2/1.2Mil seems like a pretty good ratio to me; if I had that sort of a blip on the surface of a road I was driving on, it would be completely unnoticeable. The important thing is how they deal with the blip -- if they respond quickly and add new logic to protect against this kind of system gaming, it's all good. If they go on a media blitz showering us with unicorns, it's time to quickly scale the garden wall.
"There is a reason we want to provide our customers with better service, faster speeds, and a diverse choice of programming: we don't want to lose them."
If Comcast's customers aren't happy with the company's customer service, speeds, programming, etc., where else could they go? It's not like most people have a lot of options to begin with. And if Comcast is allowed to expand it's empire, that will only ensure that US consumers have even less options in the future (for cable providers anyway). You can't lose a customer if you're the only viable game in town.
Well, if Comcast customers are upset enough with their service, they have two options: 1) cancel all service or 2) move to a TWC area. Option 1 will still be available after a merger, option 2 will no longer be available. Seems like a good reason for merging, from their perspective.
Android also currently has issues with malware that haven't cropped up inside the walled garden.
Walled gardens are appropriate for appliance-based computing. If you want a more open platform, you need to do a lot more footwork yourself. Android is a great platform for such users.
Phone apps I actually use: Alarm Clock Countdown Timer Stop Watch Calculator eBook reader email reader text messaging app Music player Video player Calendar Photo viewer Offline Map-based GPS Microphone/annotation device Reminder/To-Do app Address Book Input device for computer Remote Access/monitoring software for computers Weather app Camera Offline Reference apps (health/meds/astronomy/formulas/conversions/knots/words) Collaborative doodle apps Music composition/performance apps
That's what I actually use on a regular basis. Interestingly, a large portion of those are provided by default. Another one that I always intend to use but never actually find useful is a range finder app that lets you calculate distance/height of objects.
It's more of a choice on which companies you want consumers to get screwed by. Content Providers or ISPs. NN gives content providers a huge financial break at an ISP's expense which is inevitably passed onto consumers. Non-NN gives ISPs leverage against content providers. Either way, some set of large companies will win. Myself, I prefer to let my dollars go to the ISP rather than let some large content providers (who I don't use) get a free ride on the network I'm paying for.
I can see why you posted AC, as this is a logical fallacy understood by anyone who thinks about it.
If there were no content providers, just individuals (like in the early days of the Internet), then the individuals pay their ISPs for a connection to the network. Those ISPs have peering agreements so that they can share the data sent by their customers.
Add in the content providers. Wait. Aren't content providers just virtual individuals with large amounts of data someone else wants? Doesn't that mean that they're ALREADY paying their ISP for their connection to the network? Isn't that data already being handled by peering agreements?
There's no free lunch, but some of the big ISPs want to get one anyway, by double-charging (that is, charge their customers for access to their peers, and then charge their peers' customers for access to their customer base). If it actually costs them that much money and they're attempting to lower costs to consumers by shifting some of that cost to content providers, then that's not network neutrality; that's cost shifting, and needs a contract. Amazingly, most "large content providers" are more than happy to sign those contracts and absorb some of those costs in exchange for having distribution points inside the service provider's networks, instead of depending on peering. Oddly, those ISPs often refuse to deal with the CPs, instead using the desire for the CPs and their customers to talk to each other as a pressure point for gaining advantage in their peering agreements over the other ISPs. Some CPs like Google have responded to this by creating their own networks and in some cases, allowing consumers to route around the ISPs putting up gateways between their customers and their desired content.
Meanwhile, the ISPs who are pulling these stunts are also either in, or attempting to get into the CP racket, and produce content to compete with that hosted by their peers. They can do this by hosting that content inside their own networks, just like they've been refusing to let the competition do.
Why does this work? Because these ISPs have legislated limited monopolies -- their customers can't just go somewhere else for the most part. In Canada, the tit-for-tat regarding having that limited monopoly is that there's balanced legislation saying "if you want that monopoly, you have to play by these rules and not abuse that monopoly". In the US, instead of that balanced legislation, there's a few decades of sweeping things under the rug, lobbying, and hubris. I'm fine with AT&T & co. blocking net neutrality, as long as they give the government back all the money that was given to them over the past 30 years to build out the network -- they've obviously failed to meet the requirements the government listed in the agreements, and so should not be getting taxpayer's money and a limited monopoly in the marketplace as well as control over what packets come into and out of their network.
