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I'm not sure why you've got the feeling that copyright is considered to be the evil around here either, as none of the comments so far have said anything of the sort, or even remotely like it. The closest was the fellow who said he doesn't mind anyone plagairizing his work. Even he didn't say copyright was evil.

What's been said is that copyright is in bad need of reform. Not that it's evil, but that the laws as written are bad.

Many copyright HOLDERS are indeed evil; Sony comes to mind.

-mcgrew

(linked text is titled "SONY MUST DIE!!! Die, you worthless scumbag bastards die!")

Ahem, argument's already been automated. In fact, I wrote the program, and did so in 1982. Where the hell have you guys been? It's a turing machine program that's supposed to simulate thinking withiut actually being able to think, much like a flight simulator simulates flight without leaving the ground.

I wrote it in a vain attempt to convince people that computers don't think. Unfortunately it usually has the opposite effect. "Thanks, mcgrew", they say, "now my fucking computer hates me!"

-mcgrew (no longer charging for the program, but it's still copyrighted. I dream of catching an RIAA lawyer infringeing...)

Keep the original code that works well

I don't mind (too much) when they add features. Some new features I actually find handy, although there's little I can do with today's tools that I couldn't do ten years ago.

But deprecating features? Why should I have to go back and rewrite a ten year old page because they're deprecating <font size="+1"> or <font color="000000">?

-mcgrew

It seems they could both radically improve javascript and add in support for additional scripting languages. It would come at the price of increasing the size of the browsers, but that seems a small price to pay for the increased flexibility for developers.

Yeah, that sounds fair. Penalize ME, the web surfer, by making my browser bigger and slower so YOU don't have to work so hard.

Yep, you get the benefits, I get to pay. Nice. You know, there's damned little you can't do now on a website with today's available tools. I don't WANT a more bloated browser and I don't WANT any more whiz-bang features. To quote #2 from The Prisoner: "Information. We want information. And by hook or by crook, we'll get it".

We're here for the content. In case you haven't noticed, most of any website's useful parts are plain old HTML (often with embedded audio/video). The flash and javascript are almost always used for nothing but advertising. Screw that!

-mcgrew

I've been the target of not only marketing garbage, but also some threatening letters. That isn't fun at all.

Heh, you should have been me back when I regularly posted at K5. Of course, since I'm a moron I probably brought it all on myself...;)

-mcgrew

The trouble is, you can't own a domain. If I owned my domain I wouldn't have to pay registration fees to a registrar; I would register it once and it would be mine, to pass to my heirs forever, like the aformentioned house. But the reality is I forgot to renew it one year and paid hell getting it back!

That is my domain (not the only one I posess, either), why can't I have the right to privacy? I'm no business or corporation, just some average schmuck with a website. Personally, I don't believe corporations or businesses should be able to own property. IMO only people should be able to own property.

-mcgrew

In this case, making backups so you can listen once you terminate your service is really abusing the system

You mean like time shifting a TV show with your VCR is abusing the system, Mr. Clueless Anonymous Record Company Executive? Do you have any idea how many episodes of Star Trek I taped that are on my shelf right now? And how little I care about what a thief and liar like a record or music executive thinks?

Which finger am I holding up right now?

-mcgrew

Their third mistake was seeing MP3s as "product" rather than "advertising". They have always been known as "record companies", and they sold records. Now they're trying to sell music, and music is a non-tangible item. Note that the indies actually do this, giving away MP3s and selling CDs at their shows.

No, nowhere near the beginning. The RIAA labels' suicide started years ago and is still ongoing. Now, if you're scratching your heads and are wondering WTF I mean by "suicide", the established industry is dying from its own actions.

The year the old "pirate" Napster was being sued, CD sales (IIRC) were at their peak and have been dwindling since. The RIAA boycott (that you have never even once heard about in the mainstream media - hmmm....) must have had some slight effect on the industry.

Their first mistake was to think CD burning technology wouldn't, like all computer technology before it, be affordable for the serfs.

Their second mistake was to try to kill their competetion, the indies, by killing P2P.

Their third mistake was seeing MP3s as "product" rather than "advertising". They have always been known as "record companies", and they sold records. Now they're trying to sell music, and music is a non-tangible item. Note that the indies actually do this, giving away MP3s and selling CDs at their shows.

