Make intelligent rational decisions (read: NOT Kyoto) about how to better and protect our way of life based on scientific facts.
"Y'know, not *everyone* dies from AIDS, cancer or even fallin 2 miles onto the ground. So, if you get AIDS/cancer/severe-falling-down, don't panic. You COULD be OK."
Thats true, if you are diagnosed with cancer you shouldn't panic and do something stupid. Although there is a lot more scientific evidence that you are in danger than there is evidence that the gulf stream is in danger.
Its possible that you will get in a car accident if you go outside today. Does that mean that you should hide yourself in the house for the rest of your life? Paranoia is not a viable option.
This is the flaw with global warming advocates (perhaps thats not the best term, but thats the best I could come up with). You state these claims as if they are facts. They are not. They are hypothesis made by scientists. Not facts, not even theories as they have not been tested (and hopefully never will). After the first Gulf War, some scientists thought the smoke from the burning oil fields would cause an apocalyptic nuclear winter scenario. Never happened. No one really knows what will happen if the global temperature rises. No one even knows whether or not human "interference" in the environment through the release of "greenhouse gases" can even make a difference in the global climate. It is too complex of a system.
Now that doesn't mean we should buy gas guzzling SUVs and fill the air will polluting gases, there are many good reasons to keep the air clean (many of which have nothing to do with the global warming hypothesis). But good intentions do not justify disingenuous claims that mislead the public about what science does and does not know.
Yeah, but this movie is being billed (by some at least) as an intelligent movie. Its like advertising a romance movie brought to you by the makers of "Dumb and Dumber".
Yeah, they are different. Weather is much easier to predict than climate. Our atmosphere is a highly chaotic system that we have very little understanding of. We can use computer simulations to make a hypothesis of how climate will change over time, but any claim that scientists can predict climate change is just plain dumb.
"1. No restrictions on what I do with it.(any player)"
I think people should be more flexible on this. All you really want to do is listen to the music, right? So is it really so wrong to accept some limitations that do not effect that in exchange for the advantages of online music?
"3. The price more accurately reflects the production/distribution costs."
Thats a bit difficult to calculate, considering intellectual property requires a near zero marginal cost and a (relatively) large capital investment. So for a large record label selling millions of Brittney Spears (or whatever pop group is popular) songs, that cost would be low. For a small label with less popular (though not necessarily lower quality groups) artists, they would have to charge a lot more just to break even. That seems a bit backwards to me, and may make it difficult for smaller labels to compete.
"Those are apples and oranges my friend. Keeping pictures secret that were sent out to private citizens over the internet is different than keeping a secret among government employees"
We are not talking about keeping a small conspiracy secret for a few months, we are talking about keeping a well publicized conspiracy secret for 50 years or so. That is three generations of employees, many of whom would love to supplement their pension with royalties from the book deal after they anonymously give up the secret. Keeping a secret like that would be borderline impossible. And of course that is assuming alien landings only occur on US soil where
"Why doesn't CNN march into Area 51 and refuse to leave then because the "public wants to know the truth". "
Because the trailer trash who actually believe these conspiracy theories are not CNN's primary audience (they watch ABC).
To any moderators who read that trailer-trash comment and marked me down for flamebait, I'm sure your trailer is lovely.
I've got to take you on a field trip to Langely, Virginia if you think a few signs and a jeep that takes 20 minutes to arrive (and then just asks them to leave) is high security.
My CS class had recruiters from several companies (including MS) come to discuss the job market, industry, etc. They were asked where they saw the industry going in the next few years. Most of the participants had some good observations (automated systems, nanotech, AI, distributed computing, etc.). But the MS kid just said something about everything moving back to the desktop and away from the Internet.
He did make one good point. "People tend to believe it is free, he said, but even companies that support open source are just as motivated by commercial interests as any other commercial software vendor." But so what? Is a MS executive really complaining about companies wanting to make money?
MS (like any other company, including companies that support OSS) would almost certaintly not allow that. Too much of a conflict of interest. I'm virtually certain MS would require permission for him to work on an OSS project (yes they can do that), which I'm virtually certain Microsoft would not allow.
"Having one least-common-denominator vehicle for all of these purposes (e.g. the Suburban Assault Vehicle), is a poor use of resources - to use some tortured computer analogy, it is as if you burn a DVD-R with three words on it, every time you want to use a post-it."
One little problem with your analogy, post it notes cost fractions of a cent. I don't know exactly what the going rate is for motorcycles or how much this thing from Toyota would cost, but I would think they would cost a bit more. If you have the disposable income to buy a different vehicle for each need you have, all the more power to you. But most people don't have that.
Your rental car idea may work for some people as it apparently worked for you, but the fact is different people have different needs, so what works for you will not necessarily work for others. Most people have families, girlfriends, or friends to drive around, need to go to the grocery store a bit more than once a month (what are you buying, nothing but canned goods?), have other shopping they need to do, etc. Most of us don't buy cars because we want to pollute the air or buy expensive gas; we buy them because we need them to live our lives.
