I'm not condoning piracy, but it's the same old debate over and over again. What people want are reasonnable prices.
Oh Bullsh*t. The prices are ALREADY PERFECTLY REASONABLE. Sorry for the shouting, but I'm so sick of all you cheapskate freeloading scumbags who not only won't pay for stuff you don't think are worth it, but will just take it anyway as if you have some right to it. It's not worth 8 bucks, but it's worth 2 hours of your life to watch a crappy, fuzzy pirated rip of it, right? Friggin' hypocrite.
Newsflash: 8 bucks for a movie is REASONABLE. I challenge you to find me any other form of entertainment that is so cheap. Concert tickets. Ballet. Theatre. A nice dinner out. A pro sports game. A concert. ANYTHING. They are ALL a lot more than the price of a movie ticket.
Pay for the friggin' movie, or don't watch it. Don't try and tell me 8 bucks is unreasonably expensive.
How about CDs, you say? Same thing. 15 bucks for a CD is cheap. For 15 bucks, you get an hour or so of high-quality (fidelity anyway, if not content) digital music that you can listen to over and over again, as long as you want. And when you finally get bored of it, you can sell it and recoup some of your money. So you spend 15 bucks on a CD that you might listen to for a total or 20 - 50 hours (wild guessing here) over your entire life. Then you sell it for 5 bucks. So you spent 10 bucks for a let's say (lowball) 20 hours of entertainment. Name me one other friggin thing that only costs 50 cents an hour to entertain you. I DARE YOU.
I'm sorry if I seem upset (bring on the Troll/Flamebait mods), but this is one of my hot buttons. There is NOTHING unreasonable about the prices of movies and music where they currently are. All you whiners are simply cheapskates who refuse to pay anything more than $0, and will ALWAYS complain, no matter how cheap the entertainment becomes.
Pay for the stuff you use. It's a simple life lesson my parents taught me early on.
The real answer is to deny the criminal any credit for the rest of his life.
This is extremely ignorant. The guy is an identity theif. How in the hell is denying him credit going to encourage him to stop using fraudulent identification?
"You won't give me a credit card? Fine. I have tons of experience acquiring them from people who already have them."
You've uknowingly touched on a central issue regarding crime prevention. It is commonly regarded that there are 2 factors influencing one's propensity to commit a crime: Certainty and Severity. In other words, there are only two things a (sane) criminal considers in deciding whether or not to commit a crime: "How likely am I to get caught?" and "How severe is the punishment if I do get caught?"
If you increase one of the factors, but the other is still low enough, then you'll not have an impact on the crime rate. For example, if the crime for speeding was "death," but there was only one cop out there patrolling America's highways, do you think people would slow down? No.
Don't believe me? Then why are there millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens so nonchalantly downloading terabytes of copyrighted music without permission? "Copyright Infringement" is a crime, but people know they're not likely to get caught, so they do it anyway. These are people like you and I, people who otherwise "know better." I don't shoplift, I don't tresspass, I don't sneak into theatres without paying... but I have downloaded music from Napster back in the days. Why is that?
Certainty and Severity. The "Certainty" was so low that the "Severity" doesn't matter. That's why the RIAA is trying to ramp up the "Certainty" factor, rather than the "Severity." The "Severity" is already high enough. If people thought they had a realistic chance of getting caught, the current Severity level would be enough to deter them already.
Re:Poker isn't (at least doesn't have to be) gambl
on
Geeks and Poker?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
YOU: Ah Ad
Board: Ac As 7h 5d
The very best hand [your opponent] could have at this point would be a pair of sevens.
That's not true. He could be sitting on pocket 7's, and have made a full-house. He'd still lose to your quad-Aces, but I just wanted to point out that a "pair of 7's" is not the second-nut hand out there at this point.
I have done a fair amount of slow shutter stuff with my 300D and I don't see any problems with the results.
I have some photos on my site that I took with a borrowed Nikon D100, a top-of-the-line Digital SLR. You can see the gallery I'm talking about here. Virtually all of the nighttime photos had to be retouched in Photoshop, because they had tiny specks of color in the dark areas. I thought there was something wrong with the camera, or maybe just dust on the lens, but after talking to other digital photographers, I learned that this is a common symptom of long shutter speeds (I'm talking on the order of several seconds here) with digital cameras.