There were other mistakes - overpricing their wares (an indie CD is usually $5-$10), only having one good song on the CD (my generatiuon was damned lucky, have you ever heard a Led Zepplin song that sucked? There aren't any!), suing their paying customers (DUH!!!!!!) etc.

All their woes are self-inflicted. Now by "suicide" I'm assuming that you'll agree that if a mosquito lands on your foot and you try to kill the mosquito by firing five shots from a sixteen guage shotgun at it and you bleed to death, it's suicide.

-mcgrew

; Said the straight man to the late man
Where have you been
Ive been here and Ive been there
And Ive been in between.

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear.

Im on the outside looking inside
What do I see
Much confusion, disillusion
All around me.

You dont possess me
Dont impress me
Just upset my mind
Cant instruct me or conduct me
Just use up my time

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear.

Don't know the difference between a flame and a troll.

Pathos. Full of pathos.

-mcgrew (55)

Your 35 year old "experienced old lady" is my hot young sweet thing.

Please don't think I'm bragging, as being a nerd I don't get laid much (and when I do I have to pay for it), but as I somehow managed to live over half a century, miraculously not dying, I've had sex with women from 18 to 50. And I have to say, experience is more than just age. This old diary entry is about the very best sex I ever had in my life; the woman was in her early 20s (as was I).

OTOH I had trouble getting it up for 50 year old Chris, who wasn't worth a shit in bed. Fortunately the most she ever cost was a beer or two. The most expensive I ever had cost me a house, a car, and part of my pension.

The worst thing about being a single 55 year old man is that all the women my age are ugly.

-mcgrew

mcgrew

You're absolutely correct.

The great American corporation BP gives ten million to the Republican and another ten million to te Democrat, and no matter which one wins, you lose.

Don't waste your vote on a candidate who will vote against YOUR interests and for the corporate interests. Your two choices are to stay home and be thought apathetic, or vote independant/minor party. I've been splitting my vote between teh Greens and the Libertarians, because I want to gamble, smoke dope, and get laid in an ecologically sound manner.

You think I'm kidding.

-mcgrew

I prefer my bad math in Excel spreadsheets

-mcgrew

Considering that the wonderful US Congress can't even get a reasonable anti-spam law in place and instead created one that makes the problem WORSE

You don't understand, the CAN SPAM act does exactly what it is intended to do: it makes it so that you can spam with impunity.

See, what you're forgetting is that we have the best government money can buy. Vote? HA! What's one measly vote against a ten million dollar campaign contribution (ironically from an entity that is not allowed by law to vote).

"Your" representatives don't represent you, they represent fine American corporations like Sony, BP, Shell, etc. who now can spam without fear of the law. Who do you think paid for this law, anyway?

-mcgrew

Typically censorship is done by governments, religious and secular groups, corporations, or the mass media, although other forms of censorship exist.

1. an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.
3. an adverse critic; faultfinder.
4. (in the ancient Roman republic) either of two officials who kept the register or census of the citizens, awarded public contracts, and supervised manners and morals.
5. (in early Freudian dream theory) the force that represses ideas, impulses, and feelings, and prevents them from entering consciousness in their original, undisguised forms.
-verb (used with object) 6. to examine and act upon as a censor.
7. to delete (a word or passage of text) in one's capacity as a censor.

Oh hell...

I was going to rebut your comment with links to all sorts of controversial things I've posted on the internet in the last ten years, but then I remembered all the things that there's no way in hell I'd ever post. You and Thompson are right, it seems.

-mcgrew

As an admin on Wikipedia... I agree that there are definitely some people who want to delete to readily

Are you really an admin? Should Wikipedia have admins that can't properly spell a three letter word? ;)

Ordinarily a small typo like that should be ignored, especially at slashdot where people can't tell the verb "lose" from the verb "loose", but Wikipedia has a (completely undeserved IMO) reputation for being innacurate. Because of this, a Wikipedia admin should be especially careful when posting about Wikipedia in public. Please proofread a bit more carefully, ok? Sometimes the spell checker can be one's worst enemy.

-mcgrew
(linked blagh includes a short satire of and quote from Wikipedia)

I saved a screenshot from slashdot, and posted it at the bottom of a blagh on November 16, 2005. The blagh was fittingly titled "damned spyware", and the screen shot was fittingly on-topic both for that blagh and a response to your post. The Screenshot is from a Thursday, October 6 2005 slashdot front page. Look at the bottom of the screenshot...

