Um, that's Rain Man level right there! Soon we won't be worried about the illegals taking out jobs . . . Or, the phrase, "it's so easy a monkey can do it' might be obsolete.

No Mouse.
I'm assuming the mouse came into being and obsoleted the touch screen technology before it even took off. I mean who wants fingerprints all over their computer screen.

so...NRA has 4 million plus members right?

America has 300+ million people right?

So how come 4 seems to have more influence than 300? When are we going to ban Lobbyists?

Let the 300+ million speak for themselves. We live in the information age. If they want unfettered gun access and no enforcement, they can vote for that themselves. We don't need the NRA or ANY lobby group.

we have blogs, e-mail, youtube and countless other methods of communicating with our elected officials. Lobbyists are obsolete, so get rid of them and their influence.

The biggest problem I see with a Supeman movie is finding a believable villain that can stand up to superman without it looking campy.
Marvel has done a great job redefining the franchise with the look of modern reality. Bat Man is believable because he's just a regular man with gadgets.

With Superman, he's invincible in so many ways. If they ignore half his powers and don't use them when he should be, then it's a hard sell.

So then how do you take a guy with the utmost strength, incredible smarts, who flies, has heat laser and cold breath, Doesn't need oxygen to breath, is impervious to the elements and disease, accelerated healing, kick-ass fighting skills, superhuman speed, X-ray vision, superhuman hearing and vision and an eidetic memory, and create a believable conflict using today's reality?

Other than Kryptonite, he has no other weaknesses. Lex is the one who discovers the weakness. So how do you sell that in a new movie. Once you introduce Kryptonite with today's technologies, the weapons against Superman can mostly make him obsolete in quite a matter of fact way.

So it's either he's too powerful or he's quickly dealt with. So which is it?
Oh and not make it look campy, don't forget that part.

Alas, as weed becomes legal, this ageold profession becomes obsolete

>> ^shinmai:

>> ^ant:I always used FlashBlock. I tried disabling it on YouTube, and it still gave me HTML5 videos. I found its trial so I opted out.
Yay, let's keep using old obsolete web technology so people who don't want to use said technology can block it more readily.


Right, and when html5 videos inevitably become the default and your browser is covered in ads using them ("CLICK THE FLASHING MONKEY TO WIN BIG PRIZES"), you'll be wanting a way to block it also. The point isn't necessarily that someone doesn't want to use a certain technology. It's that they want some control over their browser.

Well maybe I need a few drinks to really respond to your argument properly, but I'll do my best while sober

I think it's a bug and a coincidence. I was really talking about phones and other embedded devices rather than laptops, but you have a point that it's kinda similar here.

Here's the thing though: Win8 is so different to win7 and vista that Microsoft would be taking a huge risk if they tried to make people switch to it before they got used to the change. Given that people will have to re-learn a whole lot of stuff (or install classic shell) anyway, what's to stop them looking around and buying a macbook air, or installing Ubuntu on their old laptop?

Look, I readily concede that your way is possible, but it just doesn't seem terribly likely to sober me (drunk me could have a different opinion, but I wouldn't listen to him if I were you).
In reply to this comment by zaust:
Hang on a sec - what your saying is old unsupported devices - such as a 4 year old Windows Vista 7 laptop have a best version. So why, JUST NOW, right when win8 is around the corner are the automatic updates which are enabled on every new PC restricting my dad's functionality?

This isn't a case of his installed the latest win8 beta (he has not surprisingly as he was in IT for 30 years - but it's in a separate boot partition and runs all of his usb functions perfectly). This is an update to vista 32 bit drivers which has lessoned his functionally roughly a month before win8 comes out.

Could be a bug, could be a coincidence. Could be microsoft are shaking the tree just enough to make people question if they need the new OS.

Lets take a couple more points of view - you've probably seen the start trek TNG vs special edition videos where the original footage looked WAY worse than what was aired originally. If not maybe your a gamer? Notice how blizzard are preparing "Titan" for launch (new mmo) whilst at the same time releasing a kung-fu panda expansion for wow whilst addressing none of the failings Guild Wars 2 has highlighted.

