Sorry but I have no pity for the MPAA or RIAA (I'm guessing that your comment was sarcasm so you don't either.). Actually I'm glad this guy did what he did and put them in to that position.
From the Article: "The MPAA sends reel to reel movies and projectors to the troops." Which does how much good when you are on 30-60 sweeps with only your squad to chat with? Compared to the DVD these guys picked up from the Chaplain that they can later watch on the computers in the HumV or Abrams.
I have a lot of respect for the amount of celebrities that go entertain the troops, honestly I do. They risk their lives to go (even though the risk is not very high) and make sure out troops have some sense of normalcy. The MPAAs first concern is not for the troops fighting to keep them to be able to remain free, but for "OMG the troops may violate our rules."
The continuing cry from the MPAA really is nonsense, especially with the alleged hypothetical loss of revenue. If this guy did not do what he did, these troops would not have gone and purchased DVDs. There is no ability to do so in the remote locations these people are sent to. And on a Soldiers pay you are not going to purchase much any way.
I heard the story before, and believe it to be pure BS. Some guy claims to have made his own primordial soup by sloshing around chemicals. There was no Science I could find to back his claim. It was some anti-creationist on Youtube, but I can't remember the name.
I find it pretty stupid, to be honest. By all counts, maths, physics, biology, chemistry, there is life anywhere else outside of Earth, period.
WRONG! On so many levels I'm not going to bother.
Life develops easily with the right requirements, we know this from quite a lot of evidence. We even recreated genesis by accident, twice, and once on purpose just recently.
WRONG - Strike 2 - We can not even properly define life outside of assigning a symptom of "living" to entities. We can define death as the absence of life, but we can not even define what living really is. We don't have a definition because we have no clue what the magic is that actually causes life. I'm sorry, but being able to observe living things replicate does not validate your statement in any way.
We know that RNA and DNA are very easy and very stable structures to produce. (how the step from random chemicals to RNA world happened is still out there for now)
WRONG - Strike 3! You are out of there! - Wholly crap you make it sound like we started mass producing RNA and DNA a few years ago. We can analyze them, we can do very basic manipulations and get predictable outcomes from those manipulations, we can set up environments where they may copy themselves. We lack any such magic of manufacturing RNA or DNA.
Scientists think there should be other life given the massive size of the Universe. We have found -0- signs of life anywhere, even in the places where we think there could be life.
Look, I like a great fantasy story as much as the next person. At present that is all ET life of any form is. There is no reason to believe that life exists outside of our little planet. Mars was our best shot to find something, and we got nothing.
You interjected frustration on your own, I never stated that. Even in reflection, I would not state that it was frustration. Before I became a parent I read probably 50 books covering a lot of psychology as well as other aspects of parenting. Every single book mentions that children will test boundaries (it's how they learn and grow), and every single book said pretty much the same thing.
There are really two choices when children test the boundaries and ignore authority. 1. Be the person that says "Stop it" for an hour and gets ignored until the child gets bored. This does not teach the child the correct lesson. What they learn is that their ego rules. 2. Apply corporal punishment to get the action to stop, teaching the child that the boundary was exceeded and.. that authority should be respected.
We are living in a society full of egomaniacs and wonder why?
Let me give you another similar situation. Your kid gets pushed in school every day by the same person. Do the right thing as a parent, notify the school. School takes no action. Child comes home frustrated every day. Do you 1. tell your child to kick the kids butt? or 2. let your child get picked on every day for the remainder of the year trying to do what is deemed politically correct?
Without authority, and without consequences, there is chaos. Sometimes, not often mind you, but sometimes violence is the only statement that someone will understand.
Your statement is either a troll or a complete lack of understanding with the human learning process.
Fact: Humans learn by trial exponentially faster than other methods.
Fact: Humans learn boundaries by testing the limits of their boundaries.
Those two statements are not really enough to teach you something, but it's a start. Psychology is a wonderful thing, maybe you should try to read a book or two instead of spewing what you read on the internet and heard from friends.
Any children's psychology book will tell you the facts I gave above. Just like they will tell you about children being self abusive to try and get their way. It's normal learning and development processes at work not some poppycock you made up to sooth your mind.
Sorry, but now you are just trolling. Flash vulnerabilities have been around for a long time for all Operating systems. Sun Flash was just as impacted as Linux, or Mac, or Windows. What is the difference in why and how they are exploited? Simple. Windows is the only OS that will give you ring 0 security when the script exploits are used. No other operating system will.
Your next argument, as you gave before "User space is dangerous". Um.. no, it should not be dangerous. It is in Windows, but it is not in any other Operating system. A nuisance yes, dangerous no. If you don't understand why that is, I'd recommend you start reading.
Sorry, but that opinion is not healthy. Abuse is abuse, but on occasion a parent (assuming they are actually parenting) will have limits tested beyond any other punishment. Normally, I see your type of comment from one of two kinds of people.
1. Those that have no children so have no idea what parenting is.
2. Parents who's children are monsters that have no respect for any authority. Generally the parents are either ashamed or afraid to take the kids out in public, or the children are so poorly behaved that people don't want them in public.
