I have seen a similar trend lately, where comments questioning or blaming our Government are modded troll or flamebait. Dice has been infiltrated so/. is no longer safe? Either that, or shitty people have been getting mod points at which Dice should remove them from the receipt list.
Is what you are holding on your phone made on tax dollars as entertainment for the masses and betterment society? Or is it pornography and self loathing comments about your boss/spouse/parents? It makes a big difference doesn't it? Comparing Tolkein's works to your tax return is not remotely the same thing is it?
Please name any other industry where you feel you have a right to essentially make an ultimatum: "change things to suit my whims or i will steal your product?"
When England taxed game in the 1700s, it caused a revolt and there were countless poachers black marketing meats. How many "Tea" revolts have there been in the world since the 1700s? Go read a damn history book and learn why the mercantile economy ended up failing.
You are making the false assertion that piracy causes damages. Numerous experiments have all shown that piracy does not damage sales, and more often increases sales. Numerous artists have shown that by asking people to volunteer to pay, they have received way more money for art than a studio would pay them. Other artists have been "found" by the public after being shut out by the studios and made money, where they would have made nothing by signing with a label or agent 'in the biz".
That is not to say that studios are "all bad" or SAG members are "all bad", but rather that an established institution for art should not be raping both the public and artists. When an established institution does, it's society's job to correct that behavior.
Tell that to the families of, oh, i dunno, pick an niche industry.. Makers of add ons for microsoft flight simulator. Their industry was basically wiped out by piracy despite a clear huge demand for their high quality products. Why should the police protect say a jewelry shop that was robbed but not them?
Not even a good try at re-writing history. Most small tool vendors for "Windows" have been put out of business by Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, etc... and not by piracy. The anti-trust suits can show how absolutely false your assertion is, though you probably won't let facts get in to the way of your bullshit.
Average users used to pay very well for PK-Zip, Cybersitter, NetNanny, Disk compression tools, Encryption tools, etc... Each of those was put under by massive corporations (disclaimer: Cybersitter is still around, but no longer a dominant company in web content control). Once those were squashed by big corporations and their integrated yet limited versions of the same thing, people no longer spent the money.
Look, nobody here should be a moron. Everyone would agree that real piracy happens, but what is real piracy? You getting a copy of a movie/TV Show from a friend on a recommendation would probably be the most common. At least half of those cases are a result of a movie/TV show not being available by the producers. The same could be said with songs. People don't want to purchase a full CD for 15 bucks when they only like 1 song on the record, and yet they can't just buy 1 song because the artist hates iTunes or want's more money than the one song's value.
Computer software is often pirated because people don't trust games to be good. Office and productivity apps may be needed to open 1 file or perform 1 task, where a user sees no value in spending hundreds of dollars on a full application. It could be to learn what an app is, or if they really want to purchase it when there are no trials available.
In the end, most of the people using things end up purchasing if they really like the product (which includes movies, songs, and software).
It's a very tiny portion of pirating that actually damages people. Those things have been around as well, and are prosecuted. I guess you never heard of Rusty and Eddies BBS? I doubt anyone would complain about places like that being taken down and taken to court. Those places are not the financially strapped single mom's being taken to court by the RIAA/MPAA are they? It's the latter that people take offense too, which causes them to not care about the RIAA/MPAA.
You can either believe your fantasy, or check just a few goddamn facts before spouting off. Of course you posted as AC (big surprise) so don't care about facts. "Just Shillin" right?
Please explain to me, oh person that modded this flamebait, how an opinion which is rather common (especially outside of the US) is flamebait? Perhaps a rational person with mod points will correct the rating? I have no mod points today, or would do so myself.
As a side note, more and more Americans are beginning to see the validity of these opinions.
Agent provocateurs do exist, though people tend to not want to see them. We have public information today which was recently unclassified, showing how the FBI and CIA planted agents in MLK's and KKK's camps not just "watching" them but causing trouble including murder. While the next two examples are not admitted provocations, their nature is clear. 1) The riots in Oakland's OWS camp had arrests of over 100 people, in which over 80% were not even from CA but bussed in by "someone". 2) We have drug users in NYC's OWS movement being given drugs by police officers and being dropped off at the camps. A very recent example is Adam Kokesh's arrest in Philly (search youtube for the video showing the cops trying to plant drugs on him).
