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It is?

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And I find the mysogyny in your posting highly offensive, and request that your account be suspended.

I have sent a copy of your posting to Commander Taco.

If I recall correctly my dad bought Office 97 when it came out for 350EUR (not very sure), but we are happy with it and we already use it for 4 years. So technically a subscription to Office would need to be less than 7.3EUR/month to be competitve. Service packs were freely downloadable for Office 97. Consider then that all four PC's in our house have he same Office on it (which is illegal, considering EULA), it lowers TCO even more. Every year that I use this Office 97 longer will be pure gain for me. If I had a subscription, even if it only were 5 EUR/month..over 4 years, for 4 computers it would be 5EUR*12(month)*4(years)*4(computers) = 960 EUR total cost. Ouch! And that only to do a bit accounting, an homework and presentations for school? Not to forget that I didn't have to update any machine in order to keep running Office 97, something which would not be guaranteed to be the case with subscription based software.
You also claim also that companies can choose whether they upgrade or not... Sure, theoretically that is true, but consider this: your business is not alone. Your company is likely to communicate with other businesses: the day your CEO recieves an Office 2000 document and he cannot open it because your company has adopted Office 97 as a standard, what is he going to do? He is not going to mail back to the other CEO to remail it in a compatible format, but he is going to call you and tell you that the IT material is outdated and it needs to get upgraded.

(Oh, yeah, and "weather" is the thing outside like rain and snow and sunshine...what you mean is "whether")

If I recall correctly my dad bought Office 97 when it came out for 350EUR (not very sure), but we are happy with it and we already use it for 4 years. So technically a subscription to Office would need to be less than 7.3EUR/month to be competitve. Service packs were freely downloadable for Office 97. Consider then that all four PC's in our house have he same Office on it (which is illegal, considering EULA), it lowers TCO even more. Every year that I use this Office 97 longer will be pure gain for me. If I had a subscription, even if it only were 5 EUR/month..over 4 years, for 4 computers it would be 5EUR*12(month)*4(years)*4(computers) = 960 EUR total cost. Ouch! And that only to do a bit accounting, an homework and presentations for school? Not to forget that I didn't have to update any machine in order to keep running Office 97, something which would not be guaranteed to be the case with subscription based software.
You also claim also that companies can choose whether they upgrade or not... Sure, theoretically that is true, but consider this: your business is not alone. Your company is likely to communicate with other businesses: the day your CEO recieves an Office 2000 document and he cannot open it because your company has adopted Office 97 as a standard, what is he going to do? He is not going to mail back to the other CEO to remail it in a compatible format, but he is going to call you and tell you that the IT material is outdated and it needs to get upgraded.

(Oh, yeah, and "weather" is the thing outside like rain and snow and sunshine...what you mean is "whether")

Name me one thing that is fact that does not require any amount of assumption. Just one.

One fact is that, at this moment in time, the entry for "faith" at dictionary.com (2nd meaning) is "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence". It does not require any assumption to state this fact.

If you want to try and validate that fact, you'll need certain pre-requisites like an internet connection, understanding of the english language (which you seem to lack), and you might even need the assumption that the page hasn't changed by the time you read it. I can't help you on that; my brain is being taken out of the jar it's in for cleaning, so I'll cease to exist for a short period of time. In the meantime, you could help yourself by reading up on nihilism and other stuff on epistemology.

Aside from the other excellent Slashdot responses to the question of why we still listen to Richard, it's also because nobody else does the same job that he does.

These are the two main jobs he performs in the public eye:

1) having coded the basis of most Free and open source software in existance

2) the ultimate champion of Free Software advocacy

He takes permanent lifelong fulltime personal responsibility for the liberty of GPL related users and software.

Maybe nobody else has stepped up to the plate or have done as good of a job. It's freaking hard. It's not very fun unless one has obsessively narcissistic tendencies. He doesn't do it just because he likes it; he does it because it has to be done. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Or maybe like some other projects the right good gentleman has chaired, he won't relinquish the spot. :)

So why don't you ask him, or stand up to the job yourself? I'd suggest that if you're going to criticize him, that you'd better have a URL on hand that lists all your contributions to freedom and liberty. :)

===

From Websters:

belief (b-lf) n. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another.
Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something.
Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

SOOO, to drag this back on topic...
Probabilities of extraterrestial life are ultimately based on some sort of faith in the evidence you see and that which you can guess at (since right now we have no evidence of extra-terrestrial life). We may have elements that can contribute to life, but so far they have not been proven to have been formed into any simple living cell, let alone any intelligent or instinctual living being.

