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Comment Re:A firearm that depends on a battery? (Score 4, Insightful) 1374

That's why a revolver makes a better home defense gun than one with a clip and a slide and a safety. Those guns jam and misfire much more often when left there untouched for a year or more than the much more simple mechanism in a plain revolver.

You probably shouldn't be using a gun for home protection if you're going to let it sit untouched for a year or more.

Comment Re:huh? (Score 2) 328

> watch a few hours of commercials every week, and maybe a few hours of actual show.

If you're ratio of commercial:content on basic cable is anywhere close to 1:1, then you're doing it wrong. Even if you don't use a DVR, the actual ratio on the vast majority of networks is 1:2, or about 18-20 minutes of ads and 40-42 minutes of show every hour.

> Every single time I surf the menu and see something that looks appealing, and change the channel, it's right to 5 minutes of commercials.

That's because you surf away from channel A during the commercials, so of course there are going to be commercials on the other channel. The breaks are all coordinated. It's the same with terrestrial radio. Occasionally there is a network that offsets it's programming by 5 minutes (I think TBS did this for a long time), but those usually don't last long, and revert to the standard of starting on the hour with breaks on the 10s.

Comment Re:Netfilx works (Score 5, Insightful) 111

It's no small feat the transcoding automation they must have built to take the mezzanine files that they get delivered to them and create the packages of multi-bitrate, DRM-wrapped files that the consumer eventually sees. There are only a handful (maybe only 3) of companies that can do this on any type of scale.

Comment Re:Fuck 'em (Score 1) 344

People can't use the subtitles as a stand alone work:

When I was in school, I read scripts of plays. Seems analogous to a script of a movie. I agree that there is definitely more value to having a visual performance as well as the script, but the script is not valueless, and I don't see why the creator/owner of that script should not have a copyright claim to it.

Comment Re:Really?!? (Score 1) 1448

I agree with your argument that a civil union that is equal under law to marriage is equal in it's application. However, the name does carry weight, and calling something that is equal in every respect by a different name marginalizes it.

For example, suppose we called immigrants who have gained citizenship "Legal Immigrants," while calling people born in the country "citizens." Under law, we say that a "Legal Immigrant" is exactly the same as a "Citizen," but we just call them something else. This has the effect of stigmatizing the Legal Immigrant, and even if by law they are the same, many people will view them as different, which is a problem.

Also, the clerical and legal challenges involved in updating the entirety of the legal code at Federal, State and Local levels would not be insignificant.

Comment Re:Derivative work (Score 1) 344

The FCC release new regulations regarding Closed Captioning last year. The rollout schedule is a bit confusing, but the basic gist is that any content that was broadcast over the air or cable/satellite with CCs must also have CCs when it is distributed over IP (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Instant, iTunes). I *think* that after 2015 or 2016, all content distributed over IP must have CCs.

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