-mcgrew

Having a PhD does not, of course, preclude nerdiness, but it doesn't guarantee it, either. My old boss Charlie (now retired in Florida) had a PhD and was, in fact, a true geek. OTOH, the fellow now in the next office from mine has a PhD but is dumb as a box of rocks, and has no geek qualifications whatever aside from being a fat dork who wears glasses. It doesn't take a high IQ to obtain a PhD, just stubbornness and a good work ethic. It does require a three digit IQ to be a nerd.

The #1 all time famous nerd was Niel Armstrong, who was an engineer who famously said "I am and always will be a pocket protector wearing nerd". He accomplished the ultimate in nerdiness, being the first man to step foot on another world. That was a nerd's wet dream come true!

-mcgrew
(Linked text is titled "Growing Up With Computers" from 2005, in it is mention of Niel's most famous act of nerdiness. Another of my useless but on-topic scribblings is a two year old blagh titled What is a nerd?)

I need to get cracking if I'm to get my $240 million...

Damn, I need to update my blagh!

-mcgrew

How long till this product is in an airport near you figuring out if you are happy. If you are not you get corn holed with extra screening because you must be a terrorist.

Is that a happy grin or an evil grin? Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho? I doubt this software can tell (no, I din't RTFA ass eye yam knot knew hear)

Perhaps this software will be used at the exit to a bar. If you are too happy or too sad, you are drunk.

Neither the bar owners nor the bartenders care if you're drunk, and the policeman waiting outside in his squad car needs no software. Actually, the bartenders/owners would want a device that wouldn't let you out until you were either a) drunk or b) broke. ("that's a joke, son", says Mr. Leghorn)

What if this software is used allover the place and it is saved. An employer could search you and find out if you are typically a sad or happy person and you then do not get the job because you are a sad person.

HR can already do this without any technology whatever.

Or could this be used for discrimination? Show someone of an African American hanging and if the person smiles they are a bigot? (Yes I think racism is wrong, it was just an example. Insert African American and hanging for something else if you want.)

Sorry, that sentence didn't parse. Will pass this comment along to my user for human evaluation. Please do not leave the room, the authorities will be there shortly.

Outlaw the American Secret Police

OK, I know yours was a joke post, but something pissed me off for YEARS that I don't think should be allowed. I wanted to register mcgrew.org or alternately mcgrew.com back when com, org, and net (and ones you can't get like gov and edu) were the only roots.

What infuriated me was that some sleazeballs had registered .com and .org for every name in the phone book, and was selling "your name can be your email!" mcgrew.com, smith.com, jones.com, even johnson.com (which one would expect to be a porn site) led to the same company.

Eventually they opened up .info and I managed to snag mcgrew.info and moved all the stuff I'd been polluting the net since 1997 with (yes, that particular page is older than slashdot). And newer stuff.

Of course, if I had actually managed to get mcgrew.com, the comedian with the same name as me out in Colorado probably would have sued me for it, despite the fact that I'm 10 years older than him.

-mcgrew

(then I discovered K5, back in its heyday, and actually had people READING my pollution, and strangely LIKING it. Still scratching my head over that one...)

What a bunch of sleazeballs, both Verizon AND the New York State's Attorney. I got halfway down TFA (Sorry, I know that's unslashdottish of me to RTFA but I'm not feeling well) before my stomach started turning and I was forced to hit the "back" button.

What Verizon did, from TFA, was FRAUD plain and simple. Their CEO and board of directors should be in prison, not made to take petty cash and give it to New York. In their defense I must say, why isn't MY nad-free AG doing anything?

However, I'm not the least surprised. Nobody from Sony went to prison for rooting millions of PCs, despite the fact that if you did to them what they did to me you'ld be in the slammer for years.

I didn't read far enough to see if they agreed to stop defrauding their customers. But hell, you expect thieves and con men to tell the truth in a contract? I mean, the agreement is about their LIES to begin with!