The dictionary defines a Craft as
An occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or skilled artistry.
To really appreaciate one persons craft requires another craftsman. But every one can appreaciate the end product of the craf (if done well:-).

The dictionary defines a Craft as
An occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or skilled artistry.
To really appreaciate one persons craft requires another craftsman. But every one can appreaciate the end product of the craf (if done well:-).

I'm confused. I mean, I understand that the bug is radiation-resistant. That's very cool. But, how does it 'reduce' the amount of radioactive Uranium, exactly? Uranium is an element, so I thought that it could neither be created nor destroyed?...

The actual amount of Uranium can't be reduced. What I think they mean here, is reduction in the chemical sense. In chemistry, a reduction reaction is the opposite of oxidation. Oxidation is the loss of electrons to the other reactants, in a chemical reaction, reduction is the gain of electrons. Oxidation does not necessairly involve oxygen. Check out definition 5a here. I'm not sure what they'd gain by doing this, though. Mabye the nasty stuff is easier to clean up this way?

According to the dictionary art is a skill,a craft. Art in short, is something we create.

The only difference between "programming" and "art", is infact the medium upon which is chosen to perform the desired "art" or "skill".

programming just simply means an art form that utilises a programming language as it's medium.

design is an "art" form.
creating sound is an "art" form.
programming, is an "art" form.
basically the medium on which someone chooses to be creative, should not and does not make a single bit of difference, the point is, if it was created it involved some form of "art" or rather "skill" to do so.

Every single byte, bit, mime blob or script ever created is "art", no matter what form. "art" is just something that required individual skill to create and thus is unlimited in it's medium.

I create software, this requires skill, theirfore the result, my program; is art.

1. The design documents shall contain no reference to any object which is installed inside the outer case of the target machine.

So what, you can't use the floppy or CD-rom for installation? You can't put music on the CD? That's great, because you know how badly I wanted to return to MIDI music.

2. The use of hardware 3D acceleration of any sort is forbidden.

Does that include MMX and/or 3DNOW!? This is silly anyway; We all have 3d accelerators these days. Are these people just trying to keep the industry back?

3. Only the following input devices are allowed: on a console machine, the controller which normally ships with it. On a computer, a 2-axis joystick with two buttons, or a D-pad with two buttons; a standard 101-key PC keyboard; a 2-button mouse.

I can dig the console requirements, though for playstation, does that mean you don't get to use dual shock? After all, the controller which originally shipped with it didn't have the nice analog sticks.

Also, a keyboard is an extremely crappy input device for games, and not all keyboards are created equal. No thanks.

4. There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires.

No evil geniuses? So your villain has to be an idiot? And no wenches? Clearly these people haven't seen a dictionary lately. No gods, angels, or demons would seem to open up a religious debate which I don't think anyone has business in.

5. The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks." Also prohibited are: simulations of 20th-century or current military vehicles, simulations of sports which are routinely broadcast live on television, real-time strategy games focussing solely on warfare and weapons production, lock-and-key adventure games, numbers-heavy role-playing games, and any card game found in Hoyle's Rules of Card Games.

Most of this I can dig. Disallowing RTS games is pretty lame; What do they want me to add to an RTS to make it not focus on military might? That's the whole idea, and it has been since ogre. You just have to be creative about deployment.

Oh, and the card game thing is stupid. They're encouraging lame games like FFVIII where you have to learn a new, stupid card game in order to get some of the kickass things going on.

6. All cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden. If a game requires any introductory or transitional material, it must be provided by scrolling text.

Further evidence of lead in drinking water. Sure, people take cinematics too far, but it would be more useful to limit, say, the duration of the clip, and the number of characters in it. Otherwise you get the "backfill syndrome" where you're forced to do dumb shit like go to the well to fetch water, as nothing more than an aside. This actually happens in Albert Odyssey for the Saturn.

7. Violence is strictly limited to the disappearance or immobilization of destroyed units. Units which are damaged or destroyed shall be so indicated by symbolic, not representational, means. There shall be no blood, explosions, or injury or death animations.

Translation: "Our morality is more valid than yours.

8. There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good and Evil.

To quote them: "With the exception of a small number of homicidal maniacs, no human being regards him- or herself as evil." Maybe they should add Danzig to that list. In any case, I'm the good guys, and they're evil. Typically. For example, this whole Persian Gulf thing...

