Right, but those PS3's stacked in Best Buys are being sold, they're just not being sold faster than they can restock them. Shipped numbers can be misleading, but as long as PS3's are not being returned it's a fairly accurate count.
There are a shitload of trees in Canada and oil rigs take up a relatively small amount of space. Even assuming 100% of the land they use must be deforested, I imagine the effect would be negligible. A much bigger problem is the pollution associated with oil extraction and refining.
Copyright is not the same as trademark. "Spiderman" will never be in the public domain because the character is trademarked, not copyrighted, and even with a short copyright Sony still would've made the box office money they did. They just wouldn't be making money on it 15 years from now.
I would assume that's because people understand that facebook friends roughly correlate to friends in real life. If you told people you have 100 friends that you speak to only via IRC or WoW, I'm sure you would still see a similar social stigma.
If by hemorrhaging money you mean turning a profit, then yeah, I suppose you're correct. Sony's stock price is near a 5 year high, and is ~60% higher than it was two years ago. Profits are dropping, but overall Sony's doing just fine. Just because Nintendo's raking in the money doesn't mean Sony is losing money. It's not a zero sum game, particularly when you have a massive company like Sony. I'm not claiming Sony is a great company or anything, but they certainly aren't hemorrhaging money.
On a slightly related note, OP is completely right. Pokemon saved Nintendo. At one point, something like 40% of their profit came from Pokemon-related products, with most of the rest coming from the Game Boy division. It held them over some tough times as a company and allowed them to (sort of) recover with the Gamecube and the kick ass with then Wii.
I'm confused. You yourself claim the stereotype that all Scottish people are ginger is incorrect, so how exactly have you disproved my point?
I'm not saying stereotypes are baseless or even completely useless. I'm saying they are *by definition* misleading and incorrect. If all Scottish people actually were ginger, then it wouldn't be a stereotype. It would be a fact. For example, claiming that ethnic Scots have pale skin isn't a stereotype. It's a fact.
All stereotypes *are* incorrect. It's not a fallacy, it's a tautology. That's the goddamn definition of a stereotype. They can be positive or negative, but they are always misleading. If they were correct, there would be no need for them to be referred to as stereotypes. They would just be facts.
If someone is willing to fork out $500 on a phone, they are much more likely to also want top of the line features (ie 3G). Even Apple can't compete *solely* on their brand name. They actually do have to be competitive on the features they offer, especially in the higher end of the market.
Those corporations are (mostly) not American. Only one out of the big four, Warner, is completely American. Sony BMG is Japanese/German, EMI is English, and Universal is American/French.
You severely underestimate the power of religion over the minds of men. Iraq was different. Saddam was a secular leader. Iran is a fundamentalist Sharia state.
This has nothing to do with The Man manipulating people or greater problems with our society. It's a very simple explanation. You will never get completely get rid of "bullying" in the world, to use your metaphor, because it (generally speaking) benefits the person doing the bullying.
Considering the poor (by American standards) conditions that most illegals put up with to live and work in the US, it's pretty clear that there are a TON of people who WANT to be part of our society.
A huge amount of immigrants that are working agricultural jobs put up with conditions that are poor by any reasonable standard. Think Grapes of Wrath level poverty, i.e. living next to a stream and spending most of your time finding work because labor is only used during the harvest. Life expectancies estimated in the 50s. Some are smuggled into the country and work as slaves or indentured servants (and I mean that literally). If more people were aware of the absolutely terrible way a lot of illegals are living, they would be shocked. Living 4 families to a house is bad enough, but in some places the situation is sickening. I think if major media outlets focused on the human story of illegal immigration it would change minds. Right now it's framed as a macroeconomic debate, and to understate it, most Americans have a tenuous grasp on economics.
Top public schools compared to most private schools look pretty good, but when you compare the top private schools to the top public schools it's not really that close. Even as good as they are, schools like Michigan, Berkeley, Virginia, etc. can't compete with the Ivies or places like Stanford, MIT, or CMU.
Private schools are generally better than public schools, but they aren't necessarily a better value. I got into Colorado College and University of Denver (CC being a "top 10" lib arts school), but decided to go to the University of Utah (much lower tuition + a scholarship). Would I have got a better education at those private schools? Probably. Would it be better enough to justify an extra $25,000 per year? I don't think so.
It's mostly about a self-perpetuating "elite" standard. They're studying pretty much the same material at Iowa as they are at Stanford and Harvard (discounting very high level courses and research). The difference is that the Ivy league et al are "the best," so they attract more intelligent and harder working students and faculty on average. The top students at MIT are probably not smarter than the top students at Texas, but I bet the average students are.