It pays for companies to make their old products look obsolete whilst retaining their brand loyalty

Sorry for rant - had a few to drink.

Hang on a sec - what your saying is old unsupported devices - such as a 4 year old Windows Vista 7 laptop have a best version. So why, JUST NOW, right when win8 is around the corner are the automatic updates which are enabled on every new PC restricting my dad's functionality?

This isn't a case of his installed the latest win8 beta (he has not surprisingly as he was in IT for 30 years - but it's in a separate boot partition and runs all of his usb functions perfectly). This is an update to vista 32 bit drivers which has lessoned his functionally roughly a month before win8 comes out.

Could be a bug, could be a coincidence. Could be microsoft are shaking the tree just enough to make people question if they need the new OS.

Lets take a couple more points of view - you've probably seen the start trek TNG vs special edition videos where the original footage looked WAY worse than what was aired originally. If not maybe your a gamer? Notice how blizzard are preparing "Titan" for launch (new mmo) whilst at the same time releasing a kung-fu panda expansion for wow whilst addressing none of the failings Guild Wars 2 has highlighted.

It pays for companies to make their old products look obsolete whilst retaining their brand loyalty

Sorry for rant - had a few to drink.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
Since the update introduced an unwelcome new feature and you had to roll back, you're kinda supporting my point actually : Every old unsupported device has one "best" version, and it's not always the newest one.

Microsoft say Oct 26 for Win 8, but you'd have to look at the machine specs to see if an upgrade is possible. The interface changes haven't been welcomed by all, either.

Quite a few people hold back on new windows releases until the teething issues have been ironed out... so win 7 is looking good at this point.
In reply to this comment by zaust:
You say that but I was round at my dads today and he'd had to roll back his Vista laptop to an earlier backup because the latest "updates" meant it no longer had the USB resources to run both his printer and scanner. When's Win 8 out again?

You say that but I was round at my dads today and he'd had to roll back his Vista laptop to an earlier backup because the latest "updates" meant it no longer had the USB resources to run both his printer and scanner. When's Win 8 out again?


>> ^oritteropo:

The new versions give new features, and new bugs and performance problems. I am not running the newest supported version on my phone for exactly that reason, but I'm only one or two versions below it.
You can always go back to the old version if the new one isn't to your liking.
When iOS 4 first came out it was truly woeful on the older phones, then fixes came out clawing back some of the performance. I don't think this was a marketing strategy, I think it was a result of testing on the new phone first. Anyway, the new phones are always faster than the old ones they don't even need to slow the old ones down to make them seem slow in comparison!
>> ^messenger:
This is important. Jimmy may have uncovered a really underhanded marketing technique. Anyone else heard/noticed this?>> ^zaust:
This is total conjecture but, according to a good friend of mine who's unfortunately a crapple fan, the new models do make the old ones obsolete. He's adamant the, near compulsory, updates have significantly slowed his older model iphones over time.

The new versions give new features, and new bugs and performance problems. I am not running the newest supported version on my phone for exactly that reason, but I'm only one or two versions below it.

You can always go back to the old version if the new one isn't to your liking.

When iOS 4 first came out it was truly woeful on the older phones, then fixes came out clawing back some of the performance. I don't think this was a marketing strategy, I think it was a result of testing on the new phone first. Anyway, the new phones are always faster than the old ones they don't even need to slow the old ones down to make them seem slow in comparison!
>> ^messenger:

This is important. Jimmy may have uncovered a really underhanded marketing technique. Anyone else heard/noticed this?>> ^zaust:
This is total conjecture but, according to a good friend of mine who's unfortunately a crapple fan, the new models do make the old ones obsolete. He's adamant the, near compulsory, updates have significantly slowed his older model iphones over time.

