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It is free, which is exactly why you or anyone else (me included) have no say in it. You signed up, they give you free access to their servers, if they don't want you using some third party client, then they don't have to let you. I dont like it either, but that is how it is.

Ennui

I have a friend who has been using an OLD version of aim, never seemed to want to upgrade. Well, the other day, it wouldn't let him log in, so he had to upgrade.. Which means that the older versions of aim didn't have that particular protocol installed.. Interesting.

Ennui

I do not like this guys views. They make sense for where he came from though. He designed the mac os, and the mac os is great at hiding stuff, and making it very hard to manipulate things at a lower level. Which is easy on pc's. I'd take flexibility over predictibility ANY day. I'd much rather be able to know exactly how my computer works, than have it be "easier" to use. I like being in control of it. FULL control. I'll admit, this type of thing would have its uses. Some people just can't handle computers and such, and would want something easier to use. But the way they explained it, having buttons for everything, are those not like icons? And having it so you put a disc in and hit a button, that basicly means there needs to be a standard for software for this system, which wouldnt be hard.. But it is not that hard to install software, and you cant control where it installs to, or how your files are organized. You lose control for ease of use, for some, it is worth it, for most of us, it is not.

Ennui

If the planets are as big as Jupiter.. Then the creatures would be pretty small. Or very muscular, with all that gravity. Wouldnt that be great, a race of super strong aliens, lets not piss them off ;). Or maybe we just have some fungus..

Ennui

This has happened to me before.. A year or two ago I had a personal site on xoom. I had a page on there that had some quotes from songs that I happen to like. Instead of being a bastard, and posting short (less than 20 second) clips of th songs in .wav format, taking up all my webspace, then signing up for more accounts to store the files, I encoded them into mp3's, to save space and speed up download time. (this was back when they gave you 25 megs). Well, one day I went to access my site, and it was gone, my account was deleted. After a few emails back and forth, they said I had violated the agreement, so they had terminated my account (without warning.. grrr). So after a few more emails, they told me that I was "trafficing illegal software, known as 'warez'". So I guess they consider short mp3 clips, automaticly warez.. No testing the files to see what they are, no contacting me, just termination.

Things like this really anger me. I am tired of isps, corporations, or groups, thinking that mp3's are illegal. An mp3 is simply a compression format for a sound file. When will they get, that mp3's are NOT illegal.. sigh.

I guess I'm just tired of isp's flexing their muscles. I had my flashcom dsl terminated without warning for running a site, after FIVE days of trying to get a hold of the guy responsible for canceling my account, I finally found out that it was because of a server, and was told that I had violated the eula, although, I had not once been told that a eula existed, or had I never agreed to anything.. But of course, they had me by my balls.. oh well..

Ennui

What is so wrong with it is the fact that there are many volunteers working on it. If AOL is making revenue from it, the volunteers should be given a share. Sure you could reason that if the volunteers agreed to work for free, but that doesn't mean its right. Anyways, it is completely unneccesary to force so many banners and links back to netscape and aol..

Ennui

I completely agree.

The only person that should be allowed to tell me what I can, and can't see is ME. The only time where I agree that censorship is acceptable would be in the work place. Where they pay you to be there. There is no reason that some other entity should be allowed to decide what is acceptable for me to see. What right does somebody else have, to say what i shouldnt be allowed to view?

Ennui

We should shield our children from portrayals of sexuality (like almost all popular media) that treat women as simply a mobile carrier for things to stick your pecker in. We should shield children from the depravity of unnatural acts, out-of-wedlock sex (which drives people to kill viable unborn human beings in ways so brutal that you wouldn't even see them in an id game). We should shield our children from a view of sex that treats people as objects to be used for our own gratification, despite the strong emotional or psychological bonding that sexual congress produces. We should shield our children from a view of sex that causes the massive spread of disease and emotional damage. Instead we should teach our children that sex is something natural and beautiful, when it is used in both is unitive and procreative ways with the sacred bonds of marriage

I completely disagree with you on all of this. The words "We should shield our children from.." infuriates me. It is people like you that create a close minded society where nothing changes. Children should not be kept in a little box and fed through a hole. They should be able to experience things for themselves and create their own views. What I get out of that paragraph is this: We should shield our children for everything *we* disagree with and we should mold them into exactly what we are. This kind of closemindedness really makes me mad. Just cause they are a child, doesnt mean they cant make thier own decisions.

Teach your children what you believe. But show them, dont make them. Give them a chance to become their own person, with their own views, and their own beliefs. Allow them to see other view points, and allow them to choose for themselves. One thing that really bothers me is how a lot of parents consider their child a piece of property, with no valid opinion or views.

Now, I do agree that sex should be something more than just going out and banging everyone you can find.. I believe its something special and should only be shared with someone you love. BUT, that does not matter, because it is a view I have, and is not the only view. If I ever have children, i will share with them my beliefs, show them my views, but I will not controll everything that they see or do.

Basicly what im trying to say is, we should not shield anyone from anything, we should let people shield themselves from what *they* don't want to see. Teaching someone something by making them ignorant to the opposing view is very very wrong in my opinion, that is taking away their choice.

Ennui

I suppose i should have added that I live in Michigan :). A VERY far reach from California...

Ennui

This sounds like an interesting idea, although I'm not sure if I like it or not... What I would like to bring up is this. When my box at home is tracert'd, the trace stops in California, where my isp's (flashcom, I know they suck, but they were the only dsl available at the time) headquarters is. I've also used programs like.. neotrace (I think that's it...), and that also says that im located in California... So if that is the case, that would render the demographic information useless. Although I'm sure advertisers could still find a use for the information.

Ennui

but in fact both systems are still struggling to implement features we introduced in the first release of Windows 95

I agree completely with Billy on this one.. Windows 95 had slews and slews of bugs implemented immediately. It also had the "unstable as crap" feature. And how could we forget the need to buy a new computer to run it requirement.. Too bad windows just keeps adding more and more crap features with loads and loads of more bugs.

Ennui

I guess your right, they do need to stay afloat somehow. I dont really mind banner adds on free things, as long as they're not too obtrusive.

Still, on the plus side, it's better than terminal only access over 3200 baud...

haha, i know what you mean. the words "ill work for bandwidth" come to mind. there was a time where i'd have sold my soul for a decent high speed connection.. heck, if i didnt have one now, i probably still would.

Ennui

bastards... sellouts.. *grumble* luckily i automaticly ignore banner ads, dont even notice them (unless they're all flashy and annoying). You're probably right about them being able to eventually pay to get their site boosted, if you can't do that already...

Ennui

Before Google, I'd given up on search engines. To but it bluntly, the things were shitful. Rarly would a search constantly find main useful sites, and stuff totally offtopic was commonplace

I partly agree. Unless you refine your searches, you get a load of crap. I myself use Altavista *almost* exclusivly (if it can't find what im looking for I'll go to others). I have found that if you know what combinations of words to use, and use '+' and '-' and quotes and wild cards, your searches can be very fruitful.

Ennui

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (cause she sure didnt..) ;).

Ennui

The fun you could have if you ran your own large scale search engine.. How you could manipulate queries and influence so many minds.. er.. I mean, if I ran a search engine I would never consider such a thing. Of course with all the lawsuits today, you could probably get pretty screwed up for linking something to something bad.

Ennui

It's one of my ancestors! I always knew I was different... Not really, although reviving an unknown strain of bacteria that old.. Great, they mentioned something like this in an article from the other day, 20 Ways The World Could End. Time to purchase stock in biosuits ;). Actually, we have nothing to worry about at all, the scientists will be careful and keep it contained and not take it home to show the kids

Ennui