Why would this have to be an either/or proposition?
I do think TV is different from music and I do agree with Steve Jobs that people are used to buying music. The concept of renting your favorite music and paying a monthly fee seems pretty odd. But some of this is because that's the way it's always been. For more than 100 years, from the old wax-cyllinders and player-piano rolls, people have bought music.
Conversely, for most of it's history, people have paid to watch video due to the technology. TVs have only been in widespread use in America for 50 years or so. The ability to "buy" a movie has only been around for about 30 years and has only seen any kind of popularity for maybe 15 or 20 years. There are still plenty of people who go to the video store to rent movies.
I actually hit this recently. My cable got screwed up on Wednesday night and I missed "Lost." "Well," I figured, "I can always buy it from iTunes!" But, as much as I enjoy the show, I don't really care about "owning" one episode--possibly not even a favorite episode, just one that I missed. I'd rather just pay some money to watch it. Fortunately, I didn't have a problem--the episode was a rerun anyway.
So I could see video being an either/or proposition--definitely more so than music. You might see one episode for $1.99. You might see a "one viewing" license for $1. And you might see subscriptions for $20. I might pay $1 to watch an episode and then buy that episode because it was so good. I might watch two or three episodes, decide I'm hooked, and pay the $20 for the subscription.
"I don't see science interfering with religion. I can't think of a time in this country when science attempted to intrude upon a house of worship and say 'you can't worship this way' or worse, attempt to pass laws to that effect."
I do see science attempting to interfere with religion, though. Consider teaching evolution. The parents & church say one thing. The school says another. Which is "right"? We need to be teaching the kids the "right" answers--remember that school is all about being "right." 2+2 does not equal 5. That's wrong. "Bat" is not spelled C-A-T. That's wrong. Water does not freeze at 212 degrees fahrenheit. That's wrong. Mankind evolved...?
"The religious right actively tries to interfere with the practice of science; protesting and passing laws against scientific practices and teachings they are not approving of - stem cell research, evolution, abortion (medicine is applied science after all) and so forth."
Well, it's an argument that morality must accompany science.
I don't believe there is a problem with stem cell research per se, for example. The problem is where you get the stem cells from. As I understand it, and I may be wrong, most stem cells are taken from early-stage human embryos. Unfortunately, doing so will cause the embryo not to develop into a fetus and, according to the religious pro-life crew, will "kill the baby."
This leads into abortion, obviously. As night follows day follows night, barring some action from the mother, a zygote will become an embryo will become a fetus will become a baby. The moral question being, "at what stage do we consider this to be a 'person' with certain rights?" Almost all of us will agree that chopping up babies for parts is a bad thing. But at what stage do you draw the line in the sand and say, "This is a living being with rights" versus "This is a bunch of cells with no rights."
Obviously, one end starts at the zygote or even the unfertilized egg. If I remember correctly, the Catholic Church bans all forms of birth control and leaves birth-control up to God's will or pretty much random luck. The other end says that it has no rights until it is born and exists entirely at the whim of it's mother. Most of us end up somewhere in between.
Unfortunately, science doesn't help much with the question. Yes, the zygote is a living creature in much the same way we consider a paramecium to be a living creature. But a paramecium will not grow into a human being. A zygote will. This is sort of where science leaves it--which is good because those are the facts. Science can determine when the brain starts functioning, when the central nervous system comes into play, etc. But science cannot tell us at what point this collection of cells becomes a person. That's a moral judgement.
But as I said, the issue of religion versus science is really more of a question of where does morality fit in to scientific research. If you believe that human life begins as a zygote, then allowing people to buy drugs that will cause that zygote to not grow into an embryo is as wrong as placing your baby in a locked box with no air and that research into birth control is the moral equivalent of research into chemical weapons.
As an aside, I have a friend who is extremely religious and most of what I understand about the arguments are from discussions we've had about this. While I understand the emotion of his argument, I tend to go with the attitude that the whole process is under the control of the mother who should be able to do whatever she wants. As I point out, if a pregnant woman falls down the stairs and has a miscarriage, is she guilty of negligent homicide? If modern science decides that smoking and alcohol are bad for the child, does the state have the moral obligation to put her in a jail cell where she will not be allowed to abuse her unborn child?
I think you got hung up on the road and car part. Sorry, I'm in Southern California, so we tend to think in cars...:^)
I'll try it again.
