Or they just don't care. Since the software is provided by Indiana it would make sense that they say "Here you go, this is for residents of Indiana". Maybe they're just smart enough to realize that actually requiring Indiana residency is ridiculous. And who cares anyway. Like it's a bad thing for the state that more people see the SimIndiana logo.
As a poster is another thread mentioned, there is only 2cc of methanol in each "charge". So, you go buy a liter of the stuff once a year & suddenly you've got 500 charges.
And it wouldn't even have to take any time to charge. Just push the cell down into some specially designed recepticle & "Psshhht", you're all filled up.
Now, if I can just get it to run off of by staff of bad tequila.....
You're both right. There are natural gas deposits in many areas that don't have any oil. However, there is also quite a bit of methane as a "byproduct" of oil production. Have you ever seen those flames shooting off of the offshore oil rigs? They're not burning oil, that's methane.
When drilling for oil, methane tends to collect in the same areas as the oil. Usually there is a "space" at the top of the oil resevoir, especially after you start drilling, that is filled with the stuff. They don't have the capability to capture & store the stuff because there's just too much of it. But it's also dangerous to just let it leak out around everything. The solution, controlled burn!
I've often thought it would be nice to capture all of that wasted energy. Not necessarily in the form of natural gas, but perhaps as electricity. I wonder if we could just place some gas turbines on the rigs & then run some wires to the shore (depending on where they are obviously). You've gotta think this is a more cost effective solution for the oil company than just burning the stuff off & losing that possible revenue.
I would agree. Although my job requires coding it isn't part of the actual job, it's just in support of the work I do (engineering). I definitely notice that on those days that I spend coding 8 hours straight I feel like I'm getting a lot done. However, at the end of the day I usual wish I would have spent more time documenting & thinking about things rather than just coding away like a madman. Fortunately for me, I'm not graded on good code, just getting my engineering work done.
I do, however, have a friend that works for a very high-end audio company. He works with Japanese car manufacturers on integrating his companies audio products with their on-board systems. He told me that they spend about 20% of their time coding & the rest doing documentation, thinking, validation, etc. He said that, although he hates all the other crap, it would be impossible to output decent work without doing it.
Well, this has been my first foray into FireFox, and I was pretty happy with the default theme. It sure as hell looks better than IE. Of course, I immediately found a theme I liked even better (don't remember the name though) and used that instead.
First reaction to FireFox: "Holy Shit! This rocks!" Then follow with 15 minutes of trying to get my wife to understand why this is better. Man, I need more geek friends around.
So, let me get this straight: The US is currently the far superior "conventional" military presense in the world. There is no-one that can seriously win a traditional type of war against the US (or at least, it would be stupid to try). To top that, in 10 to 15 years the US's strongest allies will also be able to kick butt. So how is that a bad thing?
Let's imagine for a moment that the U.S. didn't exist. So now we have many more countries on a more equal playing field militarily. We have China, Russia, Korea, etc. that could very easily be imagined to invade other places. And without the U.S., no one could utterly overpower them. We have the Arab nations willing to destroy each other with no real deterrent.
I'm pretty happy that the U.S. can't be challenged militarily. At least we've removed that threat. A full scale WW3 would kill many more people than "insurgents" or "terrorists". (Barring WMD) Now the world needs to develop effective means to combat the latter.
I know we all get all over the U.S. because they exert their power over the rest of the world. But honestly, I think the world is probably a better place because of that immense power. Let's just hope the U.S. stays a "good" nation.
So what in the hell would someone want to take a "receipt" of their vote home for. Sentimental value? You mention returning your receipt to make sure that your vote was counted correctly. Okay, then what? You feel all warm and fuzzy inside or you're all pissed off. Either way, it doesn't do any good for the actual election.
A system such as this would seem to indicate that all voters would need to return their receipts in the event that a recount is needed. Yeah, right, that's gonna happen. Let's see, 20% original voter turnout, followed by 20% recount voter turnout = 4% final turnout. That would suck.
If the above situation isn't the intent, then take-home receipts are not needed anyway.
Here's the deal: The government should do as much as possible (within reason) to guarantee that your vote will be accurately received, accurately counted (originally & in recounts), and completely private.
Personally, I think that an electronic voting system would make voting easier. However, a physical copy of that vote should be kept post-election because it's the (current) best way to ensure that nothing happens to your vote. What I mean by that is that electronic copies of anything are lost more easily (power surge, hard-drive damage, hackers) than a paper copy. In fact, the threats to paper copy (fire, theft, flood) are also there for electronic copy.