Truth be told, I have spanked my son 2 times in his whole life. The first time he refused to stop what he was doing, refused any punishment (go to time out) and was doing something dangerous. The second time, he was a bit older. He refused punishment and took a swing at me.
Now unlike when I was a kid and just got the shit kicked out of me with a belt, I explained to my kid on both occasions why I had to punish him and how we could not repeat those mistakes. He learned valuable lessons on both occasions. In my opinion, he learned valuable lessons from those occasions. He is going to be an adult soon, and one day may ask for advice when it comes to parenting. I really hope he remembers how he was raised or talks to me before he talks to someone like you.
Instead of taking Fox News or some other biased opinion as fact, simply search for and find results for yourself. Honestly, it's not that difficult since there are countless sources of data related to Global Warming.
It is worth pointing out that there are very sick people in the world that churn out papers claiming that Science is false. Read the science, not papers declaring Science to be wrong.
Last point: Even that same sick set of people, that want money more than anything else (yes, even a home for their grandchildren) now agree that Global warming is a fact. The argument has turned to whether or not people are responsible for it.
Just because you can run AV software on other operating systems is not reason to pay for and run AV software. You can purchase air conditioners and ship them to the Arctic and get the same effect. "But what if someone gets hot in the igloo? It could happen!"
Would I care if my actions screwed over a PC user? Sure I would, I'm human and have compassion. Does that mean I have to fix all of their problems at my expense? Not hardly. I educate them, and tell them to stop using Windows.
People like you are frustrating because what you claim has some truth, but actually has no value in the root issue. Let me try to explain this in a different way.
You run Mac or Linux, and receive email. Spammer sends you an email that has an embedded file "hackme.jpeg.exe".
You sitting in your world keep it in your inbox. Even if you tried to preview the file, it would not execute. It's just there in the mail file.
Now, run a virus scanner on your Mac or Linux. OMG, you are infected right? That's what the virus scanner will tell you, and what marketing wants you to believe.
In order for a virus to be a virus, or malware to be malware it must be able to take action. Sitting in your trash can is not an action.
Now, lets go a bit further. You thought the message had a funny subject line, so forward that file to 10 friends all running Windows.
That ^ is what the AV software companies are complaining about and want you to be running AV software on your MAC or Linux system. If you have to manually forward a piece of code, it can not be a virus.
Lastly, you can't compare a PC virus to a living virus or transmittable disease simply. Species plays a major role in transmission and infection.
Honestly, trojans are simple to create for any operating system. The hard part is getting users to run the install which actually infects the system.
Like with Linux, OS-X user space is protected from system space. non-root access means very minimum damage to a system.
Back about 15 years ago, I wrote a proof of concept virus for Unix. It modified user start up files to run, and just needed a port above 1024 on the network to listen for C&C. The amount of work it took was pretty incredible, but it's possible. You can't however run spam relays and such since those ports are protected. The only thing one could actually damage was world writable directory files and directories, and the user space that ran the code. A "System" was not a real target, unless that is, some poor sod went against best practices and did everything on the system as root. OS-X would be the same way.
The real thing that people try to do with AV for *nix and Mac is protect PCs from being infected. If a Mac user sent a Windows user a file that was infected, even though it did nothing on the Mac, it would be the Mac users fault.
This is the marketing game being played for 10+ years. More FUD increases that revenue.
Not quite. Dirty bombs maybe, but not a real nuke. And no, you are not going to be able to make them in "any metalworking shop". Because of the radioactive decay, specialized everything is needed.
I really don't get your point. Facts are what back things like "Iran aiding al-Qaeda", not an opinion poll.
Fact: Weapons and explosives have been tracked from al-Qaeda to Iran.
Fact: Pakistan has been harboring al-Qaeda for more than a decade.
Fact: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran all have and have had training camps for terrorism. While it is questionable that they are Government sanctioned or not, the fact is that they were there.
I really don't give a rats ass about what some moron that follows Lindsey Lohan thinks. The average person has no training in espionage, counter-espionage, counter terrorism, intelligence gathering, etc... They listen to what the Foxnews team tells them and believe it all. I mean.. good lord they thought Sarah Palin was US President material!?!
Please save the opinion poll BS for something more important.. like "What Newt Gingrich thinks!" or "Who will be the next GOP candidate?".
I have been saying this for a long time. It's not logical that 80-90% of the Universe would be made up of something we have never seen or detected yet. The theory of course gives better credence to the current theories of Gravity and cosmology theories, but even when plugged in there is no consistent results.
Heavy matter, not a problem. We know from observation that most of an atoms size is empty space. I can see how in massive gravity situations, that space would compress making more dense atoms. But invisible stuff we can't see, detect, measure, or observe in any way other than a guess?
Have to give it to them though, they have made a lot of cash on that theory.
The Republic points out rather nicely with the example of the Artisan that the duty of the Republic is to protect all economic levels. Since there are various translations, I'll paraphrase in quotes. "When the Artisan makes to much money, he no longer cares to be an artisan." The duty of the Republic is to ensure that people are rewarded well for good work, but not so much that they no longer care for their craft.
