It could happen in 2008 in Beijing, if China feels like doing things that way. A few years ago there was talk about the IOC not wanting the USA to host the Olympics as much because they relied too much on corporate sponsorship whenever they were held in the US. They wanted the host nation government to pay more of the expenses rather than have advertising on every available surface. Since China doesn't care about making money nearly as much as they care about showing off to the world, they could put on the Games with little or no sponsorship if they thought is was to their advantage to do so (i.e. if they thought it would impress the IOC). As it is, there's a global concrete shortage which is being caused, in part, by the construction of Olympic venues in China.
In the USA? Forget it. Rightly or wrongly, everything here is about making money, and we tend to judge success/failure of the Olympics based on whether they made money. In fact, Peter Ueberroth ran for governor of California last year based on his record of having made the 1984 Olympics profitable.
Personally, I'd like to see the TV contracts handled differently. The IOC should impose limits on how many commercials the networks can show. Maybe even sell the rights for a fixed amount of money, and have the networks bid based on how few commercials they're willing to air -- lowest bidder wins.
I have a 27-inch monitor for which I paid less than $500. Sure, the resolution isn't that great, but it's enough to support anything the Playstation is capable of.
These guys aren't using 21-inch flat panel monitors. A 17-inch monitor costs around $100 or so. Mice, keyboards, etc. are cheap. If the boxes are $300, plus $150 for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, they're reducing the cost of 4 computers from $1800 to $900. This would mean they could support twice as many users without increasing the budget.
Also, boxes need replacing more often than monitors, so you get even more cost savings later on.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but from what I've heard, the violence shown in the movie is no worse (or at least not much worse) than what's being shown on the TV news... and the TV news is freely available to anyone that wants to watch it, regardless of age. And there's rules about what can be shown on TV. For example you're not allowed to quote what Dick Cheney said last week on broadcast television.
Besides, it's more fun to attribute the R rating to a Big Business conspiracy theory than it is to assume the rating is actually based on the movie deserving an R rating.
The reason you didn't see many kids in the theater is because the MPAA slapped it with an R rating, presumably as part of a greater effort to limit the number of people who see the movie (other parts of this effort include: Republicans complaining to the FEC that the ads for the movie violate campaign finance laws, Disney not letting Miramax distribute it, that right-wing group that tried to get people to write letters to theater owners demanding they not show it, etc.)
They did appeal to the MPAA to get the rating reduced to PG-13, but they lost the appeal. Therefore the only kids you saw in the theater were those that went with their parents, or else bought a ticket to another movie but saw Fahrenheit 9/11 instead.
What do you want to bet someone wrote this article up in 1998, and then when they pulled it out of the archive, no one remembered to put in the correct age?
Well, we'd raise their price to $20, fool, he would say. This makes sense to me--and it made sense to him, but I imagine that a lot of people wouldn't be able to handle it. The economy would collapse. A very large segment of the population considers $19.99 to be a hell of a lot cheaper than $20.
If we got rid of pennies, I bet that store would lower their price to $19.95, not raise it to $20. The same psychology that applies to selling stuff for 1 cent less would apply to selling stuff for 5 cents less.
On the subject of abolishing the penny, here's something else to think about: The CPI for May was 189.1. In 1970, the CPI was 37.8. That means a penny in 1970 was worth as much as a nickel is worth today. In 1970, we got by just fine without anything smaller than a penny, so why do we need anything smaller than a nickel today?
I agree I-10 in Texas sucks. I got pulled over there once for going 79 in a 75. That's right, four miles over the limit. The cop never gave me a ticket nor did he ever intend to. They were just randomly pulling cars over to look for drugs. I guess my California plates looked suspicious in the middle of Bush country.
Not that I can really complain, since they didn't write a ticket or anything.
That post was a joke. I haven't even watched the video, given the current condition of the server.
