First I heard of this film was when it won it's Oscars, by which point it'd been out 6 - 9 months, and seeing as most cinemas drop films after a couple of months then there's no wonder it got poor showing.
Perhaps if people actually knew the film existed, it'd have done better at the box office. Not advertising the existence of a film whatsoever then wondering why the hell no one went to watch it, despite it being popular post-Oscars is the real reason this film did so miserably financially.
Blaming file sharers wont fix a marketing mistake, and by the time they've gone through the courts, dealt with the claims they're entirely unable to prove, it'll probably have cost them far more in man hours than they can expect to earn back through strong arming people with settlement threats.
"I would say the downside of this is that it allows web developers to be lazy. It's harder to move beyond Flash when Flash is still supported everywhere, even though it's supported very poorly."
How does HTML5 solve this problem? From a software engineering perspective it's a terrible spec, the push it makes against XML, which is a commonly standard for which countless reusable frameworks exist in pretty much every language back towrds the more obscure classic HTML parsing model is a very bad thing, as it encourages sloppy markup that isn't parsable by external programs which greatly cripples the potential for future web applications if we had instead stuck to the push for XML based markup and only XML based markup. The supposedly semantic tags are also somewhat arbitrary, and create much more inconsistency and ambiguity in markup.
Look, you can't complain about lazy developers and then suggest HTML5 is somehow a saviour because the HTML5 spec is designed specifically to support lazy and sloppy development- it's designed specifically for developers who are incapable of sticking to much more rigid, but much more portable, resuable, development methodologies.
The fact you're being so hypocritical in this manner gives the impression you're just anti-Flash because Jobs says you should be. Sure slag off the fact Flash allows web developers to be lazy, but don't try and pretend the move to HTML5 is somehow a solution to that- it's not, on the contrary, it makes the problem a hell of a lot worse.
Personally I'd rather we lose Flash AND HTML5 and get a good XHTML spec (XHTML2 wasn't good). That way we'd have a highly interoperable web, where applications can easily interact with arbitrary sites, greatly increasing the scope of things we could do with the web, but unfortunately between Adobe's Flash push, Microsoft's Silverlight push, and Apple/Google's HTML5 push, we seem to be moving ever further away from that. As such it doesn't really matter if we use Flash, HTML5, or Silverlight, none of them offer any real benefits over the other in terms of improving quality of software engineering, and whilst they all have advantages and disadvantages in other areas, their inability to support good software development practices holds the whole future of the web back. There's fuck all point moving beyond Flash to something that pushes just as bad development practices, and that leaves the web no more interoperable at the end of the day.
"Not any different in the rest of the world. Only easier to bribe. If you get bailed up by Russian or Thai customs agents, they'll go straight for your wallet as there is no punishment for extorting out a bribe nor any recourse for you (especially as a foreigner)."
I found South American immigration officials to be quite welcoming in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, it was only the folks manning the border post between Chile and Argentina in the Andes that were a bit uptight, but seeing as there's nothing up there other than lichen and the odd guanaco with no other plant life and just a barren landscape otherwise, where these folks are apparently posted for months at a time, I can kind of understand why they weren't the most cheerful folks to deal with! I think I'd be pretty pissed off at life stuck in a little building with nothing else around for that kind of duration.
I've never really been to eastern countries hence why I avoided commenting on anything other than Western officials, however I do know sales folk at work who have similarly said Russian officials are a nightmare to deal with, even commercially we can't get goods across the border because the Russians have such protectionist border controls in place to discourage importing from countries like the UK. We have to manufacture at our China branch and export to Russia from there because the Chinese have at least a slightly better relationship with Russia in this respect.
No I agree, but my point was that adding life to it even if native life doesn't exist there wont necessarily detract from the beauty of it. Effectively there's no reason it's beauty can't be preserved but also become a home to life as well.
"Per the WHO, about 0.9 billion are underfed, about 1.6 billion are overfed. Malthus thought we'd simply run out of farmland, but technology moved faster than population growth."
As I stated already, food is a mere single facet of the problem- what about consumption of other resources? what about the bare necessities to live a healthy life such as proper sanitation, proper medical care and so forth? You know, the things you and I take for granted.
"It means that if you do a scatter diagram of population density and mean income (e.g., by county, state, province, administrative region), you'll see some bias towards a positive slope, not a negative one."
That seems to be complete speculation on your behalf.
"The median income in Ney York county is about twice the national average. Check out house prices in Bangalore some time. People move from the country to the city because of the opportunities for success."
No, they move to cities because of the perceived opportunity for success, not everyone actually achieves success- check out problems of poverty, and disease in Bangalore some time.
Same here, I think reading that sentence as an endorsement of the theory that a god exists is merely wishful thinking on the behalf of religious folks.
I interpreted it exactly the same way that you did, as a metaphor.
Funnily enough I'd actually wiped my laptop before I went through Canadian customs the time they interrogated me, largely because it was full of clutter and seemed a good time to do it, you know, one of those "Maybe I should get that done before I go on holiday" type of things.
This actually gave Canadian customs more reason to question me- why does this laptop look barely used etc.
I was given the choice of answering questions such as where I worked, how much money I made, where I lived, what my relationship status was, how much money I had in savings and so forth or being sent on the next plane back to the UK for refusing to cooperate with a customs officer anyway.
Unfortunately if they want that information they'll give you a pretty tough choice between handing it over and being refused entry (which may cause problems travelling abroad in future), even if you're completely and utterly innocent of any wrong doing. Keep in mind that if you are deported you're liable for the return flight costs which may be extortionate whilst also losing your return flight ticket, and will be chucked in a holding cell until you can be put on said flight.
