>> A purely factual history book could quite possibly contain no copyrightable information.

Sure, you may be able to copy the facts out of the book. You can't just photocopy it though. Maybe if the book was just a raw dump of facts you could but that doesn't happen. There is a lot of design that goes into the presentation of information. There is the phrasing used to explain it. For example, I could copy a formula from any algebra book but I had better write my own paragraphs explaining how to use it. There is also the order that information is presented in, this almost becomes the basis of a course syllabus. And of course there may be photos or other images which are copyrightable.

>> No skill. No Sport.
True or mostly true

>>Might as well go to the game farm and shoot the deer in the small holding pen with a shotgun.
So? If all you are after is food and maybe a pretty mount what is wrong with that? There is no sport in going to the grocery store either. Just don't brag about the great shot you made and it's fine.

>>Just like fishing with dynamite.
Everything in the pond, or nearby area within the lake dies? Nothing is left behind to reproduce and maintain the population? Nope... not the same. Not even close.

>>Sounds like something invented by the same folks who did the Zune.
Totally! Music players and self-aiming guns are exactly the same technology! They probably re-used mostly the same design! </sarcasm>

>> "the cost of those goods will necessarily have to increase"

No! Why would they have to increase? I see this argument all the time regarding environmental regulations, paying workers a real living wage or anything else that might increase the price of production. It makes no sense though!!

Every person has a price they are willing to pay for something. Or... if it's something which is bought in quantity they have an amount they will buy at one price and an amount they will buy at another price. The more a company charges the less customers will buy but the more profit they will make per unit. Somewhere there is an equilibrium between those two factors where the business makes the most profit. Whatever the difference between that point and the production costs the company/executives/stock holders get to keep!

Any business manager with half a brain is going to seek that equilibrium with or without anti-polution regulation. The original price to produce the good has nothing to do with it! All an increase in cost of production does is decreases profit. You, I and every other consumer still have the same amount we are are willing to pay for the product so nothing changes there.

That is of course unless the price of production goes up so high that it excedes what the customers are willing to pay. Then the product is no longer profitable and the businesses will stop or reduce producing it one way or another. So.. yes, stopping polution could have an effect on consumers but only if the price increase is REALLY big or the product wasn't really that profitable in the first place. That's not a sure thing that we can say would happen with every product across the board! It's a complicated thing that would take a ton of research, a bit of luck and maybe some magical psychic powers to predict accurately.

I'm sure there are actualy tons of things that could be done cleaner, workers that could be paid better, etc... and the consumers would never see a price increase.

No, they are not in your head but alergies aren't really what is being discussed here.

Where did the original sample come from? Was the animal completely destroyed or was it just a small biopsy that would grow back. Was the animal awake? Was it properly numbed at least? Finally... did the animal give consent? Can an animal give consent?

See! The real ethical vegetarians won't eat lab grown beef. They will eat lab grown human! it's the only meat source than can give consent!

Yeah right! If you were doing all that you wouldn't be posting in Slashdot! More likely you have taken to jumping down the stairs into your mom's basement rather than walking.

R/L sunshine and excercise maybe?

Yeah, ok, probably not!

Anybody have a link for a pdf of an out-of copyright calculus book? I'd like to compare it to my old (but not THAT old) text book that I kept. Is the difference worth paying $100-$200 per semester? I'll reserve judgement until I see it for myself.

What the heck does being emotionally stable have to do with a reality tv program? I would think they would want guys who are douchebags and girls who are emotional basket cases. Toss in a sociopath or two and you have a show!

Pick the well adjusted outstanding people you would normally pick to be astronauts and there won't be enough drama to keep the viewers attention. Of course, it will all fail when they kill each other and/or themselves but it will probably last longer (budget wise) than the more traditional choices would.

I don't believe we will ever know if he killed the guy or not. Is there really any credibility on either side of that debate? We can't do anything simply based on suspicion, otherwise there would be a whole lot more inoccent people in jail, on death row or already executed. So... let's just sit back and watch the show. Actually, given enough attention to his 'adventures' maybe he will one day slip up and tell about an adventure he had with a certain neighbor... If such a thing actually happened. Meanwhile.. there doesn't seem to be anyone acusing him of attacking random strangers so if you are afraid he will kill 'again' just don't associate with him.

I can't imagine how they could possibly have that kind of storage capacity if they do. But.. we already know that they have their taps into all the backbones and that they do store a lot. Even if they can't monitor it all, even if they can't store it all who knows which packets they are monitoring and which ones they are storing? We pretty much have to assume they have it all.

Oh.. i meant to include in that list...

They have pretty much zero upgradeability.

...have pretty much always sucked.

They are filled with hardware that is difficult or impossible to use in non-windows OSs, for that matter, they are often even difficult to get working with a Windows OS that isn't the same version the laptop shipped with.

They have poor life expectancy and are prone to overheating.

Their #1 advantage, portability goes out the window after a year when the battery stops holding a decent charge.

Give me a good desktop any day. If I want to be portable that's ok, VNC will run on whatever OS the craptop likes.

I don't know about that. How much of today's culture is really worth preserving anyway? Perhaps people of the future will hate today's pirates for cursing them with a library of reality television, lady gaga, etc...

I've been doing things this way for 20 years and there has been no problems. I know what I am doing. Stop wasting my time kid.
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