The sample size is too small for normal sexual culture. The big problem would be somebody banged the captain's wife. How do you suppose we avoid these problems? Hint: Ask the Denobulans.
Quantum entanglement isn't FTL because it takes a standard relativistic frame to reach the entangled state. In other words, to "instantly" transport information 1 lightyear, you must shatter a particle into two particles and move them apart for one year at the speed of light. Upon interference, the channel breaks down.
I know, a mile lol. Let's dump $HUGENUMBER and it should be sufficient.
Also the part about taking a hundred years or so without FTL travel. The closest star is 65ish lightyears away ja? And the closest habitable planet? We need some serious energy.
My direct point about Go was aimed at its direct effect on the way an individual thinks and approaches problems (as well as the improvement in mental facilities that the play of Go supplies; you wouldn't believe how tactically useful a good spatial memory is). More indirectly, I was equating the best and worst methods of play to the best and worst methods of running a military; and in fact the US method only works because we are cheating (borrowing a lot of money, spending on shit we can't afford-- as if you were allowed to play 3-4 moves per turn while your opponent plays only one).
I want to keep the war machine. It's ridiculous to think we don't need self defense, in the same way that it's ridiculous to ban guns and weapons and tell people violence never solved anything (French taxation without representation. British taxation without representation. Slavery in America. Slavery in Haiti. Hitler. Stalin. Japan's expansionism. It goes on). We need to train people in martial arts (Judo, Aikido, etc) so they can defend themselves, and we need to allow them to arm themselves (jo, swords, guns-- one hit one kill with a 15 round glock works if you can hit the guy with the full auto, I do agree to some regulation). In the same manner, we need to have a well-tuned war machine for self defense-- and in the same manner, it's more tuning than just letting everyone walk around on the streets with a tommy gun and a rocket launcher!
I want an efficient war machine, not an expensive war machine. See: Switzerland.
- We could double these $40 billion across the board cuts by dropping the war on drugs.
Traditionally this means, stupidly, "Legalize all drugs for recreational use." People have a fantasy about "regulating" this stuff, but the truth is "regulation" of a recreational substance is more than a fantasy, it's a complete delusion. See: alcohol.
- We can drastically reduce federal prison populations.
More executions! Rape? Execute them! Grand theft auto? Execute them! Dealing drugs? Execute them!
Actually that last one seems like a good idea; for selling poisons to the population for consumption, you are charged with gross negligence and we statistically infer murder, so off you go to hell.
- We can simply bring home the troops from Afghanistan and Iraq for astronomical savings.
And destabilize the mess we... made worse. Okay we didn't cause it but you know what they say, right? You gotta break it more before you can fix it. Well if we don't finish what we started, we now have a house we were fixing the roof on but we're abandoning it after we tore the old roof off and before finishing the new roof. Then in 10 years we can start all over again for another 200 trillion dollars to invade, take down the fucked up government we let form in the chaos, and try to put a new one in AGAIN.
Finish what you started.
- We can make deeper cuts in foreign military aid, Egypt alone take $2B.
Pros and cons of this too. This is largely politics, and the political sphere is complex. It's sort of like investing in the market: when you drop $2Bn on a company, not on common stock but on preferred, you're buying into their board meetings and getting a big vote on their operations. You're also handing them money to fund their business so they can take larger risks for better potential returns. We're betting on success of certain countries we find favorable, and trying to prop them up to make our own ends.
Imagine if Saddam Hussein had taken over all of the middle east and started a jihad against western Europe; that's the kind of scenario we think up, and then we pick countries who won't jihad on us and give them support. The world runs on war, unfortunately.
All these expenses are clearly unwarranted or outright harmful.
The harsh reality is we can no longer afford to... support such a ludicrous level of military spending.
In Go we try to play light moves, moves that serve a purpose without strengthening our opponent too much or dedicating too much of our resources to them. If I play up this side, then come down, maybe I lose one stone; but I can wedge you open with that stone, and build a strong position on the outside, reducing your potential gains. If I try to live in there, however, I wind up pulling out this huge, intense fight; if I win it I get a little gain and you get a big wall to attack from, and if I lose it I take a big loss AND you get a big wall to attack from.
In US Military Spending, we attempt to achieve a high volume, high power military with tons of technology, tons of inventory (tanks), tons of useless research, secret weapons we'll never use until everyone else has one, etc. This is heavy. It costs us a lot, and even if we win a war it costs us a lot.
If I were president (no, no no NO!), I would mandate that every military base get a $150 Go set. The executive officers of that base would spend half an hour a day studying Go. This will shape their tactical and analytical abilities; sorry, but I want a military of THINKING warriors, not mindless soldiers (pawns, if you're a Chess person). Go is categorically better at this than anything else: it requires heavy investment in abstract and logical thinking, pattern recognition and creativity, memory and analysis. This would be symbolic, but also has the benefits I've stated here: a dual-purpose move, always better than a single-purpose move, as you learn when playing Go.