"The saddest part with Toyota's gadget: It appears too much a toy, and they will have terrible image problems."
What are you talking about? It looks like a toy because it is a toy. Or rather a concept car. The goal is not to sell automobiles but to get attention. A boring, more practical model would not attract near as much attention as this. If an actual market is seen for these, I'm sure a more practical looking version will be what most people will buy.
"Jokes really have to have an element of truth to them to be funny."
Then why am I cracking up reading your post?
Jokes are supposed to be silly. No, an actual plant explosion would not wipe France off the map. In fact if it could, the joke wouldn't be all that funny as we would be talking about killing millions of innocent civilians, many of whom may not even be snobs. But as the idea is not entirely serious in the first place, we are allowed to have a laugh or two at the expense of the French.
"...whereas radios have until recently had no
advanced computer processors to analyze radio waves. But as the computer
revolution comes to radio, this is rapidly changing."
How recently is this guy talking about? Will the radio in my '92 Acura be able to work like that? What about even older devices? Or would the recommended policy make all those radios obsolete?
I'm generally against overuse of government power, but it seems the new technology has to fully overtake the old technology before the government changes their policy.
Or maybe this is a dumbed down version of the argument and I'm missing something.
Unemployed American computer programmers didn't lose their jobs because of outsourcing. They lost them because the dot-com economy collapsed. There was plenty of outsourcing back in the 90s too. If anything outsourcing has saved jobs by allowing troubled companies to cut costs instead of going bankrupt and by creating more demand for more products (India buys plenty of stuff from the United States).
People who think outsourcing is killing our economy (coughJohnKerrycough) are nothing more than ignorant xenophobes.
Good thing you are not running our economy.
Increased efficiency, increased trade, and all the other benefits brought by outsourcing are generally considered GOOD, not bad for the economy. Outsourcing brings in more jobs than it loses. Think of the people working for companies that would have long ago gone out of business if they had to keep on paying for overpriced software engineers in Silicon Valley. Think of all the people working for companies who were able to expand into new markets in Asia because their economies have benefited from outsourcing.
Yes, computer programmers have more competition these days. So what? If someone in India is willing to produce a superior product at a lower cost than what you are asking for, you don't deserve a job.
And if you expected the dot-com economy of the 90's to continue as it was, you really don't deserve a job.
If you are equating taking a class on Dante's Inferno with learning Klingon, it is people like you who really give science fiction a bad name.
BTW, some Tolkien fans and Star Wars fans are just as bad, though I have never seen any Stephen King fans or Shakespeare fans take their hobbies nearly as far as the stereotypical Trekie.
Yeah, sure, if new computers could be bought with Linux installed (sort of like this: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39150601,00.htm ), people like my mom would love Linux and other open source software.
The original question was why is the government (in this case federal) spending money on weapons in space rather than on education (which is supposed to be funded by the state governments). The two are (under the Constitution, though not always in reality) separate institutions with separate responsibilities.
We are arguing about semantics, sure, but it is important to keep consistent semantics throughout a discussion. The original use of the term "the government" was used to refer to the United States federal government (or the original poster had no knowledge of how the US government is set up), not "any governing body".
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Make intelligent rational decisions (read: NOT Kyoto) about how to better and protect our way of life based on scientific facts.
"Y'know, not *everyone* dies from AIDS, cancer or even fallin 2 miles onto the ground. So, if you get AIDS/cancer/severe-falling-down, don't panic. You COULD be OK." Thats true, if you are diagnosed with cancer you shouldn't panic and do something stupid. Although there is a lot more scientific evidence that you are in danger than there is evidence that the gulf stream is in danger.
Its possible that you will get in a car accident if you go outside today. Does that mean that you should hide yourself in the house for the rest of your life? Paranoia is not a viable option.
A wizard did it.
Now that doesn't mean we should buy gas guzzling SUVs and fill the air will polluting gases, there are many good reasons to keep the air clean (many of which have nothing to do with the global warming hypothesis). But good intentions do not justify disingenuous claims that mislead the public about what science does and does not know.
Yeah, but this movie is being billed (by some at least) as an intelligent movie. Its like advertising a romance movie brought to you by the makers of "Dumb and Dumber".
Yeah, they are different. Weather is much easier to predict than climate. Our atmosphere is a highly chaotic system that we have very little understanding of. We can use computer simulations to make a hypothesis of how climate will change over time, but any claim that scientists can predict climate change is just plain dumb.
I think people should be more flexible on this. All you really want to do is listen to the music, right? So is it really so wrong to accept some limitations that do not effect that in exchange for the advantages of online music?
"3. The price more accurately reflects the production/distribution costs."
Thats a bit difficult to calculate, considering intellectual property requires a near zero marginal cost and a (relatively) large capital investment. So for a large record label selling millions of Brittney Spears (or whatever pop group is popular) songs, that cost would be low. For a small label with less popular (though not necessarily lower quality groups) artists, they would have to charge a lot more just to break even. That seems a bit backwards to me, and may make it difficult for smaller labels to compete.