9. If a game is representational rather than abstract, it may contain no conceptual non sequiturs, e.g. medical kits may not be hidden inside oil tanks.

Holy shit, we're one for ten. I actually agree with this point 100%.

10. If a game is representational rather than abstract, the color black may not be used to depict any manmade object except ink, nor any dangerous fictitious nonhuman creatures.

What about depictions of a Playstation 2?

Now I realize that, as with Hollywood and Dogme 95, nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001.

That's because it's a formula for making tiny little games. We have these vast PCs; We might as well fill up the box.

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ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

Irregardless

Vermifax

O.K., so you got me on the democratic republic thing, still, I do not subscribe to your definition of communism necessarily, the one I gave IS a dictionary definition
communism: A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.



"collective ownership of property" that sounds a lot like most of the open source licenses,

"the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members" that certainly sounds like open source developers, and "all members" does not mean everyone in the country/continent/world, it means "all members" of the society, the society in this case being the open source movement.

So, I still stand that open source meets this definition, I agree it does not meet the criteria you set out, but I think your definition is really aimed at Geovernments, not societies.

"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."

Every single element of your message -- your nick, the body of the post itself, and your sig -- reeks of pretentiousness.

I don't think pretentiousness is the word you want. Arrogance, maybe. Self-righteousness? Conceitedness? Definitely.

Of course, I would prefer brilliant, honest and humble (humble, but just too much brilliance leaks out to be possible). :)

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1. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community.
   
2. The theory or practice of those who support such a social system.
   
3. The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.
   

First of all, the word you're looking for is 'subjectivity'.

Which is synonymous with subjectiveness.

Is this voter's intent clear? I think so. Would this vote have been counted, they way things played out?

As a matter of fact, yes. And they should. In fact, there is legal precedent for counting ballots when a voter uses a pencil/pen.

requires that the counting procedure 'determine the intent of the voter'. [...] So now tell me again how you know for sure that every legal vote was counted.

If someone circled a particular hole, then the voter's intent is clearly defined, and no subjectivity [I'll use this word just for you] is required. But that's not what happened. What happened was that Gore wanted to go beyond that, and to count votes with scratches on the card. That requires subjectiveness on the part of the counter. Put it this way, if two counters can reasonably reach different conclusions, then it's not a vote.

Bottom line, all votes with clear intent were counted.

--

Hemos says 'Enfringement', ComanderTaco says 'Infringement'. I'm afraid I'll have to agree with the latter in this case (Dictionary.com).

Firstly, you should not be out "looking" for a partner, like you look for a car. Mariage, or permanent relationships are not about "ownership" or "possession". It's not a competition to see who "has" the better partner. You are not "denying" that partner to anyone else. You are forming a partnership with another individual to establish a lifelong connection of mutual aid and intimacy.

He wasn't debasing human intimacy, he's not advocating a return to slavery or the retraction of human rights or freedom of choice. It was an analogy. Get over it. Shit, people are so touchy these days...

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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"

your name sounds girlish, and your talk is unmanly. please be a girl please
I am in fact a woman.
I've linked to the definition on dictionary.com as it seems unlikely that you've ever met one.
Try leaving the house once in a while.
--Kara

your name sounds girlish, and your talk is unmanly. please be a girl please
I am in fact a woman.
I've linked to the definition on dictionary.com as it seems unlikely that you've ever met one.
Try leaving the house once in a while.
--Kara

Not a single day of prayer?
It's got a long history - the first I know of was 1775, and it's been an annual thing since 1952. Abraham Lincoln called on the US to do this as well.
For more info, see this site

Atheism has no beliefs? dictionary.com disagrees with you.
Atheism asserts that there is NO God. In the PRC, it is against the law to believe in God. It was that way in Albania and other communist countries as well.

Life's beginning as arbitrary? That doesn't make sense to me. Please explain yourself.

WRT drug treatment progams, This site claims that traditional programs work 20% of the time. I think it's telling that there are not consistent methods for evaluating the effectiveness of drug treatment programs. An article about this is located at the Teen Challenge site They claim a very high success rate.

BTW - Atheists consider narcotics anonymous a religious program, and teen challenge is a Christianity-based program

If Mr. Ashcroft is 'on record' as doing something illegal or unethical, please provide a reference to the record.

If you believe that he lied under oath during his confirmation hearing, do you have evidence of this, or is it simply your assertion that he lied?

And the literary metaphors we choose to employ in debates "effect the way we see a problem and the way we solve a problem," he said.