I'd like to see the government say "No Class II? Fine; give us our money back, and you no longer have marketplace protections, which means any municipality or start-up can enter your market and there's nothing you can do about it. And if they want to play by our rules, maybe we'll give them some of that money you've failed to invest in infrastructure, to offset the hardware monopoly we gave you via land lines."
Yeah; I was thinking the same thing -- the majority of my toppings don't change from one visit to the next, so I don't even have to look at them. Then the current deal combos come into play, and finally those last few topping choices that I sometimes agonize over (hmm... green peppers AND mushroom is much more expensive than just one or the other on a pepperoni pizza -- which do I prefer today?)
And yeah; this system will get my order right 100% of the time, as I don't like Pizza Hut's crusts or sauces (so never make it as far as the topping selection).
However, if they can improve the setup so that the system recognized me and knew my past purchase preferences (via facial recognition) and then used this algorithm on TOP of that, they would probably be pretty accurate, assuming it was used by a chain I actually frequented.
Algorithm could check and see that I only bought specials after 6 PM for example, and then limit their list of combinations to those included in the current specials. Seems a shame to have it work through all the combinations I'd never want; more chance for both false positives and false negatives.
The point is, while he may be a special little snowflake, so is everyone else. What TFA really says is "Those who run the electrical grid get the most out of solar panels that are pointed west in California, as this has them pointing directly at the sun during peak electrical grid demand." That's significantly different than "Solar panels should face west."
If you're off-grid, you'll do best with pointing to the optimal location (there are charts available for this -- it's rarely south OR west) and storing the energy harvested for use when you need it. If you're just pumping it into the local grid, optimizing for high demand periods makes more sense (and the charts aren't tuned for that [yet]). However, this assumes that the electrical service you're using allows you to contribute back to the grid, and has a variable pricing scheme. If they don't, what real incentive do you have to optimize your energy collection to when THEY need it most? You'd have more incentive to tune for peak efficiency and sell it back to them when you don't need it -- and then buy back at the same rate when you DO need it.
So this whole thing's kind of a non-issue. Of course, what works best, as long as you're generating a decent amount of electricity, is to just track the sun from sunrise to sunset, assuming you'll offset the costs of the sensors and motors.
Well, you missed the whole issue with the if you produce it at peak power price, you can consume at peak power price for FREE. So, you don't buy expensive electricity and feed in electricity when you don't need it over the day.
If Cost of electricity at optimal direction Cost of optimal peak demand net-demand for house then point it to optimal direction else point to west or whatever your peak power time is.
You seems to think, you have it all figured out, except for this tiny tiny, ok not so tiny, ok huge error. Some people voted you up as well, for calling an issue a non-issue!
Re-read what I said:
However, this assumes that the electrical service you're using allows you to contribute back to the grid, and has a variable pricing scheme. If they don't, what real incentive do you have to optimize your energy collection to when THEY need it most? You'd have more incentive to tune for peak efficiency and sell it back to them when you don't need it -- and then buy back at the same rate when you DO need it.
If they have a variable pricing scheme, you're absolutely correct -- you're consuming for free at peak demand. If they don't, then peak demand time only affects the supplier, not the consumer, and so there's no reason for the consumer to adjust their panels, as it actually means that they have to depend more on outside power, jacking up their costs (this argument also works for sending electricity back into the grid).
The point is, while he may be a special little snowflake, so is everyone else. What TFA really says is "Those who run the electrical grid get the most out of solar panels that are pointed west in California, as this has them pointing directly at the sun during peak electrical grid demand." That's significantly different than "Solar panels should face west."
