Domain: tripod.com
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Comments · 1,859
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Subj: ADV: Spam conference zkryzk854Hello, dsalkdsaad,
Show your knowledge in front of MAJOR scientific audience! Publish your research FREE!!!! Sign up for our S_P+A_M CoNFEREnce today!!
To remove yourself from this list, please click here.
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Re:Don't complain too much, people...
There were no arrests, but make no mistake that those FBI documents were improperly obtained. Do a google search on "Clinton FBI files" and you'll see a zillion hits, including many major news sources (like cnn, pbs, aclu, newsmax, the washinton post, abcnews, etc. etc.). Clinton made the affair go away by saying it was all just a simple mix up and nothing improper was intended. Yeah right. People always seemed so desparate to believe anything Clinton said, they just couldn't find enough excuses for the man no matter what he did. Makes me sick.
You people need to be cynical about *ALL* politicans, not just the ones you don't like.
You made a mistake and included No-Newsmax in the list of news sources. No-Newsmax is another Scaife-funded Chris Ruddy cocaine-fueled fantasy-Criminal-Republican-Criminal jerkoff-rag. No-Newsmax has been debunked plenty of times effortlessly. Hell, even their big lie about the Gold Star Mothers has been debunked upon the Gold Star Mothers webpage. No-Newsmax would have been flushed down the demented sewer it arose from if not for a big money play by shit-eating Scaife.
Newsmax by the
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Check out this archive of fake reviews....Here's a collection of "fake" reviews posted on gamestop.com...
It's hard to believe that a human being actually approved some of those!!! (make sure to hit the banner ad on this page
:-)) -
Re:Value function is applications, not architectur
Sorry, the sum of (N choose M) for all M=1..N is never greater than N^N, because it is always 2^N.
So it is "exponential", just not N^N.
Here's a cool page about Pascal's triangle. -
Re:A bit overestimated
You have to remember the chips improve with time. More importantly things other things that effect speed also improve quite a bit. For example when the 386-20s came out there weren't caches so the chips ended up pulling no ops extremely frequently.
Anyway taking your comparison and using a benchmark of the time (the Norton System info benchmark):
80286-16 got a 9.9 (i.e. 9.9x as fast as the XT)
80386-20 got a 17.5
More importantly the cache configurations that came with the 80386-25 raised the score to a 26.7
adjusting for the increase in mhz:
26.7 * 16 / 25 = 17 which is close to double.
I'll stand by my statement.
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I Found A Great Deal of Resources on AIPlease take advantage of the following links. They're worth the read. I have even cached the links just in case.
Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence ... intelligence pioneer, found popular success selling books predicting computer breakthroughs
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www.cs.ucsb.edu/~cs165a/Lectures/9-30.pdf - Similar pagesArtificial Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence
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First the basics...
Great Expectations
... then follow it up with ...
The Great Failure
And dont forget The Communist Manifesto -
Re:Oh boy...I guess John Adams must have been "selling something" when he signed this document. Pay special attention to Article 11:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion....
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Re:Software isn't as much like poetry as he sugges
Word.
As an English major who has just been paid for the completion of his first software project, I am enthusiastic about the possiblity of the two disciplines comingling.
When I first had to master the Villanelle and the sestina for a creative writing class back in the eighties, I found my mind stimulated in a way unlike any thought process I had used before. When I began learning python last year, the tickle was familiar.
Please don't be too quick to write off the similarities between the two crafts and especially entertain the possibility that observing fine code written by masters just might improve your own. The Master of Software Arts sounds like an acheivement to be proud of. -
Your example is truly a perfect counter example
The next trick is harder, and involves some actuall hard questions. You need to start asking yourself: "do I even want this class of product in the first place?"
I have no problem with ads for tampons, pads, etc. because I think most women will agree they are a good and necessary product. Imrpovements in that product are often a good thing and improve quality of life for many women. Since it's a stable market, the products actually do have to compete on improvements to the product, so everyone wins.
Umm... No.
Your prime example of "good advertising" is a market and ad campaign that are really excellent evidence that ads aren't about *any* of apparent informational content they offer about the product, but are about stoking fears, creating desires for otherwise useless stuff and associating a particular brand with "happy making" images when the time comes to alleviate the manufactured "need".
Specifically, bleached disposable menstrual products are a dangerous sham based on manufactured shame that prevents women from finding out about better products.
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Re:It's just taking things a step further...
How is this different than marketing studies where they have people push buttons based on their like or dislike of a product?