The effect of the effect is affecting my affect.

My actions will effect change

My affect will be flat after I burn my brains on slashdot

And the literary metaphors we choose to employ in debates "effect the way we see a problem and the way we solve a problem," he said.

The effect of the effect is affecting my affect.

My actions will effect change

My affect will be flat after I burn my brains on slashdot

cyborg (sbôrg) (n.) A human being who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices. [cyb(ernetic) + org(anism).]

cybernetics (sbr-ntks) (n., used with a sing. verb) The theoretical study of communication and control processes in biological, mechanical, and electronic systems, especially the comparison of these processes in biological and artificial systems.

organism (ôrg-nzm) (n. ) 1. An individual form of life, such as a plant, an animal, a bacterium, a protist, or a fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life. 2. A system regarded as analogous in its structure or functions to a living body: the social organism.

While the root words seem to indicate that a plant with a controller chip would fit the term cyporg, actual usage seems to be restricted to human or human like organisms. Some more definitions:

cyber- (pref.) Computer: cyberpunk. Computer network: cyberspace.

-phyte (suff.) A plant with a specified character or habitat: halophyte. A pathological growth: osteophyte.

Combining these terms results in the word cyberphyte , a plant characterized by being part of a computer network. How does this sound? Does anyone have other ideas for a good, descriptive term for this type of organism? Perhaps something that includes a hint at the ability to be genetically reprogrammed? I'm kinda stumped about that part and don't know if that is too specific.

So...

SOMEBODY DRANK MILK FROM A GOAT THEY GENETICALLY ALTERED?

Now theres a real geek. I can just see it now:

"Hey, Bob get over here. We have something we want you to try."
"What is it?"
"..."
"Well?"
"Its...milk"
"Oh. Cool! *glug*"

Oh man, does anyone else damn near /hear/ in this guy's voice just how red in the face he is, or is it just my poor dietary habit? (Hey, you'd be on edge too, if /you/ had Uncle Morb's Spicy Surprise--let's just say 'bean supper' is understatement like electoral clownshow). Oh, yes, the obligatory Slashdot appeasement:
"Some readers think that I am proposing having applications, which could be launched by a button press (as with the Commodore CBM Plus4, Palm). I am not proposing anything of the sort"
In other words, all those poor users who accidentally stumbled upon what the Big Mean Power Users call "shortcut keys" (or "hotkeys", if you're in Gatesville) have finally gotten the best of poor old Raskin. Oh well. Glad /my/ desktop -- uh, *O* *S*, let's me set things the way I want.
Cheers.
Oh, and obligatory Informative links:
Further information about Raskin.
Information about nearly Raskin.

If you, like the rest of us, signed an NDA which covers information for some time after you leave, your comments could certainly be construed to be in violation of your NDA.

Since we don't know what you said (and you didn't provide a link to it, or a copy of the text) we can't really make these judgements, so your question is incomplete, or at least you're asking the wrong question. Rather than "Should I be concerned? Am I no longer entitled to have an opinion about a place where I used to work?" it should have been "Could these specific things I said about my former employer get me into trouble, and why?"

First of all, let me mention that there are things you could have said which could be considered a violation of law even if you weren't violating a contract (the NDA.) If you're saying something negative about someone (and naming names, or providing enough information to identify someone) then you could be guilty of slander. Since you've made a publication (unless Yahoo censors content; Then they could be guilty of that) of this information, you could also get busted for libel.

But all that notwithstanding; Ultimately, a company gets to decide what information they should be keeping secret. They don't have to lay it out for you, necessarily, if they can show that a reasonable person would have realized that it could be important to the business. If you let just one wrong word slip in your post, you could find yourself in court for breach of contract. The company can then burn your village, rape your horses, and ride off on your women... or however that's supposed to go.

No one is challenging your right to an opinion. I imagine it's pretty hard to get slander to stick. But when your information was published you put yourself at risk. You must be very careful what you write. To be at your safest, you should only repeat things which are already public information. You can hint at the events behind the scenes, saying things like "One person in the chain of command..." and similar, but identifying people, projects, or events positively is a no-no.

If you don't like that fact, well, the way to change it is not to make postings like the one you could feasibly have made (again, I have no idea what you wrote, so your question is, for the most part, meaningless IMO) but to work to challenge the laws. If this is your way of getting into that situation, so be it, but I can't help but think there must be an easier way.

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ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

If you, like the rest of us, signed an NDA which covers information for some time after you leave, your comments could certainly be construed to be in violation of your NDA.

