Schnazz

Great job man!

Interesting read, but I think both sides made pretty bad arguements. The prosecution was seriously generalizing rap. There is a lot of rap that is musically complex, much more so than drum machines. And there is rap that has "positive" lyrics. But he does have a point, a whole lot of modern rap is how he describes it, at least lyrically. The defense did have a good point that all media is moving in a more violent, sexist, and lude direction. However, most artists that the prosecution lifted up as examples of how bad rap is are from the current generation of rappers, while most of the artists that the defense showed of the positive side of rap are from quite some time ago. Not exactly comparing apples to apples. Further, the defense jumped all over the prosecution for just complaining and not doing anything and not having any answers. That's flat wrong, the defense was doing something (in writing an article to draw peoples attention to it) and did provide some avenues for counter-acting rap. Community action, picketing records companies, boycotting rap, and organizing a "rap sucks" movement.

Ahahahahahaha! That's great!

What would you do if you where given a guaranteed yearly stipend for the rest of your life that would put you firmly in the middle class of where ever you live. You wouldn't be rich, but you could live comfortably for the rest of your life with out ever working. For arguments sake, let's say that this stipend is absolutely guaranteed, regardless of what happens in the world, and you always would have a comfortable, but not rich lifestyle, regardless of what happens in the world. Would you work, travel, relax, something else? Why?

Welcome back to the 80's... and 70's.... and 60's....etc etc. Folks have been saying this stuff for years and they're sorta right and sorta wrong. They're right in that humanity is frequently on the path of self destruction, but they're wrong because they discount human ingenuity, intelligence, passion, and compassion. People like Doc Hawking need to be saying what they're saying because it helps encite people to act to get us off our current collision course with extinction. But then again, we always manage to get off that course anyway. If you're really worried about it, do something about it. Become a scientist and fix some problem. Become a teacher and educate a flock of scientists so that they can fix many problems. Become a politician so you can pass laws requiring most of the problems get fixed. Become a business person and hire all of the scientists to fix all of the problems.

I'm not affiliated with this site at all, but I'm interested in politics, and judging from some discussions on this board, so are some of ya'll, so I thought I'd share. The founder of the wikipedia just launched a new website Campaigns Wikia and it looks like it could be interesting. It appears that it's trying to be an all in one information site, with information for all sides of any given political issue. I have no idea how it'll shape up, but it could be good. Just thought I'd share.

"Many know that MTV2 has the freestyle thing. I am going to start it when I get my camera. Sounds good, right?" Not so much spelling, but punctuation would have been helpful. I'm not trying to rip on ya, since I have frequently been an offender of grammer police, but adding some punctuation makes posts far more understandable. At any rate, it sounds like it good be cool, good luck with it!

I think the Wii is going to dominate this round of consoles. Nintendo has a ton of things going for them and Sony and Microsoft have some huge factors holding them back. I'm definately going to be getting a Wii the first day, mostly because I'm a Nintendo fan-boy. I firmly believe that Nintendo does everything "right", but man, those controllers have me wondering. :)

Thanks ya'll!

Yea, that would go well on there

So the latest greatest hits release has gotten me thinking about what I would want to see as a true greatest hits release. I've decided that I want a 3-Disc set like the following: The Stories Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble Just One of Those Days Just Rockin' Scary Story You Saw My Blinker Who Stole The DJ Nightmare On My Street Parents Just Don't Understand Ain't No Place Like Home Men In Black Then She Bit Me I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson Who Stole My Car The Parties Will 2K So Fresh Party Starter Summer Time Ring My Bell He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper Boom Shake The Room I'm Looken For The One Block Party Getten Jiggy Wit It Miami Numero Uno Brand New Funk I'm All That The Thoughts Afro Angel Potnas Chasing Forever Tell Me Why Caught In The Middle Shadow Dreams Twinkle Twinkle Momma Knows Born To Reign Just The Two Of Us I Wish I Made That Swagga

Interesting review, though I think it was more of a thesis than a review... But I don't get why ya'll are up in arms, it seemed like a pretty positive review. Jazzy's great on the wheels, check. Will is a great story teller, check. The album gives new folks a chance to check out some hip hop history, check. What more do ya want?

I have a PSP and a DS. I like my DS far more than my PSP, though I am a big Nintendo fan, so take it with a grain of salt. However, I'm pretty sure that the DS has FAR outsold the PSP world wide. The coolest thing about the PSP is the movies and the memory card you can load with MP3's. But I don't think the games are all that fun, and they seem more like small versions of console games, requiring massive time commitments. I only play hand helds for short bursts of time, usually while waiting on something or watching tv. :topic: The New Super Mario Bros, I bought it, love it, my lady stole it. :)

I just ordered me one! :2thumbs:

That was great!!!