Does it translate still today? Of course it does. When Companies like Microsoft become so large, people like Bill Gates become so wealthy, the no longer care about their core business (Software). This has been a very obvious problem for at least 10 years, and not with Microsoft alone. Microsoft just happens to be an easy target.
This is the point of Monopoly laws which in Microsoft's case were ignored. Why? Root cause: Microsoft had so much money that they bribed officials and gamed the system. The Republic failed to protect both the people of the Republic, and the Republic itself from the corruption.
Next, "The artisan can not receive so little money that he has concerns for his families well being.". Again, the Republic has failed. Jobs were moved overseas at the benefit of those with way to much money already.
The political rhetoric like you mention does not fix or excuse the real problem. The Republic should allow expansion, but not at the expense of the people in the Republic.
Companies were not going broke because of simply lower and middle class workers. The real deal is that they top wanted a bigger slice of the pie. It's easy to claim "Oh those bad Unions did it". But show me a white collar worker that returned their bonus check during the collapse of the big 3. Lee I. was working for a buck a year long before the collapse, and he's the only one you will be able to find. He still benefited from the industry mind you, just before the collapse really started.
I don't see how government can fix something that is inherently unfixable: we don't need...
The duty of the Republic is to ensure the welfare of all citizens in the republic. There should be no problems that can not be solved. If there are problems that can not be fixed, again the Republic has failed.
Lets jump to the Apple example for a minute, and the reason they claim to have moved jobs overseas. Apple is abusing workers in a foreign country. Workers in a foreign country need to be treated exactly like the people of the Republic. China and Japan do a much better job of this than we do believe it or not, and neither of them is a Republic. Both will deny expansion if the local workers are starving. Both will ensure that if a company expands, the controlling interest is still in their own country. Both will ensure that workers in foreign countries are treated with the same dignity and respect that their local workers are treated. This by the way is why you hear lots of praise from people in the US working for Toyota.
To a last point you made
"There are entire industries that had tens of thousands of low-formal-education-demanding jobs that have vanished in the last 30 years, and there's no need for anything to replace those jobs"
I will say that this is propaganda and rhetoric, but you really need to think about this. Not replacig those jobs is a failure of the Republic. The average person in the Republic does not want to be a Rocket Scientist. They want to go to work, put in an 8 hour day and get paid enough to have necessities and a bit of security. Nothing more, nothing less. It may not be your thing to work in a factory until you retire, but for over 50% of the population, this is what life is supposed to be. Farmers, maids, clerks, gardeners, delivery people, cooks, trash collectors, etc... are all the meat of our Republic. A minority wants to think for a living, and a minority will try to take advantage of the Republic.
You like the post I responded to are simply ignorant. Ignorance is not bad, it's curable. I am myself guilty of ignorance in many subjects.
Maybe you missed where I asked the OP to read Plato's "The Republic". That may not be the only place where you need education, but hell it's a start. In specific, I'll refer you to the story of the Artisan and what the job of a Republic is with them.
You see, the Politicians have everyone fooled at this point. They want everyone to believe that companies and corporations are in control and nothing can move without someone with money saying to move. In reality, the Government's job was to control them so that we don't end up in the predicament we are currently in.
Numerous Philosophers, Sociologists, and Economists warned about the state we are in.
While not entirely without merit, the problem is not so easily dismissed.
Remember back 20 years ago when a company could not say things that were deceptive and/or false without getting in to trouble? Well, welcome to the real world of today where it's normal to take advantage of people.
What really happens on the games is that there is no message of anything except for the game asking for a password. Unless you read page 9374 of the TOS and EULA for the game at download time, you would not know that someone was about to sock your account for anything. The game does not have to tell you that it is going to charge your account. It simply asks for a password.
Companies can tell you that you won something, and when you fill out the form to get the prize they switch your service and charge you money. They could also give you nothing, sell your information to a marketing company for 10c and make sure your text messages eat up your data plan.
Unfortunately, it's a very dirty world we are in. There is a lot of blame to go around.
Should the kid be taught a lesson regarding finance and the dangers of scams and scammers? Sure
but spanked because they got screwed over by an adult that prays on people for a living? Hardly.
Which is why the Government has in turn reduced their income tax, reduced taxes on things like Capital Gains, gives them grants for new buildings, gives them grants for sending work overseas. When the US Government is paying for Oil Refineries to be built while Oil companies make record profits over the last 20 years it should be obvious to people what's going on.
It's not obvious sadly, since the TV shows "entertainment" to soothe the masses and keep them uninformed.
Sorry, but since I detect no sarcasm I have to assume you are really ignorant. You do understand that an Economy needs to be able to accommodate every level of education and desire to work in order to be an economy right?
The Political speak of the last decade or so tends not to mention how important that is. "American's don't want to work in factories" is another good line. It's great rhetoric that has been working to increase the wealth disparity gap in the US, put millions of Americans out of work, and made a select few more wealthy than they already were.
