Re: Re: Re: Re: Got a clue, Mike, you're a Democrat
Sir, you're free to have your opinions, I do not share them.
But here's the thing, I'm sure you see Foxnews as horribly biased (and I'm not trying to tell you they're neutral) compared to NPR's supposed aloofness. That's cool, if you don't like Foxnews, you're free not to watch them, denying them ratings and thus ad revenue. You can boycott Foxnews at any time. Heck, you can even ask your cable carrier not carry them. Doubtful to work, but if sufficient percentages of the customer base agreed with you, it would.
I, however, am not free to boycott NPR at all. A good 20% their budget is paid for by me, whether I like it or not. And that sir, is a travesty.
I admit (did admit, above) that calling you a democrat was hyperbole--it was a more inflammatory way of calling you a liberal, which I do stand by.
And yes, it was lazy reporting. You just accepted the op-ed writer's statement of equivalency, without looking into the details. Or, worse, if you did look into the details, then you actually understood the mis-characterization you were making. I doubt that's actually what happened, though.
"Not the exact equivalent"?!? They're wildly dissimilar!
Let's look at this critically. I can tell you what I mind about the spending on NPR&PBS (keep in mind I'm a huge NOVA fan)
1) It's gov money going to an organization at least partly has a political agenda. 2) It's subsidy, into an otherwise Robust Market.
Now, what, Mike, is wrong with the (40x smaller) spend from the army to NASCAR? As a libertarian, I admit in the need for a military, in fact it's one of the few responsibilities I see the federal government as having. That military has to recruit, which as a practical matter, is going to involve an ad campaign. NASCAR is part of that ad campaign, and I'm not especially interested in micromanaging how the army spends it's marketing dollars.
What, exactly, is your problem with that money spent in that way? Pleas, tell me.
Half-Life: A thousand political points, detailing how conspiracy and secrecy can lead to world changing social change, often for the worse if those forces are not examined and controled by the common people.
God of War: Questions the value of religion, and when mortals reach the powers of divinity.
I would go so far as to say, as a (newly) mature expressive art form. MOST games make a political statement, same way as most movies. Sure, you get the inane violence porn, but that's actually the exception and indicates a bad game.
First Case: Bioshock. Examines (and mocks, I think somewhat unfairly) the philosophies of Ayn Rand and capitalism and libertarianism.
Red Faction: Examines the case of an oppressed colony (not much different than India or the U.S.) and the case for violent revolt.
Mirrors Edge: Haven't played this one, but ti examines a fascist future world where many things are banned and freedoms are few, yet everything is clean and bright.
InFamous: Straight up examines the responsibilities of Power, very similarly to the Spiderman comics.
UPDATE: in #android - morrildl - who works for google but probably doesn’t officially speak in any capacity for Google brought up a few interesting points with regard to this:
HTC has specified that the G1 will have a single-touch screen. (This is significant, because their spec is for single touch for the G1, this means that they could in the future source touchscreens that are not multi-touch capable - so just because a certain run of G1s might have a multitouch capable screen, they have the liberty to swap out parts [and they may already have G1s out in the field that don't have a multi-touch capable screen])
The other issue is with how the driver reports the width of the touch. It appears that the “w” element is the same on both of the fingers (altough this might just be a quirk in the driver code that was commented out - since it does seem to be based on pressure and putting fingers on opposite corners and pressing lightly still shows a 1 for “w” - but placing 2 fingers close together and pressing hard will show a 15 for “w” - so I’m not entirely convinced of this)
It sounds like the road to multitouch on the G1 could now be a little more complicated. I’m not sure if HTC could ever revise the specs of the G1 without changing the model name… so even if the hardware is identical they might have to have a G1m or something? (who knows).
So imagine there was a routinely tracked ratio of the average persons (written words of communication)/(spoken words of communication) in a day. Obviously such a ratio exists, I just don't think it's been tracked. I am sure that in the last ten years that ratio has gone up by an order of magnitude for the general population due to things like email, chat, texts, and social networking. It wouldn't surprise me to see that that number has even become >1 for a significant minority of the population (a good deal of white collar professionals). THAT, I'm sure, has basically never been true before.
This will cease to be true again when speach recognition, or possibly thought recognition technologies mature. Of course, I do think that's still a ways off and at that point, it could be argued that writing would actually be somewhat obsolete.
I don't understand why they just don't tax until funds are "withdrawn" from such a system. Much like a house or assets, you haven't made actual profit until to cash out. I think it's quite clear that profits from such systems would be taxable, it's just that they're not actually profits until they're withdrawn.
Um, from whence comes the assumption that Fox News is trying to "censor" free speech? Fox has no particularly standing or interest in the issue in question, other than, it is in fact news, and they are in the business of covering news.