I'm looking for a new cell phone company. Is there one out there that is reletively sleaze-free? I was happy with Cingular for years, never went over my minutes (always had rollover minutes) and the bill was always the same, under $50. Then AT&T bought them out, and all of a sudden I got hit with a $150 bill. I didn't pay it. The next month they tacked on another $450 on top of the $150, and shut off my service. After shutting off my service, they tacked ANOTHER $150 for the month I was without service, including taxes on the service they never provided.

Verizon was on the list of possible replacements (I'm using pay as you go right now), so this story was just in the nick of time. Thank you, slashdot!

You iknow, I'm a geezer; I don't remember businesses being run by thieves and sociopaths when I was young. Maybe my memory is bad, or I was naive. Or maybe we're heading for another world wide depression like tha 1930s?

-mcgrew

(Oblig link to my blagh posting about Sony rooting my box, titled "SONY MUST DIE!!!!")

It is NEVER okay for a company to install an application on my computer without my concent.

When you install an application (say, a smiley face cursor or a security update) and that installation installs a different application without your consent (say, a spam mailer or a desktop search), isn''t that called a trojan?

What's next, rootkits? Oh wait, this is Microsoft, they wrote the OS. You're already rooted.

-mcgrew

I'd remain anonymous if I used that awful offal word "blogosphere" too. Blagh!

-Ralph Blog

(Ok, not really, that was a pseudonym, I'm joking. OW! STOP IT!)

• HTC Touch Dual, WTF is it? Who knows? Who cares?
  
• Kenwood HD10GB7 - I assume this is a stereo. I can buy a stereo here, thanks.
  
• Motorola Z8, again what IS it? Isn't Motorola a US company? I bet it's a cell phone, and yes, I can get cell phones here. In fact I have one in my pocket.
  
• Sony XEL-1 OLED TV. As I said, 1) Sony can shit and fall back in it and 2) I can buy TVs here too. There's one in my living room.
  
• LG Prada, I swore off them too; not for being pure evil like Sony but for selling me the buggiest piece of shit I ever bought, and sending me an even buggier one when I sent it back under warrantee. Whatever it is, I bet I can find one from another manufacturer here, too, and its competitor's model might actually function.
  
• Nokia N76, do they sell anything but telephones? Already have one, thanks.
  
• Raon Everun, they've almost got me clicking the link, WTF is an "everun", some sort of perpetual motion machine? If it wasn't for that pesky 2nd law of thermodynamics I'd be interested, can't congress repeal that?
  
• Samsung i450, is that a phone, TV, or stereo?
  
• Ok, that's enough... I clicked, they got me. What do I see? Pictures of ordinary crap like phones, TV sets, and laptops that you CAN buy here.

Why blogging should be illegal
Oh wait...
</pedant>

-mcgrew

I've been trying to respond to the Grandparent post, but apparently I'm a cowboy who can't post twice in the same hour ("It's been 1 hour, 2 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"). So I'll (attempt to) put both in the same comment. One part agrees with you, one part does not. Here's the part I disagree with:

The machine is not broken, the Constitution remains to this day a framework that is viable, and valid.

I maintain that the Constitution IS broken, and is no longer viable, and that the Supreme Court has ruled that it doesn't even apply. An example is the absurd lengths of copyright. The Constitution gives Congress the right to "secure, for limited times", artistic and scientific work, legalizing copyright and patent laws. The court said in its opinion that "limited" meant whatever Congress says it means; a million years is a limited time.

They had to amend the Constitution to outlaw alcohol, so why could they outlaw other drugs without an amendment? If a woman has a right to remove a fetus, why can't she insert cocaine or rat poison? Where in the Constitution does it give Congress the right to restrict drug use?

I wrote a piece a few years ago titled Liberty? What liberty?, listing the bill of rights and how it has been rendered meaningless.

My 4th amendment rights have been violated twice this year, once on Memorial day! On the day we commemorate the deaths of soldiers who died defending our rights, a crazy ex-girlfriend (Chris) came by looking for my house, and scared some of the neighbors, who called the cops. The cops opened my garage and had a look around before knocking on my door; I pawned the crazy old bitch of on them, who took her home (her BF had locked her out which is why she came looking for me, wanting a place to sleep).

I was searched for drugs this summer. No arrest, no warrant, just pounced on and searched, because I'd given a woman a ride to what turned out to be a dope house (I sure can pick 'em, can't I?)