Look, I'm not going to try to teach you the fundamentals of economics and sociology. I simply don't have the time or energy to even try. I will suggest that you do some research before repeating propaganda targeting lower and middle class Americans and giving benefit to the wealthy. Spend some time reading about the economics of Rome prior to collapse. Greece is another great example and much more recent. Read some of the works by the founder of Capitalism Adam Smith, Marxx's commentary is very good as well. Both will point out the short comings and dangers of the system rather nicely.
In all societies, the majority of people are content with menial work for fair pay. There is a minority on either end. When the top owns enough to steal from everyone below them, the society is doomed. Plato's "The Republic" is an excellent reference for that aspect. And yes, the United States is a Republic and founded that way intentionally. Though it has been turning in to something completely different very quickly.
Dang it, there was an article on this not to long ago. I forgot the term they used for it but it was not astro-turfing. Companies in China sell human bots that get paid by the hour to post great product reviews on Amazon, Angie's list, and other sites. Since English is extremely limited, most of this is easily caught copy/paste.
While true to some extent, Microsoft is going to have to try to convince people to go their phone because.. Hrm, I'm stumped right now. iTunes? Nope, Pandora? Nope.. Okay.. then Zynga right? Well, maybe.. but I'm doubtful.
Phones are a bit more than phones now. If it takes an average consumer more than 10 seconds to figure out how to text their friends, import and manage contacts, and play music and videos then they won't want the phone.
Simple and easy is why people went with iPhone to start. Android is pretty much the same in a packaged phone. Bumping spec's is pretty much all that's needed in most cases. People are not building rockets on their phones, and don't need to be able to run CAD applications on their phones. Phone, chat/text, email, web, and music. That's what the "average" consumer wants.
Microsoft's grandiose plans to have desktop access (for a fee), Cloud (for a fee), Office (for a fee), WM-Player may be free but DRM will lock out any non Microsoft approved media, etc... may be within the capabilities of the hardware in a phone.. but first nobody want's all the extra expense and 2.. it becomes much harder to use than an Android/iPhone.
Oh, and notice how all of those "for a fee" things line up nicely. Microsoft is trying desperately to maintain income that they are losing on PCs as people figure out that they no longer need a PC just to chat, email, surf, and listen to music.
Show me a popular artist since the late 70s that has had no problems with contracts and licensing with a media company. Every band I know of has had contract problems and starved while dealing with the companies that you allege are helping them out. Many bands during the 80s and 90s simply broke up because they were screwed so bad in the contract they could not afford to continue and the only way out of the contact was to split.
Media companies promote? Not very much any more. Most of the time there is a contract between the "Label" and a "Concert Promotion" company that also sucks artists dry. This ensures that a band makes no money for studio work or for concerts. Again, this is why bands that have longevity use private promotion, or ticket outlet promotion only. "Ticket Master presents" for example.
Every band/artist that I can think of that has had success leaves "Labels" as quickly as possible often opening private studios. They hire private engineers, private producers, private promoters, and buy their own gear or privately promote gear to get deals on gear. Every band I know of that has signed a contract has regrets and disputes. They can no longer record what they want, they record and edit to what the Media company wants. They are no longer allowed to "Jam", and can only interact with fans when the "Label" requires it. Most of the time this leaves fans and bands frustrated, bands with little money, while "Talent Agents", "Label Executives" make lots of money.
Now maybe you are sitting in a time machine. Up to the mid 70s, labels would at least give some bands a reach around on occasion. Jerry Lee Lewis is an example of someone that never got a reach around, while "The Beach Boys" were jacked off constantly. Back then, they were normally only screwed on records. Concerts were where they made their money. Now, "Labels" make sure that they make theirs on all fronts
Now there is one aspect with I failed to mention up until now. That is the "Pet Band" for a label. The pet band will receive high perks. Execs will make sure that they are wined and dined, paid well and have a lot of freedom. The pet band is what the Labels use to attract smaller bands. "See how great we are? Come talk to these guys and see how much they like us." Maybe you think all the bands are treated that way.
Do a bit of research on the subject. As an amateur drummer for 35 years, I have done a lot of reading on the subject. It's quite a fascinating industry. "Fascinating" in this case should not insinuate "good" in any way.
Sorry, but "innovation" is not hard. Implementation can be hard, but innovation is simply the process of an idea.. and perhaps validation of the idea given the materials at hand.
The article points out how complex and unfair the way music is licensed. That is what is wrong with the implementation, not that thousands of people have come up with ways of innovating music in the digital age and how to turn a profit from it.
If the Music and Video industries could come up with fair ways of getting content to users at reduced prices, pick a service and it could be done.
People are quick to bash Napster as "ewww, they are evil pirates". Is it so much that they are evil pirates, or more that most of what was being traded was only available when people turned physical media in to digital to share? Or is it that some digital content is not affordable?
As again the article points out, many people iTunes as the only way to get in to digital music. What if you or your family can't afford an iPod, iPhone, MAC or PC to connect to the internet? Or if it costs so much they can't afford to download anything?
It's easy to excuse shit policies and laws in the name of innovation. Especially when the PTO has the rights to patent even the dumbest fucking ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry but I have no pity for the MPAA or RIAA (I'm guessing that your comment was sarcasm so you don't either.). Actually I'm glad this guy did what he did and put them in to that position.