If you're off-grid, you'll do best with pointing to the optimal location (there are charts available for this -- it's rarely south OR west) and storing the energy harvested for use when you need it. If you're just pumping it into the local grid, optimizing for high demand periods makes more sense (and the charts aren't tuned for that [yet]). However, this assumes that the electrical service you're using allows you to contribute back to the grid, and has a variable pricing scheme. If they don't, what real incentive do you have to optimize your energy collection to when THEY need it most? You'd have more incentive to tune for peak efficiency and sell it back to them when you don't need it -- and then buy back at the same rate when you DO need it.
So this whole thing's kind of a non-issue. Of course, what works best, as long as you're generating a decent amount of electricity, is to just track the sun from sunrise to sunset, assuming you'll offset the costs of the sensors and motors.
Mark Hamill hasn't acted in over 30 years, it's going to be awkward seeing him act again.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm000... disagrees with you. While he's spent most of the past 30 years voice acting and doing TV shows, his most recent movie part was this year in "The Halloween Pranksta".
I'd say it's more that he hasn't had a leading role since the late 70's. He's definitely kept his acting going.
Either you've got a point with the bling, or the answer is in the midichlorians -- the crossguard is useless unless it is *also* controlled by the Force. This would indicate a higher degree of control, which would be a Force status symbol. Of course, if you're *really* good with the Force, you don't really need the sabre at all, and don't really need to move your body around either. The sabre is meant to focus power, not to be a fancy dueling weapon. I mean, a light Epee would work just as well. It's all about the visualization (and the enjoyment of the special effects by the viewers).
Only problem is, with the new international trade laws going in that let companies sue governments for "unfair competition", any government that goes cost-plus will get sued to the point where it's not worth pursuing anymore -- because there's no way the patent system can compete with low-cost drugs and open access methods. But I agree: that's what should have been happening for the past decade. It really calls into question why it hasn't, and why governments are instead pushing the current trade laws.
It's even simpler than that... the IPs are in a limited pool, and are used for all your network transactions during the period. All there needs to be is an IP correlation between the transaction and that check of your GMail account during the same time period, and the IP links the two, flagging who you are. No need to track back through the ISP who was supposed to have that IP at that time (although that's trivial with a warrant too).
The data density in bluray means that the pits are far, far, far, far too small for dirt to get stuck in, or on. Think of it like placing a pebble on a beach. There are pits between sand grains but the size disparity means it acts like a flat surface for most intents and purposes.
Not only this, but presumably the pits can be under the glass, just as they are under polycarbonate on a disc. Then the pits are not exposed to dir, and a normal washing will remove surface dust, bird poop, etc.
Which raises the question: Why did they use a Jackie Chan disc instead of a Brad Pitt disc?
Indeed -- the main cost is actually in all the testing, not in the conceptual (or actual) development -- this is where I started with my comment.
In this case however, there was no testing done that I can see; instead of putting the money into testing it, they sat on it until they could sell it to Merck -- who bought it for significantly more than it would have cost to test.
They weren't handed the equivalent of a concept drawing -- it was more like they were handed a concept car plus the facility to fabricate it, and then had to get the certifications done and ramp up production. Instead, they sat on it and re-sold to a larger manufacturer when it became lucrative.
I don't know about you, but I don't want my health bought and sold the same way my car is.
The MessagePad/iPad thing is an interesting angle, but completely outside the discussion: having been around during the development of both, I can guarantee you the MessagePad was much harder to bring to market, and much more expensive, with a smaller market to capture. The iPad of course has much higher rights to market, due to the significantly larger market (and cheaper R&D/testing, comparatively). And this is what we saw here: when Merck saw that the market for an Ebola vaccine had suddenly blossomed, they were willing to throw money at it due to the anticipated ability to corner the larger market, or at least get a significant leg up on the competition. I presume the idea is that they paid more than it would have cost for the small firm to do the testing/certification/production themselves, to make it worth their while to sell.
Free market indeed, it's funny when the market is far freer in a politically communist nation
China has a huge number of trade barriers, including price caps on pharmaceuticals. The other half of the "free(er) market" you're describing is a failure to enforce IP rights (or, possibly, failure by companies to file the relevant patent applications in China, but that seems unlikely), so that pharma companies are having to compete with generic products that would be illegal in the US. You can applaud this if you like, but it's not generally considered a good environment for inventing new drugs.
