There are legal restrictions preventing sale of porn to minors, but no legal restrictions for violence. If your blockbuster won't let twelve year olds rent "Death-Death-Death-And-Blood 7" it is due to store (or corporate) policy, not due to regulation.
Starvation problems aren't due to lack of food, they're do to lack of available food. Turning corn grown here into fuel burned here isn't going to stop the food from making it to Africa (it was never headed that way to begin with.)
True we only have so much arable land - and I personally don't think that ethanol is the solution to all the US's problems (it might however be the solution to a lot of the energy problems in countries that can grow sugar cane.)
And yeah ethanol is only mildly energy positive, but that isn't the real issue, what we want is a local fuel supply that can compete on cost with oil. If energy positive were the only requirement, you wouldn't have heard anything about hydrogen fuel cells (which incidentally, I think are considerably less viable than ethanol). Your old IC engine may fail to run on 100% ethanol, but the ethanol won't destroy the engine. And IC engines can be designed to run on 0-100% mixtures of gas and ethanol - witness flexfuel.
These are two separate issues. Namely bioaccumulation and biodegredation.
So there are four possible scenarios: It doesn't bioaccumulate and biodegrades - best possible situation- also not likely given the fact that we can measure it in the environment.
It neither bioaccumulates nor biodegrades - that means once you make it it is around for a good long time, but it doesn't build up in the body or in wildlife. This probably means it doesn't pose a health risk, although it could cause a pollution issue.
It both bioaccumulates and biodegrades - almost a non-possibility because if it degrades it can't accumulate - unless something in your body is preventing it from degrading - which would be something worth studying.
It bioaccumulates and doesn't biodegrade - this is a big flashing ban (or at least restrict) now banner. IMO if this is the case the onus is on the manufactures to show some pretty solid evidence that there are no health risks even with high concentrations anywhere in the food chain. (friendly compounds like mercury, PCBs, and DDT live here.)
Alright, and this is why I don't get why people always want me to take down "confirmation numbers" If I'm ever in the situation where I need a confirmation number doubtlessly it won't be in the system.
If the kid has not waived his rights, he can still demand his jury trial for the offense
Is that true? I was under the impression that if the state dropped all charges that they are done with you ans you no longer have any standing in criminal court. A civil suit would be fair game though.
I don't think they'd do it if it wasn't at least partially successful. An example: Drive debuted last night. When I first saw a commercial I said, "Wow that looks stupid, I don't ever want to watch that show." But it has been advertised soo much that I almost fooled myself into thinking I wanted to see it. I had to actively remind myself what I thought the first time I heard about it.
Politicians play this game better than possibly anyone.
Further, if you have a subscription model, then it basically means unlimited access to music that you can keep forever for a low monthly fee-- no content holders are going to like that idea.
Which is really stupid. Unlimited downloads that I could keep forever and burn as I see fir for a low monthly fee would likely do it for me, and the many other people who's music buying habit has tapered off. If I could pay ~$20/month for unlimited downloads that would be about $15 more per month than the music industry is currently getting from me. I know I'm not exactly the bellwether for the music indusrty, but maybe their problem is they're asking the wrong question. Namely they ask why the people who buy music aren't buying more, rather than why the people who aren't buying aren't buying, or even why the people who stopped buying stopped buying.
If such a model were to magic its way into existence Apple would be happy because I'd have to buy a bigger iPod.
I don't know about the long-tail. My take is that video games are far too expensive to produce to succeed with that type of a business model. Really the only media that do well in a long tail economy are books and webpages, and both of those can be done well by a single person. Now there might be some single author video games out there, but they in no way resemble half-life.
I think the movie analogy is apt. The video game industy can do better with the movie model IMO because the serious money will be invested in mass-market appeal games, but the engines etc. can be reused for hardcore lower-budget games.
Credit Card companies love love love people who don't pay their bills on time. That way they get to ignore the introductory rate, forgo the standard rate, and head straight to the ball busting 24% APR. And they get to charge you fees, glorious fees.
Credit card companies don't make (much) money if you pay your balance in full every month, so they're likely to double their offers if you tell them you're in financial trouble.
Won't someone please think of the college students?
Seriously, there are some shady things that the CC companies that should, no doubt, be changed, however if a college student, an adult for god's sake, applies for a credit card they should be able to get one.
Personally I'd prefer that none of the credit cards marketed to anyone en mass, but if I can throw away 10 offers a week, I see no reason why a college kid can't too.
Ok, I have no background whatsoever in cryptology, but in the context that a SSN is used wouldn't unique identifier and secure identifier be mutually exclusive? The value of using the SSN is that you give it to your bank, and they know who you are. The problem with the SSN is that someone gives it to your bank, and your bank thinks that person is you. Substitute any other number, and you still have the same problem if the number is unique to you it isn't secure.
