We will need to clone them to take care of the cloned Mammoth infestation. Once that is dealt with, we can just let climate change take care of the rest. Perfect!
Well if it is good enough for the CRTC then its good enough for me!:)
In all seriousness though, thanks for the post, as title and blurb were very misleading and everyone seemed to buy that and just go with it.
It will be interesting to see what happens in July.
Thought I imagine a funny response from the decision as in "we are dismissing the allegations as it was discovered you treat your own customers just as horribly. You are fair in that you treat everyone equally horribly." lol.
I really hope the CRTC renders a fair decision (one way or the other). Personally Bell really irks me.
Someone previous mentioned that the CRTC was made up of industry and lobbies, and thus would always rule with the telcos. I hope this isn't the case. The fact is those people are the most knowledgeable in the field, so it makes sense to have them make these decisions, it is a balance. I only hope they are not being influenced by their past connections or bias.
If CRTC does decide against Bell I hope they will take it one step further and make the same decision against Rogers Communication (Cable Monopoly). I think we need some real telecommunication reform in Canada, and this might be a first (small) step. We should be world leaders and innovators in telecommunication, but due to how we are organized I feel we are stagnant and restrictive (protectionist due to duopoly).
[Strangelove's plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio] General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned? Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature. Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
I have never heard of these regulations. I doubt very much they are enforced at all. The fact that the got fined is only due to a complaint. If A) the public was aware, or B) the Premier was aware of those regulations, it would be dead in a week. This is actually very stupid move by the bus company if they are really worried about competition. I mean really, the province just started installing car pool only lanes on the 401, are they going to now say they are not committed to this sort of activity. Silly.
If I were PickupPal I would not pay the fine and write two letters, one to our Premier, and one sent to the various mainstream media outlets also indicating a letter was sent to the Premier.
This will kill the fine, kill the regs, and likely promote PickupPal, and car pooling in general. That's a quadruple win I think.
I think what I mean is that this is too bleeding edge.
I also use quattro cards every day in my work station, and have for many years now. I do GIS work. Bottom line is IT departments are not going to invest or support product that new. I am talking a lot of systems large scale.
If you are an independent, with a few workstations, you can ad hoc it all you like. That however is an ultra-unique niche group. Not one to which nVidia or anyone else is going to market to. They would not be able to sell enough, be it 3500$ or 10000$ to make it financially viable.
If you look at the Quattro line up, it is pretty old and mature technology (relatively speaking).
Though I had a bit of a chuckle about guys getting paid too much. An example of this came up our last computer upgrade. I recommended a card upgrade, and the bean counters recommended a card downgrade. I then tried to explain to the managers that the reduced cost of the cards is peanuts compared to what it will cost in salary time and work projects. However I am sure they get a bonus for saving a few bucks short term, and they probably figure they will be on to the next executive job before the long term results are in. So yeah I am now running a worse card now than I was 2 years ago. Lame.
All this amounts to is a proof of concept for technology. To quote Simon from Mad TV "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO"!
To those that think that this has any application what so ever let me say a few things.
#1) Can you just think of what the driver for this think might be? Ludicrous.
#2) It would likely require specialized programing even to function, none of which would be supported anywhere, and all of which would likely have to be custom.
#3) For those think this has scientific applications guess again. You should get together with the "but can you make a beowulf cluster of these" group and slam foreheads together. It would likely be more efficient and cheep just to network together a whole pile of lesser cards and systems to achieve the same results.
#4) As an addendum to the last, and against those thing this has applications in the movie or film industry for doing animation and effects, again for years it has used server farms. Again it would be probably cheaper and more efficient to use cheaper, more mature technology.
They may be able to leverage this technology to create more reasonable cards into the future, which is probably what they are trying to prove likely to gain capitol or to reassure stock holders in trying times. This is not a product, this is a PR stunt.
As someone that does this all the time I thought I would weigh in.
First I would not stretch before working out, that is what the warm up is for. Second before I play any intensive sports (such as hockey) I would stretch, as typically there is not a lot of warm up time. This isn't to increase strength performance. The reason is muscles may be tight and to limber up for flexibility and to prevent muscle cramping.
