The over-the-top gore and sex in Watchmen ruined the movie for me.
I watched '300' and felt that the sex and violence in it was justified. (In fact, the sex scene in 300 was one of the only ones that I've felt was good. It really showed how the King's love for the Queen is intertwined with the warrior culture of the Spartans...)
In that sense, I believe that it's really not about what you are showing, but the context and the tone of how you are showing it. For example, the rather long sex scene in Watchmen shows a woman cheating on her husband -- to me, that's worlds apart from the scene in 300 where a warrior-King is pleasuring his woman for the last time.
It depends what you value. Do you value saving money (something that has value because the government says so) or saving the environment (something that has value because it allows the human race to continue living).
I personally an extra $6000 would be worth the cost of going greener.
Or even better -- if possible -- use the money for buying a Prius to move closer to your work and bike/bus/walk.
Let's assume for a moment that the government allocates it's money efficiently and makes the best decisions possible. Even so...
Government's goal: Increase consumer spending to increase the velocity of money without causing inflation and without changing the money supply. (M| * V^ = P| * Q^)
1. Government spends X amount in stimulus package.
2. Government must raise X amount through taxes.
3. Consumers recognize higher taxes in the future.
4. Consumers save money to offset higher taxes in the future.
5. The velocity of money decreases.
6. The government's policies fail.
Of course, we all know that the government won't allocate those resources efficiently at all. You can see how bad of a decision that "stimulating" the economy ultimately will be.
According to Geithner, China is actually pegging it's currency to the dollar under market value to increase export lead growth (and they are sterilizing the transaction by selling bonds).
The true danger here is when the coupon payments from the bonds catch up to China's central bank and super inflation starts in China. That will appreciate the yuan and Chinese goods will become more expensive.
It's no surprise that Wal-Mart, IKEA, and other companies who have their cost structure in China are actually opening retail outlets there now. It's just a matter of time for the coupon payments and principle bond payments to enter the fx market and inflation will skyrocket.
I just made a facebook application
on
FBML Essentials
·
· Score: 0
...that allows users to mod comments on their walls.
Jon wrote at 12:33pm (Score: 3, Insightful)
The rumors are true. I come home on Thursday!
Wall-to-Wall - Write on Jon's Wall
Jimmy wrote at 10:39am (Score:-1, redundant)
You shouldn't design dumb facebook applications, I hate people like you that fill the world with your garbage.
Step right up for Windows 7 Business, Business Premium, Home, Home Premium, Home Chocolate, Home Strawberry-razzle, Super Deluxe Premium, Deluxe Premium Berry-blast-blizzard, and even hot fire ultimate cheese deluxe! All flavors, all the time!!
When I lived in Japan this was an incredible feature. This is primarily because cellphones are so important in Japan compared to the rest of the world. If you don't have a cellphone in Japan, you don't exist.
Not only are their basic cellphones more intuitive, but also more useful. DoCoMo, SoftBank, AU... all of the Japanese cellphone companies are extremely competitive and offer incredible services. You can watch TV on your phone, scan a "cell phone UPC" code on a movie poster and watch the preview for the movie, use your phone as a debit card, call your girlfriend, email your mom, look up maps, or install open source applications.
You heard that laughing sound when Apple tried to market the iPhone to Japan? It's because their basic phones already had those features and more.
In a world where every few years the number of transistors on a microchip doubles, how can you justify a 20 year patent time, much less a ~140 year copyright time?
Aug. 13, 1813: Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson
... It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors.
It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.
Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
But Wikipedia itself is a strange beast. They claim to be a encyclopedia with every tome of the world's knowledge available for free for all, but that isn't how the site functions.
Rather, Wikipedia functions as a place where general bits of information are available for use and debate. The beauty of this is that the information doesn't have be "Truth", but it can be close enough to give a general idea about the subject.
In my opinion, Wikipedia has done great things for helping us come to a closer consensus on issues of "Truth". Is it the ultimate source of knowledge? There's no doubt that a specialist in any specific field regarding certain articles on Wikipedia would have far better insight.
For that reason, perhaps projects like Google's Knol will become a more accurate, reliable source of information in the future..