Anyway, personally I would like to vote electronically, get a printout of some sort that clearly indicates my vote, and then submit that printout into a ballot box for counting. Of course, I would actually like to just vote online & have it be nice & secure, but that ain't gonna happen.
Does anyone remember that the US chose capitalism? It wasn't forced on us, we chose it. And you know what, we've done pretty darn well with it so far. You know, being the worlds only superpower & all.
So here's an idea, stop complaining about capitalism working like it is supposed to, and start working your tail off to make something of yourself like the previous 2 centuries of Americans have done.
If I tell a dirty joke or hit on somebody at work & they decide that it offends them, then I had better knock it off or I'll get sued/fired. I can only imagine what would happen if I showed a coworker some "interesting" part of my anatomy.
But what many people seem to be saying here is that similar behavior is "free speech" in this situation. A situation in which many people are offended instead of just one or two. What?!? So it's bad to do something to one person, but okay to do it to many. I don't see the logic.
Some say that you are making the choice to watch the SuperBowl & therefore can't be offended by anything that happens while you're watching it. Okay, so if I choose to go to the park & some guy stands in front of me butt-naked wouldn't the same be true? But in that situation, we say he is at fault. Why? They are both public "places", they both have an assumed level of decency.
So I can sue somebody for making my child read passages out of the Koran but I can't fine someone for making my child look at a woman's breast (etc.). I don't get it.
I have always wondered what the cost savings/losses would be for an expendable system such as this. My thought would be to use an array of balloons such as this to lift not only the desired payload, but also a smaller rocket up as high as possible. Then just fire off the rocket & get the hell out of the way.
Given the high launch costs of todays rockets, would it be cost effective to save the weight/fuel/etc. needed to get to, say, 100,000 ft? Maybe burning up the blimps wouldn't be a bad idea. Could hydrogen (instead of helium) be quickly sucked out of the baloons to add to the fuel as well? It would be interesting to do a study of this.
Yeah, you're right. I guess part of my point was that missle & bomb technology has improved over the years so that the "surrounding area" isn't as big as it used to be. Plus, we no longer need to drop 50 bombs to hit the target, just one.
In todays urban & terrorist warfare we definitely need to continue to improve our precision strike weapons. It used to be a fact of war that civilians would be killed. As long as that was not the specific purpose of the bombing, that damage was somewhat accepted. Now, as precision strike weapons become better & better, we expect more.
Let's look forward to the day when warfare & military operations are no longer needed, just individual police action to handle small situations.
I don't think "indiscriminant" is the right word to describe our bombing strategy. The U.S. and her allies have been improving their precise strike capabilities for years. Gulf-war 1 was a marked improvment (remember missles flying down ventilation shafts) & Gulf-war 2 was even more so. We've come a long way from the carpet-bombing tactics used in WWII, Vietnam, etc. (not that the tactic still isn't appropriate in certain situations.)
To say that we are "indiscriminantly" destroying things in the surrounding area is a bit overboard. We are attempting to hit valuable targets with the minimum of possible civilian casualties. There are a lot of soldiers under increased threat right now because of the value we place on civilian life.
If there is a God (or if Jesus is truly savior), then it really doesn't matter if you believe it or not, it's still true.
Although there are a bunch of different ideas about relgion & the presense/lack-of a God, there is still only one truth. Of course, none of us know what the truth is.
Anyway, if the grandparent believes that Jesus is his own lord & savior, then his opinion is that he is also your lord & savior. Therefore, he can use "our" to express his opinion.:)
I guess I don't understand the logic path that gets you from "God created man to love him" to "God doesn't love you unless you love him". I had always been under the impression that God does, at least in the Christian theology, love all his creation. That doesn't mean that we have to love Him back though, and it doesn't mean that we have to receive that love. That's where free will comes in.
Well, the choice you're talking about is essentially the idea of free will. So I think you're first question boils down to: Why did God give us free will if he just wants us to be happy?
There are a million answers & counterarguments for this, but here's my take. God created man for a specific purpose: to love him & to receive his love. Not worship, but love (a whole other topic). Well, true love doesn't come from being forced into it, it comes from choosing it. And if you are free to choose to love God, then you are also free to choose not to. To me, it's an essential point: If you are not given the free will to love God, then that love is really worthless.