From the GP (this is responding to the guy you are responding to):

For all of the bashing the left does about Bush

I got some news for you, skippy - "the left" aren't the only ones bashing Bush. He has a lower approval rating than even Herbert Hover did after the economy collapsed. The only ones NOT bashing him are the droolers who are too damned stupid to realise what an incredibly awful, offal job Bush is doing by any measure.

-mcgrew
(linked text is titled "Outlaw the American Secret Police")

PS- my voting record in Presidential races:
Nixon (R)
Carter (D)
Reagan (R)
Reagan (R)
Bush (R)
Clinton (D)
Clinton (D)
Gore (D)
Badnarik (L)

I'm hardly a leftie. My take on government is that it's supposed to protect me from you, and provide basic infrastructure (roads, schools, etc). Since 40,000 people die every year on our highways, the terrorist I'm scared of is in an SUV. I want to see some of that Homeland Security money going to improve our roadways, instead of wasting it on Bush's stupid Iraq war.

It was obviously a typo. The price wasn't $15k, it was thirty pieces of silver.

-mcgrew

This maybe a silly question but isn't hacking illegal in the usa as part of GW,Bush's anti terror laws?

Look, Wired can be forgiven, since they're clueless nerd wannabes*, but damn it man, this is slashdot. Look at the masthead. Then get your wannabe ass off my lawn and no, you can't have your balls back.

When I took transistor radios and turned them into guitar fuzzboxes as a teenager, that was hacking. When Delbert McGeekly quickly writes a few lines of code to get the server running again, that's hacking. When Joey Pimpleface finds some code on the internet that lets him sniff out some doofus' password, that is not hacking Goddamnit!!!!! That's cracking you clueless dweeb.

Only laymen refer to breaking into computer systems as "hacking". If you think breaking into computers is hacking, you don't belong at slashdot.

-mcgrew

*The linked text is titled "What is a nerd?" When I was a teenager, "nerd" and "geek" were insults. We were scorned, shunned, and made fun of. Who would have thought that some day we would actually be respected, to the point that the jocks and cheerleaders would actually try to pass themselves off as us?

Amen to that! Too many webmonkeys try so damned hard to make their content-free pages "pretty", and then the browser (usually IE when I'm at work) screws up the CSS so that graphics cover the text or some such nonsense.

And then, your pretty web page is going to be trashed by the blinkey flashity ads anyway! WTF for?

The thing us, the ML in HTML stands for Markup Language. I could be on a Mac, Linux, Sun, Microsoft, Be, or any number of OSes, using IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Safari, Mozailla, or any number of browsers, with a screen size anywhere from the old monitor I use at home with its fourteen inch screen (and one of its potentiometers wearing out so I have a nice fat black frame around it) to a "normal" nineteen inch screen to the S-Video out to my 42 inch trinitron, in any resolution from 640x480 and up.

There's no way possible to test for everything. Just write to standards and be done with it.

That said, I have a bit of a bone to gnaw with the W3C: "This [insert widget] is deprecated; use [this new widget] instead. Bullshit! I'm supposed to go back and recode that stupid page I wrote ten years ago? No fucking way! Add features if you like but for Christ's sake don't remove what we had! Ok, maybe getting rid of <blink> was a good idea. But I'm not going to stop using <font size="+1">AND YOUR HORSE</font>.

Damned newbies...

-mcgrew

PS- get out of my yard you damned kids! And no, you can't have your balls back!

As a former art student I say to HELL with "historical signifigance". The only history I'm interssted in is the history of the work from its muse to its abandonment (as TFA quotes Da Vinci* as saying, "Art is never finished, only abandoned.")

I want to know what went on in his mind, what steps he took in creating the work, what happy accidents happened, and so on. The only images I'm interested in are his original concept (which only he saw) and the "finished" artifact. What happens to it after the work is abandoned is accidental vandalim, except in the extremely rare case of a work where the artist intends for its accidental vandalism to happen.

I want to see it as the artist saw it at death or abandonment, not after its accidental vandalism.

-mcgrew

*"Da Vinci" means "of Vinci:", where he was from. His name was Leonardo, but laymen refer to him as "Da Vinci".