If low level agent provocateurs exist, why would anyone in their right mind claim that they don't exist at different/higher levels? Outside of saving themselves from cognitive dissonance, there is no reason.
The UN is absolutely not a government. The UN was established as a way of resolving disputes without wars. The UN is a set of agreements between governments on how to resolve disputes. Soldiers working for the UN are provided by member governments, and act in the voted interest of all of the government members of the UN. Aid from the UN is provided by the member governments and distributed by the voted interests of the member governments.
In concept, the UN is a good thing. In practice however, larger governments are able to abuse the platform as an excuse to do bad things just like they abuse their own powers in their home governments.
Today, we must be very cautious of the UN. Sovereign nations must remain sovereign for the UN to work, yet there is a tremendous amount of rhetoric attempting to convince people that all countries are subjects of the UN. We have seen the UN used as a shield for certain member governments to destroy sovereign governments.
To my last paragraph, you should remember that you only hear what your governments want you to hear in regards to Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc... There is another side of the story (at least one, but often more) that you don't hear. The established media, even in countries like the US, rarely presents reality. Thankfully the Internet allows you to search for information which breaks the illusion, and anyone trying to get out of the cave still can.
now he's just an entertainment "news" story figure
This is not because of a change in Assange, but due to corrupted media. Most people only know OWS as a group of pot-heads that want Government handouts, and not a group of people demanding justice for a few making billions while putting millions in to poverty. Most people don't know that people have been in Gitmo for 13 years with no trial, no charges, and no future (most people probably have no idea that there are over 150 of those on a hunger strike for over 3 months trying to simply learn their fate).
One should not be bothered by Assange, but rather by a corrupt media. We used to be horrified at how the Pravda twisted news in the USSR preventing Russians from seeing the real world. We have the same thing here in the US now, but few want to admit it. We have corrupt police caught on camera trying to plant drugs on a protester Adam Kokesh in Philly. We have corrupt politicians, and while most people know they are corrupt few want to demand action.
Your comment simply shows that the corrupt media is able to brain wash the masses into believing an alternative reality.
I see numerous responses for the Lego kits, but is that really what you want? Serial expansion boards were way better for learning in my opinion. Find out what applies what voltage to where, signal passing and processing, etc.. are all required for robotics. While you are not going to get a crawler going in a day, you set up the groundwork for building one of your own later. My son did great starting at that level, and has gone much further because he understands the low level stuff. Making servos turn is a visual cue that the code is working, whether or not a wheel is attached.
Simulink is a great product for visualizing circuits prior to building on peg boards, and last I checked it was free for students (disclaimer, that was a few years ago).
Anyway, you don't have to think in terms of a full working robot in order to learn and get in to robotics.
I think the immediate concern is that there is no way to define "Serious" offense, and no definition has been provided. In this case, it's a horrible ruling because of the open interpretations that will be used to claim an offense is "Serious".
Would it have been wise to claim "Rape" is a serious crime, and "petty larceny" is not? Absolutely, but that's not what was done.
No it's not based upon being a celebrity. Einstein and Socrates are hardly celebrities "just because" or because of superficial reasons at you are trying to imply. They both helped society in ways we have difficulty defining, they advanced science tremendously, and obviously understood that their work was a personal success.
Your bias of course makes you believe that you must be correct and everyone else in the world is wrong. I believe that this is the definition of delusional.
How did my examples suggest "social success" over personal success? If a person can not work with others, they become limited. Sorry, but the smartest person on the planet still needs interaction to become a success. It could be gathering additional knowledge, it could be publication of data, it could be error checking, or numerous other examples.
The person that is duped into wasting time did not succeed either did they? No, they were duped into wasting time. Someone may have told them that a particular piece of knowledge was important when it was not, and the high IQ person failed to do anything except for travel down a bad path. Your example of TV does not change my point at all.
You didn't disprove any of my arguments, you gave some weak examples to claim I'm incorrect. I believe that why do you suppose that you cannot succeed alone ? In my experience, the best success is achieved alone, since you deserve all the credit has the most to do with your view. That statement shows that you are biased, and wrong.
