Sorry, sometimes I unreasonably expect people reading threads to follow the context.
Yes, I am quite aware that the website in question is linked on a single page on a single division website of the company. Allow me to step through the evidence again:
Asus is a multinational company with offices and divisions spread throughout the world. These offices are populated by live human beings that may actually have their own agendas and may be capable of taking actions outside of sequential commands received from Taiwan HQ.
Asus has a history of being not exactly "buddy-buddy" with Microsoft, even refusing to provide support for hardware broken by Windows XP SP3 (yes, a fix was released months later). So while it's possible they've had a complete change of heart, their past actions don't lend rousing support to the idea that this is an official campaign.
Surely if this was an actual advertising campaign supported by two large, public, multinational companies, there would be supporting propaganda from at least several locations and media? Surely there would be more than just a single link to the website buried on the product info page of one division of a single company?
As I stated, I checked the Asus sites for the languages I can read. Even if it was an English-only campaign, there should be references on the US (especially the US, in my opinion, given the size of the market) and Australian sites in addition to the UK division. If someone cares to check the Asus (or Microsoft for that matter) sites in other languages, feel free but I won't hold my breath.
The website mentions neither Microsoft nor Asus, nor does it explicitly mention in copy the EEE PC 1008HA "seashell." There are no copyright or trademark declarations, nothing linking the content of the website to an official offering of either company. Even the website domain is registered to a single individual (not a company).
Look, I'm not at all saying that this is for sure not an official website partnership. Seriously though, use your brain. None of this seems to be right, so practice some healthy skepticism instead of just gargling whatever excretion someone forces upon you.
It's a logic fail to assume that a link on a single web page means official endorsement. For example, at the organization I work for, I have access to all web servers. I could easily place links on very public websites to all sorts of stuff that directly counteracts the stated goals of the organization (backed up by their actions) and to you that would be "official enough?" Come on.
While I agree that it's too soon to say that this is indeed a hoax, it's a bit presumptuous to say that it's not.
There has been no official press release about a "It's Better With Windows" campaign from either company (and you can bet Microsoft would be all over something like that). It also does not appear to be an organized effort from Asus in any sense of the term. The website is amateurish at best, and only one division of the company seems to link to this site. I also checked the French, German, and Spanish sites and found no reference to It's Better With Windows on their 1008HA "seashell" product pages. Presumably, it could just be an English language campaign, however neither the US nor Australian sites mention it. Additionally, it seems to be absent from this promotional flash application which I arrived at from the Australian site.
So pardon us if we're a bit skeptical but this does not have any of the normal signs of an officially endorsed advertising campaign partnership. It smells more of a web designer who thought it would be funny to pull a prank (which we've all seen in other media like porn hidden in posters or easter eggs in applications). I may yet be proven to be wrong but even being a Linux supporter, I'd rather err on the side of rationality.
So, no, findings of a jury can't generally be appealed. This is not just me saying this. This is in the Constitution.
Yes, it's in the Constitution. There's lots of stuff in the Constitution and it all gets ignored by judges when convenient. More importantly, it doesn't really apply here (and just as an aside, it only applies in federal courts). Your quote:
In Anglo-American based legal systems, finding of fact made by the jury are not appealable unless clearly wrong to any reasonable person.
The appellate court will typically be deferential to the lower court's findings of fact (such as whether a defendant committed a particular act), unless clearly erroneous, and so will focus on the court's application of the law to those facts (such as whether the act found by the court to have occurred fits a legal definition at issue).
In other words, findings of fact can't be appealed, except when they can. Additionally, appellate courts generally do not review findings of fact so that's not even the most common reason to appeal. Point being, even if appellate courts never reviewed findings of fact you could still have your appeal granted (or denied--I've consistently said a filed appeal does not equal a granted one).
You're conflating findings of fact with findings of law. They are two completely separate things.
No, I'm quite aware that they are two separate things and I'll even admit that the common expectation is for judges to be finders of law and the juries to be finders of fact. I'm just saying that juries are in no way bound to restrict themselves in such a fashion. From the article you linked yourself:
Jurrors are instructed to strictly follow the law as given by the judge, but are in no way obligated to do so. In some cases this amounts to jury nullification, i.e. the jury effectively re-writing the law or blatantly ignoring it in a particular case.
I think that pretty much speaks for itself.
Why do you think it's called a "directed verdict"? Because traditionally, the judge directed the jury to come up with that verdict.
Sure, I agree that judges can and do behave however they wish in the courtroom. I'm simply stating that the jury can quite politely tell the judge to shove it.
And if you'd poked around a bit more, you might have discovered the concept of a judgment notwithstanding the verdict [wikipedia.org], which is EXACTLY what I was talking about.
Which, like a directed verdict, primarily applies in civil court. If the rules of law and rights of man are trampled on in criminal court, believe me, I'm quite aware that your rights in a civil court are a joke. You're at the mercy of the judge in a civil court and appeals courts generally are not going to care because your civil trial is not judged to be very important.
The jury decides one thing, and the judge changes it to something else. So your belief that the decision of the jury is "sacrosanct" is flat out wrong.
Would you pick a side? You go on about how juries are the absolute finders of fact and how they can't be countermanded. Then you go on about how judges have created some common law precedents that they use to justify overturning the decision of a jury, and you argue for it like it's a good thing.
While an appeal may grant a new trial, and hence a new chance for the facts to be tried, the findings of fact themselves are not appealed.
Except when they are. See above.
Get that through your head. It's important. That's why it's in the Constitution.
And you don't know what you're talking about with regards to appeals. Findings of law, as decided by the judge, can be appealed. Findings of fact, as determined by the jury (or the judge in a bench trial) cannot, except in very unusual circumstances.
Which is another way of saying they can be appealed. Since we're quoting wiki:
An appeal as of right is one that is guaranteed by statute or some underlying constitutional or legal principle. The appellate court cannot refuse to listen to the appeal. An appeal by leave or permission requires the appellant to move for leave to appeal; in such a situation either or both of the lower court and the appellate court may have the discretion to grant or refuse the appellant's demand to appeal the lower court's decision. A good example of this is the U.S. Supreme Court in which at least four justices must agree to hear the case if there is a constitutional issue.
In other words, sometimes the appeals court must hear the appeals case. Other times the appellant must file a notice of appeal to request one and they appellate court may refuse the demand (which is what I said in my previous post). What you might be thinking of is that the prosecution can never appeal an acquittal and in general does not have appeal as of right (where the appeal must be granted).
Actually, a directed verdict is the process of doing just that. The only reason a judge cannot enter a guilty plea after a finding of not guilty is because it violates double jeopardy. Doing it the other way is fine, though.
From the first sentence of that article you cited:
In law, a directed verdict is a ruling by a judge presiding over a jury trial typically made after the prosecution or plaintiff has presented all of their evidence but before the defendant puts on their case, that awards judgment to the defendant.
That is, the jury never deliberates on anything and therefore the judge has not counteracted the jury at all. This is can only be used for an acquittal and is another control to prevent abuses of the system. It prevents a zealous prosecution from making a mockery of the system by providing no real evidence and winning a conviction simply by the prejudices of the jury (which is a reason why you might choose a bench trial; there's no use having a bunch of people decide your fate if they're going to ignore the law and lack of evidence supporting your guilt).
The jury never decides matters of law. Claiming that they do through jury nullification shows a lack of understanding about the legal system. That is why it is not relevant to this discussion. While it may seem like the jury is deciding matters of law, they are, as far as the legal process is concerned, still only finders of fact. They are free to find the facts any way they please, within reason. But jury nullification does not invalidate the law.