I would also immediately have all basic military standard procedures audited. Armor. What costs would outfitting our military with better armor have? What would be the benefits? I realize dragonskin is lighter and can protect against MUCH more abuse (bullets and yes GRENADES) than interceptor armor; I also realize that dragonskin is harder and more expensive to refurbish, more expensive to outright buy, and won't protect you from a bullet to the face or stepping in a landmine. Still, can we reduce our needed infantry by equipping them with better armor? By how much? What are the costs? Will this save us money? Lives? Resources? Ammunition?
What are we equipping our tanks with? What are we researching? What can we use as interim solutions while we research new technology? Anti-RPG countermeasures on tanks to protect the infantry? Bullet tracing systems to find snipers? Things Israel might have that we're "researching" because theirs is "only 50% effective" but fuck, we don't have it NOW and we need it NOW and 50% is better than 0% for the next 4 years. Maintenance costs, life expectancy (yeah if it's $1M and lasts 10 years that's one thing to replace in 2 years; but if it lasts 2 years and we will have a better system to replace it with in 4 years FUCK this is cost effective!), the works.
Shit like that. Shit we're not doing because "it's expensive." You know what's expensive? Soldiers. They need armor. They need weapons. They need all these "expensive" defense systems. If I need half as many soldiers, I need half of all that shit.
And training. They'd be trained. We don't need soldiers; we need samurai. We need people that are thinking warriors, running around with guns instead of swords maybe, but still looking around with some idea of why they're out there (not "for The Flag," but why are YOU PERSONALLY out there) and what they're doing out there combat-wise. They need to say, "Wow, basic training taught us some stupid tactics, they don't apply in this situation," and volunteer information to their general. They need to stick to their orders when their orders are working; when 55% of their team has died and there's no order to retreat, their orders are wrong. It's a delicate balance, very difficult: autonomous warriors are useful, but you can't direc
From the other comments here, I garner that the dispute is texas showed up and said, "HERE. BILL. PAY." And Amazon said, "Bill for what?" "SALES TAX, BITCH!" "What sales tax? For who? What audit?" "SHUT UP AND PAY THE NUMBER WE WROTE DOWN. WE CAME UP WITH IT, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW HOW."
And this is the lie of the rich: conflating "rich" with "businesses." We know what happens when taxes on the rich (not businesses, just the rich) go down: they save more. In President Bush's first term, the highest tax bracket went from 39.6% to 35%. The percentage of income the rich put into savings in the same time from went from 2.2% to 7.6%.{fact}
I've met many "poor" people in my life who when they get that income tax refund or birthday gift of cash etc, go out and buy a couch or a tv instead of paying their credit card bill.
SUVs here. Everyone has an SUV for 3-4 months starting in March-April.
This is one reason I always buy from Land's End. I've bought 8 shirts from them, and 3 pairs of pants, and several pairs of socks. One of the shirts started to fray and really break down after about 2 months; I didn't know Land's End had a "Guaranteed, period" policy and would replace the shirt because, frankly, it just didn't hold up like every other fucking shirt I got from them.
Three years in now, I have some slightly yellowed socks that are identical to the brand new ones I just bought, albeit much older. Still fluffy, still not fraying, no holes, nothing. The fabric may be slightly matted, like lost 5% of its volume, I can't really tell; it hasn't been pounded into a little hole-filled paper card like socks I get from Wal-Mart after 2 washes. The other shirts are mostly in brand-new condition; they never fade, but occasionally they get stolen (I live in Baltimore City, in an apartment, with a shared laundry room). One pair of pants frayed at the bottom: I was kicking my shoes off, and it happens that constant wear against the rubber sole will grind fabric right off. Oops. They're not jeans. Pants otherwise brand new.
These cost about 1.5 times as much as Wal-Mart shit clothes that don't hold up to a fucking washing machine spin cycle. The Wal-Mart chinese specials lose buttons, develop holes, and tear at the seams-- or wear holes where there's no seams! All in a matter of a month or three! And they fade on washing number one.
That's reason number two why I buy Lands' End. Value. The price is not $50 designer Ambercombie shirt; it's $25 shirt vs $18 Wal-Mart shirt. $40 pants vs $25 pants, but the $40 pants are always on-sale at Sears (who owns Lands' End now) for $30, along with Polo Ralph Lauren and Doc Martin and a few other higher end non-super-designer clothes. Yet the clothes are high quality.