From the Article: "The MPAA sends reel to reel movies and projectors to the troops." Which does how much good when you are on 30-60 sweeps with only your squad to chat with? Compared to the DVD these guys picked up from the Chaplain that they can later watch on the computers in the HumV or Abrams.
I have a lot of respect for the amount of celebrities that go entertain the troops, honestly I do. They risk their lives to go (even though the risk is not very high) and make sure out troops have some sense of normalcy. The MPAAs first concern is not for the troops fighting to keep them to be able to remain free, but for "OMG the troops may violate our rules."
The continuing cry from the MPAA really is nonsense, especially with the alleged hypothetical loss of revenue. If this guy did not do what he did, these troops would not have gone and purchased DVDs. There is no ability to do so in the remote locations these people are sent to. And on a Soldiers pay you are not going to purchase much any way.
Yes, I am a US Army Veteran.
I heard the story before, and believe it to be pure BS. Some guy claims to have made his own primordial soup by sloshing around chemicals. There was no Science I could find to back his claim. It was some anti-creationist on Youtube, but I can't remember the name.
I find it pretty stupid, to be honest. By all counts, maths, physics, biology, chemistry, there is life anywhere else outside of Earth, period.
WRONG! On so many levels I'm not going to bother.
Life develops easily with the right requirements, we know this from quite a lot of evidence. We even recreated genesis by accident, twice, and once on purpose just recently.
WRONG - Strike 2 - We can not even properly define life outside of assigning a symptom of "living" to entities. We can define death as the absence of life, but we can not even define what living really is. We don't have a definition because we have no clue what the magic is that actually causes life. I'm sorry, but being able to observe living things replicate does not validate your statement in any way.
We know that RNA and DNA are very easy and very stable structures to produce. (how the step from random chemicals to RNA world happened is still out there for now)
WRONG - Strike 3! You are out of there! - Wholly crap you make it sound like we started mass producing RNA and DNA a few years ago. We can analyze them, we can do very basic manipulations and get predictable outcomes from those manipulations, we can set up environments where they may copy themselves. We lack any such magic of manufacturing RNA or DNA.
Scientists think there should be other life given the massive size of the Universe. We have found -0- signs of life anywhere, even in the places where we think there could be life.
Look, I like a great fantasy story as much as the next person. At present that is all ET life of any form is. There is no reason to believe that life exists outside of our little planet. Mars was our best shot to find something, and we got nothing.
You do realize that it is possible to be cynical without being an asshole right?
oh, read your post. Neve rmind, I guess not.
if (LANG ~= en_US){DEFINE USE_TSA_SPYCODES}else{/*Fuck it, we are TSA */RETURN=0};
You interjected frustration on your own, I never stated that. Even in reflection, I would not state that it was frustration. Before I became a parent I read probably 50 books covering a lot of psychology as well as other aspects of parenting. Every single book mentions that children will test boundaries (it's how they learn and grow), and every single book said pretty much the same thing.
There are really two choices when children test the boundaries and ignore authority. 1. Be the person that says "Stop it" for an hour and gets ignored until the child gets bored. This does not teach the child the correct lesson. What they learn is that their ego rules. 2. Apply corporal punishment to get the action to stop, teaching the child that the boundary was exceeded and.. that authority should be respected.
We are living in a society full of egomaniacs and wonder why?
Let me give you another similar situation. Your kid gets pushed in school every day by the same person. Do the right thing as a parent, notify the school. School takes no action. Child comes home frustrated every day. Do you 1. tell your child to kick the kids butt? or 2. let your child get picked on every day for the remainder of the year trying to do what is deemed politically correct?
Without authority, and without consequences, there is chaos. Sometimes, not often mind you, but sometimes violence is the only statement that someone will understand.
Bullshit!
Your statement is either a troll or a complete lack of understanding with the human learning process.
Fact: Humans learn by trial exponentially faster than other methods.
Fact: Humans learn boundaries by testing the limits of their boundaries.
Those two statements are not really enough to teach you something, but it's a start. Psychology is a wonderful thing, maybe you should try to read a book or two instead of spewing what you read on the internet and heard from friends.
Any children's psychology book will tell you the facts I gave above. Just like they will tell you about children being self abusive to try and get their way. It's normal learning and development processes at work not some poppycock you made up to sooth your mind.
Sorry, but now you are just trolling. Flash vulnerabilities have been around for a long time for all Operating systems. Sun Flash was just as impacted as Linux, or Mac, or Windows. What is the difference in why and how they are exploited? Simple. Windows is the only OS that will give you ring 0 security when the script exploits are used. No other operating system will.
Your next argument, as you gave before "User space is dangerous". Um.. no, it should not be dangerous. It is in Windows, but it is not in any other Operating system. A nuisance yes, dangerous no. If you don't understand why that is, I'd recommend you start reading.
Sorry, but that opinion is not healthy. Abuse is abuse, but on occasion a parent (assuming they are actually parenting) will have limits tested beyond any other punishment. Normally, I see your type of comment from one of two kinds of people.
1. Those that have no children so have no idea what parenting is.
2. Parents who's children are monsters that have no respect for any authority. Generally the parents are either ashamed or afraid to take the kids out in public, or the children are so poorly behaved that people don't want them in public.
