It only has ads, and there is only so much revenue that you can make out of it.
Isn't this true about any revenue stream? Advertising revenue has become a staple of our economy over the last 100 or so years. Magazines, broadcast TV, Radio, Newspapers all make their revenue from advertising. Most subscription costs for print media and TV cover production and delivery costs. With any web based service there is very little in the way of actual fixed costs (no printing, no paper) and the ISP costs cover delivery. As more and more people move to using the Internet and web based purchases the advertising market is only going to get more lucrative.
Re:Must be a parallel universe you live in
on
AMD Quad Cores, Oh My
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
The obvious proof that Genesis, if literal, is incomplete is the sentencing of Cain.
Yeah, that was rolling around in the back of my head, just didn't bother to research it for the post.
If we all derived from a single family only four thousand years ago (or so), it would be very easy to prove with modern genetics.
Perhaps, but my thoughts about the Bible stories being not true are always filtered through the idea that God was involved. If there's an all powerful being influencing events on earth he could easily have made sure the genes were diverse enough to create all mankind. All of the miracles in the Bible are just that, miracles. If divine intervention is involved it's difficult to prove or disprove through science. If not, they aren't true anyway.
...doesn't really impact my life in any way. There are far more important issues in the world to get worked up over.
EXACTLY. That's my whole issue with the creation/evolution debate. Why not just teach neither in public schools. Not like the average american kid needs to know about Evolutionary theory to get by in society. Make it a none issue, minimize the teaching in school and move on. Teach about things that actually matter, like how to balance your checkbook, mortgage a house, get a job, etc...
The majority of US citizens are ok with paying like 500 billion dollars for an illegal, unnecessary, and harmful war in Iraq, but get worked up about money spent for elections that decide who gets to decide whether such a war shall be fought?
Keep in mind that in this last election there was no choice as to whether the war should be fought or not. Both presidential candidates campaigned that they would continue the war. I am totally against the liberal flakey democratic party here in the US, but I probably would have voted for Kerry if he had run on an anti-war platform. We don't know how many people support the war. OTOH, even if we are for the war does that mean we should waste more money on elections?
paper voting as is customary in Europe is a low-tech thing where people from my local community are completely responsible for the accuracy in my locality.
There are a couple differences here. I'm not sure what type of votes you are referring to, or what country you are from, but every European country besides Russia is significantly smaller than the US. AFAIK, it doesn't seem like even the EU votes on everything at the same time. A national election for most European countries would be like a state election here. Also, Americans are ridiculous about wanting their election results immediately. I'm sure part of the motiviation for the electronic voting is to get the TV stations results as quickly as possible.
One thing to keep in mind, traditionally in the US election fraud hasn't been a problem so much in small communities. It's big cities like Chicago and New York that have problems. The individual precincts can have pressure put on them to commit voter fraud. It's not just one individual stuffing the ballot box, it's a whole organization allowing multiple votes, dead people voting, etc... The problem is these big cities can sway whole states and impact federal elections. Seems much more intelligent to me to have a single point of origin where the machines come from than to have millions of individual precincts to worry about. I agree, we should work on vendor accountability and review, but to say we should go back to paper ballots because they are 'more secure' is just ludicrous.
On last note, thought about this while I was typing. I know in our local community we are limited to the things we vote on due to cost (at least that is the City Council's complaint). A couple years ago a new Wal-mart was coming in and a petition was put out to vote on it. I don't remember the exact amount the vote cost, but I remember it was significant. If electronic voting can be secure and reliable it would significantly cut down on the cost of elections for individual communities. Personally I think there should be a way to perform Internet voting and we should vote directly on many more things than we do.
Many people bring this issue up, but the answer seems quite simple. Adam and Eve surely had more children than just Cain and Abel, and some of those children were likely female as well (Genesis 5:4 states that Adam had other children).
That's a quite reasonable explaination, although Genesis says Adam had other children after Cain was married (Genesis 5:4 is after Genesis 4:16). My point is that Genesis is not an all inclusive history of Adam and the origin of man. It does not say Cain married his sister, only that he was married. Where did she come from? Any ideas are pure speculation and not supported directly by the Bible. Same thing with the 6,000 year earth idea. The information in Genesis 1 is minimal at best. I don't know of anywhere that the Bible says the earth was created on a particular date.
