $7.50 to see a movie. And as far as I can tell, that's kind of at the low end of the spectrum..
Which would be why I wait until a movie comes out on DVD and is no longer a new release. Then I can watch it for $1/5 days thanks to my local video store, which is sorta back to my original point.
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Having personally had several different types of unmanned drones fly in support of me in Iraq, I have to say a few things for the record. 1) They are not silent, and people start to hide as soon as they hear it. 2) The most useful thing on them is the camera, not the missile; their ability to sit over a target for long period of times and provide full-motion video to the ground commander (me) is invaluable, because it means less surprises. These things are primarily surveillance assets, the whole hellfire missile thing is just a nice addition.
1. Go to meeting filled with people who want nothing more in life than to make money. 2. Tell everyone that even though sex and violence sells video games faster than cocaine at a country club, they should abandon the business model. 3. ??? 4. Profit!
Yeah, I read most of it during the course of a research project about computers and education for one of my classes. Very easy to read, and you get some startling facts about education in America.
this will give kids whoo dont's have much money a chance to have a computer and learn
You should really read The Flickering Mind.
"Fans" support bands a whole lot more directly by going to shows and buying merchandise. CD royalties pay musicians squat (My skewed and biased memory tells me it's on the order of $.10 per album, or less). Tours are where musicians in general make their bank.
Now that would be exciting TV. A bunch of underpaid bureaucrats walking around and carrying papers.
I'd rather watch C-SPAN.
... I was told, by boilerplate, "freeware is written by 'hackers' and is riddled with security holes..."
I work as an office worker (a summer job; pretty much just an errand boy) for the U.S. Air Force. In order to get on the network, I had to take this computer-based training thing that more or less explained USAF/DOD computing policy and network usage policy and whatnot. In there, it straight-up said freeware and open source software has more security holes and is more vulnerable to and exploits than proprietary software. Most of the computer-people I spoke with there (I work in a Communications and Information section) about Linux seemed more averse to it because it's just different. Too scared to learn a new way to do things.
Hey, I don't even like computers. They give me repetitive strain injuries, bad posture, and headaches. And on top of all that they make me lazy (aka I read slashdot rather than getting work done). I think computers are terrible... but I'm an addict, which is why I'm here.
If I pirate, it is because it is a way to have way more stuff than I would ever concievably purchase. There's no way I EVER purchase 800 albums or 150 movies. Thanks to the fact that the movie industry is NOT reacting completely like the RIAA (except for that whole DeCSS mess, which pisses me off), I actually go to see movies at the theater. And thanks to the lack of quality control amongst many divx encodings combined with the huge file size, I go to video stores and rent movies. Oh wait, this was about the whole "screener" thing. If they want to cut out the screeners, that's their right. It would certainly eliminate all the DVD rips that come out before the movie is released. I'm not that shameless of a pirate that I'm going to comlain that the movie industry can't deprive me of my right to have a dvd-quality illegal pre-release of whatever movie is out. I think they're just afriad that these pirated screeners cuts into movie theater profits. Which, I guess, is a perfectly valid worry. I just hope it results in lower theater prices; I'm tired of paying $7.50 to see a movie. And as far as I can tell, that's kind of at the low end of the spectrum.. Which would be why I wait until a movie comes out on DVD and is no longer a new release. Then I can watch it for $1/5 days thanks to my local video store, which is sorta back to my original point.