i ran like this for about 2 1/2 years. for the first year, i really knew what i wanted to watch and it was great, though it did require patience as some things weren't readily available quickly*. after that, i realized everyone was talking about tv shows i hadn't even heard of, but sounded interesting. i didn't realize just how much of my tv discoveries (and movie discoveries for that matter) were made by watching tv. there are certainly ways around this, but none of them come as naturally as surfing.

* -- i'm the rare slashdotter who refuses to torrent content. as evil as the mpaa/riaa may be, if i don't fork over something at some point, the creative process chokes. luckily, nowadays, most shows are available through itunes, hulu or similar.

you've really hit upon three fully-scalable, widely-deployable solutions here. i can't imagine how any of the daytime-drama-watching, qvc-product-buying masses out there could not figure any of these out on their own. actually, come to think of it, maybe they're already on to "Solution 3."

we (yes, i work for directv) seem to be leading the pack when it comes to energy star stb's and have for at least a couple years now. the usual pros and cons of satellite vs cable and directv-service vs other-services apply of course. all in all, despite the hate directv has drawn from slashdot in the past, i think it's a pretty compelling choice nowadays.

the key here is "animal testing is often not even a good substitute for human testing." the progress of synthetic skin is mildly interesting, but it seems barely relevant to the topic of animal testing. of much more relevance is whether animal testing results are useful in a scientific sense. given that most of the science done in the name of developing correlations to humans, animal testing seems to have a rather poor track record. thalidomide is one of the more prominent examples, though, ironically, also a big factor in the public getting upset and wanting animal testing.

one rogue employee at ford constitutes "chinese culture?"

semantics aside, let's not forget that it wasn't THAT long ago that american cities' skies were choked with pollution (clean air act 1963), its rivers nothing but convenient places to dump lots of industrial waste (sort of still true, albeit not to the levels china is probably doing, but maybe was prior to 1970) and its workforce was abused (8hr workday wasn't generally accepted until 1937). that was with a relatively slow march through industrialization to today, perhaps 120 years or more. china is blasting through the same stages of development in, what, 20 years, maybe less?

more specifically on the issue of ip infringement, however, is that a deeply rooted chinese value is to make maximal use of what you have. in that sense, the very idea of something intellectual being property is relatively new to china. the thinking is something like "if i know how to do something and i'm not hurting anyone, why should i be prevented?" it's sort of a natural extension to the proverb "give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime." in short, what you call "ip infringement" is, from a different perspective, just putting shared knowledge to use. don't get me wrong, ip infringement does indeed happen in china, but it's certainly not a central tenet of chinese culture. it can't be because the very notion of ip is not central to most chinese people's thinking.

i understand that this rather simple notion of sharing can not be applied to modern-day technological business. it takes tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of person-years to design and make an innovative, modern train. if that cost can't be recuperated, innovation isn't sustainable and use of knowledge actually does hurt the people who originated that knowledge. my point is simply that there is a tendency to characterize china as cesspool where there are no rules and to use trivializing negative language to describe what happens there when, in fact, they're going through a lot of similar growing pains other nations have been through, there is a lot of good, cool stuff happening in china and a deeper understanding of their way of thinking would bring to light the rules that seem so slippery to a different base set of values.

now, if only nasa data could reveal the industrialized nations' industrial air pollution and vilify it enough, the governments of the world will surely act and put a stop to it.

but, seriously, why does every comment that gets modded up anytime china is involved one that treats the country as though it were the borg? "them," "they," and "the nation," as though there's no diversity of thought, opinion or action amongst over a billion people. i think that outlook's never-ending claims about chinese citizens being brainwashed is itself the stronger example of brainwashing.

funny how there's controversy over whether "one" means "at least one" or "exactly one," but "two children" means "exactly two children." to do this properly, you need to know how likely it is that the person has three children, four children, five children, six children,..., 6.7 billion children. after all, this person may consider the all humans his/her children.

well, i might have said "civil engineers" when it comes to bridge-building instead of "mechanical" (please don't hate me, mech e's), but otherwise i agree wholeheartedly.

i think the planet may have something to say about this.

uh, doesn't prosperity require an underclass bigger than the prosperous class?

don't forget the sports book. though you make your bet with the house, you're really betting against everyone on the other side of your bet. as armb said, you do have to clear the house margin and few can, but you're not really playing against the house.

an obvious way to make money then is to not play against the house. the sports book and poker, for example, squarely pit player against player, in which case winning is not necessarily an anomaly.

i'm not sure why initial interest is the ruling factor. i would think retention is more important.

it would be interesting to see the breakdown of women and men at the companies involved in foss (ie, where money is not a determining factor). until someone finds that data, i'm sure we'll be throwing conjecture at each other until neither of us can type any longer. i certainly respect what you're saying about hobbyists, but corporate foss is growing at quite a rapid pace.

agreed. when you do that, you will account for those making under 30% of the contributions to linux.

i just think you have to include those making the remaining 70+% too.

okay, but times have changed. when you have such a significant contribution from non-hobbyists, saying that hobbying is the primary factor is rather unlikely.