It's different because they're tapping peoples' subconscious reaction to ads, something you can't (reliably) discover with the usual focus-group methods. The advertiser's Holy Grail is the means to persuade people to buy reflexively; i.e., without actually thinking about whether or not they actually need the product. I can understand their interest in neuromarketing.The world of The Space Merchants draws nearer every day.
DDB
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We'll see how it comes out -- if it comes out
I hate to break it to y'all, but this isn't the first time I, Robot has been proposed as a movie, nor the rights purchased, nor even the script written. In fact, the Reuters article terribly disappointed me because they're not using the script by Harlan Ellison, which I have read in its Asimov's serialization and quite enjoyed. (Who are these people on the new script, and what do they really know about SF, anyway?)
I should point out that the first venture at I, Robot: The Movie didn't come off so well, but the same thing happened to Dune for years, so we'll see. -
Re:The script was already there
And the worst part of that? Harlan Ellison has already written an excellent screenplay for I, Robot, which you can buy in book form.
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Not using Ellison's script?
They're not using Harlan Ellison's script. So I expect that this will suck rocks.
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Re:Mac v. Amiga
The Amiga introduced people to true Multimedia computing in 1985, with regard to this it was around a decade ahead compared to other computing systems.
For instance the Amiga was the first home computer to be able to dislay photo-realistic graphics with up to 4096 colors simultaneously. The computer combined this with stereo sound, 32-bit pre-emptive multitaking, advanced GUI/CLI while the OS offered an understandable, compact/efficient and modular design.
What made the Amiga special was the sum of all its great abilities (genlockable graphics, different simultaneous resolution displays, screens/workspaces, standard TV support, autoconfig, etc). Just like humans don't differ too much from apes genetically, our abilities go far beyond our ancestors. The Amiga was a true milestone for modern computing.
More info about what made the Amiga so special when it was released can be read here. -
Re:negative, much?
I couldn't agree with you more. Anyone where with a high-school history lesson under her belt will remember a few things about factories back in the day:
- Employees would frequently lose digits of their hands, whole limbs, or even be killed on the job. As a result, they were simply replaced with someone else with no compensation to the original employee or their family. It's not so far off today.
- If employees didn't like their conditions, and went on strike, factory owners would often choose to just ignore them, and then bring in Pinkerton guards. These would then bust up the unions, force employees away at gun-point while the factory brought on cheaper people. Even today, factory workers complaining of insufficient compensation are ignored.
- Now while some tech jobs require exposure to nasty chemicals (chip manufacturing for example), most certainly do not. People working in factories, even today, are exposed to substances that cause severe birth defects, mental illness, and a plethora of other nasty side-effects.
So, do you think you geeks really have it so bad on the job? I highly disagree. I have never worked in a factory (and I consider myself fortunate), but from a tiny little research, it's easy to see how much worse it is for people who aren't working in Tech. -
Compelling evidence that the moon landing was fake
Finally the truth is out!. NASA Fakes Moon Landing
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It's going to still be considerd a fake
After all, it's not exactly difficult to doctor an image from this telescope. I could easily add a lunar lander to a picture of the moon. Real conspiracy theorists know that the inhabitants of the moon made a deal with NASA, because they didn't want to be disturbed. People might have discovered that the moon was made of marshmallow, and the environmental impact of the candy miners would have destroyed their home.
Bedsides, we all know this article proves conclusively that this it was faked. -
Re:(Another) American Revolution
We would have been much better off if we could have ended slavery without having its proponents stir up a rebellion.
Umm... I was talking about the American Revolution, not the Civil War.
And for the record, The Civil War was not about slavery, it was about state sovereignty, which Lincoln disagreed with (his election was the last straw that set off the mass secession of the southern states.) In fact, the "Emancipation Proclamation" was something he did that targeted the southern states, which at that point he wasn't even in control of. Lincoln and the North weren't as righteous as the gov't and history books keep trying to make us believe... ... speaking of stuff you don't get in history class, Lincoln inadvertently fucked us all when he let England run our federal reserve, a problem that sticks with us to this day. Click here and here for a history lesson. -
Sounds like a Tom Swift inventionI couldn't see a picture of it since the site is slashdotted, but the description reminds me of on of Tom Swifts' (Tom Swift Jr) - his Ultrasonic Cycloplane!
-asb -
Re:uhu
That's before overclocking.
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Musical Wey[o]uns
Good point! An upside to cloning.
The errant Weyoun may have been #6. Was it Weyoun-7 whose neck Worf casually snapped for making a smartass remark -- giving dour Dumar a rare joke opening? Maybe it was Weyoun-7 who kept getting on the Founder's nerves so much she threatened to have him executed? I wonder whether he really was a limited edition. Weyoun made the Breen seem "warm" by contrast.
