The amount of tax you pay on $43K is not much because of our tax system and deductions
Bullshit, I make a little more than that but I'm paying thousands in federal tax; I pay thousands in federal income tax and even more in SS and Medicare tax.
As to Romney's "47% pay no federal tax", that's as much a lie as saying that Romney pays no Federal tax; his income is capital gains, which is covered by a different tax and not counted as regular income. Everyone who smokes a cigar or buys alcoholic beverages or drives or rides public transportation is paying Federal excise taxes on that tobacco, alcohol, and fuel. And the poor are probably paying a higher percentage of their income in excise taxes than Romney pays in capital gains taxes.
People torrenting a TV show aren't generally buying the DVDs, and sometimes aren't even subscribed to the channel. It's not even close to a 1:1 loss, but it is definitely a loss.
Nonsense. I subscribe to no channels at all, I get my TV from an antenna and sometimes CBS won't come in and I can't watch Big Bang Theory, so I'll watch it on my phone the next day. At the end of last season I got that season from TPB, and when it was released on DVD I bought it at WalMart. In fact I have all the DVDs except the current season, which I'll pirate next summer and buy next fall.
Where's your counterexample? All those people who would have bought it of they couldn't pirate it? Your "definitely a loss" has been proven wrong by study after study.
Well, yes, until the subject of same-sex marriage comes up. Then they're citing Leviticus like it was, ahem..., the word of god.
You're changing the subject from science to morality. Christians believe that when the bible says "and God said" that what was said there was indeed the word of God. Christians believe homosexual acts are sin. As is any sex outside heterosexual marriage; as I explained to a Lesbian friend who said she wished she wasn't a lesbian so she wouldn't go to hell, it would be as much a sin for me to have sex with her as a woman, and the very bedrock of Christianity is that Christ paid for any sins you repent committing. Being homosexual is no sin, homosexual acts are. As is judging someone because of their sexuality or anything else about them. We all sin.
We're all born with different gifts and handicaps. I have as much trouble controlling my own sinful heterosexual lusts (hell, I wrote a book about them) as a homosexual has controlling his lusts. If he repents, he is forgiven. That is the very bedrock of Christianity, love of God and love for your fellow humans.
Actually there are some real numbers, although I can't find the link to them. A few years ago a book publisher was wondering how much revenue he was losing to piracy, so he commissioned a study. Since books are on sale for a few weeks before being scanned and uploaded to TPB, the study looked at sales to see how much and how quickly sales dropped when the book hit the internet.
To the amazement of both the researchers and publisher, rather than a drop in sales there was a spike in sales. Piracy wasn't hurting his business, it was helping it.
And the article didn't say anything about age in the study. What if 90%+ of those under 30 believed in evolution but 90%+ of those over 70 didn't?
IINM these phone surveys don't call cell phones, only landlines. Who under age 70 still has a landline?? If they do call cell phones, who is going to waste their minutes answering survey questions?
Switching operating systems - like switching religions - involves a lot of work if you do it properly.
Only if you don't know what you're doing. When I switched from Windows I read a book on UNIX, DLed a couple of different distros, sampled them from CD without installing, then installed Mandrake. The installation was no work at all, a few clicks and keystrokes and I had a fully operational computer. Actually doubly operational since it was dual boot.
Now, switching from Linux to Windows would be a lot of work; Windows is a pain in the ass to install, then you have to install drivers and apps. Those are installed automatically with most Linux distros. By why in the world would anyone want to switch from Linux to Windows??
Unlike religion it is possible to "worship" two or more OSes
The Buddhists in southern Thailand "worship" (or at least pay homage to) several "gods". So it's not really unlike at all.
And this still works perfectly well today, thank you very much.
No, it doesn't. I covered this in an earlier comment, scroll up.
Defending property rights of the citizenry is among the top tasks of any government.
If you buy a copy of my novel, the book is your property. But the novel is nobody's property. There is no such thing as intellectual property. It is NOT property, damn it!
No. The Constitution clearly states the reason for patent and copyright (to get people to produce more works for the public domain) and states "for limited times". a lifetime plus 95 years is in no way limited, and there's no way to convince Jimi Hendrix to make any more music.
The Constitution is the law of the land and the Bono Act breaks that law (yes, I know of the bullshit Lessig verdict). Therefore, NOT practicing civil disobedience is immoral (religion deals with morality, not ethics). Yes, it makes no exception for stupid laws but an illegal law is no law at all. And what would old Pete say if the Emperor had outlawed communion, tithing, and charity? What if he had outlawed Christianity itself (which Peter may have been wary of)?