Fine, if you want to be extremely pedantic, you are right. Juries cannot simply stand up and say "this law is unconstitutional" and have it be so. If juries consistently refuse to convict on a matter of law, what exactly would you call that then? No one can force a jury to convict and if they refuse, the law is useless (and will be hastily changed by politicians wanting to keep their constituents happy). I daresay they've done more than simply find the facts of the case. It's sophistry to say that a jury nullification is simply finding the facts to be other than as they are. As you said, the jury is entrusted to find the facts in the case so who are you to say they've found them to be other than what they actually are? More importantly, in the case of a true jury nullification, it's not a simple misunderstanding of the facts, it's the jury saying "we do not dispute the evi
I think by "inconsistent with human nature" he was referring to the reaction of the addicted. That is, he is saying that removing the object of addiction will trigger a defensive response which is in all likelihood not what you want. When you place someone on the defensive, you become the enemy and they are not likely to trust you or your motivations.
I agree that it makes sense from the perspective of everyone around the addicted to remove the source of the problem. It's entirely logical to prevent further harm by removing a source of it and, as you said, it's the first step on the road to recovery. The problem is the addicted person is not thinking rationally and does not see reality the way you or anyone else does.
So, I would say it might be unethical to force your will upon an addicted person in the sense that it may/will cause more harm than good. I don't think anyone would think you're being unethical for wanting to help a friend though. It's just that sometimes to help people you have to throw out what you want and what makes sense to you in order to do what's best for them.
*It should be obvious for Slashdot postings, but I am in no way trained in psychology or counseling. However, the above is consistent with everything I've been told by professionals. Let your friend know you are worried about him but let him come to you (and then you lead him to a professional). Forcing your way into his business will only lead to him becoming defensive or much much worse depending on his psychological state.
I am aware of the concept of jury nullification, and I am not addressing that here because it is a controversial issue and one that is worthy of a discussion in its own right. It also has no bearing on this discussion.
Controversial to those who think the proles should know their place and have their rules handed down to them from on high, sure. In any case, it does have bearing in the context to which it was applied. You said, and I quote: "It should NEVER be up to the jury to make determinations of what the law is." The word "should" implies subjectivity and I responded in kind that I believe the opposite to be true, that the jury should make determinations about the law. Furthermore, I objectively stated that it is the case that the jury has this right. I suppose you are free to make the argument that this is incorrect, but I fail to see how you'll succeed given the mounds of quotes and citations from founding fathers and supreme court justices alike that support this right.
Even when the jury refuses to convict based on an unjust law, they are not finding issue with the law itself, but only its application given the current set of facts. They are effectively finding that, while the facts may fit the strict definition of the law, there are mitigating circumstances that do not allow them to find the defendant guilty for whatever reason.
No, they are refusing to convict based on an unjust law because umm... it's unjust. There is a reason the jury declares the verdict and not just what evidence represents fact. Otherwise the foreman would say "Your honor, we find these pieces of evidence to be factual" and then the judge would decide guilt/innocence based on that. Fortunately, it doesn't work that way; the deliberation of the jury is sacrosanct and not subject to review or supervision. The judge can't say "you're wrong" and send the jury back until the come up with the right answer.
That is why decisions of a jury, unlike decisions of a judge, are generally not allowed to be appealed.
Uh, no. You have the right to appeal, but not the right to have that appeal granted. The appellate court can simply deny the appeal and affirm the decision of the lower court (which will make it harder for a different route of appeal to succeed -- appeals are not a get-out-of-jail-free card).
They are also not legally binding on any other case, unlike the decisions of a judge.
If so, it's by convention only. Court cases are not "legally binding" in the sense that once the precedent has been established it is inviolate. However, judges will give deference to previous decisions, especially if they do not fundamentally disagree with those decisions (e.g. constitutionality). It would not be politically wise to snub other judges and it will only highlight the case to be reviewed by a higher court who will put you in your place.
Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free.
Sort of. It's more an attitude of free flow of ideas is good because it drives progress. In the whirlwind of progress that is software development, I think you'll find there is less sympathy for those who want to slow everything down while they figure out a way to make money off it.
The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot often posts stories about how evil copyright laws and EULAs are.
No, it's a distribution license. It says you're free to do whatever you want with this code but if you distribute it to other people you must also distribute the source code and any modifications you have made.
And, of course, there are the stories of "stolen" GPL code, even though we constantly hear that "piracy isn't theft."
These are situations of companies taking the work of others, given in good faith to the community, and then closing it up to make a profit. Even in those cases, while the act of profiting off the work of others is unsavory, the bigger outcry is that they haven't distributed the modifications they made to the code.
I should be careful about speaking for others but I think it's fair to say most of us that write GPL software don't really give a shit if you make money off it. I know that some of the stuff I write could be sold, but I just don't care enough. My interest is in writing code, not running a business. So I release the source and the only thing I ask in return is that if you improve it, you let me and everyone else know what you did so that we can benefit from that and improve our skills.
Sorry to interrupt the "copyright and money is more important than anything else" train. Continue on.
Your sarcasm detector is broken. IgnoramusMaximus in all likelihood believes that opposite, that the "sheeple" in the jury are "smarter" than the judge. That is to say, that as average citizens of the country they are the most qualified to judge the usefulness and justness of the law.
When I started to read those instructions, my eyes glazed over. Could I decipher it if I wanted? Of course. As you said, most people could. Why the hell would they or I want to though? It's a bunch of meaningless crap that is intended to intimidate and confuse with its verbosity, to make the jury reliant on the judge for interpretation. That's the only purpose for it since the jury is certainly not bound by a word of it. Here's a much more simple version:
"Over the course of this trial, arguments will be presented supporting both the innocence and guilt of the defendant. The judge will guide the proceedings and dictate the schedule. Upon the conclusion of the arguments, it will be your duty to use your best judgment, in consideration of the evidence presented and the matter of law at hand, to determine the innocence or guilt of the defendant."
See how much simpler that is? Of course even that is unnecessary because even if the entire conversation of the jury is "lol burn the nigger", that is their right, as scary as that sounds.
It should NEVER be up to the jury to make determinations of what the law is; only whether the set of facts conform to that law, as it is explained by the judge.
Umm, what? To quote you,
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! You couldn't be more wrong about this, and it shows you have a fundamental lack of understanding about how the legal system works.
The Jury is the final arbiter of truth when it comes to the law, not the Judge. If someone is prosecuted under a law that says it is illegal to eat a cheeseburger in one's own home (yes this is a contrived example), it is the jury's right (and I would say their civic duty) to find the defendant not guilty and to furthermore declare that the government had no right to even begin such a prosecution. This has been the right of a jury since before our country was even founded and is backed up by countless quotes and citations that can be found without effort. Here's one from John Adams:
It is not only his right but also his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.
A judge is just as capable as finding fact as a jury (which is why bench trials are an option in all cases). However, the entire point of having a jury of your peers decide the verdict is that they can choose not to convict you if they feel the situation is unjust. Otherwise, why bother with the headaches of having a jury? Just have the judge declare law and fact and be done with it (totalitarianism does have benefits like efficiency).
Please understand I am (among other things) a scientific researcher who spent roughly a decade studying the genetics of metabolism in mice and humans in both an academic and industry biotech setting.
Wonderful! Really. If I am provably wrong, I would honestly love to have my argument decimated by some science. It would be awe inspiring for those reading this thread and I would undoubtedly learn something that would keep me from being so ignorant in the future.
Given that you started out by agreeing that you were generalizing from personal experience, I'm not sure why you choose to disagree here.
I think I'm really just trying to figure out what your argument/disagreement is. You don't seem to disagree that overeating (the definition of which varies from person to person) will lead to weight gain or that this is largely an issue of personal responsibility.
