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Comment Re:What Tesla doesn't get is Marketing (Score 1) 328

Bear in mind that a film crew costs tens of thousands of dollars *per hour* - simply running the car until it ran out when they had no need of extra footage would have been hugely wasteful. And at no point in the film did they say it had run flat, they simply said that they worked out that on their track at the rate it was draining, it would have run out in xx miles.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 357

Well, all software (that people use voluntarily) is used because it makes people more productive in some way - the thing that's significant about Open Source is that all it's costs are directly convertible to time, whereas proprietary software's costs are usually financial. If you can easily convert your time into money, than proprietary software is probably a good fit for you, but if converting your time into money is hard or inefficient, being able to trade a monetary cost for a temporal cost is a good deal.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 357

Er, non sequitur. Just because someone isnt using OpenOffice (or libre), doesnt mean theyre not using a word processor. Just because youre not using Audacity, doesnt mean youre not doing sound editing.

Your statement would only be true if it could be shown that all Open Source software is inherently better at the task it sets out to do than proprietary; and we can look at the state of graphics drivers on linux (noveau vs nVidia blobs) and see an immediate, disproving counter-example.

If there were no opportunity costs, that would be correct. Because there are opportunity costs, Open Source only has to be better than whatever else was an option given the resources available. If I am an aspiring developer living on $ramen/week, I cannot afford to purchase high end %dev environment, %office software, %operating system, and %hardware, but I might be able to purchase %hardware and use open source for the rest, and thus still be productive.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 3, Interesting) 357

Open-source can also stimulate economic activity through sales of support contracts, new equipment, etc. What a recession does is it keeps people where they are, regardless of the sort of license they have -- they know what they have, they don't want to spend money learning something new, and the license they bought two years ago is still just as good today as it was when they were rich.

Open Source actually stimulates economic activity inherently - it makes people more productive. If people are using open source software, it (in most cases) is doing something that they want done, thus freeing up their time for other pursuits, or allowing them to be more productive in the same amount of time.

Comment Re:Porn? (Score 1) 664

And the folks that claim that giving equal rights to the GLBT community is somehow undermining their rights. These are not people engaging in legitimate free speech, nor is there a good faith effort on their part to do so.

So people who disagree with you are, by definition, not engaging in legitimate free speech because they didn't engage in a good faith effort to agree with you?

Wow.

From another forum:
"You either support the right of people to say things that offend you or you don't believe in freedom of speech." -Cekim.

That's all there is to it, really.

Comment Re:Interpret it correctly (Score 1) 676

I believe he was saying that you were wrong for claiming the definition of arms had changed. In that regard, he is correct. The definition of Arms has not changed, however the willingness of the American government to abide by the document from which their authority flows has decreased. Perhaps because the people have shown no signs of concern for their rights and freedoms, so long as the government keeps using the word "terrorism".

Comment Re:Interpret it correctly (Score 2, Interesting) 676

I can find you a lot of free speech activists who don't have a problem with the obscenity conviction of Max Hardcore.

Some people lack critical thinking skills, some people lack conviction, and some people believe that rights should be limited. Doesn't make any of 'em right.

To be fair to the NRA, they aren't really a gun-rights group, and haven't been in my lifetime. They're primary mission seems to be to keep compromising on gun rights whenever put to the test. Now the JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) on the other hand, have a little more... clarity.

Comment Re:A Better Target (Score 1) 676

To be fair, what most of those people say is: "If it isn't part of the governments constitutionally enumerated powers, the government has no power to regulate it." What that actually means is that the government does not have the power to regulate cars (you can own whatever you want) but has the power to regulate roads (you can't drive it on the roads unless).

Of course, since the government manage to arrange it so that it has most of the guns (and all of the big ones), it has started to regulate things based on the ancient tradition of "just try and stop us".

Comment Re:Interpret it correctly (Score 2, Insightful) 676

How the militia should be regulated has no bearing on the right of the people, right? It doesn't say anything about the right of the militia.

As for what constitutes Arms, well, that term hasn't changed much, it still means weapons. As where they have the right to keep and bear them, well, if the people have the right to keep and bear arms, (except in certain places), that (except in certain places) part would infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms, right? The language is pretty clear on infringement, is it not?

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