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How do you make up a catchy slogan -- any slogan -- containing the inconceivably awkward phrase "next-generation secure computing base"?!

This is absolutely the point. As anyone who follows the abortion issue knows (ex-- is it "Pro-Life" or "Anti-Choice?"), much of controlling a public debate is about winning the "terminology" war. How better to obfuscate a debate by blurring the way the topic is labeled and discussed? Is anyone in the general public really going to read an article which refers to Microsoft's dull-sounding "next-generation secure computing base"? Who wants to be "anti-security" anyway?

Notice that "NGSCB" is unpronouncable and hard to wrap your head around. Where as people can rally around a fight against something called "Palladium" there is no easy "brain-handle" in NGSCB to grab onto. They've chosen a bland nothing-name.

The Federal government had a similar problem with "Carnivore" which just sounds ominous. So what did they do? They changed the name to something bland-- DCS1000...something that sounds boring and innocuous, like the model of a breadmaker.

I'm sure the Department of Justice's Total Information Awareness will be renamed shortly to some anagram with no vowels like the "next-generation secure nation base 2003LJFBF". When you see they've changed the name, remember you saw it here first.

Incidentally, Time has a good article about how the White House is trying the same kind of thing by reterming thinning of trees as "management-caused changes in vegetation". While they can't do an all-out assault on the environment...

"They are rejecting the full-frontal-assault approach that gets a lot of media attention in favor of death by a thousand strokes of the pen," contends Stoermer. The Republicans are also learning how to spin environmental issues in their direction. In a confidential document distributed to G.O.P. Governors and members of Congress just before last November's elections, Republican pollster Frank Luntz advised party members to refer to themselves as "conservationists." The document said, "The first (and most important) step to neutralizing the [Republican environmental] problem and eventually bringing people around to your point of view on environmental issues is to convince them of your 'sincerity' and 'concern.'"

It's all about baby-steps and controlling the debate through language. As far as I'm concerned, whatever Microsoft now calls PALLADIUM, we and the press should not let them get away with it.

W

The EMP Cruise Missile has arrived. (articles,tech) (rejected) 2003-01-20 15:26:05 [Rejected]
Didn't think much of those EMP Artillery shells? According to Time Magazine, The US military has developed the High Powered Microwave cruise missile, capable of generating 2 billion watts of power broadcast over an area off 1000 feet, perfect for those late night electronic barbeques.

And if the person had actually read his own artical, he'd realize that toasting somebody's pacemaker isn't exactly harmless. the weapon would certainly minimize casualties, but...

"is being developed by the US Air Force according to this BBC News article."

well according to TIME magazine theses weapons have apparently already been developed and plan on being used in iraq. there was a little article in the recent issue about them titled "america's ultra-secret weapon". frankly if this is considered ultra-secret i'd hate to see what they consider double-ultra-secret!

"is being developed by the US Air Force according to this BBC News article."

well according to TIME magazine theses weapons have apparently already been developed and plan on being used in iraq. there was a little article in the recent issue about them titled "america's ultra-secret weapon". frankly if this is considered ultra-secret i'd hate to see what they consider double-ultra-secret!

WTF is up with you people at Slashdot? You'll have shit like SMS Messaging Unreliable and Speak & Spell Hacking For Fun And Profit, rendunant double stories and even outright lies but not something like:

The EMP Cruise Missile has arrived. (articles,tech) (rejected) 2003-01-20 15:26:05
Didn't think much of those EMP Artillery shells? According to Time Magazine, The US military has developed the High Powered Microwave cruise missile, capable of generating 2 billion watts of power broadcast over an area off 1000 feet, perfect for those late night electronic barbeques.

Rejections: 15/15. Damn right it's Offtopic.

WTF is up with you people at Slashdot? You'll have shit like SMS Messaging Unreliable and Speak & Spell Hacking For Fun And Profit, rendunant double stories and even outright lies but not something like:

The EMP Cruise Missile has arrived. (articles,tech) (rejected) 2003-01-20 15:26:05
Didn't think much of those EMP Artillery shells? According to Time Magazine, The US military has developed the High Powered Microwave cruise missile, capable of generating 2 billion watts of power broadcast over an area off 1000 feet, perfect for those late night electronic barbeques.

Rejections: 15/15. Damn right it's Offtopic.

Time Warner was good for AOL like having a former ATT exec on the board of @Home was good for @Home - it resulted in total ruin. The death of AOL is NOT going to convince anyone to buy a dead tree Time magazine any more than the death of @Home has slowed the move away from long distance telephone calls. Time Warner is sitting on a lot of old models and people who invest in it deserve to be pummeled. They failed entirely to take advantage of the world's largest ISP to promote themselves and change their marketing model. There's a reason no one here ever quotes Time here, they are clueless. I hope you own lots of TW stock Mr. Cluster, you deserve it.

But at least with the revised print link, cnn.com doesn't get credit for the referral. If you still want the pretty picture, use http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0, 9171,1101021223-400017,00.html, leaving off the original ?cnn=yes portion.

dunno 'bout any one else, but I don't care for all the ads...
Print Link

Check out how many countries were affected by the radioactive clouds!

Richard Pearse: FIRST FLYER

Famous New Zealanders - Richard Pearse

And a sidenote from an article in Time magazine:

Flight Pioneers
RICHARD PEARSE
His neighbors called him "Mad Pearse," but in March 1903 the reclusive New Zealand farmer climbed into a monoplane he had built at his Waitohi property and flew for about 140 m before crashing into a hedge. It may not have been a sustained flight, but it was the most successful powered take-off until the Wright brothers entered the record books in December 1903.