Can I demonstrate that you are wrong? Absolutely, read a history book. Everyone from Socrates to Hawking has collaborated and communicated ideas. Einstein had some great ideas, but it was through collaboration that he was able to validate and refine his thoughts. Sitting in a box thinking "I'm the smartest person in the world" would have made each of them failures. I have worked with quite a few people that sit in a box thinking that way, and everything they touch turns to shit.
A person with a high IQ that refuses to work with others may never be a success. Perhaps they don't bath, so you would not want them around? Perhaps they make irrational decisions? Perhaps they are easily duped into performing waste of time tasks because they can not predict outcome?
I have met each of the above, and would not call them a success. While the books say that they have a high IQ, they act and behave more like a savant than a genius.
You make it sound like I'm some youngster that never did the same:P Goodie for me, cuz dang I feel old sometimes. I agree, a grand makes a good PC for gaming today. Long ago, my top gaming rig was closer to 4K.
Still, we are doubling what the person said they spent for a gaming rig for a "good" gaming rig. I don't think I was wrong in my post, since I said Motherboard, Memory, CPU and graphics card for a "gaming" rig are 500 bucks alone. Add in the other items (disk, dvd/cd, sound card) and you are easily close to a grand.
Some people do like to pay more, and to me that's their prerogative. I'm sure I could build a hell of a gaming rig for 3-5K, but why would I? Someone else may want to do what we did 1X - 2X years ago however, and build as big as they can for the cool factor. Hell, that's why we did it in reality.
"good-enough" is not the same as Good. Yes, you can build a rig to play games for 600bucks.. but it's not what I would call "good". Good to me is at least 8GB DDR3 clocked at the highest speed your mother board can run, the fastest CPU you can run, and the fastest disk you can run. Once you start buying all of those components for speed the prices go way way up. Compare a 500GB 7.2K RPM drive to a 15K RPM drive for example. Could you game on a 7.2K RPM? Of course, but it's not going to be as fast as a 10 or 15K disk. 15K would be high end, 10K in my opinion would be "good", and the 7.2K would be passable.
We all have slightly different ideas (most likely) of where "good" is, but at 600 bucks can you really say it's "good"? Or would you say "passable to play most games"?
Re: I look forward to hearing about why this will
on
Microsoft Unveils Xbox One
·
· Score: 3, Informative
As stated, go read the punishments. In most cases, Microsoft had to provide their proprietary software for X number of years for free. It was not a cash payment, and never changed the economic landscape for competition (which is the whole point of punishing predatory monopolies). In fact, when MS has to provide "free for X years" products, it further entrenches the monopoly.
They paid Novell peanuts for the damage they did to "Office" products, and the same with other competition they removed by predatory practices (there are exceptions in private law suits, but those are not what I mentioned). The exception for payment damages is the EU, but we are not talking about the EU.
500 bucks won't get you a gaming PC, you should have done some homework before spending. It's cheapest to buy your own rig, but you also need to know how to build it. Motherboard, Memory, CPU and graphics card for a "gaming" rig are 500 bucks alone. Add in the other items (disk, dvd/cd, sound card) and you are easily close to a grand.
If you didn't believe a salesmen, you still used poor logic. The most expensive home office PC is not a gaming PC, the most expensive word processing PC is still not a gaming PC, etc... Gaming has different requirements, like high end graphics and a bus to support the graphics. You simply don't have either in a 500 dollar PC, especially when you consider that the graphics card alone for a "good" gaming PC is around 200 bucks.
While there may be laws on the books in the US protecting citizens from the CIA, NSA, DHS, FBI, etc...(goddamn long list of Govt. agencies) those laws have been ignored for a dozen years. Because people refuse to see it does not make it go away... It just means people can be Ostriches.
Sounds like someone believed a salesman at best buy that told them "really, it's a gaming PC by Gateway". **sigh**
Re: I look forward to hearing about why this will
on
Microsoft Unveils Xbox One
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The courts and politicians were not nearly as corrupt in the 70s as they are today. You can read every case on US-DOJ regarding Microsoft being found guilty of predatory monopolistic practices, and see what their punishments (or lack thereof) were.
This is in addition to numerous states that have found them guilty of predatory monopolistic practices, and receiving no punishment.