Reason number 3 is pure aesthetic preference. I could go for Polo Ralph Lauren, but I hate their style. Lands' End really lands the biz-cas scene pretty hard, nice and mellow without looking too casual. Polo looks too much like shit you'd wear on your yacht during a sailing trip; they're nice, decent really, but not my personal self-image and I feel off trying to present that kind of image outward. I'll dress like Dave from Homestuck when I feel like presenting an altered image for self-amusement; otherwise I feel like a huge poser trying to look "relaxed" and "easy-going" in the way Polo's clothes present me. I'm not that social, really; I'm not the chatty business executive that looks out for his employees and will tell you off for being a dick, but basically wants to hang out on the golf course or on a boat or something. I'm approachable, but tone the outgoing-ness down a degree or two.
Whatever you buy, you have the choice. Cheap Wal-Mart stuff that falls apart in under a month; designer $50-$150 shirts that fall apart in a month; or cheap stuff that costs a tad more than Wal-Mart but lasts a reasonable year or three. A good discount designer store can get you into that last category easily, and save you some money.
To who, exactly? Most of Amazon's actual customers buy from them when it's convenient and cheap, and don't see paying lower prices there as 'quite evil'.
Actually, low prices are not "inherently good." The philosophical arguments usually do revolve around Wal-Mart, suppressing quality to suppress price, among other things. It is argued that Wal-Mart's direct impact on the economy is to destroy wealth by causing poor people to buy cheap goods which don't stand up to usage as well as more expensive goods, creating a disproportional cost-benefit curve between price and durability; in other words, they sell shit that you have to buy every 2 weeks instead of every 2 years, at a third of the price. Other arguments are that they indirectly force businesses to move their labor or supply sources out of the country, which either impacts the job market directly (labor = India) or indirectly (no demand for locally manufactured goods = no demand for manufacturing labor = China).
Not saying Amazon is bad for their price win, just that selling shit for cheap doesn't automagically equate to goodness.
Plus American law is THE copyright law of the world, hence why we're forcing it on people with treaties and diplomatic agreements.
Wrong.
Nope, not really. The US is pushing its shit all over everyone. There's been a lot on slashdot about trade agreements attempting to formalize this lately, kept in secret committees, with the US pushing to have all countries adopt American-style IP laws. We are pushing our laws on the world. If our climate changed to be a "protector of the public domain," we would push the world to strengthen the public domain, and try to pass a NEW treaty. We'd continue the current trend of threatening countries that don't listen with economic sanctions.
And if your shit flops because you entered the market at the wrong time, too bad;
It seems you are confusing copyright with patents
Nope, I'm confusing business with business. You made a product (music), nobody wanted it. You released a movie, but vampire movies weren't popular that year, zombies are all the rage for the next 3 years. Shit flopped. Oh well.
As for A Wonderful Life, "cheap" art does not become popular just because it was cheap. It becomes popular because it was good and it's creator deserved a success he never got. It baffles me that you would dare call that movie "something cheap to show on TV"
After the copyright was allowed to lapse, It’s A Wonderful Life was shown repeatedly on television, a cheap film used to fill the schedules. The film was regularly shown at Christmas, a time when all television schedulers were under pressure to show large numbers of films. Slowly and gradually, It’s A Wonderful Life began to gain an increasing number of fans, its consistent presence in the Christmas schedules provoking growing affection for the film’s sentimental themes. The appeal of the film has endured to the present day and It’s A Wonderful Life is now a firm family favourite, fondly replayed by thousands every Christmas.
Wikipedia however states:
However, a clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974.[49] Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still were required to pay royalties. Although the film's images had entered the public domain, the film's story was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of the published story "The Greatest Gift", whose copyright was properly renewed by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1971.[50][N 8] The film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980s, possibly due to its repeated showings each holiday season on hundreds of local television stations. It was mentioned during the deliberations on the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.[51]
So it's a derivative work of another work, and royalties are paid on that work. Note that if its copyright had been renewed, that would be TWO sets of royalties to pay for one work.
And also, Wikipedia states it's a perennial holiday favorite likely because it was shown again and again and I'm going to keep feeding you god damn saur kraut every day until you damn well learn to like it!
Google has done this before. They get a notice for youtube, they take shit down, they get a complaint, they put it back up, they are now clear of the law. Some asshole (Viacomm) came back to bitch, Google told them, "Hey. HEY! Fuck you! We did what we're supposed to! You can shove it!"
Yeah, like, Wal-Mart (the biggest seller of DVDs and CDs) would lose, like, 2% of their income, man. They've considered using that rack space for something else, selling other shit that's more profitable.