It is entirely sensible for a government to decide that it's not particularly good for society if some adults let alone kids play a computer game where they pretend to use "a saw blade to cut upward into a foe's groin and buttocks, motioning forward and backward with the Wii remote as you go".
No, it most certainly isn't sensible. If there is someone picking and choosing what you can or can't publish, then you don't have a free press. It's that simple. What if they banned it for containing nudity or dangerous political ideas? Would you still feel the same?
Attempting to prevent children from buying it is one thing. Preventing adults from doing the same is another issue entirely. If you find it disgusting, don't buy it. If you really don't like it, take other action (boycotts, etc.). But fuck you if you are going to tell me what I can or can't see.
I'm certainly in favour of using censorship very sparingly indeed,
I think what you meant to say was "I'm certainly in favour of using censorship very sparingly, unless I'm offended, in which case it's ok."
$5 million is a lot of money, even for a company like IBM. The state is forcing this into the media because they want to make IBM look bad for taking money from a school. A contract is a contract, you shouldn't be made to look bad for taking money owed to you. Whether IBM can afford it is irrelevant.
Exactly. There's a couple million Cubans in Florida, and they're one of the most influential populations in the country because 1) they vote 2) they aren't strongly tied to either party and 3) they live in the largest swing state. No presidential candidate will touch the issue because even a 10% shift in the Cuban population would almost definitely swing Florida against them.
Well the US "officially" uses the metric system also, and has for about 140 years. Congress made it the "preferred" method in 1975. The only problem is that no one payed attention to Congress and standard is still used for everything outside science/education and industry. It's actually quite similar to what has happened in the UK, just to a different degree.
As for "proper" English spelling and grammar, get over it. We're not English, and haven't been for 230 years. Languages evolve. Pull the stick out of your ass and move on.
It only glorified sex, violence, and power if you weren't paying attention. Nearly every major character was killed during the course of the show. Of those that are left, nearly every one complicit in the criminal life are emotional wrecks unable to find happiness. It certainly didn't make me want to become a mobster.
Slashdot Mirror
What if it's 30 minutes video and 60-70 hours playtime? Because that's much closer to the actual numbers.
Right, but those PS3's stacked in Best Buys are being sold, they're just not being sold faster than they can restock them. Shipped numbers can be misleading, but as long as PS3's are not being returned it's a fairly accurate count.
Hmm...very interesting. I stand corrected. I didn't realize that oil sands were extracted like that.
There are a shitload of trees in Canada and oil rigs take up a relatively small amount of space. Even assuming 100% of the land they use must be deforested, I imagine the effect would be negligible. A much bigger problem is the pollution associated with oil extraction and refining.
You wouldn't need to go all the way to Nevada. There's uninhabited desert very close to LA.
Copyright is not the same as trademark. "Spiderman" will never be in the public domain because the character is trademarked, not copyrighted, and even with a short copyright Sony still would've made the box office money they did. They just wouldn't be making money on it 15 years from now.
I would assume that's because people understand that facebook friends roughly correlate to friends in real life. If you told people you have 100 friends that you speak to only via IRC or WoW, I'm sure you would still see a similar social stigma.
If by hemorrhaging money you mean turning a profit, then yeah, I suppose you're correct. Sony's stock price is near a 5 year high, and is ~60% higher than it was two years ago. Profits are dropping, but overall Sony's doing just fine. Just because Nintendo's raking in the money doesn't mean Sony is losing money. It's not a zero sum game, particularly when you have a massive company like Sony. I'm not claiming Sony is a great company or anything, but they certainly aren't hemorrhaging money.
On a slightly related note, OP is completely right. Pokemon saved Nintendo. At one point, something like 40% of their profit came from Pokemon-related products, with most of the rest coming from the Game Boy division. It held them over some tough times as a company and allowed them to (sort of) recover with the Gamecube and the kick ass with then Wii.
I'm confused. You yourself claim the stereotype that all Scottish people are ginger is incorrect, so how exactly have you disproved my point?
I'm not saying stereotypes are baseless or even completely useless. I'm saying they are *by definition* misleading and incorrect. If all Scottish people actually were ginger, then it wouldn't be a stereotype. It would be a fact. For example, claiming that ethnic Scots have pale skin isn't a stereotype. It's a fact.