I need to go from Point A to Point B. I know I can walk from Point A to Point B. I can also bicycle, I can drive a vehicle, I can ride a horse, a donkey, or a very large dog.
The grandparent said, "I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know." To apply this statement to my analogy, the grandparent is saying that he rejects that I can walk from Point A to Point B because the best method of getting to point B has not yet been determined.
Maybe I'll try a different tack.
Wars are known to spur technological development. I don't reject this. I'm not convinced that it's worth getting into a war just so that after the war (assuming we won), I could potentially fly from New York to Tokyo in 3 hours on a hypersonic airliner which grew out of the military's need for a hypersonic bomber. But I don't reject the fact that wars are known to spur technological development. I just don't believe we should get into wars and kill thousands or millions of people for the sole purpose of spurring technological innovation. Call me a bleeding heart liberal...:^)
To take it back to the space exploration argument, I don't reject that space exploration has improved our way of life here on Earth. I may not be convinced that we should devote billions upon billions of dollars to go to the Moon and Mars on the chance that the above mentioned hypersonic airliner would become a reality. That's fine--that's an opinion. But there are many examples where space research has improved life on Earth. Now, would we have those same benefits without space research? That cannot be determined. Are there other ways, besides space research, to get those same benefits? That has yet to be determined. But I don't deny the facts that show space research has improved life on Earth.
I'm reminded of the people who reject global warming because it cannot be proved that mankind is the sole source.
"[...] I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know."
I'll agree that it's a "Virtual History" question and that there is no way of knowing whether there could have been other paths. But the benefits of space research are proven and should not be ignored. What you're questioning shouldn't be the benefits of space research but, instead, whether there are other better ways to achieve the same results.
To use an analogy, if I take I-5 to CA-22, I'll get home. This is proven. But is it the fastest way to get home at 5:00PM on a weekday? Might another route, say CA-91 to CA-57 to CA-22 be a faster way to get home? Perhaps. To find this out, I would probably have to do various tests and average the times together for the two routes over a given period. But, regardless of whether it is faster or not, I-5 to CA-22 will achieve the desired result: I'll get home. To follow your analogy, you're saying that you don't believe that taking I-5 to CA-22 will get me home because all possible other routes have not been considered.
Thus, you can't really argue that space research benefits various industries which use that research to produce products which have improved our lives. It obviously has and there are plenty of examples of it. I agree with you, though, that the not-so-subtle implication--that if we don't commit to space research, we are doomed to stagnate--is not valid.
I'm not sure I agree with the "Most of us" argument, but I'll let that slide...
Strangely enough, I somewhat agree with you. You're right--if you want to do something and the program is not available for Mac or linux, you're using Windows. Ultimately, it is the software. If my Mac CAD/CAM program can't talk to my milling machine that I paid $100,000 for and a PC CAD/CAM program can, I'll go with the PC program. This is a no-brainer and hard to argue. So I agree.
But I've found that, first, some people get stuck on brand names and not what they're trying to accomplish. For example, QuickBooks is available for Macintosh. But that used to not be the case. When it was not the case, I heard plenty of people tell me how they'd love to buy a Mac, but you can't do accounting on a Mac. Why not? No QuickBooks. Forget about the half-dozen or so accounting products for the Mac--no QuickBooks, no accounting. You see this, also, in the architectural world: No AutoCAD? Can't do CAD on a Mac.
Some companies, also, don't really go out of their way to advertise their Mac products. I've been told that there is no Lotus Notes for Macintosh, for example. Fun trivia: According to Forbes 500, four of the top five software companies (Microsoft, Oracle, Electronic Arts, Computer Associates, and Intuit) have Macintosh software. Do you hear much about CA's Mac software? Or Intuit's? Or Oracle's? It's just assumed--oh there's no Mac software. A few years ago, I worked for a top software company with offices in Japan. They have sort of "generic" advertisements for their product which don't mention platforms. One set of ads, though, stuck a little note at the bottom, in small type, basically saying that the product runs on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and Mac OS X. A funny thing happened: They got more Mac sales! I know, crazy idea: Advertise your product to increase sales...
Finally, you also see the "one platform" attitude. "Well, since they need Windows down in shipping to run the UPS/Fedex software, we'll use Windows for the secretaries, too." Where I work, I'm a Mac developer and--needless to say--I use a Mac. My boss uses a Mac. His boss uses Windows. We have a Windows machine down in the shipping department that runs UPS software. We have a Windows machine that runs the RIP for the printers. Our graphic artists uses Macs.