I agree on the other points though.
We are not talking about keeping a small conspiracy secret for a few months, we are talking about keeping a well publicized conspiracy secret for 50 years or so. That is three generations of employees, many of whom would love to supplement their pension with royalties from the book deal after they anonymously give up the secret. Keeping a secret like that would be borderline impossible. And of course that is assuming alien landings only occur on US soil where
"Why doesn't CNN march into Area 51 and refuse to leave then because the "public wants to know the truth". "
Because the trailer trash who actually believe these conspiracy theories are not CNN's primary audience (they watch ABC).
To any moderators who read that trailer-trash comment and marked me down for flamebait, I'm sure your trailer is lovely.
I've got to take you on a field trip to Langely, Virginia if you think a few signs and a jeep that takes 20 minutes to arrive (and then just asks them to leave) is high security.
He did make one good point. "People tend to believe it is free, he said, but even companies that support open source are just as motivated by commercial interests as any other commercial software vendor." But so what? Is a MS executive really complaining about companies wanting to make money?
MS (like any other company, including companies that support OSS) would almost certaintly not allow that. Too much of a conflict of interest. I'm virtually certain MS would require permission for him to work on an OSS project (yes they can do that), which I'm virtually certain Microsoft would not allow.
One little problem with your analogy, post it notes cost fractions of a cent. I don't know exactly what the going rate is for motorcycles or how much this thing from Toyota would cost, but I would think they would cost a bit more. If you have the disposable income to buy a different vehicle for each need you have, all the more power to you. But most people don't have that.
Your rental car idea may work for some people as it apparently worked for you, but the fact is different people have different needs, so what works for you will not necessarily work for others. Most people have families, girlfriends, or friends to drive around, need to go to the grocery store a bit more than once a month (what are you buying, nothing but canned goods?), have other shopping they need to do, etc. Most of us don't buy cars because we want to pollute the air or buy expensive gas; we buy them because we need them to live our lives.
"The saddest part with Toyota's gadget: It appears too much a toy, and they will have terrible image problems."
What are you talking about? It looks like a toy because it is a toy. Or rather a concept car. The goal is not to sell automobiles but to get attention. A boring, more practical model would not attract near as much attention as this. If an actual market is seen for these, I'm sure a more practical looking version will be what most people will buy.
Then why am I cracking up reading your post?
Jokes are supposed to be silly. No, an actual plant explosion would not wipe France off the map. In fact if it could, the joke wouldn't be all that funny as we would be talking about killing millions of innocent civilians, many of whom may not even be snobs. But as the idea is not entirely serious in the first place, we are allowed to have a laugh or two at the expense of the French.
How recently is this guy talking about? Will the radio in my '92 Acura be able to work like that? What about even older devices? Or would the recommended policy make all those radios obsolete?
I'm generally against overuse of government power, but it seems the new technology has to fully overtake the old technology before the government changes their policy.
Or maybe this is a dumbed down version of the argument and I'm missing something.
"Star Wars III: Sorry About Those Last Two" I know I'm stealing an old Leno joke.
Unemployed American computer programmers didn't lose their jobs because of outsourcing. They lost them because the dot-com economy collapsed. There was plenty of outsourcing back in the 90s too. If anything outsourcing has saved jobs by allowing troubled companies to cut costs instead of going bankrupt and by creating more demand for more products (India buys plenty of stuff from the United States). People who think outsourcing is killing our economy (coughJohnKerrycough) are nothing more than ignorant xenophobes.
Good thing you are not running our economy. Increased efficiency, increased trade, and all the other benefits brought by outsourcing are generally considered GOOD, not bad for the economy. Outsourcing brings in more jobs than it loses. Think of the people working for companies that would have long ago gone out of business if they had to keep on paying for overpriced software engineers in Silicon Valley. Think of all the people working for companies who were able to expand into new markets in Asia because their economies have benefited from outsourcing. Yes, computer programmers have more competition these days. So what? If someone in India is willing to produce a superior product at a lower cost than what you are asking for, you don't deserve a job. And if you expected the dot-com economy of the 90's to continue as it was, you really don't deserve a job.
If you are equating taking a class on Dante's Inferno with learning Klingon, it is people like you who really give science fiction a bad name. BTW, some Tolkien fans and Star Wars fans are just as bad, though I have never seen any Stephen King fans or Shakespeare fans take their hobbies nearly as far as the stereotypical Trekie.
Yeah, sure, if new computers could be bought with Linux installed (sort of like this: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39150601,00.htm ), people like my mom would love Linux and other open source software.
The original question was why is the government (in this case federal) spending money on weapons in space rather than on education (which is supposed to be funded by the state governments). The two are (under the Constitution, though not always in reality) separate institutions with separate responsibilities. We are arguing about semantics, sure, but it is important to keep consistent semantics throughout a discussion. The original use of the term "the government" was used to refer to the United States federal government (or the original poster had no knowledge of how the US government is set up), not "any governing body".
Our constitution (you know, that thing that is the basis of our government) considers the state and federal governments seperate.