I know a few people who live without cars. For day to day purchases like food, cloth grocery bags work well and get you cash back in some local stores. They do have to plan their shopping carefully. And most of them are either single or married without kids.
Big purchases tend to be things that they have delivered or ask for help from their friends with pickup trucks or vans. The frequency of these purchases is very low though. It is not like you go out every week to pick up the big screen TV or the leather livingroom set.
Personally, if you have a family, having a small, high gas mileage car that you don't use often is a reasonable compromise. My wife, who does the shopping, uses our car to do a major shopping expedtion once a week and the occasional mid-week 'specials' run. In winter, she drives it to work rather than risk breaking an arm on an icy sidewalk. She also does "Mom's Taxi" runs when the bus schedules leave the kids stranded. This live style choice has enabled us to function without having to spend huge amounts on personal vehicles.
For the bulky items, we used to use padding atop the car, with ropes to hold things in place. Most of those trips were short ones because we live near the stores where the items were purchased.
I will admit that, about four years ago, we bought a used mini-van that has been our cargo and passenger carrier. The purchase was to give us a camping vehicle for a twenty three day long trip that covered fourteen western states while hauling six people. Once the trip was over, the van, and its replacement, has been used for attending reenactments (American Civil War), hauling hardware and serving as a backup vehicle. But despite having it available, it is NOT used for commuting. Riding the bus is a lot more cost effective and easier on the nerves.
If "smart-growth" is for dumb animals, then why are high priced highrise downtown condos being sold out BEFORE CONSTRUCTION BEGINS in places like Spokane, where you can find five acre lots within a fifteen minute drive of downtown?
In the US, a lot of people own a car and drive it often because they have no choice. If they want a good job and affordable housing, and still have a little bit of time to do things outside of work, they MUST own a car because the job and the housing are too far apart. A variety of things, including sprawl and mono-function zoning, have created an environment in the US where having a car is a near necessity, not an option.
Now smart people look at "smart-growth" as a way of cutting their costs while increasing their quality time. If you live in that downtown condo, and work nearby, you can get rid of your second and third cars and reduce your commute time as well as make it easier to get to the fun stuff after work hours. These 'real people' look past the hype of the car manufacturers and suburb builders and do what they want, not what the 'herd drivers' of Madison Avenue demand.
Of course, there are those car enthusiasts who live to drive. They should be promoting the "smart-growth" option because it would help clear the roads of commuters who would rather be living than driving.
Given the size of some of the mall parking lots, you could get a lot of exercise by parking at the perimeter of a lot and walking. Unfortunately, the lack of sidewalks from those outer reaches to the mall might make walking risky, especially if you are in an area that gets snow. And even if there is a sidewalk, it becomes a dumping ground for the snowplows.
There are a few places that actually have reasonable pedestrian access to amenities, though that access can be spotty. You have to look in 'progressive' neighborhoods, those places that people live in because of Quality of Life reasons. Frequently those places are areas that will rise up and fight big box stores like Wal-Mart.
A good book. It came out about the time I graduated from college with a degree in City and Regional Planning.
Oddly enough, while it was written as a part of a series of books focused on the built environment, the concepts are used in computer software design. Those who closely read the books about Design Patterns might remember the mention of Christopher Alexander's 'A Pattern Language'.
Zoning laws are changing. Mixed use is an option that communities have, though lots of people complain when their mono-function zoning is 'threatened' by mixed use zones.
Education is needed, both at the public and private levels. Before mono-function zoning became the standard, mixed use was a way of life. It was when you had incompatible mixed uses, like tanneries near residential properties, that there was conflict that resulted in mono-function zoning.
This could get really interesting if the people posting some of the images are the kids themselves. With digital cameras you can have a web ready photo in almost no time at all. Once it is posted, it becomes subject to the law.
The law could then be used to charge the kid for posting child porn, making them sex offenders. And if that kid is a near adult at 17, then the charges could stick. (i.e. I've read that a 17 year old caught having consensual sex with a 15 year old relative was considered to be a sex offender and forced to deal with the laws usually reserved for the hard core types. Urban legend or fact?)