Truth be told, I have spanked my son 2 times in his whole life. The first time he refused to stop what he was doing, refused any punishment (go to time out) and was doing something dangerous. The second time, he was a bit older. He refused punishment and took a swing at me.
Now unlike when I was a kid and just got the shit kicked out of me with a belt, I explained to my kid on both occasions why I had to punish him and how we could not repeat those mistakes. He learned valuable lessons on both occasions. In my opinion, he learned valuable lessons from those occasions. He is going to be an adult soon, and one day may ask for advice when it comes to parenting. I really hope he remembers how he was raised or talks to me before he talks to someone like you.
Instead of taking Fox News or some other biased opinion as fact, simply search for and find results for yourself. Honestly, it's not that difficult since there are countless sources of data related to Global Warming.
It is worth pointing out that there are very sick people in the world that churn out papers claiming that Science is false. Read the science, not papers declaring Science to be wrong.
Last point: Even that same sick set of people, that want money more than anything else (yes, even a home for their grandchildren) now agree that Global warming is a fact. The argument has turned to whether or not people are responsible for it.
Just because you can run AV software on other operating systems is not reason to pay for and run AV software. You can purchase air conditioners and ship them to the Arctic and get the same effect. "But what if someone gets hot in the igloo? It could happen!"
Would I care if my actions screwed over a PC user? Sure I would, I'm human and have compassion. Does that mean I have to fix all of their problems at my expense? Not hardly. I educate them, and tell them to stop using Windows.
People like you are frustrating because what you claim has some truth, but actually has no value in the root issue. Let me try to explain this in a different way.
You run Mac or Linux, and receive email. Spammer sends you an email that has an embedded file "hackme.jpeg.exe".
You sitting in your world keep it in your inbox. Even if you tried to preview the file, it would not execute. It's just there in the mail file.
Now, run a virus scanner on your Mac or Linux. OMG, you are infected right? That's what the virus scanner will tell you, and what marketing wants you to believe.
In order for a virus to be a virus, or malware to be malware it must be able to take action. Sitting in your trash can is not an action.
Now, lets go a bit further. You thought the message had a funny subject line, so forward that file to 10 friends all running Windows.
That ^ is what the AV software companies are complaining about and want you to be running AV software on your MAC or Linux system. If you have to manually forward a piece of code, it can not be a virus.
Lastly, you can't compare a PC virus to a living virus or transmittable disease simply. Species plays a major role in transmission and infection.
Honestly, trojans are simple to create for any operating system. The hard part is getting users to run the install which actually infects the system.
Like with Linux, OS-X user space is protected from system space. non-root access means very minimum damage to a system.
Back about 15 years ago, I wrote a proof of concept virus for Unix. It modified user start up files to run, and just needed a port above 1024 on the network to listen for C&C. The amount of work it took was pretty incredible, but it's possible. You can't however run spam relays and such since those ports are protected. The only thing one could actually damage was world writable directory files and directories, and the user space that ran the code. A "System" was not a real target, unless that is, some poor sod went against best practices and did everything on the system as root. OS-X would be the same way.
The real thing that people try to do with AV for *nix and Mac is protect PCs from being infected. If a Mac user sent a Windows user a file that was infected, even though it did nothing on the Mac, it would be the Mac users fault.
This is the marketing game being played for 10+ years. More FUD increases that revenue.
Not quite. Dirty bombs maybe, but not a real nuke. And no, you are not going to be able to make them in "any metalworking shop". Because of the radioactive decay, specialized everything is needed.
I really don't get your point. Facts are what back things like "Iran aiding al-Qaeda", not an opinion poll.
Fact: Weapons and explosives have been tracked from al-Qaeda to Iran.
Fact: Pakistan has been harboring al-Qaeda for more than a decade.
Fact: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran all have and have had training camps for terrorism. While it is questionable that they are Government sanctioned or not, the fact is that they were there.
I really don't give a rats ass about what some moron that follows Lindsey Lohan thinks. The average person has no training in espionage, counter-espionage, counter terrorism, intelligence gathering, etc... They listen to what the Foxnews team tells them and believe it all. I mean.. good lord they thought Sarah Palin was US President material!?!
Please save the opinion poll BS for something more important.. like "What Newt Gingrich thinks!" or "Who will be the next GOP candidate?".
I have been saying this for a long time. It's not logical that 80-90% of the Universe would be made up of something we have never seen or detected yet. The theory of course gives better credence to the current theories of Gravity and cosmology theories, but even when plugged in there is no consistent results.
Heavy matter, not a problem. We know from observation that most of an atoms size is empty space. I can see how in massive gravity situations, that space would compress making more dense atoms. But invisible stuff we can't see, detect, measure, or observe in any way other than a guess?
Have to give it to them though, they have made a lot of cash on that theory.
The Republic points out rather nicely with the example of the Artisan that the duty of the Republic is to protect all economic levels. Since there are various translations, I'll paraphrase in quotes. "When the Artisan makes to much money, he no longer cares to be an artisan." The duty of the Republic is to ensure that people are rewarded well for good work, but not so much that they no longer care for their craft.
