No, I'm not nostalgic about some particular mode of analog distortion like some old guy stuck on tube amplifiers. Yes, DVD, Blueray look better. When they work that is... Way too many times I've rented some movie just to find it is scratched beyond readability so many minutes into it, usually just as it starts getting interesting. Yes, VHS wears out. But it degrades gradually, it doesn't just stop playing. I remember crappy looking pictures on rented tapes that had been viewed too many times. So what? I still got to watch the whole movie! I could see the whole thing that night, without driving back to a store which may not be open by the time I get to the scratch. Or waiting days to send it back and get a possibly better copy from Netflix!
Then there is the players. If I can get a DVD or Blueray player to last 6 months I think I am doing good. I don't know what it is, they just stop. I suspect maybe the lasers? I remember using VHS players for 5 or 6 years at a time!
Sure, now I just use Netflix over the internet for movie rentals. It's convenient, that's great. It's really great for watching shows. The movie selection is still much smaller than it was at the stores. At any given time what is available is what is available. If you want to see some specific older movie you probably cannot. And you can't 'own' a copy of a movie this way. At least not legally. For that you have to buy the DVD or Blueray. Then it's back to scratch land. Yes, that doesn't happen so much if you take care of them. That's easy for all you single people. Try keeping the scratches off your discs when you have a messy wife (doesn't put them away) and a 2 y/o kid! Good luck with that! Yes, kids and wives could kill a VHS tape too but it seems much less likely. We still have some old movies around on VHS and none have died that way yet.
Tin foil is not aluminum foil. I imagine tin would take solder pretty well since most solder contains large amounts of tin already. The problem would be not burning or melting through the thin sheets. Maybe if you bunched it up into hat-form before you solder and even clip on a temporary heat sink behind the part you solder plus go very very carefully with a low wattage iron....
Because the presidents have been overstepping their positions for a really long time now, probably ever since George Washington retired. No president (or whitehouse website lackey) is ever going to publicly spell out the president's limitations to have it thrown back in his face at some later date when he IS trying to 'direct the legal system'.
Yes, the responses, when there are responses to whitehouse.gov petitions are usually pretty bad. No, as far as I know no specific policy has been the result of a whitehouse.gov petition. People are frustrated and there is even a petition to take the petitions more seriously.
So what?
The cutoff point for a response to a petition is 25,000 signatures. The Chris Dodd petition was somewhere around 35,000 the last I checked. Would you really want Obama to take decisive actions based on the will of 25-35,000 people? We (the US) are a nation of over 300 million individuals! How much say should a mere 10s of thousands have?
However... 30 some thousand people bothered to sign it. Many probably had to go through the trouble to create accounts showing they cared more than just enough to click a link. Do you think this goes entirely unnoticed among the politicians? Please don't get me wrong, they are not going to suddenly become good. They are still getting all sorts of money and perks legal and otherwise from special interests including the movie and record industries. They can probably count on buying far more than 30,000 votes just by name recognition from the ads they can buy with lobbyist money. They aren't going to just throw that away. But they do know they can't be so bold about it. Elections are never more than 4 years away which means they will be considering both voters and campaign money. If we give up then the only voice they hear is the ones giving them the campaign money.
The world is not going to change because of our little petitions but they will make some small difference. Even if it is only a little subconscious influence on politicians minds as they make decisions in the future that is something.
Yes, if the government is going it's own way doing what it likes in spite of the people clearly trying to vote their opposition then the people should take up arms.
But when the people keep electing the same politicians and parties which do these things... When the people don't care or even do care and approve then whose right is it to kill? Should a minority opinion group overthrow an elected government just because they are right? Maybe they should if we are talking about some really extreme cases, for example if the majority is approving of genocide, slavery, etc... I don't think we are there yet.
For now we need to just keep making ourselves heard. Make sure the politicians know that there are enough of us to swing some votes and educate the public as best we can to try to make them care.
A more likely and more immediate future... the need for labor is severely diminished but not lost. This gives us two options. Either everybody works but significantly less hours than now. Or... some people stop working while the rest are the slaves.