For that matter, given a recent news article about a preschooler suspended for inappropriate sexual behavior as the result of hugging a female teacher, I can see precocious five year olds falling afoul of the proposed law.
What is worse is that it wouldn't be hard to post it using someone else's name and address. If a kid was really mad at an adult, they could arrange for that person to 'responsible' for the posting. They could also do things that would leave an evidence trail pointing at the adult.
Heck, even if the kids weren't doing it, a disgruntled adult could take the same route.
I wouldn't be surprized if there are a few web sites on how to build a false evidence trail on the Internet.
Satire aside, one of the reasons my family doesn't go to the movies is cost.
Even when we go to the cheap, weeks-before-release-to-DVD theater, the cost of the movie runs more than half the price of the DVD at Costco. And that ignores the cost of munchies, which can boost things way beyond the theater tickets.
And if we were crazy enough to see the movies when they first come out, we would be spending enough money to buy the DVD and order fresh pizza from our favorite pizza place.
It does mean that we don't have much to say about the new movies that other people are raving about. On the other hand, we avoid the turkeys and duds.
If you compare the article to the article header, there is a disconnect.
While I dislike many of the things Gingrich has done over the years, including dumping his wife while being 'pro-family', I have to say that he didn't specifically say that the First Amendment is forfeit.
My interpretation is that he is warning people that the open society supported by the First Amendment may need to be looked at, especially when it comes to the 'free speech' of recruiting terrorists.
When you think about it, 'free speech' in the name of terrorism is like 'free speech' when it involves shouting FIRE in a crowded theater. While you are physically capable of doing it, it is frowned upon and considered to be outside the realm of 'free speech'.
Unfortunately, there are instances where a casual comment that will never be acted upon can be considered to be terrorism. (i.e. teenagers posting 'Kill XYX' with XYZ representing a public figure) There are also grey zone cases where one person's patriotism could be considered another person's terrorism. (i.e. people who think that complaining about the President is pro-terrorism)
One of the problems I have with Milloy's Junk Science is the fact that he uses rhetoric as opposed to hard science to 'prove' many of his points.
I occasionally check his stuff out and do a ballpark rating of 'numbers' versus 'spin' to determine what I call a 'Junque Science' rating. If the 'numbers' are lacking and the 'spin' dominates (i.e. use of the word 'enviros') then I consider HIS comments to be 'junque' and not worth considering.
When you get down to it, our one planet provides multiple data points on how life arises/or survives.
We have the carbon based life that depends upon photosynthesis and its byproducts as one example. Until recently as far as human history is concerned, we got most of what we needed from plants and the animals that consumed them.
Then there are the ecologies found in the oceans, those that rely upon hydrogen sulfide and the black smokers. While still carbon based, they do not use photosynthesis as the energy collection mechanism.
I read a recent article about how some scientists have found bacteria that use radioactive decay as an energy source. These were found deep in the Earth, in places that people didn't expect to find life.
The fact that we have found these variations, and others, on this planet tells us that we really need to look in a lot more places off planet to find life. Our current photographs, atmospheric probes and surface scrapings of places outside Earth are trivial compared to what they should be.
Still, we do need to make sure that our extra terrestrial explorations don't bring back something that causes problems. Our knowledge of the biological sciences is far from complete, though it is getting more in depth every day.
Not all creative people work in a vacuum. In some cases, the children and/or spouse of a artist, musician or writer contribute to copyrightable works in ways that would be worth real money if the works were a business product.
For that matter, there are many instances of creative people getting help and inspiration from outside the family. Copyrights, transfered in part to these people, allow them to share in the creative product they helped produce.
This gets more complicated when a creative person dies young and their legacy is carried on through family members and friends. Without copyright protection, the investment these family members and friends have becomes worthless.
Of course I wouldn't mind if the death of the person with the copyright started an expiration clock that would free the product. But do allow time for a graceful exit from the goldmine the copyright can create. In some instances, like the creation of the most recent Lord of the Rings movies, that lag can take decades.