So while performance strength may be reduced (which this article hardly proves, until several medical journals agree, I will doubt it), you may be more nimble and you are not going anywhere if you get calf or leg cramp on the ice. I know stretching helps prevent cramping and that is mostly why I do it, secondary is to prevent a groin pull by trying to do too much cold while your muscles are still tight. It is a balancing act really. Sometimes you don't need to, if you have played several times already, you might be good to go, however play too much and you might be too tight and strained to go without. Diet and lifestyle make a difference as well. Not enough hydration, or too much booze (which acts as a diuretic, it dries you out basically), can also induce muscle cramping.
Typically if you get a cramp in a game it is too late to do anything about it. You can try and stretch it out but it will take some time to normalize. Sometimes I can feel a calf cramp come on near the end of a game, and I know I am done, or have to take it real easy for the rest of the game. So you really want to prevent that from happening in the first place.
All humor aside I am surprise this seems to be the only post I saw that even mentions Pakistan.
From a Canadian perspective:
Iraq is Bad. We can't believe you fell for all that shit in the first place.
Afghanistan is and always was the problem, and while the USA has the most troops there, it is but a tiny fraction of what is in Iraq.
Canada has the 2nd most troops, and the most casualties per capita due to the fact we are in the south region where all the fighting is (as are a portion of the US troops). None of the other UN countries wants to put their troops (and the bad press casualties get) in harms way.
The problem is while both Canada and the US have minor forces there (admittedly major from a Canadian Perspective), it is my understanding that we regularly kick ass as it were. The problem is that the folks we are fighting don't really care about national boarders, or governments, and just scurry across the Pakistani boarder to regroup, refuel, reequip, and rebuild their forces, and the skip across again to resume hostilities.
While technically part of Pakistan, the region is really in name only. From what I have heard little governance is done there, and the grip is tenuous as best. It is a tribal area. Pakistan has tried fighting against the forces in this region, but has been unsuccessful. In an attempt to shield themselves they have been entering into "deals" with the forces there (El Aqida, Taliban, etc...) that basically say, "We won't attack you if you don't attack us" or "We will pay you half a million bucks to put down your arms", etc... This has not worked out for them (they just took the money presumably spent it on arms, and started fighting later on... I mean duh.) and none of their agreements have had anything in them about crossing the boarder or engaging allied troops. I have heard the rational for this is A) they are not sure who will win in Afganistan, and B) they fear India gaining advantage by entering the power vacuum left by the Taliban etc...
So in conclusion. The US should A) redistribute troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, B) since Pakistan is unwilling or unable to govern effectively within its own boarders, which effect allied troops in a war time scenario I think it would be acceptable to "invade" Pakistan. However by "invade" what we really mean is cross the border to engage the enemy hiding there, not actually trying to overthrow the elected government of Pakistan. The fact they they really for all intents and purposes don't really control the region to begin with should make the term "invasion" pretty meaningless. If Pakistan gets their back up and has a problem with troops "invading" their sovereign nation, the way I see it would mean the government at that point are harboring, supporting, and collaborating the enemy, which means you could classify them as "Terrorist State" as much as any other.
Anyway I think Canadians have as much or more frustration in this matter as the US, as we have to sit here and wonder what the heck you are doing in Iraq all the years, while from the beginning the problem has been elsewhere.
Each game was an adventure just to get it to run, and the payoff was games! Truly what got me interested in computers, and ultimately into the industry. However after 5 years of University and 8 years of "working" in IT I have to say I am a bit let down.:)
Anyway I remember making batch files to simplify the process for some games. Some would require a special boot sequance to get it to run. I also remember the fun times messing about with all the stupid memory stuff like XMS and EMS and video modes like CGA, VGA, EGA, etc... Screwing with memmanager and having it screw everything up.
Makes me want to emulate it and download some old games just for the hell of it.
Though I agree with the grandparent. Pointless bitching about Vista being slower than XP for games. Things move forward. They get more complicated. Bigger. Slower. Takes more to run them. If you are just figuring this out, then you better turn in your geek card, or at least fill out your application card for your idealistic gamer card. It will all work out in the end, and perhaps even all the whiners about XP will put additional pressure on MS to try and keep up the pace of development of games and the OS and not let it lag behind. You will reach a point in every system (as has been shown in every system ever made to date), that while the old OS may be faster, smaller, and run your game better, a time will come where that game will not run on new systems because it does not comply due to new features etc...