It sounds like Fox news is merely acting like any other content company-- and jealously guarding it's content. That may be counter-productive (or not) and the clips may have been fair use (or not), but both EFF and you, Mike, are ascribing nefarious motives here that I don't see any evidence of.
I'm a little annoyed by your idea that "first person shooters" and such wouldn't be ideal. It suggests that FPSs don't require much thought, and worse, they require even less thought than tetris. Tetris can be quite mindless, many peopel can carry on a full conversation while playing. Actually, I shouldn't say mindless, as the article said, it uses those "visuspatial centers" (really, you have visual centers and spatial centers, they're quite different, but they do get used in a lot o fthe same tasks), so really it's using a different part of the mind. Specifically, tetris is occupying the parts of the brain that would be causing flashbacks. A First person shooter, even if quite mindless (and many are not) would only be using those parts of the braind moreso, if you think about it. Spatial sense is AWFULLY important in a lot of those games.
Ok, I hate the current patent system and how many obvious things get patented. But this won't work either, unless you just want a back door way to eliminate patents all together. (which, hey, I'm not actually saying that might not be a worthy goal) All that energy that big companies now invest "stockpiling" supposedly defensive patents? Guess where all those resources will go now?
One could argue that the one shining purpose of patents is that they allow a little guy with a really good idea to actually make something of it, rather than having his idea simply stolen by some big company with the resources to develop it, with out paying the inventor. (Big companies and R&D I think actually work on different model, to which patents are ancillary)
But now you'll have this situation where, say someone comes up with an idea, a truly good idea, in the mobile space. It's in all the current players interests to squash that patent. And we all know that big companies are excellent at completely burying things in litigation. So they will make sure the patent NEVER goes through, no matter how brilliant it is. The only people who can push through a patent will be the big companies themselves, so Microsoft might still be able to get their "adding .com to text" patent. ALternatively, MAYBE a inventor could "pre-sell" to a big company, and get them to defend the patent, but they'll be in weaker position than if they just owned the patent.
Don't get me wrong, I think most patents are worthless, very few are actually revolutionary ideas. But unless your idea is to do away with patents entirely, this system won't work, at least not in any area where there big players with lots of money, which obviously is most areas that matter.
One-sided political tirades in movies IS a factor, although I supose it would affect home DVD watching just at much, if you're even a little conservative, or in fact fairly centrist, you can learn to avoid any movie that makes a political statement pretty quickly. If one movie took your side and the next didn't, it wouldn't be so hard to sit through. But when almost any movie that makes any political statement at all is likely to not only disagree with but disparage your world view, you wind up avoiding a large segment of offerings right of the bat.
On the post: Massachusetts Apparently The First State To Let You Officially Register As A Pirate Party Member
Re: Re: Re: Re: Got a clue, Mike, you're a Democrat
On the post: Massachusetts Apparently The First State To Let You Officially Register As A Pirate Party Member
Re: Re: Re: Re: Got a clue, Mike, you're a Democrat
But here's the thing, I'm sure you see Foxnews as horribly biased (and I'm not trying to tell you they're neutral) compared to NPR's supposed aloofness. That's cool, if you don't like Foxnews, you're free not to watch them, denying them ratings and thus ad revenue. You can boycott Foxnews at any time. Heck, you can even ask your cable carrier not carry them. Doubtful to work, but if sufficient percentages of the customer base agreed with you, it would. I, however, am not free to boycott NPR at all. A good 20% their budget is paid for by me, whether I like it or not. And that sir, is a travesty.
On the post: Massachusetts Apparently The First State To Let You Officially Register As A Pirate Party Member
Re: Re: Re: Got a clue, Mike, you're a Democrat
On the post: Massachusetts Apparently The First State To Let You Officially Register As A Pirate Party Member
Re: Re: Got a clue, Mike, you're a Democrat
And yes, it was lazy reporting. You just accepted the op-ed writer's statement of equivalency, without looking into the details. Or, worse, if you did look into the details, then you actually understood the mis-characterization you were making. I doubt that's actually what happened, though.
"Not the exact equivalent"?!? They're wildly dissimilar!
Let's look at this critically. I can tell you what I mind about the spending on NPR&PBS (keep in mind I'm a huge NOVA fan)
1) It's gov money going to an organization at least partly has a political agenda. 2) It's subsidy, into an otherwise Robust Market.
Now, what, Mike, is wrong with the (40x smaller) spend from the army to NASCAR? As a libertarian, I admit in the need for a military, in fact it's one of the few responsibilities I see the federal government as having. That military has to recruit, which as a practical matter, is going to involve an ad campaign. NASCAR is part of that ad campaign, and I'm not especially interested in micromanaging how the army spends it's marketing dollars.