Madison Avenue advertising agencies have been at the forefront of selling this to the public. I have yet to see anything so slimy or disgusting that they couldn't find an advertising agency willing to promote it as the most important thing ever to happen to humanity.
While I don't disagree with that statement, I believe it needs to be much more broad. It's not just Madison Avenue advertising, it's everywhere. Watch a movie and you will be subjected to propaganda and subliminal messages. Watch TV shows, the same. Watch TV commercials, it's the same. Read advertising in magazines, it's the same. Listen to a News broadcast on Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC and it's the same.
This is why I stated that it's a coordinated attack. You really really need to observe to find some of it, but if it's in the controlled media or political arena it's bound to have an agenda item tucked inside it somewhere.
First, you are funny. Sneer? Who sneered other than the person I responded to? I never gave an opinion either, perhaps you should return to a 3rd grade reading comprehension class?
Second, as with the person I responded to you have an invalid premise, therefor invalid conclusion. Towers use directional antennas. There is some bleeding, but you would need to measure the amount of bleeding in the range of where a plant might live. Wifi routers use broadcast (non-directional antennas) and are known to impact anything they are near because that is how they are designed to work.
So you could give the 9th graders some credit for doing a fair bit of science, or you could continue to use invalid premises to try and maintain your invalid conclusion (which is my guess).
I believe you miss the point, which is that the Police state started creeping in long ago. For posterity, it had to creep in.
Long ago, a Police state could occur in a swoop because a massive army of police could run down on an unsuspecting public. Advancements in communications have made the level of secrecy required to build up such an army nearly impossible. To think that the people in power didn't realize that fact is sheer idiocy.
This is why it's a progressive amount of force and liberty erosion combined with a massive media campaign, and has been for at least 20 years. The amount of propaganda is increasing with every EO that erodes some civil liberties. In addition, the rhetoric to pit average people against each other has been increasing from media and politicians as well.
It is, a very well coordinated attack. Lots of people have been catching on and voicing alarm calls. Others are clueless as they simply live in the proverbial cave (Plato/Socrates). Still more hear the alarms but fear cognitive dissonance and change so much that they deny what is very plain to see if you care to look.
Slashdot Mirror
I have seen a similar trend lately, where comments questioning or blaming our Government are modded troll or flamebait. Dice has been infiltrated so /. is no longer safe? Either that, or shitty people have been getting mod points at which Dice should remove them from the receipt list.
Is what you are holding on your phone made on tax dollars as entertainment for the masses and betterment society? Or is it pornography and self loathing comments about your boss/spouse/parents? It makes a big difference doesn't it? Comparing Tolkein's works to your tax return is not remotely the same thing is it?
Not very good with rhetoric and logic I take it?
Please name any other industry where you feel you have a right to essentially make an ultimatum: "change things to suit my whims or i will steal your product?"
When England taxed game in the 1700s, it caused a revolt and there were countless poachers black marketing meats. How many "Tea" revolts have there been in the world since the 1700s? Go read a damn history book and learn why the mercantile economy ended up failing.
You are making the false assertion that piracy causes damages. Numerous experiments have all shown that piracy does not damage sales, and more often increases sales. Numerous artists have shown that by asking people to volunteer to pay, they have received way more money for art than a studio would pay them. Other artists have been "found" by the public after being shut out by the studios and made money, where they would have made nothing by signing with a label or agent 'in the biz".
That is not to say that studios are "all bad" or SAG members are "all bad", but rather that an established institution for art should not be raping both the public and artists. When an established institution does, it's society's job to correct that behavior.
"Victimless?"
Tell that to the families of, oh, i dunno, pick an niche industry.. Makers of add ons for microsoft flight simulator. Their industry was basically wiped out by piracy despite a clear huge demand for their high quality products. Why should the police protect say a jewelry shop that was robbed but not them?
Not even a good try at re-writing history. Most small tool vendors for "Windows" have been put out of business by Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, etc... and not by piracy. The anti-trust suits can show how absolutely false your assertion is, though you probably won't let facts get in to the way of your bullshit.
Average users used to pay very well for PK-Zip, Cybersitter, NetNanny, Disk compression tools, Encryption tools, etc... Each of those was put under by massive corporations (disclaimer: Cybersitter is still around, but no longer a dominant company in web content control). Once those were squashed by big corporations and their integrated yet limited versions of the same thing, people no longer spent the money.