PS: WTF is it with a one hour four minute "slow down cowboy?" For God's sake, there have been five storied posted since I last commented! By the time this informed and (IMO) interesting comment is posted, there will be no moderation, leaving it at the AC0. Is this /.'s attempt to make me log on? I don't even know my damned password! ...ok now it's 1 hr 7 minutes. And most of the other comments are jokes, ignorant layman rants, or offtopic. Madness, I say, madness!

In the beginning God Created the heavens and the Earth.
        2. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face ot the waters.
        3. And God said, Let there be light and there was light.
        4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
        5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
        6. And God said, Let there be a Firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
        7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament fromm the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
        8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
        9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
        10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the seas: and God saw that it was good.
        11. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit:, whose seed is in itself, after his kind, and God saw that it was good.
        12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
        13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
        14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years

TFA (or at least the summary, RTFA? this is slashdot!) has a bad headline. There is no PROOF that these are the earliest modern humans at all. We could possibly find evedence of even earlier humans, unlikely as it may be.

But the headline is not correct. A better, less untrue, more concise, less sensational headline would be along the lines of "Date for earliest homo sapiens pushed back".

Oh hell, what am I thinking? This is slashdot!

Never mind...

-mcgrew

Or they could get some revenge.

Here's my two cents worth (9/25/2005) about the American Secret Police (thank you, Mr. Nixon, for your war on (some) drugs that make people go insane. The laws that make people insane, not the drugs.

Next on Cops: Hackers on crack! Stay tuned to FOX (in the henhouse)

-mcgrew

1. Candidates may not accept money from anyone not eligible to vote for them. As an Illinois voter I should not be eligible to vote for John McCain unless he moves to Illinois or runs for President, and Bill Gates should not be able to vote for Barrack Obama unless Gates moves to Illinois or Obama moves to Washington State or runs for President.
   
   Money should not be more powerful than a vote. Unfortunately we are not a Democratic Republic, we are a Plutocratic Republic.
   
   
2. Nobody should be able to contribute to more than one candidate in any given race. After all, if a fine American voter named Sony Corporation gives ten million dollars to the Republican and another ten million dollars to the Democrat, it doesn't matter which candidate loses, Corporation wins.

1. You're talking about traffic laws here. As long as they don't run from the cops or wreck, they're not facing any jail time.
   
2. There's little chance of hitting a pedestrian on an interstate highway.
   
3. These guys are filthy rich. They don't give two shits about anyone but themselves (as you pointed out).
   
4. These guys are filthy rich. They can afford any fines any judge will hand to them.
   
5. these guys are filthy rich. Even if they were to have an accident and kill someone, they can afford the best lawyers around. Three words: O.J Simpson. OK, two letters and one word (for the pedants out there)

* Fast
* Cheap
* Good
So when is MS going to offer any of these?

They offer "cheap". Unfortunately they don't offer "inexpensive".

-mcgrew (see the screen shot of a slashdot screen at the bottom of the linked page, even it's ontopic!)

Scientists here on Six-six dismissed the possibility that there may be life on the three-one, despite the recent detection of methane on its worldhost.

"First," said astrobiologist Zune Ipod, "although the worldhost does in fact contain methane, there has been no evidence of any methane on its only detected world. Second, there has been no liquid of any kind detected on the worldhost system's world. Although there are various liquids on the worldhost, the primary liquid detected is dyhydrogen oxide, which is a deadly poison. In fact, it is so hot on three-one and its worldhost that dyhydrogen oxide is a gas on most of the worldhost's atmosphere. If you were to move our world to worldhost three, not only would all life vaporise, if somehow it didn't the gaseous dyhydrogen oxide would kill all living organisms.

"Its worldhost is far too small for its world to harbor life, even if it wasn't so incredibly, hellishly hot. It is so hot that methane only exists as a gas, while the deadly dyhydrogen oxide exists as solid, liquid, and even gas.

"We are holding open the possibility, however, of life on one of system five's four major worlds."

Some science fiction writers have speculated on the possibility of the existance of some wierd sort of life at those hellishly hot temperatures, but those stories are simply juvenile fiction.

Click here for page two

Because that doesn't fit the liberal anti-war template. Thank God we arn't fighting WW2 with today's media and technology, cause we would have lost that war long ago!

LIBERAL antiwar template? WTF? FYI, Afghanistan was and is a just war - they ATTACKED us on 9-11; or rather, protected the peopl ethat did. I was only sorry we didn't nuke their asses. BTW, did they ever catch Osama?