If I'm correct, your argument is that people do not have control over their appetite, which I agree with to a certain extent. Furthermore, you seem to be focused (likely as a result of your research) on the outliers, the rare individuals who can honestly eat a large meal and feel hungry again just minutes later. Show me a person like this and also show me that they cannot be conditioned against this behaviour and yes, I will be sympathetic to their plight.
I strongly disagree, however, that this type of person is normal or even anything but rare. The only purpose I had in bringing my own personal experience into the discussion was to show that I do understand what it's like to feel hungry all the time and that such a person can be conditioned out of the behavior. Your counterargument to this was:
Anyway, I congratulate you on your well-balanced metabolism. Not every one has one.
That read to me like you were implying I am "abnormal" in this context, that I had an easy time of just switching off and losing weight. I think I realize now that by "not every one" you were probably referring to the people in your research which likely are the ones that are "abnormal" in the sense that they actually do have a harder time than the average person.
My purpose in bringing in statistics was to show that most Americans are overweight, so it's not the case that they are suffering from some unique condition that causes them to overeat. If you look at the statistics for dieting, you'll see that only a fraction of people who try succeed, at least on their first try. When those same people are placed in a structured environment (say, a research study), most (not all) can lose weight and keep it off. That is my basis for claiming people do have at least some control over their weight, not my own personal experience. I've provided my own experiences only to show the strong correlation with most subjects of the studies that I have read in an attempt to show that I am fairly normal in this context.
Again, I think this may be our problem: we're arguing over a different subset of people. I am talking about the majority of people classified as overweight or obese, not the small percentage of people who probably have something wrong with them other than being conditioned to overeat by the overabundance of energy-dense foods.
To go back to the numbers (rounding a bit for clearer math): 300 million Americans, 60% or 180 million are overweight. 20%, 60 million, are obese, or 1/3 of overweight people are also obese. The percentage of obesity more than doubled in a generation (1971-2000). Now, as a man of science I ask you: what is more likely, that the amount of people affected by a condition which causes them to overeat doubled or that the availability, convenience, and affordability of energy-dense foods increased?
In fact, you are selling a product (personal responsibility) that I believe in -- you just use the fallacious methods
So basically, you are generalizing from your own experience in assuming your metabolism and appetite are typical, and that obese people are much the same but they just make poor choices.
In short, yes.
You've wandered into epistemological territory where truth is established by personal testimonial.
Not at all, weight control is basic physics, a realm where truth is not much influenced by opinion. Fat does not materialize out of thin air. Think of a bag that has two openings, a stomach is a contextual example. If you pump water into it at a faster rate than it can be emptied at the other end, it will expand. If you pump in water at the exact same rate as it is expelled, the bag will maintain a constant size and it will deflate as the input rate is decreased. Of course this is not a constant model for human weight because of complicating factors like digestion efficiency and metabolic rate.
So yes, it's possible that an obese person has a higher digestion efficiency (so they absorb more of the calories they intake) and a lower metabolic rate (so they burn off fewer of them). However, even in such an unfortunate situation, the same basic principle applies; by consuming fewer calories than needed based on those two factors, that person will lose weight. The energy has to come from somewhere and most of it is going to come from adipose tissue (perhaps some from muscle tissue as well, depending on the situation).
You're claiming that I'm attempting to establish truth as based on my own personal experiences. When you look at the numbers though, just how intellectually honest are you being? (You are saying you disagree with my conclusion that "I'm not special and have a metabolism similar to most Americans" which means obese people are "special") The 2007 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey finds that 60% of Americans are overweight and at least 20% are obese. Perhaps it's not so unreasonable for me to conclude that I am an average American in this context? Consider also that being a mere 30lbs overweight could cause one to be classified as obese (and accordingly, some would argue that closer to 50% of Americans are obese).
Snake oil of all varieties is sold by almost exactly the same logic.
Of which I am selling none. The snake oil salesmen in this case are the dozens of diet programs and pills that all claim "try this, it will work for anyone*!" *Results not typical. I have repeatedly stated that this is not the case, that everyone is different and that everyone has to find their own solution. Of course, to the "victim" mindset, even suggesting that there is a solution is cruel and indicative that one is a snake oil salesman.
The only thing I'm selling is personal responsibility. That is, I'm advocating that people either accept that they are overweight and it is their choice to remain that way or stop playing the victim, that they have no control over their condition. I know that in the growing nanny state foisting responsibility on people is considered cruel and unjust and if that makes me a snake oil salesman, fine. To put it in a more cliche manner: if personal responsibility is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I don't see where I said that choice wasn't involved.
Sorry, I probably read too much into your statement:
So fat people are fat because they eat obscene amounts of food?
To me, it was suggestive of the "oh it's not your fault you're overweight" mentality. One of my biggest peeves with the current culture in America is this victim mentality everyone seems to be developing; it's always someone else's problem or fault. What I'm really ranting against is that mentality, not fat people in general. If someone makes a conscious decision to be overweight because that is the lifestyle they feel bests suits them (I've known someone like this), more power to them.
All too often though the morbidly obese are portrayed as victims of some "disease" or condition that doesn't allow them to stop eating. What they mean is that they didn't put the effort in. It's easy to try to starve yourself and then, when you inevitably fail, throw up your arms and say "well I tried!" You're right that everyone is different and so changing your habits will require some effort and trial and error.
You ask a fair question, but the problem is that you have to not eat those hypothetical two candy bars every week for the rest of your adult life. Do you have any notion how difficult it is to regulate your caloric balance to that degree especially when your body, every day and most every hour, tells you you are hungry?
I do, actually. That doesn't mean there isn't a method that will work for someone. For me when I started cutting back my intake, yeah I was hungry all. the. time. My solution to curb my hunger while my body got used to less energy input was to eat all the time, but with lots of vegetables. Vegetables are often "large" physically so they'll give you that full feeling, but don't provide that many calories. You could eat a whole bag of prepackaged (read: easy) baby carrots and it would hardly count as a meal with respect to caloric intake, and you'll probably be full after a fraction of the bag. Point being, there is always a solution: find yours (the general "you").
Anyway, I congratulate you on your well-balanced metabolism. Not every one has one. But yes, eating is a choice, and yes being obese represents some exercise of choice. Let's just be clear about what: It is not about stuffing your face with hamburgers and a large milk shake every time you go to McD's. While currently an acceptable belief (and vehicle for bigotry) it nevertheless lacks the virtue of truth.
That's just it, I'm not special and have a metabolism similar to most Americans. I was that 200lb guy that had his wake-up call. And believe it or not, step 1 was to cut out the fast food. A medium quarter-pounder with cheese meal at McDonald's: ~1100kcal. A deli meat sandwich with a piece of fruit: ~400kcal. Even if you only stuck to that plan for lunch on weekdays, that's already 3500kcal/wk or ~1lb/wk. Hard? Hardly. It does take a bit of effort though.
No, fat people are fat because they choose to be (with the possible exception of some sort of disorder but even then, there is likely a solution available).
Yes, it's easy to become fat just by sitting around and eating, but that's just the problem: by letting it just slowly happen like this, you're making a choice just as eating 5 cheeseburgers a day is. I'm sympathetic with how easy it is; I mean, I'm feeling very hungry right now while I wait for dinner to cook. It would be so easy for me to drive down the street and gorge on some 1-2k kilo-calorie fast food meal. It would be faster than cooking for myself, probably cheaper, and I would be richly rewarded by my body with a wave of dopamine for consuming all those wonderful fats and salts.