I don't think we are there yet but we do have less work than previous generations. Currently much of this excess just goes into producing more throw-away goods. It's a constant struggle to produce more so that profit can increase resulting in more waste. We also have some of the labor (as in tasks to do) shortage taken up by executives doing less for their money.
Some day we will reach a crossroads which will eventually either lead to everyone working very short hours or a bottom few being the slaves of the rest. One difficulty we face today... if employers hire more people to work fewer hours they lose a lot of money buying more health care premiums. It is cheaper to hire a few people and give them overtime. That along could push us towards the darker path. Under the current system the alternative is that employees don't get healthcare and I certainly don't approve of that idea either.
Really? And here I thought it was because internet news is more convenient, cheaper (usually free) and much easier to filter down to just the subjects one is interested in.
Actually... in a way that one part of what he said does have some truth. Note... he said white people discovered black, not Europe discovered Africa. Early people migrated from Africa to Europe, thus Africa discovered Europe but people would have continued to change on both continents. Do we even know what color those original people were? Thus when people reconnected again it was white people discovering black people.
The rest of the post of course is just hateful BS. So what if Europeans of a certain era took to the seas at a time when Africans were not? There was much time before that when Europeans could have built ships but didn't. It was far more likely a social coincidence and that caused things to happen when they did then any actual evolutionary advantage. The difference genetically between supposed races is less than that between individuals of the same race! Not to mention the fact that Africans were building ships and traveling to far places long before Europe and Africa regained contact. There is some evidence they may have made it all the way from Ghanna to South America! This is however currently unproven.
Ok. I just watched the video linked to by "the moon seems like small potatoes".
WTF is she talking about?
Travel to Mars = equality as stated in the Declaration of Independance? Ok.. I kind of get her link between pursuit of happiness, survival of the species and continued progress. Still... that is one huge leap to tie these subjects together. It kind of reminds me of creationists talking about thermodynamics.
And bringing back the Glass Steagall Act in order to put an end to the British Empire? What British Empire? And what would the Glass Steagall Act have to do with it if there still was one? While we are at it perhaps we can defeat the Roman Empire with Roe vs Wade?
Of course.. without all those movies people might actually get up off their fat asses now and then and actually live interesting lives.
nah.............
A well written response from Obamma or his cabinet that sounds nice but doesn't really promise any specific action
Christopher Dodd is publically fired
Christopher Dodd is privately well compensated. He will never be heard to complain publicly again.
A new leader of the MPAA is appointed and it is mostly back to business as usual but with some lessons learned.
Future efforts by the MPAA & RIAA continue to move in the same direction but take smaller steps... laws are bought with smaller scopes working slowly towards the same goal of destroying the internet. Huge, one stop power grabs like SOPA/PIPA aren't repeated for a while. On the other hand... ACTA has already been accepted in the US. Expect the fruits of that one to start appearing in 2013 or maybe 2014.
The internet apocalypse has been delayed. Hooray for the internet! We haven't won the war yet but we won a battle. Let's keep it up! Next fight ACTA? Too bad we didn't kill that one at an earlier stage of development though!
Hmm... That might make a great new petition! "Acknowledge all congressional votes and executive actions are bought anyway and set up a kickstarter-like site where anybody can pledge money towards passing/not passing any bill. At least this way anybody with a dollar can participate."
Of course such a system would be horrible and in no way would I actually want to see it happen but it isn't like it actually would be implemented. Getting 10s of thousands of signatures though would send a message of just how corrupt we know these people to be. Maybe it would humble them a little?
That's still a pretty big deal. If you can get that far you can probably compromise an individual user's data. Even if not you could probably at least start a browser pointed to some shock site. That could be a pretty big deal on a workplace or school computer.
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No, I'm not nostalgic about some particular mode of analog distortion like some old guy stuck on tube amplifiers. Yes, DVD, Blueray look better. When they work that is... Way too many times I've rented some movie just to find it is scratched beyond readability so many minutes into it, usually just as it starts getting interesting. Yes, VHS wears out. But it degrades gradually, it doesn't just stop playing. I remember crappy looking pictures on rented tapes that had been viewed too many times. So what? I still got to watch the whole movie! I could see the whole thing that night, without driving back to a store which may not be open by the time I get to the scratch. Or waiting days to send it back and get a possibly better copy from Netflix!
