but by participating in the research group at all: they likely already have something wrong with them, and want to do something about it to get better. the first step to them was showing up.

personally: that alone IS a placebo. the remainder of completing the "ritual" or "study" is them proving to themselves that they WANT to get better.

ahead of time: I think the whole homeopathy thing is BS.

nonetheless: I do quite strongly believe that some people honestly WANT to get worse in life. it somehow makes them feel better to have people tell them "get well soon!" or "you're so hard done by!" though a completely alien idea to many: some people enjoy suffering.

some of those people will in earnest change their way of thinking throughout the course of their lives. when somebody with real liver cancer wakes up one morning and honestly says to themselves "I want to get better" after spending the entirety of their lives wanting to be worse and worse off, I honestly believe they have SOME ability to do something about it.

though you're right: when a completely medical issue occurs and is not treated as such it can be devastating, the same can be said for something that isn't caused due to biology.

IMHO: if you "will" your white blood cells (read, cause a cocktail of chemicals to be released into your bloodstream causing them to do as instructed) to attack your blood vesicle walls and this causes internal bleeding: to prevent further damage one must be on another cocktail for the remainder of their lives. where as simply convincing the mind to stop doing what it's doing, will solve the entire problem.

It always makes me wonder why people keep bringing that old term up!

pre-instant communication, not a whole lot of anything got done. when it takes weeks to find out if the place you want to go to exists or not (maybe it got bombed?), it's kinda a pain to plan ahead.

Wow, your district must suck balls for getting a court date, if there's 5 months required for juror selection.

if I was arguing a case, and had to wait six months from the date the overseeing judge agreed that a jury trial should be held, I'd transfer to another district.

around here, three months is pretty standard. most often there's two months notice for the 24 potential jurors, the first twelve to respond with their availability are selected, and if everything is arranged before the final date, your date get's bumped up. it's not unusual to only have three weeks during the winter.

I'm surprised you didn't have 50 people say to you: "uhhhh, you drag it to the trash, DUH!"

Unless I've done something terribly wrong, that would work out to 23.2 amps continuously drawn for 30 days, at $0.20/kWh.

I've got two full racks of equipment that sit JUST over that. (though power here is wonderful at $0.08/kWh!)

and to think that's only ~3-4 air conditioners running 24/7.

If you remember the bill, all you need to know if the price per kWh to get to the total.

multiply it by your service period (in my case, I pay quarterly) and you get the annual kWh. unrelated discussion though, how many people know the price they pay for electricity? Personally I only know mine because my province has one of the lowest energy rates in North America. :P

Hell, it's honest and gives people an idea about how the world really works.

I love it.

the language needs a little cleaning up, but I'll be putting it on my site later on.

Though I am a fan of a number of TV shows,

I do not have a TV, or cable of any sort in my home.

being that I currently spend months waiting for the shows to come to DVD, this is a LOT better than nothing.

you ever try picking up a NES cartridge from either?

Ebay: it will just be a third party version of the ROM flashed onto a hacked flash, (thus making it as illegal as the version you were getting online)
Bargain Store: You'll buy every copy in the city, only to find out that ONE of them works, but the flash has been written to so many times you can't save a game.

I disagree.

Personally, and like many of the people I know, I don't file-share because it saves me any money OR because I don't have money in the first place.

I do it because I'm not going to waste money giving it to a studio that does things I disagree with. I'll grab a copy of a CD and spend some time putting some research into the artist. If I feel that the artist deserves money from me: I'll gladly support the studio for signing, (as they did the artist a favor, and should be compensated for that work)

however, when I get a hold of a movie (or any other work for that matter) that was only put together because a bunch of people thought: "the masses will eat this up" and the limit of the creative talent contributed to the making of the film amounts to a single producer that has a history of suing people because he needs a new car this year,
I'll watch it, try and see if any of the people that worked on it have earned my purchase price from the work, and then decide if I'm going to support a studio that's just trying to live a short-sited life of "make as much money as you can, and screw every one", or not.

But then again: I'm also someone who watches (and appreciates) the credits to every film I see. So I guess I'm likely the minority.

to some degree. at the same time, it's now MUCH easier to self promote. it means more work: but that's life.

if enough people disagree with the license, and refuse to honor it, maybe it should be changed? rather than trying to sue everyone viloating it and ENSURING that you lose customers in the future, maybe we should start thinking about changing the agreement?

there was a day that slave agreements were handed out to the masses, they had no choice but to accept them, and they did not agree/broke the agreement as often as they could.

I REALLY hope you're kidding. Markets collapse. that's life. there's NOTHING Illegal about that, nor should there be.

Just because something somebody decided to make a living in stops being profitable, it's not up to the law to fix that.

Start a business, go give people BETTER software/music, BETTER licenses, BETTER terms, and take a segment of the people that are file-sharing and come up with a way to enhance that experience for a price.

When they start killing/physically harming/blackmailing/raping people, THEN get the law involved.

until then, try new business practices, or get into a different market. there's nobody holding a gun to your head and stopping you.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

you just stated: "what's wrong with a dictatorship?"

This is a democracy. if the majority of people agree on something, THAT IS THE LAW.

once you learn to type at 240wpm, to ATTEMPT to keep up with the 20 people you're trying to help in IRC, your spelling will go too. :P

well, Guess it's time to close that account then.

what a bunch of bullshit. I'm getting so tired of the the divide that's developing.