To those who may not understand the joke: Most Californians seem to consider I-5 -- specifically the part between Los Angeles and Sacramento -- to be the most boring highway in the state. It's 300 perfectly straight miles of nothing but farms and cows and maybe a farm or two.
Microsoft Automobile can search for speed traps set up by local, state, and federal law enforcement authorities and automatically reduce your speed when one is found.
To enable this feature, select "Ticket Avoidance" under the Options menu, and click on the "Speeding" tab.
The Economist recently had an interesting article on how cell phones are marketed and why people buy them. Basically, when (some) people buy phones, they're looking more for a status symbol than for a device to actually make phone calls on. For example, teenagers might spend $3 on a ringtone because they're looking for a way to establish an identity.
Actually, if it's a windy enough day, you can get your ground speed down to zero MPH. Just fly 60mph into a 60mph headwind. For that matter, if it's a really windy day, you can fly backwards.
I just thought I'd warn those who don't browse at -1 that, given what the parent comment has pointed out, you might want to wait to look at the photo album until after you get home from work. An "admin" mode probably lets you edit not just the comments but the pictures themselves, too -- in which case all bets are off as to what'll be on that page once the trolls get done messing around.
Hockey games are played in large arenas that seat about 20,000 people. If you buy a ticket, they'll let you into the arena to watch the game. It's a much better experience than sitting at home and watching the game on TV.
If your team is on the road, you can go to a bar that's showing the game. This probably isn't considered "cheating" because this requires actually leaving the house and interacting with the other people at the bar.
If you can't get to the arena or a bar, there's always the radio.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people say that one in four internet users has downloaded a movie.
It could happen in 2008 in Beijing, if China feels like doing things that way. A few years ago there was talk about the IOC not wanting the USA to host the Olympics as much because they relied too much on corporate sponsorship whenever they were held in the US. They wanted the host nation government to pay more of the expenses rather than have advertising on every available surface. Since China doesn't care about making money nearly as much as they care about showing off to the world, they could put on the Games with little or no sponsorship if they thought is was to their advantage to do so (i.e. if they thought it would impress the IOC). As it is, there's a global concrete shortage which is being caused, in part, by the construction of Olympic venues in China.
In the USA? Forget it. Rightly or wrongly, everything here is about making money, and we tend to judge success/failure of the Olympics based on whether they made money. In fact, Peter Ueberroth ran for governor of California last year based on his record of having made the 1984 Olympics profitable.
Personally, I'd like to see the TV contracts handled differently. The IOC should impose limits on how many commercials the networks can show. Maybe even sell the rights for a fixed amount of money, and have the networks bid based on how few commercials they're willing to air -- lowest bidder wins.
I have a 27-inch monitor for which I paid less than $500. Sure, the resolution isn't that great, but it's enough to support anything the Playstation is capable of.
TV isn't just for watching DVDs. I also use mine for Playstation.
These guys aren't using 21-inch flat panel monitors. A 17-inch monitor costs around $100 or so. Mice, keyboards, etc. are cheap. If the boxes are $300, plus $150 for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, they're reducing the cost of 4 computers from $1800 to $900. This would mean they could support twice as many users without increasing the budget.
Also, boxes need replacing more often than monitors, so you get even more cost savings later on.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but from what I've heard, the violence shown in the movie is no worse (or at least not much worse) than what's being shown on the TV news... and the TV news is freely available to anyone that wants to watch it, regardless of age. And there's rules about what can be shown on TV. For example you're not allowed to quote what Dick Cheney said last week on broadcast television.
Besides, it's more fun to attribute the R rating to a Big Business conspiracy theory than it is to assume the rating is actually based on the movie deserving an R rating.
What flamewar? We're all liberals here :-)
The reason you didn't see many kids in the theater is because the MPAA slapped it with an R rating, presumably as part of a greater effort to limit the number of people who see the movie (other parts of this effort include: Republicans complaining to the FEC that the ads for the movie violate campaign finance laws, Disney not letting Miramax distribute it, that right-wing group that tried to get people to write letters to theater owners demanding they not show it, etc.)