It's a really really shitty situation, and I have sympathy for anyone having to deal with customs beyond the basic "Passport please". Again, customs in most the Western world seem to be staffed by egoistical power hungry twats with no concept of right to privacy, because after all I could've been a terrorist, a paedophile - or worse, I could've been guilty of downloading MP3s. This alone is surely justification to infringe on our rights to privacy, right?
You can probably be excused for that if you live in the middle of a large country such that you never really got outside broadcasts on AM.
Here in the UK and presumably much of the rest of Europe, it's just something people understand, because if for example you run through AM frequencies in the UK, you'll pick up stuff from France, Belgium, Holland and so on.
There was always something amusing as a kid about tuning into a foreign radio station, I don't know what, but it was just something that made you giggle to yourself.
"WTF? Some of his points? Are you arguing that civilization/technology is bad... on an internet forum?"
No, but then, that's not entirely what he was arguing either. If you read his script he looks to be supporting the use of technology and science to solve the problems.
"Malthus was wrong. Overpopulation has not lead to unsurmountable obstacles, nor is the human population growing out of control. The worlds population is better fed than ever before (more people are overweight than underweight)."
What portion of the population are you referring to? People in the West may be better fed than ever, but that doesn't mean everyone is.
"High population density is usually a sign of a wealthy area, these days. This guy was a tool, and the only good thing about him is that he's dead."
In your little area in the West maybe.
You seem to completely miss the point about overpopulation, and simply not understand the problem at all. Effectively the overpopulation problem has meant that those rich areas such as Europe and the US are okay, but that's because whilst they're consuming far more resources than the world can sustainably provide, they're doing so at the detriment of poorer countries who don't even get their fair share. If resources were to be spread fairly amongst the world's population then you'd be living a drastically lower standard of living than you are now. Effectively you can live your lifestyle where "overpopulation is not a problem" precisely because many other people in the world can't live that lifestyle and are living in utter poverty, because you live in a country that's bled them dry.
You also completely miss the point that there are many more indicators of population. Wars generally only occur when there is a battle for resources (religion is often a rallying tool, but not the underlying cause), this is really the problem in Israel and Palestine etc. but prominently it's the most likely reason the US actually invaded Iraq - to ensure a further supply of oil beyond that which can be reasonably produced and sustained within the US' own borders.
I've no idea what you mean by "High population density is usually a sign of a wealthy area" either, this makes no real sense. From inner city slums in New York, to countries like India with massive populations squeezed into relatively small areas, those places with high population density are almost always the poorest, whilst in contrast the richest tend to live in nice rural/suburban homes, and in countries like the US where population density is much lower.
The guy had some good points, he seemed to understand the subject of overpopulation far better than you at least, it's just a shame some of his other points were a little far fetched, and that ultimately he was a nut job that resorted to violence.
I just Google'd it and apparently they do amongst other things, but as that's all there was at that altitude, presumably some groups of the species live purely off that, unless seeing them there was just part of a migratory route and they only live off Lichen for shorter periods whilst they're up there. To be able to live off lichen and nothing else for any period of time beyond a few days, let alone weeks, possibly months, is in itself absolutely incredible.
"Something like the grand canyon, without any plant or animal life at all, is worthy of being preserved."
Well it depends, for those lazy people who just pay for a helicopter tour over the top maybe, but as someone whose walked down it, some of the greatest memories I have are not simply the canyon itself, but witnessing life managing to thrive there. For example, having to stop for a family of deer to cross our path as the stag stood guarding the path, catching a magnificent picture of a Raven perched on a rock mid-squawk with a good shot of the canyon in the background, seeing the beautiful purple hue on some Opuntia species and their blooms, turning around on the way back up to see sheep with the biggest horns I've ever seen staring at me from the cliff side.
Sure the likes of the Grand Canyon may look impressive without life, but it's far better with.
This isn't true. Even some species of cacti, for example, those in Canada are hardy down to that temperature. Opuntia humifusa (syn. O. compressa), and Escobaria vivipara have proven hardy down to -120c in the lab. Whilst they wont do much at this temperature, they're examples of more complex plantlife being able to clearly survive it. Cactaceae are also hardly the most adapted to this sort of climate, I'm sure there is plantlife that is even far more adapted to survive such temperatures than these examples.
When I was in Chile, up high in the Andes crossing into Argentina, there were two living things up there; Lichen, and Guanacos. Even the drought tolerant and hardy cacti weren't alive at that altitude in such a barren area, nor was there grass or any such thing.
Lichen sure, but I still to this day have no idea how the fuck the Guanacos survived up there!
"At least I can still give the finger to an AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Services) official at the international airport and not disappear into an interrogation room for 3 days."
For what it's worth, even Canadian customs randomly interrogated me for 3hrs completely randomly, and judging by that Australian border control documentary that's on TV here in the UK your customs folks would at least pull someone giving them the finger aside and harass them for a little while, albeit not 3 days of course. I should also point out that Canadian customs when they interrogated me also asked me to log into my laptop and searched for porn then, this was 5 years ago, so the policy is hardly unique to Australia. With the exception of the likes of Norway, whose immigration service didn't even check my passport in Narvik and just let me off the plane and out the door without a single question, I suspect most Westernised customs and immigration services are just as bad as each other. I think egoistical power mad customs jackasses are unfortunately par for the course in Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK.
But I do not agree with your defence that searching for illegal porn is valid. You would not expect the police to just come by your house and search for illegal porn on the offchance- you'd expect them to follow due process, you'd expect them to have good reason to suspect you of having illegal porn. These protections have historically existed precisely to protect people's privacy from invasive searches, and border laws like yours, and those here in the UK (hell, we have full body scanners too now which are far worse) just go completely against the protections that would be afforded to citizens on the effective pretense that travellers are somehow lesser beings, with no right to privacy. This is dumb, whatever country it's in.