What, exactly, is your problem with that money spent in that way? Pleas, tell me.
On the post: Can Someone Explain How Sponsoring NASCAR Is A Good Use Of Taxpayer Funds, If Funding Sesame Street Is Not?
Re: Re: Nascar VS. PBS
On the post: New Congressional Leadership Talks Up Transparency... While Planning To Attack Wikileaks
I'm going to try to put this eloquently as possible.
On the post: National Youth Rights Association Looking For Examples Of Political Speech Via Video Games
Half-Life: A thousand political points, detailing how conspiracy and secrecy can lead to world changing social change, often for the worse if those forces are not examined and controled by the common people.
God of War: Questions the value of religion, and when mortals reach the powers of divinity.
I would go so far as to say, as a (newly) mature expressive art form. MOST games make a political statement, same way as most movies. Sure, you get the inane violence porn, but that's actually the exception and indicates a bad game.
On the post: National Youth Rights Association Looking For Examples Of Political Speech Via Video Games
Red Faction: Examines the case of an oppressed colony (not much different than India or the U.S.) and the case for violent revolt.
Mirrors Edge: Haven't played this one, but ti examines a fascist future world where many things are banned and freedoms are few, yet everything is clean and bright.
InFamous: Straight up examines the responsibilities of Power, very similarly to the Spiderman comics.
On the post: Did Google Leave Multi-Touch Out Of Android At Apple's Behest?
http://www.ryebrye.com/blog/2008/11/17/proving-the-g1-screen-can-handle-multi-touch/
UPDATE: in #android - morrildl - who works for google but probably doesn’t officially speak in any capacity for Google brought up a few interesting points with regard to this:
HTC has specified that the G1 will have a single-touch screen. (This is significant, because their spec is for single touch for the G1, this means that they could in the future source touchscreens that are not multi-touch capable - so just because a certain run of G1s might have a multitouch capable screen, they have the liberty to swap out parts [and they may already have G1s out in the field that don't have a multi-touch capable screen])
The other issue is with how the driver reports the width of the touch. It appears that the “w” element is the same on both of the fingers (altough this might just be a quirk in the driver code that was commented out - since it does seem to be based on pressure and putting fingers on opposite corners and pressing lightly still shows a 1 for “w” - but placing 2 fingers close together and pressing hard will show a 15 for “w” - so I’m not entirely convinced of this)
It sounds like the road to multitouch on the G1 could now be a little more complicated. I’m not sure if HTC could ever revise the specs of the G1 without changing the model name… so even if the hardware is identical they might have to have a G1m or something? (who knows).
On the post: Wait, Wasn't Google Supposed To Have Destroyed Our Interest In Reading Books?
This will cease to be true again when speach recognition, or possibly thought recognition technologies mature. Of course, I do think that's still a ways off and at that point, it could be argued that writing would actually be somewhat obsolete.
On the post: IRS May Be Gearing Up To Send Tax Collectors Into Second Life
I wouldn't worry about it, in the end.
On the post: Fox News Uses DMCA To Take Down Videos Used In Commentary
It sounds like Fox news is merely acting like any other content company-- and jealously guarding it's content. That may be counter-productive (or not) and the clips may have been fair use (or not), but both EFF and you, Mike, are ascribing nefarious motives here that I don't see any evidence of.
On the post: New PTSD Cure: Tetris
On the post: Why Shouldn't Competitors Be Able To Weigh In On Patent Applications?
One could argue that the one shining purpose of patents is that they allow a little guy with a really good idea to actually make something of it, rather than having his idea simply stolen by some big company with the resources to develop it, with out paying the inventor. (Big companies and R&D I think actually work on different model, to which patents are ancillary)
But now you'll have this situation where, say someone comes up with an idea, a truly good idea, in the mobile space. It's in all the current players interests to squash that patent. And we all know that big companies are excellent at completely burying things in litigation. So they will make sure the patent NEVER goes through, no matter how brilliant it is. The only people who can push through a patent will be the big companies themselves, so Microsoft might still be able to get their "adding .com to text" patent. ALternatively, MAYBE a inventor could "pre-sell" to a big company, and get them to defend the patent, but they'll be in weaker position than if they just owned the patent.
Don't get me wrong, I think most patents are worthless, very few are actually revolutionary ideas. But unless your idea is to do away with patents entirely, this system won't work, at least not in any area where there big players with lots of money, which obviously is most areas that matter.
On the post: The Potential Of Google Sync To Be Used For Both Good And Evil
Re: Perhaps encrypted locally before stored remote
On the post: Movie Industry Problems: Not My Fault
No Subject Given
On the post: How AOL Convinced Google To Loosen Up A Bit On Ads
Re: ,,,
Next >>