If you need to do something and the only way to do it is with software that runs on Windows, by all means use Windows. But if what you need to do can be done on any platform, it behooves any company to check out the advantages and disadvantages.
Well, arguably, mice would need a smaller radius of rotation because they're smaller and closer to the ground than humans. Of course, one of the intriguing concepts is that--with human beings on hand--I'm sure you could adjust this. Start with a 6-inch radius. "Nope, the mice are tossin' their cookies." How about a foot? "Less cookie tossin'--we're on the right track.":^)
Heck, even if it goes outside ISS, I imagine there's some way to get oxygen and power out there for experiments. I know they can do that with the Space Shuttle. That cuts out your solar panels and life support system, though you need some extra shielding and it has to be airtight. Still, that has to be cheaper than building all the systems yourself.
The other obvious question is why not use some drug to control the motion-sickness? We already know how to do that.
'flight participant'
on
Space Tourism?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, speaking of the MarsGravity biosatellite, I have an odd question.
Why don't they just develop the little spinny thing to hold and feed the mice and send it up on the next Progress Drone to the ISS? Why are they developing their own satellite with it's own life-support system when we have a perfectly good space station that has a life-support system, as well as a couple of guys to monitor the experiment and the mice and potentially fix anything that goes wrong.
And rather than developing the heat shield, parachute, and airbags to bring the mice home, they could just bring the mice back on the next ISS "shift change" on a Soyuz capsule.
I mean, why involve all the rocket science? These problems have been solved. I'm sure they can build a little spinny habitrail type of thing for a fraction of the cost of building a whole satellite with a return system.
"The waters are being tested to see what the market will bear. If downloading proves to be a popular means of getting TV content, that's going to compete with broadcast TV... And the backbone of TV is advertising."
Which is interesting in of itself.
Remember that "TV" does not produce television episodes. There are television studios that produce episodes. These are then sold to TV networks. Because the network is the customer, I admit, the customer gets some say over the content of the episode (eg, "network censors", some cross-promotional material, etc.). This has also become blurred in recent years as media conglomerates have come along and bought studios and networks--for example, take a look at how many ABC TV shows are produced by Disney or Touchstone. But even with this ownership, the story is the same (although it's "funny money" because one part of the organization is paying another part).
For these conglomerates, it's mostly an accounting issue. ABC costs X dollars to run. If people aren't watching their shows, ABC is losing money. Conversely, Touchstone pictures is making more money because people are buying episodes a la carte. Will these two offset each other--and will it matter if it does?
For the non-conglomerated studios and production companies, it creates an easy way to "sell" new video content. There's a bigger issue of the "upfront" cost--essentially, studios would have to risk this. On the other hand, it's a similar risk to what they take with movies, so it is something they understand.
"[...] go to Mars and stop doing experiments about where life would grow in Earth even if we think it is not possible."
Unfortunately, first you actually have to develop the technology to find the little buggers. That's probably more easily done on Earth than it is on Mars. Thus, we build the "life detector" here on Earth, test it out to make sure it will work in an environment where we expect that life might form, and "qualify" the device. Then we'll ship it to Mars.
Remember the "life detectors" on the Viking probes? The results were inconclusive (ie, life or "exotic chemistry"). We don't really want to send these devices and then have more debates. Let's get the device working here on Earth in such a way that nobody can really argue it's effectiveness. Then we'll ship it to Mars.
Slashdot Mirror
"[...] China sits on wast dollar reserves [...]"
...which they need in order to pay for their nuclear wessels.
(I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.)
"I have found that it is not made of cheese, it is made of pixels."
My God! It's full of pixels!
Because they don't know how to spell "ridiculous", probably. ...Oh wait. I get it. Never mind.
"With this rootkit installed, ANY file or folder starting with $sys$ is immmedately hidden from the Windows API."
So if I rename all my pirated MP3 files as $sys$, Sony won't know I've stolen them?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!
Since it will be available through MSNBC, I'd bet that it'll be WMV.
"Windows Live is a set of Internet-based personal services, such as e-mail, blogging and instant messaging."
According to Microsoft, Instant Messaging is part of the operating system...
I suppose e-mail and blogging will become so, as well, in Vista.
Gee, when I ran it with Safari, I didn't get any message at all. I guess it's not coming...
Why would this have to be an either/or proposition?
