*I don't think GE's a member anymore, but it's impossible to know for certain how much of their revenue came just from NBC-Universal
Really?
Page 34 of GE's 2009 earnings report: Revenues, NBC Universal, $15,436,000,000; Segment Profit, NBC Universal, $2,264,000,000.
Yeah, it's impossible to know for certain that NBC-Universal made $2 billion in profit last year. Sony Pictures, by the way, collected ¥705,237,000,000 (~ $8 billion) in revenue for FY 2010, and only ¥42,814,000,000 (~ $519 million) in profit; Sony Pictures includes not only MPAA-relevant stuff but TV shows just like NBC-Universal. That's from SONY's annual earnings report, which is admittedly not the first Google result, but whatever, it wasn't that hard to find. (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2010/index.html)
When you consider how little of Sony or GE's total revenues have to do with their movie-making divisions, and how much Google's revenues are based on Internet services supposedly threatened by these letters (practically all of Google's revenue) I think you can easily realize how much more money Google would be willing to spend on a fight than the MPAA. That is, if these angry letters Google received had any real meaning other than to try to scare the individuals who usually receive them.
This is not what you asked for, but it is an article summarizing the results of a number of studies (with references) plus the article writer's own personal experience.
Here is a different study that looked at the differences between complex interruptions and simple interruptions during the execution of a complex task. Bear in mind that the "complex task" was nowhere near as complex as various programming tasks can be. They found a complex task interrupted by a simple task generally cost about 4 minutes to get back into the task, and a complex task interrupted by another complex task took close to 8 minutes to get back into the task. An interesting affect they noted, however, was that when a complex task was interrupted by another complex task, when the person went back to the main task they made fewer errors for a time. That was not the case for a simple interruption.
and words shift in meaning all the time. the way they spoke in 1960, 1910, 1860... the meanings of words you use today as they were in 1960, 1910, 1860... its completely fluid and outside of anyone's control
so why do you fucking care so much about a fucking word?
"hacking" has evolved to have different meanings. big fucking deal
for whatever bizarre reason, you have a huge attachment to the meaning of "hacking"
whatever, drama queen. get a life
Congratulations! You've just committed the well known (though still often used) fallacy known as "Poisoning the Well".
Just because the National Post is a dirt-bag organization (I have no idea if they are or aren't, just making a point) does not have any bearing on the validity of their statements.
It does not mean you can dismiss their statements out of hand, it simply means you need to approach their "facts" with a healthy dose of skepticism. The less trustworthy they are, the bigger your dose.
This same fallacy is often committed on Slashdot with regards to Fox News. In other forums this happens with CNN and MS-NBC or the BBC, or just about any newspaper or news magazine or news organization. Having a bias does not invalidate the arguments at all, and merely claiming that they have a bias does not invalidate any of their arguments either. It is disingenuous to dismiss an argument out of hand for no reason other than the source of the argument.
I work on cars sometimes as a hobby, but I'm sure I'd soon come to hate it if I had to do it for a living. It can be fun when you don't care if it's still not running at the end of the day, and you can come back to it tomorrow, or next weekend, or whenever.
But when you HAVE to do it, and QUICKLY, because the user/driver is complaining because they can't work/get to work until you get their email/starter fixed, and there are 10 more frustrated people in line behind them, it can eventually become somewhat of a drag. And you start to REALLY question why software/car companies have to make such simple things so damn much work to fix! (Seriously, though, why do they? I'd think car manufacturers, at least, could save some money on warranty work by designing cars to be more serviceable. Dell IMO does quite a good job with this.)
He's especially suspicious because he's dead.
Happiness is twin floppies.