Does it translate still today? Of course it does. When Companies like Microsoft become so large, people like Bill Gates become so wealthy, the no longer care about their core business (Software). This has been a very obvious problem for at least 10 years, and not with Microsoft alone. Microsoft just happens to be an easy target.
This is the point of Monopoly laws which in Microsoft's case were ignored. Why? Root cause: Microsoft had so much money that they bribed officials and gamed the system. The Republic failed to protect both the people of the Republic, and the Republic itself from the corruption.
Next, "The artisan can not receive so little money that he has concerns for his families well being.". Again, the Republic has failed. Jobs were moved overseas at the benefit of those with way to much money already.
The political rhetoric like you mention does not fix or excuse the real problem. The Republic should allow expansion, but not at the expense of the people in the Republic.
Companies were not going broke because of simply lower and middle class workers. The real deal is that they top wanted a bigger slice of the pie. It's easy to claim "Oh those bad Unions did it". But show me a white collar worker that returned their bonus check during the collapse of the big 3. Lee I. was working for a buck a year long before the collapse, and he's the only one you will be able to find. He still benefited from the industry mind you, just before the collapse really started.
I don't see how government can fix something that is inherently unfixable: we don't need...
The duty of the Republic is to ensure the welfare of all citizens in the republic. There should be no problems that can not be solved. If there are problems that can not be fixed, again the Republic has failed.
Lets jump to the Apple example for a minute, and the reason they claim to have moved jobs overseas. Apple is abusing workers in a foreign country. Workers in a foreign country need to be treated exactly like the people of the Republic. China and Japan do a much better job of this than we do believe it or not, and neither of them is a Republic. Both will deny expansion if the local workers are starving. Both will ensure that if a company expands, the controlling interest is still in their own country. Both will ensure that workers in foreign countries are treated with the same dignity and respect that their local workers are treated. This by the way is why you hear lots of praise from people in the US working for Toyota.
To a last point you made
"There are entire industries that had tens of thousands of low-formal-education-demanding jobs that have vanished in the last 30 years, and there's no need for anything to replace those jobs"
I will say that this is propaganda and rhetoric, but you really need to think about this. Not replacig those jobs is a failure of the Republic. The average person in the Republic does not want to be a Rocket Scientist. They want to go to work, put in an 8 hour day and get paid enough to have necessities and a bit of security. Nothing more, nothing less. It may not be your thing to work in a factory until you retire, but for over 50% of the population, this is what life is supposed to be. Farmers, maids, clerks, gardeners, delivery people, cooks, trash collectors, etc... are all the meat of our Republic. A minority wants to think for a living, and a minority will try to take advantage of the Republic.
We were such a success from th
You like the post I responded to are simply ignorant. Ignorance is not bad, it's curable. I am myself guilty of ignorance in many subjects.
Maybe you missed where I asked the OP to read Plato's "The Republic". That may not be the only place where you need education, but hell it's a start. In specific, I'll refer you to the story of the Artisan and what the job of a Republic is with them.
You see, the Politicians have everyone fooled at this point. They want everyone to believe that companies and corporations are in control and nothing can move without someone with money saying to move. In reality, the Government's job was to control them so that we don't end up in the predicament we are currently in.
Numerous Philosophers, Sociologists, and Economists warned about the state we are in.
While not entirely without merit, the problem is not so easily dismissed.
Remember back 20 years ago when a company could not say things that were deceptive and/or false without getting in to trouble? Well, welcome to the real world of today where it's normal to take advantage of people.
What really happens on the games is that there is no message of anything except for the game asking for a password. Unless you read page 9374 of the TOS and EULA for the game at download time, you would not know that someone was about to sock your account for anything. The game does not have to tell you that it is going to charge your account. It simply asks for a password.
Companies can tell you that you won something, and when you fill out the form to get the prize they switch your service and charge you money. They could also give you nothing, sell your information to a marketing company for 10c and make sure your text messages eat up your data plan.
Unfortunately, it's a very dirty world we are in. There is a lot of blame to go around.
Should the kid be taught a lesson regarding finance and the dangers of scams and scammers? Sure
but spanked because they got screwed over by an adult that prays on people for a living? Hardly.
Which is why the Government has in turn reduced their income tax, reduced taxes on things like Capital Gains, gives them grants for new buildings, gives them grants for sending work overseas. When the US Government is paying for Oil Refineries to be built while Oil companies make record profits over the last 20 years it should be obvious to people what's going on.
It's not obvious sadly, since the TV shows "entertainment" to soothe the masses and keep them uninformed.
Sorry, but since I detect no sarcasm I have to assume you are really ignorant. You do understand that an Economy needs to be able to accommodate every level of education and desire to work in order to be an economy right?
The Political speak of the last decade or so tends not to mention how important that is. "American's don't want to work in factories" is another good line. It's great rhetoric that has been working to increase the wealth disparity gap in the US, put millions of Americans out of work, and made a select few more wealthy than they already were.