Along these same lines, this means that God doesn't necessarily want us to be "happy" all the time. He wants us to love Him & to receive His love as well. Because of free will, this choice may take some time to develop (or never will) within each person. That's why each person must go on their own journey through life, experiencing good & bad things until they finally come to their own conclusions.
Receiving Gods love also takes free will, a similar argument applies.
So, I realize there are a bunch of grey areas (dying children, etc.) that come up here, but that's just my take on things. The best author I've ever read on this subject is C.S. Lewis. "Mere Christianity" & "The (something) of Joy " address this topic, but his other books are great as well. He is by far one of the most intelligent writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Much better at addressing this topic than any of use could ever be. He's an atheist turned Christian.
Here's how I think about it (not necessarily correct or agreeing with church doctrine, but good for me): God is all knowing & all seeing, etc., etc. However, we are not. So, tests, tragedy, joy, etc. are more for our benefit than God.
All of life's experiences help to shape who we are (soul & body). And without those experiences we would not grow and would be the same as we were when we were born. (Here comes doctrine!!!) Before original sin this would be a good thing, because we were okay & didn't need to change. However, after that we need something to help our souls overcome our "fallen" nature. Life's experiences, good & bad, help this to happen.
People just call it a "test" for the bad things. The good things would also be tests though under this philosophy.
Didn't you know that it's okay to express your opinion as long as that opinion doesn't offend me? You've got to remember, lots of democrats here. So you're aloud to be free (as long as you use your freedom as I see fit, after all, I know best).
Whenever we hear of people seeing the Virgin Mary or Angles, etc., we usually hear them describe it as a religous experience. I, at least, have never heard aniyone describe an alient encounter as religious. At least, not in the traditional Christian/Jewish/Muslim sense.
So why the difference? Why are alien encounters usually not described as a religious experience? It's not as if religious people aren't among those being abducted (imagined or not).
So you "know" for a "fact" that many Christians believe that to be the case?
Well, if by "many" you mean most, then you're full of it. However, if by "many", you mean some, & from a particular group of people, then I might believe you.
I think that there are multiple ratios of products that can happen when gasoline is combusted. Combustion can happen at different pressures, temperatures, fuel-to-air ratios, etc. in different engines. These all have an effect on the product gases left after combustion. And these also have an effect on power output & efficiency. However, it's not necessarily a one-to-one.
Add into all this the fact that different catalyic converters do better at different temperatures, pressures, etc. & you see that for a given mpg it is possible to have different pollutant levels.
I've had both experiences. I had a '92 Saturn SL1 with a manual tranny that got 36-38 mpg, mixed highway/city. I also just got rid of a '97 Saturn SC2 with an automatic that only got 28-29 mpg, mixed driving.
My experiences with automatic transmissions have been pretty bad. That's why I just bought another manual, a 2004 Toyota Matrix. I've been getting 32 mpg with it, which is more than the highway rating even though I've been using it in town & hauling lots of stuff. And I drive like a bat out of hell.
Maybe automatics are especially bad for particular driving styles. Then again, while my '92 Saturn ran great, my '97 was a standard issue P.O.S.
Overall, though, my family has had great mileage from manual transmission SL1-series Saturns.
Well, basically, it stops right here. As a society, we are placing social pressure on people who drive SUVs. We're hoping the social pressure will cause more people to buy cars (or more economical SUVs) instead of the gas guzzlers.
Social pressure is great for those gray areas that law can't much apply to. Examples: Abortion (legal but frowned upon), drinking (legal but somewhat stigmatized), gambling (okay in moderation), being a lazy asshole. These are all legal things, but they are also considered by society to be, at least somewhat, bad. Therefore, the proper application of social pressure ensures that things don't get out of hand.
Enter SUVs. If everyone in the world drove one, it would definitely be overkill. Some need it, some don't & just prefer it. Well, society regulates that by saying "People who don't need SUVs shouldn't buy them." And the happy balance ensues....
That's why I love the PVRs. I get to have TV the way I want it, at any time & without commercials. Meanwhile, all the clueless people out there continue to fund the programs with their advertisement watching.
If the cable company starts offering everything on-demand, then the 80% of viewers currently subsidizing my enjoyment will be gone. Dang!
Seriously though, I'd much rather pay ($1.00) per show with no commercials than put up with the current system.