All stereotypes *are* incorrect. It's not a fallacy, it's a tautology. That's the goddamn definition of a stereotype. They can be positive or negative, but they are always misleading. If they were correct, there would be no need for them to be referred to as stereotypes. They would just be facts.
If someone is willing to fork out $500 on a phone, they are much more likely to also want top of the line features (ie 3G). Even Apple can't compete *solely* on their brand name. They actually do have to be competitive on the features they offer, especially in the higher end of the market.
Those corporations are (mostly) not American. Only one out of the big four, Warner, is completely American. Sony BMG is Japanese/German, EMI is English, and Universal is American/French.
You severely underestimate the power of religion over the minds of men. Iraq was different. Saddam was a secular leader. Iran is a fundamentalist Sharia state.
This has nothing to do with The Man manipulating people or greater problems with our society. It's a very simple explanation. You will never get completely get rid of "bullying" in the world, to use your metaphor, because it (generally speaking) benefits the person doing the bullying.
I agree. It's almost as if they thought they could publish whatever they want. What could have possibly given them that idea?
A huge amount of immigrants that are working agricultural jobs put up with conditions that are poor by any reasonable standard. Think Grapes of Wrath level poverty, i.e. living next to a stream and spending most of your time finding work because labor is only used during the harvest. Life expectancies estimated in the 50s. Some are smuggled into the country and work as slaves or indentured servants (and I mean that literally). If more people were aware of the absolutely terrible way a lot of illegals are living, they would be shocked. Living 4 families to a house is bad enough, but in some places the situation is sickening. I think if major media outlets focused on the human story of illegal immigration it would change minds. Right now it's framed as a macroeconomic debate, and to understate it, most Americans have a tenuous grasp on economics.
Top public schools compared to most private schools look pretty good, but when you compare the top private schools to the top public schools it's not really that close. Even as good as they are, schools like Michigan, Berkeley, Virginia, etc. can't compete with the Ivies or places like Stanford, MIT, or CMU.
Private schools are generally better than public schools, but they aren't necessarily a better value. I got into Colorado College and University of Denver (CC being a "top 10" lib arts school), but decided to go to the University of Utah (much lower tuition + a scholarship). Would I have got a better education at those private schools? Probably. Would it be better enough to justify an extra $25,000 per year? I don't think so.
It's mostly about a self-perpetuating "elite" standard. They're studying pretty much the same material at Iowa as they are at Stanford and Harvard (discounting very high level courses and research). The difference is that the Ivy league et al are "the best," so they attract more intelligent and harder working students and faculty on average. The top students at MIT are probably not smarter than the top students at Texas, but I bet the average students are.
No, it most certainly isn't sensible. If there is someone picking and choosing what you can or can't publish, then you don't have a free press. It's that simple. What if they banned it for containing nudity or dangerous political ideas? Would you still feel the same?
Attempting to prevent children from buying it is one thing. Preventing adults from doing the same is another issue entirely. If you find it disgusting, don't buy it. If you really don't like it, take other action (boycotts, etc.). But fuck you if you are going to tell me what I can or can't see.
I think what you meant to say was "I'm certainly in favour of using censorship very sparingly, unless I'm offended, in which case it's ok."
That's just a winery. The grapes are mostly grown in vineyards in Western CO and other states.
$5 million is a lot of money, even for a company like IBM. The state is forcing this into the media because they want to make IBM look bad for taking money from a school. A contract is a contract, you shouldn't be made to look bad for taking money owed to you. Whether IBM can afford it is irrelevant.
Exactly. There's a couple million Cubans in Florida, and they're one of the most influential populations in the country because 1) they vote 2) they aren't strongly tied to either party and 3) they live in the largest swing state. No presidential candidate will touch the issue because even a 10% shift in the Cuban population would almost definitely swing Florida against them.
Well the US "officially" uses the metric system also, and has for about 140 years. Congress made it the "preferred" method in 1975. The only problem is that no one payed attention to Congress and standard is still used for everything outside science/education and industry. It's actually quite similar to what has happened in the UK, just to a different degree.
As for "proper" English spelling and grammar, get over it. We're not English, and haven't been for 230 years. Languages evolve. Pull the stick out of your ass and move on.
The bowhead whale population is growing, not dwindling.
Even if those laws are actually on the books, they are all unenforceable (except maybe the moose thing).
It only glorified sex, violence, and power if you weren't paying attention. Nearly every major character was killed during the course of the show. Of those that are left, nearly every one complicit in the criminal life are emotional wrecks unable to find happiness. It certainly didn't make me want to become a mobster.