I do think TV is different from music and I do agree with Steve Jobs that people are used to buying music. The concept of renting your favorite music and paying a monthly fee seems pretty odd. But some of this is because that's the way it's always been. For more than 100 years, from the old wax-cyllinders and player-piano rolls, people have bought music.
Conversely, for most of it's history, people have paid to watch video due to the technology. TVs have only been in widespread use in America for 50 years or so. The ability to "buy" a movie has only been around for about 30 years and has only seen any kind of popularity for maybe 15 or 20 years. There are still plenty of people who go to the video store to rent movies.
I actually hit this recently. My cable got screwed up on Wednesday night and I missed "Lost." "Well," I figured, "I can always buy it from iTunes!" But, as much as I enjoy the show, I don't really care about "owning" one episode--possibly not even a favorite episode, just one that I missed. I'd rather just pay some money to watch it. Fortunately, I didn't have a problem--the episode was a rerun anyway.
So I could see video being an either/or proposition--definitely more so than music. You might see one episode for $1.99. You might see a "one viewing" license for $1. And you might see subscriptions for $20. I might pay $1 to watch an episode and then buy that episode because it was so good. I might watch two or three episodes, decide I'm hooked, and pay the $20 for the subscription.
"I don't see science interfering with religion. I can't think of a time in this country when science attempted to intrude upon a house of worship and say 'you can't worship this way' or worse, attempt to pass laws to that effect."
I do see science attempting to interfere with religion, though. Consider teaching evolution. The parents & church say one thing. The school says another. Which is "right"? We need to be teaching the kids the "right" answers--remember that school is all about being "right." 2+2 does not equal 5. That's wrong. "Bat" is not spelled C-A-T. That's wrong. Water does not freeze at 212 degrees fahrenheit. That's wrong. Mankind evolved...?
"The religious right actively tries to interfere with the practice of science; protesting and passing laws against scientific practices and teachings they are not approving of - stem cell research, evolution, abortion (medicine is applied science after all) and so forth."
Well, it's an argument that morality must accompany science.
I don't believe there is a problem with stem cell research per se, for example. The problem is where you get the stem cells from. As I understand it, and I may be wrong, most stem cells are taken from early-stage human embryos. Unfortunately, doing so will cause the embryo not to develop into a fetus and, according to the religious pro-life crew, will "kill the baby."
This leads into abortion, obviously. As night follows day follows night, barring some action from the mother, a zygote will become an embryo will become a fetus will become a baby. The moral question being, "at what stage do we consider this to be a 'person' with certain rights?" Almost all of us will agree that chopping up babies for parts is a bad thing. But at what stage do you draw the line in the sand and say, "This is a living being with rights" versus "This is a bunch of cells with no rights."
Obviously, one end starts at the zygote or even the unfertilized egg. If I remember correctly, the Catholic Church bans all forms of birth control and leaves birth-control up to God's will or pretty much random luck. The other end says that it has no rights until it is born and exists entirely at the whim of it's mother. Most of us end up somewhere in between.
Unfortunately, science doesn't help much with the question. Yes, the zygote is a living creature in much the same way we consider a paramecium to be a living creature. But a paramecium will not grow into a human being. A zygote will. This is sort of where science leaves it--which is good because those are the facts. Science can determine when the brain starts functioning, when the central nervous system comes into play, etc. But science cannot tell us at what point this collection of cells becomes a person. That's a moral judgement.
But as I said, the issue of religion versus science is really more of a question of where does morality fit in to scientific research. If you believe that human life begins as a zygote, then allowing people to buy drugs that will cause that zygote to not grow into an embryo is as wrong as placing your baby in a locked box with no air and that research into birth control is the moral equivalent of research into chemical weapons.
As an aside, I have a friend who is extremely religious and most of what I understand about the arguments are from discussions we've had about this. While I understand the emotion of his argument, I tend to go with the attitude that the whole process is under the control of the mother who should be able to do whatever she wants. As I point out, if a pregnant woman falls down the stairs and has a miscarriage, is she guilty of negligent homicide? If modern science decides that smoking and alcohol are bad for the child, does the state have the moral obligation to put her in a jail cell where she will not be allowed to abuse her unborn child?
"Does your socket wrench teach you how to build a house? Do your credit cards tell you how to spend your money?"
Yes. Yes they do. It's really annoying. They're always telling me what to do.
But the worst is the neighbor's labrador retriever...