The specs are not visible in the images on my site because (a) I Photoshopped them out, and (b) they were probably too tiny to be seen when the images are scaled down so small. However, in the original, full-size versions of those photos, the specs are clearly visible. They look like stars, but they appear over top of dark areas where stars shouldn't be, like bushes or behind buildings.
This I agree with. The dynamic range of digitals is still a lot worse than colour negative film (although comparable to slide film).
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying... slide film saturation is superior to print film. Digital saturation may be approaching (or on par) with print film, but my point was that it is still inferior to slide film. It sounds like you are under the false impression that print film exhibits superior saturation to slide film.
Lob all you want, but dont forget that that same inept government developed the internet or at least what became the internet, and without it, you would still be posting comments like yours on dial up BBS's...
OK, I don't mean to imply that the US gov't didn't develop the Internet, but I resent the notion that if the US hadn't, nobody else would've thought of it. I'm quite confident that one way or another, we'd still be using the Internet today, even if DARPA hadn't gotten the ball rolling. Someone else would have.
Also color fidelity and saturation, low-light photography, slow shutter-speed photography (i.e., those cool pictures of a city at night with all the streaky red lights from the vehicles), medium-and-large format photography (though to be fair, Mamiya has digital backs now for their medium-format cameras), infrared film photography, and lower power-consumption.
It's like saying "what's the point of doing math when a computer can calulate for you?"
Uhm... what is the point? Do you really do math for fun? I code for fun. Spending my Friday nights solving integrals isn't exactly my idea of a good time.
If you read Slashdot you know you can't escape the trailers.
False.
I loved the Matrix. When I heard the sequels were coming out, I avoided seeing any trailers or reading anything about either movie.
I wanted to be totally surprised at every scene. I wanted the same experience I had felt when I saw the first Matrix.
Whenever one came on TV, I'd look away and yell "la-la-la-la" while my wife dove for the "Mute" button. Whenever we went to the movie theatre, I'd wait until the previews started, then go get popcorn.
I was successful. I managed to not see any trailers for either Reloaded or Revolutions until after I'd already seen them.
That's one reason I like the British so much. They're one of the only countries in the world who have dropped the parochial "local time" nonsense and switched to GMT.
Uh, are you going for "+1 Funny" mods, or are you serious? The Brits use GMT instead of "local time" because in Britain, GMT is "local time." GMT is the time in Greenwich, England.
If I missed your joke, then I apologize for killing it.:)
If I would take the difference in the taxes in Canada and the US and use it to purchase health care/health insurance I would get much higher level of care in the US.
Are you sure about this? Have you lived in both countries? Neither have I, but I've read testimonials from several Slashdotters who have, and they say they couldn't find any actual difference in quality, and suggested it was merely propaganda perpetuated by the private care providers in the US (sorry for the inadvertant alliteration) to justify their profiteering (oops!). Can you back up your accusation?
Reality: not really. You don't pay 50% until you make over $100,000. And you don't call that high????
That is high, but the original poster was mistaken. Canada's top tax bracket is nowhere near 50%. Canada's personal tax rates, for 2003, are as follows:
On income up to and including $35,000 : 16%
On income greater than $35,000 but less than $70,000: 22%
On income greater than $70,000 but less than $113,804: 26%
On income greater than $113,804: 29%
Now, there's provincial tax to be calculated on top of that too, but provincial tax rates are generally lower, and are only computed on what you're already paying in Federal tax. For example, if you made $35,000 in Ontario, then you'd owe about $4,300 in federal income tax ($35,000 minus the basic tax-free personal amount of about $8,000, time 16%). The provincial tax rate for that amount in Ontario on that amount would be about 15%, but it's 15% of the $4,300, not of the original amount. So your provincial amount would only be about $645.
In most parts of Canada, you can find true wilderness an hour or less from where you live.
The same can be said in the US.
The point I believe he was trying to make is that Canada is much less densely populated than the US. We have about 1/10 of your population, and a greater amount of area. Add to that the fact that the vast majority of our population is concentrated in the southernmost portions of the country (along the US border), and you reach the conclusion that most of our country is complely undeveloped and unpopulated. It's trivial to find thousands of square kilometers of unpopulated wilderness for extremely remote camping trips, hundreds of miles from any cities, where you can see all the stars in the sky and be truly close to nature.
That must be the secret to how Canada became such an economic superpower. We Americans should learn from them.