If he had bought, say, an 80 GB iPod before September of last year, he would have paid $350 for it [cnet.com]. If instead he buys a Zune that lasts a few months for $50 and then buys an 80 GB iPod after September of last year, he would have paid $250 for it, thus a net GAIN of $50.
------
Not quite. You're forgetting the opportunity cost that he is incurring. Anyone could have taken the same amount of money and dropped it in a 1 year CD to save up for future electronics.
Let's say your choices are as follows:
1) Buy a $50 Zune and use for 1 year, then buy a $250 iPod
2) Buy a $350 iPod
Let's assume the iPods both have a usable life of 4 years and that after 4 years you will replace the iPod. Also, your opportunity cost is 3.5% (the return I can get on a CD right now).
We can find the present value of the $250 by using our opportunity cost: (250 * (1 / 1.03500) = 241.545894)
Option 1 costs a total of $291.55 and option 2 costs $350. I'd take option 1.
(Note that I left out the calculation for useful life, which would have further reduced the cost for option 1, since it lasts longer than option 2).
It can sometimes be difficult to compare a normal good to an inferior good, but if they are functionally the same, I agree with your general assessment.
Companies such as Stardock have zero DRM on their games.
It explains why Stardock, even as an extremely small company in hard economic times, is having incredible profits. Their game Sins of a Solar Empire got rave reviews back in March and is now receiving top 10 game awards from almost every game site / magazine.
They even released their company report to the public! That's a cool company.
So you're going to spend millions on laptop computers when the only thing your computer teacher has is A+ Certification? Seriously?
The OP is a troll. Why is this garbage on Slashdot?
When the internet was more like a truck than a series of tubes, truck drivers would frequently find creative ways to protest high gas prices and put down their overbearing human overlords.
Soon enough, they were nicknamed, "trolls".
Senator Batman says, "We can't let those evil cell phone talkers on these planes! Let's spend a few billion dollars to prevent it! (I can do this, because secretly I'm Bruce Wayne.)
TO THE BATMOBILE!!
This organization continually reminds me of the spoiled child who will not stop complaining to his mother in the grocery store line.
I still am laughing over when Greenpeace visited our University for a "Green Awareness Day" and left a giant mess outside the student center. Seriously...what are Greenpeace's motivations? Do they honestly expect to get anything done by yelling and whining?
This is absolutely how the Japanese corporate environment currently operates, but savvy new entrepreneurs in Japan are changing that corporate environment (thank goodness).
It still doesn't detract from the difficult lifestyle demanded due to Japanese culture.
I actually studied abroad in a maritime science section of Kobe University (the Fukae campus / Hakuo dormitory). It's an extremely strict environment for would-be engineers, with strict bedtimes at 11pm, a no-girls policy, and rigorous course structure. Compared that to the regular environment of Japanese college, where parties are a daily thing full of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and you'll understand why there's a lack of engineers.
The current state of Japanese education is deplorable...even worse than the American idea of education. You're put into an environment where you are to conform, conform, conform. If you don't like it...well...ask the ridiculous number of students who commit suicide because of that very reason. Their curriculum is strict, draconian mush that assaults the minds of the students. It's like trying to teach a dog to do tricks by beating him with a cane in a burlap bag.
From the 1950's all the way to the start of the bubble of the 90's, this sort of mentality was *OK* because people were willing to work hard to build up a better Japan. However, the 'new' curriculum for education in Japan has lost any sort of freedom it once had.
I feel that main joy associated with engineering is the joy of building...putting together something completely new and unique. There's an extremely creative aspect associated with that. If your entire life is put on a railroad with a single stop at a corporation as a slave-worker, regarded as a cog in the great machine, then how in the world can you expect someone who is an engineer -- one who's joy comes from building unique solutions to difficult problems -- to endure that kind of hell?
Slashdot Mirror
The over-the-top gore and sex in Watchmen ruined the movie for me.
I watched '300' and felt that the sex and violence in it was justified. (In fact, the sex scene in 300 was one of the only ones that I've felt was good. It really showed how the King's love for the Queen is intertwined with the warrior culture of the Spartans...)
In that sense, I believe that it's really not about what you are showing, but the context and the tone of how you are showing it. For example, the rather long sex scene in Watchmen shows a woman cheating on her husband -- to me, that's worlds apart from the scene in 300 where a warrior-King is pleasuring his woman for the last time.