A lot of Libertarians consider her work to be part of their core philosophies. Just because a person is an author doesn't mean that the ideas they present are without merit.
Personally, I feel there are a lot of things in her books that are valid both when they were published and today. At the same time I take a lot of her stuff with a LARGE grain of salt.
I would say that Diebold is competent enough to create a secure voting machine that would take a high level of expertise to spoof.
Unfortunately, almost by definition, Diebold would be competent enough to create a spoofable voting machine that could be programmed remotely and capable of 'fixing' elections.
The opportunity exists, even if the company, or even renegade employees of the company, don't do it.
I will assume that they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But I sometimes wonder, because they would be in a perfect position to affect critical elections. Political power can be tempting.
I seem to recall that a box of 80 column IBM cards contained about 2000 cards. When you multiply that out you get 160,000 bytes in a space that is roughly sixteen to eighteen inches long. (I'll have to find one of the 'public opinion' surveys I did using the cards. It ran on SPSS.)
One of the problems with the cards is that it is linear access. If the data you want happens to be on the last card, you have to read everything.
Another problem with cards is the fact that they sometimes jammed in the card reader. If you were lucky, the computer operator would extract the jammed card and make another one using the 'dup' function on a card punch.
It is quite possible that the person who claimed to be computer literate and has twenty-two years experience with computer engineering and operations is quite competent in their area of expertise. But at the same time, if that area of expertise has nothing to do with websites, then they are quite incompetent when it comes to websites.
Judging by their actions though, I would have to say that they are incompetent when it comes to listening to tech support and reading what the 'hijacked' web page said. I just hope that they learn from the Slashdot that IT experience in one area does not mean technical expertise in others.
For that matter, we Slashdot types need to remember that too.
According to a more detailed article, there were six canisters with worms in them and five were recovered.
I do find it interesting that the worms were 'four or five generations' removed from the originals. This could be where the confusion comes from.
It would, unfortunately, be a typical mistake made by a reporter. I've seen far too many instances where the facts get mangled by someone who doesn't quite understand what they are talking about when they translate it for the masses.
There is always a chance that there was firm evidence that there were live worms in four of the containers and strong evidence that there were live worms in the fifth container that died due to other causes after the landing. That would make the 'four or five' statement accurate.
Then there is a chance that the reporter is getting the information second hand and the person being interviewed doesn't know the full details of the evidence. (i.e. You know that there were several canisters of worms surviving and you thought the count was about four or five, you would quote the range.)
The OTEC technique has been a topic found in magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics for a couple of decades now. Cheap oil made it a bad economic choice.
Now that oil prices have increased a lot and are unlikely to go down, OTEC becomes more attractive from an economic standpoint. Unfortunately we DO need to consider what impact it may have on the ocean because we are moving heat from one place to another and that movement impacts global features that control the weather and affect food supplies.
I do find it interesting that a critique of the project was written by a Mary-Sue Haliburton. If there was another 'L' in her last name it would resemble that of an organization associated with the oil industry.
This is remarkably akin to what has happened to land along highways that are either bypassed by Interstate freeways or land that is gobbled up to make the freeways.
Transportation and land use are closely linked in the real world with similar effects to what is happening in the simulated world. In some countries property owners can demand and receive compensation if their land is appropriated for transportation purposes. But demanding and receiving compensation because of transportation technology changes that change property values is much rarer.
A lot will depend upon the TOS when it comes to virtual properties. But if it parallels real world law, there may be some interesting problems.
Which musicians are you talking about? The megastars who make milllions a year or those who make music and barely get by?
If you want to boycott the music industry because of those musicians that earn lots of money, go ahead. But do consider buying music from those musicians that put out a good product but aren't part of a big label. Those are the ones that both benefit and suffer from downloading.
They benefit when people discover their music through downloading. They suffer when people fail to buy their music because many of the downloaders are too cheap to pay.