Since we don't know what you said (and you didn't provide a link to it, or a copy of the text) we can't really make these judgements, so your question is incomplete, or at least you're asking the wrong question. Rather than "Should I be concerned? Am I no longer entitled to have an opinion about a place where I used to work?" it should have been "Could these specific things I said about my former employer get me into trouble, and why?"

First of all, let me mention that there are things you could have said which could be considered a violation of law even if you weren't violating a contract (the NDA.) If you're saying something negative about someone (and naming names, or providing enough information to identify someone) then you could be guilty of slander. Since you've made a publication (unless Yahoo censors content; Then they could be guilty of that) of this information, you could also get busted for libel.

But all that notwithstanding; Ultimately, a company gets to decide what information they should be keeping secret. They don't have to lay it out for you, necessarily, if they can show that a reasonable person would have realized that it could be important to the business. If you let just one wrong word slip in your post, you could find yourself in court for breach of contract. The company can then burn your village, rape your horses, and ride off on your women... or however that's supposed to go.

No one is challenging your right to an opinion. I imagine it's pretty hard to get slander to stick. But when your information was published you put yourself at risk. You must be very careful what you write. To be at your safest, you should only repeat things which are already public information. You can hint at the events behind the scenes, saying things like "One person in the chain of command..." and similar, but identifying people, projects, or events positively is a no-no.

If you don't like that fact, well, the way to change it is not to make postings like the one you could feasibly have made (again, I have no idea what you wrote, so your question is, for the most part, meaningless IMO) but to work to challenge the laws. If this is your way of getting into that situation, so be it, but I can't help but think there must be an easier way.

--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

If you, like the rest of us, signed an NDA which covers information for some time after you leave, your comments could certainly be construed to be in violation of your NDA.

Since we don't know what you said (and you didn't provide a link to it, or a copy of the text) we can't really make these judgements, so your question is incomplete, or at least you're asking the wrong question. Rather than "Should I be concerned? Am I no longer entitled to have an opinion about a place where I used to work?" it should have been "Could these specific things I said about my former employer get me into trouble, and why?"

First of all, let me mention that there are things you could have said which could be considered a violation of law even if you weren't violating a contract (the NDA.) If you're saying something negative about someone (and naming names, or providing enough information to identify someone) then you could be guilty of slander. Since you've made a publication (unless Yahoo censors content; Then they could be guilty of that) of this information, you could also get busted for libel.

But all that notwithstanding; Ultimately, a company gets to decide what information they should be keeping secret. They don't have to lay it out for you, necessarily, if they can show that a reasonable person would have realized that it could be important to the business. If you let just one wrong word slip in your post, you could find yourself in court for breach of contract. The company can then burn your village, rape your horses, and ride off on your women... or however that's supposed to go.

No one is challenging your right to an opinion. I imagine it's pretty hard to get slander to stick. But when your information was published you put yourself at risk. You must be very careful what you write. To be at your safest, you should only repeat things which are already public information. You can hint at the events behind the scenes, saying things like "One person in the chain of command..." and similar, but identifying people, projects, or events positively is a no-no.

If you don't like that fact, well, the way to change it is not to make postings like the one you could feasibly have made (again, I have no idea what you wrote, so your question is, for the most part, meaningless IMO) but to work to challenge the laws. If this is your way of getting into that situation, so be it, but I can't help but think there must be an easier way.

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ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

why was I kept current?

Next time the geeks destroy the hopes and dreams of the visionaries we need to make sure that we all get our fair share of the spoils.

Also: dotcom mani ???

References

[1] Hart, Claudia, "A child's Machiavelli-a primer on power"

Am I? or are you?
I'm going right to the top here but the dictionary defines the first world as The industrialized non-Communist countries of the world.
It defines the second world as The Communist nations of the world, especially as an economic and political bloc.
And it defines the third world as 1. Underdeveloped or developing countries, especially those not allied with Communist countries. or 2. Minority groups as a whole within a larger prevailing culture.
So the dictionary would seem to take my side of the story.

I'd say that ZIP drives made it all right.

Yeah, they made it "all right", but they didn't make it phenomenally, which is what they were after. They didn't do better than they ended up doing predominantly because of the click of death; I've had two drives succumb to that problem.

In the end, though, I still have three (working) zip drives; USB, Ext. SCSI, and Int. SCSI. I only use the USB one, but the others sit around waiting for the day when I need them.