Look, I'm not going to try to teach you the fundamentals of economics and sociology. I simply don't have the time or energy to even try. I will suggest that you do some research before repeating propaganda targeting lower and middle class Americans and giving benefit to the wealthy. Spend some time reading about the economics of Rome prior to collapse. Greece is another great example and much more recent. Read some of the works by the founder of Capitalism Adam Smith, Marxx's commentary is very good as well. Both will point out the short comings and dangers of the system rather nicely.
In all societies, the majority of people are content with menial work for fair pay. There is a minority on either end. When the top owns enough to steal from everyone below them, the society is doomed. Plato's "The Republic" is an excellent reference for that aspect. And yes, the United States is a Republic and founded that way intentionally. Though it has been turning in to something completely different very quickly.
Dang it, there was an article on this not to long ago. I forgot the term they used for it but it was not astro-turfing. Companies in China sell human bots that get paid by the hour to post great product reviews on Amazon, Angie's list, and other sites. Since English is extremely limited, most of this is easily caught copy/paste.
Dang it.. what was that term? Still Google'ing...
While true to some extent, Microsoft is going to have to try to convince people to go their phone because.. Hrm, I'm stumped right now. iTunes? Nope, Pandora? Nope.. Okay.. then Zynga right? Well, maybe.. but I'm doubtful.
Phones are a bit more than phones now. If it takes an average consumer more than 10 seconds to figure out how to text their friends, import and manage contacts, and play music and videos then they won't want the phone.
Simple and easy is why people went with iPhone to start. Android is pretty much the same in a packaged phone. Bumping spec's is pretty much all that's needed in most cases. People are not building rockets on their phones, and don't need to be able to run CAD applications on their phones. Phone, chat/text, email, web, and music. That's what the "average" consumer wants.
Microsoft's grandiose plans to have desktop access (for a fee), Cloud (for a fee), Office (for a fee), WM-Player may be free but DRM will lock out any non Microsoft approved media, etc... may be within the capabilities of the hardware in a phone.. but first nobody want's all the extra expense and 2.. it becomes much harder to use than an Android/iPhone.
Oh, and notice how all of those "for a fee" things line up nicely. Microsoft is trying desperately to maintain income that they are losing on PCs as people figure out that they no longer need a PC just to chat, email, surf, and listen to music.
Show me a popular artist since the late 70s that has had no problems with contracts and licensing with a media company. Every band I know of has had contract problems and starved while dealing with the companies that you allege are helping them out. Many bands during the 80s and 90s simply broke up because they were screwed so bad in the contract they could not afford to continue and the only way out of the contact was to split.
Media companies promote? Not very much any more. Most of the time there is a contract between the "Label" and a "Concert Promotion" company that also sucks artists dry. This ensures that a band makes no money for studio work or for concerts. Again, this is why bands that have longevity use private promotion, or ticket outlet promotion only. "Ticket Master presents" for example.
Every band/artist that I can think of that has had success leaves "Labels" as quickly as possible often opening private studios. They hire private engineers, private producers, private promoters, and buy their own gear or privately promote gear to get deals on gear. Every band I know of that has signed a contract has regrets and disputes. They can no longer record what they want, they record and edit to what the Media company wants. They are no longer allowed to "Jam", and can only interact with fans when the "Label" requires it. Most of the time this leaves fans and bands frustrated, bands with little money, while "Talent Agents", "Label Executives" make lots of money.
Now maybe you are sitting in a time machine. Up to the mid 70s, labels would at least give some bands a reach around on occasion. Jerry Lee Lewis is an example of someone that never got a reach around, while "The Beach Boys" were jacked off constantly. Back then, they were normally only screwed on records. Concerts were where they made their money. Now, "Labels" make sure that they make theirs on all fronts
Now there is one aspect with I failed to mention up until now. That is the "Pet Band" for a label. The pet band will receive high perks. Execs will make sure that they are wined and dined, paid well and have a lot of freedom. The pet band is what the Labels use to attract smaller bands. "See how great we are? Come talk to these guys and see how much they like us." Maybe you think all the bands are treated that way.
Do a bit of research on the subject. As an amateur drummer for 35 years, I have done a lot of reading on the subject. It's quite a fascinating industry. "Fascinating" in this case should not insinuate "good" in any way.
Sorry, but "innovation" is not hard. Implementation can be hard , but innovation is simply the process of an idea.. and perhaps validation of the idea given the materials at hand.
The article points out how complex and unfair the way music is licensed. That is what is wrong with the implementation, not that thousands of people have come up with ways of innovating music in the digital age and how to turn a profit from it.
If the Music and Video industries could come up with fair ways of getting content to users at reduced prices, pick a service and it could be done.
People are quick to bash Napster as "ewww, they are evil pirates". Is it so much that they are evil pirates, or more that most of what was being traded was only available when people turned physical media in to digital to share? Or is it that some digital content is not affordable?
As again the article points out, many people iTunes as the only way to get in to digital music. What if you or your family can't afford an iPod, iPhone, MAC or PC to connect to the internet? Or if it costs so much they can't afford to download anything?
It's easy to excuse shit policies and laws in the name of innovation. Especially when the PTO has the rights to patent even the dumbest fucking ideas.