Some still do. Some work sorta. I remember I loaded one up and it ran nativity, only about at 1200% speed. Was kinda funny. Have to emulate a slower speed to really use it. Heck I got Masters of Orion II to work on Vista, seems pretty fast to me.
Besides the only people that will complain are those that buy the 600$ dual video cards and see a 9% dip from 320FPS to 291FPS! Oh Noes! If you have a bottom feeder card, you should upgrade simple as that (or not upgrade to vista).
I will blame MS for their complicity with the big box manufactures in lying to the public about what is "Vista Ready". That had nothing to do with the OS. That had to do with Greedy companies taking advantage of customers which is certainly nothing new. If you do the actual research and are not an idiot, you will have no issue.
Sorry boss, it's Global Anti-Piracy Day. That's a GLOBAL holiday I believe... I will see you Wednesday, maybe. It may be another "day".
It reminds me when I was in high school one of the class clowns actually made up signs and advertised that a particular day was "Skip School Day". Many of us decided that was good enough for us. I believe he got suspended for that one.
Too bad there isn't some regulatory body that might do the same to MS... and the rest, for constantly pretty much just making stuff up and lying out their ass.
I agree with you in part. However I don't think it was education that kept people from voting for MMP. They did quite a campaign for months ahead of time and there was plenty of material available and it was all over the news for some time. I think most at least had a basic idea of what it was. I know I personally voted for it, as I believe it makes much more sense than our current system which was devised, what 100 years ago? Things have changed, I see no reason not to try and update this.
In any case I believe the reason why people didn't vote for MMP was for 3 reasons:
1) As you mentioned historically, most Canadians have voted for one of two parties, Liberal, and Conservative. Neither of these parties would gain much from MMP. In fact both would likely LOSE seats to the other "fringe" parties. So if you vote for either of those parties, you may decide to vote to kill MMP, even though you know it may be fairer, because you see a perceived disadvantage towards your favorite party.
2) As mentioned earlier, our system was devised some time ago. Part of this included how many actual seats each province gets. Those numbers have not changed much. Most of the seats exist in Ontario and Quebec. MMP would level the playing field. Many people vote according what they feel is best for their little slice of Canada (See Bloc!). Anyway many would see their vote count for LESS due to the reorganization of the seats. Thus they would vote no for MMP, simply to prevent their vote for counting for less (and as mentioned that would be Ontario and Quebec who have the most seats anyway). If you think about it, it is a REALLY stupid situation. We are having a vote, we would like you to vote on reducing the power by those with the current most voting power. Now go! Hmmmm interesting the vote failed...
3) Fear of change. Nothing too ground shaking here. Our system has been ploding along for a long time. People do not know wtf will happen if we suddenly change it, and are resistant to that change as a result of being afraid of what might happen. Compound that with 1 and 2, and I don't see how this would EVER get passed.
I would like to see MMP someday, but I see it as a pretty hard sell for awhile. I hate to say it, but until the old people die off, I doubt it will happen. ETA about 20 years. Even then you are asking people to give up power, which unless they are idealists and want a fairer form of governance it will be very hard to get this to reality.
While at first glance it seems evil and bad, the devil is really in the details.
What comes to mind is the adage "who watches the watchers". So if the public has some input and control over what exactly is censored and it isn't totally dependent upon whatever political party is in power at the time then it might not be so bad.
Most of our regular media, TV, Radio, Paper, etc... are all regulated and censored to a degree. Each government has a slightly different way of doing it, but they all do.
So as long as they don't go overboard with it, it might not be too bad, hell it might even help protect you from some of the baddies out there.
Having said all that, I am glad mine is not censored! (or so I think anyway!)
EA just said "gamers" and while I also think that 99.8% number is a bs out of thin air statistic, you have to consider what other gamers are out there.
Like Xbox 360. Wii. PS3. Every other console that EA makes games for.
These sort of have DRM as you can't exactly stick a Wii game in an Xbox and work it etc... So the MILLIONS of games sold to all those consoles (and likely older ones) are undoubtable being used for their DRM numbers.
Remember using statistics I can make data prove pretty much anything I want if I omit enough "unneeded" information.