But Australia does seem to have many politicians nowadays that are quite authoritarian or even totalitarian in mindset, however most Aussies I've met have fallen into the laid back stereotype they have. What's the deal here? is it simply that those who aren't laid back are more pre-disposed to getting themselves into positions of power whilst the chilled out Aussies that everyone knows and loves could care less what the power hungry folks do and just get on with their lives regardless of whatever stupid new law or ruling the power hungry elite have come up with? I don't pretend that my country is any better of course, absolutely not, but I'm merely intrigued to know why a country that does have a reputation for being full of friendly laid back people seems politically to be trying to out compete even the US and UK on infringing freedoms and supporting big business to the detriment of citizens.
Indeed, and it makes the retailer less likely to do business with problem publishers/manufacturers, hence putting greater pressure on them than an individual by themselves could to rectify their poor business practices.
It's easy for a manufacturer to fob off multiple independent individuals, it's harder for them to fob off the retailers who are their gateway to getting their products to consumers in the first place.
Is there even an option of appeal in small claims cases?
If there is, any idea how they work? is it just to another small claims court or does it get escalated to a higher court, and if so, do your potential liabilities increase should you lose there too?
I agree appealing is a smart option in this case, but I don't know if the appeals process for this sort of thing actually fairly caters to it or not?
From what I can tell from the information out there the gray buttons are gray because this isn't actually a replacement of existing controllers, but an optional new style of controller- just as they've released black, green, blue, pink, white controllers, this is the silver one. The difference is this time they've actually changed how a component of it works too.
So the frustration is that they've released a new style of controller- fine, you can ignore that if it doesn't interest you, but they've also made parts of it better, something you don't get if you buy the classic coloured controllers.
Perhaps if people respond positively to the D-Pad and thumb stick changes they will roll them out to the other coloured controllers too, who knows. I agree the gray buttons are utterly fucking awful though, I wouldn't buy the controller for this alone and would just stick to the original ones.
I was actually thinking more about the changing the engine part- like, climbing out onto the front of the car, lifting the bonnet, trying to lift the engine out and replace it all whilst driving- that's the part I think would likely cause a crash! Just having the bonnet up so someone else can change it would be a little hazardous!
What are you on about? You've posted two replies basically saying the same thing, neither post makes any sense at all.
In Europe there's no law against talking about bad things, and yes, you can even talk about the nazis in Germany. What you can't do is publicly endorse what the nazis did and their ideology or otherwise be supportive of it that's all. The only people whose feelings get hurt are for example those who are seeking to upset those who were victims of, or relatives of victims of the holocaust and that sort of thing, effectively if you are arguing for free speech no matter what then you're arguing that these sorts of people have more right to do this than the victims of such tragic parts of history have to not have to hear it when they walk the streets.
Reasoned debate isn't banned under any European laws, provocative hate speech is in the context of some topics, in some countries, that's all.
As I pointed out this is exactly the same as in the US where certain types of speech are not allowed, the only difference is the classification of speech and actions and such. Many European nations have always been far more tolerant of pro-Islamic demonstrations by Al Qaeda sympathisers living in Europe than the US for example.
This is precisely what I was getting at in my previous post in that you seem to have fallen back to this very American idea that because some speech is banned, that it has somehow led to a slippery slope that means even reasonable speech is banned, that's not the case, you're completely wrong in your assumption that it is. It's only speech by particularly hateful groups that has a negative effect on the vast majority of the rest of the members of society that is effected by these laws. This absolutely does benefit society overall. Europeans are just as mindful as government prevention of legitimate speech and debate, they just also realise that pushing for complete free speech, no matter where or what isn't the only way to avoid this- simple common sense and protest when governments do overstep the mark or try to works just as well, with the added benefit you don't have to put up with the likes of the Westboro baptist church in the process.
You're right. I checked a few months ago which papers were owned by Murdoch on mention of his attempt to increase his stakes in Sky and could've sworn the Daily Mail was always one of them, but it appears not!
I guess I must've got the impression partly because The Daily Mail always follows an identical line of thought to Murdoch's papers anyway and were clearly part of the pre-election joint attack on the likes of Nick Clegg after the first leaders debate and such.
America gets a special singling out because it's spent the last few decades trying to single itself out as the guiding light in the world.
If you single yourself out as a supposed shining example of how a country should be (which is why you supposedly invaded Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on) then you have to expect a singling out when it comes to criticism.
Your assertion that criticism must be based on equally applied principles is false, because the world isn't that simple. If America commits torture, and Iran commits torture, then a singling out of America for international criticism is justified because we know Iran is guilty of torture and already despise it for that, but we believed America was better than that, because it always pretended to be- it always pretended to be a strong believer in civil liberties through it's own censuring of Iran, Burma and the likes over precisely those sort of things.
Another recent example is that of the Lockerbie bomber Megrahi. US politicians have been pushing to get the UK and Scottish governments to travel to the US and answer to America as to why he was released. Yet to this day America has yet to punish anyone for the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655 by US planes which led to the deaths of more civilians (290) than even Lockerbie (270). How can America expect a foreign state to send it's leaders to answer to it when it's refused to let any of it's own people be punished (and in fact some got medals) for a worse atrocity?