So while I understand quite well how someone could get started on the path to becoming obese, I don't understand why anyone would stay on it. I mean, as you said, stopping it is as simply as reducing your intake (e.g. not eat those extra candy bars). For most people, once they reach ~200lbs (well, for men), it's quite obvious to them and everyone else that they are overweight. Why is that not a wake-up call that forces them to re-evaluate the necessity of those fast food meals and just how big of an inconvenience it is for them to spend 1% of their week exercising (which can be quite fun, even).
So if it's a choice, maybe all that's needed is some motivation to make the right choice. Fear and embarrassment (or even fear of embarrassment) can be powerful motivators, as FictionPimp said.
this movie really just forgoes all notion of continuity or semblance of some of the more recent Trek constants.
I am worried they will totally negate all the Trek that lead up to this...
I think you're missing the point, which is to say that throwing out the Star Trek Bible was intentional. By doing so, they are not constrained by everything that has come before and can instead create something new and exciting.
If you can't see how this is necessary, I'm not sure I can help you. I went to see the movie with a friend who has never seen Star Trek (except in passing, and he knows a few names like Kirk and the Enterprise), and is a complete sci-fi newbie. His reaction? "Wow, that was a lot better than I thought it would be!" The car ride home consisted of me answering questions like "Who are the Romulans?" "Was Vulcan destroyed in the other Star Trek?" "Aren't there supposed to be Klingons?" I think it's pretty exciting that a single movie has a non-sci-fi fan interested in a sci-fi universe that has been the exclusive domain of the most hardcore nerds for so many years.
In any case, I was pleased they managed to eject the warp core. It just ain't Star Trek without a dramatic close up of the captain and a pause in the suspenseful music, followed by "Eject the core."
In case you aren't aware (and you seemingly aren't), that is how EVE Online works. Skills train constantly in real time whether you are logged in or not and it has been that way since Day 1. If his complaint had simply been that skills train in real time and are not a factor of how many hours you can take away from other activities in your life, I would have ignored it because the skill system is what it is and is not going to change.
The nature of the system however is that it is more sensitive to exact play hours than other games. In WoW, if I normally played for an hour in the mornings but missed one morning, no big deal I could make up that lost time by playing for an hour after I get home from work instead of watching TV. In EVE, if I don't log in to start a new skill after one finished in the morning, I've "lost" 8-10 hours of training time.
So it's not cries of "you don't actually have to log in to play" that bother me. I take exception to "now" or "anymore" though. The game is no different in the sense that I can still set a skill to train for a few days and not come back until it's finished. The only thing that's different is that those of us with the audacity to consider Real Life more important than babysitting a game are no longer punished for that.
Correction: the skill training queue is for 24 hours only. As such you still have to "play" the game. Of course, you can still set that 34-day skill and not log in for a month but you can't queue up another skill after that one. The training queue solves one problem: short training (or nearly complete) skills. No longer do I have to worry about a skill finishing an hour after I go to bed and "wasting" the rest of the night because nothing is training. When I start training a new skill, I no longer have to baby-sit the game by making sure I log in after an hour, then another few hours and so on.
Especially as a casual player, this is my favorite new addition to the game. I'm easily a few million skill points behind the curve simply because I have lots of other stuff in my life to worry about than logging in constantly to make sure I have a skill training. I can't tell you how many times I've been training a skill that is to finish Friday night but then I spend the weekend doing stuff in Real Life. I could easily lose 60 hours of training time, or around 150,000 SP. Say that happens 10 times over the course of the years I've been playing the game and now I'm down 1.5 million SP.
Why the hell should I have to change my schedule to revolve around a game? How is setting Gallente Carrier 1 to train and queuing up Jump Drive Operation 5 after that an abuse of the game? Now if I spontaneously decide to go out on a Friday night I don't have to be a giant douche and say "Oh wait guys, I need to change my skill first." Fail.
I do not know one single person against legalizing gay-marriage who thinks that gay marriage will weaken their marriage.
These people believe that gay marriage takes away their rights and punishes their beliefs. It makes no sense but it's all good though because they're doing it out of love (the love of punishing homosexuals, apparently?).
Yes it had a "negative impact" on the company in the sense that they did not account for the amount of pirated copies in terms of their effect on the server. However, they would have had the same problem had all those pirated copies been legally sold ones from the retailer that released early. Thus, it is not "piracy" which caused the problem but rather a developer oversight (not planning for so many hits to their server), an oversight the CEO took responsibility for.
By the way, we all know that when people talk about the negative effect of "piracy," they're talking about the supposed impact on sales and profits, not some esoteric bug that just happens to correlate with a high number of "pirated" copies. I rather think it's intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise.
Are you serious? CFLs have averaged 4.0 mg of mercury per bulb, and nowadays you can find them with less than 1.5 mg. You could break a bulb and snort the contents and suffer no more than discomfort for a few hours. Of course, if you're deliberately inhaling the contents of a bulb (CFL or incandescent) you deserve everything you get.
In actuality, only some of the contents will escape and that mercury is going to diffuse into the air so you're going to get a lower dose, even if you're next to it when it breaks. If you're that paranoid, open up a window. Funnily enough, this is what you're supposed to do if you spill any number of common household cleaning agents since their fumes are also harmful if you're stupid enough to sit there breathing them in.
This whole scare about mercury in CFL bulbs is inane. The whole point of them is that they use less electricity which in turn reduces mercury in the air we breathe everyday (and by the way, chronic exposure to mercury is the thing to worry about, not a rare acute exposure unless we're talking dozens of mg). Beyond that, when was the last time you broke a bulb? I've never broken one accidentally. Purposefully a few times when I was younger, but never accidentally. Surely you were taught as a kid that glass breaks so be careful with it.
Given that bulbs (should) rarely break in your home and breaking a CFL is a relative non-event in the first place, I seriously hope you have all of your corners rounded off and padded because you're more likely to impale your skull on a counter top corner than be injured by the mercury released from a CFL bulb.
I imagine he meant something along the lines of "the national pastime of the United States." He probably should have used "le divertissement" or "le passe-temps," but then again, he probably wasn't attempting perfect French but rather was attempting "French that is understandable by any English speaker with half a brain" (i.e. the readers of this site).
Actually, standard procedure for lethal injections is to first administer a huge dose of thiopental which would induce a coma. However, since physicians don't participate in executions, it's easy for the procedure to be mishandled. Worse, the people administering the execution often believe that the prisoner should suffer and so "accidentally" give a small dose which is not enough to cause or maintain unconsciousness. And people wonder why I laugh when someone says we're not animals.
The real argument is about something much bigger: should piracy of intellectual property be acceptable?
This is why people like me hate the application of the term "piracy" to copyright infringement (not to mention the term "intellectual property" but that's a different argument): it confuses the topic by lumping in both types of violations (acceptable and unacceptable) into the same category of "piracy." The fact is that, yes, some violations of copyright are acceptable; see Fair Use exemptions under copyright law. I think most people agree that some violations of copyright should be acceptable, but would probably disagree that wholesale copying-and-selling should be.
Even if (for the sake of argument) I accepted the premise that companies weren't getting hurt by piracy, it still doesn't tell you whether or not piracy *can* hurt companies. If we're talking about laws, then we're talking about systems that will be in place for decades. Essentially, you have to argue that piracy does not and will not ever harm companies no matter how much piracy increases.
Simply put, no. Put another way:
Even if (for the sake of argument) I accepted the premise that companies weren't getting hurt by competition, it still doesn't tell you whether or not competition *can* hurt companies. If we're talking about laws, then we're talking about systems that will be in place for decades. Essentially, you have to argue that competition does not and will not ever harm companies no matter how much competition increases.