Well EA is probably even considering board "gamers" on every licensed offering they have, or perhaps real "gamers" that play a sport that may use some piece of EA DRM merchandise.:)
1) Win 3 - MS Envyed Apple's GUI 2) Win 95 - Greedy MS wanted more market share! 3) Win 98 - Created due to users Wrath 4) Win ME - MS was pretty Slothful when thet made ME 5) Win XP - Consumers Lusted after NT stability 6) Vista - Gluttony, enough said. 7) Win 7 - MS hopes to get back some Pride
Although not quite the same thing, I have often wondered what our current culture is doing to us through natural selection. Now I know it takes many generations to make a difference. However one has to think that those with certain genetic problems may not have had a chance to propagate as they would likely die.
For instance, do you think 500 years ago as many people has bad eyes, or asthma or, other conditions or mental problems? It kind of makes me think what we well all be like in a 1000 years from now, 5000 years.
Also as an extension of that principle it isn't the number of years that matter, but rather the number of generations. So in the distance past when life expectancy was like 40 and people normally had kids when they were like 14 generations were short. Now with people living till 80 and having kids in their 30's, the generations are longer... would this mean that by default we would be less effected by the Darwin's principle? Again expand that out a couple hundred years from now, and things start to get interesting. We start to stagnate, change slower over time, but that change is generally negative. So unless selective breeding and/or we gain the technology and the will to genetically alter our offspring, we are headed down a downward spiral abet a slow one. (Tho I suppose we could become cyborgs of a sort replacing defective parts, however this would seem a negative sum system, however who knows what technology will bring)
Basically a SciFi comedy where two losers are frozen and 500 years pass. They come out to discover that everyone has become very stupid due to smart people having few babies and dumb people having many babies. They are now the smartest people on the earth!
While it is a silly movie, I did get some laughs out of it.
I love how everyone talks in a combination of Urban Slang/Hillbilly/Redneck
TV shows are named "Ow my balls", the best movie was a picture of an Ass, the President of the United states is a Wrestler/Porn Star, and Justice is done with Monster Trucks...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I had two bottles of wine make me do a double take in the store.
One I think was called "Little Penguin" a wine from Australia, and another from South Africa called "Ubuntu"...
My ethical sub-routines say its OK to kill you...
We will need to clone them to take care of the cloned Mammoth infestation. Once that is dealt with, we can just let climate change take care of the rest. Perfect!
Well if it is good enough for the CRTC then its good enough for me! :)
In all seriousness though, thanks for the post, as title and blurb were very misleading and everyone seemed to buy that and just go with it.
It will be interesting to see what happens in July.
Thought I imagine a funny response from the decision as in "we are dismissing the allegations as it was discovered you treat your own customers just as horribly. You are fair in that you treat everyone equally horribly." lol.
I really hope the CRTC renders a fair decision (one way or the other). Personally Bell really irks me.
Someone previous mentioned that the CRTC was made up of industry and lobbies, and thus would always rule with the telcos. I hope this isn't the case. The fact is those people are the most knowledgeable in the field, so it makes sense to have them make these decisions, it is a balance. I only hope they are not being influenced by their past connections or bias.
If CRTC does decide against Bell I hope they will take it one step further and make the same decision against Rogers Communication (Cable Monopoly). I think we need some real telecommunication reform in Canada, and this might be a first (small) step. We should be world leaders and innovators in telecommunication, but due to how we are organized I feel we are stagnant and restrictive (protectionist due to duopoly).
Pffft. After the fall of man, the only thing left will be cockroaches, and Cobol programmers...
[Strangelove's plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio]
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
The moose, or the Canadians?
I have never heard of these regulations. I doubt very much they are enforced at all. The fact that the got fined is only due to a complaint. If A) the public was aware, or B) the Premier was aware of those regulations, it would be dead in a week. This is actually very stupid move by the bus company if they are really worried about competition. I mean really, the province just started installing car pool only lanes on the 401, are they going to now say they are not committed to this sort of activity. Silly.
If I were PickupPal I would not pay the fine and write two letters, one to our Premier, and one sent to the various mainstream media outlets also indicating a letter was sent to the Premier.
This will kill the fine, kill the regs, and likely promote PickupPal, and car pooling in general. That's a quadruple win I think.
I think what I mean is that this is too bleeding edge.
I also use quattro cards every day in my work station, and have for many years now. I do GIS work. Bottom line is IT departments are not going to invest or support product that new. I am talking a lot of systems large scale.
If you are an independent, with a few workstations, you can ad hoc it all you like. That however is an ultra-unique niche group. Not one to which nVidia or anyone else is going to market to. They would not be able to sell enough, be it 3500$ or 10000$ to make it financially viable.