Well Disney is in America, so you know. Plus American law is THE copyright law of the world, hence why we're forcing it on people with treaties and diplomatic agreements. And if your shit flops because you entered the market at the wrong time, too bad; lots of businesses tried shit that didn't work, and 20 years later another company "came out with it" and it's a big thing now. Virtualization is a good example. Portable MP3 players too (the iPod wasn't the first, just the popular one). MP3 itself was from ages past, but unuseful. It's A Wonderful Life was just something cheap to show on TV, so the networks broadcast it a lot.
You realize that, in a democracy, a politician with your opinion could not be elected?
Since your position is untenable in a democracy, why stick to it?
So you are saying that a democracy is a fancy cloak-and-dagger form of a totalitarian regime where we slowly strip your rights away and build up a police state?
Making stuff available for free is not equal to making it copyright free. 1984 makes money, true, but you cant go out grab a copy of the book and upload it to Amazon and sell it because it still belongs to the original author, it's not public domain even if the author allows you to read it for free.
It was written in 1948, and published in 1949. It seems I'm wrong here though; I thought all works published before 1956 went into public domain, but that's been pushed back to 1922. Sigh.
I find it also interesting how you keep insisting on 14 year old works be set on public domain while claiming that Shakespeare and other classics are free for you to play with. France, for instance, in the 18th and 19th century, gave copyrights to the author for his entire lifetime, with works (at one point in that period, at least) becoming public domain only 5 years after the death of the author. Another window was 10 years from the works creation or for the duration of the author's life, whatever was longer.
The original term was 14 years, then 28 years, now 99 years after the death of the author.
I find it disturbing that an eternal business can get eternal copyright until it dies. Effectively copyright lasts until there's no one to bitch about it anymore anyway. Nobody owns it because they're all dead, not because of some legal statute; the law codifies this.
Your children's children's children will continue to pay for the work I've done, because for someone else to do all the work of copying and distributing it they must pay me simply because "it" exists, even though I am not putting in any effort to the distribution of the product anymore. Right?
Yes. Right. Indeed. And it's the right thing to do.
Entitlement. Do the work once, get paid forever, and your kids never have to work. "It's the right thing to do" because you somehow think you deserve it, just like forcing everybody to pay taxes to feed the poor is "the right thing to do." Full-blown communism is "the right thing to do" because it (theoretically) produces a society with no poor, no hungry, no infirm that can't get care, no homeless... and no liberties, even if it worked economically.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Without the expiration of these rights, the light bulb would still be patented. Ford would have exclusive rights to most of what's in the automobile-- lots of automotive companies have patents on improvements to Ford's innovative designs from back in the early days of the automobile. Anything made on an assembly line would be far more expensive, because somebody would have an eternal patent on that.
Do you know why high schools and colleges perform The Crucible, Fiddler on the Roof, and Shakespeare as plays? Why not Beauty and the Beast?
Performances must be done by accredited schools using students in Grade 9 or under only. High schools with students older than ninth grade must contact Music Theater International directly.
Dance Studios and Summer Camps which are accredited by the American Camping Association may also perform the shows. These types of organizations will have some different license restrictions with respect to the age of performers, the number of performances allowed and the time frame during which the performances must take place.
Sorry, orders cannot be processed for Community Theatres, Children's Theatres or Performing Arts schools which do not have an academic curriculum.
Your purchase price includes the materials in the showkit plus unlimited performing rights for one year.
Because it's fucking expensive if you're dealing with anyone out of 9th grade. $550 for a 1 year license isn't bad; my voice teacher directed a high school play for Beauty and the Beast and said the license for the score and performance rights for high school kids cost over $50,000. Note that usually high schools don't do this; colleges do this.
Imagine if for Fiddler on the Roof your middle school had to pay $500, and for The Crucible you had to pay $800, and for Shakespeare you had to pay $200 (because Shakespeare is garbage), every year. So much for having three plays at every school every year, it'd be like $250,000. Never mind when people decide it's going to be $500 performance + $250 for each copy of the score-- you can't copy it yourself-- which means all 30 kids in this play... oh, $7,500 for the materials. Oh and you damn well better not record the performance, unless you want to pay ANOTHER licensing fee; it's notable that the $550 you pay for Disney's material does NOT include recording rights!
Symphony orchestras are really big and only people with lots and lots of money would be allowed to cover or interpret classical music held by the Mozart Estate. Disney wouldn't actually exist, since most of their classic stuff is rip-offs of folk tales.
It is almost universally agreed by everyone who doesn't have a big stake in it that unlimited copyright terms are a big, big drain on the economy, and on culture by those who take the time to care about such things. Go back to college and ask your economics teacher.
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The sample size is too small for normal sexual culture. The big problem would be somebody banged the captain's wife. How do you suppose we avoid these problems? Hint: Ask the Denobulans.
Quantum entanglement isn't FTL because it takes a standard relativistic frame to reach the entangled state. In other words, to "instantly" transport information 1 lightyear, you must shatter a particle into two particles and move them apart for one year at the speed of light. Upon interference, the channel breaks down.