They did appeal to the MPAA to get the rating reduced to PG-13, but they lost the appeal. Therefore the only kids you saw in the theater were those that went with their parents, or else bought a ticket to another movie but saw Fahrenheit 9/11 instead.
What do you want to bet someone wrote this article up in 1998, and then when they pulled it out of the archive, no one remembered to put in the correct age?
And nothing short of a nukular bomb will ever get rid of those damn virii.
Well, we'd raise their price to $20, fool, he would say. This makes sense to me--and it made sense to him, but I imagine that a lot of people wouldn't be able to handle it. The economy would collapse. A very large segment of the population considers $19.99 to be a hell of a lot cheaper than $20.
If we got rid of pennies, I bet that store would lower their price to $19.95, not raise it to $20. The same psychology that applies to selling stuff for 1 cent less would apply to selling stuff for 5 cents less.
On the subject of abolishing the penny, here's something else to think about: The CPI for May was 189.1. In 1970, the CPI was 37.8. That means a penny in 1970 was worth as much as a nickel is worth today. In 1970, we got by just fine without anything smaller than a penny, so why do we need anything smaller than a nickel today?
Actually the maximum speed in CA is 70.
I agree I-10 in Texas sucks. I got pulled over there once for going 79 in a 75. That's right, four miles over the limit. The cop never gave me a ticket nor did he ever intend to. They were just randomly pulling cars over to look for drugs. I guess my California plates looked suspicious in the middle of Bush country.
Not that I can really complain, since they didn't write a ticket or anything.
That post was a joke. I haven't even watched the video, given the current condition of the server.
To those who may not understand the joke: Most Californians seem to consider I-5 -- specifically the part between Los Angeles and Sacramento -- to be the most boring highway in the state. It's 300 perfectly straight miles of nothing but farms and cows and maybe a farm or two.
The 5 is still boring as hell.
=== TIP OF THE DAY ===
Microsoft Automobile can search for speed traps set up by local, state, and federal law enforcement authorities and automatically reduce your speed when one is found.
To enable this feature, select "Ticket Avoidance" under the Options menu, and click on the "Speeding" tab.
Tell me about it. If the Sharks had won game 6, I was going to suggest that they play game 7 in Calgary instead of going back to San Jose.
Also it looks like we have 4 hockey fans here, counting the Flames fan that replied to my original post.
Uhhh... the Sharks needed to put out the Flames. This would only make them even bigger and more powerful.
Damn Calgary.
The Economist recently had an interesting article on how cell phones are marketed and why people buy them. Basically, when (some) people buy phones, they're looking more for a status symbol than for a device to actually make phone calls on. For example, teenagers might spend $3 on a ringtone because they're looking for a way to establish an identity.
I didn't realize Priceline had expanded into the data transfer business.
Actually, if it's a windy enough day, you can get your ground speed down to zero MPH. Just fly 60mph into a 60mph headwind. For that matter, if it's a really windy day, you can fly backwards.
We've done enough damage here on earth. I don't think it would be right to fill space with the radiative effects of nuclear reactions.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
I just thought I'd warn those who don't browse at -1 that, given what the parent comment has pointed out, you might want to wait to look at the photo album until after you get home from work. An "admin" mode probably lets you edit not just the comments but the pictures themselves, too -- in which case all bets are off as to what'll be on that page once the trolls get done messing around.
Did they install spyware on people's computers to go in and report how much spyware they had?
The organizers are obviously not hockey fans!
Hockey games are played in large arenas that seat about 20,000 people. If you buy a ticket, they'll let you into the arena to watch the game. It's a much better experience than sitting at home and watching the game on TV.
If your team is on the road, you can go to a bar that's showing the game. This probably isn't considered "cheating" because this requires actually leaving the house and interacting with the other people at the bar.
If you can't get to the arena or a bar, there's always the radio.