If you look at the Quattro line up, it is pretty old and mature technology (relatively speaking).
Though I had a bit of a chuckle about guys getting paid too much. An example of this came up our last computer upgrade. I recommended a card upgrade, and the bean counters recommended a card downgrade. I then tried to explain to the managers that the reduced cost of the cards is peanuts compared to what it will cost in salary time and work projects. However I am sure they get a bonus for saving a few bucks short term, and they probably figure they will be on to the next executive job before the long term results are in. So yeah I am now running a worse card now than I was 2 years ago. Lame.
All this amounts to is a proof of concept for technology. To quote Simon from Mad TV "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO"!
To those that think that this has any application what so ever let me say a few things.
#1) Can you just think of what the driver for this think might be? Ludicrous.
#2) It would likely require specialized programing even to function, none of which would be supported anywhere, and all of which would likely have to be custom.
#3) For those think this has scientific applications guess again. You should get together with the "but can you make a beowulf cluster of these" group and slam foreheads together. It would likely be more efficient and cheep just to network together a whole pile of lesser cards and systems to achieve the same results.
#4) As an addendum to the last, and against those thing this has applications in the movie or film industry for doing animation and effects, again for years it has used server farms. Again it would be probably cheaper and more efficient to use cheaper, more mature technology.
They may be able to leverage this technology to create more reasonable cards into the future, which is probably what they are trying to prove likely to gain capitol or to reassure stock holders in trying times. This is not a product, this is a PR stunt.
As someone that does this all the time I thought I would weigh in.
First I would not stretch before working out, that is what the warm up is for. Second before I play any intensive sports (such as hockey) I would stretch, as typically there is not a lot of warm up time. This isn't to increase strength performance. The reason is muscles may be tight and to limber up for flexibility and to prevent muscle cramping.
So while performance strength may be reduced (which this article hardly proves, until several medical journals agree, I will doubt it), you may be more nimble and you are not going anywhere if you get calf or leg cramp on the ice. I know stretching helps prevent cramping and that is mostly why I do it, secondary is to prevent a groin pull by trying to do too much cold while your muscles are still tight. It is a balancing act really. Sometimes you don't need to, if you have played several times already, you might be good to go, however play too much and you might be too tight and strained to go without. Diet and lifestyle make a difference as well. Not enough hydration, or too much booze (which acts as a diuretic, it dries you out basically), can also induce muscle cramping.
Typically if you get a cramp in a game it is too late to do anything about it. You can try and stretch it out but it will take some time to normalize. Sometimes I can feel a calf cramp come on near the end of a game, and I know I am done, or have to take it real easy for the rest of the game. So you really want to prevent that from happening in the first place.
Dur.
Thank your local pirates.
Isn't that when Sarah Palin will run for President? Perhaps she needs a running mate?
All humor aside I am surprise this seems to be the only post I saw that even mentions Pakistan.
From a Canadian perspective:
Iraq is Bad. We can't believe you fell for all that shit in the first place.
Afghanistan is and always was the problem, and while the USA has the most troops there, it is but a tiny fraction of what is in Iraq.
Canada has the 2nd most troops, and the most casualties per capita due to the fact we are in the south region where all the fighting is (as are a portion of the US troops). None of the other UN countries wants to put their troops (and the bad press casualties get) in harms way.
The problem is while both Canada and the US have minor forces there (admittedly major from a Canadian Perspective), it is my understanding that we regularly kick ass as it were. The problem is that the folks we are fighting don't really care about national boarders, or governments, and just scurry across the Pakistani boarder to regroup, refuel, reequip, and rebuild their forces, and the skip across again to resume hostilities.
While technically part of Pakistan, the region is really in name only. From what I have heard little governance is done there, and the grip is tenuous as best. It is a tribal area. Pakistan has tried fighting against the forces in this region, but has been unsuccessful. In an attempt to shield themselves they have been entering into "deals" with the forces there (El Aqida, Taliban, etc...) that basically say, "We won't attack you if you don't attack us" or "We will pay you half a million bucks to put down your arms", etc... This has not worked out for them (they just took the money presumably spent it on arms, and started fighting later on... I mean duh.) and none of their agreements have had anything in them about crossing the boarder or engaging allied troops. I have heard the rational for this is A) they are not sure who will win in Afganistan, and B) they fear India gaining advantage by entering the power vacuum left by the Taliban etc...