OTOH, Iraq was and is a clusterfuck. The stated reason when Bush started that war was "weapons of mass destruction". There were none. Now it's "we brought them democracy." that's a sick joke; what democracy? And if that wasn't a lie, why aren't we attacking Burma? There were no terrorists in Iraq before we attacked, now it's full of them.

We are in Iraq for one reason and one reason only - so George Bush and Dick Cheney can make more money. They are oil men. When Bush took office, gasoline was $1 a gallon in my town. Now it's nearly $3 (and was well over $3 just a few weeks ago).

We are in Iraq solely so our President and his family and friends can make money. He is getting richer on the deaths and maiming of our brave troops, all of whom should be in Pakistan rooting out Bin Laden and the rest of the Taliban.

We belonged in WWII; we were attacked. We belonged in in Afghanistan; We were attacked. We do NOT belong in Iraq; that is totally NOT how America does things; or rather, it never was until a COWARDLY TRAITOR got in the white house.

You are a brainwashed fucktard. If you're old enough to join the army, join and volunteer to die, you stupid little dimwitted moron.

-mcgrew

Ok, you want mine? here it is. It's a bit old; I haven't done a blagh in quite a while now.

It's also not about the environment. Who died and mede these asstunnels in charge of what people write in their blaghs? Who are these people, anyway? And why should I give a shit about them?

How did this garbage make the front page of slashdot?

-mcgrew

(if you want a blagh somebody actually liked reading, here are a few old ones of mine (believe it or not, I used to have fans)

-mcgrew

I vote we aboulish the TSA. It's completely unneeded. Has it averted one single terrorist act? If so, they didn't report it in the papers!

In fact, I vote we abolish the Department of Homeland Security. Isn't the Defense Department supposed to secure us from foreign enemies?

I also vote we abolish the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. All three of the items are dangerous but legal items (at least one protected by the Constitution). I mean, either abolish the ATF or start up the Department of Bleach, Paring Knives, and Automobiles.

I also vote we rename the FBI to the Federal Investigation Bureau, a much more fitting name after Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Why do we need the CIA and the NSA? Isn't that about kind of like the subject of this comment?

1933: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself!
2001: "We have nothing to fear but TEH TERRORISTS! WE MUST ABOLISH CIVIL LIBERTIES!!!!!"

I fear for my country, but not what the terrorists can do to it. After the tornados tore through my town I realized that Bin Laden couldn't do ANYTHING remotely as destructive; I imagine the residents of New Orleans felt the same way after the flood. If Bin Laden had seen my neighborhood the next day he'd have given up, saying "we can't hurt these people!"

Rather, I fear what my government is doing to my country. Bush should be impeached for treason.

-mcgrew

They really should sue AT&T/Cingular first. Those bastards NEVER let you unlock your phone - not even after your contract period is over. That is why I refuse to go with them. With T-Mobile at least I can get it unlocked at the end of the contract.

A locked phone is the least of my TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT/Cingular problems. I'm looking for a new provider; I'm using one of those expensive "minute phones" now.

First was the phone; I dropped it in the toilet. It worked after rinsing and drying, but got hot and drained the battery so I replaced it under its insurance. They promptly cancelled the insurance because I'd had the previous one stolen by one of my girlfriends last year. Getting the pictures out was a royal PITA; a data cable from Motorola was $50 (for a $100 Razr), so I had to email all the pics, 3 at a time.

Then 18T bought out Cingular. Now, in 3 years of using Cingular I'd not once gone over my minutes, and every month I got a detailed statement showing who I called, who called me, and how long. My bill was fifty bucks a month less change, without fail. Then as soon as assfuc..er, "ATT" bought them out, I no longer got a detailed statement; they detailed data use (fifteen bucks for the pictures) but no details on the voice useage, and all of a sudden I'd used up all my minutes and gone over! The bill for that month was $150! I went to the local pigfu... er "ATT" store where I bought the phone, and got nothing but a runaround.

Then the next bill came - FOUR HUNDRED MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS for a month's use! I didn't use it any more than I ever had. Then they promptly shut the damned thing off for nonpayment.