People single out the US for criticism in many cases, not because it's the only country that's done some specific thing that's wrong, but because it's often the one that's been utterly hypocritical about it. If America accepted all along that it's guilty of some serious human rights abuses, and that it's supported evasion of justice all along for people guilty of some awful crimes, then people would shrug and just say "Yep, that's America". But America has these double standards for a reason- it needs to keep up this idea of itself to help it retain influence on the international stage, however more and more countries are failing to fall for this charade and so America is reaching a point where it has a stark choice of either improving it's game and living up to the standards it sets for itself and everyone else, or accepting reduced influence on the world stage. As European that's often critical of the US, do you know which I'd prefer? I'd much prefer the US lives up to the standards it sets because I would much rather it could live up to those standards and help enforce them globally, than continue downhill and have the likes of China and Russia gain influence in terms of saying how things should be done. You can be sure that most Europeans criticising your country at least are doing so because they want to see a better America that does live up to the picture it paints of itself, not because they hate America.
Hypocrisy is at the heart of the problem, and it's that that must be resolved.
Try talking about how all cops are pigs and deserve to die when there are police around. Try talking about how you think it'd be justice for America's crimes in the middle east if a bomb blows up your plane at an airport. Try talking about how you think al qaeda are spot on in blowing up the twin towers in new york.
In fact, try talking about a gag order issued by the FBI and give details about it:
Presumably with your assumption of freedom and believe that people shouldn't be able to say what they wish, you're against a ban of teaching creationism in science class? Surely a teacher with strong religious believes, no matter how invalid should have the right to speak to their class about those beliefs if free speech is to sit above all else?
Feel free to read from here down to the bottom of the article to get yourself plenty more examples that demonstrate that no, you don't always have free speech in the US:
No, your freedom of speech in the US is as much a fantasy as it is in Europe. Sure certain European nations ban things the US doesn't, but there are other things where it works both ways- public talk sympathetic to the Nazi's might be banned in some European countries for example, but those countries don't infringe civil liberties with things like warrantless wiretaps. You seem to be suggesting there's no situation in which limits on freedom of speech can improve society, but in the context of one specific case for example do you really believe the interest of society is better served by the Phelps group being allowed to spout the stuff they do publicly more so than it being banned so that people such as grieving parents of deceased soldiers don't have to face it on funeral day?
Ultimately the American viewpoint comes down to a deeply embedded paranoia of government, there's a fear that if they accept that some speech being banned does in fact improve society, there's a fear that it will lead to a slippery slope and be used negatively against legitimate speech, so the American solution is to simply pretend that you have and must keep free speech at all costs, all the whilst using less direct methods of stifling speech you don't like. In contrast, in Europe, we're just upfront about what is unwanted and unacceptable in a modern civilised society- but still just as cautious of the slippery slope problem, and it is precisely that caution that means despite having laws against hate speech in public and so forth, we're still not living in brutal dictatorships, and in many parts of Europe, are even more free than the average American citizen.
The problem with American viewpoints like yours, is that you basically believe America's own bullshit- land of the free, a global symbol of respect for civil liberties and all that. Yet this is the country that's performed torture, extraordinary rendition, the country that has bans on abortions, that's grossly homophobic even at the state level, that allowed warrantless wiretapping and so forth. It's like the couple that appear fine as if they are the perfect couple in public, but where the husband beats her when they're at home in private, the public face Americans feel they must put on, is quite different to the reality of US laws and actions. You can keep telling yourselves America is all well and good and that it's citizens are completely free, but that wont stop the rest of the world being able to see that that really just isn't the case. That is what Europeans find so bizzare about Americans.
Yes, but sadly part the reason we have such a fucked up libel system though is because we have a press that's historically been allowed to get away with basically just outright lying about people in their publications and never having to post a retractment, hence why we got tough libel laws to counter that.
I want the libel laws reformed as much as anyone, but they better come with stronger accountability for false press stories, so that we don't go back to a situation where papers can perform character assassinations freely or cheaply (i.e. for much less than it earns them in profit).
On one hand you've got retarded libel laws, and on the other you've got papers like Murdoch's Daily Mail just gagging to be able to write stories about how Richard Dawkins raped 20 children in a drug fuelled satanic orgy that immigrants and muslim terrorists supported whilst all simultaneously saluting an effigy of Hitler. The scary thing is, knowing the Daily Mail that's probably not a far fetched story for them at all. See her for example:
How did it turn out? Well, the whole event actually had fuck all to do with "Nazis", that was entirely made up by Murdoch's papers (Daily Mail, News of the World etc.). The courts ruled in Mosley's favour.
Whilst we don't want to muzzle the press, or prevent it writing controversal, but factual stories, we clearly do need massive penalties for papers like this, that just make extremely over the top shit up to try and grossly defame people. S&M may not be to many people's taste, but at the end of the day what he did was in his own time, in a private place, with his own money, with the consent of the people involved, and importantly- without any kind of fascist theme to it, it was that, that libelous part that had to be added to make it a story, and libel for the case of making a story is just wrong.
Again, I really hate libel laws, and I'm cautious of the danger of any extra accountability for the press being used to muzzle them when they tell the truth. But clearly libel reform can't allow papers to get away with this shit even more easily than they do now either. The court system seems the right place to decide these cases, and libel seems the right tool to deal with them, so it's a tough problem to solve- you could just add extra penalties when the press are guilty of libel as opposed to private individuals, but then are web pages classed as press and so on? I don't know what the solution is, and I'm concerned the politicians don't either such that any changes to libel laws may cause other problems. This is something that needs to be thought through and done properly.
Slashdot Mirror
First I heard of this film was when it won it's Oscars, by which point it'd been out 6 - 9 months, and seeing as most cinemas drop films after a couple of months then there's no wonder it got poor showing.
Perhaps if people actually knew the film existed, it'd have done better at the box office. Not advertising the existence of a film whatsoever then wondering why the hell no one went to watch it, despite it being popular post-Oscars is the real reason this film did so miserably financially.