I know, a mile lol. Let's dump $HUGENUMBER and it should be sufficient.
Also the part about taking a hundred years or so without FTL travel. The closest star is 65ish lightyears away ja? And the closest habitable planet? We need some serious energy.
My direct point about Go was aimed at its direct effect on the way an individual thinks and approaches problems (as well as the improvement in mental facilities that the play of Go supplies; you wouldn't believe how tactically useful a good spatial memory is). More indirectly, I was equating the best and worst methods of play to the best and worst methods of running a military; and in fact the US method only works because we are cheating (borrowing a lot of money, spending on shit we can't afford-- as if you were allowed to play 3-4 moves per turn while your opponent plays only one).
I want to keep the war machine. It's ridiculous to think we don't need self defense, in the same way that it's ridiculous to ban guns and weapons and tell people violence never solved anything (French taxation without representation. British taxation without representation. Slavery in America. Slavery in Haiti. Hitler. Stalin. Japan's expansionism. It goes on). We need to train people in martial arts (Judo, Aikido, etc) so they can defend themselves, and we need to allow them to arm themselves (jo, swords, guns-- one hit one kill with a 15 round glock works if you can hit the guy with the full auto, I do agree to some regulation). In the same manner, we need to have a well-tuned war machine for self defense-- and in the same manner, it's more tuning than just letting everyone walk around on the streets with a tommy gun and a rocket launcher!
I want an efficient war machine, not an expensive war machine. See: Switzerland.
- We could double these $40 billion across the board cuts by dropping the war on drugs.
Traditionally this means, stupidly, "Legalize all drugs for recreational use." People have a fantasy about "regulating" this stuff, but the truth is "regulation" of a recreational substance is more than a fantasy, it's a complete delusion. See: alcohol.
- We can drastically reduce federal prison populations.
More executions! Rape? Execute them! Grand theft auto? Execute them! Dealing drugs? Execute them! Actually that last one seems like a good idea; for selling poisons to the population for consumption, you are charged with gross negligence and we statistically infer murder, so off you go to hell.
- We can simply bring home the troops from Afghanistan and Iraq for astronomical savings.
And destabilize the mess we ... made worse. Okay we didn't cause it but you know what they say, right? You gotta break it more before you can fix it. Well if we don't finish what we started, we now have a house we were fixing the roof on but we're abandoning it after we tore the old roof off and before finishing the new roof. Then in 10 years we can start all over again for another 200 trillion dollars to invade, take down the fucked up government we let form in the chaos, and try to put a new one in AGAIN.
Finish what you started.
- We can make deeper cuts in foreign military aid, Egypt alone take $2B.
Pros and cons of this too. This is largely politics, and the political sphere is complex. It's sort of like investing in the market: when you drop $2Bn on a company, not on common stock but on preferred, you're buying into their board meetings and getting a big vote on their operations. You're also handing them money to fund their business so they can take larger risks for better potential returns. We're betting on success of certain countries we find favorable, and trying to prop them up to make our own ends.
Imagine if Saddam Hussein had taken over all of the middle east and started a jihad against western Europe; that's the kind of scenario we think up, and then we pick countries who won't jihad on us and give them support. The world runs on war, unfortunately.
All these expenses are clearly unwarranted or outright harmful.
Spoken by someone who thinks he knows everything.
The harsh reality is we can no longer afford to ... support such a ludicrous level of military spending.
In Go we try to play light moves, moves that serve a purpose without strengthening our opponent too much or dedicating too much of our resources to them. If I play up this side, then come down, maybe I lose one stone; but I can wedge you open with that stone, and build a strong position on the outside, reducing your potential gains. If I try to live in there, however, I wind up pulling out this huge, intense fight; if I win it I get a little gain and you get a big wall to attack from, and if I lose it I take a big loss AND you get a big wall to attack from.
In US Military Spending, we attempt to achieve a high volume, high power military with tons of technology, tons of inventory (tanks), tons of useless research, secret weapons we'll never use until everyone else has one, etc. This is heavy. It costs us a lot, and even if we win a war it costs us a lot.
If I were president (no, no no NO!), I would mandate that every military base get a $150 Go set. The executive officers of that base would spend half an hour a day studying Go. This will shape their tactical and analytical abilities; sorry, but I want a military of THINKING warriors, not mindless soldiers (pawns, if you're a Chess person). Go is categorically better at this than anything else: it requires heavy investment in abstract and logical thinking, pattern recognition and creativity, memory and analysis. This would be symbolic, but also has the benefits I've stated here: a dual-purpose move, always better than a single-purpose move, as you learn when playing Go.