Believing in Creation vs Evolution is one thing. The fact that God created man is very plainly stated in Genesis, and is a recurring theme throught the Bible. Saying the Earth can only be 6,000 years old based on the timeline from Adam to Jesus is a little harder to justify.
Er...maybe you've never read the Bible but if you take a look at it you'll see it's jam packed solid full of supernatural phenomena. I don't think I need to specifically point these out.
'Difficult to Believe' is not the same as 'Discredited'. The Bible does not pass of this phenomena as normal, it states these events are caused by forces outside the natural world (God, Angels, Demons, etc...). Just because the History Channel makes up alternative explinations for these events does not mean that they didn't happen... just that you don't believe that they happened.
Many Christian apologists now maintain those chapters as historically accurate, and literal truth.
That doesn't even explain it though. At best you can claim 'civilization' is 6000 years old. Even if you take the Bible literally (which I do) there is a good part of Genesis that doesn't give a timeframe. Adam and Eve were in the Garden, but for how long. Genesis 4:16 - " And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived". If Adam and Eve were the only two people, where the heck did Cain get a Wife??? Obviously, even if it's taken literally, it can't be taken as complete. Who knows, maybe Adam and Eve hung out in the Garden for a million years before the fall.
Actually pretty funny that he picked the one closest to Microsoft. Lots of people think Ford invented the car, just like they think Microsoft invented Windows.
Part of the issue is privacy. If you can take the paper trail and use it to say "you" voted for candidate X, then you have violated privacy for that person.
That could be part of it, but the obvious reason is that it's just more efficient. You don't have to use paper, ship paper to all polling places, store this paper until it's all over and then destroy it (safely). It's stupid. One of the major ideas of the electronic voting is that it eliminates all of that paper and reduces the cost of both materials and manpower.
If all of the voting machines had a paper trail everyone would complain about what a wasteful government system it was with all of that unneeded paper. Let's face it, elections have been tampered MUCH longer than there have been electronic machines to tally votes. If someone in a particular precinct has ability to tamper with the software what makes you think they wouldn't have the ability to tamper with a ballot box, or the paper trail.
Get a fucking grip - go to Africa and see people who dying of curable diseases because they can't afford appropriate nourishment or medicines. Then you can talk about the poor being hurt.
Yeah, but do they have a TV? Maybe they should move.
I hope you are not saying that the Simpsons is a deep show.
Are you kidding? The Simpsons is probably one of the 'deepest' shows that has ever been on TV. The humor is all over the spectrum from Juvenille to sophisticated. It's rare that I watch an episode that I don't catch a new joke or see something in the background that I've never seen before.
I can respect that you don't like the Simpsons, and Seinfeld was a great show too, but don't call the Simpsons shallow or weak.
In other words, by this formula, Friends had no chance of ever catching on with TV audiences! What the hell was NBC thinking when they put that show in the slot once occupied by The Cosby Show and Cheers!?!?!?
The problem is they didn't factor sexual innuendo or sexual tension into the formula ANYWHERE (which seems odd for Brits). The primary factor that made Friends so good was the constant sexuality/romance. Joey's promiscuity, Phoebe's weird boyfriends, Chandler and Monica sneaking around forever and of course Ross and Rachel. The season would have died 3 years earlier if they hadn't bled that whole 'will Rachel and Ross end up together' thing totally dry as long as possible.
Almost every friends episode revolves around a sexual theme of some sort, either dating or just tension between the boys and the girls. Shows like Coupling have the same thing going on. I think their formula might work, they just need to modify it for sexiness.
Aside from the issue that this is over a software patent (something railed against so often, but since this is against Microsoft it must be OK)
Actually it's more than OK, it's GREAT - but not for the reasons you think.
The patent system is completely screwed up. The only way it will ever get changed is if we see some negative effects on big industry as well as small. The way the US government currently works it will do anything to protect big business and the precious economy. If stupid patents start restricting big business rather than helping it Washington will sit up and take notice. On top of that, companies like Microsoft have the money and connections to make a lot of noise about stupid patents.