The Box Office
Trek films often escaped the sci-fi niche to become mainstream hits. Worldwide gross in 2002 dollars:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
INIT 1979 -- $370 million

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
LOSS 1982 -- $194 million

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
LOSS 1984 -- $159 million

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
GAIN 1986 -- $225 million

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
LOSS 1989 -- $104 million

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
GAIN 1991 -- $127 million

Star Trek: Generations
GAIN 1994 -- $147 million

Star Trek: First Contact
GAIN 1996 -- $174 million

Star Trek: Insurrection
LOSS 1998 -- $131 million

my experience tells me that 99% of all nerds are really friendly and helpful, as opposed to many other "normal" people, and most of us would gladly help out a fellow nerd who was ripped off/cheated/decieved etc.

Yeah, Just like this.

(SCNR, but there's always the Dark Side. I can't stand such assholes in online games, too and against all reason I felt better after reading about this incident.)

In an industry scrutinized by the government as a drug infested haven that pollutes our communities and destroys the ability to lead a productive life, there is another industry that has the potential to become even more dangerous than any drug addiction. I'm not supposed to be writing this. What was supposed to happen was I prove my thesis that I couldn't be sucked into a virtual reality like many people I have met before. I never really understood what I was getting myself into when I started my research experiment, playing a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

Three years ago at a nightclub I bumped into an old friend of mine who went by the nickname "Iggy". I was really amazed to see him because no one had seen nor heard from Iggy in over a year. Many of his friends had all wondered what happened to him.

"Jesus Iggy, where in the hell have you been?!"

"Everquest," was all he said. He looked down at his feet when he said it.

"Huh?" I had no clue what he meant.

"I've been playing Everquest."

As we spoke, Iggy opened up to me and confessed that he had lost his job, his friends and didn't want to go out much anymore.

"It's an addiction. I'm only out tonight because the server is down for patching and I'm miserable."

For some reason, he couldn't look me in the eye while he was talking. He was obviously embarrassed.

"Um. Okay." I mean, what was I going to say to something as incredulous as that? I've heard of game obsessions, like those college kids in the seventies that murdered their whole family while playing a Dungeons and Dragons game, but I just thought that sort of obsession lies only in the minds of sociopaths or people with a lot bigger problems than playing a game. Iggy was a really nice, normal guy who had lost a lot to some online role-playing game called "Everquest". I had no idea what to make of it.

I never saw Iggy again. Neither has anyone else who knew him that I have asked. Since that night I really pondered the absurdity of his situation. It nagged at me.

On the web you can put the words "gaming addiction" into Google and discover a thousand and one sites for support groups, self help courses, testimonials and various studies. There's the "Everquest Widows" forum, a site called "Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction", and a myriad of articles on topics like game addiction and the innocent bystanders that suffer from it.

As one Everquest Widow puts it, "I plan on starting "Widows Weekly." It will be a group that meets in a local coffee shop. Here, spouses can talk and help one another through this difficult process, and begin to realize that there is a life out there despite the loss of our loved ones. I plan to send the bill for coffee and snacks to Verant. It would be but a small compensation on their part to repay me and others for the loss of our loved ones--so pay up, Verant!" -- Christine Gilbert CD Mag.com

What I find interesting is that many of the people who author these articles or sites have usually neither played the games or have just been the "victims" such as spouses or family. Others who dissect the topic of game addiction tend to be outsiders looking in, shaking their heads or turning the study into one giant mouse in the maze science experiment. It's rare that you find someone, who actually plays games passionately, speak up or write anything about negative side affects.

The more people I met who played computer games, the more I wanted to understand the obsession. I also had another stake in this because my partner, Low, is a gamer and a "geek" in every sense of the word. Not to mention my fiancé. It was beginning to cause some strain on us from time to time in terms of "quality time". I was getting really angry with him on a regular basis actually. According to Low, it was I who had the problem, not him. This is how most gamers think. Deal with their gaming or don't deal with it at all. They will play either way.

So I eventually decided to do some investigation and find out what makes these gamers and role players tick. What sort of recreation has the ability to absorb people to the extent that marriages break up, jobs are lost, and they lose friends? How does playing a game on a computer make someone lose functionality in the REAL world, because they want to spend too much time in some imaginary reality? For crying out loud, I thought, it's just a game.

I had a lot of questions but no one I talked to had answers. Gamers would tell me, "You won't understand unless you are a gamer yourself." Ok, no problem. I figured I could just play a game I find entertaining and get bored and write about what nut cases gamers really are.

It just wasn't that easy. This little experiment of mine turned out to be more dangerous than I ever imagined.

I wasn't able to begin playing a game right away. The opportunity just never really presented itself directly to me. There just wasn't a game I really liked enough to "get into it" for long enough. Low would play his Quake, Unreal Tournament, Black & White, Carmageddon, Fallout, Diablo II and a multitude of other first person shooters, but nothing seemed all that captivating to me and there was no way I could play these games with him due to his extreme level of skill and years of practice in a 3D environment.

I played a little Diablo and actually had a bit of fun with that, but I found I only really enjoyed it when I played with Low or our friends in multi-player mode. We would go "adventuring" together as they call it, fighting demons and wizards and monsters and coming out winning or dying, but having some fun just playing together. It was my first taste of actually playing with another player in a game as a team. But when Low moved onto the next game, bored with Diablo, I didn't have the same drive to play anymore. So I put my project aside and put up with his gaming as best as I could.