I have Zip (and not Orb) because comparatively, everyone has a Zip. All the print shops have them, and so on. But not everyone actually has one, whereas everyone (except for Mac G3/G4 owners, typically) has a floppy drive. Floppies are largely useless for anything other than bootstrapping, but they do seem to get that particular job done in a barely acceptable fashion.

Zip would have "made it" if they had become the replacement for the floppy. So far, nothing has become the replacement for the floppy. What does something have to do to fill that void?

• It has to be cheap; No more than five times the cost of a floppy drive. That puts it between $35 and $50; Zip is STILL around $100.
• Media has to be cheap; Mo more than five times the cost of a floppy disk (IE, less than five dollars.) Zip media is $5 to $10, even today, which is almost cheap enough, but not quite.
• It has be be truly ubiquitous - everyone has to adopt it.
• You have to be able to boot from it. Zip at least has that going, though not on all models (obviously, booting from parallel is out, likewise USB.)
• It should be fairly speedy. We already know that Iomega can't make a fast removable media device. Period. Zip is agonizingly slow, Jaz is worse considering how much storage it has. By contrast, Syquest 135 (which died, sadly) was more reliable, over twice as fast as a zip, had more capacity, and media was about the same price. Too bad it came to market AFTER zip already had its toehold.
• It should be reliable. Zip was anything but. Can you say "Click of Death"? Or how about how zip disks just lose data over time, like floppies?

So, Zip meets none of the criteria. It's easy to see what happened there.

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ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

So what was their goal? To safely hang a VW from a bridge in a manor that would receive media attention.

Hanging a manor from the GG bridge would, indeed, be an impressive feat of engineering, as well as a dramatic perversion of the classis physics model. You'd have to shrink it a bit.

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ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

"...takes a lot more skill then that."

What is it with you people? THEN is not the same as THAN.

"...takes a lot more skill then that."

What is it with you people? THEN is not the same as THAN.

