The problem with Nielsen's "samples" is that they are totally unverifiable. They could be getting them by transposing the results of the horse races and noone would be any wiser
Well, that's more or less true, but the samples are secret and unverifiable for an important reason -- so that third parties cannot try to skew the results in their favor by influencing the Nielsen familes directly. The hypothetical possibility that the Nielsen Media Research might have a bias is vastly preferable to the bona fide, indisputable biases of the networks.
But that's beside the point... I agree: competition good, monopoly bad. I wasn't trying to defend Nielsen Media Research; I was trying to defend random sampling. It wasn't clear from the grandparent which one he was criticizing.
Immediately after 9-11 a DEA agent and a group of FBI agents thought it would be funny to sodomize me again, and ever since I have been followed around and photographed by people I don't know. They go in my home when I am not there and I have spoken with at least a dozen law enforcement officials about this and no investigation was performed
Maybe some Zyprexa would make the FBI agents leave you alone.
Contract? What contract? Who here signs a contract when you buy a movie ticket?
All that is required for a legal contract is 1) an offer, 2) acceptance, and 3) consideration. Most kinds of contracts do not even have to be in writing, let alone signed, in order to be legally binding.
you have to wonder, with these guys catching interview with Lamo right before his latch, if an ego is REALLY the best thing for any criminal to possess.
Actually, there is research to suggest that an ego is all but REQUIRED. Career criminals, as a group, tend to score very, very, highly on self-confidence tests. And really, this makes perfect sense -- a would-be criminal who lacks self-confidence is more likely to be overcome by fear of getting caught, and give up. The ones who are bold enough to go through with it have a hard time even imagining that they might not be clever enough to get away with it. The possibility of getting caught barely even enters their minds.
"I have read once , but can't find the article any more, were subliminal messages work about the same as someone asking a person to do something they already were easily persuaded to do.
"
That sounds awfully similar to claims that I've heard about hypnosis. Are you sure the article you read was about subliminal messages?
"Anyone in the UK see the program where someone (Derren Brown?) asked a load of advertising people to design a logo and a catchphrase? They made pretty much the exact one that he had put in an envelope before they started.
Derren Brown is a magician. This is a magician's trick. I've seen it done at least a dozen times, by a dozen different people. It has nothing to do with subliminal messages!
"Everything that you experience is in your subconscious somewhere - that's why you can get it back out under hypnosis."
Actually, you can't. It's a popular myth, but it's just not true. Studies have shown that recollection under hypnosis is actually less reliable. Hypnotized subjects, when they can't remember something, have a tendency to make up an answer!
"Can't actors memorize lines by recording them, and then playing back while they sleep?"
No, and you can't learn a language while you sleep, either. In any case, this has nothing to do with subliminal messages (which also don't work, no matter what form they come in).
There is no body of empirical evidence to support subliminal messages. Meta-analyses of peer-reviewed studies show that the effects are either nonexistent, or so small as to be inconsequential.
HTML was never intended to be WYSIWYG. Even the ideal WYSIWYG editor would only show you what the page would look like in one particular browser on one particular machine. Why would you want that?
I understand that it'd be difficult to disprove any prior negative talk about his film
For what it's worth, I initially discovered this by searching Google groups for mel gibson passion controversial, and the earliest relevant article was a transcript of the Bill O'Reilly interview. If there was any controversy before that, no one was talking about it on Usenet.
but I'm still inclined to think there was probably earlier negative attention.
Well then, your job is much easier than mine, since all you need to do is find one example. Even if you're right, and Mel didn't start the fire, he did fan the flames quite early on.
All anyone knew at the time was that he was making a dead-language, violent film about the crucifixion. And if that's enough to stir up controversy, then it's enough for Mel to have anticipated the controversy (and free publicity) before he even started the project. Thus, I take the position that he intended this to be a mass marketed film from the very beginning.
And I'm inclined to believe that he was right, to an extent; even two teenage zealots could constitute a conspiracy, even if not a very big one.
He was much more specific than that. He claimed that one or more reporters had been "sent" to harrass him, i.e. that this was a conspiracy by some arm of the media. (The Jewish-owned arm, presumably.)
I do find it interesting that you dismiss my argument because you think it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but you are willing to accept Mel Gibson's bona fide conspiracy theory!
Funny you should mention conspiracy theories... That's how Mel generated the controversy in the first place. In January of 2003, while the film was still shooting (i.e., no one had seen it yet), Mel Gibson told Bill O'Reilly that there was a conspiracy to "dig up dirt" on him and his family and derail his film.
This is all well-documented, should you care to actually look it up. This was the first whisper in the media of any controversy surrounding the film. It came straight from Mel Gibson and Bill O'Reilly.
It might also be worth mentioning that Gibson's production company had optioned O'Reilly's novel, "Those Who Trespass," less than a year earlier.
1) What if your town way out in the middle of Africa? There are places where Amazon doesn't deliver and to places outside USA, the charges are $13+. This translate into a lot of money in non-dollar terms
Tough. If you want anything delivered from the USA to Africa, it's going to cost you. Why should CDs be any different?