This is important. Jimmy may have uncovered a really underhanded marketing technique. Anyone else heard/noticed this?>> ^zaust:

This is total conjecture but, according to a good friend of mine who's unfortunately a crapple fan, the new models do make the old ones obsolete. He's adamant the, near compulsory, updates have significantly slowed his older model iphones over time.

This is total conjecture but, according to a good friend of mine who's unfortunately a crapple fan, the new models do make the old ones obsolete. He's adamant the, near compulsory, updates have significantly slowed his older model iphones over time.

@renatojj Apologies for the late reply, have been running for work and it doesnt look like that will stop

True that some countries may have less cooperation, though is that dependent on the economic system used or something else? For instance, East Germany had 100% employment and a very active economy, more so then west Germany in some regards. It was ofc run top down with little choice and politically biased, but I am not sure if that lessons the amount of economic transactions, ie cooperation. I guess it comes down to what you define as cooperation.

BTW "those criticisms of the depletion of finite natural resources consists of the economic Law of Diminishing Returns, opportunity cost, and scarcity in economics" -- I never understood what they mean with that. Even if the resource cost goes up strongly due to scarcity it doesnt mean that that resource can be replaced by something else, or that the higher cost (than the original cost of the scarce resource) of the replacement can be born by its consumers.

Now you say something very interesting: I agree with you that capitalism isnt always about ever-increasing competitiveness, in practice. In cases where you have competition, you get ever-increasing competitiveness. (This is in theory what all capitalism strives for) In cases where you do not have competition you dont. That is exactly what we are talking about. Free market philosophy assumes there is always near perfect competition right? How else would the market balance itself if there is no competition? Would you agree that free markets only work where there is competition?

Lets see when we have competition:

"competition is proportional to the difference between supply and demand" That doesnt sound right. If there is large demand and little supply (the difference is big), there is little competition as all suppliers will overcharge like hell as they will be able to sell anything they can manufacturer anyway. If there is large supply and little demand there can be competition, though usually this results in companies leaving the market until you have: If the supply and demand are about equal, you SOMETIMES have competition that keeps things in balance. Or you can have a monopoly for whatever reason and that market has again little to no competition. In other words, in no single scenario is competition guaranteed. Actually, there is good reason to assume markets move to monopolies naturally in all cases. In a market that is turning from early adopters to mass market, there is always focus on economies of scale. Companies need to get bigger to make sure they have the lowest cost price (best competitive edge) and to keep their shareholders happy as they demand growth to make their investments worth more. Bigger companies means fewer companies on the long run, as the market is always limited. This means companies will take over other companies until only a handful remain. Voila. Actually, if it werent for (anti-free market) anti-monopoly rules lots of markets would only have 1 company left. That company would be so big it would be impossible for a new entry to push them out of the market or even get a foothold unless the market itself crumbles because a newer range of products exist that make the old one obsolete. Again, without rules governing economies, things just go bust.

Which was what happened in the derivatives market. It was a completely deregulated market that was exploding itself as there were no rules governing it. When it did explode (ie when the free market failed) there were 2 options left: Let all banks fail or bail them out. Think of the consequences of following your recommendation: If 1 bank fails, it will pull the others down with it as they are all strongly interconnected. As banks are key in the economical world, the entire system would collapse. The amount of devastation would be huge, would probably kill the entire system. Now, you can argue that would be good for us, as we could build a fully new system. But before we would get there, there would be years if not decades of nightmares.
I agree with you that the fall of the derivatives market should never have happened in the first place which is exactly the reason to not follow free markets.

Above clarifies a bit my way of thinking: for many of these markets (be it banks or utilities or employment) the consequences of letting that market fail are just too big. If you have the guts to follow free markets to the end, it might work (isnt proven though) but you come to a point where you destabilize your country in such a manner that things like revolts and all kind of nastiness are highly possible and even likely. That is not progress, that is barbarianism.

You mention yourself that there are practically no free markets anywhere. You say that is because they havent been tried. I say that they have been tried again and again but never last.