I hate the decision on an idelogical level, but appreciate it on a political one.
Google's innovation was to extend the archive back to 1982
Aside from all of the other posts that question if this was 'innovation', I still can't get too excited about it. How often is a post from 1982 relevant today. When I search Google Groups I filter out anything older than 2 or 3 years. I appreciate the old archives from a historical perspective, but from a practical standpoint I really don't care.
If I'm reading the GP right, then it wouldn't necessarily go out of print--it's just become public domain.
Exactly. The publishing houses could publish it without permission, and without paying any royalties to the Darwin estate at all. Under this system, as long as there is market demand any work could still be published. Potentially more work would be published due to a higher profit margin for the publisher.
Actually, I'd like to do it like this: You are taxed on your copyright based on 1% of your peak annual revenues for a work...
Eeesh. You want to create a whole new industry for the accountants. Who the heck is going to keep track of the peak annual revenues for each particular work and report it to the government. Nice idea, but the bureaucracy required is going to make it a ridiculous endeavor, especially since many artists are notoriously (stereotyping here) bad with money and such things.
I'm afraid your plan for this sort of thing is going to create a whole new class of criminal, the one hit wonder indie rock band. Seems much simpler if it was just a tax that went up over time. First 3 years were free, after that it scales up at say, $1000/year.
I find it very difficult to believe that a cop would pull you over for doing 10 km/h over the limit.
Maybe cops are different up north, but here in the states it totally depends on the officer's mood. Sometimes you can get away with going 5 over or 10 over and sometimes you can't. It's perfectly legal (at least here) to pull someone over for a minimal infraction. If the cop is having a bad day and wants to make your live miserable, he sure can.
Slashdot Mirror
It only has ads, and there is only so much revenue that you can make out of it.
Isn't this true about any revenue stream? Advertising revenue has become a staple of our economy over the last 100 or so years. Magazines, broadcast TV, Radio, Newspapers all make their revenue from advertising. Most subscription costs for print media and TV cover production and delivery costs. With any web based service there is very little in the way of actual fixed costs (no printing, no paper) and the ISP costs cover delivery. As more and more people move to using the Internet and web based purchases the advertising market is only going to get more lucrative.
Perhaps a nice job scheduler would be nice.
Try Linux.
The obvious proof that Genesis, if literal, is incomplete is the sentencing of Cain.
...doesn't really impact my life in any way. There are far more important issues in the world to get worked up over.
Yeah, that was rolling around in the back of my head, just didn't bother to research it for the post.
If we all derived from a single family only four thousand years ago (or so), it would be very easy to prove with modern genetics.
Perhaps, but my thoughts about the Bible stories being not true are always filtered through the idea that God was involved. If there's an all powerful being influencing events on earth he could easily have made sure the genes were diverse enough to create all mankind. All of the miracles in the Bible are just that, miracles. If divine intervention is involved it's difficult to prove or disprove through science. If not, they aren't true anyway.
EXACTLY. That's my whole issue with the creation/evolution debate. Why not just teach neither in public schools. Not like the average american kid needs to know about Evolutionary theory to get by in society. Make it a none issue, minimize the teaching in school and move on. Teach about things that actually matter, like how to balance your checkbook, mortgage a house, get a job, etc...
The majority of US citizens are ok with paying like 500 billion dollars for an illegal, unnecessary, and harmful war in Iraq, but get worked up about money spent for elections that decide who gets to decide whether such a war shall be fought?
Keep in mind that in this last election there was no choice as to whether the war should be fought or not. Both presidential candidates campaigned that they would continue the war. I am totally against the liberal flakey democratic party here in the US, but I probably would have voted for Kerry if he had run on an anti-war platform. We don't know how many people support the war. OTOH, even if we are for the war does that mean we should waste more money on elections?
paper voting as is customary in Europe is a low-tech thing where people from my local community are completely responsible for the accuracy in my locality.
There are a couple differences here. I'm not sure what type of votes you are referring to, or what country you are from, but every European country besides Russia is significantly smaller than the US. AFAIK, it doesn't seem like even the EU votes on everything at the same time. A national election for most European countries would be like a state election here. Also, Americans are ridiculous about wanting their election results immediately. I'm sure part of the motiviation for the electronic voting is to get the TV stations results as quickly as possible.