Weyoun was like the little dogs in "A Fish Called Wanda."
In its own way DS9 had the best (dark) sense of humor. And some of the fans, too -- one evidently thought Weyoun attractive. Ewwwww. I think/hope Vortas were way beyond mating. -
Re:Most Common Files Downloaded From Me This Week
I'll admit to using kazaalite to downlaod mostly copyrighted material, but in the form of TV shows, my Great Archive of Late 20th/Early 21st Century Cartoons (and some music vids and other stuff)has been built entirely from Kazaa. Most of these things are not avalible anywhere else(the old ghostbusters cartoon, TMNT, etc). This seems to me to be a perfectly legitimate use for this. An added bonus is that I dont watch much TV anymore. And before anyone points it out, i'll admit that those movies in there are mine, i know its illegal, i'm not being hypocritical because i mostly use it for legitimate things. Also, all my shared files are mp3s of local artists, a few that i bought, but mostly ones i got free at shows, i doubt these small bands would have any problems with their music being spread.
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Careers for the evil doer
"So you've decided to be evil" is a humourous website, and in light of this spam Queen story, I thought that you may want some background information on the most hideous of evil occupations.
:) -
Careers for the evil doer
"So you've decided to be evil" is a humourous website, and in light of this spam Queen story, I thought that you may want some background information on the most hideous of evil occupations.
:) -
Stop the madness!(This is an excerpt from my research notes on the vile Lego cult. I wanted to get these out before they had a chance to silence me. Please, please, please, don't let your friends or family succumb to the temptations of Lego. The life that you save may be your own.)
Sad cases of compulsive behaviour, such as Eric who has dragged his unsuspecting sister, Dorothy into the despicable cult.The cult recently opened one of their "temples" in California (of course). They have many local churches.
Like the Scientologists who have their "e-meter", these lego freaks have their or psuedo-technological props. They even have an mystic Oracle that you can ask questions on the internet. And just like the leader of the Scientologists, their leaders aspire to be JRR Tolkien. Not only that, these foul fiends have the temerity to rewrite the Bible.
And they are Holocaust revisionists, too boot
- Exhibit A - one of their foul leaders proudly displays their trumped up "evidence"
- Exhibit B
- Exhibit C
- Exhibit D
- Exhibit E
- Exhibit F
They worship strange, vile gods. And are building machines to take over the world.
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Re:Check out what the USPTO says about it...AC writes:
http://www.phoenix.com/en/products/firstview+conn
e ct/default.htmFrom the site: "Providing industry-leading, standards-based support such as HTML 4.0, CSS 2.0, DOM 2,0, Javascript 1.4 and Flash 4 with a small code size, FirstView Connect was designed specifically for the emerging Information Appliance market and is ideally-suited for adding new value to both traditional and next-generation digital devices."
In short: It's a small-footprint web browser. <sarcasm>Gee, that's *totally different* than the Mozilla project's Phoenix, which is a small-footprint web browser.</sarcasm>
Hrmmm...that does add a bit to the mix. But their words are ``designed specifically for the
... Information Appliance market and is ... suited for ... digital devices.''They're embedding the thing---a very different operation from building an end-user application for a general-purpose computer. (Would you consider embedding Phoenix?
:-) Now the interesting points are:- Their trademark says nothing about the HTML, &c., part of their output
- They call it FirstView Connect, not Pheonix, the embeddable browser
- When did Phoenix-the-browser start up vs. when did Phoenix-the-company start making HTML-enabled embeddable goodies?
Google finds nothing for ``firstview connect 1'' (or 1.0), the earliest to turn up is 2.0 in a Real Networks press release dated 1 November 2001.
Phoenix-the-browser released 0.1 all of two months ago (September 2002), but there's a reference to a (likely unrelated) ``Phoenix browser'' dated 6 January 2000. (It's about half-way down the page.) If anyone has cause to gripe, it's those folks!
I still claim there's zero point zero chance of the products being confused in the minds of their customers, in either of the two completely-separate target markets. And trademark protection is supposed to be about confusion and mis-perception, not attempted ownership of a word.
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The book wasn't that good anyway
Those of you hopping up and down about this should calm down. This is not a big story.
This copy of the Principia was one of the first edition copies. First editions are crap. They have all the errors and misspellings, and they come out with nicer editions afterward that make you feel stupid for not waiting a little longer. Just look at all those first edition "Lord of the Rings" DVDs that are now for sale on Ebay. Newton probably filled his "Principia Director's Cut" with at least 30 pages of extra stuff for those Renaissance astronomers who were willing to wait and pay a little extra for the famous "apple scene".