The meaning behind that passage is "don't make your fellow Christians look bad, the Emperor hates us enough as it is". And some of the right wing Obama-hating "Christians" should read that passage.
See, if those works had entered the public domain, the private owners would never profit off of them.
I think the AC is going for "funny" but nobody OWNS a writing or a song or image. I don't own Nobots, I merely have a "limited" (for bizarre values of "limited") time monopoly.
I control its publication, but I don't own it. Nobody does and nobody should.
Long copyrights are great for corporations but shitty for authors. There was a fellow a couple years ago who was sued for writing a sequel to "Catcher in the Rye", that book should be in the public domain.
Insane copyright law is keeping The Paxil Diaries in electronic form and out of gutenberg.org because of twenty four words in the 80k word book. One chapter concerned the re-dedication of the Illinois State Library which was renamed to Illinois last late poet laureate's name. There was a 24 word poem displayed, which I copied with a pencil and used as the chapter's intro.
That poem, written in 1961 by a woman now long dead should NOT be covered by copyright. I may publish the book with the poem replaced by a rant about our insane copyright laws if I can't get permission to use it (I think the state holds copyright but I don't know).
Meanwhile, you can read Nobots for free online, I'm only charging for real books, which actually have a cost to print and distribute.
I've written my congressmen and Senators, have you written yours?
So basically art can only be understood if you took some course at school first?
Of course not, there are other ways of learning, like reading books. But if you've never taken a chemistry class or read anything about chemistry then you know nothing about chemistry and your opinions about chemistry are completely invalid. The same goes for any field of study.
I just don't get this snobbery of people believing they get to decide what is and is not art.
"I just don't get this snobbery of people believing they get to decide what is and is not a noble gas." They know what they're talking about, you don't.
Why should it be impossible for art to be created as a comment on a website?
It isn't. Back before the trolls killed K5 there was a fellow whose nick I can't remember that did some great ASCII art in comments (his work was hilarious).
That's one reason I'm really happy that I'm retiring in two months, more time to read, but more importantly more time to write. It took me four years to do Nobots simply because I had to waste my days chasing dollars.
Unlike you he probably went to college, where he took an art or art history class as part of his undergraduate studies. Even if your goal is to study physics you're going to have art and literature as an undergrad.
He is absolutely right, there's nothing artistic whatever about your doodle and you obviously know little to nothing about art. What you learned in high school is probably mostly wrong.
Beauty != art and art != beauty. The worst insult you can hurl at an artist is "oh, that's pretty." Art is supposed to affect one's emotions, and from your comment I'd say it succeeded well.
Art can be beautiful (e.g., Audrey Flack's photorealistic airbrush paintings) but don't have to be (Picasso's Guernica)
Agreed, I just don't get this "bigger and bigger" crap. My friend's son's laptop is HUGE, must have a 25 inch screen. Meanwhile, mine's about the size of a notebook (the old fashioned paper size). It's a lot easier to carry around, which is the idea behind laptops in the first place.
As to tablet size, most screens I have read from are 4.5x7 or 5x8, depending on whether it's a paperback or hardcover "screen".
I have to agree with "why Apple?" too. The tablet I bought my daughter last summer was a little over a hundred bucks, and I've noticed that Apple products break easily. I haven't seen too many cracked Androids, but it seems like half the Apple phones I've seen are cracked.
Honestly, I just don't see the value in an iPad when a tablet that's more suitable and durable is far cheaper.
True, the point is that a significant segment of the market is willing to buy a laptop without Windows.
Actually, I think it's that they can't buy a notebook with Windows; at least, not Windows as they've always known it. Nobody wants a phone interface on their computer, Microsoft must have been smoking crack when they came up with Windows 8.
I was in the market for a new notebook, but they all had either W8 or Chrome. So there's one sale some OEM didn't get. I don't want a dumbed down phone OS and I don't want to be stalked by Google. So I'll just replace the aging battery in the notebook I have now.
Now Android laptops are starting to show up.
I haven't seen them but again, a phone OS is a poor fit for a computer.
Amen is a word which is used in many different languages too.
Exactly my point. In Spanish it would be pronounced "ah main", since the A is always "ah" and the E is always "A". Pronounced like that it's a Spanish word.
Slashdot Mirror
The amount of tax you pay on $43K is not much because of our tax system and deductions
Bullshit, I make a little more than that but I'm paying thousands in federal tax; I pay thousands in federal income tax and even more in SS and Medicare tax.