Blaming file sharers wont fix a marketing mistake, and by the time they've gone through the courts, dealt with the claims they're entirely unable to prove, it'll probably have cost them far more in man hours than they can expect to earn back through strong arming people with settlement threats.
"I would say the downside of this is that it allows web developers to be lazy. It's harder to move beyond Flash when Flash is still supported everywhere, even though it's supported very poorly."
How does HTML5 solve this problem? From a software engineering perspective it's a terrible spec, the push it makes against XML, which is a commonly standard for which countless reusable frameworks exist in pretty much every language back towrds the more obscure classic HTML parsing model is a very bad thing, as it encourages sloppy markup that isn't parsable by external programs which greatly cripples the potential for future web applications if we had instead stuck to the push for XML based markup and only XML based markup. The supposedly semantic tags are also somewhat arbitrary, and create much more inconsistency and ambiguity in markup.
Look, you can't complain about lazy developers and then suggest HTML5 is somehow a saviour because the HTML5 spec is designed specifically to support lazy and sloppy development- it's designed specifically for developers who are incapable of sticking to much more rigid, but much more portable, resuable, development methodologies.
The fact you're being so hypocritical in this manner gives the impression you're just anti-Flash because Jobs says you should be. Sure slag off the fact Flash allows web developers to be lazy, but don't try and pretend the move to HTML5 is somehow a solution to that- it's not, on the contrary, it makes the problem a hell of a lot worse.
Personally I'd rather we lose Flash AND HTML5 and get a good XHTML spec (XHTML2 wasn't good). That way we'd have a highly interoperable web, where applications can easily interact with arbitrary sites, greatly increasing the scope of things we could do with the web, but unfortunately between Adobe's Flash push, Microsoft's Silverlight push, and Apple/Google's HTML5 push, we seem to be moving ever further away from that. As such it doesn't really matter if we use Flash, HTML5, or Silverlight, none of them offer any real benefits over the other in terms of improving quality of software engineering, and whilst they all have advantages and disadvantages in other areas, their inability to support good software development practices holds the whole future of the web back. There's fuck all point moving beyond Flash to something that pushes just as bad development practices, and that leaves the web no more interoperable at the end of the day.
"Not any different in the rest of the world. Only easier to bribe. If you get bailed up by Russian or Thai customs agents, they'll go straight for your wallet as there is no punishment for extorting out a bribe nor any recourse for you (especially as a foreigner)."
I found South American immigration officials to be quite welcoming in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, it was only the folks manning the border post between Chile and Argentina in the Andes that were a bit uptight, but seeing as there's nothing up there other than lichen and the odd guanaco with no other plant life and just a barren landscape otherwise, where these folks are apparently posted for months at a time, I can kind of understand why they weren't the most cheerful folks to deal with! I think I'd be pretty pissed off at life stuck in a little building with nothing else around for that kind of duration.
I've never really been to eastern countries hence why I avoided commenting on anything other than Western officials, however I do know sales folk at work who have similarly said Russian officials are a nightmare to deal with, even commercially we can't get goods across the border because the Russians have such protectionist border controls in place to discourage importing from countries like the UK. We have to manufacture at our China branch and export to Russia from there because the Chinese have at least a slightly better relationship with Russia in this respect.
No I agree, but my point was that adding life to it even if native life doesn't exist there wont necessarily detract from the beauty of it. Effectively there's no reason it's beauty can't be preserved but also become a home to life as well.
"Per the WHO, about 0.9 billion are underfed, about 1.6 billion are overfed. Malthus thought we'd simply run out of farmland, but technology moved faster than population growth."
As I stated already, food is a mere single facet of the problem- what about consumption of other resources? what about the bare necessities to live a healthy life such as proper sanitation, proper medical care and so forth? You know, the things you and I take for granted.
"It means that if you do a scatter diagram of population density and mean income (e.g., by county, state, province, administrative region), you'll see some bias towards a positive slope, not a negative one."
That seems to be complete speculation on your behalf.
"The median income in Ney York county is about twice the national average. Check out house prices in Bangalore some time. People move from the country to the city because of the opportunities for success."
No, they move to cities because of the perceived opportunity for success, not everyone actually achieves success- check out problems of poverty, and disease in Bangalore some time.
Yeah, except plenty of useful information has in fact been released:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/internet-tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab/11309.html
It's just the price we're waiting on.
Same here, I think reading that sentence as an endorsement of the theory that a god exists is merely wishful thinking on the behalf of religious folks.
I interpreted it exactly the same way that you did, as a metaphor.
Funnily enough I'd actually wiped my laptop before I went through Canadian customs the time they interrogated me, largely because it was full of clutter and seemed a good time to do it, you know, one of those "Maybe I should get that done before I go on holiday" type of things.
This actually gave Canadian customs more reason to question me- why does this laptop look barely used etc.
I was given the choice of answering questions such as where I worked, how much money I made, where I lived, what my relationship status was, how much money I had in savings and so forth or being sent on the next plane back to the UK for refusing to cooperate with a customs officer anyway.
Unfortunately if they want that information they'll give you a pretty tough choice between handing it over and being refused entry (which may cause problems travelling abroad in future), even if you're completely and utterly innocent of any wrong doing. Keep in mind that if you are deported you're liable for the return flight costs which may be extortionate whilst also losing your return flight ticket, and will be chucked in a holding cell until you can be put on said flight.
It's a really really shitty situation, and I have sympathy for anyone having to deal with customs beyond the basic "Passport please". Again, customs in most the Western world seem to be staffed by egoistical power hungry twats with no concept of right to privacy, because after all I could've been a terrorist, a paedophile - or worse, I could've been guilty of downloading MP3s. This alone is surely justification to infringe on our rights to privacy, right?