I know you were trying to be sarcastic, but you're not that far off from the truth. When the dot-bomb bubble burst, The US went through (is still going through?) an extended recession. Canada did not. We actually didn't have a recession at all - simply a slowing in growth and some lost IT jobs. The economy as a whole kept on truckin'.
Sissy. Canadian beer that's exported to the US is toned down for pansies like you. Up here, brewed full-strength, Canadians can easily handle the sumptuous taste of a perfect Indian Pale Ale like Alexander Keith's, while you gently sip your Budwater.
Just as a stupid car-guy question, whats the average high-Octane rating for US gas?
Psst... I'm gonna let you in on a little secret the oil companies don't want you to know: octane doesn't matter a whit.
You can put any grade of octane in your car between 89 and 93, and your car will perform the same. The 89 won't clog your plugs any faster or make you accelerate more quickly. It'll do nothing more than cost you extra cash.
The different octanes are nothing more than an anacrhonistic holdover from the days before ECMs when "engine knock" was a real concern. All modern cars have ECMs which can adjust for any octane between 89 and 93.
The only reason they still offer it in 3 grades is because the oil companies lover suckers like you who are willing to pay extra for something you think makes a difference. Notice how they never advertise that higher-octane is better - it's left as a "word-of-mouth" urban legend that they're happy to allow to persist.
Save your money. Buy 89. Neither you nor your car will notice any difference at all, I guarantee it. Your bank account will, but your car won't.
A beautiful blonde female of French decent would cost you $1000 per hour in New York.
In Montreal, it will run you $150.
Not to mention, prostitution is legal in Canada.
"Solicitation" isn't, but paying for sex is legal in Canada. That's why the "Escorts" section of the yellow pages is so thick. As long as the deal isn't discussed in public, paying for sex is legal in Canada.
Myth. Wages are on par when you take into consideration the health insurance an American pays (after tax) that is rolled into our socialized medicare system (pre-tax).
standard of living
Myth. Standard of living is comparable.
higher crime rate
OUTRIGHT LIE. Not sure what else to say - this is simply factually, demonstrably false. Canada's crime right is dramatically lower than the US's.
Don't insult any designated victim group either or you can be arrested for "hate speech."
Myth. The "Hate Speech" laws deal strictly with advocating explicit violence against visible minorities and (as of this year) gays.
socialized medicine is good, except when you need surgery or have cancer.
It works a helluvalot better than in the states, unless you're in the wealthiest 20% who can afford top-of-the-line private healthcare. Or are you forgetting that not everyone is rich? Its easy to forget about all those homeless people you have, eh? I mean, they're all tucked away on those street corners, and after a lifetime of ignoring them, you probably just plain forget they're there, right?
cold climate.
Depends on your definition of "cold," I guess. I'm in Ontario, and the high for today is 28 degrees Celcius (82 degrees Farenheit).
While I'm posting, I'd just like to point out that not only does Canada have a far, far lower murder rate than the US, but that of the 2 or 3 hundred gun deaths we have nationwide every year, 80% of all gun deaths in Canada are suicides. That's pretty interesting, don't you think? If 5 people show up in a Canadian morgue, dead of gunshot wounds, 4 of them did it to themselves and committed suicide.
Actually...there was a documentary by Michael Moore called "Bowling for columbine",
I'm gonna stop you right there, because, well, Michael Moore is a partisan, sensationalistic idiot. Also, you misspelled "fictional comedy" in your quote above - I highlighted the misspelling for you.
The "central" issue is the centralization of energy. As long as it remains centralized, the big power companies of today are behind it 100% because they will maintain control. Control of energy results in serious political power.
Easy solution: make the energy industry publically-owned. And no, I don't mean "by shareholders," I mean, "by taxpayers." As in, "the government should control the production and distribution of energy." The government is responsible for building and maintaining highways, so why not the energy infrastructure, too? Then you remove the concern about a few private players controlling the majority of a society's energy reserve. Problem solved.
You make a couple good points regarding cost and efficiency, but you're missing the big picture: We'll (relatively) soon run out of fossil fuels, but we'll never run out of wind, sunlight, tides, and hydro power. It doesn't really matter that electrolyzing hydrogen is less efficient than catalyzing natural gas if there's no more dead dinosaurs left to catalyze.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not condoning piracy, but it's the same old debate over and over again. What people want are reasonnable prices.
