1. Lower the cost to stream music to almost nothing. 2. Get more people and businesses using streaming music. 3. Jack prices back up to 0.22p 4. Profit?
What is scarier is that http://knowprivacy.org/ is doing this to "Recommendations for policymakers to protect consumers and for website operators to avoid stricter regulation." Personally I liked how free the internet was. I like using "Know Privacy" to find these companies and boycott them if need be. I understand that they are trying to help make "good" policy, but isn't any policy a bad one? Can't consumers protect themselves?
Isn't it more like unprotected sex? The first thing they are going to do is go to MySpace and pick up a nasty STD, or they are going to open that really nasty root kit email they got.
Here is a tamper proof way to do electronic voting:
1. Everyone already has a voter registration number, make sure they know it. 2. Decentralize the vote. Each "polling station" creates a flat file that has the voter id and what they voted for. Make it available for anyone to download. 3. Next have a regional/district "polling station" where the flat file is uploaded. The flat file is audited again here. Also the aggregate file is also made available to the public. 4. Continue the pooling of votes to whatever level is needed, national, global, whatever.
There are so many checks on the system that I would argue that it would be harder to tamper than with closed door paper ballots, where once my vote is cast I can't verify that that is the vote that is still counted. At least this way I could download my local election flat file, verify my voter id / ballot matches and tally the votes myself in a spreadsheet.
Billions of dollars are moved electronically every day. If our money can be moved electronically why not our votes?
Homeless people have the right to vote, yes, but when they do they go to the same polling stations everyone else does. They are voting by proxy, a ballot box. What is so hard about going to a polling station that has a computer instead of a voting box?
Second you mention the security implications of voting by wire. I don't know why this is an issue, who here doesn't have a debit or credit card? We trust electronic transactions all the time. We also audit our bank statements. All that is needed is a way to audit your vote after the election. Have votes posted by id or something where the public can verify that their vote was counted.
Let Jim Davis earn his own keep. Fuck the papers, let them all go out of print. Papers are just content aggregators and distributors just like the internet is now. The internet has replaced the newspaper.
The new model is that the journalist creates the stories they want to make and they think they can sell. They then market themselves to news sources and other aggregators on the internet and then they can link back to their own site. The content creator can then sell ads through Google ad sense or whatever means they want. They could even sell directly to the aggregator. The newspapers don't need to pay for staffs anymore they just need to say "hey, we need someone to cover the local town meeting for ATL city hall, we'll pay $0.02 a page view for it." or something like that. You the content provider go to the town hall meeting and maybe someone else does as well. Both of you publish you're article on the meeting the content aggregator chooses which story it likes better or thinks is the better deal and the problem is solved. The person who didn't sell theirs to CNN or the AJC can put it up on their own website and earn some income based on the ads from their own sites. Who knows maybe they could sell their story to some other outlet. Then these competing content creators can earn a name for themselves and possibly have their ads worth more money.
The same could be for someone covering a war story, if the content is good someone will pay for it.
You forgot about our satellites and radio waves and internet and other cultural vomit spewing into their country. To them it is an unwanted disease that just keeps spreading. Even if we did what you suggest American culture still leaks out and pisses them off, since it is a pagan culture to them...
You mean like Desperate Housewives? The show had a great story going on in Season 1 and should have concluded with the discovery of the death of the Narrator. Every season since then is more and more contrived...
The second image in this article clearly shows the mans genitals.
This gives me a great idea for scientific discovery. Create an application that measures the penis size and gets an accurate average size of all males passing through this airport.
Just be sure to hire a fluffer before leaving Vegas.
The summary mentions "tin-foil sports coats", but yet makes no mention of "tin-foil briefs". The image in the CNN article clearly showed the man's penis.
Am I missing something about evolution? As I understand it entire species can be wiped out and become extinct. Extinction is a type of natural selection. Also if this vaccine works what is to stop us from using it on livestock? Would it also work for malaria?
The Kindle is a platform and distribution tool, however Amazon believes it is much more. I was listening to NPR the other day and one of the Newspaper execs was describing the contract to distribute their paper using the Kindle. Did you know that the Kindle contract is 70% for amazon and 30% for the content provider? Not only that but then amazon claims ownership of the content to distribute it to other platforms?
It is usually a retail shop that gets an "exclusive" on a product. Meaning that Target has something Walmart doesn't.
It is not a manufacturer supplying Target and Walmart at the exclusion of all other manufacturers. That hurts competition.
The "exclusive" you describe is like "Metal Gear Solid" on the PS3 which is not on the XBOX or WII. There is nothing wrong with that since they are not stopping the building of competitive products.
Actually... sausage polishing is a no-no but I know lots of women that masturbate at work. They have better technology than men do. They have this little silver bullet thing... and remote controlled devices.
Women can also do this thing where they cross their legs and bounce their foot.
