Firstly, Pioneer One is a very low production value show, I don't think it'd even be picked up by an American syndicator.
I stopped reading there and ignored the rest of the argument: syndicates are no-value-add groups that skim off the top. They used to be the only way of doing business, and so got away with it. But why would you use one anymore?
the Wall Street Journal has fallen far under murdochs ownership.
Depending on how you word that, I'd agree. It's very obviously under Murdoch's direct influence. The decision to publish this story (as opposed to any other) is almost certainly in retaliation to Google's public opposition to SOPA/PIPA, about which Murdoch has already vociferously expressed his (ahem) disapproval.
They could have ignored the issue entirely if they were planning to let it pass. It is not like this issue is something covered on Fox
Of course Fox isn't going to cover it. I gotta support any action of the Prez that Murdoch hates, really.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/15/murdoch_twitter_rant_sopa/
But if Google's monopoly power has ensured that they are by far the best search engine, because they can afford (as monopolist) better spiders, more defences against link farms and so on, then the alternatives are no good. As I said, if there are many equal search engines it doesn't matter if one is slanted. But the allegation being raised by the Senate is that there are no other "good" search engines, except Bing. That was my point about monopolists: if Google has destroyed, by being better, all other search engines, then the demands for fairness made on it are higher than if it has face-to-face competitors. Your point is a bit like saying that, if there is a monopoly car manufacturer but you consider its cars unsafe, you can always walk.
I am not sure the allegation of being a monopolist holds water, but my reply was couched on the basis that it is, as alleged. IF Google is a monopolist THEN there are no alternative good search engines SO the government is entitled to demand impartiality from Google. IF the initial premise is false, then the whole response does not apply.
Your real point is whether entry costs for startups are prohibitively high, enough so that a free-market cannot exist: a "natural monopoly." You speculate that they are, and that Google has a "natural monopoly." I, and most others, would disagree. If you want to look at real examples of natural monopolies, you should better focus on the airlines. They are often touted as textbook examples.
I don't watch pro sports because I can't relate to it. It's not interesting. Now college and lower are really interesting. There are huge differences in the athletes and you can see it. Mistakes happen so you can compare perfection to imperfection. Coaches matter too. And everyone is having fun. Pro just kills it. If they are going to go pro I'd like to see them go all the way and allow super modified cyborg humans compete.
I don't know why this was moderated "off-topic", it's relevant, albeit a bit of an "end game" perspective... At some level, the "purity" of a sport comes into play, and this "technological" decision is directly tied to that. Right now, we have human beings playing sports and human beings coaching sports. We disallow unfair augmentation of players (i.e., performance-enhancing drugs), not only because it would become a race-to-the-bottom for player health, but also because it removes that sense of fairness we currently perceive by "limiting" the players to the gifts with which you were born.
If coaching introduced technology without limits, it'd end up like Wall Street: a massive technological arms race to compute the "right" outcome faster than the opponents, and humans would be eliminated from the picture. YMMV, but I'm not interested in watching a sporting contest like that.
Agreed. That is a real problem with the way our legal system approaches these issues. Malicious intent really should be a required component of the crime.
I hope this is a whoosh moment, but mens rea does exist.
I don't want to constantly have to fix things getting broken and I want to be able to fully utilize whatever hardware I have and Linux just doesn't fit the bill.
This. I dual-boot to Win7/Ubuntu, but I almost never use linux anymore. I purchased a Samsung BDROM going on 2-3 years ago, and it's still not supported AT ALL in linux. The kernel hangs on boot for 60-120 seconds, and then it just punts the entire piece of hardware from my system, requiring a hard power off before even my BIOS can find the device.
In Windows 7, it just works. I didn't have to find any device driver, or install anything from disc.
It also doesn't help that Ubuntu up and changed everything and made it now near impossible to use the desktop.
The faster a job gets done, the less juice that's used.
Right. And if you drive home faster you use less fuel. Not.