The registered owner of the PNWSOFT.COM domain is in Sammamish, Washington. For those of you who don't know the area, Lake Sammamish is in the Seattle/Redmond area. Of course from what I've found using WHOIS, there have been recent changes to the information.
Oddly enough, there is a Pacific Northwest Software domain PACIFICNORTHWESTSOFTWARE.COM whose owner is based in Oregon. There could be some trade name issues if one organization or the other got up in arms about it.
Given the nature of the web, the owners and contact points of a domain don't have to be in the area that the domain name specifies.
If they try something like that they had better be able to prove intent. At this moment the site itself doesn't appear to have any access to any copyrighted material that the RIAA is concerned about.
Furthermore, I have a reputation for NOT downloading music because I respect many of the artists that create the products. Of course, most of the people I buy music from are small label artists who aren't getting rich from what they are doing. These are the people that are hurt the most from those downloaders who do not buy the music they have been sampling.
I would guess they wanted to make it a 'generic' address to avoid incriminating the innocent. It is also the numbers one through '10' if '10' is represented as 0.
With a family of five, I find that the so called movie experience is vastly overrated. If we go to a first run theater, our expenses would more than pay for the deluxe edition of the DVD package usually associated with the movie.
If we go to a budget theater, the comparative expenses are better. But by the time it reaches the local budget theater, the release of the DVD is weeks if not days away.
We've found that waiting allows us to get more enjoyment for the dollar. Being the first person to see the latest and greatest movie is trivial from our point of view.
I wonder if any of the sites use copyrighted code without the permission of their owners. I seem to recall a US Senator who sold his own copyrighted music on the web and, until it was brought up in several tech forums, failed to pay for a legal copy of the web software used to sell the music.
I also wonder if the RIAA has ever run into instances where the IP addresses they get from the ISPs are inaccurate due to things like migrating hardware. MAC addresses are tied to hardware and not all hardware is permanently attached to a given computer.
While I favor intellectual property laws, I do NOT want corporations armed with lawyers hounding normal citizens who may be clueless about what is happening with their computers.
Slashdot Mirror
I know a few people who live without cars. For day to day purchases like food, cloth grocery bags work well and get you cash back in some local stores. They do have to plan their shopping carefully. And most of them are either single or married without kids.
Big purchases tend to be things that they have delivered or ask for help from their friends with pickup trucks or vans. The frequency of these purchases is very low though. It is not like you go out every week to pick up the big screen TV or the leather livingroom set.
Personally, if you have a family, having a small, high gas mileage car that you don't use often is a reasonable compromise. My wife, who does the shopping, uses our car to do a major shopping expedtion once a week and the occasional mid-week 'specials' run. In winter, she drives it to work rather than risk breaking an arm on an icy sidewalk. She also does "Mom's Taxi" runs when the bus schedules leave the kids stranded. This live style choice has enabled us to function without having to spend huge amounts on personal vehicles.
For the bulky items, we used to use padding atop the car, with ropes to hold things in place. Most of those trips were short ones because we live near the stores where the items were purchased.
I will admit that, about four years ago, we bought a used mini-van that has been our cargo and passenger carrier. The purchase was to give us a camping vehicle for a twenty three day long trip that covered fourteen western states while hauling six people. Once the trip was over, the van, and its replacement, has been used for attending reenactments (American Civil War), hauling hardware and serving as a backup vehicle. But despite having it available, it is NOT used for commuting. Riding the bus is a lot more cost effective and easier on the nerves.
If "smart-growth" is for dumb animals, then why are high priced highrise downtown condos being sold out BEFORE CONSTRUCTION BEGINS in places like Spokane, where you can find five acre lots within a fifteen minute drive of downtown?
In the US, a lot of people own a car and drive it often because they have no choice. If they want a good job and affordable housing, and still have a little bit of time to do things outside of work, they MUST own a car because the job and the housing are too far apart. A variety of things, including sprawl and mono-function zoning, have created an environment in the US where having a car is a near necessity, not an option.