I would also immediately have all basic military standard procedures audited. Armor. What costs would outfitting our military with better armor have? What would be the benefits? I realize dragonskin is lighter and can protect against MUCH more abuse (bullets and yes GRENADES) than interceptor armor; I also realize that dragonskin is harder and more expensive to refurbish, more expensive to outright buy, and won't protect you from a bullet to the face or stepping in a landmine. Still, can we reduce our needed infantry by equipping them with better armor? By how much? What are the costs? Will this save us money? Lives? Resources? Ammunition?
What are we equipping our tanks with? What are we researching? What can we use as interim solutions while we research new technology? Anti-RPG countermeasures on tanks to protect the infantry? Bullet tracing systems to find snipers? Things Israel might have that we're "researching" because theirs is "only 50% effective" but fuck, we don't have it NOW and we need it NOW and 50% is better than 0% for the next 4 years. Maintenance costs, life expectancy (yeah if it's $1M and lasts 10 years that's one thing to replace in 2 years; but if it lasts 2 years and we will have a better system to replace it with in 4 years FUCK this is cost effective!), the works.
Shit like that. Shit we're not doing because "it's expensive." You know what's expensive? Soldiers. They need armor. They need weapons. They need all these "expensive" defense systems. If I need half as many soldiers, I need half of all that shit.
And training. They'd be trained. We don't need soldiers; we need samurai. We need people that are thinking warriors, running around with guns instead of swords maybe, but still looking around with some idea of why they're out there (not "for The Flag," but why are YOU PERSONALLY out there) and what they're doing out there combat-wise. They need to say, "Wow, basic training taught us some stupid tactics, they don't apply in this situation," and volunteer information to their general. They need to stick to their orders when their orders are working; when 55% of their team has died and there's no order to retreat, their orders are wrong. It's a delicate balance, very difficult: autonomous warriors are useful, but you can't direc
How quaint and worthless..
From the other comments here, I garner that the dispute is texas showed up and said, "HERE. BILL. PAY." And Amazon said, "Bill for what?" "SALES TAX, BITCH!" "What sales tax? For who? What audit?" "SHUT UP AND PAY THE NUMBER WE WROTE DOWN. WE CAME UP WITH IT, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW HOW."
And this is the lie of the rich: conflating "rich" with "businesses." We know what happens when taxes on the rich (not businesses, just the rich) go down: they save more. In President Bush's first term, the highest tax bracket went from 39.6% to 35%. The percentage of income the rich put into savings in the same time from went from 2.2% to 7.6%.{fact}
[citation needed]
Where is this quoted from? It's brilliant.
I've met many "poor" people in my life who when they get that income tax refund or birthday gift of cash etc, go out and buy a couch or a tv instead of paying their credit card bill.
SUVs here. Everyone has an SUV for 3-4 months starting in March-April.
This is one reason I always buy from Land's End. I've bought 8 shirts from them, and 3 pairs of pants, and several pairs of socks. One of the shirts started to fray and really break down after about 2 months; I didn't know Land's End had a "Guaranteed, period" policy and would replace the shirt because, frankly, it just didn't hold up like every other fucking shirt I got from them.
Three years in now, I have some slightly yellowed socks that are identical to the brand new ones I just bought, albeit much older. Still fluffy, still not fraying, no holes, nothing. The fabric may be slightly matted, like lost 5% of its volume, I can't really tell; it hasn't been pounded into a little hole-filled paper card like socks I get from Wal-Mart after 2 washes. The other shirts are mostly in brand-new condition; they never fade, but occasionally they get stolen (I live in Baltimore City, in an apartment, with a shared laundry room). One pair of pants frayed at the bottom: I was kicking my shoes off, and it happens that constant wear against the rubber sole will grind fabric right off. Oops. They're not jeans. Pants otherwise brand new.
These cost about 1.5 times as much as Wal-Mart shit clothes that don't hold up to a fucking washing machine spin cycle. The Wal-Mart chinese specials lose buttons, develop holes, and tear at the seams-- or wear holes where there's no seams! All in a matter of a month or three! And they fade on washing number one.
That's reason number two why I buy Lands' End. Value. The price is not $50 designer Ambercombie shirt; it's $25 shirt vs $18 Wal-Mart shirt. $40 pants vs $25 pants, but the $40 pants are always on-sale at Sears (who owns Lands' End now) for $30, along with Polo Ralph Lauren and Doc Martin and a few other higher end non-super-designer clothes. Yet the clothes are high quality.