Look, nobody here should be a moron. Everyone would agree that real piracy happens, but what is real piracy? You getting a copy of a movie/TV Show from a friend on a recommendation would probably be the most common. At least half of those cases are a result of a movie/TV show not being available by the producers. The same could be said with songs. People don't want to purchase a full CD for 15 bucks when they only like 1 song on the record, and yet they can't just buy 1 song because the artist hates iTunes or want's more money than the one song's value.
Computer software is often pirated because people don't trust games to be good. Office and productivity apps may be needed to open 1 file or perform 1 task, where a user sees no value in spending hundreds of dollars on a full application. It could be to learn what an app is, or if they really want to purchase it when there are no trials available.
In the end, most of the people using things end up purchasing if they really like the product (which includes movies, songs, and software).
It's a very tiny portion of pirating that actually damages people. Those things have been around as well, and are prosecuted. I guess you never heard of Rusty and Eddies BBS? I doubt anyone would complain about places like that being taken down and taken to court. Those places are not the financially strapped single mom's being taken to court by the RIAA/MPAA are they? It's the latter that people take offense too, which causes them to not care about the RIAA/MPAA.
You can either believe your fantasy, or check just a few goddamn facts before spouting off. Of course you posted as AC (big surprise) so don't care about facts. "Just Shillin" right?
Please explain to me, oh person that modded this flamebait, how an opinion which is rather common (especially outside of the US) is flamebait? Perhaps a rational person with mod points will correct the rating? I have no mod points today, or would do so myself.
As a side note, more and more Americans are beginning to see the validity of these opinions.
Agent provocateurs do exist, though people tend to not want to see them. We have public information today which was recently unclassified, showing how the FBI and CIA planted agents in MLK's and KKK's camps not just "watching" them but causing trouble including murder. While the next two examples are not admitted provocations, their nature is clear. 1) The riots in Oakland's OWS camp had arrests of over 100 people, in which over 80% were not even from CA but bussed in by "someone". 2) We have drug users in NYC's OWS movement being given drugs by police officers and being dropped off at the camps. A very recent example is Adam Kokesh's arrest in Philly (search youtube for the video showing the cops trying to plant drugs on him).
If low level agent provocateurs exist, why would anyone in their right mind claim that they don't exist at different/higher levels? Outside of saving themselves from cognitive dissonance, there is no reason.
The UN is absolutely not a government. The UN was established as a way of resolving disputes without wars. The UN is a set of agreements between governments on how to resolve disputes. Soldiers working for the UN are provided by member governments, and act in the voted interest of all of the government members of the UN. Aid from the UN is provided by the member governments and distributed by the voted interests of the member governments.
In concept, the UN is a good thing. In practice however, larger governments are able to abuse the platform as an excuse to do bad things just like they abuse their own powers in their home governments.
Today, we must be very cautious of the UN. Sovereign nations must remain sovereign for the UN to work, yet there is a tremendous amount of rhetoric attempting to convince people that all countries are subjects of the UN. We have seen the UN used as a shield for certain member governments to destroy sovereign governments.
To my last paragraph, you should remember that you only hear what your governments want you to hear in regards to Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc... There is another side of the story (at least one, but often more) that you don't hear. The established media, even in countries like the US, rarely presents reality. Thankfully the Internet allows you to search for information which breaks the illusion, and anyone trying to get out of the cave still can.
now he's just an entertainment "news" story figure
This is not because of a change in Assange, but due to corrupted media. Most people only know OWS as a group of pot-heads that want Government handouts, and not a group of people demanding justice for a few making billions while putting millions in to poverty. Most people don't know that people have been in Gitmo for 13 years with no trial, no charges, and no future (most people probably have no idea that there are over 150 of those on a hunger strike for over 3 months trying to simply learn their fate).
One should not be bothered by Assange, but rather by a corrupt media. We used to be horrified at how the Pravda twisted news in the USSR preventing Russians from seeing the real world. We have the same thing here in the US now, but few want to admit it. We have corrupt police caught on camera trying to plant drugs on a protester Adam Kokesh in Philly. We have corrupt politicians, and while most people know they are corrupt few want to demand action.