The point being that "harm" is relative, and some "harm" is judged acceptable by society. Certainly, it would best for companies to have a permanent monopoly but as we've seen, that's bad for society. It would be best for copyright holders to maintain their copyright forever, but that goes against the spirit of copyright law which is explicitly written to benefit society. Even beyond that, it's ridiculous to try to legislate away every conceivable harm and only leads to an intrusive and inefficient government.
I think the "DRM is about control" arguments are really just justifications to allow pirates to hate companies, and therefore, legitimize pirating.
That's one theory. Another is that it's in the name and definition of the term: Digital Rights Management. To quote the Wikipedia article on DRM:
Digital rights management (DRM) refers to access control technologies used by publishers, copyright holders, and hardware manufacturers to limit usage of digital media or devices. In contrast to copy protection, which only attempts to prohibit unauthorized copies of media or files[citation needed], digital rights management enables the publisher to control what can and cannot be done with a single instance.
But, the reality is that companies don't care about controlling people. They care about earning a profit.
True, but controlling people to force or "encourage" them to purchase your product is a great way to boost sales and profits.
Because the laws can no longer protect creators from the onslaught of piracy, companies have been going after technological solutions - DRM - to do what copyright law used to do.
Copyright law has never been able to protect anyone from copyright infringement. At best, it provides punishments for infringement, but can also provide a defense to prosecution through fair use clauses. As such, it's put in place to (in theory) benefit society. The entire point of granting copyright and/or patents is to provide incentive to create. New ideas and products ultimately benefit society so we give away our rights to the work for a limited time to encourage creators to make more.
You can't seriously expect companies to continue making digital content while going into debt so that gamers can have games for free.
You don't seriously expect companies to completely honest with their press releases do you? The same companies that tout their record breaking sales numbers and then turn around and say that piracy is higher than ever and driving sales down?
DRM and copyright protection schemes have one purpose: increase control over the product for the producer. Eliminating the second hand market through online activation only increases their sales. Reducing casual copying (what they call "piracy") is just a side benefit since DRM simply cannot stop the major "pirate" groups.
It seems to me that if a company spends $70 million dollars making Killzone 2 (and I'm not making that number up), and everyone pirates it ("because piracy doesn't hurt anyone"), then the company who made it ends up with $0 in revenue and $70 million dollars in debt.
For appropriately small values of "everyone." Sources I have found indicate that the studio has sold at least 1.1 million copies, which at $60 a pop almost covers that $70 million number. Of course that number is an exaggerated amount with the actual cost probably closer to $40 million. So they've already made a hefty profit.
Those poor bastards in millions of dollars of debt... I'm drafting a letter to my congressman right now to demand he put an end to piracy by the end of the year. This simply cannot continue.
I find it amusing these last two Macfans conveniently ignored answering my question. (Like politicians - dance around & change the subject.)
I find it amusing that you complain about this and then do it yourself.
Comparing a Mac to a Ferrari is delusional. At best a PC is like a Dodge and a Mac is like a Honda. A little better-engineered perhaps, but still a mass-produced car for the masses, not a collectors item.
Changing the subject much? The discussion is not about cars or which is a "collectors item." babyrat was attempting to make an analogy (a car analogy which while requisite for Slashdot is also doomed to fail, it seems). Here's another attempt:
Construction Company A specializes in building 3-bedroom condos and sells them for $250,000 while Construction Company B builds 1-bedroom condos for $80,000 and 3-bedroom condos for $240,000-$260,000. What you're doing is demonizing Company A because they don't cater to the 1-bedroom condo market and saying there is a "Company A Tax" because of it. This makes no sense, especially when the prices of Company A's and Company B's 3-bedroom offerings are comparable.
How about instead of demonizing Company A we just accept that they simply don't care to compete in the 1-bedroom market? Surely that is their choice in a free market, is it not?
Just as Lauren in the Microsoft ad did not have her needs met by Apple's offerings, a single young-person might not have their needs met by Company A's offerings. However, someone with a family might be looking for a 3-bedroom condo and would find that there is no "tax" for picking Company A or B and so would choose based on their own set of needs and desires. It might come down to "ooh this one is shinier." That doesn't matter as aesthetics are a valid consideration in any purchase and if there is no "tax" for the shinier product, what's the harm?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I am quite aware that the website in question is linked on a single page on a single division website of the company. Allow me to step through the evidence again:
Look, I'm not at all saying that this is for sure not an official website partnership. Seriously though, use your brain. None of this seems to be right, so practice some healthy skepticism instead of just gargling whatever excretion someone forces upon you.
It's a logic fail to assume that a link on a single web page means official endorsement. For example, at the organization I work for, I have access to all web servers. I could easily place links on very public websites to all sorts of stuff that directly counteracts the stated goals of the organization (backed up by their actions) and to you that would be "official enough?" Come on.
While I agree that it's too soon to say that this is indeed a hoax, it's a bit presumptuous to say that it's not.
There has been no official press release about a "It's Better With Windows" campaign from either company (and you can bet Microsoft would be all over something like that). It also does not appear to be an organized effort from Asus in any sense of the term. The website is amateurish at best, and only one division of the company seems to link to this site. I also checked the French, German, and Spanish sites and found no reference to It's Better With Windows on their 1008HA "seashell" product pages. Presumably, it could just be an English language campaign, however neither the US nor Australian sites mention it. Additionally, it seems to be absent from this promotional flash application which I arrived at from the Australian site.
So pardon us if we're a bit skeptical but this does not have any of the normal signs of an officially endorsed advertising campaign partnership. It smells more of a web designer who thought it would be funny to pull a prank (which we've all seen in other media like porn hidden in posters or easter eggs in applications). I may yet be proven to be wrong but even being a Linux supporter, I'd rather err on the side of rationality.
Yes, it's in the Constitution. There's lots of stuff in the Constitution and it all gets ignored by judges when convenient. More importantly, it doesn't really apply here (and just as an aside, it only applies in federal courts). Your quote:
Appeal:
In other words, findings of fact can't be appealed, except when they can. Additionally, appellate courts generally do not review findings of fact so that's not even the most common reason to appeal. Point being, even if appellate courts never reviewed findings of fact you could still have your appeal granted (or denied--I've consistently said a filed appeal does not equal a granted one).
No, I'm quite aware that they are two separate things and I'll even admit that the common expectation is for judges to be finders of law and the juries to be finders of fact. I'm just saying that juries are in no way bound to restrict themselves in such a fashion. From the article you linked yourself:
I think that pretty much speaks for itself.
Sure, I agree that judges can and do behave however they wish in the courtroom. I'm simply stating that the jury can quite politely tell the judge to shove it.
Which, like a directed verdict, primarily applies in civil court. If the rules of law and rights of man are trampled on in criminal court, believe me, I'm quite aware that your rights in a civil court are a joke. You're at the mercy of the judge in a civil court and appeals courts generally are not going to care because your civil trial is not judged to be very important.
Would you pick a side? You go on about how juries are the absolute finders of fact and how they can't be countermanded. Then you go on about how judges have created some common law precedents that they use to justify overturning the decision of a jury, and you argue for it like it's a good thing.
Except when they are. See above.
Believe me, I'd be the first to agree wi
Which is another way of saying they can be appealed. Since we're quoting wiki:
In other words, sometimes the appeals court must hear the appeals case. Other times the appellant must file a notice of appeal to request one and they appellate court may refuse the demand (which is what I said in my previous post). What you might be thinking of is that the prosecution can never appeal an acquittal and in general does not have appeal as of right (where the appeal must be granted).