Reason number 3 is pure aesthetic preference. I could go for Polo Ralph Lauren, but I hate their style. Lands' End really lands the biz-cas scene pretty hard, nice and mellow without looking too casual. Polo looks too much like shit you'd wear on your yacht during a sailing trip; they're nice, decent really, but not my personal self-image and I feel off trying to present that kind of image outward. I'll dress like Dave from Homestuck when I feel like presenting an altered image for self-amusement; otherwise I feel like a huge poser trying to look "relaxed" and "easy-going" in the way Polo's clothes present me. I'm not that social, really; I'm not the chatty business executive that looks out for his employees and will tell you off for being a dick, but basically wants to hang out on the golf course or on a boat or something. I'm approachable, but tone the outgoing-ness down a degree or two.
Whatever you buy, you have the choice. Cheap Wal-Mart stuff that falls apart in under a month; designer $50-$150 shirts that fall apart in a month; or cheap stuff that costs a tad more than Wal-Mart but lasts a reasonable year or three. A good discount designer store can get you into that last category easily, and save you some money.
Excellent idea. Then all of Amazon's warehouses and data centers will go to Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.
To who, exactly? Most of Amazon's actual customers buy from them when it's convenient and cheap, and don't see paying lower prices there as 'quite evil'.
Actually, low prices are not "inherently good." The philosophical arguments usually do revolve around Wal-Mart, suppressing quality to suppress price, among other things. It is argued that Wal-Mart's direct impact on the economy is to destroy wealth by causing poor people to buy cheap goods which don't stand up to usage as well as more expensive goods, creating a disproportional cost-benefit curve between price and durability; in other words, they sell shit that you have to buy every 2 weeks instead of every 2 years, at a third of the price. Other arguments are that they indirectly force businesses to move their labor or supply sources out of the country, which either impacts the job market directly (labor = India) or indirectly (no demand for locally manufactured goods = no demand for manufacturing labor = China).
Not saying Amazon is bad for their price win, just that selling shit for cheap doesn't automagically equate to goodness.
Anything that's not engineering or medical research is research that doesn't exist!
Uh, if they fix it, you will have to download the fixed upgraded version. Which... is what the upgrade is.
YOU SO STUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!
1/265 of 1 USD, depending on exchange used.
Plus American law is THE copyright law of the world, hence why we're forcing it on people with treaties and diplomatic agreements.
Wrong.
Nope, not really. The US is pushing its shit all over everyone. There's been a lot on slashdot about trade agreements attempting to formalize this lately, kept in secret committees, with the US pushing to have all countries adopt American-style IP laws. We are pushing our laws on the world. If our climate changed to be a "protector of the public domain," we would push the world to strengthen the public domain, and try to pass a NEW treaty. We'd continue the current trend of threatening countries that don't listen with economic sanctions.
And if your shit flops because you entered the market at the wrong time, too bad;
It seems you are confusing copyright with patents
Nope, I'm confusing business with business. You made a product (music), nobody wanted it. You released a movie, but vampire movies weren't popular that year, zombies are all the rage for the next 3 years. Shit flopped. Oh well.
As for A Wonderful Life, "cheap" art does not become popular just because it was cheap. It becomes popular because it was good and it's creator deserved a success he never got. It baffles me that you would dare call that movie "something cheap to show on TV"
http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/01/19/heyuguys-retrospective-it%E2%80%99s-a-wonderful-life-1946/
After the copyright was allowed to lapse, It’s A Wonderful Life was shown repeatedly on television, a cheap film used to fill the schedules. The film was regularly shown at Christmas, a time when all television schedulers were under pressure to show large numbers of films. Slowly and gradually, It’s A Wonderful Life began to gain an increasing number of fans, its consistent presence in the Christmas schedules provoking growing affection for the film’s sentimental themes. The appeal of the film has endured to the present day and It’s A Wonderful Life is now a firm family favourite, fondly replayed by thousands every Christmas.
Wikipedia however states:
However, a clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974.[49] Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still were required to pay royalties. Although the film's images had entered the public domain, the film's story was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of the published story "The Greatest Gift", whose copyright was properly renewed by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1971.[50][N 8] The film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980s, possibly due to its repeated showings each holiday season on hundreds of local television stations. It was mentioned during the deliberations on the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.[51]
So it's a derivative work of another work, and royalties are paid on that work. Note that if its copyright had been renewed, that would be TWO sets of royalties to pay for one work.
And also, Wikipedia states it's a perennial holiday favorite likely because it was shown again and again and I'm going to keep feeding you god damn saur kraut every day until you damn well learn to like it!
Google has done this before. They get a notice for youtube, they take shit down, they get a complaint, they put it back up, they are now clear of the law. Some asshole (Viacomm) came back to bitch, Google told them, "Hey. HEY! Fuck you! We did what we're supposed to! You can shove it!"
Yeah, like, Wal-Mart (the biggest seller of DVDs and CDs) would lose, like, 2% of their income, man. They've considered using that rack space for something else, selling other shit that's more profitable.