Oh Bullsh*t. The prices are ALREADY PERFECTLY REASONABLE. Sorry for the shouting, but I'm so sick of all you cheapskate freeloading scumbags who not only won't pay for stuff you don't think are worth it, but will just take it anyway as if you have some right to it. It's not worth 8 bucks, but it's worth 2 hours of your life to watch a crappy, fuzzy pirated rip of it, right? Friggin' hypocrite.
Newsflash: 8 bucks for a movie is REASONABLE. I challenge you to find me any other form of entertainment that is so cheap. Concert tickets. Ballet. Theatre. A nice dinner out. A pro sports game. A concert. ANYTHING. They are ALL a lot more than the price of a movie ticket.
Pay for the friggin' movie, or don't watch it. Don't try and tell me 8 bucks is unreasonably expensive.
How about CDs, you say? Same thing. 15 bucks for a CD is cheap. For 15 bucks, you get an hour or so of high-quality (fidelity anyway, if not content) digital music that you can listen to over and over again, as long as you want. And when you finally get bored of it, you can sell it and recoup some of your money. So you spend 15 bucks on a CD that you might listen to for a total or 20 - 50 hours (wild guessing here) over your entire life. Then you sell it for 5 bucks. So you spent 10 bucks for a let's say (lowball) 20 hours of entertainment. Name me one other friggin thing that only costs 50 cents an hour to entertain you. I DARE YOU.
I'm sorry if I seem upset (bring on the Troll/Flamebait mods), but this is one of my hot buttons. There is NOTHING unreasonable about the prices of movies and music where they currently are. All you whiners are simply cheapskates who refuse to pay anything more than $0, and will ALWAYS complain, no matter how cheap the entertainment becomes.
Pay for the stuff you use. It's a simple life lesson my parents taught me early on.
The real answer is to deny the criminal any credit for the rest of his life.
This is extremely ignorant. The guy is an identity theif. How in the hell is denying him credit going to encourage him to stop using fraudulent identification?
"You won't give me a credit card? Fine. I have tons of experience acquiring them from people who already have them."
Great solution.
You've uknowingly touched on a central issue regarding crime prevention. It is commonly regarded that there are 2 factors influencing one's propensity to commit a crime: Certainty and Severity. In other words, there are only two things a (sane) criminal considers in deciding whether or not to commit a crime: "How likely am I to get caught?" and "How severe is the punishment if I do get caught?"
If you increase one of the factors, but the other is still low enough, then you'll not have an impact on the crime rate. For example, if the crime for speeding was "death," but there was only one cop out there patrolling America's highways, do you think people would slow down? No.
Don't believe me? Then why are there millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens so nonchalantly downloading terabytes of copyrighted music without permission? "Copyright Infringement" is a crime, but people know they're not likely to get caught, so they do it anyway. These are people like you and I, people who otherwise "know better." I don't shoplift, I don't tresspass, I don't sneak into theatres without paying... but I have downloaded music from Napster back in the days. Why is that?
Certainty and Severity. The "Certainty" was so low that the "Severity" doesn't matter. That's why the RIAA is trying to ramp up the "Certainty" factor, rather than the "Severity." The "Severity" is already high enough. If people thought they had a realistic chance of getting caught, the current Severity level would be enough to deter them already.
YOU: Ah Ad
Board: Ac As 7h 5d
The very best hand [your opponent] could have at this point would be a pair of sevens.
That's not true. He could be sitting on pocket 7's, and have made a full-house. He'd still lose to your quad-Aces, but I just wanted to point out that a "pair of 7's" is not the second-nut hand out there at this point.
Casinos are places where suckers are separated from their money.
One could say the same thing about concerts, sports arenas, movie theaters, museums, amusement parks, art galleries, and much more.
(Hint: They're all entertainment)
I have done a fair amount of slow shutter stuff with my 300D and I don't see any problems with the results.
I have some photos on my site that I took with a borrowed Nikon D100, a top-of-the-line Digital SLR. You can see the gallery I'm talking about here. Virtually all of the nighttime photos had to be retouched in Photoshop, because they had tiny specks of color in the dark areas. I thought there was something wrong with the camera, or maybe just dust on the lens, but after talking to other digital photographers, I learned that this is a common symptom of long shutter speeds (I'm talking on the order of several seconds here) with digital cameras.
The specs are not visible in the images on my site because (a) I Photoshopped them out, and (b) they were probably too tiny to be seen when the images are scaled down so small. However, in the original, full-size versions of those photos, the specs are clearly visible. They look like stars, but they appear over top of dark areas where stars shouldn't be, like bushes or behind buildings.