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Or they just don't care. Since the software is provided by Indiana it would make sense that they say "Here you go, this is for residents of Indiana". Maybe they're just smart enough to realize that actually requiring Indiana residency is ridiculous. And who cares anyway. Like it's a bad thing for the state that more people see the SimIndiana logo.
As a poster is another thread mentioned, there is only 2cc of methanol in each "charge". So, you go buy a liter of the stuff once a year & suddenly you've got 500 charges.
And it wouldn't even have to take any time to charge. Just push the cell down into some specially designed recepticle & "Psshhht", you're all filled up.
Now, if I can just get it to run off of by staff of bad tequila.....
You're both right. There are natural gas deposits in many areas that don't have any oil. However, there is also quite a bit of methane as a "byproduct" of oil production. Have you ever seen those flames shooting off of the offshore oil rigs? They're not burning oil, that's methane.
When drilling for oil, methane tends to collect in the same areas as the oil. Usually there is a "space" at the top of the oil resevoir, especially after you start drilling, that is filled with the stuff. They don't have the capability to capture & store the stuff because there's just too much of it. But it's also dangerous to just let it leak out around everything. The solution, controlled burn!
I've often thought it would be nice to capture all of that wasted energy. Not necessarily in the form of natural gas, but perhaps as electricity. I wonder if we could just place some gas turbines on the rigs & then run some wires to the shore (depending on where they are obviously). You've gotta think this is a more cost effective solution for the oil company than just burning the stuff off & losing that possible revenue.
Or perhaps producing Hydrogen.....
I would agree. Although my job requires coding it isn't part of the actual job, it's just in support of the work I do (engineering). I definitely notice that on those days that I spend coding 8 hours straight I feel like I'm getting a lot done. However, at the end of the day I usual wish I would have spent more time documenting & thinking about things rather than just coding away like a madman. Fortunately for me, I'm not graded on good code, just getting my engineering work done.
I do, however, have a friend that works for a very high-end audio company. He works with Japanese car manufacturers on integrating his companies audio products with their on-board systems. He told me that they spend about 20% of their time coding & the rest doing documentation, thinking, validation, etc. He said that, although he hates all the other crap, it would be impossible to output decent work without doing it.
Or at least an interesting way to electrocute yourself!
Actually, 50% of people are dumber than the "median" person. ;)
Well, this has been my first foray into FireFox, and I was pretty happy with the default theme. It sure as hell looks better than IE. Of course, I immediately found a theme I liked even better (don't remember the name though) and used that instead.
First reaction to FireFox: "Holy Shit! This rocks!" Then follow with 15 minutes of trying to get my wife to understand why this is better. Man, I need more geek friends around.
So, let me get this straight: The US is currently the far superior "conventional" military presense in the world. There is no-one that can seriously win a traditional type of war against the US (or at least, it would be stupid to try). To top that, in 10 to 15 years the US's strongest allies will also be able to kick butt. So how is that a bad thing?
Let's imagine for a moment that the U.S. didn't exist. So now we have many more countries on a more equal playing field militarily. We have China, Russia, Korea, etc. that could very easily be imagined to invade other places. And without the U.S., no one could utterly overpower them. We have the Arab nations willing to destroy each other with no real deterrent.
I'm pretty happy that the U.S. can't be challenged militarily. At least we've removed that threat. A full scale WW3 would kill many more people than "insurgents" or "terrorists". (Barring WMD) Now the world needs to develop effective means to combat the latter.
I know we all get all over the U.S. because they exert their power over the rest of the world. But honestly, I think the world is probably a better place because of that immense power. Let's just hope the U.S. stays a "good" nation.
So what in the hell would someone want to take a "receipt" of their vote home for. Sentimental value? You mention returning your receipt to make sure that your vote was counted correctly. Okay, then what? You feel all warm and fuzzy inside or you're all pissed off. Either way, it doesn't do any good for the actual election.
A system such as this would seem to indicate that all voters would need to return their receipts in the event that a recount is needed. Yeah, right, that's gonna happen. Let's see, 20% original voter turnout, followed by 20% recount voter turnout = 4% final turnout. That would suck.
If the above situation isn't the intent, then take-home receipts are not needed anyway.
Here's the deal: The government should do as much as possible (within reason) to guarantee that your vote will be accurately received, accurately counted (originally & in recounts), and completely private.
Personally, I think that an electronic voting system would make voting easier. However, a physical copy of that vote should be kept post-election because it's the (current) best way to ensure that nothing happens to your vote. What I mean by that is that electronic copies of anything are lost more easily (power surge, hard-drive damage, hackers) than a paper copy. In fact, the threats to paper copy (fire, theft, flood) are also there for electronic copy.