This is clearly sexism in the workplace.
Oh, and if you want some real fun there is a great skit on masturbating in the office, its on Youtube, but I'm at work and can't look it up.
"In the end, parents enrolled 14 teens in the course. But the parents of three other girls, including Marissa Miller, recruited the ACLU's help to sue Mr. Skumanick."
I really wish the other 14 students would have joined the lawsuit and not gone to the classes.
The government doesn't have a right to raise our children. Unless my child kills or rapes someone they are mine to discipline until they are 18. If they steal I should have to pay for whatever they stole and then punish them myself. I really can't think of any other crimes that would require government intervention. Feel free to comment if you can think of one.
"(The US government) has NO business attempting to do any kind of censorship"
That isn't entirely true. The market is a powerful motivator. We tax alcohol and tobacco.
If there is something the government wants to "censor" it could just tax it. There should be no jail time or removal of explicit content. There is no reason the government couldn't exert control of materials through taxation.
What kind of games did you play? Every game has some sort of message. Final Fantasy games are notorious for pushing Eastern Mysticism.
The best games are the ones that pull you into the story. Its been years since I played Deus Ex but I recall it having a very strong message at the time.
What about about Bioshock? I only played the demo, but even in that short narrative a message about Utopia and body augmentation was already being developed.
There are a lot of games with "a coherent artistic vision" you're just playing the wrong games.
Although I'll give you that developers could spend a lot more time developing a story/narrative and a lot of games would be improved greatly. Gameplay isn't everything.
General Relativity is a theory. Its is not proven to be fact.
The idea that faster-than-light technology would equate to time travel is a false postulation. It is derived by perception of events, not what would actually happen. Time would still move forward, you would just move faster than the light reflecting off the object. The object moving faster than light would still be moving forward in time at the same rate that time across the entire universe is moving. What you would be seeing would be the reflections of light that are moving slower, so you'd be looking at light that reflected off an object in the past that is just now reaching your destination in space. That is not the same as time travel. At no point, no matter how fast you go, would you ever move backwards in time.
I have on a watch, my buddy on earth has on a watch. I travel away from the earth at a speed faster than light for 5 min. The instant 5 min pass a lightwave signal is sent back to earth. I also return to earth at the exact same velocity and it takes 5 min to get back. When my friend and I look at our watches only 10 min have passed, however we don't see the signal I sent for many years. That doesn't mean I went back in time.
Isn't the gamma ray burst described in that article moving faster than light? Don't we detect the burst from the object first and then see the light some time later?
Another problem with speculating faster than light and time is significant digits. When you get to those speeds increments of time many magnitudes greater than we comprehend become significant digits. Since our math discards digits we can't detect and just rounds them to infinity what is actually going on is ignored.
There is only so much money in the economy. All that happens is that you are slicing the pie in different portions.
You are right, they did write a check to the IRS that says "tax payment". However that came out of the same pie as "your paycheck" and "your dividend" and "new server" and "new building" When you increase tax you have to shrink the other pieces of the pie in order to cut out of bigger wedge for the government.
Let us say that m4cph1sto is wrong and the consumer of the product a company makes is going to have its price set by the market and have no increase in cost. It still doesn't negate the fact that the company's pie just got smaller.
How that looks changes from company to company. Some companies lay off people, others put on a hiring freeze, and others attempt to raise the price of goods. Some find cheaper vendors, but in no situation does it help the company grow and hire more people when you raise taxes.
What you are missing in a flat tax:
You just spent $12,000 on a KIA. and paid $1,200 in taxes.
That rich guy just spent $120,000 on a FordGT and paid in taxes what you paid for your car.
Also you just bought your pack of pasta for $1.20. The rich guy just spent $5.00 at the whole foods store.
Oh and if it was the "Fair Tax" that is the flat tax you speak of, you also got a check from the government negating the taxes up to the poverty line.
Even with a flat tax the rich pay more in taxes than most people will make. And if you're still upset about it you could add an additional tax to "luxury" goods.
Still a flat sales tax on all goods is the most fair way to tax. It keeps the lobbyists out of Washington which is why it will never happen. If the voters could see what they pay in taxes out in the open it would lead to a much more accountable government.
More "fair tax" fun. Did you know that under the fair tax you could pay no taxes at all? If all that you buy is second hand goods there is no tax on those under the fair tax. If you had a backyard garden and only bought things second hand you could actually earn a paycheck from Uncle Sam each month.
Not to mention no more filing on April 15th and no chance of error since retail stores would be doing 100% of the tax collecting for the government.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, how did we all fall for that one...
1. Lower the cost to stream music to almost nothing.
2. Get more people and businesses using streaming music.
3. Jack prices back up to 0.22p
4. Profit?
What is scarier is that http://knowprivacy.org/ is doing this to "Recommendations for policymakers to protect consumers and for website operators to avoid stricter regulation." Personally I liked how free the internet was. I like using "Know Privacy" to find these companies and boycott them if need be. I understand that they are trying to help make "good" policy, but isn't any policy a bad one? Can't consumers protect themselves?