You can probably be excused for that if you live in the middle of a large country such that you never really got outside broadcasts on AM.
Here in the UK and presumably much of the rest of Europe, it's just something people understand, because if for example you run through AM frequencies in the UK, you'll pick up stuff from France, Belgium, Holland and so on.
There was always something amusing as a kid about tuning into a foreign radio station, I don't know what, but it was just something that made you giggle to yourself.
"WTF? Some of his points? Are you arguing that civilization/technology is bad ... on an internet forum?"
No, but then, that's not entirely what he was arguing either. If you read his script he looks to be supporting the use of technology and science to solve the problems.
"Malthus was wrong. Overpopulation has not lead to unsurmountable obstacles, nor is the human population growing out of control. The worlds population is better fed than ever before (more people are overweight than underweight)."
What portion of the population are you referring to? People in the West may be better fed than ever, but that doesn't mean everyone is.
"High population density is usually a sign of a wealthy area, these days. This guy was a tool, and the only good thing about him is that he's dead."
In your little area in the West maybe.
You seem to completely miss the point about overpopulation, and simply not understand the problem at all. Effectively the overpopulation problem has meant that those rich areas such as Europe and the US are okay, but that's because whilst they're consuming far more resources than the world can sustainably provide, they're doing so at the detriment of poorer countries who don't even get their fair share. If resources were to be spread fairly amongst the world's population then you'd be living a drastically lower standard of living than you are now. Effectively you can live your lifestyle where "overpopulation is not a problem" precisely because many other people in the world can't live that lifestyle and are living in utter poverty, because you live in a country that's bled them dry.
You also completely miss the point that there are many more indicators of population. Wars generally only occur when there is a battle for resources (religion is often a rallying tool, but not the underlying cause), this is really the problem in Israel and Palestine etc. but prominently it's the most likely reason the US actually invaded Iraq - to ensure a further supply of oil beyond that which can be reasonably produced and sustained within the US' own borders.
I've no idea what you mean by "High population density is usually a sign of a wealthy area" either, this makes no real sense. From inner city slums in New York, to countries like India with massive populations squeezed into relatively small areas, those places with high population density are almost always the poorest, whilst in contrast the richest tend to live in nice rural/suburban homes, and in countries like the US where population density is much lower.
The guy had some good points, he seemed to understand the subject of overpopulation far better than you at least, it's just a shame some of his other points were a little far fetched, and that ultimately he was a nut job that resorted to violence.
I just Google'd it and apparently they do amongst other things, but as that's all there was at that altitude, presumably some groups of the species live purely off that, unless seeing them there was just part of a migratory route and they only live off Lichen for shorter periods whilst they're up there. To be able to live off lichen and nothing else for any period of time beyond a few days, let alone weeks, possibly months, is in itself absolutely incredible.
"Something like the grand canyon, without any plant or animal life at all, is worthy of being preserved."
Well it depends, for those lazy people who just pay for a helicopter tour over the top maybe, but as someone whose walked down it, some of the greatest memories I have are not simply the canyon itself, but witnessing life managing to thrive there. For example, having to stop for a family of deer to cross our path as the stag stood guarding the path, catching a magnificent picture of a Raven perched on a rock mid-squawk with a good shot of the canyon in the background, seeing the beautiful purple hue on some Opuntia species and their blooms, turning around on the way back up to see sheep with the biggest horns I've ever seen staring at me from the cliff side.
Sure the likes of the Grand Canyon may look impressive without life, but it's far better with.
This isn't true. Even some species of cacti, for example, those in Canada are hardy down to that temperature. Opuntia humifusa (syn. O. compressa), and Escobaria vivipara have proven hardy down to -120c in the lab. Whilst they wont do much at this temperature, they're examples of more complex plantlife being able to clearly survive it. Cactaceae are also hardly the most adapted to this sort of climate, I'm sure there is plantlife that is even far more adapted to survive such temperatures than these examples.
How about Guanacos too.
When I was in Chile, up high in the Andes crossing into Argentina, there were two living things up there; Lichen, and Guanacos. Even the drought tolerant and hardy cacti weren't alive at that altitude in such a barren area, nor was there grass or any such thing.
Lichen sure, but I still to this day have no idea how the fuck the Guanacos survived up there!
"At least I can still give the finger to an AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Services) official at the international airport and not disappear into an interrogation room for 3 days."
For what it's worth, even Canadian customs randomly interrogated me for 3hrs completely randomly, and judging by that Australian border control documentary that's on TV here in the UK your customs folks would at least pull someone giving them the finger aside and harass them for a little while, albeit not 3 days of course. I should also point out that Canadian customs when they interrogated me also asked me to log into my laptop and searched for porn then, this was 5 years ago, so the policy is hardly unique to Australia. With the exception of the likes of Norway, whose immigration service didn't even check my passport in Narvik and just let me off the plane and out the door without a single question, I suspect most Westernised customs and immigration services are just as bad as each other. I think egoistical power mad customs jackasses are unfortunately par for the course in Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK.
But I do not agree with your defence that searching for illegal porn is valid. You would not expect the police to just come by your house and search for illegal porn on the offchance- you'd expect them to follow due process, you'd expect them to have good reason to suspect you of having illegal porn. These protections have historically existed precisely to protect people's privacy from invasive searches, and border laws like yours, and those here in the UK (hell, we have full body scanners too now which are far worse) just go completely against the protections that would be afforded to citizens on the effective pretense that travellers are somehow lesser beings, with no right to privacy. This is dumb, whatever country it's in.