Anyway, personally I would like to vote electronically, get a printout of some sort that clearly indicates my vote, and then submit that printout into a ballot box for counting. Of course, I would actually like to just vote online & have it be nice & secure, but that ain't gonna happen.
Does anyone remember that the US chose capitalism? It wasn't forced on us, we chose it. And you know what, we've done pretty darn well with it so far. You know, being the worlds only superpower & all.
So here's an idea, stop complaining about capitalism working like it is supposed to, and start working your tail off to make something of yourself like the previous 2 centuries of Americans have done.
Here's what I don't get:
If I tell a dirty joke or hit on somebody at work & they decide that it offends them, then I had better knock it off or I'll get sued/fired. I can only imagine what would happen if I showed a coworker some "interesting" part of my anatomy.
But what many people seem to be saying here is that similar behavior is "free speech" in this situation. A situation in which many people are offended instead of just one or two. What?!? So it's bad to do something to one person, but okay to do it to many. I don't see the logic.
Some say that you are making the choice to watch the SuperBowl & therefore can't be offended by anything that happens while you're watching it. Okay, so if I choose to go to the park & some guy stands in front of me butt-naked wouldn't the same be true? But in that situation, we say he is at fault. Why? They are both public "places", they both have an assumed level of decency.
So I can sue somebody for making my child read passages out of the Koran but I can't fine someone for making my child look at a woman's breast (etc.). I don't get it.
I have always wondered what the cost savings/losses would be for an expendable system such as this. My thought would be to use an array of balloons such as this to lift not only the desired payload, but also a smaller rocket up as high as possible. Then just fire off the rocket & get the hell out of the way.
Given the high launch costs of todays rockets, would it be cost effective to save the weight/fuel/etc. needed to get to, say, 100,000 ft? Maybe burning up the blimps wouldn't be a bad idea. Could hydrogen (instead of helium) be quickly sucked out of the baloons to add to the fuel as well? It would be interesting to do a study of this.
Yeah, you're right. I guess part of my point was that missle & bomb technology has improved over the years so that the "surrounding area" isn't as big as it used to be. Plus, we no longer need to drop 50 bombs to hit the target, just one.
In todays urban & terrorist warfare we definitely need to continue to improve our precision strike weapons. It used to be a fact of war that civilians would be killed. As long as that was not the specific purpose of the bombing, that damage was somewhat accepted. Now, as precision strike weapons become better & better, we expect more.
Let's look forward to the day when warfare & military operations are no longer needed, just individual police action to handle small situations.
I don't think "indiscriminant" is the right word to describe our bombing strategy. The U.S. and her allies have been improving their precise strike capabilities for years. Gulf-war 1 was a marked improvment (remember missles flying down ventilation shafts) & Gulf-war 2 was even more so. We've come a long way from the carpet-bombing tactics used in WWII, Vietnam, etc. (not that the tactic still isn't appropriate in certain situations.)
To say that we are "indiscriminantly" destroying things in the surrounding area is a bit overboard. We are attempting to hit valuable targets with the minimum of possible civilian casualties. There are a lot of soldiers under increased threat right now because of the value we place on civilian life.
If there is a God (or if Jesus is truly savior), then it really doesn't matter if you believe it or not, it's still true.
:)
Although there are a bunch of different ideas about relgion & the presense/lack-of a God, there is still only one truth. Of course, none of us know what the truth is.
Anyway, if the grandparent believes that Jesus is his own lord & savior, then his opinion is that he is also your lord & savior. Therefore, he can use "our" to express his opinion.
I guess I don't understand the logic path that gets you from "God created man to love him" to "God doesn't love you unless you love him". I had always been under the impression that God does, at least in the Christian theology, love all his creation. That doesn't mean that we have to love Him back though, and it doesn't mean that we have to receive that love. That's where free will comes in.
Well, the choice you're talking about is essentially the idea of free will. So I think you're first question boils down to: Why did God give us free will if he just wants us to be happy?
There are a million answers & counterarguments for this, but here's my take. God created man for a specific purpose: to love him & to receive his love. Not worship, but love (a whole other topic). Well, true love doesn't come from being forced into it, it comes from choosing it. And if you are free to choose to love God, then you are also free to choose not to. To me, it's an essential point: If you are not given the free will to love God, then that love is really worthless.