Second, you have to remember that the book really isn't that good. While Newton was trying to describe concepts such as planetary motion and orbital dynamics that usually involve calculus, the only branch of mathematics well known at the time was Euclidean geometry. So the Principia is dumbed down to the level of his contemporary boneheads- and it suffers greatly for it. For example, here is a section cut and pasted from the Principia (the author has been dead since 1727 so this is probably still safe):
PROPOSITION XI. PROBLEM VI.
If a body revolves in an ellipsis; it is required to find the law of the centripetal force tending to the focus of the ellipsis.
Let S be the focus of the ellipsis. Draw SP cutting the diameter DK of the ellipsis in E, and the ordinate Qv in x; and complete the parallelogram QxPR. It is evident that EP is equal to the greater semi-axis AC: for drawing HI from the other focus H of the ellipsis parallel to EC, because CS, CH are equal, ES, EI will be also equal; so that EP is the half sum of PS, PI, that is (because of the parallels HI, PR, and the equal angles IPR, HPZ), of PS, PH, which taken together, are equal to the whole axis 2AC. Draw QT perpendicular to SP, and putting L for the principal latus rectum of the ellipsis (or for 2BC^2/AC), we shall have L QR to L Pv as QR to Pv, that is, as PE or AC to PC; and L Pv to GvP as L to Gv; and GvP to Qv^2 as PC^2 to CD^2; and by (Corol. 2, Lem. VII) the points Q and P coinciding, Qv^2 is to Qx^2 in the ratio of equality; and Qx^2 or Qv^2 is to QT^2 as EP^2 to PF^2, that is, as CA^2 to PF^2, or (by Lem. XII) as CD^2 to CB^2. And compounding all those ratios together, we shall have LQR to QT^2 as ACLPC^2CD^2, or 2CB^2PC^2CD^2 to PCGvCD^2CB^2, or as, 2PC to Gv. But the points Q and P coinciding, 2PC and Gr are equal. And therefore the quantities LQR and QT^2, proportional to these, will be also equal. Let those equals be drawn into SP2/QR, and LSP^2 will become equal to SP^2 QT^2 / QR. And therefore (by Corol. 1 and 5, Prop. VI) the centripetal force is reciprocally as LSP2, that is, reciprocally in the duplicate ratio of the distance SP. Q.E.D.
Holy crap! And you should see the pictures! Can you imagine it in Latin, too! Whoever stole this book is going to be sorry. You'd have to be a crazy person to want to steal this book, or to bid on it if it shows up on Ebay. I think we can assume that the remaining copies of this first edition Principia aren't going to walk anytime soon.
Explaining concepts for a wide audience using insufficiently advanced math is a very difficult trick to pull off. Feynman did a reasonably good job of it in QED. But seriously, would you rather read a book by Feynman or Newton? Feynman also wrote books that told you how to pick up bar chicks. Newton wrote his books in Latin and died a virgin. Before Feynman died he made history by breaking a piece of rubber on national TV. Newton's career, on the other hand, ended at the mint where he spent the rest of his life hanging counterfeiters. Both of these guys were really smart. But which one do you think did a better job at writing books for people with a limited attention span?
Third, the theories are wrong. They look good at first, and seem to explain most phenomena very well. But if you kick the tires and look at more accurate measurements, you start noticing things don't quite match up right. The perihelion of Mercury precesses, when Newton claims it shouldn't. And while F = GMm/r^2 gives good numbers for everyday work such as hurling probes at high speed into Mars, it's wrong. The equation is just wrong; it gives wrong answers! They're usually close but they're always wrong. The very first equation they teach you in high school physics is another one that Newton came up with, F=ma, and F=ma is wrong too! F starts to get bigger faster than a at high speeds! They have F=dp/dt, and that equation works with relativity, so why don't they indoctrinate kids' heads with that one? Probably because it uses Leibniz notation, and Newton hated Leibniz. And high school physics even today is under the thrall of Newton. -
HTML mirror (for us script kiddies)
In case you don't happen to have a loaded Acrobat (loaded acrobat? don't let him on the high wire!), or if you can't bear to wait for Adobe's disclaimers to load, here's a quick-n-dirty HTML mirror of the
.pdf file. Ugly as sin: did it by pasting the text into Notetab and using "convert to HTML".
Yes, it's on Tripod, so beware the popups and banners. Whaddya expect from us skr1pt k1dd13z? -
If you still believe...
check out this site.
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Re:**** THE PROOF THAT linux IS EVIL ****
Everybody knows that bert is evil...
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Chinese propaganda is our enemy
[...] But Chinese are no more enemies than Russians were under the Soviets. Most Chinese are moral and peaceloving [...]