[Re: Digital saturation inferior to film]
This I agree with. The dynamic range of digitals is still a lot worse than colour negative film (although comparable to slide film).
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying... slide film saturation is superior to print film. Digital saturation may be approaching (or on par) with print film, but my point was that it is still inferior to slide film. It sounds like you are under the false impression that print film exhibits superior saturation to slide film.
Lob all you want, but dont forget that that same inept government developed the internet or at least what became the internet, and without it, you would still be posting comments like yours on dial up BBS's...
OK, I don't mean to imply that the US gov't didn't develop the Internet, but I resent the notion that if the US hadn't, nobody else would've thought of it. I'm quite confident that one way or another, we'd still be using the Internet today, even if DARPA hadn't gotten the ball rolling. Someone else would have.
Where film has it's advantage is resolution.
Also color fidelity and saturation, low-light photography, slow shutter-speed photography (i.e., those cool pictures of a city at night with all the streaky red lights from the vehicles), medium-and-large format photography (though to be fair, Mamiya has digital backs now for their medium-format cameras), infrared film photography, and lower power-consumption.
It's like saying "what's the point of doing math when a computer can calulate for you?"
Uhm... what is the point? Do you really do math for fun? I code for fun. Spending my Friday nights solving integrals isn't exactly my idea of a good time.
If you read Slashdot you know you can't escape the trailers.
False.
I loved the Matrix. When I heard the sequels were coming out, I avoided seeing any trailers or reading anything about either movie.
I wanted to be totally surprised at every scene. I wanted the same experience I had felt when I saw the first Matrix.
Whenever one came on TV, I'd look away and yell "la-la-la-la" while my wife dove for the "Mute" button. Whenever we went to the movie theatre, I'd wait until the previews started, then go get popcorn.
I was successful. I managed to not see any trailers for either Reloaded or Revolutions until after I'd already seen them.
Nope, let's CG lava, CG platforms, and greenscreen our actors instead
Uh..... what alternative do you propose? That they use REAL lava?
How do you propose they capture the epic lava battle without CG and greenscreens?
Did the extensive use of CG in the LotR trilogy rob the epic of its class?
That's one reason I like the British so much. They're one of the only countries in the world who have dropped the parochial "local time" nonsense and switched to GMT.
:)
Uh, are you going for "+1 Funny" mods, or are you serious? The Brits use GMT instead of "local time" because in Britain, GMT is "local time." GMT is the time in Greenwich, England.
If I missed your joke, then I apologize for killing it.
What part of his movie was fictional? I'd really like to know what facts were missrepresented.
Sure, no problem. There are too many to list here, but this page sums it up nicely.
If I would take the difference in the taxes in Canada and the US and use it to purchase health care/health insurance I would get much higher level of care in the US.
Are you sure about this? Have you lived in both countries? Neither have I, but I've read testimonials from several Slashdotters who have, and they say they couldn't find any actual difference in quality, and suggested it was merely propaganda perpetuated by the private care providers in the US (sorry for the inadvertant alliteration) to justify their profiteering (oops!). Can you back up your accusation?
We certainly dont have anything like the patriot act
Uh, yes we do.
And you don't call that high????
That is high, but the original poster was mistaken. Canada's top tax bracket is nowhere near 50%. Canada's personal tax rates, for 2003, are as follows:
Now, there's provincial tax to be calculated on top of that too, but provincial tax rates are generally lower, and are only computed on what you're already paying in Federal tax. For example, if you made $35,000 in Ontario, then you'd owe about $4,300 in federal income tax ($35,000 minus the basic tax-free personal amount of about $8,000, time 16%). The provincial tax rate for that amount in Ontario on that amount would be about 15%, but it's 15% of the $4,300, not of the original amount. So your provincial amount would only be about $645.
In most parts of Canada, you can find true wilderness an hour or less from where you live.
The same can be said in the US.
The point I believe he was trying to make is that Canada is much less densely populated than the US. We have about 1/10 of your population, and a greater amount of area. Add to that the fact that the vast majority of our population is concentrated in the southernmost portions of the country (along the US border), and you reach the conclusion that most of our country is complely undeveloped and unpopulated. It's trivial to find thousands of square kilometers of unpopulated wilderness for extremely remote camping trips, hundreds of miles from any cities, where you can see all the stars in the sky and be truly close to nature.
