Submission + - Slashdot is dead 3
An anonymous reader writes: I saw it with my own eyes
Unlike myself who can't even get a title grammatically correct!!
Cats are incredibly intelligent. They just like to pretend to be stupider than dogs for the free food.
This is true (I live in the UK BTW) the trouble is even though events in the US are likely to affect us more in the grand scheme than those running our country we don't get a vote.
you insensitive clod
What like Facepalm?
But airplanes are manufactured at a lot higher quality than cars, have multiple redundant system as well as a highly trained humans ready to take over control and recognise when to take over control when there is trouble, unlike your average Joe Sixpack in his SUV. Also airplanes are serviced at strict regular intervals to prevent faults occurring and in general airspace the aircraft fly through is highly regulated. Making automation simpler than on the ground.
I've taken over 5000, but I'd say less than 50 were any good. I voted 5000 but maybe I should have voted 1-100
It's nothing to do with hypnotism, apart from maybe making the person not react normally to pain. Ice can cause burns, you don't need to be hypnotised. See http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-cold-burn.htm For details
They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta.
I've been to America several times and there are a few things that prevent this happening. First of all the Fiesta is far too small for your average American consumeer. These cars sell massively here in Ireland but they just won't work in America because you'll hear all of the horror stories about how they're not safe because they're small. Realistically the average weight and size of your average American citizen is a lot more too.
The problem is that I saw the VW Golf (you call it Rabbit now) all over the place in San Francisco, LA and Vegas. That sounds great except I only saw them in two sizes: 1.8l and 2.5l engines. You look at that same car in Europe and they sell better at the 1.4-1.8l range. What's the point in going to a smaller car if the engine is still big? I can only imagine if the Fiesta was to be pushed it'd have a 1.6l engine anyway.
Much in the same way that I think the Hybrid market was mostly lip service I think this isn't enough either. If you need a powerful car get one, if you don't then just get an economical one. Even with hybrids, it'd have made just as much sense for your averager American to switch to a 1.5l car to begin with because all of the cars out there are already overpowered or desperately inefficient - they're all automatic for a start! Just imagine the savings if every American switched down 30% in their engine size, more if your average Joe forget about his oversized petrol powered SUV and drove a modest saloon.
Let me put this another way; I look forward to electric or decent hybrid cars at a minimum. In the meantime I drive a SEAT Leon which is a badge-engineered VW Golf. I drive the 1.9TDI variant and on one 55l tank of diesel I drive 900-1050Km (550-650 miles roughly). I know that's diesel rather than petrol but the point is efficiency and it puts out the same horsepower as a 1.6l engine which would get you a good 450 miles plus per tank.
Forget the massive forced changes which will be rejected by the public - just start by reducing engine displacement and increasing efficiency. And hey, would it kill you to write the engine size on the back of your car like we do in Europe...awareness is half the battle!
By reasonable I mean the concept that if you would like to view a recent movie, it's reasonable to pay a small sum in exchange rather than freeload.
I agree that content creators who wish to charge for access to their content should be paid. Content creators have the right to decide how to sell their work.
The problem is, if you want to sell "access to content", you need to control that access. That's impossible to do by technical means as long as movies are sold in stores on physical media.
And yet, content producers keep trying to sell access to stuff that's already out there, opening the doors to ripping and file sharing. Why? Because they make a lot more money selling copies on physical media than they do on broadcast or theater runs, regardless of piracy.
Piracy and duplication go hand in hand with physical media sales. That's the reality of the business model, no matter what the law says. If the associated risk/reward ratio is unacceptable, a reasonable company should FIND A NEW BUSINESS MODEL.
There really should be a legal test that weighs realities in society against a company's business model before a case is accepted. If a case is substantially tilted towards defending a business model against societal reality, it should be thrown out.
For all the bitching and whining coming out of Hollywood about so-called "lost sales" due to piracy, they keep on rolling out the films and making truckloads of money. They aren't hurting. Their business model is working just fine.
Thus there needs to be a system by which the creators can be fairly paid for that work. We have developed such a system. It's called copyright law. It's not perfect, but it's what our society has enshrined in the law as our solution. And that system says if you want to watch the movie before its copyright expires, you have to pay the price the movie maker asks.
When "not perfect" means destroy family finances and threaten the population with obscene penalties for the minor misdemeanor of watching a 90-minute sci-fi for free, that makes copyright law unworthy of respect, thank you very much.
The more people that break the law in this case, the better. These companies can't sue everyone, and the legal system is supposed to be about balancing common rights among all parties, not bludgeoning the poor into compliance with arbitrary rules designed to make the rich richer.
For your reference, I bought the Battlestar Galactica DVD set because it was awesome, and I downloaded Stargate Universe Season 1 because I couldn't find someone to pay for it (and it's offered for free anyway on the TV network's site).
Should I now be summarily hauled into court for the Finest Verdict Money Can Buy for my non-criminal audacity? All because of this "not-perfect-but-hey-it's-the-best-we-have" copyright law?
What I don't understand is where this entitlement mentality comes from that says just because you can get a copy without paying for it, that it's OK to do.
Big entertainment gets plenty of my money every year. They've even convinced my government to tax blank media and devices containing flash memory just in case they might be used for piracy. They sue fellow citizens into oblivion for non-criminal acts.
Fuck them, and fuck the sheep that defend them on legal technicalities. "Right" and "wrong" don't have anything to do with "legality", until the day comes that we replace the "legal system" with a "justice system".
Perhaps it's not so much an "entitlement" mentality as a "we don't care that you don't like the consequences of your business model, and we don't like being bullied" mentality.
Perhaps that is more understandable for you?
"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."
