They actually know better, and acknowledge it in their advertising, although subtly.

"Own it today on Blu-Ray or DVD!"

They have advertised the product for PURCHASE, not LEASE. It's OWNED by the buyer, not LICENSED to them. After making that statement in their advertising, they can not enforce a "non-transferable license" unless we LET them.

eBooks SHOULD cost less, because costs of printing, distribution and storage are effectively ZERO. Previous analysis of this demonstrates that approximately 65% of the cost of a hardback is eliminated by the eBook (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/08/1655202/publishers-warned-on-ebook-prices). So a hardback priced at $25 should be about $9 as an eBook.

I refer you to http://baen.com/ Best ebook sellers on the planet, in my opinion.

If the publishers were selling eBooks at a 65% markdown compared to their hardbacks, they would see less piracy. Baen books are hardly ever found on piracy sites, according to the publisher.

I am fully in favor of the first sale doctrine and the existence of a used market in eBooks and other digital media. But I also see the arguments opposing duplication. There is no question in MY mind that I OWN these piles of bits; but until the technology catches up, what I see as the ethical choice is to DELETE materials I transfer to others, to deal directly with the original publishers when I cannot ensure my seller is deleting their copy, and only do business with companies whose business practice reflects my own opinions. Like Baen.

It's the same problem that the printing press created: "anybody" could print and sell these books. It's what the copyright developed to control. By current copyright law, Ben Franklin was a pirate.

https://xkcd.com/488/

> Not owning a firearm does preclude you from being part of a "well regulated militia"

Errrrrrr, NO.

According to US law, you probably ARE in the militia. If you are an able-bodied male, 17-45 years of age, and are or intend to become a citizen, or you are a female in the National Guard, YOU ARE THE MILITIA.

See "10 U.S. Code  311 - Militia: composition and classes"

"UNITED STATES CODE
TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES
Subtitle A - General Military Law
PART I - ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS
CHAPTER 13 - THE MILITIA

                                Ãf 311. Militia: composition and classes

                                (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

                                (b) The classes of the militia are --

                                (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia;

                                and

                                (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."

As a member of the national militia, do you own a weapon or weapons similar to standard military issue, and are you familiar and proficient with their operation and maintenance?

And I'm sure the women who've been raped, robbed and murdered in their own homes feel that their treatment by law enforcement has been stellar and that their tormentors are all brought to justice.

Not as much as the women who've been robbed and murdered in their own homes by their own firearms. There are 2.7 times more of them. And certainly not as much as the women who have been murdered by people they knew with their own firearms. Thee are 21 TIMES more of them.

Not logically possible. The statistic the first poster posits must necessarily include EVERY member of the statistic the second poster posits, and therefore CANNOT be smaller. Any set can not be smaller than one of its own subsets.

Just sayin'.

Not even the most reactionary gun owner will claim that ALL gun owners are responsible. That said, 2600 out of 110 million gun owners is...about 1 in 42000, or .0024%.

In almost any rational discussion, this number rounds to zero.

No doubt that is why some of the most active Esperanto organizations in the world are in China, Korea, and Japan.

Bonan tagon!

When I was 11, my friend and I rode the bus downtown 15 miles each way, missed the start of "Star Wars", hung around for an hour and a half for the next showing, watched the movie, and rode the bus home.

30 mile round trip, 6 hours unsupervised, and we had no trouble at all. And as many have pointed out, the world is even safer now.

Yes, I know that "Anecdote is not Data". However, it is clear that:

* The Meitivs did NOT break current law, which does not cover outdoors (Why? The ones who made the law wanted to let their kids go to the park, that's what I'm thinking...);
* The police will not accept the word of a child that they do not need any help and are on their way home;
* The government will interrogate our children without our permission or presence because they are in school.

I'm on the Meitiv's side here, obviously.

Because nerds have kids, too.

"Unfortunately, Rachel's maneuver placed the car in the intersection, going the wrong way. Her sudden appearance in the cross-lanes caused cars to veer in all three dimensions and windshields in at least a half dozen cars turned blue as the auto-pilots went into spastic fault-mode."

from "Let's Go to Prague!", by John Ringo.

In the Honorverse timeline, this is about 4020 AD.

Well, I did read the article. I did not immediately watch the video, and now that I have, I'm still not impressed.

The strength of the tool is NOT the averaging of multitudes of shapes, which is what is essentially advertised. Instead, it is in finding images in the set that conform to what the user selects: filtering, not combining.

So, the "average" of blue butterfly wings with this shape is that they are blue and have this shape. You're not AVERAGING, you're FILTERING.

Or, given this "average" nose, find the "average" ears.

This tool is not as demonstrated primarily an averaging tool, but a filtering tool to eliminate everything that is not arbitrarily close to the arbitrary average. I'm sure there are cases where that is useful, but it's NOT the described function.

Automatically correlating equivalency points is nice, but not new. Morphing between the images is fun, but not new. Autoalignment of equivalency points is nice, but not new.

Putting it all in one tool is good, though.

So...what the software demonstrates is that if you line up all the pictures of cats by centering them on their noses, you will CLEARLY see...

...that the average cat has a nose.

The rest is blurry and remarkably uninformative.

There needs to be a LOT more intelligence, either machine or human, applied to this before it is remarkable.

You're probably ALREADY serving in the militia, by US law:

"UNITED STATES CODE
TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES
Subtitle A - General Military Law
PART I - ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS
CHAPTER 13 - THE MILITIA

                Ã 311. Militia: composition and classes

                (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

                (b) The classes of the militia are --

                (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia;

                and

                (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."

They'll poll damn well after the next attack ...

And they'll STILL be wrong.

I have an unheated chicken coop. 100W is just enough to keep the ice on the water bowl thin most mornings, and the light is what triggers the hens to keep laying into the winter.

If I use a lower-wattage light, I get less heat. For my purpose, an incandescent bulb is 100% efficient.

Should I be installing a heat pump in my coop? I don't think so...

So, both the physical S and N ends of the sun are magnetic S? Where is the N magnetic pole?

Big damn monopole.