The only way around this that I can think of is if each person you do business with has their own identifier number for you - like an account number. The problem there is the first time they do business with you they need to find out who you are. How do they do this?
I agree that anyone entering the mp3 market is gunning for Apple, however, anyone entering the market must realize that no matter how good their product is they have a long uphill battle to fight. Realistically that means telling the investors that they are aiming to a single digit increase in market share per year. When I think of product-x-killer, I think of them sweeping in and dominating the market in only a few years. While they might hope to unseat Apple, realistically they ought to know that it will take at least the better part of a decade, even if they come up with a vastly superior product.
MS might not want to coexist with apple, but if they make business decisions based on the assumption that they are, or will shortly become, top dog they are destined to fail. Well maybe that's what happened with the Zune. If any one really wants to compete in that market space they ought to be looking to slowly grow their market share - anything more ambitious will fail.
In the PC market, I don't think MS cares about Apple, in fact, I'd venture to say they're greatful that apple consistently has some small percentage of the market - not a large enough chunk to obsess over, but large enough that whenever someone screams monopoly they can point over at Jobs during the anti-trust case.
If theory A predicts one thing and theory B predicts another then they can't both be right. You don't need an experiment to tell you that, logic is sufficient.
Seems like a pretty flagrant flaunting of the anti-trust ruling. Not that that would stop them, but I'd expect lawsuits and quick if Microsoft did something like this.
Well in the pharma case, you have both the major players who frequently avoid areas their competitors have tied up, so they don't have to compete directly, oh and they supply each other intermediates, so your rival is both your competitor and your customer.
Then you have the generics, who's stated goal has to be to produce drugs "as good as," actually they have to be identical for regulatory reasons.
If Exxon/Mobile weren't playing nice, and really started to throw its weight around, companies like BP and Shell would be in serious trouble.
Methinks the business world is a tad more complex than you imagine it to be. The company I work for (a fortune 100 company BTW), in the buisness I'm involved in, flat out knows that it can't compete with the major players. We've been told numerous times that we aren't comfortable making the type of investment it would take to be able to compete directly with the giants in the industry. The business goal is essentially to compete in markets where our strengths lie, and in niche markets with large margins, and grow into adjacent market spaces. (Not that I think that is a good business plan, but it adequately demonstrates that some companies aren't interested in being the best.)
I agree. I have a one strike rule. The first time an ad annoys me most commonly by making a noise, moving, popping-up, or randomly linking words in articles I want to read - I block the domain. If this causes problems with your site, I stop visiting all together (I'm looking at you espn.com).
doubleclick was one of the first keywords that made it into adblock, adsense is still unblocked.
I agree that their are marked similarities between the means employed by the fascists and the means employed by the communists (who called themselves Marxist, which confuses the matter because Marx said he couldn't even call himself a Marxist. So to clarify, when I say Marxist, I mean pertaining to the philosophies espoused in Das Kapital, and the Communist Manifesto.)
Either way while the means employed by socialists and fascists are superficially similar, I fail to see how anyone could bring their two philosophies together. While Lenin, Mao and co. at least claimed to value the proletariat, Mussolini, Hitler and co. made no bones about the state being of supreme importance. In realty of course communist societies trample all over the rights of the proletariat for the benefit of the party, but the stated goal is very different. For example, you say, "Mussolini believed government was responsible for doing what was best for the state, which he believed was also best for the people." I'd be interested if you have a quote, because it is my understanding that Mussolini didn't give a damn about the people - his philosophy was predicated on it - so long as an abstraction known as the state survived, the people were expendable.
So maybe that is where you draw the similarity, both Marxism and Fascism, consider a human life insignificant compared to a collective. The break down, in my opinion, occurs here: "Libertarian Socialism, which can be summed up as Self Governing society where no one controls property or the means of production." I think that is a misrepresentation of libertarianism. It is my belief that libertarianism posits that one controls whatever one is able to exert force over. So, rather than removing property rights, libertarians allow any property rights to be seized by whomever can exert greater force.
An example. Where I live there is a field. Under Marxism the collective determines that the best use for this field is growing wheat. I'm obligated to look after the field so that it produces wheat which can be distributed "fairly" - in practice this probably means turning it over to the party. Under libertarianism, as long as I can prevent others from doing otherwise, I'm entitled to grow whatever I want and hoard it, let the field lie fallow, or sell the whatever I can to the highest bidder, all as I see fit.
Ignoring any abstract concept of ownership, the difference between the two systems is that under Marxism I have to grow distribute wheat. Under libertarianism, I can do whatever I want, even to the detriment of myself and/or my neighbors.
Slashdot Mirror
I used the same black and white cartridge for for about three years. Then it ran out of white.