There's more sources of battery drain on a phone than just the processor working on a set problem. The screen is probably the biggest or second-biggest power drain. If you spend 1/4th of the time with the screen on because you don't need to wait as long for the phone to perform whatever operation, I wager you will see net battery savings.
I pray that the day after this law passes, a biology teacher somewhere in the state walks into his classroom and spends the entire day showing how the fossil record contradicts the silly Genesis story in the Bible--knowing he's now protected by a law that says his principal and angry parents can't do jackshit to stop him.
That's how I read this language: a teacher could, just as easily, discuss Darwinian Evolution or any other of the various scientific topics usually slandered by the Religious Right without any fear of reprisal. The bill doesn't seem to force the discussion, and so is not the issue. If any beef were to arise from it, I'd point my finger at the "science" teacher.
I wouldn't call it voter apathy. I would simply say most voters are more concerned about whether or not they will be able to afford rent or the mortgage next month, or have enough money left after taxes to take their kids on that vacation, or even just be able to put good, healthy food on the table for them. When ordering priorities for a lot of people, being able to listen to music in any format they want or being able to stream the newest episode of whatever TV show online falls pretty low on the list.
+1
In addition to those very fine reasons, I'd add that many people rely upon the news media for an update on "what's important," while it has historically been in the same news media's interest not to discuss IP laws or copyright reform. It needn't be malicious intent, either; discussion on COICA or other complicated topics may simply not "sell" as well as the current local/worldwide disaster. Many topics are worthy for discussion, but there's only so much time in a day.
That's true. You can actually even get cheaper monthly plans and no contract if they don't subsidize your phone. There's quite a few iPhones on TMO's network.
If you already own your own phone, this is true. A while back I did a side-by-side with comparable plans* from within T-Mobile and with comparable plans from Verizon. For the total cost over a 24-month period, it was cheaper to get a subsidized phone and pay the higher monthly fee than it was to lay out the unlocked phone cost and pay the slightly lower monthly fee.
* Family plan with shared minimum amount of minutes, 2 smart phones, both with data packages, no texting or other add-ons.
I can assure you that you will have NO effect on Sony, and even less on the personal fortunes of those who make these decisions
Look what bad PR did for Toyota. And, in that case, it was (since latest findings indicate there were no actual problems) bad PR alone. It can work wonders, it just needs to reach critical mass and get some publicity. So, to the GP, keep spreading the "good" word.
I think it would result in a shockingly fair society.
Your description of small town / village life is pretty accurate up till that point. Knowing everyone elses business doesn't make them any less spiteful, arrogant, tyrannical, whatever, it just means they're output is better at leveraging their influence given more input data. The vast majority of people don't find small village life to be ideal living conditions.
Well, since everything those "spiteful, arrogant, tyrranical" people would do would also be transparently visible by the public, I think it would be one of those "people who live in glass houses" situations.
If your house doesn't have enough TVs for everyone and you all want to watch something different then this will come in handy.
A 50" state-of-the-art TV costs as much as an iPad. If you don't have enough TVs, this seems like an poor solution for all but the very most fringe cases.
I don't think this is all that outlandish. It's about equality, and in some senses, openness. If everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was tracked, chipped, monitored, followed, & watched AND the information was 100% transparent and available to EVERYONE, then well... sure, it'd be a great place to live. In all your 1984 dystopian scenarios, there's an elite segment that isn't subject to the same rules as the masses---arguably, there exists an elite segment in today's society that isn't subject to the same rules as the masses---and it's also a "who watches the watchers" issue. IMHO, alot of the issues that currently exist stem from a lack of (perceived and real) fairness in multiple aspects of life. Even the playing field and make the surveillance universal & transparent, allow everyone to freely monitor everyone else, and I think it would result in a shockingly fair society.
Of course, in theory. I don't know if it could be implemented in practice, and therein lies the rub.
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -- Mike Adams