That's the point people generally make -- but look at the context of the article you're commenting about -- the drug in this case was invented in Canada, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, and then rights were sold pretty much at-cost to a US company to test and develop it -- and they didn't. Now they've given it a 25x markup and sold those rights off to Merck (which is against the original contract).
So... which is a better environment for inventing new drugs? The one in which there's an even playing field with generics (meaning the drug actually has to be/new/, not just newly patentable), or the one that fails to invent the new drug because it's not profitable enough, and then buys the rights to develop it from a humanitarian source when it suddenly looks profitable?
[T]he more the Big Data analytics companies know about you the more they will be able to manipulate you and control your life all for their benefit, not yours.
I disagree -- they don't want to control your life all for their benefit -- they want to sell the analytics to third parties who want to control your life, and they want to sell "access" to third parties to influence your perception of the online world.
This is actually part of the EU argument for the "right to be forgotten" -- and the only part I agree with; the big data analytics companies like Google are already serving up different results based on the user index -- if they're already doing this, then it's only one more step to say "these people are in the EU, and so shouldn't see these results at all (not just rank them lower like they already do).
This all started with Amazon back in the day, when they started showing different deals and adjusting ALL pricing based on your CI profile. Google eventually got in on that, and it now affects pretty much all of their products (even GMail will bubble up different emails based on what they think you'll want to pay most attention to). This could be considered beneficial, but it's naieve to think that you're the only one getting this benefit; it's being sold in reverse-aggregate form to others so that those who pay Google get finely honed access to the customers they think might want the services. Nothing wrong with that either, but I'd rather not take part unless I choose to (as opposed to being shown the altered world view as my default browsing experience).
As a result, I use Google Search now when I want something targeting me, and ddg/yahoo when I want to search for something specific, as Google's got really good at pushing what it thinks I'd prefer rather than what I want. It gets this data through GMail, Chrome, GoogDNS, GooglePlus, etc. I usually use Youtube as an indicator of how well they're tracking my current browser, and when things start to skew too much, I blow away all my cookies, flash bugs, etc. and renew my DHCP lease. Usually takes a couple of months.
Excellent! I might check this out -- it appears to indeed be NoScript and then some. Then the only roadblock for me is to see how I can prevent usage stats from flowing back to Google. There must be a custom build of Chromium for that....
It's fine that you agree, but what about everybody else? If I stop posting then much of what's left on varous topics will be bad arguments and non-factual "facts." Nobody should want that, it doesn't help anybody. I'll keep posting to benefit everybody else even if you agree with me.
Usually CF and I come down on opposite sides of arguments to do with US government overreach, but I completely agree with him on this point. Using blanket statements and emotion-based arguments does nothing to prove a point, and both he and I have called that out on this thread.
So, like him and Chris453, I'd like some further explanation as to why the US isn't evil, but the NSA, which is a US government organization, IS evil? It seems to me that either US citizens should disband it if they feel it's evil, or they should get rid of the parts that are evil and keep the good parts, or they should leave their country if they feel it is evil and not providing them the power to excise the evil parts. Or, of course, topple the entire government.
Living in a country, complaining that its signals branch of the government is evil, and then doing nothing else about it but complacently reaping the benefits of the "evil" government's actions seems just as evil (or at least hypocritical) in my view. "Because they're evil!" is the sort of reasoning that lends itself more to fascist regimes than to true democratic republics.
Not to mention, I'd be impressed with a 2-inch Wang; I've got one virtualized (so it could probably run under emulation on a 2-inch device), but shrinking the actual hardware to that size would be a neat accomplishment in itself!
By that logic, I can extend your argument to "All Americans are bad dudes" because they have done nothing to rein in the US Military complex, US IP complex, US entertainment complex and US meddling in foreign politics, not to mention the doubletalk used in dealing with the US itself.
Don't demonize others for not doing things you haven't done yourself, nor make them guilty by association, unless you're willing to be called out as similarly guilty.
Slashdot Mirror
2/1.2Mil seems like a pretty good ratio to me; if I had that sort of a blip on the surface of a road I was driving on, it would be completely unnoticeable. The important thing is how they deal with the blip -- if they respond quickly and add new logic to protect against this kind of system gaming, it's all good. If they go on a media blitz showering us with unicorns, it's time to quickly scale the garden wall.