2) And the whole point of my tirade is that I don't want the whole CD. I want the song. And as a consumer, I have a right to choose what I want to buy.
As a business, a record company has a right to choose what they want to sell. If nobody's selling what you want, tough.
It is illegal to bundle a browser with an operating system,
No it isn't.
and it should be illegal to bundle songs together.
No it shouldn't.
The only reason the songs are bundled together is because that's how the record industry wants it, and now all of us are conditioned to accept it.
The record industry is creating the product. They, not you, have the right to decide how to provide it. The fact is, singles just don't sell well. The industry has no obligation to lose money just so that you can get what you want.
And it's not tough luck for me. I will go to Kazaa to get that song, because it's easy, not just because it's free. Easier than hunting down that song offline, and easier on my pocket. If they made it easy for me to get that song in a legal way I would do it.
In other words, until every single song ever recorded is available on iTunes, it's okay for people to seek illegal copies elsewhere. Don't you think you're being a little bit unreasonable?
Person B wants an obscure song from side B of an Album by the Pet Shop Boys made in 1986. If you're in the middle of ButtocksVille, with maybe one record store, your best way of getting to that song is via Kazaa.
Actually, the best way would be something like this. Don't try to tell me that the U.S. Postal Service doesn't deliver to your town.
Maybe you want something really obscure and out of print? Try finding it used on eBay. Can't find it? Tough luck. Keep looking. The fact that you cannot find a legal copy of something does not in any way entitle you to an illegal copy.
In other news, engineers are working on wrapping Orson Welles body in copper wire as a means to harness the energy generated by him spinning in his grave.
They found that it is more efficient to run a generator off of the gases released by his decomposition.
So in the name of freedom, we should suppress freedom?
If the guy wants to buy from spammers, let him.
Who's trying to stop him?
There's a big difference between suppressing THEIR freedom to send spam, and suppressing HIS freedom to respond to it. No one is seriously pursuing the latter.
If he wants spam, he is free to OPT-IN. The rest of us should be left alone.
Reminds me of the time my niece got chicken pox. I called up a mate of mine who has four daughters, and told him of this, and asked him -- in all seriousness -- if he wanted to bring his daughters around to expose them to the disease.
Slashdot Mirror
But that's beside the point... I agree: competition good, monopoly bad. I wasn't trying to defend Nielsen Media Research; I was trying to defend random sampling. It wasn't clear from the grandparent which one he was criticizing.
What exactly is "ridiculous" about random sampling? Or were you trying to say that the Nielsen samples are not sufficiently random?
That sounds awfully similar to claims that I've heard about hypnosis. Are you sure the article you read was about subliminal messages?
Derren Brown is a magician. This is a magician's trick. I've seen it done at least a dozen times, by a dozen different people. It has nothing to do with subliminal messages!
"Everything that you experience is in your subconscious somewhere - that's why you can get it back out under hypnosis."
Actually, you can't. It's a popular myth, but it's just not true. Studies have shown that recollection under hypnosis is actually less reliable. Hypnotized subjects, when they can't remember something, have a tendency to make up an answer!
No, and you can't learn a language while you sleep, either. In any case, this has nothing to do with subliminal messages (which also don't work, no matter what form they come in).
There is no body of empirical evidence to support subliminal messages. Meta-analyses of peer-reviewed studies show that the effects are either nonexistent, or so small as to be inconsequential.
HTML was never intended to be WYSIWYG. Even the ideal WYSIWYG editor would only show you what the page would look like in one particular browser on one particular machine. Why would you want that?
All anyone knew at the time was that he was making a dead-language, violent film about the crucifixion. And if that's enough to stir up controversy, then it's enough for Mel to have anticipated the controversy (and free publicity) before he even started the project. Thus, I take the position that he intended this to be a mass marketed film from the very beginning.
He was much more specific than that. He claimed that one or more reporters had been "sent" to harrass him, i.e. that this was a conspiracy by some arm of the media. (The Jewish-owned arm, presumably.)I do find it interesting that you dismiss my argument because you think it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but you are willing to accept Mel Gibson's bona fide conspiracy theory!
This is all well-documented, should you care to actually look it up. This was the first whisper in the media of any controversy surrounding the film. It came straight from Mel Gibson and Bill O'Reilly.
It might also be worth mentioning that Gibson's production company had optioned O'Reilly's novel, "Those Who Trespass," less than a year earlier.
Please. The controversy was manufactured. Mel has been playing the media like a fiddle.
Oh, so correlation actually does imply causation! What a revolutionary discovery! My alarm clock makes the sun rise!
Maybe you want something really obscure and out of print? Try finding it used on eBay. Can't find it? Tough luck. Keep looking. The fact that you cannot find a legal copy of something does not in any way entitle you to an illegal copy.
It must have been edited, because I can't see any such suggestion.
There's a big difference between suppressing THEIR freedom to send spam, and suppressing HIS freedom to respond to it. No one is seriously pursuing the latter.
If he wants spam, he is free to OPT-IN. The rest of us should be left alone.