Now smart people look at "smart-growth" as a way of cutting their costs while increasing their quality time. If you live in that downtown condo, and work nearby, you can get rid of your second and third cars and reduce your commute time as well as make it easier to get to the fun stuff after work hours. These 'real people' look past the hype of the car manufacturers and suburb builders and do what they want, not what the 'herd drivers' of Madison Avenue demand.
Of course, there are those car enthusiasts who live to drive. They should be promoting the "smart-growth" option because it would help clear the roads of commuters who would rather be living than driving.
Given the size of some of the mall parking lots, you could get a lot of exercise by parking at the perimeter of a lot and walking. Unfortunately, the lack of sidewalks from those outer reaches to the mall might make walking risky, especially if you are in an area that gets snow. And even if there is a sidewalk, it becomes a dumping ground for the snowplows.
There are a few places that actually have reasonable pedestrian access to amenities, though that access can be spotty. You have to look in 'progressive' neighborhoods, those places that people live in because of Quality of Life reasons. Frequently those places are areas that will rise up and fight big box stores like Wal-Mart.
A good book. It came out about the time I graduated from college with a degree in City and Regional Planning.
Oddly enough, while it was written as a part of a series of books focused on the built environment, the concepts are used in computer software design. Those who closely read the books about Design Patterns might remember the mention of Christopher Alexander's 'A Pattern Language'.
Zoning laws are changing. Mixed use is an option that communities have, though lots of people complain when their mono-function zoning is 'threatened' by mixed use zones.
Education is needed, both at the public and private levels. Before mono-function zoning became the standard, mixed use was a way of life. It was when you had incompatible mixed uses, like tanneries near residential properties, that there was conflict that resulted in mono-function zoning.
This could get really interesting if the people posting some of the images are the kids themselves. With digital cameras you can have a web ready photo in almost no time at all. Once it is posted, it becomes subject to the law.
The law could then be used to charge the kid for posting child porn, making them sex offenders. And if that kid is a near adult at 17, then the charges could stick. (i.e. I've read that a 17 year old caught having consensual sex with a 15 year old relative was considered to be a sex offender and forced to deal with the laws usually reserved for the hard core types. Urban legend or fact?)
For that matter, given a recent news article about a preschooler suspended for inappropriate sexual behavior as the result of hugging a female teacher, I can see precocious five year olds falling afoul of the proposed law.
What is worse is that it wouldn't be hard to post it using someone else's name and address. If a kid was really mad at an adult, they could arrange for that person to 'responsible' for the posting. They could also do things that would leave an evidence trail pointing at the adult.
Heck, even if the kids weren't doing it, a disgruntled adult could take the same route.
I wouldn't be surprized if there are a few web sites on how to build a false evidence trail on the Internet.
Satire aside, one of the reasons my family doesn't go to the movies is cost.
Even when we go to the cheap, weeks-before-release-to-DVD theater, the cost of the movie runs more than half the price of the DVD at Costco. And that ignores the cost of munchies, which can boost things way beyond the theater tickets.
And if we were crazy enough to see the movies when they first come out, we would be spending enough money to buy the DVD and order fresh pizza from our favorite pizza place.
It does mean that we don't have much to say about the new movies that other people are raving about. On the other hand, we avoid the turkeys and duds.
If you compare the article to the article header, there is a disconnect.
While I dislike many of the things Gingrich has done over the years, including dumping his wife while being 'pro-family', I have to say that he didn't specifically say that the First Amendment is forfeit.
My interpretation is that he is warning people that the open society supported by the First Amendment may need to be looked at, especially when it comes to the 'free speech' of recruiting terrorists.
When you think about it, 'free speech' in the name of terrorism is like 'free speech' when it involves shouting FIRE in a crowded theater. While you are physically capable of doing it, it is frowned upon and considered to be outside the realm of 'free speech'.