• Feb 2: A "legal" TV descrambler, which appears to just be assembly plans, for "educational" purposes only. Apparantly they claim it'll let you want the pay-per-view and other pay channels, for $12 or something like that. (too bad I don't watch TV) Also some stuff about jamming police radar. Yeah, this questionably legal aspect is going to be a theme...
• Feb 1: Making over half million dollars every 4 to 5 months from your home for an investment of only $25 U.S. Dollars expense one time THANK'S TO THE COMPUTER AGE AND THE INTERNET ! What kind of an idiot sends $25 to something this absurd?
• Jan 31: If you are in debt or need extra cash, we can help you get the money you have been hoping for. Our services are FREE and we have already helped thousands of homeowners, just like you. Now that's pretty deceptive, since any refinance costs a 1% loan origination fee, and these sharks usually charge much more.
• Jan 31:: Save up to 70% on your Life Insurance! I don't know enough about life insurance to say for sure this is a scam, but is sounds too good to be true, so it probably is.
• Jan 31:: A "we've redesigned our site" (yet again), from Onvia. Admittedly, I did buy a printer there about 8 months ago, and I always make sure that any "send me emails" boxes aren't checked. At least they are a reputable vendor and they shipped my printer the same day.
• Jan 31: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!!! PIANO OWNERS- we offer a patented device that sits on your piano keyboard and allows you to play the piano immediately!! They gave a toll free number to call.
• Jan 30: Start your mail order business by learning from an expert ... FREE Downloadable book for you to keep!!! ... My wife and I have been in the mail order business since December 1999. We have made over $100.000 since! The email urges you to visit their website, which I haven't done. They've been in the business for 15 months, and they're the "experts" I should learn from ??
• Jan 30: Super Sex Pill with no side effects! ... Finally, there is A Dream Come True Product ... This formula helps you with naturally triggered arousal and erections, not artificially triggered like Viagra. There's a link to a website, which presumably has more info.
• Jan 29: Mortgage Rates DROP!! Lenders COMPETE for your Business!. Just like all the other refinance crap.
• Jan 29: IMPORTANT! ANTI-AGING BREAKTHROUGH:
  • Reduce body fat and build lean muscle WITHOUT EXERCISE!
  • Remove wrinkles and cellulite
  • Increase energy and cardiac output
  • Lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol profile
  • Improve sleep, vision and memory
  • Restore hair color and growth
  • Strenghen the immune system
  • Enhance sexual performance
  To TURN BACK YOUR BODY'S BIOLOGIC CLOCK. Wow, now if only they make is stop this damn spam, they'd really have something :)
• Jan 28: ATTENTION BUSINESS OWNER/OPERATOR ... From time to time, most companies experience a cash flow problem. ... [name removed] is a national consulting company specializing in reducing problem debts for companies of all sizes. Yeah, that's why their email has a forged header... just the sort of folks I'd want to be dealing with.
• Jan 28: The "legal" tv descrambler again.
• Jan 28: Aggressive 125% of Value Home Loans Available Now ... We have loan programs that are unheard of It goes on about how they can get you a loan pretty much no matter how bad you are with credit. Kinda shy on details, though.
• Jan 26: Meet The Richest People On Earth ... the message about 99% html tags and 1% text, and I've reading it in VIM, so I'm going to skip trying to figure out what this one was. On the bright side, it looks like Jan 27 was one of those rare days without a single SPAM received
• Jan 25: You were referred to me as someone who was ready for a Financial Breakthrough! Bullshit, this is a damn spam, who do they think they're fooling, starting out with such an obvious lie? I am looking for a few motivated and teachable individuals who are ready to start earning at least $2000 per week starting right away. And a SEVEN FIGURE income within the next 2 years. I wonder how many people really bit on these get rich quick schemes.
• Jan 25: Do you have a Timeshare or Vacation Membership? Are you interested in renting it? We can help!
• Jan 25: Do you need help with your credit cards ... Reduce your credit card debt by up to 50% ... Decrease your payments by 30% On the bright side, Jan 24 was spam free.
• Jan 23: Let us Eliminate Your Debt.
  • Stop creditors from hassling you.
  • Cut your monthly payments in half.
  • Make you debt free in less than 5 years.
  • You can not be turned down for this program.
• Jan 22: Obtain Biotech IPOs!. This is another mega-html message, with a meta tag from MS frontpage at the top.
• Jan 22: New Findout About Anyone Fast Now! ... Download this today and discover the EASY WAY to find out anything about anyone
• Jan 22: Spainsh text and .EXE attachment, dictionary.com translates it as something about Snow White's 18th birthday. Maybe this isn't spam and a trojan or virus, but I saved it to my spam file anyways.
• Jan 22: VENTURE CAPITAL BUSINESS, CAREER AND INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY ... Our program entails interacting with CEO's of emerging growth companies and assessing and qualifying their financial needs. If accepted as a partner, there is an $9,750 investment required. Message gives USA phone number, but email header filled with forged and conflicting non-us email addresses.
• Jan 21: (this scam is one of my favorites) This exciting opportunity requires a very LOW START-UP COST and has already been TESTED AND PROVEN. We are in the information age, billions are made every year in the information industry and you can take part in making money by selling information. The basic idea is that you'll get rich quick by buying a cdrom, making copies, and selling to others on the net (via spam), who for some mysterious reason didn't already fall for this scam.

Looking though these messages, that have a few things in common, which might allow a very effective filter to be written. Near all offer (a likely bogus) way "to be removed". This phrase almost occurs at the end of the message, often times with "remove" or "in error", and either an email address or url immediately following. The other style, which isn't usually present in normal emails, it a large number of 2-5 word PRHASES IN ALL CAPS, followed with lots of exclaimation points!!!!!

Check this out

The important and related definitions are the first few, and each one mentions a winner, or competition, or at least score.

Mr-Pope

This must be where deja vu comes from.

But deja vu evokes such subtle, inexplicable emotions from the strangest things.

How do these recognition patterns work? I dispute the fact that our recognition is based on something as simple and easily broken down as individual visual moments.

I think there is a uniqueness to everyone's interpretation of the world, and that it is probably a mistake to put so much emphasis on recognition cues picked up from others. I don't want to get mystical here (unless you consider psychology mystical) but the very act of recognition can be fraught with psychological connotations, provoking memories and associations.

People who have sexual fetishes, for instance, get a sexual response to contact with certain items or materials. For them, certain items are associated with things that usually have nothing to do with their original purpose. How could this happen if our communication, and the meaning of things in the outside world, comes entirely from other people?

The apple is spelled McIntosh. A Mackintosh is either a rain coat or a producer of musical theatre depending on whom you ask. I'm sure Apple Computer used neither spelling in the effort to make something trademarkably misspelled, after the manner of the Prevue Channel, E-Z whatever, and other such tripe.

Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to employ it easily.

No thanks, one can only handle so many Microsoft jokes ;)

Sounds much better, I think.

Hi, reality master 101, how is your trolling session today ?

So if someone disagrees with you, then they must be a troll?