One thing to keep in mind, traditionally in the US election fraud hasn't been a problem so much in small communities. It's big cities like Chicago and New York that have problems. The individual precincts can have pressure put on them to commit voter fraud. It's not just one individual stuffing the ballot box, it's a whole organization allowing multiple votes, dead people voting, etc... The problem is these big cities can sway whole states and impact federal elections. Seems much more intelligent to me to have a single point of origin where the machines come from than to have millions of individual precincts to worry about. I agree, we should work on vendor accountability and review, but to say we should go back to paper ballots because they are 'more secure' is just ludicrous.
On last note, thought about this while I was typing. I know in our local community we are limited to the things we vote on due to cost (at least that is the City Council's complaint). A couple years ago a new Wal-mart was coming in and a petition was put out to vote on it. I don't remember the exact amount the vote cost, but I remember it was significant. If electronic voting can be secure and reliable it would significantly cut down on the cost of elections for individual communities. Personally I think there should be a way to perform Internet voting and we should vote directly on many more things than we do.
Many people bring this issue up, but the answer seems quite simple. Adam and Eve surely had more children than just Cain and Abel, and some of those children were likely female as well (Genesis 5:4 states that Adam had other children).
That's a quite reasonable explaination, although Genesis says Adam had other children after Cain was married (Genesis 5:4 is after Genesis 4:16). My point is that Genesis is not an all inclusive history of Adam and the origin of man. It does not say Cain married his sister, only that he was married. Where did she come from? Any ideas are pure speculation and not supported directly by the Bible. Same thing with the 6,000 year earth idea. The information in Genesis 1 is minimal at best. I don't know of anywhere that the Bible says the earth was created on a particular date.
Believing in Creation vs Evolution is one thing. The fact that God created man is very plainly stated in Genesis, and is a recurring theme throught the Bible. Saying the Earth can only be 6,000 years old based on the timeline from Adam to Jesus is a little harder to justify.
Er...maybe you've never read the Bible but if you take a look at it you'll see it's jam packed solid full of supernatural phenomena. I don't think I need to specifically point these out.
'Difficult to Believe' is not the same as 'Discredited'. The Bible does not pass of this phenomena as normal, it states these events are caused by forces outside the natural world (God, Angels, Demons, etc...). Just because the History Channel makes up alternative explinations for these events does not mean that they didn't happen... just that you don't believe that they happened.
Many Christian apologists now maintain those chapters as historically accurate, and literal truth.
That doesn't even explain it though. At best you can claim 'civilization' is 6000 years old. Even if you take the Bible literally (which I do) there is a good part of Genesis that doesn't give a timeframe. Adam and Eve were in the Garden, but for how long. Genesis 4:16 - " And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived". If Adam and Eve were the only two people, where the heck did Cain get a Wife??? Obviously, even if it's taken literally, it can't be taken as complete. Who knows, maybe Adam and Eve hung out in the Garden for a million years before the fall.
Actually pretty funny that he picked the one closest to Microsoft. Lots of people think Ford invented the car, just like they think Microsoft invented Windows.
Part of the issue is privacy. If you can take the paper trail and use it to say "you" voted for candidate X, then you have violated privacy for that person.
That could be part of it, but the obvious reason is that it's just more efficient. You don't have to use paper, ship paper to all polling places, store this paper until it's all over and then destroy it (safely). It's stupid. One of the major ideas of the electronic voting is that it eliminates all of that paper and reduces the cost of both materials and manpower.
If all of the voting machines had a paper trail everyone would complain about what a wasteful government system it was with all of that unneeded paper. Let's face it, elections have been tampered MUCH longer than there have been electronic machines to tally votes. If someone in a particular precinct has ability to tamper with the software what makes you think they wouldn't have the ability to tamper with a ballot box, or the paper trail.
Those are certainly NOT ugly fat chicks.
Actually, the one on the left is ugly. I thought it was a guy until I read your post. I had to go back and look.
Well yeah. All we do is sit around and look at nudy pictures all the time. What do you expect?
"Microsoft is being realistic. They can't force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can't afford it."