From the first sentence of that article you cited:
That is, the jury never deliberates on anything and therefore the judge has not counteracted the jury at all. This is can only be used for an acquittal and is another control to prevent abuses of the system. It prevents a zealous prosecution from making a mockery of the system by providing no real evidence and winning a conviction simply by the prejudices of the jury (which is a reason why you might choose a bench trial; there's no use having a bunch of people decide your fate if they're going to ignore the law and lack of evidence supporting your guilt).
Fine, if you want to be extremely pedantic, you are right. Juries cannot simply stand up and say "this law is unconstitutional" and have it be so. If juries consistently refuse to convict on a matter of law, what exactly would you call that then? No one can force a jury to convict and if they refuse, the law is useless (and will be hastily changed by politicians wanting to keep their constituents happy). I daresay they've done more than simply find the facts of the case. It's sophistry to say that a jury nullification is simply finding the facts to be other than as they are. As you said, the jury is entrusted to find the facts in the case so who are you to say they've found them to be other than what they actually are? More importantly, in the case of a true jury nullification, it's not a simple misunderstanding of the facts, it's the jury saying "we do not dispute the evi
I think by "inconsistent with human nature" he was referring to the reaction of the addicted. That is, he is saying that removing the object of addiction will trigger a defensive response which is in all likelihood not what you want. When you place someone on the defensive, you become the enemy and they are not likely to trust you or your motivations.
I agree that it makes sense from the perspective of everyone around the addicted to remove the source of the problem. It's entirely logical to prevent further harm by removing a source of it and, as you said, it's the first step on the road to recovery. The problem is the addicted person is not thinking rationally and does not see reality the way you or anyone else does.
So, I would say it might be unethical to force your will upon an addicted person in the sense that it may/will cause more harm than good. I don't think anyone would think you're being unethical for wanting to help a friend though. It's just that sometimes to help people you have to throw out what you want and what makes sense to you in order to do what's best for them.
*It should be obvious for Slashdot postings, but I am in no way trained in psychology or counseling. However, the above is consistent with everything I've been told by professionals. Let your friend know you are worried about him but let him come to you (and then you lead him to a professional). Forcing your way into his business will only lead to him becoming defensive or much much worse depending on his psychological state.
Controversial to those who think the proles should know their place and have their rules handed down to them from on high, sure. In any case, it does have bearing in the context to which it was applied. You said, and I quote: "It should NEVER be up to the jury to make determinations of what the law is." The word "should" implies subjectivity and I responded in kind that I believe the opposite to be true, that the jury should make determinations about the law. Furthermore, I objectively stated that it is the case that the jury has this right. I suppose you are free to make the argument that this is incorrect, but I fail to see how you'll succeed given the mounds of quotes and citations from founding fathers and supreme court justices alike that support this right.
No, they are refusing to convict based on an unjust law because umm... it's unjust. There is a reason the jury declares the verdict and not just what evidence represents fact. Otherwise the foreman would say "Your honor, we find these pieces of evidence to be factual" and then the judge would decide guilt/innocence based on that. Fortunately, it doesn't work that way; the deliberation of the jury is sacrosanct and not subject to review or supervision. The judge can't say "you're wrong" and send the jury back until the come up with the right answer.
Uh, no. You have the right to appeal, but not the right to have that appeal granted. The appellate court can simply deny the appeal and affirm the decision of the lower court (which will make it harder for a different route of appeal to succeed -- appeals are not a get-out-of-jail-free card).
If so, it's by convention only. Court cases are not "legally binding" in the sense that once the precedent has been established it is inviolate. However, judges will give deference to previous decisions, especially if they do not fundamentally disagree with those decisions (e.g. constitutionality). It would not be politically wise to snub other judges and it will only highlight the case to be reviewed by a higher court who will put you in your place.
Sort of. It's more an attitude of free flow of ideas is good because it drives progress. In the whirlwind of progress that is software development, I think you'll find there is less sympathy for those who want to slow everything down while they figure out a way to make money off it.
No, it's a distribution license. It says you're free to do whatever you want with this code but if you distribute it to other people you must also distribute the source code and any modifications you have made.
These are situations of companies taking the work of others, given in good faith to the community, and then closing it up to make a profit. Even in those cases, while the act of profiting off the work of others is unsavory, the bigger outcry is that they haven't distributed the modifications they made to the code.
I should be careful about speaking for others but I think it's fair to say most of us that write GPL software don't really give a shit if you make money off it. I know that some of the stuff I write could be sold, but I just don't care enough. My interest is in writing code, not running a business. So I release the source and the only thing I ask in return is that if you improve it, you let me and everyone else know what you did so that we can benefit from that and improve our skills.
Sorry to interrupt the "copyright and money is more important than anything else" train. Continue on.
Your sarcasm detector is broken. IgnoramusMaximus in all likelihood believes that opposite, that the "sheeple" in the jury are "smarter" than the judge. That is to say, that as average citizens of the country they are the most qualified to judge the usefulness and justness of the law.
When I started to read those instructions, my eyes glazed over. Could I decipher it if I wanted? Of course. As you said, most people could. Why the hell would they or I want to though? It's a bunch of meaningless crap that is intended to intimidate and confuse with its verbosity, to make the jury reliant on the judge for interpretation. That's the only purpose for it since the jury is certainly not bound by a word of it. Here's a much more simple version:
"Over the course of this trial, arguments will be presented supporting both the innocence and guilt of the defendant. The judge will guide the proceedings and dictate the schedule. Upon the conclusion of the arguments, it will be your duty to use your best judgment, in consideration of the evidence presented and the matter of law at hand, to determine the innocence or guilt of the defendant."
See how much simpler that is? Of course even that is unnecessary because even if the entire conversation of the jury is "lol burn the nigger", that is their right, as scary as that sounds.
Umm, what? To quote you,
The Jury is the final arbiter of truth when it comes to the law, not the Judge. If someone is prosecuted under a law that says it is illegal to eat a cheeseburger in one's own home (yes this is a contrived example), it is the jury's right (and I would say their civic duty) to find the defendant not guilty and to furthermore declare that the government had no right to even begin such a prosecution. This has been the right of a jury since before our country was even founded and is backed up by countless quotes and citations that can be found without effort. Here's one from John Adams:
A judge is just as capable as finding fact as a jury (which is why bench trials are an option in all cases). However, the entire point of having a jury of your peers decide the verdict is that they can choose not to convict you if they feel the situation is unjust. Otherwise, why bother with the headaches of having a jury? Just have the judge declare law and fact and be done with it (totalitarianism does have benefits like efficiency).
Wonderful! Really. If I am provably wrong, I would honestly love to have my argument decimated by some science. It would be awe inspiring for those reading this thread and I would undoubtedly learn something that would keep me from being so ignorant in the future.
I think I'm really just trying to figure out what your argument/disagreement is. You don't seem to disagree that overeating (the definition of which varies from person to person) will lead to weight gain or that this is largely an issue of personal responsibility.
If I'm correct, your argument is that people do not have control over their appetite, which I agree with to a certain extent. Furthermore, you seem to be focused (likely as a result of your research) on the outliers, the rare individuals who can honestly eat a large meal and feel hungry again just minutes later. Show me a person like this and also show me that they cannot be conditioned against this behaviour and yes, I will be sympathetic to their plight.
I strongly disagree, however, that this type of person is normal or even anything but rare. The only purpose I had in bringing my own personal experience into the discussion was to show that I do understand what it's like to feel hungry all the time and that such a person can be conditioned out of the behavior. Your counterargument to this was:
That read to me like you were implying I am "abnormal" in this context, that I had an easy time of just switching off and losing weight. I think I realize now that by "not every one" you were probably referring to the people in your research which likely are the ones that are "abnormal" in the sense that they actually do have a harder time than the average person.