(Actually, I also found this to be entertaining, but I couldn't find anything about a talking socket wrench.)
Power corrupts, Intel can't divide?
(There's a joke in here somewhere. I know it. I just can't find it.)
I think you got hung up on the road and car part. Sorry, I'm in Southern California, so we tend to think in cars... :^)
:^)
I'll try it again.
I need to go from Point A to Point B. I know I can walk from Point A to Point B. I can also bicycle, I can drive a vehicle, I can ride a horse, a donkey, or a very large dog.
The grandparent said, "I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know." To apply this statement to my analogy, the grandparent is saying that he rejects that I can walk from Point A to Point B because the best method of getting to point B has not yet been determined.
Maybe I'll try a different tack.
Wars are known to spur technological development. I don't reject this. I'm not convinced that it's worth getting into a war just so that after the war (assuming we won), I could potentially fly from New York to Tokyo in 3 hours on a hypersonic airliner which grew out of the military's need for a hypersonic bomber. But I don't reject the fact that wars are known to spur technological development. I just don't believe we should get into wars and kill thousands or millions of people for the sole purpose of spurring technological innovation. Call me a bleeding heart liberal...
To take it back to the space exploration argument, I don't reject that space exploration has improved our way of life here on Earth. I may not be convinced that we should devote billions upon billions of dollars to go to the Moon and Mars on the chance that the above mentioned hypersonic airliner would become a reality. That's fine--that's an opinion. But there are many examples where space research has improved life on Earth. Now, would we have those same benefits without space research? That cannot be determined. Are there other ways, besides space research, to get those same benefits? That has yet to be determined. But I don't deny the facts that show space research has improved life on Earth.
I'm reminded of the people who reject global warming because it cannot be proved that mankind is the sole source.
Bah! Any Trek fan knows we got velcro from the Vulcans.
Wikipedia is part of the conspiracy to keep the information secret...
"[...] I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know."
I'll agree that it's a "Virtual History" question and that there is no way of knowing whether there could have been other paths. But the benefits of space research are proven and should not be ignored. What you're questioning shouldn't be the benefits of space research but, instead, whether there are other better ways to achieve the same results.
To use an analogy, if I take I-5 to CA-22, I'll get home. This is proven. But is it the fastest way to get home at 5:00PM on a weekday? Might another route, say CA-91 to CA-57 to CA-22 be a faster way to get home? Perhaps. To find this out, I would probably have to do various tests and average the times together for the two routes over a given period. But, regardless of whether it is faster or not, I-5 to CA-22 will achieve the desired result: I'll get home. To follow your analogy, you're saying that you don't believe that taking I-5 to CA-22 will get me home because all possible other routes have not been considered.
Thus, you can't really argue that space research benefits various industries which use that research to produce products which have improved our lives. It obviously has and there are plenty of examples of it. I agree with you, though, that the not-so-subtle implication--that if we don't commit to space research, we are doomed to stagnate--is not valid.
I'm not sure I agree with the "Most of us" argument, but I'll let that slide...
Strangely enough, I somewhat agree with you. You're right--if you want to do something and the program is not available for Mac or linux, you're using Windows. Ultimately, it is the software. If my Mac CAD/CAM program can't talk to my milling machine that I paid $100,000 for and a PC CAD/CAM program can, I'll go with the PC program. This is a no-brainer and hard to argue. So I agree.
But I've found that, first, some people get stuck on brand names and not what they're trying to accomplish. For example, QuickBooks is available for Macintosh. But that used to not be the case. When it was not the case, I heard plenty of people tell me how they'd love to buy a Mac, but you can't do accounting on a Mac. Why not? No QuickBooks. Forget about the half-dozen or so accounting products for the Mac--no QuickBooks, no accounting. You see this, also, in the architectural world: No AutoCAD? Can't do CAD on a Mac.
Some companies, also, don't really go out of their way to advertise their Mac products. I've been told that there is no Lotus Notes for Macintosh, for example. Fun trivia: According to Forbes 500, four of the top five software companies (Microsoft, Oracle, Electronic Arts, Computer Associates, and Intuit) have Macintosh software. Do you hear much about CA's Mac software? Or Intuit's? Or Oracle's? It's just assumed--oh there's no Mac software. A few years ago, I worked for a top software company with offices in Japan. They have sort of "generic" advertisements for their product which don't mention platforms. One set of ads, though, stuck a little note at the bottom, in small type, basically saying that the product runs on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and Mac OS X. A funny thing happened: They got more Mac sales! I know, crazy idea: Advertise your product to increase sales...