As to Romney's "47% pay no federal tax", that's as much a lie as saying that Romney pays no Federal tax; his income is capital gains, which is covered by a different tax and not counted as regular income. Everyone who smokes a cigar or buys alcoholic beverages or drives or rides public transportation is paying Federal excise taxes on that tobacco, alcohol, and fuel. And the poor are probably paying a higher percentage of their income in excise taxes than Romney pays in capital gains taxes.
People torrenting a TV show aren't generally buying the DVDs, and sometimes aren't even subscribed to the channel. It's not even close to a 1:1 loss, but it is definitely a loss.
Nonsense. I subscribe to no channels at all, I get my TV from an antenna and sometimes CBS won't come in and I can't watch Big Bang Theory, so I'll watch it on my phone the next day. At the end of last season I got that season from TPB, and when it was released on DVD I bought it at WalMart. In fact I have all the DVDs except the current season, which I'll pirate next summer and buy next fall.
Where's your counterexample? All those people who would have bought it of they couldn't pirate it? Your "definitely a loss" has been proven wrong by study after study.
Well, yes, until the subject of same-sex marriage comes up. Then they're citing Leviticus like it was, ahem..., the word of god.
You're changing the subject from science to morality. Christians believe that when the bible says "and God said" that what was said there was indeed the word of God. Christians believe homosexual acts are sin. As is any sex outside heterosexual marriage; as I explained to a Lesbian friend who said she wished she wasn't a lesbian so she wouldn't go to hell, it would be as much a sin for me to have sex with her as a woman, and the very bedrock of Christianity is that Christ paid for any sins you repent committing. Being homosexual is no sin, homosexual acts are. As is judging someone because of their sexuality or anything else about them. We all sin.
We're all born with different gifts and handicaps. I have as much trouble controlling my own sinful heterosexual lusts (hell, I wrote a book about them) as a homosexual has controlling his lusts. If he repents, he is forgiven. That is the very bedrock of Christianity, love of God and love for your fellow humans.
Actually there are some real numbers, although I can't find the link to them. A few years ago a book publisher was wondering how much revenue he was losing to piracy, so he commissioned a study. Since books are on sale for a few weeks before being scanned and uploaded to TPB, the study looked at sales to see how much and how quickly sales dropped when the book hit the internet.
To the amazement of both the researchers and publisher, rather than a drop in sales there was a spike in sales. Piracy wasn't hurting his business, it was helping it.
And the article didn't say anything about age in the study. What if 90%+ of those under 30 believed in evolution but 90%+ of those over 70 didn't?
IINM these phone surveys don't call cell phones, only landlines. Who under age 70 still has a landline?? If they do call cell phones, who is going to waste their minutes answering survey questions?
Switching operating systems - like switching religions - involves a lot of work if you do it properly.
Only if you don't know what you're doing. When I switched from Windows I read a book on UNIX, DLed a couple of different distros, sampled them from CD without installing, then installed Mandrake. The installation was no work at all, a few clicks and keystrokes and I had a fully operational computer. Actually doubly operational since it was dual boot.
Now, switching from Linux to Windows would be a lot of work; Windows is a pain in the ass to install, then you have to install drivers and apps. Those are installed automatically with most Linux distros. By why in the world would anyone want to switch from Linux to Windows??
Unlike religion it is possible to "worship" two or more OSes
The Buddhists in southern Thailand "worship" (or at least pay homage to) several "gods". So it's not really unlike at all.
And this still works perfectly well today, thank you very much.
No, it doesn't. I covered this in an earlier comment, scroll up.
Defending property rights of the citizenry is among the top tasks of any government.
If you buy a copy of my novel, the book is your property. But the novel is nobody's property. There is no such thing as intellectual property. It is NOT property, damn it!
No. The Constitution clearly states the reason for patent and copyright (to get people to produce more works for the public domain) and states "for limited times". a lifetime plus 95 years is in no way limited, and there's no way to convince Jimi Hendrix to make any more music.
The Constitution is the law of the land and the Bono Act breaks that law (yes, I know of the bullshit Lessig verdict). Therefore, NOT practicing civil disobedience is immoral (religion deals with morality, not ethics). Yes, it makes no exception for stupid laws but an illegal law is no law at all. And what would old Pete say if the Emperor had outlawed communion, tithing, and charity? What if he had outlawed Christianity itself (which Peter may have been wary of)?
The meaning behind that passage is "don't make your fellow Christians look bad, the Emperor hates us enough as it is". And some of the right wing Obama-hating "Christians" should read that passage.
See, if those works had entered the public domain, the private owners would never profit off of them.
I think the AC is going for "funny" but nobody OWNS a writing or a song or image. I don't own Nobots, I merely have a "limited" (for bizarre values of "limited") time monopoly.