Isn't it more like unprotected sex? The first thing they are going to do is go to MySpace and pick up a nasty STD, or they are going to open that really nasty root kit email they got.
Why the hate on electronic records?
Here is a tamper proof way to do electronic voting:
1. Everyone already has a voter registration number, make sure they know it.
2. Decentralize the vote. Each "polling station" creates a flat file that has the voter id and what they voted for. Make it available for anyone to download.
3. Next have a regional/district "polling station" where the flat file is uploaded. The flat file is audited again here. Also the aggregate file is also made available to the public.
4. Continue the pooling of votes to whatever level is needed, national, global, whatever.
There are so many checks on the system that I would argue that it would be harder to tamper than with closed door paper ballots, where once my vote is cast I can't verify that that is the vote that is still counted. At least this way I could download my local election flat file, verify my voter id / ballot matches and tally the votes myself in a spreadsheet.
Billions of dollars are moved electronically every day. If our money can be moved electronically why not our votes?
Homeless people have the right to vote, yes, but when they do they go to the same polling stations everyone else does. They are voting by proxy, a ballot box. What is so hard about going to a polling station that has a computer instead of a voting box?
Second you mention the security implications of voting by wire. I don't know why this is an issue, who here doesn't have a debit or credit card? We trust electronic transactions all the time. We also audit our bank statements. All that is needed is a way to audit your vote after the election. Have votes posted by id or something where the public can verify that their vote was counted.
http://www.garfield.com/comics/todayscomic.html
Let Jim Davis earn his own keep. Fuck the papers, let them all go out of print. Papers are just content aggregators and distributors just like the internet is now. The internet has replaced the newspaper.
The new model is that the journalist creates the stories they want to make and they think they can sell. They then market themselves to news sources and other aggregators on the internet and then they can link back to their own site. The content creator can then sell ads through Google ad sense or whatever means they want. They could even sell directly to the aggregator. The newspapers don't need to pay for staffs anymore they just need to say "hey, we need someone to cover the local town meeting for ATL city hall, we'll pay $0.02 a page view for it." or something like that. You the content provider go to the town hall meeting and maybe someone else does as well. Both of you publish you're article on the meeting the content aggregator chooses which story it likes better or thinks is the better deal and the problem is solved. The person who didn't sell theirs to CNN or the AJC can put it up on their own website and earn some income based on the ads from their own sites. Who knows maybe they could sell their story to some other outlet. Then these competing content creators can earn a name for themselves and possibly have their ads worth more money.
The same could be for someone covering a war story, if the content is good someone will pay for it.
You forgot about our satellites and radio waves and internet and other cultural vomit spewing into their country. To them it is an unwanted disease that just keeps spreading. Even if we did what you suggest American culture still leaks out and pisses them off, since it is a pagan culture to them...
It also works with "in bed."
Looks like a great iPhone app...
You mean like Desperate Housewives? The show had a great story going on in Season 1 and should have concluded with the discovery of the death of the Narrator. Every season since then is more and more contrived...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/05/18/airport.security.body.scans/index.html
The second image in this article clearly shows the mans genitals.
This gives me a great idea for scientific discovery. Create an application that measures the penis size and gets an accurate average size of all males passing through this airport.
Just be sure to hire a fluffer before leaving Vegas.
The summary mentions "tin-foil sports coats", but yet makes no mention of "tin-foil briefs". The image in the CNN article clearly showed the man's penis.
Am I missing something about evolution? As I understand it entire species can be wiped out and become extinct. Extinction is a type of natural selection. Also if this vaccine works what is to stop us from using it on livestock? Would it also work for malaria?
The Kindle is a platform and distribution tool, however Amazon believes it is much more. I was listening to NPR the other day and one of the Newspaper execs was describing the contract to distribute their paper using the Kindle. Did you know that the Kindle contract is 70% for amazon and 30% for the content provider? Not only that but then amazon claims ownership of the content to distribute it to other platforms?
It is usually a retail shop that gets an "exclusive" on a product. Meaning that Target has something Walmart doesn't.
It is not a manufacturer supplying Target and Walmart at the exclusion of all other manufacturers. That hurts competition.
The "exclusive" you describe is like "Metal Gear Solid" on the PS3 which is not on the XBOX or WII. There is nothing wrong with that since they are not stopping the building of competitive products.
Actually... sausage polishing is a no-no but I know lots of women that masturbate at work. They have better technology than men do. They have this little silver bullet thing... and remote controlled devices.
Women can also do this thing where they cross their legs and bounce their foot.
This is clearly sexism in the workplace.