Your comment simply shows that the corrupt media is able to brain wash the masses into believing an alternative reality.
I see numerous responses for the Lego kits, but is that really what you want? Serial expansion boards were way better for learning in my opinion. Find out what applies what voltage to where, signal passing and processing, etc.. are all required for robotics. While you are not going to get a crawler going in a day, you set up the groundwork for building one of your own later. My son did great starting at that level, and has gone much further because he understands the low level stuff. Making servos turn is a visual cue that the code is working, whether or not a wheel is attached.
Simulink is a great product for visualizing circuits prior to building on peg boards, and last I checked it was free for students (disclaimer, that was a few years ago).
Anyway, you don't have to think in terms of a full working robot in order to learn and get in to robotics.
I think the immediate concern is that there is no way to define "Serious" offense, and no definition has been provided. In this case, it's a horrible ruling because of the open interpretations that will be used to claim an offense is "Serious".
Would it have been wise to claim "Rape" is a serious crime, and "petty larceny" is not? Absolutely, but that's not what was done.
No it's not based upon being a celebrity. Einstein and Socrates are hardly celebrities "just because" or because of superficial reasons at you are trying to imply. They both helped society in ways we have difficulty defining, they advanced science tremendously, and obviously understood that their work was a personal success.
Your bias of course makes you believe that you must be correct and everyone else in the world is wrong. I believe that this is the definition of delusional.
How did my examples suggest "social success" over personal success? If a person can not work with others, they become limited. Sorry, but the smartest person on the planet still needs interaction to become a success. It could be gathering additional knowledge, it could be publication of data, it could be error checking, or numerous other examples.
The person that is duped into wasting time did not succeed either did they? No, they were duped into wasting time. Someone may have told them that a particular piece of knowledge was important when it was not, and the high IQ person failed to do anything except for travel down a bad path. Your example of TV does not change my point at all.
You didn't disprove any of my arguments, you gave some weak examples to claim I'm incorrect. I believe that why do you suppose that you cannot succeed alone ? In my experience, the best success is achieved alone, since you deserve all the credit has the most to do with your view. That statement shows that you are biased, and wrong.
Can I demonstrate that you are wrong? Absolutely, read a history book. Everyone from Socrates to Hawking has collaborated and communicated ideas. Einstein had some great ideas, but it was through collaboration that he was able to validate and refine his thoughts. Sitting in a box thinking "I'm the smartest person in the world" would have made each of them failures. I have worked with quite a few people that sit in a box thinking that way, and everything they touch turns to shit.
A person with a high IQ that refuses to work with others may never be a success. Perhaps they don't bath, so you would not want them around? Perhaps they make irrational decisions? Perhaps they are easily duped into performing waste of time tasks because they can not predict outcome?
I have met each of the above, and would not call them a success. While the books say that they have a high IQ, they act and behave more like a savant than a genius.
You make it sound like I'm some youngster that never did the same :P Goodie for me, cuz dang I feel old sometimes. I agree, a grand makes a good PC for gaming today. Long ago, my top gaming rig was closer to 4K.
Still, we are doubling what the person said they spent for a gaming rig for a "good" gaming rig. I don't think I was wrong in my post, since I said Motherboard, Memory, CPU and graphics card for a "gaming" rig are 500 bucks alone. Add in the other items (disk, dvd/cd, sound card) and you are easily close to a grand.
Some people do like to pay more, and to me that's their prerogative. I'm sure I could build a hell of a gaming rig for 3-5K, but why would I? Someone else may want to do what we did 1X - 2X years ago however, and build as big as they can for the cool factor. Hell, that's why we did it in reality.
Microsoft exam books? Seriously? Just answer "C" for every question and you pass as long as you paid them the money.
"good-enough" is not the same as Good. Yes, you can build a rig to play games for 600bucks.. but it's not what I would call "good". Good to me is at least 8GB DDR3 clocked at the highest speed your mother board can run, the fastest CPU you can run, and the fastest disk you can run. Once you start buying all of those components for speed the prices go way way up. Compare a 500GB 7.2K RPM drive to a 15K RPM drive for example. Could you game on a 7.2K RPM? Of course, but it's not going to be as fast as a 10 or 15K disk. 15K would be high end, 10K in my opinion would be "good", and the 7.2K would be passable.