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG) have been around for many years. You can find thousands of websites, magazines, web-zines and the like that are devoted to the enormous market out there for online gaming. Sites like GameSpy, that literally receive millions of visits per day from gamers and industry types from all over the world, provide an almost infinite amount if information about these types of games. Hundreds of thousands of people play games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online each day from all over the world. With the upcoming launch of The Sims Online, analysts and game reviewers are expecting the largest online game community ever seen to develop.

"The Sims promises to be one of the most interesting human experiments in the history of the Net." -- David Kushner, Entertainment Weekly

Low had tried many of these MMORPG's. He never stuck with one very long because, as he puts it, "I got tired of being a crappy tree-elf that always fell out of the damn tree village." In Ultima Online, he "got tired of having all my stuff stolen from me and getting killed by stupid 'PKers' (Player Killers)." Apparently for him, the rewards were far and few between to keep him interested in these games. He also has a very short attention span with most games. Play it, beat it, and move on to the next game is his motto. The more games you play in a single year the more well rounded you are apparently. With the new enhanced graphics engines, hardware and development that goes into games these days, it's amazing how stimulating the market can be right now.

Early in 2001, however, Low's opinion of online gaming changed drastically. He read an article about a new online role-playing game that was set about 30,000 years into the future, on a colonized planet. The story line was science fiction themed, with monsters, mutants, futuristic weapons, wars, and sinister political plots. The player would have the ability to create a character avatar from a wide variety of attributes and be surrounded by very realistic 3D graphics, with incredible scenery and sound. You would have to defend yourself, form guilds, make friends and alliances and your goal would be to "learn" or level your character as the game progressed in order to increase your skills and possessions. There would be PVP (player versus player) combat, PVM combat (player verses mobile or "mob" for short, a term used to explain computer generated enemy or monster) and a variety of other things one could do while in the game online. You could fly a plane, morph into animals and go on dangerous missions and epic quests. The game was called Anarchy Online.

Something about this Anarchy Online game really had his attention and right after it came out in July of 2001, he bought his copy and began playing, and once again I lost him to a game. He could not stop going on and on about how "cool this or that was" or the graphics or all the people he was meeting. His excitement was just ridiculous in my eyes but I had been through this before. Nevertheless, the game also captured my interest because of its science fiction theme. I am a sci-fi buff and the storyline had such a great plot that they actually sell the novels online for it. I read the chapters as they were released and was hooked on the storyline.

Low bought another copy about two weeks later. "I want you to play with me." By this time we were under some strain because he was really absorbed by this game every night. It looked really intimidating to me and I opted not to play it right away, stalling for time. The 3D environment bothered me because any game I had ever played, like Diablo, for example, had always been in third person view, which is a bird's eye view of the environment. The 3D graphics were dizzying as I looked over his shoulder from time to time.

In the end I caved in under the pressure and began playing it in September of 2001. I was a horrible player in the beginning, running into walls and getting lost or killed all the time. It didn't matter to me. I was playing a game with my boyfriend and found with each day that went by, I wanted to log on and play more and more.

So what was the appeal? Before I realized what was happening, I became addicted to playing this game. While logged into this game I met wonderful people, via their avatars, laughed to funny antics via chat window discussions, and experienced a futuristic sci-fi world via incredibly realistic 3D graphics and sounds. We ran through swamps with mutant wolves chasing us, the sound of our feet making wet suction sounds just like you would have in reality. We could hear birds chirping in forests we scouted and vultures crying overhead as they spotted us and attacked.

Our adrenaline would pump as we fought for our lives against twenty-foot tall robots with buzz saws for hands, or as we went on safaris to hunt giant brontosaur-like animals. We had the ability to heal and save each other as well as other members of our team at the time. We also had the ability to gain the respect, over more than a year later, of many online players, for being a great couple of characters in this game. We have, in fact, become high-ranking officers in our guild, which is almost like a family or alliance with other people to help you in the game.

In South Korea, some in-game alliances are valued more than real life friendships. A game called Lineage: The Blood Pledge has captivated approximately a third of the population. In Lineage, characters can take on the role of Princes, Wizards, and Knights and vow their loyalty to their clan or guild. This loyalty had lead to an incident in 2001 where a player was nearly beaten to death in real life for virtually killing the character of another player.

"He boasted that he had offed the gangman's virtual character just for the fun of it. Bad idea. The roughnecks dragged the 21-year-old into the urinal and pummeled him until he was covered with real-world bruises." -- By Michelle Levander, Time Magazine

It is easy to lose yourself to your imagination while you become someone you could possibly never be in the real world. You can become a hero, a bad ass, a wealthy person, someone with special powers or gain an enormous amount of respect from people who look up to you. This isn't to say you can't be that kind of person in reality, but what if everyone had this ability to find respect, admiration and status, simply by being in the environment long enough. What if all you had to do was play each day and level higher and higher, each goal leading to a new goal of achievement and possibilities. And what if you never had to leave the comfort of your chair to do this?

What if you could really become a diva, a soldier, a magician, or a samurai, and people respected or admired you unconditionally as long as you had a long red bar looming over your virtual head. Or, as in especially my case, what if while you were in this virtual reality, you didn't have to worry about deadlines, due dates, over 1000 emails per day to read and answer, or day-to-day stress that comes with what I do. The virtual reality could absorb you so much, that for the time you are logged in, you forget everything else. It doesn't seem to matter whether you are a strict role-player (someone who stays in character) or 'hardcore' (someone who spends more time in-game than an average user). You still can be addicted and absorbed with the attention you get.