The next month the babyraping sons of bitchwhores tacked on another $150 FOR A PHONE THEY HAD SHUT OFF! Including taxes charged on use they didn't provide! Maybe I can get the corpowhorats put in prison for tax fraud...

May each and every one of their corporate officers join Sony in hell!

-mcgrew

In 1979, the US Copyright Office granted a world wide copyright to the late Mr. Adams, who thought he still had plenty of time left. The copyright will not expire until you, too, are long late. The copyright was on a wholly remarkable book based on a radio play.

I never heard of the book. Indeed, nobody outside Islington (at least, nobody important) heard of it, either.

Also unheard of by anybody that matters is another book, called Uncyclopedia". In many of the nerdier civilizations in the outer eastern rim of the internet, Uncyclopedia has already displaced the great Wikipedia Britannica as the standard repository of all knowlege and wisdom, for though it has many ommissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it's free, and second, it has the words "FOO BAR" in large, friendly letters on its cover.

Several reasons why all newspaper sites are dog slow, but the main reason is probably adertising. Nothing makes a site suck more than advertising, unless the only ads are Google text ads.

First, graphics load slow. Animated graphics load even slower.

Loading those graphics from a different server make it even slower.

As I'm renting a little piece of real estate on your newspaper, I can stick an iFrame and do pretty much anything I want with it, including stopping the rest of your page from loading as long as I want. Judging from most newspapers' dog slow performance and the prevalance of supposedly professionally done pages that pop up a dialog box asking me if I want to debug their shitty javascript, this is exactly what happens.

Then there's said javascript slowing things down.

I'm guilty of breaking all the rules myself, but you'll notice that despite the linked page's extreme length and excessive number of illustrations, it still appears to load quickly. I say "appears to" because you'll notice a slight 2 or 3 second wait on a T1 for the first illustration to load. But the text is there "immediately", even though what's outside the visible screen is still loading. Kids, unless you want to make your audience wait until a graphic has loaded (and I've deliberately done this before), use those "hieght=" and "width=" operators in your <img> tags.

If you're using Front Page or some other inane HTML generator, stop it for God's sake! Learn HTML you lazy doofus! Those programs write abysmal code, slow to render and hard for a human to parse for errors, and they all produce many.

Also, you dumb kids should learn that my monitor is not the same size as your monitor, and is not set to the same resolution. Realize that you're not working with paper. You're not going to get it to look the same on any two different monitors or browsers!

Now get off my lawn you damned kids!

Several reasons why all newspaper sites are dog slow, but the main reason is probably adertising. Nothing makes a site suck more than advertising, unless the only ads are Google text ads.

First, graphics load slow. Animated graphics load even slower.

Loading those graphics from a different server make it even slower.

As I'm renting a little piece of real estate on your newspaper, I can stick an iFrame and do pretty much anything I want with it, including stopping the rest of your page from loading as long as I want. Judging from most newspapers' dog slow performance and the prevalance of supposedly professionally done pages that pop up a dialog box asking me if I want to debug their shitty javascript, this is exactly what happens.

Then there's said javascript slowing things down.

I'm guilty of breaking all the rules myself, but you'll notice that despite the linked page's extreme length and excessive number of illustrations, it still appears to load quickly. I say "appears to" because you'll notice a slight 2 or 3 second wait on a T1 for the first illustration to load. But the text is there "immediately", even though what's outside the visible screen is still loading. Kids, unless you want to make your audience wait until a graphic has loaded (and I've deliberately done this before), use those "hieght=" and "width=" operators in your <img> tags.

If you're using Front Page or some other inane HTML generator, stop it for God's sake! Learn HTML you lazy doofus! Those programs write abysmal code, slow to render and hard for a human to parse for errors, and they all produce many.

Also, you dumb kids should learn that my monitor is not the same size as your monitor, and is not set to the same resolution. Realize that you're not working with paper. You're not going to get it to look the same on any two different monitors or browsers!

Now get off my lawn you damned kids!

Even people with mod points can often be unstupid. The GP was right (even though he muss bee knew hear), there is no reason whatever to link to some asstunnel's blagh who is linking to some other asstunnel's "legit" news site.

If the blagh's writer has something new, original, insightful, to say (like, er, my linked blagh above =P) then link to the damned web log.

Link to the original source, dammit!

Oh what's the use? *slinks away dejectedly*

-mcgrew