Unfortunately, there are instances where a casual comment that will never be acted upon can be considered to be terrorism. (i.e. teenagers posting 'Kill XYX' with XYZ representing a public figure) There are also grey zone cases where one person's patriotism could be considered another person's terrorism. (i.e. people who think that complaining about the President is pro-terrorism)
One of the problems I have with Milloy's Junk Science is the fact that he uses rhetoric as opposed to hard science to 'prove' many of his points. I occasionally check his stuff out and do a ballpark rating of 'numbers' versus 'spin' to determine what I call a 'Junque Science' rating. If the 'numbers' are lacking and the 'spin' dominates (i.e. use of the word 'enviros') then I consider HIS comments to be 'junque' and not worth considering.
When you get down to it, our one planet provides multiple data points on how life arises /or survives.
We have the carbon based life that depends upon photosynthesis and its byproducts as one example. Until recently as far as human history is concerned, we got most of what we needed from plants and the animals that consumed them.
Then there are the ecologies found in the oceans, those that rely upon hydrogen sulfide and the black smokers. While still carbon based, they do not use photosynthesis as the energy collection mechanism.
I read a recent article about how some scientists have found bacteria that use radioactive decay as an energy source. These were found deep in the Earth, in places that people didn't expect to find life.
The fact that we have found these variations, and others, on this planet tells us that we really need to look in a lot more places off planet to find life. Our current photographs, atmospheric probes and surface scrapings of places outside Earth are trivial compared to what they should be.
Still, we do need to make sure that our extra terrestrial explorations don't bring back something that causes problems. Our knowledge of the biological sciences is far from complete, though it is getting more in depth every day.
Not all creative people work in a vacuum. In some cases, the children and/or spouse of a artist, musician or writer contribute to copyrightable works in ways that would be worth real money if the works were a business product. For that matter, there are many instances of creative people getting help and inspiration from outside the family. Copyrights, transfered in part to these people, allow them to share in the creative product they helped produce. This gets more complicated when a creative person dies young and their legacy is carried on through family members and friends. Without copyright protection, the investment these family members and friends have becomes worthless. Of course I wouldn't mind if the death of the person with the copyright started an expiration clock that would free the product. But do allow time for a graceful exit from the goldmine the copyright can create. In some instances, like the creation of the most recent Lord of the Rings movies, that lag can take decades.
A lot of Libertarians consider her work to be part of their core philosophies. Just because a person is an author doesn't mean that the ideas they present are without merit. Personally, I feel there are a lot of things in her books that are valid both when they were published and today. At the same time I take a lot of her stuff with a LARGE grain of salt.
I would say that Diebold is competent enough to create a secure voting machine that would take a high level of expertise to spoof. Unfortunately, almost by definition, Diebold would be competent enough to create a spoofable voting machine that could be programmed remotely and capable of 'fixing' elections. The opportunity exists, even if the company, or even renegade employees of the company, don't do it. I will assume that they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But I sometimes wonder, because they would be in a perfect position to affect critical elections. Political power can be tempting.
I seem to recall that a box of 80 column IBM cards contained about 2000 cards. When you multiply that out you get 160,000 bytes in a space that is roughly sixteen to eighteen inches long. (I'll have to find one of the 'public opinion' surveys I did using the cards. It ran on SPSS.) One of the problems with the cards is that it is linear access. If the data you want happens to be on the last card, you have to read everything. Another problem with cards is the fact that they sometimes jammed in the card reader. If you were lucky, the computer operator would extract the jammed card and make another one using the 'dup' function on a card punch.
It is quite possible that the person who claimed to be computer literate and has twenty-two years experience with computer engineering and operations is quite competent in their area of expertise. But at the same time, if that area of expertise has nothing to do with websites, then they are quite incompetent when it comes to websites. Judging by their actions though, I would have to say that they are incompetent when it comes to listening to tech support and reading what the 'hijacked' web page said. I just hope that they learn from the Slashdot that IT experience in one area does not mean technical expertise in others. For that matter, we Slashdot types need to remember that too.
According to a more detailed article, there were six canisters with worms in them and five were recovered.
I do find it interesting that the worms were 'four or five generations' removed from the originals. This could be where the confusion comes from.