The official Anarchy Online Community Forum, which gets thousands of posts per day, has also been one of my sources for observing how obsessed people have become with the game. Recently, a devoted and well known player had to throw in the towel due to her addiction problem.

"The level to which I got into things here is what has lead me to this point where I must say goodbye. My internet addiction and denial of it has taken me to a point where I must get a hold of it. I realize that many people have what it takes to play a game like this "casually" in a healthy manner. I am unfortunately not one of those people. I am currently battling bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and the escapism that a game like AO offers is too much like a drug for me."

The ability to be respected, to be admired, and to succeed, even in an imaginary world, is a very powerful lure. It can cause a person to produce endorphins, a chemical released into the brain that causes a feeling of energy and well being. Gaming also causes adrenaline production and extreme excitability. Scientists have proven that endorphins and adrenal rushes are incredibly addictive.

"There are indications that pleasurable games and activities cause the body to produce endogenous opiates such as endorphins. These substances are actually addictive. Some addictive drugs, such as heroin, are chemically similar to these natural substances, while other addictive drugs are thought to stimulate their production."
-- Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. from the article, Is Pokémon Addictive? 1999

It should be easy to see why gaming can be addictive as a direct result of the physical effects on the body. I also believe that people can become addicted to respect, admiration and power as well. Even though the production of endorphins can be a positive side affect in one way, it can be easy to overindulge and put aside productive living. But there are many ways to do this and online gaming is not the only vice out there. People find many different ways to escape the problems in their life or to combat stress.

People log on each and every day to find a level of respect that doesn't come easily in day-to-day life. They log on to escape reality or to escape other real problems such as illness and stress. I have met people in this game who have mental disorders or physical impairments. I have also played with people who are in IT jobs all day long, listening to customer complaints, getting bitched at regularly. Some have even admitted that they never hear the words "good job" in the real world.

One player who works in the IT technical services industry, told me "I get my faith in people restored when I get online. People treat me with respect and are actually nice to me. They don't expect anything in return. Also, they believe me when I tell them something because of my level in the game."

I know of other overly stressed out people who log in each day to escape their day-to-day experience of working or living in hard reality. We met a person in game, for example, who is an EMT. Everyday he witnesses death and horrible accidents. He told us that he plays the game to get it all out of his mind. I also met a nurse online with a similar story, and a school teacher who teaches eleventh grade in the Bronx, NYC, who is very stressed out by his job.

"Most human beings pass through periods in their lives, when they feel compelled to engage in some apparently mindless activity that, for the time being, seems to provide some relief from the prevailing chaos in their lives. This could be something as simple as spending hours in front of the television set. Or going on uncontrollable buying sprees just to feel and smell the newness of the product. Or getting into a series of dead-end relationships. Or going on eating binges. Or playing computer games, uncaring of unattended work piling up. Or playing snooker every evening at the club regardless of the family's legitimate demand for more attention. In other words, binging on anything potentially destructive to the body or the soul. Fortunately for many of us, after a period of this compulsive indulgence, we pull ourselves back to the mainstream and get on with our lives, until the next compulsion hits us."
-- Dr. Vijay Nagaswami, from the article, Who? Me? An addict, The Hindu Folio 2001

This is not to say that there are not positive aspects to interacting with people online. Online gaming opens the doors to people who might not have the ability to do so due to time, geography, or many more reasons. Gaming online is an inexpensive and quick way to make new friends, chat with people all over the world and share an experience with people you would never meet because they may be continents away.

One of our online friends, for example, who goes by the character name "Docker", lives in Leiden, Netherlands. Another friend, "Chanell" lives in Einselthum, Germany. These are really interesting people we would never have met if it was not for the game we play online. I asked Chanell why he started playing online games.

"It all began with Diablo II being released. Then my friend, Yppo, made me try it online. I found it was an incredibly boring and annoying game. Then Yppo made me try it online and I loved it. I joined his clan and had months of online fun, then it got boring, close to the moment DAoC [Dark Ages of Camelot] was released in Europe. While I went to DAoC, Yppo chose to go to A.O." Eventually Chanell started playing A.O. as well.

When asked how playing A.O. affects his social life, he reflected, "As for my friends... yes we hang together a lot less. This could be related to A.O. or the fact that we don't work in the same city anymore. I am not totally sure. I still have a lot of phone calls and meetings so I am not "lonesome" it just isn't an as high frequency as before."

And with that I can only think that one's social life is in the eye of the beholder. I interact with Chanell almost every day. In fact I interact with more people than I ever have before because of playing a computer game. They just are not all physically in my proximity.

Interaction with people... It got me thinking and I began to develop my own theories on what causes the addiction. Psychologists can use fancy terminology like "Motivation Factors" and "Attraction Factors" such as self-esteem and self-image problems. They can harp on the role of achievement problems and relationship deficiencies in a person's personality. But I think I can sum it up to one word that would work for any individual needing his or her game "fix" each time they log in, regardless of how well rounded they are in their lives or how much of a basket case they could be perceived as.

RESPECT.

I think it is just that simple. I like the feeling I get when people look up to me in the game or ask my opinion. It seems to be a common drive for players in general. That is, to be respected for being the best and reaching the next level in the game.

Not everyone who plays games neatly fit into these Psychologists stereotypes. "Solories", another Anarchy Online player, is an example of someone who just logs on for the sake of play.