Then there is the players. If I can get a DVD or Blueray player to last 6 months I think I am doing good. I don't know what it is, they just stop. I suspect maybe the lasers? I remember using VHS players for 5 or 6 years at a time!
Sure, now I just use Netflix over the internet for movie rentals. It's convenient, that's great. It's really great for watching shows. The movie selection is still much smaller than it was at the stores. At any given time what is available is what is available. If you want to see some specific older movie you probably cannot. And you can't 'own' a copy of a movie this way. At least not legally. For that you have to buy the DVD or Blueray. Then it's back to scratch land. Yes, that doesn't happen so much if you take care of them. That's easy for all you single people. Try keeping the scratches off your discs when you have a messy wife (doesn't put them away) and a 2 y/o kid! Good luck with that! Yes, kids and wives could kill a VHS tape too but it seems much less likely. We still have some old movies around on VHS and none have died that way yet.
Doesn't that make them a 'better overlord?
According to the caption on the picture in tfa it is the PRINCIPLE ingredient of agent orange, not just another among many.
Tin foil is not aluminum foil. I imagine tin would take solder pretty well since most solder contains large amounts of tin already. The problem would be not burning or melting through the thin sheets. Maybe if you bunched it up into hat-form before you solder and even clip on a temporary heat sink behind the part you solder plus go very very carefully with a low wattage iron....
Yes, but the public also expects timely releases. Large customers expect their own pet features and they expect them yesterday.
Because the presidents have been overstepping their positions for a really long time now, probably ever since George Washington retired. No president (or whitehouse website lackey) is ever going to publicly spell out the president's limitations to have it thrown back in his face at some later date when he IS trying to 'direct the legal system'.
Yes, the responses, when there are responses to whitehouse.gov petitions are usually pretty bad. No, as far as I know no specific policy has been the result of a whitehouse.gov petition. People are frustrated and there is even a petition to take the petitions more seriously.
So what?
The cutoff point for a response to a petition is 25,000 signatures. The Chris Dodd petition was somewhere around 35,000 the last I checked. Would you really want Obama to take decisive actions based on the will of 25-35,000 people? We (the US) are a nation of over 300 million individuals! How much say should a mere 10s of thousands have?
However... 30 some thousand people bothered to sign it. Many probably had to go through the trouble to create accounts showing they cared more than just enough to click a link. Do you think this goes entirely unnoticed among the politicians? Please don't get me wrong, they are not going to suddenly become good. They are still getting all sorts of money and perks legal and otherwise from special interests including the movie and record industries. They can probably count on buying far more than 30,000 votes just by name recognition from the ads they can buy with lobbyist money. They aren't going to just throw that away. But they do know they can't be so bold about it. Elections are never more than 4 years away which means they will be considering both voters and campaign money. If we give up then the only voice they hear is the ones giving them the campaign money.
The world is not going to change because of our little petitions but they will make some small difference. Even if it is only a little subconscious influence on politicians minds as they make decisions in the future that is something.
Yes, if the government is going it's own way doing what it likes in spite of the people clearly trying to vote their opposition then the people should take up arms.
But when the people keep electing the same politicians and parties which do these things... When the people don't care or even do care and approve then whose right is it to kill? Should a minority opinion group overthrow an elected government just because they are right? Maybe they should if we are talking about some really extreme cases, for example if the majority is approving of genocide, slavery, etc... I don't think we are there yet.
For now we need to just keep making ourselves heard. Make sure the politicians know that there are enough of us to swing some votes and educate the public as best we can to try to make them care.
I think the misinformation was the idea that it is a piece of European legislation. I'm embarassed to say it came from here where I live, the US.
A more likely and more immediate future... the need for labor is severely diminished but not lost. This gives us two options. Either everybody works but significantly less hours than now. Or... some people stop working while the rest are the slaves.