It would, unfortunately, be a typical mistake made by a reporter. I've seen far too many instances where the facts get mangled by someone who doesn't quite understand what they are talking about when they translate it for the masses.
There is always a chance that there was firm evidence that there were live worms in four of the containers and strong evidence that there were live worms in the fifth container that died due to other causes after the landing. That would make the 'four or five' statement accurate.
Then there is a chance that the reporter is getting the information second hand and the person being interviewed doesn't know the full details of the evidence. (i.e. You know that there were several canisters of worms surviving and you thought the count was about four or five, you would quote the range.)
The OTEC technique has been a topic found in magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics for a couple of decades now. Cheap oil made it a bad economic choice.
Now that oil prices have increased a lot and are unlikely to go down, OTEC becomes more attractive from an economic standpoint. Unfortunately we DO need to consider what impact it may have on the ocean because we are moving heat from one place to another and that movement impacts global features that control the weather and affect food supplies.
I do find it interesting that a critique of the project was written by a Mary-Sue Haliburton. If there was another 'L' in her last name it would resemble that of an organization associated with the oil industry.
This is remarkably akin to what has happened to land along highways that are either bypassed by Interstate freeways or land that is gobbled up to make the freeways.
Transportation and land use are closely linked in the real world with similar effects to what is happening in the simulated world. In some countries property owners can demand and receive compensation if their land is appropriated for transportation purposes. But demanding and receiving compensation because of transportation technology changes that change property values is much rarer.
A lot will depend upon the TOS when it comes to virtual properties. But if it parallels real world law, there may be some interesting problems.
Which musicians are you talking about? The megastars who make milllions a year or those who make music and barely get by? If you want to boycott the music industry because of those musicians that earn lots of money, go ahead. But do consider buying music from those musicians that put out a good product but aren't part of a big label. Those are the ones that both benefit and suffer from downloading. They benefit when people discover their music through downloading. They suffer when people fail to buy their music because many of the downloaders are too cheap to pay.
The registered owner of the PNWSOFT.COM domain is in Sammamish, Washington. For those of you who don't know the area, Lake Sammamish is in the Seattle/Redmond area. Of course from what I've found using WHOIS, there have been recent changes to the information. Oddly enough, there is a Pacific Northwest Software domain PACIFICNORTHWESTSOFTWARE.COM whose owner is based in Oregon. There could be some trade name issues if one organization or the other got up in arms about it. Given the nature of the web, the owners and contact points of a domain don't have to be in the area that the domain name specifies.
If they try something like that they had better be able to prove intent. At this moment the site itself doesn't appear to have any access to any copyrighted material that the RIAA is concerned about. Furthermore, I have a reputation for NOT downloading music because I respect many of the artists that create the products. Of course, most of the people I buy music from are small label artists who aren't getting rich from what they are doing. These are the people that are hurt the most from those downloaders who do not buy the music they have been sampling.
I would guess they wanted to make it a 'generic' address to avoid incriminating the innocent. It is also the numbers one through '10' if '10' is represented as 0.
With a family of five, I find that the so called movie experience is vastly overrated. If we go to a first run theater, our expenses would more than pay for the deluxe edition of the DVD package usually associated with the movie. If we go to a budget theater, the comparative expenses are better. But by the time it reaches the local budget theater, the release of the DVD is weeks if not days away. We've found that waiting allows us to get more enjoyment for the dollar. Being the first person to see the latest and greatest movie is trivial from our point of view.
I wonder if any of the sites use copyrighted code without the permission of their owners. I seem to recall a US Senator who sold his own copyrighted music on the web and, until it was brought up in several tech forums, failed to pay for a legal copy of the web software used to sell the music. I also wonder if the RIAA has ever run into instances where the IP addresses they get from the ISPs are inaccurate due to things like migrating hardware. MAC addresses are tied to hardware and not all hardware is permanently attached to a given computer. While I favor intellectual property laws, I do NOT want corporations armed with lawyers hounding normal citizens who may be clueless about what is happening with their computers.