Oh, and if you want some real fun there is a great skit on masturbating in the office, its on Youtube, but I'm at work and can't look it up.
What disturbed me after reading the article:
"In the end, parents enrolled 14 teens in the course. But the parents of three other girls, including Marissa Miller, recruited the ACLU's help to sue Mr. Skumanick."
I really wish the other 14 students would have joined the lawsuit and not gone to the classes.
The government doesn't have a right to raise our children. Unless my child kills or rapes someone they are mine to discipline until they are 18. If they steal I should have to pay for whatever they stole and then punish them myself. I really can't think of any other crimes that would require government intervention. Feel free to comment if you can think of one.
"(The US government) has NO business attempting to do any kind of censorship"
That isn't entirely true. The market is a powerful motivator. We tax alcohol and tobacco.
If there is something the government wants to "censor" it could just tax it. There should be no jail time or removal of explicit content. There is no reason the government couldn't exert control of materials through taxation.
What kind of games did you play? Every game has some sort of message. Final Fantasy games are notorious for pushing Eastern Mysticism.
The best games are the ones that pull you into the story. Its been years since I played Deus Ex but I recall it having a very strong message at the time.
What about about Bioshock? I only played the demo, but even in that short narrative a message about Utopia and body augmentation was already being developed.
There are a lot of games with "a coherent artistic vision" you're just playing the wrong games.
Although I'll give you that developers could spend a lot more time developing a story/narrative and a lot of games would be improved greatly. Gameplay isn't everything.
General Relativity is a theory. Its is not proven to be fact.
The idea that faster-than-light technology would equate to time travel is a false postulation. It is derived by perception of events, not what would actually happen. Time would still move forward, you would just move faster than the light reflecting off the object. The object moving faster than light would still be moving forward in time at the same rate that time across the entire universe is moving. What you would be seeing would be the reflections of light that are moving slower, so you'd be looking at light that reflected off an object in the past that is just now reaching your destination in space. That is not the same as time travel. At no point, no matter how fast you go, would you ever move backwards in time.
I have on a watch, my buddy on earth has on a watch. I travel away from the earth at a speed faster than light for 5 min. The instant 5 min pass a lightwave signal is sent back to earth. I also return to earth at the exact same velocity and it takes 5 min to get back. When my friend and I look at our watches only 10 min have passed, however we don't see the signal I sent for many years. That doesn't mean I went back in time.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090429/wl_uk_afp/usbritainastronomy
Isn't the gamma ray burst described in that article moving faster than light? Don't we detect the burst from the object first and then see the light some time later?
Another problem with speculating faster than light and time is significant digits. When you get to those speeds increments of time many magnitudes greater than we comprehend become significant digits. Since our math discards digits we can't detect and just rounds them to infinity what is actually going on is ignored.
Then why not just remove all taxes, then the little guys could compete and there would be more money to go around.
You all do realize that taxes aren't even 100 years old? The country was tax free from 1776 till 1913, how did we manage that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United_States
What you really need is a pie chart.
There is only so much money in the economy. All that happens is that you are slicing the pie in different portions.
You are right, they did write a check to the IRS that says "tax payment". However that came out of the same pie as "your paycheck" and "your dividend" and "new server" and "new building" When you increase tax you have to shrink the other pieces of the pie in order to cut out of bigger wedge for the government.
Let us say that m4cph1sto is wrong and the consumer of the product a company makes is going to have its price set by the market and have no increase in cost. It still doesn't negate the fact that the company's pie just got smaller.
How that looks changes from company to company. Some companies lay off people, others put on a hiring freeze, and others attempt to raise the price of goods. Some find cheaper vendors, but in no situation does it help the company grow and hire more people when you raise taxes.
It is called a tax burden for a reason.
What you are missing in a flat tax: You just spent $12,000 on a KIA. and paid $1,200 in taxes. That rich guy just spent $120,000 on a FordGT and paid in taxes what you paid for your car. Also you just bought your pack of pasta for $1.20. The rich guy just spent $5.00 at the whole foods store. Oh and if it was the "Fair Tax" that is the flat tax you speak of, you also got a check from the government negating the taxes up to the poverty line. Even with a flat tax the rich pay more in taxes than most people will make. And if you're still upset about it you could add an additional tax to "luxury" goods. Still a flat sales tax on all goods is the most fair way to tax. It keeps the lobbyists out of Washington which is why it will never happen. If the voters could see what they pay in taxes out in the open it would lead to a much more accountable government. More "fair tax" fun. Did you know that under the fair tax you could pay no taxes at all? If all that you buy is second hand goods there is no tax on those under the fair tax. If you had a backyard garden and only bought things second hand you could actually earn a paycheck from Uncle Sam each month. Not to mention no more filing on April 15th and no chance of error since retail stores would be doing 100% of the tax collecting for the government.
The Tundra Mammoth does give an in game advantage. You should buy one, they are great!