But Australia does seem to have many politicians nowadays that are quite authoritarian or even totalitarian in mindset, however most Aussies I've met have fallen into the laid back stereotype they have. What's the deal here? is it simply that those who aren't laid back are more pre-disposed to getting themselves into positions of power whilst the chilled out Aussies that everyone knows and loves could care less what the power hungry folks do and just get on with their lives regardless of whatever stupid new law or ruling the power hungry elite have come up with? I don't pretend that my country is any better of course, absolutely not, but I'm merely intrigued to know why a country that does have a reputation for being full of friendly laid back people seems politically to be trying to out compete even the US and UK on infringing freedoms and supporting big business to the detriment of citizens.
Indeed, and it makes the retailer less likely to do business with problem publishers/manufacturers, hence putting greater pressure on them than an individual by themselves could to rectify their poor business practices.
It's easy for a manufacturer to fob off multiple independent individuals, it's harder for them to fob off the retailers who are their gateway to getting their products to consumers in the first place.
Is there even an option of appeal in small claims cases?
If there is, any idea how they work? is it just to another small claims court or does it get escalated to a higher court, and if so, do your potential liabilities increase should you lose there too?
I agree appealing is a smart option in this case, but I don't know if the appeals process for this sort of thing actually fairly caters to it or not?
From what I can tell from the information out there the gray buttons are gray because this isn't actually a replacement of existing controllers, but an optional new style of controller- just as they've released black, green, blue, pink, white controllers, this is the silver one. The difference is this time they've actually changed how a component of it works too.
So the frustration is that they've released a new style of controller- fine, you can ignore that if it doesn't interest you, but they've also made parts of it better, something you don't get if you buy the classic coloured controllers.
Perhaps if people respond positively to the D-Pad and thumb stick changes they will roll them out to the other coloured controllers too, who knows. I agree the gray buttons are utterly fucking awful though, I wouldn't buy the controller for this alone and would just stick to the original ones.
I was actually thinking more about the changing the engine part- like, climbing out onto the front of the car, lifting the bonnet, trying to lift the engine out and replace it all whilst driving- that's the part I think would likely cause a crash! Just having the bonnet up so someone else can change it would be a little hazardous!
"Using Ksplice is like 'replacing your car's engine while speeding down the highway,'"
So in other words it's something you'd never want to risk doing because it'd almost certainly cause a crash?
I think they should've thought about a different analogy for this one...
What are you on about? You've posted two replies basically saying the same thing, neither post makes any sense at all.
In Europe there's no law against talking about bad things, and yes, you can even talk about the nazis in Germany. What you can't do is publicly endorse what the nazis did and their ideology or otherwise be supportive of it that's all. The only people whose feelings get hurt are for example those who are seeking to upset those who were victims of, or relatives of victims of the holocaust and that sort of thing, effectively if you are arguing for free speech no matter what then you're arguing that these sorts of people have more right to do this than the victims of such tragic parts of history have to not have to hear it when they walk the streets.
Reasoned debate isn't banned under any European laws, provocative hate speech is in the context of some topics, in some countries, that's all.
As I pointed out this is exactly the same as in the US where certain types of speech are not allowed, the only difference is the classification of speech and actions and such. Many European nations have always been far more tolerant of pro-Islamic demonstrations by Al Qaeda sympathisers living in Europe than the US for example.
This is precisely what I was getting at in my previous post in that you seem to have fallen back to this very American idea that because some speech is banned, that it has somehow led to a slippery slope that means even reasonable speech is banned, that's not the case, you're completely wrong in your assumption that it is. It's only speech by particularly hateful groups that has a negative effect on the vast majority of the rest of the members of society that is effected by these laws. This absolutely does benefit society overall. Europeans are just as mindful as government prevention of legitimate speech and debate, they just also realise that pushing for complete free speech, no matter where or what isn't the only way to avoid this- simple common sense and protest when governments do overstep the mark or try to works just as well, with the added benefit you don't have to put up with the likes of the Westboro baptist church in the process.
You're right. I checked a few months ago which papers were owned by Murdoch on mention of his attempt to increase his stakes in Sky and could've sworn the Daily Mail was always one of them, but it appears not!
I guess I must've got the impression partly because The Daily Mail always follows an identical line of thought to Murdoch's papers anyway and were clearly part of the pre-election joint attack on the likes of Nick Clegg after the first leaders debate and such.
America gets a special singling out because it's spent the last few decades trying to single itself out as the guiding light in the world.
If you single yourself out as a supposed shining example of how a country should be (which is why you supposedly invaded Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on) then you have to expect a singling out when it comes to criticism.
Your assertion that criticism must be based on equally applied principles is false, because the world isn't that simple. If America commits torture, and Iran commits torture, then a singling out of America for international criticism is justified because we know Iran is guilty of torture and already despise it for that, but we believed America was better than that, because it always pretended to be- it always pretended to be a strong believer in civil liberties through it's own censuring of Iran, Burma and the likes over precisely those sort of things.
Another recent example is that of the Lockerbie bomber Megrahi. US politicians have been pushing to get the UK and Scottish governments to travel to the US and answer to America as to why he was released. Yet to this day America has yet to punish anyone for the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655 by US planes which led to the deaths of more civilians (290) than even Lockerbie (270). How can America expect a foreign state to send it's leaders to answer to it when it's refused to let any of it's own people be punished (and in fact some got medals) for a worse atrocity?