So in conclusion. The US should A) redistribute troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, B) since Pakistan is unwilling or unable to govern effectively within its own boarders, which effect allied troops in a war time scenario I think it would be acceptable to "invade" Pakistan. However by "invade" what we really mean is cross the border to engage the enemy hiding there, not actually trying to overthrow the elected government of Pakistan. The fact they they really for all intents and purposes don't really control the region to begin with should make the term "invasion" pretty meaningless. If Pakistan gets their back up and has a problem with troops "invading" their sovereign nation, the way I see it would mean the government at that point are harboring, supporting, and collaborating the enemy, which means you could classify them as "Terrorist State" as much as any other.
Anyway I think Canadians have as much or more frustration in this matter as the US, as we have to sit here and wonder what the heck you are doing in Iraq all the years, while from the beginning the problem has been elsewhere.
Ah the good old days!
Each game was an adventure just to get it to run, and the payoff was games! Truly what got me interested in computers, and ultimately into the industry. However after 5 years of University and 8 years of "working" in IT I have to say I am a bit let down. :)
Anyway I remember making batch files to simplify the process for some games. Some would require a special boot sequance to get it to run. I also remember the fun times messing about with all the stupid memory stuff like XMS and EMS and video modes like CGA, VGA, EGA, etc... Screwing with memmanager and having it screw everything up.
Makes me want to emulate it and download some old games just for the hell of it.
Though I agree with the grandparent. Pointless bitching about Vista being slower than XP for games. Things move forward. They get more complicated. Bigger. Slower. Takes more to run them. If you are just figuring this out, then you better turn in your geek card, or at least fill out your application card for your idealistic gamer card. It will all work out in the end, and perhaps even all the whiners about XP will put additional pressure on MS to try and keep up the pace of development of games and the OS and not let it lag behind. You will reach a point in every system (as has been shown in every system ever made to date), that while the old OS may be faster, smaller, and run your game better, a time will come where that game will not run on new systems because it does not comply due to new features etc...
Some still do. Some work sorta. I remember I loaded one up and it ran nativity, only about at 1200% speed. Was kinda funny. Have to emulate a slower speed to really use it. Heck I got Masters of Orion II to work on Vista, seems pretty fast to me.
Besides the only people that will complain are those that buy the 600$ dual video cards and see a 9% dip from 320FPS to 291FPS! Oh Noes! If you have a bottom feeder card, you should upgrade simple as that (or not upgrade to vista).
I will blame MS for their complicity with the big box manufactures in lying to the public about what is "Vista Ready". That had nothing to do with the OS. That had to do with Greedy companies taking advantage of customers which is certainly nothing new. If you do the actual research and are not an idiot, you will have no issue.
anyway rant /end
I announce stuff like this all the time.
Sorry boss, it's Global Anti-Piracy Day. That's a GLOBAL holiday I believe... I will see you Wednesday, maybe. It may be another "day".
It reminds me when I was in high school one of the class clowns actually made up signs and advertised that a particular day was "Skip School Day". Many of us decided that was good enough for us. I believe he got suspended for that one.
Too bad there isn't some regulatory body that might do the same to MS... and the rest, for constantly pretty much just making stuff up and lying out their ass.
I agree with you in part. However I don't think it was education that kept people from voting for MMP. They did quite a campaign for months ahead of time and there was plenty of material available and it was all over the news for some time. I think most at least had a basic idea of what it was. I know I personally voted for it, as I believe it makes much more sense than our current system which was devised, what 100 years ago? Things have changed, I see no reason not to try and update this.
In any case I believe the reason why people didn't vote for MMP was for 3 reasons:
1) As you mentioned historically, most Canadians have voted for one of two parties, Liberal, and Conservative. Neither of these parties would gain much from MMP. In fact both would likely LOSE seats to the other "fringe" parties. So if you vote for either of those parties, you may decide to vote to kill MMP, even though you know it may be fairer, because you see a perceived disadvantage towards your favorite party.