Psst, that's what patents are for. So don't expect to see this on the consumer white market for quite a while.
I'd be very surprised if these weren't corporate lawyers on salary.
There are legal restrictions preventing sale of porn to minors, but no legal restrictions for violence. If your blockbuster won't let twelve year olds rent "Death-Death-Death-And-Blood 7" it is due to store (or corporate) policy, not due to regulation.
Starvation problems aren't due to lack of food, they're do to lack of available food. Turning corn grown here into fuel burned here isn't going to stop the food from making it to Africa (it was never headed that way to begin with.)
True we only have so much arable land - and I personally don't think that ethanol is the solution to all the US's problems (it might however be the solution to a lot of the energy problems in countries that can grow sugar cane.)
And yeah ethanol is only mildly energy positive, but that isn't the real issue, what we want is a local fuel supply that can compete on cost with oil. If energy positive were the only requirement, you wouldn't have heard anything about hydrogen fuel cells (which incidentally, I think are considerably less viable than ethanol). Your old IC engine may fail to run on 100% ethanol, but the ethanol won't destroy the engine. And IC engines can be designed to run on 0-100% mixtures of gas and ethanol - witness flexfuel.
These are two separate issues. Namely bioaccumulation and biodegredation.
So there are four possible scenarios:
It doesn't bioaccumulate and biodegrades - best possible situation- also not likely given the fact that we can measure it in the environment.
It neither bioaccumulates nor biodegrades - that means once you make it it is around for a good long time, but it doesn't build up in the body or in wildlife. This probably means it doesn't pose a health risk, although it could cause a pollution issue.
It both bioaccumulates and biodegrades - almost a non-possibility because if it degrades it can't accumulate - unless something in your body is preventing it from degrading - which would be something worth studying.
It bioaccumulates and doesn't biodegrade - this is a big flashing ban (or at least restrict) now banner. IMO if this is the case the onus is on the manufactures to show some pretty solid evidence that there are no health risks even with high concentrations anywhere in the food chain. (friendly compounds like mercury, PCBs, and DDT live here.)
Alright, and this is why I don't get why people always want me to take down "confirmation numbers" If I'm ever in the situation where I need a confirmation number doubtlessly it won't be in the system.
Just curious, what do you do when you go to a mall, bar, or store with a no weapons sign posted? Leave the gun in your car?
I don't think they'd do it if it wasn't at least partially successful. An example: Drive debuted last night. When I first saw a commercial I said, "Wow that looks stupid, I don't ever want to watch that show." But it has been advertised soo much that I almost fooled myself into thinking I wanted to see it. I had to actively remind myself what I thought the first time I heard about it.
Politicians play this game better than possibly anyone.
Which is really stupid. Unlimited downloads that I could keep forever and burn as I see fir for a low monthly fee would likely do it for me, and the many other people who's music buying habit has tapered off. If I could pay ~$20/month for unlimited downloads that would be about $15 more per month than the music industry is currently getting from me. I know I'm not exactly the bellwether for the music indusrty, but maybe their problem is they're asking the wrong question. Namely they ask why the people who buy music aren't buying more, rather than why the people who aren't buying aren't buying, or even why the people who stopped buying stopped buying.
If such a model were to magic its way into existence Apple would be happy because I'd have to buy a bigger iPod.
I don't know about the long-tail. My take is that video games are far too expensive to produce to succeed with that type of a business model. Really the only media that do well in a long tail economy are books and webpages, and both of those can be done well by a single person. Now there might be some single author video games out there, but they in no way resemble half-life.
I think the movie analogy is apt. The video game industy can do better with the movie model IMO because the serious money will be invested in mass-market appeal games, but the engines etc. can be reused for hardcore lower-budget games.
Neither does Microsoft apparently. So I guess, "Hardware makers" means Sony...
Credit Card companies love love love people who don't pay their bills on time. That way they get to ignore the introductory rate, forgo the standard rate, and head straight to the ball busting 24% APR. And they get to charge you fees, glorious fees.
Credit card companies don't make (much) money if you pay your balance in full every month, so they're likely to double their offers if you tell them you're in financial trouble.
Won't someone please think of the college students?
Seriously, there are some shady things that the CC companies that should, no doubt, be changed, however if a college student, an adult for god's sake, applies for a credit card they should be able to get one.
Personally I'd prefer that none of the credit cards marketed to anyone en mass, but if I can throw away 10 offers a week, I see no reason why a college kid can't too.
Ok, I have no background whatsoever in cryptology, but in the context that a SSN is used wouldn't unique identifier and secure identifier be mutually exclusive? The value of using the SSN is that you give it to your bank, and they know who you are. The problem with the SSN is that someone gives it to your bank, and your bank thinks that person is you. Substitute any other number, and you still have the same problem if the number is unique to you it isn't secure.