"I would say that I am responsibly addicted, meaning I have never been late to work due to AO.
My wife would prefer that I not play AO as much as I do, but I always make time for her every night, and try and do one thing planned together every weekend. I have never been late to work, but the first night I played AO I stayed up until 4:00 am and had to get up at 6:00 am and the next day I played until midnight. I don't feel that AO affects my work habits, work is work and when it is time to play, it is time to play. I enjoy watching my character grow in his skills and MMORPG's in general let you get away from the normal day to day monotone life and do something out of the ordinary. In AO I am Solories Enforcer of Rubi-Ka a defender of the cause. I fight battles that help my guild get better and help the clans win a war against the Omni."

In the process of my gaming experiment, I became a casualty of the concept of being respected. If someone had asked me in September of 2001 if I expected to be obsessed with an online role-playing game a year down the road, I would have said with confidence that I am one of the most level headed non-addictive persons I know. No way could this happen to me. In fact, I would have been reminded of poor old Iggy and his demise.

I technically have ended my experiment. In the process, I haven't lost my job, and due to our simultaneous obsession, I have not lost my fiancé either. I haven't lost my real life friends, but they do sometimes look at me funny when I talk about the game I play. Low and I get our work done, run our business and have a great balanced life together I think. Anyone who actually knows me in real life can tell you that I have no self image or esteem problems and in fact, I have been accused of having quite an ego. I won't even go into Low's ego. I will admit though, that I have missed quite a few parties, nights out with the girls, shopping, and some chores needed around the office and home because of Anarchy Online. I will also admit that I want to log in as much as I possibly can every single day.

People have worse entertainment addictions than playing computer games. If I am going to be addicted to something, I would choose online gaming over drugs, bowling, gambling, television, or being a baseball fanatic easily. I don't have to wear ugly shoes, lose my hard earned money or do the wave next to someone I don't know and that just about makes it a no-brainer for me. It IS after all just a video game, like Neal describes in his great novel, Snow Crash. It is just another amusement park.

"Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic, offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games."
--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

And I will leave you with that. Signing on now... Tenjikiito, level 157 Female Solitus Adventurer, Advisor to the Clan Guild Synergy Factor, the best damn guild on the world of Rubi-Ka, with the best damn virtual people one could ever virtually meet.

Special thanks to the following people for help with my research and leveling:
Sohjiro (Low Tek), Theevilcouch, Demnspawnt, Akarah, Chanell, Sheffy, Mr. Cheeze/Conqueso, Solories, Kirishami, Docker, Ramzie, Boco (who is to blame for all of this), Sultanx, Asmoran, Caddock, Meurgen, Tergwannabe, Trus, Ayanamie, Cplkane, Spherana, Ankokujin, Thedwarf (aka Notmyfault), Stromm, Molg, Butwalrus, Ciyt/Toonot, and Yokoduna.

Related links:

Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
Diablo II
The Sims
Everquest
Try Anarchy Online free for 7 days! (We dare you to). =]

The Time article they mention is online. It mentions Jackson's 10+%, it also mentions that Harvey Weinstein (of Miramax) gets 5% of gross. And it mentions that New Line's initial investment was only $25M per film which is only about 30% of the costs (presumably they invested further when budget blew out by $40M from $270M to $310M). So I think it is highly likely that New Line are not making anywhere near the sort of money a lot of people think.

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department." -- Wernher von Braun, re the V-2

Many engineers disagree with you. (My best friend is a "rocket scientist.")

Von Braun was careful to surrender to the Americans, and to offer him his rocketry skills. In light of the Cold War, America was eager for his help and so quickly sanitized his resume. There has been a fair amount written about the lesser-known aspects of his work for the Nazis, such as the use of slave labor to build the rockets. Said laborers were not allowed to survive their assignment, lest they carry away secrets. Much debate has centered on what von Braun knew, and whether he played a part in recruited the slave labor that was otherwise, like targeting of 3,000 V-2's, "not his problem."

In the nuclear program, scientists from Oppenheimer to Einstein took a very active role in urging political caution with nuclear weapons. They did not see their role as merely to create.

from the December issue of Time Magazine with LOTR:TTT on the cover.

If a druglord were to donate an exorbitant amount of money to a TV campaign against drugs, would the campaign be any less valuable?

We can't focus on the cause, in this case.. we need to appreciate the effect. As well, we need to thank the people who brought the appreciation of a movie like this to the forefront of mainstream America.

Well, you can understand a dog too...

With this Dog Translator you can interpret your dog's barking.

Sorry, body language isn't interpreted.

I can point you to links about racial attacks in the US too. I can also give you a google link. And I can counter your "muslimonline.com" and Pakistani newspaper links with tons of links to news articles on African American websites.

None of this is going to prove that racial segregation is practiced in the US.

And yes, CNN does make stuff up - all the time. And the guy you are refering to was posting a humorous article.

That's why the white house has SAM sites and marines equipped with Stingers.

That's a silly myth. If the Whitehouse had air defense, why do you think airplanes can impudently crash into it? Sure, maybe when Bush gets scared he orders up a heavily-armed security blanket, but there's no way a man with a rocket would stop anything unless a rotary-wing gunboat starts strafing them.

And if the Whitehouse had missiles and some sensors to target with, surely the Pentagon (a target of more tactical import in a crisis) would've had something to throw at the airliner that smashed it up too.

Air-Defense wise, the District of Columbia is a tiny space. Any blip from Reagan airport turns hostile and you've got all of 2 seconds to fire on it before the Captial explodes. Even if you hit something, the wreckage will still land on its target.

Yeah, but Jeff started out in his garage. So although he's huge now, he had to rough it at the beginning, too.

...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:

The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

Let's also consider that politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:

Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.

By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!

We will start with our current administration. The polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.

Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)

While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.

Citizen's rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.

Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.

