I don't actually think that would happen. Granted, I haven't given this _that_ much thought, but I think the price of SMS;s could be loosely modeled as a function of a monopoly. For certain, the prices doesn't follow the regular price structures of a market in competition and it in no way reflects the underlying cost. Thus, assuming monopoly model, the price the carriers are charging are the highest the market will bear and any additional cost will be taken on by the company itself.

I seriously doubt there is anything even resembling 'after hours' in a chip fabrication plant that can crank out i7 CPUs. If you have a plant you run it like there is no tomorrow and then you run it some more.

Though it might be convenient inside your own head, making up labels using pre-existing words with pre-existing definitions is generaly considered a bad idea and frowned upon.

No doubt are there differences in how the Hungarian regime used to run Hungary and how the current Chines regime runs China. That is not a reason to assume that one is communism and the other is socialism.

In fact, the very notion that just the fact that they are different is justification to use your labeling system is simply absurd.

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't ascribe communism to either of the regimes as the word is originaly and properly defined. If I were to pick one, granted I would go with your pick as well. Sadly, that doesn't render any credibility to your argument.

To finish things of, let me just give you an example I once heard (in my own words since I can not recall the exact example); just because you are in a New York bar sitting next to a guy from India doesn't mean you should take his word for the current state and reasons for intricate Indian monetary policies. He is just a random Indian guy. Being from Hungary hardly makes you and all hungarian people experts on communism and it certainly doesn't lend you much in the way of credibillity on Chinese governing systems.

Take a long, hard look at what you wrote and realise that the building blocks of your reasoning are not useable. Using this kind of reasoning strategy is rarely advisable and gets you nowhere. Even if the main point of your reasoning is a true one your logical fallacies opens you up to numerous vectors of attack and lets an opponent remove your base. Better luck next time.

I don't quite agree. Assuming you start a chain of reasoning with a boolean argument, such that one depends on gods existence and the other depends on gods non-existence, valuable things can come from it.

Locate a place down the two chains where another boolean position exists between the two strains of reasoning. This might be a place where an observable/measurable truth is predicted or where a philosophical truth is stated.

Either way, you can now look at the world / your worldview, pick the chain of reasoning that fits in that point and trace it back to the initial assumption..

Not always the best, the easiest or the most correct approach but for sure not even close to useless. In many instances it is in fact very usefull. You might benefit from it if you try it.

And that makes sense. We're physical beings. The alignment, balance, symmetry of ourselves as physical bodies - of course that makes a difference, sometimes a big one, in our health. The anti-chiropractic camp would ask us to believe, what?, that we're pure spiritual essence, to which the body is so secondary even in regards to the body's own health that only our mental attitude - as adjusted of course by whatever drugs an orthodox physician might decide to prescribe - makes an "objective" difference in healing?

I don't think anyone is saying that you can't have physical problems with your spine nor that it can't influence several areas of your body (break it and if you had that delusion you will lose it quickly enough).

What is being said (by the people that aren't just parroting "chiropractics doesn't work") is this: The things that they do _do not_ do what they claim they do.

It is a logical fallacy to think that just because something is important (the spine) someone that claims to do good things to it are in fact doing this. The two are not connected. In fact, they are disjoint in two places.

Take these two examples:

1) The practice is wrong but the practitioner think it's right.

2) The practice is wrong and the practitioner think it's wrong.

I'm sure a lot of chiropractors are in the 1st camp and this, just like the homeopathic movement, confuses matters. People try to use trust, judgement of character and the beliefs of the practitioner to judge the truth of a matter when the startingpoint needs to be a completely different one.

I'll mention it again. The core of the distrust: The things that they do _do not_ do what they claim they do. It might help you (and it might help others). It is besides the point, sadly.

That said, I'm glad it helps you (and other posters). I find it hard to tell people to not do something that helps them. Without something else to sugest as an option it is just stupid.

Not to sound rude but how do you actually look at the world? Does it seem like magic to you? Does it not occur to you that the value of a (theoretical) company that owns all the h.265 IP will be pretty much exactly the current value of the future license fees - any debt + any other property and future options?

You can be expected to understand the laws in the 'areas' in which you live your life.

Don't own a farm? Not expected to know and understand the laws related to that.

Don't run a newspaper? Editorial laws and other regulations are not a required reading for you.

Plan on driving a car? Better brush up on those chapters.

Of course this is a slight oversimplification and I agree that in some areas it has gone to extremes. What I'm trying to show is that the somewhat witty and often heard responce that you gave is not as clear-cut as it can easily sound.

I suppose that the point is -- if there was no copyright, there would be no need for the GPL because you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

From my, admittedly limited, knowledge of the GPL it stems from copyright law and not contract law; i.e. given the limits imposed on you due to a copyright claim on a certain software you are granted ADDITONAL rights. Thus, no copyright, no need for the GPL.

On a slightly less legal and more philosophical plane, the GPL is there to prevent something once free from turning non-free and thus limit people from using it as they want. Without copyright you could just 'liberate' it again. Disassemble and rewrite if need be. The focus on 'contributing back' takes a back seat to this.

I am way to lazy to even point you to an url that describes the 'time value of money' and explain what you did wrong in your calculations. I'll just ask you this highly theoretical question: Would you rather have $1000 in your hand today or next month? The rest is left as an exercise to the reader. I swear, people on slashdot sometimes make me actually regret getting a degree in economics. It's the same feeling as when you watch computer programing/hackers in Hollywood movies. Makes you slap your forehead and go 'doh'!

For all intents and purposes, the flow of time from my perspective was different than normal.

More likely, your memory of the event as you look back at it makes it seem like time was slower. As I understand it, the brain has something very much like a short buffer memory that it can use for instant replays. You notice this in situations like when someone at the table next to you say your name. It's not like you react to every word starting with 'b' or 'be'. Instead, the brain is playing it back to you (and in your case probably with a slower speed than the actual event).

Thus, the memory you now think you have of the event is more likely a memory of the instant replay that your brain did for you. Some childhood memories are like this too. You don't actually remember the even itself but you have a memory of a memory. The brain is a strange place.

Yeah. Like huge oil production for a country with a small population. Rumor has it, if every Norwegian were given their "fair share" of the oil production when they hit 18, every single one of them would be a millionaire. If this is true or not, I don't know. But just comparing GDP from two so different economies is almost as pointless as comparing net output.

As a Swede though, I ask myself, what would their GDP be if it wasn't for the oil (and, erm, cod) and would they again be 'little brother'? =)

Let me preface this by saying I dislike the whole 'web OS' crap that Starforce, among others, represent. Useless. At least for me. Maybe there is a target group out there for this stuff too. I would like to get hold of the underlying software though to run on my own server. Does anyone know if this is possible/available?

There is every now and again a moment when it could be useful. I have my own documents saved on my server (mostly) and I could certainly set up rsync'ish capabilities (or something similar) to have it mirrored completely. All this stuff, useless as it is living on someone elses hardware could actually sometimes be useful living on your own. Also it could be amusing to experiment with.

I seem to remember some vnc java applet that I guess could technically do something similar, but handled correctly I think this could be better (as in not completely suck as the VNC sollution did when I last tried it).

Shouldn't that be Chanandler Bong?

Yes, speeds are survivable. Now try to actually find some torrents... What is needed is not a better client (though it wouldn't hurt) but they need to reach a 'critical mass' of users.