We will be telling our customers exactly where they can go to see these programs online," Mr. Dudley said. "We'll also be telling them how they can hook up their PCs to a television set.
Why pay for digital cable when many content providers and now providing it on demand via the Internet? Not to mention the widespread availability of tv shows in both standard and high definition on public and private torrent tracker sites. It is entirely possible to watch television with no commercials or advertising with only an Internet connection. So getting your content via the Internet is not exactly free, but it certainly isn't contributing to Time Warner or any other cable providers revenue stream. The real question is why Time Warner would fight back by so clearly showing how increasingly obsolete they are becoming and that cable providers are losing their monopolistic grip on media delivery.
There has to be a payback for having intelligence. If the animal has something that can grasp objects, then it can use tools and do things that it would not normally be able to do. If you are a shellfish then there is not much you can do with your deep thoughts, so a smarter shellfish is less likely to survive.
I read somewhere (probably slashdot) that there is now evidence that walking upright preceded big brains. The idea was that freeing up the hands meant the ability to manipulate one's environment, which in turn led to evolving intelligence. If that's the case, we should expect intelligence to evolve in any creature with free appendages. Other apes are smart, as are elephants & octopi. On the other hand, dophins and birds are smart too without much in the way of appendages, and jellyfish are downright cretins, so who knows...
If creatures have evolved enough intelligence to use tools and anticipate the future, then why aren't all animals intelligent? As some of them have been around for longer than us, why aren't they smarter than us?
You bring up an interesting point, though. Why isn't intelligence more pronounced in other species? The only answer I can come up with is that perhaps we just got there first.
Stellar rays prove fibbing never pays. Embezzlement is another matter.