I had this argument with some people on my flight yesterday -- they don't understand what logic is.
Their "logical argument"? "Hey look out there and tell me that the world WASN'T created by God!"
It depends what you value. Do you value saving money (something that has value because the government says so) or saving the environment (something that has value because it allows the human race to continue living).
I personally an extra $6000 would be worth the cost of going greener.
Or even better -- if possible -- use the money for buying a Prius to move closer to your work and bike/bus/walk.
Wha... tying the browser to the OS kills competition, but at the same time it doesn't lead to bigger market share?
*head explodes*
Let's assume for a moment that the government allocates it's money efficiently and makes the best decisions possible. Even so...
Government's goal: Increase consumer spending to increase the velocity of money without causing inflation and without changing the money supply. (M| * V^ = P| * Q^)
1. Government spends X amount in stimulus package.
2. Government must raise X amount through taxes.
3. Consumers recognize higher taxes in the future.
4. Consumers save money to offset higher taxes in the future.
5. The velocity of money decreases.
6. The government's policies fail.
Of course, we all know that the government won't allocate those resources efficiently at all. You can see how bad of a decision that "stimulating" the economy ultimately will be.
According to Geithner, China is actually pegging it's currency to the dollar under market value to increase export lead growth (and they are sterilizing the transaction by selling bonds).
The true danger here is when the coupon payments from the bonds catch up to China's central bank and super inflation starts in China. That will appreciate the yuan and Chinese goods will become more expensive.
It's no surprise that Wal-Mart, IKEA, and other companies who have their cost structure in China are actually opening retail outlets there now. It's just a matter of time for the coupon payments and principle bond payments to enter the fx market and inflation will skyrocket.
...that allows users to mod comments on their walls.
Jon wrote at 12:33pm (Score: 3, Insightful)
The rumors are true. I come home on Thursday!
Wall-to-Wall - Write on Jon's Wall
Jimmy wrote at 10:39am (Score:-1, redundant)
You shouldn't design dumb facebook applications, I hate people like you that fill the world with your garbage.
Wall-to-Wall - Write on Jimmy's Wall
Step right up for Windows 7 Business, Business Premium, Home, Home Premium, Home Chocolate, Home Strawberry-razzle, Super Deluxe Premium, Deluxe Premium Berry-blast-blizzard, and even hot fire ultimate cheese deluxe! All flavors, all the time!!
When I lived in Japan this was an incredible feature. This is primarily because cellphones are so important in Japan compared to the rest of the world. If you don't have a cellphone in Japan, you don't exist.
Not only are their basic cellphones more intuitive, but also more useful. DoCoMo, SoftBank, AU... all of the Japanese cellphone companies are extremely competitive and offer incredible services. You can watch TV on your phone, scan a "cell phone UPC" code on a movie poster and watch the preview for the movie, use your phone as a debit card, call your girlfriend, email your mom, look up maps, or install open source applications.
You heard that laughing sound when Apple tried to market the iPhone to Japan? It's because their basic phones already had those features and more.
...That is called Intellectual Property.
In a world where every few years the number of transistors on a microchip doubles, how can you justify a 20 year patent time, much less a ~140 year copyright time?
Aug. 13, 1813: Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson
It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.
Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
You're absolutely correct.
But Wikipedia itself is a strange beast. They claim to be a encyclopedia with every tome of the world's knowledge available for free for all, but that isn't how the site functions.
Rather, Wikipedia functions as a place where general bits of information are available for use and debate. The beauty of this is that the information doesn't have be "Truth", but it can be close enough to give a general idea about the subject.
In my opinion, Wikipedia has done great things for helping us come to a closer consensus on issues of "Truth". Is it the ultimate source of knowledge? There's no doubt that a specialist in any specific field regarding certain articles on Wikipedia would have far better insight.
For that reason, perhaps projects like Google's Knol will become a more accurate, reliable source of information in the future..
Food for thought.
If he had bought, say, an 80 GB iPod before September of last year, he would have paid $350 for it [cnet.com]. If instead he buys a Zune that lasts a few months for $50 and then buys an 80 GB iPod after September of last year, he would have paid $250 for it, thus a net GAIN of $50.