Well Disney is in America, so you know. Plus American law is THE copyright law of the world, hence why we're forcing it on people with treaties and diplomatic agreements. And if your shit flops because you entered the market at the wrong time, too bad; lots of businesses tried shit that didn't work, and 20 years later another company "came out with it" and it's a big thing now. Virtualization is a good example. Portable MP3 players too (the iPod wasn't the first, just the popular one). MP3 itself was from ages past, but unuseful. It's A Wonderful Life was just something cheap to show on TV, so the networks broadcast it a lot.
You realize that, in a democracy, a politician with your opinion could not be elected?
Since your position is untenable in a democracy, why stick to it?
So you are saying that a democracy is a fancy cloak-and-dagger form of a totalitarian regime where we slowly strip your rights away and build up a police state?
I take Computer Science III, I know what I'm talking about.
Fixed that for you Mike.
Making stuff available for free is not equal to making it copyright free. 1984 makes money, true, but you cant go out grab a copy of the book and upload it to Amazon and sell it because it still belongs to the original author, it's not public domain even if the author allows you to read it for free.
It was written in 1948, and published in 1949. It seems I'm wrong here though; I thought all works published before 1956 went into public domain, but that's been pushed back to 1922. Sigh.
I find it also interesting how you keep insisting on 14 year old works be set on public domain while claiming that Shakespeare and other classics are free for you to play with. France, for instance, in the 18th and 19th century, gave copyrights to the author for his entire lifetime, with works (at one point in that period, at least) becoming public domain only 5 years after the death of the author. Another window was 10 years from the works creation or for the duration of the author's life, whatever was longer.
The original term was 14 years, then 28 years, now 99 years after the death of the author.
I find it disturbing that an eternal business can get eternal copyright until it dies. Effectively copyright lasts until there's no one to bitch about it anymore anyway. Nobody owns it because they're all dead, not because of some legal statute; the law codifies this.
Your children's children's children will continue to pay for the work I've done, because for someone else to do all the work of copying and distributing it they must pay me simply because "it" exists, even though I am not putting in any effort to the distribution of the product anymore. Right?
Yes. Right. Indeed. And it's the right thing to do.
Entitlement. Do the work once, get paid forever, and your kids never have to work. "It's the right thing to do" because you somehow think you deserve it, just like forcing everybody to pay taxes to feed the poor is "the right thing to do." Full-blown communism is "the right thing to do" because it (theoretically) produces a society with no poor, no hungry, no infirm that can't get care, no homeless... and no liberties, even if it worked economically.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. Check it yourself. Limited times.
Without the expiration of these rights, the light bulb would still be patented. Ford would have exclusive rights to most of what's in the automobile-- lots of automotive companies have patents on improvements to Ford's innovative designs from back in the early days of the automobile. Anything made on an assembly line would be far more expensive, because somebody would have an eternal patent on that.
Do you know why high schools and colleges perform The Crucible, Fiddler on the Roof, and Shakespeare as plays? Why not Beauty and the Beast?
Performances must be done by accredited schools using students in Grade 9 or under only. High schools with students older than ninth grade must contact Music Theater International directly.
Dance Studios and Summer Camps which are accredited by the American Camping Association may also perform the shows. These types of organizations will have some different license restrictions with respect to the age of performers, the number of performances allowed and the time frame during which the performances must take place.
Sorry, orders cannot be processed for Community Theatres, Children's Theatres or Performing Arts schools which do not have an academic curriculum.
Your purchase price includes the materials in the showkit plus unlimited performing rights for one year.
Because it's fucking expensive if you're dealing with anyone out of 9th grade. $550 for a 1 year license isn't bad; my voice teacher directed a high school play for Beauty and the Beast and said the license for the score and performance rights for high school kids cost over $50,000. Note that usually high schools don't do this; colleges do this.
Imagine if for Fiddler on the Roof your middle school had to pay $500, and for The Crucible you had to pay $800, and for Shakespeare you had to pay $200 (because Shakespeare is garbage), every year. So much for having three plays at every school every year, it'd be like $250,000. Never mind when people decide it's going to be $500 performance + $250 for each copy of the score-- you can't copy it yourself-- which means all 30 kids in this play ... oh, $7,500 for the materials. Oh and you damn well better not record the performance, unless you want to pay ANOTHER licensing fee; it's notable that the $550 you pay for Disney's material does NOT include recording rights!
Symphony orchestras are really big and only people with lots and lots of money would be allowed to cover or interpret classical music held by the Mozart Estate. Disney wouldn't actually exist, since most of their classic stuff is rip-offs of folk tales.
It is almost universally agreed by everyone who doesn't have a big stake in it that unlimited copyright terms are a big, big drain on the economy, and on culture by those who take the time to care about such things. Go back to college and ask your economics teacher.