10 minutes later i'm asking myself: why the hell i'm listening to Pharrell Williams??
Because you're so happy?
Personally, I think the Rickroll should be replaced with the Pharrellroll.
From TFS:
If Comcast's customers aren't happy with the company's customer service, speeds, programming, etc., where else could they go? It's not like most people have a lot of options to begin with. And if Comcast is allowed to expand it's empire, that will only ensure that US consumers have even less options in the future (for cable providers anyway). You can't lose a customer if you're the only viable game in town.
Well, if Comcast customers are upset enough with their service, they have two options: 1) cancel all service or 2) move to a TWC area.
Option 1 will still be available after a merger, option 2 will no longer be available. Seems like a good reason for merging, from their perspective.
Android also currently has issues with malware that haven't cropped up inside the walled garden.
Walled gardens are appropriate for appliance-based computing. If you want a more open platform, you need to do a lot more footwork yourself. Android is a great platform for such users.
Phone apps I actually use:
Alarm Clock
Countdown Timer
Stop Watch
Calculator
eBook reader
email reader
text messaging app
Music player
Video player
Calendar
Photo viewer
Offline Map-based GPS
Microphone/annotation device
Reminder/To-Do app
Address Book
Input device for computer
Remote Access/monitoring software for computers
Weather app
Camera
Offline Reference apps (health/meds/astronomy/formulas/conversions/knots/words)
Collaborative doodle apps
Music composition/performance apps
That's what I actually use on a regular basis. Interestingly, a large portion of those are provided by default.
Another one that I always intend to use but never actually find useful is a range finder app that lets you calculate distance/height of objects.
It's more of a choice on which companies you want consumers to get screwed by. Content Providers or ISPs. NN gives content providers a huge financial break at an ISP's expense which is inevitably passed onto consumers. Non-NN gives ISPs leverage against content providers. Either way, some set of large companies will win. Myself, I prefer to let my dollars go to the ISP rather than let some large content providers (who I don't use) get a free ride on the network I'm paying for.
I can see why you posted AC, as this is a logical fallacy understood by anyone who thinks about it.
If there were no content providers, just individuals (like in the early days of the Internet), then the individuals pay their ISPs for a connection to the network. Those ISPs have peering agreements so that they can share the data sent by their customers.
Add in the content providers. Wait. Aren't content providers just virtual individuals with large amounts of data someone else wants? Doesn't that mean that they're ALREADY paying their ISP for their connection to the network? Isn't that data already being handled by peering agreements?
There's no free lunch, but some of the big ISPs want to get one anyway, by double-charging (that is, charge their customers for access to their peers, and then charge their peers' customers for access to their customer base). If it actually costs them that much money and they're attempting to lower costs to consumers by shifting some of that cost to content providers, then that's not network neutrality; that's cost shifting, and needs a contract. Amazingly, most "large content providers" are more than happy to sign those contracts and absorb some of those costs in exchange for having distribution points inside the service provider's networks, instead of depending on peering. Oddly, those ISPs often refuse to deal with the CPs, instead using the desire for the CPs and their customers to talk to each other as a pressure point for gaining advantage in their peering agreements over the other ISPs. Some CPs like Google have responded to this by creating their own networks and in some cases, allowing consumers to route around the ISPs putting up gateways between their customers and their desired content.
Meanwhile, the ISPs who are pulling these stunts are also either in, or attempting to get into the CP racket, and produce content to compete with that hosted by their peers. They can do this by hosting that content inside their own networks, just like they've been refusing to let the competition do.
Why does this work? Because these ISPs have legislated limited monopolies -- their customers can't just go somewhere else for the most part. In Canada, the tit-for-tat regarding having that limited monopoly is that there's balanced legislation saying "if you want that monopoly, you have to play by these rules and not abuse that monopoly". In the US, instead of that balanced legislation, there's a few decades of sweeping things under the rug, lobbying, and hubris. I'm fine with AT&T & co. blocking net neutrality, as long as they give the government back all the money that was given to them over the past 30 years to build out the network -- they've obviously failed to meet the requirements the government listed in the agreements, and so should not be getting taxpayer's money and a limited monopoly in the marketplace as well as control over what packets come into and out of their network.