------
Not quite. You're forgetting the opportunity cost that he is incurring. Anyone could have taken the same amount of money and dropped it in a 1 year CD to save up for future electronics.
Let's say your choices are as follows:
1) Buy a $50 Zune and use for 1 year, then buy a $250 iPod
2) Buy a $350 iPod
Let's assume the iPods both have a usable life of 4 years and that after 4 years you will replace the iPod. Also, your opportunity cost is 3.5% (the return I can get on a CD right now).
We can find the present value of the $250 by using our opportunity cost: (250 * (1 / 1.03500) = 241.545894)
Option 1 costs a total of $291.55 and option 2 costs $350. I'd take option 1.
(Note that I left out the calculation for useful life, which would have further reduced the cost for option 1, since it lasts longer than option 2).
It can sometimes be difficult to compare a normal good to an inferior good, but if they are functionally the same, I agree with your general assessment.
2 New Yorkers. One to install the lightbulb, and one to mug him for the dead light bulb afterwards.
Companies such as Stardock have zero DRM on their games.
It explains why Stardock, even as an extremely small company in hard economic times, is having incredible profits. Their game Sins of a Solar Empire got rave reviews back in March and is now receiving top 10 game awards from almost every game site / magazine.
They even released their company report to the public! That's a cool company.
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:saGoWJP1dCsJ:www.stardock.com/media/stardockcustomerreport-2008.pdf+stardock+2008+report&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
From a business prospective, it's important to create DRM that doesn't prohibit the user, but still protects your product at the same time.
That's what I've observed in the industry anyway.
So you're going to spend millions on laptop computers when the only thing your computer teacher has is A+ Certification? Seriously? The OP is a troll. Why is this garbage on Slashdot?
Galaxy Clusters' Stunted Growth Confirms Dark Energy ...the new data strengthen the suspicion â" but does not prove...
Ah.
1. 5 second booting Linux partition with a few basic programs. 2. ??? 3. TASTY CHOCOLATE
When the internet was more like a truck than a series of tubes, truck drivers would frequently find creative ways to protest high gas prices and put down their overbearing human overlords. Soon enough, they were nicknamed, "trolls".
Senator Batman says, "We can't let those evil cell phone talkers on these planes! Let's spend a few billion dollars to prevent it! (I can do this, because secretly I'm Bruce Wayne.) TO THE BATMOBILE!!
I recommend total burnination.
I wonder how these headlines are taken in Hawaii, where Spam happens to be very popular.
This organization continually reminds me of the spoiled child who will not stop complaining to his mother in the grocery store line. I still am laughing over when Greenpeace visited our University for a "Green Awareness Day" and left a giant mess outside the student center. Seriously...what are Greenpeace's motivations? Do they honestly expect to get anything done by yelling and whining?
This is absolutely how the Japanese corporate environment currently operates, but savvy new entrepreneurs in Japan are changing that corporate environment (thank goodness).
It still doesn't detract from the difficult lifestyle demanded due to Japanese culture.I actually studied abroad in a maritime science section of Kobe University (the Fukae campus / Hakuo dormitory). It's an extremely strict environment for would-be engineers, with strict bedtimes at 11pm, a no-girls policy, and rigorous course structure. Compared that to the regular environment of Japanese college, where parties are a daily thing full of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and you'll understand why there's a lack of engineers.
The current state of Japanese education is deplorable...even worse than the American idea of education. You're put into an environment where you are to conform, conform, conform. If you don't like it...well...ask the ridiculous number of students who commit suicide because of that very reason. Their curriculum is strict, draconian mush that assaults the minds of the students. It's like trying to teach a dog to do tricks by beating him with a cane in a burlap bag.
From the 1950's all the way to the start of the bubble of the 90's, this sort of mentality was *OK* because people were willing to work hard to build up a better Japan. However, the 'new' curriculum for education in Japan has lost any sort of freedom it once had.
I feel that main joy associated with engineering is the joy of building...putting together something completely new and unique. There's an extremely creative aspect associated with that. If your entire life is put on a railroad with a single stop at a corporation as a slave-worker, regarded as a cog in the great machine, then how in the world can you expect someone who is an engineer -- one who's joy comes from building unique solutions to difficult problems -- to endure that kind of hell?
It's obvious why ice melts. But the British would have a much better answer than I could give you.