People single out the US for criticism in many cases, not because it's the only country that's done some specific thing that's wrong, but because it's often the one that's been utterly hypocritical about it. If America accepted all along that it's guilty of some serious human rights abuses, and that it's supported evasion of justice all along for people guilty of some awful crimes, then people would shrug and just say "Yep, that's America". But America has these double standards for a reason- it needs to keep up this idea of itself to help it retain influence on the international stage, however more and more countries are failing to fall for this charade and so America is reaching a point where it has a stark choice of either improving it's game and living up to the standards it sets for itself and everyone else, or accepting reduced influence on the world stage. As European that's often critical of the US, do you know which I'd prefer? I'd much prefer the US lives up to the standards it sets because I would much rather it could live up to those standards and help enforce them globally, than continue downhill and have the likes of China and Russia gain influence in terms of saying how things should be done. You can be sure that most Europeans criticising your country at least are doing so because they want to see a better America that does live up to the picture it paints of itself, not because they hate America.
Hypocrisy is at the heart of the problem, and it's that that must be resolved.
Try talking about how all cops are pigs and deserve to die when there are police around. Try talking about how you think it'd be justice for America's crimes in the middle east if a bomb blows up your plane at an airport. Try talking about how you think al qaeda are spot on in blowing up the twin towers in new york.
In fact, try talking about a gag order issued by the FBI and give details about it:
http://www.daniweb.com/news/story304255.html
Presumably with your assumption of freedom and believe that people shouldn't be able to say what they wish, you're against a ban of teaching creationism in science class? Surely a teacher with strong religious believes, no matter how invalid should have the right to speak to their class about those beliefs if free speech is to sit above all else?
Feel free to read from here down to the bottom of the article to get yourself plenty more examples that demonstrate that no, you don't always have free speech in the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Types_of_restraints_on_speech
No, your freedom of speech in the US is as much a fantasy as it is in Europe. Sure certain European nations ban things the US doesn't, but there are other things where it works both ways- public talk sympathetic to the Nazi's might be banned in some European countries for example, but those countries don't infringe civil liberties with things like warrantless wiretaps. You seem to be suggesting there's no situation in which limits on freedom of speech can improve society, but in the context of one specific case for example do you really believe the interest of society is better served by the Phelps group being allowed to spout the stuff they do publicly more so than it being banned so that people such as grieving parents of deceased soldiers don't have to face it on funeral day?
Ultimately the American viewpoint comes down to a deeply embedded paranoia of government, there's a fear that if they accept that some speech being banned does in fact improve society, there's a fear that it will lead to a slippery slope and be used negatively against legitimate speech, so the American solution is to simply pretend that you have and must keep free speech at all costs, all the whilst using less direct methods of stifling speech you don't like. In contrast, in Europe, we're just upfront about what is unwanted and unacceptable in a modern civilised society- but still just as cautious of the slippery slope problem, and it is precisely that caution that means despite having laws against hate speech in public and so forth, we're still not living in brutal dictatorships, and in many parts of Europe, are even more free than the average American citizen.
The problem with American viewpoints like yours, is that you basically believe America's own bullshit- land of the free, a global symbol of respect for civil liberties and all that. Yet this is the country that's performed torture, extraordinary rendition, the country that has bans on abortions, that's grossly homophobic even at the state level, that allowed warrantless wiretapping and so forth. It's like the couple that appear fine as if they are the perfect couple in public, but where the husband beats her when they're at home in private, the public face Americans feel they must put on, is quite different to the reality of US laws and actions. You can keep telling yourselves America is all well and good and that it's citizens are completely free, but that wont stop the rest of the world being able to see that that really just isn't the case. That is what Europeans find so bizzare about Americans.
Yes, but sadly part the reason we have such a fucked up libel system though is because we have a press that's historically been allowed to get away with basically just outright lying about people in their publications and never having to post a retractment, hence why we got tough libel laws to counter that.
I want the libel laws reformed as much as anyone, but they better come with stronger accountability for false press stories, so that we don't go back to a situation where papers can perform character assassinations freely or cheaply (i.e. for much less than it earns them in profit).
On one hand you've got retarded libel laws, and on the other you've got papers like Murdoch's Daily Mail just gagging to be able to write stories about how Richard Dawkins raped 20 children in a drug fuelled satanic orgy that immigrants and muslim terrorists supported whilst all simultaneously saluting an effigy of Hitler. The scary thing is, knowing the Daily Mail that's probably not a far fetched story for them at all. See her for example:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-550109/Formula-One-boss-Max-Mosley-exposed-sadomasochist-Nazi-orgy-prostitutes.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-553408/Under-fathers-shadow-The-truth-disgraced-Max-Mosley-son-Nazi-sympathiser-Oswald.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1032803/Bizarre-sex-life-F1-boss-Max-Mosley-revealed-court-insists-Its-perfectly-harmless-private.html
How did it turn out? Well, the whole event actually had fuck all to do with "Nazis", that was entirely made up by Murdoch's papers (Daily Mail, News of the World etc.). The courts ruled in Mosley's favour.
Whilst we don't want to muzzle the press, or prevent it writing controversal, but factual stories, we clearly do need massive penalties for papers like this, that just make extremely over the top shit up to try and grossly defame people. S&M may not be to many people's taste, but at the end of the day what he did was in his own time, in a private place, with his own money, with the consent of the people involved, and importantly- without any kind of fascist theme to it, it was that, that libelous part that had to be added to make it a story, and libel for the case of making a story is just wrong.
Again, I really hate libel laws, and I'm cautious of the danger of any extra accountability for the press being used to muzzle them when they tell the truth. But clearly libel reform can't allow papers to get away with this shit even more easily than they do now either. The court system seems the right place to decide these cases, and libel seems the right tool to deal with them, so it's a tough problem to solve- you could just add extra penalties when the press are guilty of libel as opposed to private individuals, but then are web pages classed as press and so on? I don't know what the solution is, and I'm concerned the politicians don't either such that any changes to libel laws may cause other problems. This is something that needs to be thought through and done properly.