Good point

Sure it does, if a female calls and is told a rip-off price and then a man calls and is given a legit price, and the only difference is the sound of our voice, it's obviously because they think they can pull one over on the girl.

Most recently I worked on John Deere North American Farmer and John Deere American Farmer Deluxe. On those I was just an employee, so my money doesn't get changed by piracy, just my employment status. :)

This is a totally anecdotal, but it really seemed insane. My girl is moving out of her apartment, so we're trying to pay her last months rent. She's moving out half way through (gave notice, etc...) and is supposed to pay about half a months rent, and be done. When she tried to pay them, not only did they want the full months payment, they want an EXTRA $200! (off of a 600 or so a month payment) She tried to explain that it wasn't right, they replied with some jive, and she left. So I called today and magically the price was back to where it was supposed to be and I only had to pay for the half a month. Crazy.

Ok, this is a bit of a rant, and I don't mean anything personally by it, but I'm gonna rant anyways. :) I can't access that site, so I don't know about it specifically, but I have seen many that sound similar, which I very much hate. The reason why I hate those sites is that those folks are making money off of other peoples work. As a software developer, I would much rather you steal my product directly than give money to someone else who's stolen my product. I know it seems kinda odd, I don't get paid either way, but I see it that way for a couple of reasons. For some strange reason, I see it as ethically better... Maybe you can't afford my prices, maybe you won't use it very much, you could have many semi-legit reasons for not buying my product. But if there's money going out, I want it in my hands, if there isn't, than I'm not out anything. Also, by giving money to those folks, you're giving them even more incentive to go through the effort of stealing my software. (generally, when software gets stolen, it's only a few people that make it stealable) Finally, these places frequently try to confuse legitimate customers into thinking they're getting a legal copy but at a great price, when they're actually not getting a legal copy at all. If those customers had known, they would have bought it from me instead. So please, don't buy my products from illegit places, just steal them, I would be happier. Of course, I would always rather have you buy them from me. :) But, just to be clear, I don't know if the site mentioned is or is not offering legit products, but super small prices and a name including "warez" seems like it's not very legit... of course, that could just be what they want you to think. :)

I can't help ya with that product specifically, but I would think that the program has many competitors, most cheaper, several free, all with free trials.

But while the small business was bringing in 25% of what the large business was bringing in before the wage increase, it's now bringing in 25.4% of what the large business was bringing in, which would imply that it can now compete more effectively.

Right, so higher minimum wages should help small business.

Could you explain why that would be so, that seems opposite to how it should be.

Can someone explain to me why a higher minimum wage hurts small business? As far as I can tell, a whole lot of small businesses that hire minimum wage employees compete against major corporations. When those two go head to head, I would think that the small business would benifit from higher minimum wage. All companies have several costs that go into their products, such as wages, materials purchasing, advertising, and store front costs (lights, electricity, rent, etc...). Typically major companies can get better rates on materials and advertising, because they're buying in bulk. That usually results in the major companies having lower prices than the small business, which makes it hard for the small business to survive. However, since both companies pay the same wages, when you increase wages, the cost difference on materials and advertising becomes less important. For example, let's take two stores, Bobs Ice Cream, representing small business, and Dairy Queen, representing major corporations, and look at a fictious cost of an ice cream cone. Store - They're across the street from each other, bought at the same time, and using the same utilities, so they're the same. Bobs - 20 cents DQ - 20 cents Materials - DQ has much better rates here, because they can buy in major bulk Bobs - 20 cents DQ - 10 cents Advertising - DQ buys one ad and splits the cost between 10 stores in the city, Bobs buys one add and pays for it all from one store. Bobs - 10 cents DQ - 1 cent Wages - They're both cheap bums, so they both pay minimum wage Bobs - 20 cents DQ - 20 cents So the total cost for each cone is: Bobs - 70 cents DQ - - 51 cents Bobs is 37% more expensive than DQ However, if you where to double minimum wage to 20 cents, than the cone costs would become: Bobs - 90 cents DQ - - 71 cents Now Bobs is only 26% more than DQ, which should make it more attractive to customers. I just made the numbers up to illustrate what I'm talking about, I would think that in reality it isn't nearly as pronounced of an effect, but I would think it would still be true regardless of the numbers. A higher minimum wage wouldn't do much, but if anything, it would slightly help small business. So why does everyone say it's going to hurt small business?