Yes there are. We probably outnumber 'people like you'.

99% of the work I do could (and is) done on a 4 year old laptop. I can't remember what CPU is in it (AMD, Intel, TI-99?) and couldn't be bothered to look it up. If I need to know, I'll figure it out then.

When it breaks, I'll do a little research and get a new one, but since my price bracket will likely be sub $1000, I'm much more interested in how much ram is on board, does the chassis run cool, is there a built in webcam for skype calls and is the keyboard sensibly laid out (to name a few). The ergonomics and features of the system are so much more important than the CPU to me, I can't imagine spending more than an hour or so googling to make sure there are no CPU's to avoid.

The graphics workstations we purchase for the artists in the company are another matter, and I could recite the specifications for those to a ridiculous level of detail.

Doesn't that mean you aren't part of the sample set at all?

I'm not dissing your whole idea here, but the infrastructure to provide the movies the way you describe IS a distribution channel, and has it's own costs. Costs which are not necessarily cheaper than pressing a bunch of dvd's and sending them out.

The physical media and packaging is not the bulk of what you are paying for.

Having said that, I'm part of the movie making business - I do this for a living. So while I'm with you on the need for better distribution channels, anyone who starts spouting those crap justifications of cost, convenience, blah blah blah as reasons why they download and distribute copies without paying can go to court, in my opinion. (and hell). And yes, bittorrent is distribution.

Your leverage as a consumer is NOT to consume products whose value you feel is not worth the cost. These are movies, not necessities..

Note: not accusing parent poster of this mindset, as he said nothing that would lead me to think he justifies his/her actions this way. Just venting.

Oh you are that GUY.

      Die.

Seriously, if you can't see how it might be distracting for the person behind you when you pull out you nice bright shiny phone and start messing with it in a theater, you either lack basic intelligence, or eyes. The other possibility is that you are trolling - if so, grow up a little.

I kind of hope you are trolling, because I keep hoping the human race can't possibly contain members as stupid as you sound right now.

Wait, you walked out on a MOVIE that explored the concept of pre-crime as a moral dilemma 10 minutes into it? I don't get it. Are you only able to watch happy romantic comedies, and early adam sandler movies?

Read some of the comments above, or Peter Watts own blog. The fact is that he was traveling out of Michigan, not into Michigan. Just that simple fact alone is wrong. The press coverage is entirely unreliable.

I agree, I want to see the video. I am a Canadian citizen living in California. To be honest, traveling to and from the United States has become nightmarish. We have enough anecdotal tales from other posters, I won't add mine. But I can certainly sympathize with someone reacting poorly to Customs officials rooting through my trunk while I was forced to remain in the front seat.

The address for sending Freedom of Information requests was posted in a comment above, but I'll post it again.

Paul Colpitts
Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator
410 Laurier Avenue West, 11th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0L8
Telephone: 613-941-7431
Facsimile: 613-957-6408
ATIP-AIPRP@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca

If you are a Canadian citizen, and you want to know, send that in. I've met Peter Watts, he struck me as a very reasonable man. I'd certainly like to know more.

Raise your hand if this sounds like something you WANT the department of homeland security to be worrying about.

[crickets]

That's what I thought.

Nah, If you plan on providing criticism on the syntax of pseudo code (which is absurd), I can only reply to the sheer ridiculousness by pointing out how your own code is unsafe.

See, I write a lot of code in languages you probably have a glib and witty remark about, like Lua. In Lua, the command

    if (isTrue)

would return true if isTrue was equal to 7, or 0, or 1, or a table, or anything at all other than explicitly false. So all your check does is see if isTrue is defined, not if its value is true. Thats imprecise, and the sort of lazy bullshit programming that causes bugs.

I don't code in pseudo code, so I am not familiar with the language definitions - maybe it works the same way :-).

Such a typical programmer/geek response. It's still a problem - you just found a workaround. Doesn't mean it doesn't need to be fixed :-)

Amen. Unfortunately there will always be elitist arses who think that just because they know a little bit about some obscure topic, anyone who doesn't is a lazy slacker. I don't have any need for asset tracking of this nature at the moment, but i found the topic interesting, and learned something from the few comments that have appeared so far. The politics and YRO topics bore me to tears. These topics are why I still bother to visit this site.

You sir, are every IT departments nightmare.

I send you a text, you respond when you have time. I call you, you have to choose between ignoring me and taking my call. Texting is asynchronous, where a conversation is synchronous. Granted, I can communicate more information in a short amount of time with a phone conversation, but if my issue is non-critical then texting is often more effective.

I am talking about texting from a business prospective here. I often text sales staff on the road, who may well be in a meeting, or contractors on a noisy job site. A director in a meeting with an artist. In all these cases texting not only gets them the information they need without them having o interrupt some other task, it also avoids the need for them to grab a pen or some other device - I just include the information. No lost or misunderstood numbers or names.

Now social texting does confuse me. "OMG! I am at the inaugaration". Why???