I'd like to see the government say "No Class II? Fine; give us our money back, and you no longer have marketplace protections, which means any municipality or start-up can enter your market and there's nothing you can do about it. And if they want to play by our rules, maybe we'll give them some of that money you've failed to invest in infrastructure, to offset the hardware monopoly we gave you via land lines."
Yeah; I was thinking the same thing -- the majority of my toppings don't change from one visit to the next, so I don't even have to look at them. Then the current deal combos come into play, and finally those last few topping choices that I sometimes agonize over (hmm... green peppers AND mushroom is much more expensive than just one or the other on a pepperoni pizza -- which do I prefer today?)
And yeah; this system will get my order right 100% of the time, as I don't like Pizza Hut's crusts or sauces (so never make it as far as the topping selection).
However, if they can improve the setup so that the system recognized me and knew my past purchase preferences (via facial recognition) and then used this algorithm on TOP of that, they would probably be pretty accurate, assuming it was used by a chain I actually frequented.
Algorithm could check and see that I only bought specials after 6 PM for example, and then limit their list of combinations to those included in the current specials. Seems a shame to have it work through all the combinations I'd never want; more chance for both false positives and false negatives.
The point is, while he may be a special little snowflake, so is everyone else. What TFA really says is "Those who run the electrical grid get the most out of solar panels that are pointed west in California, as this has them pointing directly at the sun during peak electrical grid demand." That's significantly different than "Solar panels should face west."
If you're off-grid, you'll do best with pointing to the optimal location (there are charts available for this -- it's rarely south OR west) and storing the energy harvested for use when you need it. If you're just pumping it into the local grid, optimizing for high demand periods makes more sense (and the charts aren't tuned for that [yet]). However, this assumes that the electrical service you're using allows you to contribute back to the grid, and has a variable pricing scheme. If they don't, what real incentive do you have to optimize your energy collection to when THEY need it most? You'd have more incentive to tune for peak efficiency and sell it back to them when you don't need it -- and then buy back at the same rate when you DO need it.
So this whole thing's kind of a non-issue. Of course, what works best, as long as you're generating a decent amount of electricity, is to just track the sun from sunrise to sunset, assuming you'll offset the costs of the sensors and motors.
Well, you missed the whole issue with the if you produce it at peak power price, you can consume at peak power price for FREE. So, you don't buy expensive electricity and feed in electricity when you don't need it over the day.
If Cost of electricity at optimal direction Cost of optimal peak demand net-demand for house then point it to optimal direction else point to west or whatever your peak power time is.
You seems to think, you have it all figured out, except for this tiny tiny, ok not so tiny, ok huge error. Some people voted you up as well, for calling an issue a non-issue!
Re-read what I said:
If they have a variable pricing scheme, you're absolutely correct -- you're consuming for free at peak demand. If they don't, then peak demand time only affects the supplier, not the consumer, and so there's no reason for the consumer to adjust their panels, as it actually means that they have to depend more on outside power, jacking up their costs (this argument also works for sending electricity back into the grid).
The point is, while he may be a special little snowflake, so is everyone else. What TFA really says is "Those who run the electrical grid get the most out of solar panels that are pointed west in California, as this has them pointing directly at the sun during peak electrical grid demand." That's significantly different than "Solar panels should face west."
If you're off-grid, you'll do best with pointing to the optimal location (there are charts available for this -- it's rarely south OR west) and storing the energy harvested for use when you need it. If you're just pumping it into the local grid, optimizing for high demand periods makes more sense (and the charts aren't tuned for that [yet]). However, this assumes that the electrical service you're using allows you to contribute back to the grid, and has a variable pricing scheme. If they don't, what real incentive do you have to optimize your energy collection to when THEY need it most? You'd have more incentive to tune for peak efficiency and sell it back to them when you don't need it -- and then buy back at the same rate when you DO need it.