My purpose in bringing in statistics was to show that most Americans are overweight, so it's not the case that they are suffering from some unique condition that causes them to overeat. If you look at the statistics for dieting, you'll see that only a fraction of people who try succeed, at least on their first try. When those same people are placed in a structured environment (say, a research study), most (not all) can lose weight and keep it off. That is my basis for claiming people do have at least some control over their weight, not my own personal experience. I've provided my own experiences only to show the strong correlation with most subjects of the studies that I have read in an attempt to show that I am fairly normal in this context.
Again, I think this may be our problem: we're arguing over a different subset of people. I am talking about the majority of people classified as overweight or obese, not the small percentage of people who probably have something wrong with them other than being conditioned to overeat by the overabundance of energy-dense foods.
To go back to the numbers (rounding a bit for clearer math): 300 million Americans, 60% or 180 million are overweight. 20%, 60 million, are obese, or 1/3 of overweight people are also obese. The percentage of obesity more than doubled in a generation (1971-2000). Now, as a man of science I ask you: what is more likely, that the amount of people affected by a condition which causes them to overeat doubled or that the availability, convenience, and affordability of energy-dense foods increased?
In short, yes.
Not at all, weight control is basic physics, a realm where truth is not much influenced by opinion. Fat does not materialize out of thin air. Think of a bag that has two openings, a stomach is a contextual example. If you pump water into it at a faster rate than it can be emptied at the other end, it will expand. If you pump in water at the exact same rate as it is expelled, the bag will maintain a constant size and it will deflate as the input rate is decreased. Of course this is not a constant model for human weight because of complicating factors like digestion efficiency and metabolic rate.
So yes, it's possible that an obese person has a higher digestion efficiency (so they absorb more of the calories they intake) and a lower metabolic rate (so they burn off fewer of them). However, even in such an unfortunate situation, the same basic principle applies; by consuming fewer calories than needed based on those two factors, that person will lose weight. The energy has to come from somewhere and most of it is going to come from adipose tissue (perhaps some from muscle tissue as well, depending on the situation).
You're claiming that I'm attempting to establish truth as based on my own personal experiences. When you look at the numbers though, just how intellectually honest are you being? (You are saying you disagree with my conclusion that "I'm not special and have a metabolism similar to most Americans" which means obese people are "special") The 2007 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey finds that 60% of Americans are overweight and at least 20% are obese. Perhaps it's not so unreasonable for me to conclude that I am an average American in this context? Consider also that being a mere 30lbs overweight could cause one to be classified as obese (and accordingly, some would argue that closer to 50% of Americans are obese).
Of which I am selling none. The snake oil salesmen in this case are the dozens of diet programs and pills that all claim "try this, it will work for anyone*!" *Results not typical. I have repeatedly stated that this is not the case, that everyone is different and that everyone has to find their own solution. Of course, to the "victim" mindset, even suggesting that there is a solution is cruel and indicative that one is a snake oil salesman.
The only thing I'm selling is personal responsibility. That is, I'm advocating that people either accept that they are overweight and it is their choice to remain that way or stop playing the victim, that they have no control over their condition. I know that in the growing nanny state foisting responsibility on people is considered cruel and unjust and if that makes me a snake oil salesman, fine. To put it in a more cliche manner: if personal responsibility is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Sorry, I probably read too much into your statement:
To me, it was suggestive of the "oh it's not your fault you're overweight" mentality. One of my biggest peeves with the current culture in America is this victim mentality everyone seems to be developing; it's always someone else's problem or fault. What I'm really ranting against is that mentality, not fat people in general. If someone makes a conscious decision to be overweight because that is the lifestyle they feel bests suits them (I've known someone like this), more power to them.
All too often though the morbidly obese are portrayed as victims of some "disease" or condition that doesn't allow them to stop eating. What they mean is that they didn't put the effort in. It's easy to try to starve yourself and then, when you inevitably fail, throw up your arms and say "well I tried!" You're right that everyone is different and so changing your habits will require some effort and trial and error.
I do, actually. That doesn't mean there isn't a method that will work for someone. For me when I started cutting back my intake, yeah I was hungry all. the. time. My solution to curb my hunger while my body got used to less energy input was to eat all the time, but with lots of vegetables. Vegetables are often "large" physically so they'll give you that full feeling, but don't provide that many calories. You could eat a whole bag of prepackaged (read: easy) baby carrots and it would hardly count as a meal with respect to caloric intake, and you'll probably be full after a fraction of the bag. Point being, there is always a solution: find yours (the general "you").
That's just it, I'm not special and have a metabolism similar to most Americans. I was that 200lb guy that had his wake-up call. And believe it or not, step 1 was to cut out the fast food. A medium quarter-pounder with cheese meal at McDonald's: ~1100kcal. A deli meat sandwich with a piece of fruit: ~400kcal. Even if you only stuck to that plan for lunch on weekdays, that's already 3500kcal/wk or ~1lb/wk. Hard? Hardly. It does take a bit of effort though.
No, fat people are fat because they choose to be (with the possible exception of some sort of disorder but even then, there is likely a solution available).
Yes, it's easy to become fat just by sitting around and eating, but that's just the problem: by letting it just slowly happen like this, you're making a choice just as eating 5 cheeseburgers a day is. I'm sympathetic with how easy it is; I mean, I'm feeling very hungry right now while I wait for dinner to cook. It would be so easy for me to drive down the street and gorge on some 1-2k kilo-calorie fast food meal. It would be faster than cooking for myself, probably cheaper, and I would be richly rewarded by my body with a wave of dopamine for consuming all those wonderful fats and salts.
So while I understand quite well how someone could get started on the path to becoming obese, I don't understand why anyone would stay on it. I mean, as you said, stopping it is as simply as reducing your intake (e.g. not eat those extra candy bars). For most people, once they reach ~200lbs (well, for men), it's quite obvious to them and everyone else that they are overweight. Why is that not a wake-up call that forces them to re-evaluate the necessity of those fast food meals and just how big of an inconvenience it is for them to spend 1% of their week exercising (which can be quite fun, even).
So if it's a choice, maybe all that's needed is some motivation to make the right choice. Fear and embarrassment (or even fear of embarrassment) can be powerful motivators, as FictionPimp said.
I think you're missing the point, which is to say that throwing out the Star Trek Bible was intentional. By doing so, they are not constrained by everything that has come before and can instead create something new and exciting.
If you can't see how this is necessary, I'm not sure I can help you. I went to see the movie with a friend who has never seen Star Trek (except in passing, and he knows a few names like Kirk and the Enterprise), and is a complete sci-fi newbie. His reaction? "Wow, that was a lot better than I thought it would be!" The car ride home consisted of me answering questions like "Who are the Romulans?" "Was Vulcan destroyed in the other Star Trek?" "Aren't there supposed to be Klingons?" I think it's pretty exciting that a single movie has a non-sci-fi fan interested in a sci-fi universe that has been the exclusive domain of the most hardcore nerds for so many years.
In any case, I was pleased they managed to eject the warp core. It just ain't Star Trek without a dramatic close up of the captain and a pause in the suspenseful music, followed by "Eject the core."
In case you aren't aware (and you seemingly aren't), that is how EVE Online works. Skills train constantly in real time whether you are logged in or not and it has been that way since Day 1. If his complaint had simply been that skills train in real time and are not a factor of how many hours you can take away from other activities in your life, I would have ignored it because the skill system is what it is and is not going to change.
The nature of the system however is that it is more sensitive to exact play hours than other games. In WoW, if I normally played for an hour in the mornings but missed one morning, no big deal I could make up that lost time by playing for an hour after I get home from work instead of watching TV. In EVE, if I don't log in to start a new skill after one finished in the morning, I've "lost" 8-10 hours of training time.