The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links that prove otherwise please do so, I couldn't find any.)

Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.

Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.

As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!

So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.

Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.

Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.

In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:

Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?

Dad: Sure son, what's the question?

Son: What is politics?

Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?

Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.

That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.

The next morning...

Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.

Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.

Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

---Whew! All that work just to post this---

-I am a Windows user

-I am also a f4g0rt

-All Windows users are f4g0rtz

-Bill Gates loves men

-Linux is the sux0rz

-BSD is dying

-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died

-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population

-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch

-RecipeTroll loves the cock too

-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified

-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt

-R.M.S. is a commie

-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!

-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English

-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls

-The CowboyNeal jokes are old

-X is unstable, let's get rid of it

-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules

-Real men use TWM

-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling

-Ford sucks

-Chevy sucks

-Capitalism is dying

-Linux on the desktop is dead

-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)

-MySQL is robust and scalable

-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!

-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?

-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.

-w00t!

-In other news...

-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!

-RMS is a dirty hippie

-Moderation sucks

-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS

-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork

-General strike!! Now!!!!!!

-ESR is a homo

-Grok THIS you GIMP!

-Corporations are evil

-Corporations are good

-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)

-Canadians are gay

-Americans are stupid

-Brits are assholes

-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net

-~the fux0rz has spoken~-

Just one?

The Panama Canal.

Lockheed Martin's X-33 single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicle concept.

NASA's Mars Global Surveyor

The NEAR space probe (and it was delivered 9 months ahead of schedule!)

The World Trade Center recovery effort.

The US Navy's Super Hornet (upgrade to the old F/A-18 Hornet Naval strike fighter)

The U2 Spy Plane

Also, I remember hearing from the Discovery Chanel or TLC or Discovery Wings or something that the F-117 Stealth Fighter was developed under budget, but I can't seem to find a reliable link.

Golden Grove Prison at St. Croix in the US Vigrin Islands.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in Utah.

It happens. It's rare percentage wise, but it does happen all the time. With the exception of the last two, which I only found out from google searching for links for the rest, I knew of all of these off of the top of my head, so it's not a big secret or anything. Just think of all the mundane projects that come in under budget too. Government buildings, roadways, etc.

...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:

The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

First, let's start with the fact the politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:

Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.

By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!

We will start with our current administration. While the polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.

Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)

While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.

Civil rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.

Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.

The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links to examples please do so, I couldn't find any.)

Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.

Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.

As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!

So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.

Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.

Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.

In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:

Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?

Dad: Sure son, what's the question?

Son: What is politics?

Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?

Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.

That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.

The next morning...

Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.

Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.

Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

---Whew! All that work just to post this---


-I am a Windows user
-I am also a f4g0rt
-All Windows users are f4g0rtz
-Bill Gates loves men
-Linux is the sux0rz
-BSD is dying
-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died
-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population
-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch
-RecipeTroll loves the cock too
-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified
-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt
-R.M.S. is a commie
-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!
-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English
-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls
-The CowboyNeal jokes are old
-X is unstable, let's get rid of it
-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules
-Real men use TWM
-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling
-Ford sucks
-Chevy sucks
-Capitalism is dying
-Linux on the desktop is dead
-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)
-MySQL is robust and scalable
-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!
-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?
-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.
-w00t!
-In other news...
-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!
-RMS is a dirty hippie
-Moderation sucks
-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS
-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork
-General strike!! Now!!!!!!
-ESR is a homo
-Grok THIS you GIMP!
-Corporations are evil
-Corporations are good
-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)
-Canadians are gay
-Americans are stupid
-Brits are assholes
-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net

-~the fux0rz has spoken~-

because the "Mainstream press is the cable companies

It was the cover story in Time magazine on April 15, 2002. Here is a link although you have to pay them money to read it or something.

"Soon, they'll go the way of the dodo and that will be that."

Now, we wouldn't want to face that perspective, would we?

Enough little guys get screwed and media picks up. Then you get a negative article on eBay which costs eBay actual money. That provides incentive to change. ...

Capitialism works.

... and is apparently oiled with the blood of little guys getting screwed.

Yes, in general the market self corrects. But until it self corrects there is a window of opportunity for shysters and frauds to steal from you. The occurs both in the small scale (The guy on the street who tries to sell you crappy speakers) and on a large scale (the guy in a suit who tries to sell you crappy stock). Capitalism uncontrolled can destroy the lives of innocent people and rewards scam artists.

Baldrson writes "Some guy named John Carmack wrote to the amateur rocketry mailing list "We finaly let someone ride on one of our landers. Only a few seconds in the air, but still pretty damn cool!""

There was some stuff in the news a few years ago, about a concept for a device that would fire two co-linear lasers, strong enough to ionize two parallel columns of air. Then a "non-lethal" electric shock was transmitted to the target person. IIRC.

Why does he buy fast cars, if he's not interested in them?

Tell that to the people in China who are drowning under our computer garbage.

Sadly, North American culture (and I can say this because I am from that continent) is beyond exceedingly wasteful (not just in relation to computers) in ways that most people don't even notice. It's hard to see the real picture when you're a part of it. I am guilty of it too, but I'm a little more sensitive to it than most folks because my parents are immigrants who grew up in a very different culture where you didn't throw out the mango peels because you can boil them to make a tasty drink.

HDD's using current technology that are $64 are simply not a sustainable way of operating in general and it is worth it now to pay more for better hard drives that will last a long time. Fortunately, there will always be a high-reliability segment of the market for servers. I have never thrown out a HDD. I even had a clock that was formerly a 40 MB drive on my shelf. I sell the ancient 100 MB scsi drives from 10+ years which all still work to collectors. Too bad most current drives will crap out by then.