So this whole thing's kind of a non-issue. Of course, what works best, as long as you're generating a decent amount of electricity, is to just track the sun from sunrise to sunset, assuming you'll offset the costs of the sensors and motors.
People still download music?
Yes, most just call it streaming now. It's still downloading, and the RIAA doesn't like it.
Mark Hamill hasn't acted in over 30 years, it's going to be awkward seeing him act again.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm000... disagrees with you. While he's spent most of the past 30 years voice acting and doing TV shows, his most recent movie part was this year in "The Halloween Pranksta".
I'd say it's more that he hasn't had a leading role since the late 70's. He's definitely kept his acting going.
Either you've got a point with the bling, or the answer is in the midichlorians -- the crossguard is useless unless it is *also* controlled by the Force. This would indicate a higher degree of control, which would be a Force status symbol. Of course, if you're *really* good with the Force, you don't really need the sabre at all, and don't really need to move your body around either. The sabre is meant to focus power, not to be a fancy dueling weapon. I mean, a light Epee would work just as well. It's all about the visualization (and the enjoyment of the special effects by the viewers).
It actually does say "breathe." It's just hard to see that last "e" due to the lens flare.
Ah; that explains the "Star War" title then too!
Only problem is, with the new international trade laws going in that let companies sue governments for "unfair competition", any government that goes cost-plus will get sued to the point where it's not worth pursuing anymore -- because there's no way the patent system can compete with low-cost drugs and open access methods. But I agree: that's what should have been happening for the past decade. It really calls into question why it hasn't, and why governments are instead pushing the current trade laws.
It's even simpler than that... the IPs are in a limited pool, and are used for all your network transactions during the period. All there needs to be is an IP correlation between the transaction and that check of your GMail account during the same time period, and the IP links the two, flagging who you are. No need to track back through the ISP who was supposed to have that IP at that time (although that's trivial with a warrant too).
The data density in bluray means that the pits are far, far, far, far too small for dirt to get stuck in, or on. Think of it like placing a pebble on a beach. There are pits between sand grains but the size disparity means it acts like a flat surface for most intents and purposes.
Not only this, but presumably the pits can be under the glass, just as they are under polycarbonate on a disc. Then the pits are not exposed to dir, and a normal washing will remove surface dust, bird poop, etc.
Which raises the question: Why did they use a Jackie Chan disc instead of a Brad Pitt disc?
Indeed -- the main cost is actually in all the testing, not in the conceptual (or actual) development -- this is where I started with my comment.
In this case however, there was no testing done that I can see; instead of putting the money into testing it, they sat on it until they could sell it to Merck -- who bought it for significantly more than it would have cost to test.
They weren't handed the equivalent of a concept drawing -- it was more like they were handed a concept car plus the facility to fabricate it, and then had to get the certifications done and ramp up production. Instead, they sat on it and re-sold to a larger manufacturer when it became lucrative.
I don't know about you, but I don't want my health bought and sold the same way my car is.
The MessagePad/iPad thing is an interesting angle, but completely outside the discussion: having been around during the development of both, I can guarantee you the MessagePad was much harder to bring to market, and much more expensive, with a smaller market to capture. The iPad of course has much higher rights to market, due to the significantly larger market (and cheaper R&D/testing, comparatively). And this is what we saw here: when Merck saw that the market for an Ebola vaccine had suddenly blossomed, they were willing to throw money at it due to the anticipated ability to corner the larger market, or at least get a significant leg up on the competition. I presume the idea is that they paid more than it would have cost for the small firm to do the testing/certification/production themselves, to make it worth their while to sell.
Free market indeed, it's funny when the market is far freer in a politically communist nation
China has a huge number of trade barriers, including price caps on pharmaceuticals. The other half of the "free(er) market" you're describing is a failure to enforce IP rights (or, possibly, failure by companies to file the relevant patent applications in China, but that seems unlikely), so that pharma companies are having to compete with generic products that would be illegal in the US. You can applaud this if you like, but it's not generally considered a good environment for inventing new drugs.