Finally, you also see the "one platform" attitude. "Well, since they need Windows down in shipping to run the UPS/Fedex software, we'll use Windows for the secretaries, too." Where I work, I'm a Mac developer and--needless to say--I use a Mac. My boss uses a Mac. His boss uses Windows. We have a Windows machine down in the shipping department that runs UPS software. We have a Windows machine that runs the RIP for the printers. Our graphic artists uses Macs.
If you need to do something and the only way to do it is with software that runs on Windows, by all means use Windows. But if what you need to do can be done on any platform, it behooves any company to check out the advantages and disadvantages.
Okay. I couldn't find it on the site. Thanks for the info...
If you take two apples from three apples, how many apples do you have?
Most states have laws against siblings marrying, but is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister in West Virginia?
These are pretty old and pretty easy...
Well, arguably, mice would need a smaller radius of rotation because they're smaller and closer to the ground than humans. Of course, one of the intriguing concepts is that--with human beings on hand--I'm sure you could adjust this. Start with a 6-inch radius. "Nope, the mice are tossin' their cookies." How about a foot? "Less cookie tossin'--we're on the right track." :^)
Heck, even if it goes outside ISS, I imagine there's some way to get oxygen and power out there for experiments. I know they can do that with the Space Shuttle. That cuts out your solar panels and life support system, though you need some extra shielding and it has to be airtight. Still, that has to be cheaper than building all the systems yourself.
The other obvious question is why not use some drug to control the motion-sickness? We already know how to do that.
I prefer NASA's terminology: Payload Specialist.
Actually, speaking of the MarsGravity biosatellite, I have an odd question.
Why don't they just develop the little spinny thing to hold and feed the mice and send it up on the next Progress Drone to the ISS? Why are they developing their own satellite with it's own life-support system when we have a perfectly good space station that has a life-support system, as well as a couple of guys to monitor the experiment and the mice and potentially fix anything that goes wrong.
And rather than developing the heat shield, parachute, and airbags to bring the mice home, they could just bring the mice back on the next ISS "shift change" on a Soyuz capsule.
I mean, why involve all the rocket science? These problems have been solved. I'm sure they can build a little spinny habitrail type of thing for a fraction of the cost of building a whole satellite with a return system.
"What's the number one show on TV?"
CSI.
"What's the second? Lost."
According to Nielsen, the #2 is "Desperate Housewives." "Lost" is #4, behind "Without a Trace."
"The waters are being tested to see what the market will bear. If downloading proves to be a popular means of getting TV content, that's going to compete with broadcast TV... And the backbone of TV is advertising."
Which is interesting in of itself.
Remember that "TV" does not produce television episodes. There are television studios that produce episodes. These are then sold to TV networks. Because the network is the customer, I admit, the customer gets some say over the content of the episode (eg, "network censors", some cross-promotional material, etc.). This has also become blurred in recent years as media conglomerates have come along and bought studios and networks--for example, take a look at how many ABC TV shows are produced by Disney or Touchstone. But even with this ownership, the story is the same (although it's "funny money" because one part of the organization is paying another part).
For these conglomerates, it's mostly an accounting issue. ABC costs X dollars to run. If people aren't watching their shows, ABC is losing money. Conversely, Touchstone pictures is making more money because people are buying episodes a la carte. Will these two offset each other--and will it matter if it does?
For the non-conglomerated studios and production companies, it creates an easy way to "sell" new video content. There's a bigger issue of the "upfront" cost--essentially, studios would have to risk this. On the other hand, it's a similar risk to what they take with movies, so it is something they understand.
But at least your power chords will sound better.
(Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
"[...] go to Mars and stop doing experiments about where life would grow in Earth even if we think it is not possible."
Unfortunately, first you actually have to develop the technology to find the little buggers. That's probably more easily done on Earth than it is on Mars. Thus, we build the "life detector" here on Earth, test it out to make sure it will work in an environment where we expect that life might form, and "qualify" the device. Then we'll ship it to Mars.
Remember the "life detectors" on the Viking probes? The results were inconclusive (ie, life or "exotic chemistry"). We don't really want to send these devices and then have more debates. Let's get the device working here on Earth in such a way that nobody can really argue it's effectiveness. Then we'll ship it to Mars.