A distubing parallel to this is the story of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, who almost singlehandedly destroyed Soviet biological science fron the 1940's to the 1960's. In Lysenko's view, plants and animals (and by extension people) had to be infinitely pliable by changes in their environment and Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution must be simply the result of sick capitalist propaganda. This fit in quite well with Stalin's beliefs, and so Lysenko and his cronies took over Russian genetics and agriculture, exiled or put to death the best Soviet scientists, and caused an econmic catastrophe which contributed to the fall of the USSR.

Time Magazine blurb about Lysenko

The issue is not conservative vs. liberal, Democratic vs. Republican, or Western vs. Soviet. It is ideology vs. facts. It is a bad idea to only listen to the facts that support your preconceived notions. And any kind of ideological litmus test to these positions of governmental authority and review is another really bad idea. We could very well have another Lysenko offstage, ready to pounce.

Muslim doesn't represent terrorism to 2/3 of the world, only the US and the Jewish states (oh that includes the US i think).

And New Yorker stock analysts don't represent oppression to 2/3 of the world, only Marxists (speaking of REAL knock on the door in the middle of the night jackbooted, "workers paradise" gulag opression) and Klansmen/Nazi's (ditto) Ever notice how close either extreme really are to each other? Either way the state will MAKE you be what it wants you to be and all your problems are caused by "The international Banking Conspicary" not your own irresponsible decisions or the failings (corruption, oppression, etc) of your own government.

I won't argue that *some* banks and corporations aren't complicit in oppression around the world but it is governments that are DOING the oppression - gulags, "dissapearances", murders, genocides etc. The argument against those businessmen is NOT generally that the oppress anyone themselves but that they are willing to do business with or aid or seek the aid of those who are. But just as most Arabs are NOT terrorist most businessmen (and certainly most of their employees) are NOT oppresing anyone outside of the fantasies of losers like the KKK (& their islamic equivalent) or other sad little extremists that are upset they are not the ones that get to do the oppressing.

As for Arabs & Muslims not having a reputation outside of the US and the Jewish states (aside from Israel which other state(s) are jewish?) I think you could find a few Pakistani's Indians Filipinos Indonesians, Susanese, Kenyans & Tanzanians, Germans, Brits, Egyptians, Turks, Swedes, French, Austrians, Romanians, etc. etc. etc. that have fairly sound reasons to disagree with you. The point is not that Muslim==Terrorist but that SOME muslims are and the argument you made that because SOME businessmen (or Muslims) are guilty of oppression (or terrorism) that means ALL businessmen (or Muslims) are guilty and deserve to have a plane flown into their office (or drop bombs on their village). If your argument is collective guilt fine - but it is a two-way street and you have no basis if you adhere to it to protest even *intentional* civillian deaths.

BTW what would I want with a loan?

I don't know, I didn't suggets that you did. Just that not getting one, or having to pay it back if you DID get one is not being oppressed. Two contradictory reasons bankers are often accused of "oppressing" people.

As well as special information regarding, "E-stonia" (Estonia), the Baltic state that is making the internet an integral part of its politics, culture, and way of life.

As well as special information regarding, "E-stonia" (Estonia), the Baltic state that is making the internet an integral part of its politics, culture, and way of life.

• It does not link to a real story, instead just says nice things about the company.
  
• It was submitted to plastic.com in nearly the exact same format. Registered users can check the submission cue there. Here's how it is listed:
  

  
  The voice on the other end of the phone does not tell you to "please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed". E-mail inquiries do not pretend as though they were never sent. More and more companies are finding out that people actually want to interact with other real people, not pseudo-intelligent machines that can't respond to simple things like "Hi, how are you?" Did pseudo-intelligent humans forget something so obvious? Companies like LivePerson help clients from large ISPs to small libraries communicate one-on-one with people via the web. Softroad takes the concept of live help one step further by allowing anyone, anywhere access to their live Internet surfers via SMS, 2-way pager, or other mobile device. There's nothing like human ingenuity when it comes to questions more complex than "what's my balance?" or "what's the weather in Miami?". But are more companies going to listen?

Incidentally there is a good articles in a recent Time magazine and Wired.

"he did, in fact, suspend the right of habeas corpus"

Later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, I might add. See Ex parte Milligan. For the lazy, Ex parte Milligan was a declaration by the Supreme Court following the Civil War which stated a number of things, not the least of which were: the military cannot act as a judiciary in any place where the courts are able to function, no one (not even the President) may suspend Habeus Corpus so long as there is a functional government, and last but not least - the military cannot try a citizen who is not connected with the military.

This is, of course, something that was overlooked when Jose Padilla, who is an American citizen, and supposedly has some rights, was transferred to a military brig with little more than casual remarks from the government (Bush called him a "bad guy" - yes, he really did use those words).

Does anyone remember that 12 (?) years ago, Magic Johnson announced that he had AIDS ??
I think nothing was heard about this subject again untill now.
Is this maybe an evidence that if you are rich enough to pay for a super-duper high-tech treatment you can actually be cured??.
I dont know if he was only a carrier of the HIV back in these days , but surely he must have be showed some symptoms by now.

ahem...the current hypothesis is man killed the Mammoth in North America.

Here are a couple of articles on the subject:

TIME
Outriderbooks
Discovery
Article

And digital prohibition is a good term for it.

Stallman wrote a wonderful piece of science fiction on the subject. If you want to think about where this is going, it's worth reading.