I control its publication, but I don't own it. Nobody does and nobody should.
The question is, what can we do about it?
Long copyrights are great for corporations but shitty for authors. There was a fellow a couple years ago who was sued for writing a sequel to "Catcher in the Rye", that book should be in the public domain.
Insane copyright law is keeping The Paxil Diaries in electronic form and out of gutenberg.org because of twenty four words in the 80k word book. One chapter concerned the re-dedication of the Illinois State Library which was renamed to Illinois last late poet laureate's name. There was a 24 word poem displayed, which I copied with a pencil and used as the chapter's intro.
That poem, written in 1961 by a woman now long dead should NOT be covered by copyright. I may publish the book with the poem replaced by a rant about our insane copyright laws if I can't get permission to use it (I think the state holds copyright but I don't know).
Meanwhile, you can read Nobots for free online, I'm only charging for real books, which actually have a cost to print and distribute.
I've written my congressmen and Senators, have you written yours?
People held in American prisons are there for recognizable criminal offenses, not political offenses.
"Criminal" offenses like smoking a joint. Most US prisoners are there for drugs. I'd call a drug arrest political.
The thing is, this pass was supposed to be the closest, I've already seen the 2010 photos.
Bullshit, the traitors are those in government ignoring the constitution and illegally spying on the citizenry. It needs to stop now.
How about some closeup pictures of the satellite? The photo in the link in TFS was from 2010.
I'm disappointed. Oh, well.
True, it's only what he claims.
So basically art can only be understood if you took some course at school first?
Of course not, there are other ways of learning, like reading books. But if you've never taken a chemistry class or read anything about chemistry then you know nothing about chemistry and your opinions about chemistry are completely invalid. The same goes for any field of study.
I just don't get this snobbery of people believing they get to decide what is and is not art.
"I just don't get this snobbery of people believing they get to decide what is and is not a noble gas." They know what they're talking about, you don't.
Why should it be impossible for art to be created as a comment on a website?
It isn't. Back before the trolls killed K5 there was a fellow whose nick I can't remember that did some great ASCII art in comments (his work was hilarious).
When customer demand convinces Googlers this is worth doing it will be done
I hope you're right, but that's not the situation now.
That's one reason I'm really happy that I'm retiring in two months, more time to read, but more importantly more time to write. It took me four years to do Nobots simply because I had to waste my days chasing dollars.
Unlike you he probably went to college, where he took an art or art history class as part of his undergraduate studies. Even if your goal is to study physics you're going to have art and literature as an undergrad.
He is absolutely right, there's nothing artistic whatever about your doodle and you obviously know little to nothing about art. What you learned in high school is probably mostly wrong.
Beauty != art and art != beauty. The worst insult you can hurl at an artist is "oh, that's pretty." Art is supposed to affect one's emotions, and from your comment I'd say it succeeded well.
Art can be beautiful (e.g., Audrey Flack's photorealistic airbrush paintings) but don't have to be (Picasso's Guernica)
Agreed, I just don't get this "bigger and bigger" crap. My friend's son's laptop is HUGE, must have a 25 inch screen. Meanwhile, mine's about the size of a notebook (the old fashioned paper size). It's a lot easier to carry around, which is the idea behind laptops in the first place.
As to tablet size, most screens I have read from are 4.5x7 or 5x8, depending on whether it's a paperback or hardcover "screen".
I have to agree with "why Apple?" too. The tablet I bought my daughter last summer was a little over a hundred bucks, and I've noticed that Apple products break easily. I haven't seen too many cracked Androids, but it seems like half the Apple phones I've seen are cracked.
Honestly, I just don't see the value in an iPad when a tablet that's more suitable and durable is far cheaper.
True, the point is that a significant segment of the market is willing to buy a laptop without Windows.
Actually, I think it's that they can't buy a notebook with Windows; at least, not Windows as they've always known it. Nobody wants a phone interface on their computer, Microsoft must have been smoking crack when they came up with Windows 8.
I was in the market for a new notebook, but they all had either W8 or Chrome. So there's one sale some OEM didn't get. I don't want a dumbed down phone OS and I don't want to be stalked by Google. So I'll just replace the aging battery in the notebook I have now.
Now Android laptops are starting to show up.
I haven't seen them but again, a phone OS is a poor fit for a computer.
Of course not. His only intention was to troll. I'm surprised he hasn't been modded down yet.
Amen is a word which is used in many different languages too.
Exactly my point. In Spanish it would be pronounced "ah main", since the A is always "ah" and the E is always "A". Pronounced like that it's a Spanish word.
Very reasonable, thank you.