That must be the secret to how Canada became such an economic superpower. We Americans should learn from them.
I know you were trying to be sarcastic, but you're not that far off from the truth. When the dot-bomb bubble burst, The US went through (is still going through?) an extended recession. Canada did not. We actually didn't have a recession at all - simply a slowing in growth and some lost IT jobs. The economy as a whole kept on truckin'.
Have you TASTED Canadian beer? It's vile.
Sissy. Canadian beer that's exported to the US is toned down for pansies like you. Up here, brewed full-strength, Canadians can easily handle the sumptuous taste of a perfect Indian Pale Ale like Alexander Keith's, while you gently sip your Budwater.
Just as a stupid car-guy question, whats the average high-Octane rating for US gas?
... I'm gonna let you in on a little secret the oil companies don't want you to know: octane doesn't matter a whit.
Psst
You can put any grade of octane in your car between 89 and 93, and your car will perform the same. The 89 won't clog your plugs any faster or make you accelerate more quickly. It'll do nothing more than cost you extra cash.
The different octanes are nothing more than an anacrhonistic holdover from the days before ECMs when "engine knock" was a real concern. All modern cars have ECMs which can adjust for any octane between 89 and 93.
The only reason they still offer it in 3 grades is because the oil companies lover suckers like you who are willing to pay extra for something you think makes a difference. Notice how they never advertise that higher-octane is better - it's left as a "word-of-mouth" urban legend that they're happy to allow to persist.
Save your money. Buy 89. Neither you nor your car will notice any difference at all, I guarantee it. Your bank account will, but your car won't.
A beautiful blonde female of French decent would cost you $1000 per hour in New York.
In Montreal, it will run you $150.
Not to mention, prostitution is legal in Canada.
"Solicitation" isn't, but paying for sex is legal in Canada. That's why the "Escorts" section of the yellow pages is so thick. As long as the deal isn't discussed in public, paying for sex is legal in Canada.
Oh and lower wages
Myth. Wages are on par when you take into consideration the health insurance an American pays (after tax) that is rolled into our socialized medicare system (pre-tax).
standard of living
Myth. Standard of living is comparable.
higher crime rate
OUTRIGHT LIE. Not sure what else to say - this is simply factually, demonstrably false. Canada's crime right is dramatically lower than the US's.
Don't insult any designated victim group either or you can be arrested for "hate speech."
Myth. The "Hate Speech" laws deal strictly with advocating explicit violence against visible minorities and (as of this year) gays.
socialized medicine is good, except when you need surgery or have cancer.
It works a helluvalot better than in the states, unless you're in the wealthiest 20% who can afford top-of-the-line private healthcare. Or are you forgetting that not everyone is rich? Its easy to forget about all those homeless people you have, eh? I mean, they're all tucked away on those street corners, and after a lifetime of ignoring them, you probably just plain forget they're there, right?
cold climate.
Depends on your definition of "cold," I guess. I'm in Ontario, and the high for today is 28 degrees Celcius (82 degrees Farenheit).
While I'm posting, I'd just like to point out that not only does Canada have a far, far lower murder rate than the US, but that of the 2 or 3 hundred gun deaths we have nationwide every year, 80% of all gun deaths in Canada are suicides. That's pretty interesting, don't you think? If 5 people show up in a Canadian morgue, dead of gunshot wounds, 4 of them did it to themselves and committed suicide.
Actually...there was a documentary by Michael Moore called "Bowling for columbine",
I'm gonna stop you right there, because, well, Michael Moore is a partisan, sensationalistic idiot. Also, you misspelled "fictional comedy" in your quote above - I highlighted the misspelling for you.
The "central" issue is the centralization of energy. As long as it remains centralized, the big power companies of today are behind it 100% because they will maintain control. Control of energy results in serious political power.
Easy solution: make the energy industry publically-owned. And no, I don't mean "by shareholders," I mean, "by taxpayers." As in, "the government should control the production and distribution of energy." The government is responsible for building and maintaining highways, so why not the energy infrastructure, too? Then you remove the concern about a few private players controlling the majority of a society's energy reserve. Problem solved.
You make a couple good points regarding cost and efficiency, but you're missing the big picture: We'll (relatively) soon run out of fossil fuels, but we'll never run out of wind, sunlight, tides, and hydro power. It doesn't really matter that electrolyzing hydrogen is less efficient than catalyzing natural gas if there's no more dead dinosaurs left to catalyze.