The only way around this that I can think of is if each person you do business with has their own identifier number for you - like an account number. The problem there is the first time they do business with you they need to find out who you are. How do they do this?
I agree that anyone entering the mp3 market is gunning for Apple, however, anyone entering the market must realize that no matter how good their product is they have a long uphill battle to fight. Realistically that means telling the investors that they are aiming to a single digit increase in market share per year. When I think of product-x-killer, I think of them sweeping in and dominating the market in only a few years. While they might hope to unseat Apple, realistically they ought to know that it will take at least the better part of a decade, even if they come up with a vastly superior product.
MS might not want to coexist with apple, but if they make business decisions based on the assumption that they are, or will shortly become, top dog they are destined to fail. Well maybe that's what happened with the Zune. If any one really wants to compete in that market space they ought to be looking to slowly grow their market share - anything more ambitious will fail.
In the PC market, I don't think MS cares about Apple, in fact, I'd venture to say they're greatful that apple consistently has some small percentage of the market - not a large enough chunk to obsess over, but large enough that whenever someone screams monopoly they can point over at Jobs during the anti-trust case.
And if you screw up and something useful happens that's serendipity. - me
Seems like a pretty flagrant flaunting of the anti-trust ruling. Not that that would stop them, but I'd expect lawsuits and quick if Microsoft did something like this.
Well in the pharma case, you have both the major players who frequently avoid areas their competitors have tied up, so they don't have to compete directly, oh and they supply each other intermediates, so your rival is both your competitor and your customer.
Then you have the generics, who's stated goal has to be to produce drugs "as good as," actually they have to be identical for regulatory reasons.
If Exxon/Mobile weren't playing nice, and really started to throw its weight around, companies like BP and Shell would be in serious trouble.
Methinks the business world is a tad more complex than you imagine it to be. The company I work for (a fortune 100 company BTW), in the buisness I'm involved in, flat out knows that it can't compete with the major players. We've been told numerous times that we aren't comfortable making the type of investment it would take to be able to compete directly with the giants in the industry. The business goal is essentially to compete in markets where our strengths lie, and in niche markets with large margins, and grow into adjacent market spaces. (Not that I think that is a good business plan, but it adequately demonstrates that some companies aren't interested in being the best.)
I don't know my favorite linkup was the Atari 2600 running TFC2 to Apple IIe runnin Duke Nukem Forever.
Um pharma companies for one, oil companies for another.
I agree. I have a one strike rule. The first time an ad annoys me most commonly by making a noise, moving, popping-up, or randomly linking words in articles I want to read - I block the domain. If this causes problems with your site, I stop visiting all together (I'm looking at you espn.com).
doubleclick was one of the first keywords that made it into adblock, adsense is still unblocked.
I agree that their are marked similarities between the means employed by the fascists and the means employed by the communists (who called themselves Marxist, which confuses the matter because Marx said he couldn't even call himself a Marxist. So to clarify, when I say Marxist, I mean pertaining to the philosophies espoused in Das Kapital, and the Communist Manifesto.)
Either way while the means employed by socialists and fascists are superficially similar, I fail to see how anyone could bring their two philosophies together. While Lenin, Mao and co. at least claimed to value the proletariat, Mussolini, Hitler and co. made no bones about the state being of supreme importance. In realty of course communist societies trample all over the rights of the proletariat for the benefit of the party, but the stated goal is very different. For example, you say, "Mussolini believed government was responsible for doing what was best for the state, which he believed was also best for the people." I'd be interested if you have a quote, because it is my understanding that Mussolini didn't give a damn about the people - his philosophy was predicated on it - so long as an abstraction known as the state survived, the people were expendable.
So maybe that is where you draw the similarity, both Marxism and Fascism, consider a human life insignificant compared to a collective. The break down, in my opinion, occurs here: "Libertarian Socialism, which can be summed up as Self Governing society where no one controls property or the means of production." I think that is a misrepresentation of libertarianism. It is my belief that libertarianism posits that one controls whatever one is able to exert force over. So, rather than removing property rights, libertarians allow any property rights to be seized by whomever can exert greater force.
An example. Where I live there is a field. Under Marxism the collective determines that the best use for this field is growing wheat. I'm obligated to look after the field so that it produces wheat which can be distributed "fairly" - in practice this probably means turning it over to the party. Under libertarianism, as long as I can prevent others from doing otherwise, I'm entitled to grow whatever I want and hoard it, let the field lie fallow, or sell the whatever I can to the highest bidder, all as I see fit.
Ignoring any abstract concept of ownership, the difference between the two systems is that under Marxism I have to grow distribute wheat. Under libertarianism, I can do whatever I want, even to the detriment of myself and/or my neighbors.