When you think about how it's possible for such a small industry (content is infinitessimal compared to, for instance, consumer electronics) to have such incredible influence, remember that politicians have a unique respect for those who control the media.

It's a remarkably cynical viewpoint, but the television in some ways restored an old social order called the monarchy. Content actually is King. More specifically, those who control the TV rule the world. I mean, think about it; that joke doesn't quite get the laugh it used to. Anyone who'se ever worked for a cause and felt the crushing, inevitable apathy of the world around them knows what I mean. Five minutes on Oprah could mobilize tens of millions of people to vote or to read or to free Tibet, but at the moment its highest calling is to sell beer and diet drugs.

And the days when the media owners were innocent and principled are ancient history. They know what they're doing. The federal government's ONDCP editing scripts of prime time TV shows? Disney making anti-file-sharing propaganda cartoons? Oh, they know exactly how it works.

They may be doomed anyway, but the content trust will fight brutally to the end. They'll take whatever we wont fight to the death over. They'll leave a wake of ruined lives and an ocean of lost opportunity in their wake. If we're lucky, our children and their children will get to clean up the mess we make today.

Read the news. The Federal Government just made doing what the CEOs of Enron et al did a federal offense, meaning real jail time.

I do read the news, and the measures which have been taken are laughable and incomplete. Ralph Nader, the guy who finally got the automotive industry to belatedly incorporate basic safety designs into automobiles in the United States decades after they knew better, and chose not to for financial reasons, offers a detailed analysis of just how widely Congress dodged the entire issue, and how profoundly superficial and ineffective the law you cite really is.

In short, its a superficial measure designed to smooth the ruffled feathers of those few who dare, or rather bother, to speak aloud their outrage.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 101020805-332031,00.html

You'll have to forgive us if we slack off a bit; after outlasting communism and dealing with a world that alternatly hates us and wants us to be their best friend, we as a counry have earned a little corruption and selfishness.

Or, to put your argument in a more individual light:

"You'll have to forgive me if I slack off a bit; after outlasting my competing coworkers and dealing with an office that alternately hates me and wants to be my best friend, I as a person have earned a little cancer and self-destructiveness."

Corruption isn't some self-indulgence you earn as a result of hard work, it is a cancerous, destructive force that tears a society apart and undermines basic, civil society and the social contract that holds it together, so unless you are arguing that America has earned the destruction it is bringing down upon itself, your argument falls to pieces.

As for the notion of 'needing something to fight against' as a justification for injustice or corruption, so that the next generation has something to occupy their time, I think the absurdity of your words stand upon their own. Indeed, your rhetoric is a perfect example of the kind of conditioning our culture has been subjected to for the last several decades which has resulted in the apathy and submissiveness of our populace which is allowing these sorts of destructive behavior to flourish, virtually unapposed.

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WASH POST: Bush Admin Split over Iraq...

IRAQ 'CLOSE TO NUCLEAR BOMB GOAL'

Passive smoking can kill your cat... TIMEWARNER to charge flood victims for cable boxes... Archerd: Democrats seeking Hollywood money... Republicans will tie ANWR to Iraq; Say threat in Baghdad necessitates oil drilling in Alaska... Ventura Goofs On God... AP WORLD
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*FINDS ANY STORY LINKED ON DRUDGE WEATHER ACTION
QUAKE SHEET x x x x x VISITS TO DRUDGE
07/31/02

004,776,309 IN PAST 24 HOURS
107,519,403 IN PAST 31 DAYS
895,224,122 IN PAST YEAR DRUDGE ARCHIVES DRUDGE REFERENCE DESK EMAIL: DRUDGE@DRUDGEREPORT.COM SUPER-POWERED BY ALLEGIANCE TELECOM... DRUDGE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

Absolutely the *best* programming book I have ever found!

Here is a link to it. It has details on C/C++, complete RFCs, amazing example code, and a huge index!

The biggest problem is that there is only one copy. I tried to make my own copy, but quickly ran out of toner. When I asked one of the authors if there were any plans to make a second copy, he laughed and said, "Maybe on Mars!". I think he is losing his mind from all the corporations trying to stake a claim in his creative works. He really wants to be available to everyone.

P.S. Here is a great article on the history behind this imaginative book.

Learn to use your 104-button mouse. A.K.A. the keyboard.

In the past, when a customer dialed 0 (for operator) to make a long distance call, the customer was asked which long distance company should carry the call. If the caller said, "It Doesn't Matter," he might be billed by that company, a client company of KTNT, on his next telephone bill. Or if the caller actually has "no preference," his call might be carried by an unknown long distance carrier because the operator used a random list to assign the carrier. Such calls can occur on any phone, but are most frequent with pay phone long distance calls.

...also intervened on behalf of its 46 companies which include the client companies named "I Don't Know;" "I Don't Care;" "It Doesn't Matter;" "Any One is Okay." and "Whatever."

What happens when gun laws aren't "draconian" enough? Kids kill their school mates and teachers. Seem familiar?

Good thing those thing don't happen anywhere else.

Microsoft gave $16M in political contributions in the last four years. Obviously it didn't go to waste. Time Magazine also has a good (although a little dated) article on the size and scope of Microsoft's intense lobbying effort since the antitrust trial started.

Of the four, my admittedly biased knowledge of the facts leads me to seriously consider Buchanan as the source known as Deep Throat. He's always been a bit of a maverick, hanging out with Hunter S. Thompson while Buchanan was the top Nixon speech-writer and HST was writing Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 and his topsy-turvy relationship to his political parties come to mind as immediate examples.