I don't think we are there yet but we do have less work than previous generations. Currently much of this excess just goes into producing more throw-away goods. It's a constant struggle to produce more so that profit can increase resulting in more waste. We also have some of the labor (as in tasks to do) shortage taken up by executives doing less for their money.
Some day we will reach a crossroads which will eventually either lead to everyone working very short hours or a bottom few being the slaves of the rest. One difficulty we face today... if employers hire more people to work fewer hours they lose a lot of money buying more health care premiums. It is cheaper to hire a few people and give them overtime. That along could push us towards the darker path. Under the current system the alternative is that employees don't get healthcare and I certainly don't approve of that idea either.
Yeah but Apple has a great reputation to work for.
Really? And here I thought it was because internet news is more convenient, cheaper (usually free) and much easier to filter down to just the subjects one is interested in.
Actually... in a way that one part of what he said does have some truth. Note... he said white people discovered black, not Europe discovered Africa. Early people migrated from Africa to Europe, thus Africa discovered Europe but people would have continued to change on both continents. Do we even know what color those original people were? Thus when people reconnected again it was white people discovering black people.
The rest of the post of course is just hateful BS. So what if Europeans of a certain era took to the seas at a time when Africans were not? There was much time before that when Europeans could have built ships but didn't. It was far more likely a social coincidence and that caused things to happen when they did then any actual evolutionary advantage. The difference genetically between supposed races is less than that between individuals of the same race! Not to mention the fact that Africans were building ships and traveling to far places long before Europe and Africa regained contact. There is some evidence they may have made it all the way from Ghanna to South America! This is however currently unproven.
Except for that one
Ok. I just watched the video linked to by "the moon seems like small potatoes".
WTF is she talking about?
Travel to Mars = equality as stated in the Declaration of Independance? Ok.. I kind of get her link between pursuit of happiness, survival of the species and continued progress. Still... that is one huge leap to tie these subjects together. It kind of reminds me of creationists talking about thermodynamics.
And bringing back the Glass Steagall Act in order to put an end to the British Empire? What British Empire? And what would the Glass Steagall Act have to do with it if there still was one? While we are at it perhaps we can defeat the Roman Empire with Roe vs Wade?
Why bother? People are almost doing that voluntarily now. Just give it time.
Of course.. without all those movies people might actually get up off their fat asses now and then and actually live interesting lives.
nah.............
Is this what happens to us if we hope to hard for a scifi-ish future or does it require a bit of mis-wiring in the brain to get to that point?
A well written response from Obamma or his cabinet that sounds nice but doesn't really promise any specific action
Christopher Dodd is publically fired
Christopher Dodd is privately well compensated. He will never be heard to complain publicly again.
A new leader of the MPAA is appointed and it is mostly back to business as usual but with some lessons learned.
Future efforts by the MPAA & RIAA continue to move in the same direction but take smaller steps... laws are bought with smaller scopes working slowly towards the same goal of destroying the internet. Huge, one stop power grabs like SOPA/PIPA aren't repeated for a while. On the other hand... ACTA has already been accepted in the US. Expect the fruits of that one to start appearing in 2013 or maybe 2014.
The internet apocalypse has been delayed. Hooray for the internet! We haven't won the war yet but we won a battle. Let's keep it up! Next fight ACTA? Too bad we didn't kill that one at an earlier stage of development though!
Hmm... That might make a great new petition! "Acknowledge all congressional votes and executive actions are bought anyway and set up a kickstarter-like site where anybody can pledge money towards passing/not passing any bill. At least this way anybody with a dollar can participate."
Of course such a system would be horrible and in no way would I actually want to see it happen but it isn't like it actually would be implemented. Getting 10s of thousands of signatures though would send a message of just how corrupt we know these people to be. Maybe it would humble them a little?
That's still a pretty big deal. If you can get that far you can probably compromise an individual user's data. Even if not you could probably at least start a browser pointed to some shock site. That could be a pretty big deal on a workplace or school computer.
Hey I'll take one of those! Sounds like a good hardware platform to run Linux on to me!
Have you seen what the US does to countries that don't?
Yeah, that sounds exactly like something professor Thrun would want to do.
He did for the AI class