We all have slightly different ideas (most likely) of where "good" is, but at 600 bucks can you really say it's "good"? Or would you say "passable to play most games"?
As stated, go read the punishments. In most cases, Microsoft had to provide their proprietary software for X number of years for free. It was not a cash payment, and never changed the economic landscape for competition (which is the whole point of punishing predatory monopolies). In fact, when MS has to provide "free for X years" products, it further entrenches the monopoly.
They paid Novell peanuts for the damage they did to "Office" products, and the same with other competition they removed by predatory practices (there are exceptions in private law suits, but those are not what I mentioned). The exception for payment damages is the EU, but we are not talking about the EU.
500 bucks won't get you a gaming PC, you should have done some homework before spending. It's cheapest to buy your own rig, but you also need to know how to build it. Motherboard, Memory, CPU and graphics card for a "gaming" rig are 500 bucks alone. Add in the other items (disk, dvd/cd, sound card) and you are easily close to a grand.
If you didn't believe a salesmen, you still used poor logic. The most expensive home office PC is not a gaming PC, the most expensive word processing PC is still not a gaming PC, etc... Gaming has different requirements, like high end graphics and a bus to support the graphics. You simply don't have either in a 500 dollar PC, especially when you consider that the graphics card alone for a "good" gaming PC is around 200 bucks.
While there may be laws on the books in the US protecting citizens from the CIA, NSA, DHS, FBI, etc...(goddamn long list of Govt. agencies) those laws have been ignored for a dozen years. Because people refuse to see it does not make it go away... It just means people can be Ostriches.
Sounds like someone believed a salesman at best buy that told them "really, it's a gaming PC by Gateway". **sigh**
The courts and politicians were not nearly as corrupt in the 70s as they are today. You can read every case on US-DOJ regarding Microsoft being found guilty of predatory monopolistic practices, and see what their punishments (or lack thereof) were.
This is in addition to numerous states that have found them guilty of predatory monopolistic practices, and receiving no punishment.
Madison Avenue advertising agencies have been at the forefront of selling this to the public. I have yet to see anything so slimy or disgusting that they couldn't find an advertising agency willing to promote it as the most important thing ever to happen to humanity.
While I don't disagree with that statement, I believe it needs to be much more broad. It's not just Madison Avenue advertising, it's everywhere. Watch a movie and you will be subjected to propaganda and subliminal messages. Watch TV shows, the same. Watch TV commercials, it's the same. Read advertising in magazines, it's the same. Listen to a News broadcast on Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC and it's the same.
This is why I stated that it's a coordinated attack. You really really need to observe to find some of it, but if it's in the controlled media or political arena it's bound to have an agenda item tucked inside it somewhere.
First, you are funny. Sneer? Who sneered other than the person I responded to? I never gave an opinion either, perhaps you should return to a 3rd grade reading comprehension class?
Second, as with the person I responded to you have an invalid premise, therefor invalid conclusion. Towers use directional antennas. There is some bleeding, but you would need to measure the amount of bleeding in the range of where a plant might live. Wifi routers use broadcast (non-directional antennas) and are known to impact anything they are near because that is how they are designed to work.
So you could give the 9th graders some credit for doing a fair bit of science, or you could continue to use invalid premises to try and maintain your invalid conclusion (which is my guess).
I believe you miss the point, which is that the Police state started creeping in long ago. For posterity, it had to creep in.
Long ago, a Police state could occur in a swoop because a massive army of police could run down on an unsuspecting public. Advancements in communications have made the level of secrecy required to build up such an army nearly impossible. To think that the people in power didn't realize that fact is sheer idiocy.
This is why it's a progressive amount of force and liberty erosion combined with a massive media campaign, and has been for at least 20 years. The amount of propaganda is increasing with every EO that erodes some civil liberties. In addition, the rhetoric to pit average people against each other has been increasing from media and politicians as well.
It is, a very well coordinated attack. Lots of people have been catching on and voicing alarm calls. Others are clueless as they simply live in the proverbial cave (Plato/Socrates). Still more hear the alarms but fear cognitive dissonance and change so much that they deny what is very plain to see if you care to look.