That's the point people generally make -- but look at the context of the article you're commenting about -- the drug in this case was invented in Canada, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, and then rights were sold pretty much at-cost to a US company to test and develop it -- and they didn't. Now they've given it a 25x markup and sold those rights off to Merck (which is against the original contract).
So... which is a better environment for inventing new drugs? The one in which there's an even playing field with generics (meaning the drug actually has to be /new/, not just newly patentable), or the one that fails to invent the new drug because it's not profitable enough, and then buys the rights to develop it from a humanitarian source when it suddenly looks profitable?
[T]he more the Big Data analytics companies know about you the more they will be able to manipulate you and control your life all for their benefit, not yours.
I disagree -- they don't want to control your life all for their benefit -- they want to sell the analytics to third parties who want to control your life, and they want to sell "access" to third parties to influence your perception of the online world.
This is actually part of the EU argument for the "right to be forgotten" -- and the only part I agree with; the big data analytics companies like Google are already serving up different results based on the user index -- if they're already doing this, then it's only one more step to say "these people are in the EU, and so shouldn't see these results at all (not just rank them lower like they already do).
This all started with Amazon back in the day, when they started showing different deals and adjusting ALL pricing based on your CI profile. Google eventually got in on that, and it now affects pretty much all of their products (even GMail will bubble up different emails based on what they think you'll want to pay most attention to). This could be considered beneficial, but it's naieve to think that you're the only one getting this benefit; it's being sold in reverse-aggregate form to others so that those who pay Google get finely honed access to the customers they think might want the services. Nothing wrong with that either, but I'd rather not take part unless I choose to (as opposed to being shown the altered world view as my default browsing experience).
As a result, I use Google Search now when I want something targeting me, and ddg/yahoo when I want to search for something specific, as Google's got really good at pushing what it thinks I'd prefer rather than what I want. It gets this data through GMail, Chrome, GoogDNS, GooglePlus, etc. I usually use Youtube as an indicator of how well they're tracking my current browser, and when things start to skew too much, I blow away all my cookies, flash bugs, etc. and renew my DHCP lease. Usually takes a couple of months.
Excellent! I might check this out -- it appears to indeed be NoScript and then some. Then the only roadblock for me is to see how I can prevent usage stats from flowing back to Google. There must be a custom build of Chromium for that....
It's fine that you agree, but what about everybody else? If I stop posting then much of what's left on varous topics will be bad arguments and non-factual "facts." Nobody should want that, it doesn't help anybody. I'll keep posting to benefit everybody else even if you agree with me.
Usually CF and I come down on opposite sides of arguments to do with US government overreach, but I completely agree with him on this point. Using blanket statements and emotion-based arguments does nothing to prove a point, and both he and I have called that out on this thread.
So, like him and Chris453, I'd like some further explanation as to why the US isn't evil, but the NSA, which is a US government organization, IS evil? It seems to me that either US citizens should disband it if they feel it's evil, or they should get rid of the parts that are evil and keep the good parts, or they should leave their country if they feel it is evil and not providing them the power to excise the evil parts. Or, of course, topple the entire government.
Living in a country, complaining that its signals branch of the government is evil, and then doing nothing else about it but complacently reaping the benefits of the "evil" government's actions seems just as evil (or at least hypocritical) in my view. "Because they're evil!" is the sort of reasoning that lends itself more to fascist regimes than to true democratic republics.
NotScripts is the NoScripts equivalent in Chrome and it works pretty well.
NotScripts works well for what it does, but all it does is toggle scripts on/off. NoScript does a LOT more, providing an XSS jail, among other things.
Not to mention, I'd be impressed with a 2-inch Wang; I've got one virtualized (so it could probably run under emulation on a 2-inch device), but shrinking the actual hardware to that size would be a neat accomplishment in itself!
By that logic, I can extend your argument to "All Americans are bad dudes" because they have done nothing to rein in the US Military complex, US IP complex, US entertainment complex and US meddling in foreign politics, not to mention the doubletalk used in dealing with the US itself.
Don't demonize others for not doing things you haven't done yourself, nor make them guilty by association, unless you're willing to be called out as similarly guilty.
Europe disappeared from the worldwide web today.
Would that be because the EU parliament exercised their right to be forgotten?