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Comment: Re:Blame Napster (Score 1) 332

by rainer_d (#38973615) Attached to: File Sharing In the Post MegaUpload Era

or we can accept it and make a world that the artists (not corporate middlemen) can make a living.

That's a great theory where music is concerned and any start up band can get going with a couple hundred bucks worth of equipment and a broadband connection. I'm not so certain how it translates into movies though. To pick one of my favorite bits of modern culture, do you think you can bring Harry Potter onto the big screen without the resources of big budget movie studio?

AFAIK, "Harry Potter" is a series of books. There was no need to bring it to the "big screen" in the first place, other than to make the author the wealthiest woman in Great Britain and for some morons who are too lazy to read...

Comment: Re:Zeno (Score 1) 313

by rainer_d (#38668998) Attached to: The Doomsday Clock Is Moved Closer To Midnight
For lack of other evidence, I'm going to assume that they (North Korea) blow-up their stuff once they have enough of it.
I'm sure that if either DPRK/Iran had a whole arsenal full of them, they'd be willing to show them.
The chances that this is not true are very remote.
It's a bluff - and everybody knows it. But everybody also knows that you can't call their bluff.
You have to give them a chance to keep their face.
KYU just wants to keep running the country like a mobster family business - and receive international recognition for that at the same time.
MA, among other things, is probably prepping Iran with the tools for a post-american, post-petroleum future that you can get a glimpse at by looking into the current Iraq "situation" and watching old Mad Max films (if you can tell them apart).
Hint: it's not about oil.

It's water.

MA is a loonatic and the scum of the earth - but he's also smart.
When it's time to bargain over the water-supply for his country, he knows he will need - in the words of President Truman - "a big hammer".

Comment: Re:Zeno (Score 3, Informative) 313

by rainer_d (#38661178) Attached to: The Doomsday Clock Is Moved Closer To Midnight
Consensus is that DPRK/Iran may (!) have enough material to build a single nuclear bomb (if at all) in the near future.
AFAIK, neither nation has ICBMs - as such, the device would have to be used as in a conventional bombing attack: delivered and brought to explosion on-site.

It would be very effective in killing as many people as possible in one swoop - but ultimately lead to an even more brutal strike-back.

In a way, this is some sort of MAD.
KJU and MA know this - they have to appear just crazy enough to let us think they could do it - but without actually painting themselves into a corner in such a way that they have no other option.
It's much more complicated and much more dangerous than the game US and USSR used to play. It's a bit like the Cuban Missile crisis - but performed twice a year...

But moving the Doomsday clock one minute is OK IMO. That DPRK/Iran theater is just a distraction from the economic problems we have.

Comment: Re:Obama is OK in my book. (Score 2) 582

by rainer_d (#38634402) Attached to: Leaked Memo Says Apple Provides Backdoor To Governments
Other countries's banks go for a 20% down-payment - because they calculate that in the event that you go bankrupt, they can sell the property for 80% of its original value very fast and still break even.
A 90% financing in the midst of a bubble is no good idea - unless you are basically unifireable from your job (like a civil servant in Germany, with automatic yearly rises and all)

Comment: Underlining the notion that time is worth nothing. (Score 0) 192

by rainer_d (#38543648) Attached to: Creating the World's Cheapest Tablet
At least, the time of Indian people. In other markets (Africa especially) I'd argue that it is much more important to provide schoolbooks, paper and pencils to pupils (and school-buildings that don't get swept away by large rain-falls and where pupils can learn without getting soaking wet from the rain).

Comment: Re:A good start... (Score 1) 129

by rainer_d (#38334526) Attached to: Aerospace Corp Pays $2.5m To Settle Rogue Software Dev Case
Dude, you need to get off whatever drugs you take, seriously.
Every government spends every dollar (or whatever currency unit they reap in taxes) they get and then some - if those 2 million hadn't been spent on that idiot, do you honestly think they would have been put into a kind of piggybank?
It would have been spent on some other useless shit, no doubt.
It's the same everywhere - even large corporations suffer from this.

Comment: Yikes (Score 1) 200

by rainer_d (#37990274) Attached to: Airline to Offer In-Flight Adult Movies
I saw somebody reading a porn-magazine on the train once. He had wrapped it in an exercise-book cover and held it relatively close to his face, so the people next to him couldn't see it. But I doubt they would have appreciated ;-)

But from where I sat, I could clearly see it. And it wasn't just a Playboy ("....for the interviews"). It was one of those "under the counter"-mags.

I've no problem with people reading and watching all kinds of (legal) stuff in their own homes, preferably with the blinds shut, but on a train?
Eek.
Worst thing, on a train, I can just leave at the next station of go to the next compartment - not so on a plane.
But I'm sure, RyanAir would love to charge extra for the hand-sanitizer and the disposable toilet-seat covers ....

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