Along these same lines, this means that God doesn't necessarily want us to be "happy" all the time. He wants us to love Him & to receive His love as well. Because of free will, this choice may take some time to develop (or never will) within each person. That's why each person must go on their own journey through life, experiencing good & bad things until they finally come to their own conclusions.
Receiving Gods love also takes free will, a similar argument applies.
So, I realize there are a bunch of grey areas (dying children, etc.) that come up here, but that's just my take on things. The best author I've ever read on this subject is C.S. Lewis. "Mere Christianity" & "The (something) of Joy " address this topic, but his other books are great as well. He is by far one of the most intelligent writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Much better at addressing this topic than any of use could ever be. He's an atheist turned Christian.
Here's how I think about it (not necessarily correct or agreeing with church doctrine, but good for me): God is all knowing & all seeing, etc., etc. However, we are not. So, tests, tragedy, joy, etc. are more for our benefit than God.
All of life's experiences help to shape who we are (soul & body). And without those experiences we would not grow and would be the same as we were when we were born. (Here comes doctrine!!!) Before original sin this would be a good thing, because we were okay & didn't need to change. However, after that we need something to help our souls overcome our "fallen" nature. Life's experiences, good & bad, help this to happen.
People just call it a "test" for the bad things. The good things would also be tests though under this philosophy.
Just my $0.02.
Didn't you know that it's okay to express your opinion as long as that opinion doesn't offend me? You've got to remember, lots of democrats here. So you're aloud to be free (as long as you use your freedom as I see fit, after all, I know best).
Good post, sorry I've got no Mod points.
But I wonder....
Whenever we hear of people seeing the Virgin Mary or Angles, etc., we usually hear them describe it as a religous experience. I, at least, have never heard aniyone describe an alient encounter as religious. At least, not in the traditional Christian/Jewish/Muslim sense.
So why the difference? Why are alien encounters usually not described as a religious experience? It's not as if religious people aren't among those being abducted (imagined or not).
So you "know" for a "fact" that many Christians believe that to be the case?
Well, if by "many" you mean most, then you're full of it. However, if by "many", you mean some, & from a particular group of people, then I might believe you.
I think that there are multiple ratios of products that can happen when gasoline is combusted. Combustion can happen at different pressures, temperatures, fuel-to-air ratios, etc. in different engines. These all have an effect on the product gases left after combustion. And these also have an effect on power output & efficiency. However, it's not necessarily a one-to-one.
Add into all this the fact that different catalyic converters do better at different temperatures, pressures, etc. & you see that for a given mpg it is possible to have different pollutant levels.
I've had both experiences. I had a '92 Saturn SL1 with a manual tranny that got 36-38 mpg, mixed highway/city. I also just got rid of a '97 Saturn SC2 with an automatic that only got 28-29 mpg, mixed driving.
My experiences with automatic transmissions have been pretty bad. That's why I just bought another manual, a 2004 Toyota Matrix. I've been getting 32 mpg with it, which is more than the highway rating even though I've been using it in town & hauling lots of stuff. And I drive like a bat out of hell.
Maybe automatics are especially bad for particular driving styles. Then again, while my '92 Saturn ran great, my '97 was a standard issue P.O.S.
Overall, though, my family has had great mileage from manual transmission SL1-series Saturns.
Well, basically, it stops right here. As a society, we are placing social pressure on people who drive SUVs. We're hoping the social pressure will cause more people to buy cars (or more economical SUVs) instead of the gas guzzlers.
Social pressure is great for those gray areas that law can't much apply to. Examples: Abortion (legal but frowned upon), drinking (legal but somewhat stigmatized), gambling (okay in moderation), being a lazy asshole. These are all legal things, but they are also considered by society to be, at least somewhat, bad. Therefore, the proper application of social pressure ensures that things don't get out of hand.
Enter SUVs. If everyone in the world drove one, it would definitely be overkill. Some need it, some don't & just prefer it. Well, society regulates that by saying "People who don't need SUVs shouldn't buy them." And the happy balance ensues....
That's why I love the PVRs. I get to have TV the way I want it, at any time & without commercials. Meanwhile, all the clueless people out there continue to fund the programs with their advertisement watching.
If the cable company starts offering everything on-demand, then the 80% of viewers currently subsidizing my enjoyment will be gone. Dang!
Seriously though, I'd much rather pay ($1.00) per show with no commercials than put up with the current system.
Yeah TiVo!