So it's not cries of "you don't actually have to log in to play" that bother me. I take exception to "now" or "anymore" though. The game is no different in the sense that I can still set a skill to train for a few days and not come back until it's finished. The only thing that's different is that those of us with the audacity to consider Real Life more important than babysitting a game are no longer punished for that.
Correction: the skill training queue is for 24 hours only. As such you still have to "play" the game. Of course, you can still set that 34-day skill and not log in for a month but you can't queue up another skill after that one. The training queue solves one problem: short training (or nearly complete) skills. No longer do I have to worry about a skill finishing an hour after I go to bed and "wasting" the rest of the night because nothing is training. When I start training a new skill, I no longer have to baby-sit the game by making sure I log in after an hour, then another few hours and so on.
Especially as a casual player, this is my favorite new addition to the game. I'm easily a few million skill points behind the curve simply because I have lots of other stuff in my life to worry about than logging in constantly to make sure I have a skill training. I can't tell you how many times I've been training a skill that is to finish Friday night but then I spend the weekend doing stuff in Real Life. I could easily lose 60 hours of training time, or around 150,000 SP. Say that happens 10 times over the course of the years I've been playing the game and now I'm down 1.5 million SP.
Why the hell should I have to change my schedule to revolve around a game? How is setting Gallente Carrier 1 to train and queuing up Jump Drive Operation 5 after that an abuse of the game? Now if I spontaneously decide to go out on a Friday night I don't have to be a giant douche and say "Oh wait guys, I need to change my skill first." Fail.
These people believe that gay marriage takes away their rights and punishes their beliefs. It makes no sense but it's all good though because they're doing it out of love (the love of punishing homosexuals, apparently?).
Yes it had a "negative impact" on the company in the sense that they did not account for the amount of pirated copies in terms of their effect on the server. However, they would have had the same problem had all those pirated copies been legally sold ones from the retailer that released early. Thus, it is not "piracy" which caused the problem but rather a developer oversight (not planning for so many hits to their server), an oversight the CEO took responsibility for.
By the way, we all know that when people talk about the negative effect of "piracy," they're talking about the supposed impact on sales and profits, not some esoteric bug that just happens to correlate with a high number of "pirated" copies. I rather think it's intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise.
Are you serious? CFLs have averaged 4.0 mg of mercury per bulb, and nowadays you can find them with less than 1.5 mg. You could break a bulb and snort the contents and suffer no more than discomfort for a few hours. Of course, if you're deliberately inhaling the contents of a bulb (CFL or incandescent) you deserve everything you get.
In actuality, only some of the contents will escape and that mercury is going to diffuse into the air so you're going to get a lower dose, even if you're next to it when it breaks. If you're that paranoid, open up a window. Funnily enough, this is what you're supposed to do if you spill any number of common household cleaning agents since their fumes are also harmful if you're stupid enough to sit there breathing them in.
This whole scare about mercury in CFL bulbs is inane. The whole point of them is that they use less electricity which in turn reduces mercury in the air we breathe everyday (and by the way, chronic exposure to mercury is the thing to worry about, not a rare acute exposure unless we're talking dozens of mg). Beyond that, when was the last time you broke a bulb? I've never broken one accidentally. Purposefully a few times when I was younger, but never accidentally. Surely you were taught as a kid that glass breaks so be careful with it.
Given that bulbs (should) rarely break in your home and breaking a CFL is a relative non-event in the first place, I seriously hope you have all of your corners rounded off and padded because you're more likely to impale your skull on a counter top corner than be injured by the mercury released from a CFL bulb.
I imagine he meant something along the lines of "the national pastime of the United States." He probably should have used "le divertissement" or "le passe-temps," but then again, he probably wasn't attempting perfect French but rather was attempting "French that is understandable by any English speaker with half a brain" (i.e. the readers of this site).
Actually, standard procedure for lethal injections is to first administer a huge dose of thiopental which would induce a coma. However, since physicians don't participate in executions, it's easy for the procedure to be mishandled. Worse, the people administering the execution often believe that the prisoner should suffer and so "accidentally" give a small dose which is not enough to cause or maintain unconsciousness. And people wonder why I laugh when someone says we're not animals.
This is why people like me hate the application of the term "piracy" to copyright infringement (not to mention the term "intellectual property" but that's a different argument): it confuses the topic by lumping in both types of violations (acceptable and unacceptable) into the same category of "piracy." The fact is that, yes, some violations of copyright are acceptable; see Fair Use exemptions under copyright law. I think most people agree that some violations of copyright should be acceptable, but would probably disagree that wholesale copying-and-selling should be.
Simply put, no. Put another way:
The point being that "harm" is relative, and some "harm" is judged acceptable by society. Certainly, it would best for companies to have a permanent monopoly but as we've seen, that's bad for society. It would be best for copyright holders to maintain their copyright forever, but that goes against the spirit of copyright law which is explicitly written to benefit society. Even beyond that, it's ridiculous to try to legislate away every conceivable harm and only leads to an intrusive and inefficient government.
That's one theory. Another is that it's in the name and definition of the term: Digital Rights Management. To quote the Wikipedia article on DRM:
True, but controlling people to force or "encourage" them to purchase your product is a great way to boost sales and profits.
Copyright law has never been able to protect anyone from copyright infringement. At best, it provides punishments for infringement, but can also provide a defense to prosecution through fair use clauses. As such, it's put in place to (in theory) benefit society. The entire point of granting copyright and/or patents is to provide incentive to create. New ideas and products ultimately benefit society so we give away our rights to the work for a limited time to encourage creators to make more.
You don't seriously expect companies to completely honest with their press releases do you? The same companies that tout their record breaking sales numbers and then turn around and say that piracy is higher than ever and driving sales down?
DRM and copyright protection schemes have one purpose: increase control over the product for the producer. Eliminating the second hand market through online activation only increases their sales. Reducing casual copying (what they call "piracy") is just a side benefit since DRM simply cannot stop the major "pirate" groups.
For appropriately small values of "everyone." Sources I have found indicate that the studio has sold at least 1.1 million copies, which at $60 a pop almost covers that $70 million number. Of course that number is an exaggerated amount with the actual cost probably closer to $40 million. So they've already made a hefty profit.
Those poor bastards in millions of dollars of debt... I'm drafting a letter to my congressman right now to demand he put an end to piracy by the end of the year. This simply cannot continue.
Let us know when you start up your school for precognition and we no longer need to test things before we buy them.
I find it amusing that you complain about this and then do it yourself.
Changing the subject much? The discussion is not about cars or which is a "collectors item." babyrat was attempting to make an analogy (a car analogy which while requisite for Slashdot is also doomed to fail, it seems). Here's another attempt:
Construction Company A specializes in building 3-bedroom condos and sells them for $250,000 while Construction Company B builds 1-bedroom condos for $80,000 and 3-bedroom condos for $240,000-$260,000. What you're doing is demonizing Company A because they don't cater to the 1-bedroom condo market and saying there is a "Company A Tax" because of it. This makes no sense, especially when the prices of Company A's and Company B's 3-bedroom offerings are comparable.
How about instead of demonizing Company A we just accept that they simply don't care to compete in the 1-bedroom market? Surely that is their choice in a free market, is it not?
Just as Lauren in the Microsoft ad did not have her needs met by Apple's offerings, a single young-person might not have their needs met by Company A's offerings. However, someone with a family might be looking for a 3-bedroom condo and would find that there is no "tax" for picking Company A or B and so would choose based on their own set of needs and desires. It might come down to "ooh this one is shinier." That doesn't matter as aesthetics are a valid consideration in any purchase and if there is no "tax" for the shinier product, what's the harm?