2) As mentioned earlier, our system was devised some time ago. Part of this included how many actual seats each province gets. Those numbers have not changed much. Most of the seats exist in Ontario and Quebec. MMP would level the playing field. Many people vote according what they feel is best for their little slice of Canada (See Bloc!). Anyway many would see their vote count for LESS due to the reorganization of the seats. Thus they would vote no for MMP, simply to prevent their vote for counting for less (and as mentioned that would be Ontario and Quebec who have the most seats anyway). If you think about it, it is a REALLY stupid situation. We are having a vote, we would like you to vote on reducing the power by those with the current most voting power. Now go! Hmmmm interesting the vote failed...
3) Fear of change. Nothing too ground shaking here. Our system has been ploding along for a long time. People do not know wtf will happen if we suddenly change it, and are resistant to that change as a result of being afraid of what might happen. Compound that with 1 and 2, and I don't see how this would EVER get passed.
I would like to see MMP someday, but I see it as a pretty hard sell for awhile. I hate to say it, but until the old people die off, I doubt it will happen. ETA about 20 years. Even then you are asking people to give up power, which unless they are idealists and want a fairer form of governance it will be very hard to get this to reality.
OMG, I just got where InnoTech came from!
Here is my geek card. You may tear it up at your leisure.
While at first glance it seems evil and bad, the devil is really in the details.
What comes to mind is the adage "who watches the watchers". So if the public has some input and control over what exactly is censored and it isn't totally dependent upon whatever political party is in power at the time then it might not be so bad.
Most of our regular media, TV, Radio, Paper, etc... are all regulated and censored to a degree. Each government has a slightly different way of doing it, but they all do.
So as long as they don't go overboard with it, it might not be too bad, hell it might even help protect you from some of the baddies out there.
Having said all that, I am glad mine is not censored! (or so I think anyway!)
You folks are all thinking "Computer Gamers".
EA just said "gamers" and while I also think that 99.8% number is a bs out of thin air statistic, you have to consider what other gamers are out there.
Like Xbox 360. Wii. PS3. Every other console that EA makes games for.
These sort of have DRM as you can't exactly stick a Wii game in an Xbox and work it etc... So the MILLIONS of games sold to all those consoles (and likely older ones) are undoubtable being used for their DRM numbers.
Remember using statistics I can make data prove pretty much anything I want if I omit enough "unneeded" information.
Well EA is probably even considering board "gamers" on every licensed offering they have, or perhaps real "gamers" that play a sport that may use some piece of EA DRM merchandise. :)
1) Win 3 - MS Envyed Apple's GUI
2) Win 95 - Greedy MS wanted more market share!
3) Win 98 - Created due to users Wrath
4) Win ME - MS was pretty Slothful when thet made ME
5) Win XP - Consumers Lusted after NT stability
6) Vista - Gluttony, enough said.
7) Win 7 - MS hopes to get back some Pride
Seacrest Out!
Although not quite the same thing, I have often wondered what our current culture is doing to us through natural selection. Now I know it takes many generations to make a difference. However one has to think that those with certain genetic problems may not have had a chance to propagate as they would likely die.
For instance, do you think 500 years ago as many people has bad eyes, or asthma or, other conditions or mental problems? It kind of makes me think what we well all be like in a 1000 years from now, 5000 years.
Also as an extension of that principle it isn't the number of years that matter, but rather the number of generations. So in the distance past when life expectancy was like 40 and people normally had kids when they were like 14 generations were short. Now with people living till 80 and having kids in their 30's, the generations are longer... would this mean that by default we would be less effected by the Darwin's principle? Again expand that out a couple hundred years from now, and things start to get interesting. We start to stagnate, change slower over time, but that change is generally negative. So unless selective breeding and/or we gain the technology and the will to genetically alter our offspring, we are headed down a downward spiral abet a slow one. (Tho I suppose we could become cyborgs of a sort replacing defective parts, however this would seem a negative sum system, however who knows what technology will bring)
Not to even mention:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ :)
I actually just watched that movie last night!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
Basically a SciFi comedy where two losers are frozen and 500 years pass. They come out to discover that everyone has become very stupid due to smart people having few babies and dumb people having many babies. They are now the smartest people on the earth!
While it is a silly movie, I did get some laughs out of it.
I love how everyone talks in a combination of Urban Slang/Hillbilly/Redneck
TV shows are named "Ow my balls", the best movie was a picture of an Ass, the President of the United states is a Wrestler/Porn Star, and Justice is done with Monster Trucks...
Whoosh!
Clouds are made from water vapor!