The law will not say "you are required to use window", but "it is illegal to use software non-approved by the industry", and, funnily, the industry will only approve windows software.

Guess what? It's a product. You can choose to buy that product or not. We're not talking about food or housing, we're talking about a movie in a particular format. Note that it isn't even the only format you can buy. Read carefully: It's their product. They can do whatever they want with it. It's called "freedom". But since you appear to advocate socialism, freedom is a word you may not be familiar with.

There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize.

Try this word: "metaphor". You know what I mean, but instead you choose to deliberately pretend that you don't rather than make a substantive argument. And you accuse me of trolling?

--

Yep, if Mr. Airline Pilot's reflexes are a little affected because he spent the weekend smoking crack and he augers a 757 full of nuns and orphans into the box seats at the Superdome on Superbowl Sunday, that's a victimless crime.

No, that is a crime, flying under the influence, or some such. The smoking of the crack should not have been a crime. The only person affected was the user, the other people were only affected afterwards. In fact, I think the punishment for this particular offence(the plane crashing, not the crack smoking) should be worse. Some jobs require a higher level of responsibility than others, i.e. a doctor/nurse/pilot/commercial driver/etc. should be held to a higher standard than a ditch digger/migrant farm worker/general manual laborer.

Yep, if insurance becomes unaffordable to Joe Sixpack and his kid with lukemia because all the money is being paid to save people who have OD'ed, that's a victimless crime.

If the OD victims were paying for their insurance, what is the problem again? I think there would be a lot less OD's if people had access to accurate info about drugs and had access to sources of known quality.

Yep, if someone happens to accidently overdose and leave a widow and children behind, that's a victimless crime.

No, the junkie is the victim. The widow and child are affected because of their ties to the junkie, but this doesn't make them victims(unless you are talking about the Politically Correct definition of the word victim, or the broadest interpretation of definition #3 from the link above).

Despite what anyone around here thinks, the whole "Drugs are a Victimless Crime" argument is one of the lamest pieces of rationalization ever brought up in a political discussion. If a drug were safe and didn't cause people to be hurt it wouldn't be illegal. Look at alcohol and all the damage it does, and it _is_ legal. Just think what would happen if cocaine or heroin suddenly became legal.

The supply of those drugs would now be taxed and regulated. No more OD's because of poor quality drugs; less crime because drugs would be less expensive; a country that doesn't spend billions of dollars putting a large portion of its populace in jail; better, more complete information about the effects of drugs on humans due to the ability to study them in controlled environments; I could go on and on.

Do you think all the innocent victims I described above would mind being sacrificed for a "victimless" activity?

The only victims I see described above are the plane crash victims, and that has already been addressed.

A little late for this thread, true, but consider this:

There is a medical condition called anencephaly, which essentially means to be born with most of the brain missing. Children born like this are still technically alive.

So if you consider "everybody" to be singular then it seems that at least Mirriam-Webster's agrees that "their" is appropriate usage.

As for whether "their" can be used as a singular gender-neutral pronoun, it's true that dictionaries have recently (in the past few years) begun to accept it. English is indeed evolving. But it's ugly, especially in formal settings (which this is, of course, not). There's a discussion of the issue here: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=A00 42019, containing this advice: "Writers who are concerned about avoiding both grammatical and social problems are best advised to use coordinate forms such as his or her."

There's another discussion I found here: http://athena.english.vt.edu/~IDLE/Gym2/workout6/w 6.stretch2.3.html, which basically suggests that you just avoid the whole situation by pluralizing the subject or reconstructing the sentence entirely.

So we're all right, and everybody is happy. And I'm sure I made a grammatical error somwhere in that post that someone will point out.

--

My previous post contains three separate indications that the comment is ironic. A US$5 Paypal payment will go to the first Slashdotter to describe each one. Describe all three before anybody else describes any, and I'll kick in an extra $5, for a total prize of $20. Myself to be sole judge, etc. etc.

__________________

I agree.

NASA and government has NO RIGHT to FORCE _ME_ to pay for someone elses exploration of the universe.

Instead of "wasting" money exploring space, we should first improve the living conditions for the unfortunate on THIS planet first.

If you want, you can legally opt-out of having the government spending your money. (Thank Yahweh for the 14th Amendment ;-) You can read more details here.

--
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." - Thomas Jefferson

The movie is fiction. If you want the reality of Open Source, then take a look at C.H.I.M.P. and see Open Source in action!

This article slipped by my "Exclude Jon Katz" filter. :-(
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