They also can't force poor people like me to solely use legal software, since I can't afford it...
GW Bush: proof that you can fool all the people all of the time.
Technically, only proof that you can fool over 50% of the people all of the time.
import and export quotas, trade tarifs, and so on.
Damn! Does this mean I won't be able to get my Clove Cigarettes anymore?
Get a fucking grip - go to Africa and see people who dying of curable diseases because they can't afford appropriate nourishment or medicines. Then you can talk about the poor being hurt.
Yeah, but do they have a TV? Maybe they should move.
I hope you are not saying that the Simpsons is a deep show.
Are you kidding? The Simpsons is probably one of the 'deepest' shows that has ever been on TV. The humor is all over the spectrum from Juvenille to sophisticated. It's rare that I watch an episode that I don't catch a new joke or see something in the background that I've never seen before.
I can respect that you don't like the Simpsons, and Seinfeld was a great show too, but don't call the Simpsons shallow or weak.
> don't molest the students
Is it molesting if it's voluntary?
In other words, by this formula, Friends had no chance of ever catching on with TV audiences! What the hell was NBC thinking when they put that show in the slot once occupied by The Cosby Show and Cheers!?!?!?
The problem is they didn't factor sexual innuendo or sexual tension into the formula ANYWHERE (which seems odd for Brits). The primary factor that made Friends so good was the constant sexuality/romance. Joey's promiscuity, Phoebe's weird boyfriends, Chandler and Monica sneaking around forever and of course Ross and Rachel. The season would have died 3 years earlier if they hadn't bled that whole 'will Rachel and Ross end up together' thing totally dry as long as possible.
Almost every friends episode revolves around a sexual theme of some sort, either dating or just tension between the boys and the girls. Shows like Coupling have the same thing going on. I think their formula might work, they just need to modify it for sexiness.
Shania Twain
Avril Lavigne
(Too women who, BTW, I would also love to 'protect')
Aside from the issue that this is over a software patent (something railed against so often, but since this is against Microsoft it must be OK)
Actually it's more than OK, it's GREAT - but not for the reasons you think.
The patent system is completely screwed up. The only way it will ever get changed is if we see some negative effects on big industry as well as small. The way the US government currently works it will do anything to protect big business and the precious economy. If stupid patents start restricting big business rather than helping it Washington will sit up and take notice. On top of that, companies like Microsoft have the money and connections to make a lot of noise about stupid patents.
I hate the decision on an idelogical level, but appreciate it on a political one.
Google's innovation was to extend the archive back to 1982
Aside from all of the other posts that question if this was 'innovation', I still can't get too excited about it. How often is a post from 1982 relevant today. When I search Google Groups I filter out anything older than 2 or 3 years. I appreciate the old archives from a historical perspective, but from a practical standpoint I really don't care.
If I'm reading the GP right, then it wouldn't necessarily go out of print--it's just become public domain.
Exactly. The publishing houses could publish it without permission, and without paying any royalties to the Darwin estate at all. Under this system, as long as there is market demand any work could still be published. Potentially more work would be published due to a higher profit margin for the publisher.
Actually, I'd like to do it like this: You are taxed on your copyright based on 1% of your peak annual revenues for a work...
Eeesh. You want to create a whole new industry for the accountants. Who the heck is going to keep track of the peak annual revenues for each particular work and report it to the government. Nice idea, but the bureaucracy required is going to make it a ridiculous endeavor, especially since many artists are notoriously (stereotyping here) bad with money and such things.
I'm afraid your plan for this sort of thing is going to create a whole new class of criminal, the one hit wonder indie rock band. Seems much simpler if it was just a tax that went up over time. First 3 years were free, after that it scales up at say, $1000/year.
so-called "Dual/Split" personalities
Do you mean MPS (Multiple Personality Syndrome)?
I find it very difficult to believe that a cop would pull you over for doing 10 km/h over the limit.
Maybe cops are different up north, but here in the states it totally depends on the officer's mood. Sometimes you can get away with going 5 over or 10 over and sometimes you can't. It's perfectly legal (at least here) to pull someone over for a minimal infraction. If the cop is having a bad day and wants to make your live miserable, he sure can.