No doubt that your average Joe in China is honest, moral, etc. But do not forget that his government does like to spread, for lack of a better word, FUD about the good ol' US of A. This something to consider before assuming that the yokels of Whereverstan secretly like us. They may not be getting the real story. -
Re:Kazaa vs. eDonkey
For Kazaa, etc. you can try out sig2dat, which works similarly to the MD5 checksums. You click on a sig2dat link and the program will generate a
.dat file with a checksum in it, which Kazaa will use to search for the file.
It's not perfect though, since you have to shut down and restart the client to get it to see the generated .dat files. It's nice when using sites such as Fast Track Movies. -
Life On The Moon
The best site for the moon landing conspiracy has to be this one. Slashdotted soon, I guess - sorry to the owner...
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Re:Since the author didnt mention it...This is the most inspirational book I have ever read for OO programming. There is no competition. When you read this, you will understand how to programm OO well. In addition, much of Java's libraries are based on patterns, so I say this is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn how to write quality Java code and also understand the Java libraries. The same probably goes for C# since that is Java in sheep's clothing.
;)If you like this book, I also recommend trying to find the (free!) whitepapers from Taligent about object-oriented frameworks. They may be hard to find since Taligent is long gone, but I am sure there is a copy on the net somewhere. They did go off on tangents at times, but they are still worth reading. (I believe some of the people who wrote this book were also on Taligent's research team.)
I used both works quite a bit in my undergrad thesis. Though without this book's inspiration, the thesis would have likely not come to be.
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Re:In Other News...
Rotting in warehouses??? WTF? The buying programs have been cut to the bone, we don't have a single system that isn't unavailable for extended periods of time because we don't have enough of them!
Yes, rotting in warehouses. We recently had to destroy tens of millions of dollars of munitions because they passed their expiry date and were sitting in a warehouse. The media currently loves printing about how our armed forces have to "beg" for smart bombs during conflicts, but what they're really reporting is that we've moved more to a "on-time delivery" of perishable hardware. It hardly surprizes me that the manufacturers would rather we stockpile warehouses.
Our individual soldiers are NOT paid quite well, and only have fantastic personal equipment because we finally managed to convince the government to buy them new equipment, the same equipment people like you rallied against as being "un-needed" and "arms-industry sales tactics"!
Nice strawman technique there. And you want every troop to have their own personal multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier! You're crazy! As for the troops, a lot in specific areas are. I've seen the pay rates for specific areas, and it seemed pretty good to me, especially when all of the fringe benefits were included in the equation. A non-commissioned office with a family of 5 and a stay-at-home wife might have some difficulty making ends meet, but that's the case throughout society.
That is the stupidest most useless comment ever. Taken to it's non-logical extereme, we might as well not pay ANY ATTENTION what so ever to JUST HOW SMALL we are, PROPORTIONALLY, compared to ANYBODY! Why? Why should we spend 2 times less per person to keep the world free than the Finnish or Belgians!??
I love the proportional comments. Who sets the base rate? Is it a little race to have the highest percentage? Secondly I just checked here to find that we spend 1.3% of our GDP (~$9 billion US), while Belgium spends 1.2% (~$3 Billion US). Looks like you should do a better research job next time.
I would rather we spend billions on special operations teams and intelligence. Those are the areas where we can actually make a difference in the world of today (a world that already has the massive conventional force of the US, who is our friend and ally).
NO IT WASN'T. You're pulling this stuff out of your ASS!!!
The common wisdom before the friendly fire incident was that a smaller Canadian force would be rotated in (smaller because the conflict had died down), however it was politically palitable to just pull them all out after that incident. Obviously I don't know for sure, as you sure as hell don't, what went on in the war rooms, but I would say that it sure seems like it may have given them an "out". -
Re:It should be Customers not Games that come firsYeah, but I'm willing to bet that most of that 99.9% aren't "their most ardent supporters".
What is your point? No company can ne expected to cater to
.1% of its audience, no matter how "ardent" they areYes, and how many years ago was that? And (since we're talking Kali) what happened to future support for that? Oh yeah, Blizzard killed it - and sent C&D letters to Kali threatening them...
Kali is still available and usable, for anyone who cares to look. As for cease and desist letters, I googled around and didn't find any mention of that, only a summary of the case that says that Kali never did receive such a letter. See also this. Make of these what you will...
Ahh.. no, it didn't.. in fact bnetd NEVER supported WC3, and when the bnetd maintainers refused to add support for it, the people asking forked it. You (and Blizzard) seem to be blaming the bnetd people. So why aren't YOU blaming the right people?
Yes, thats Blizzard's point - even if the bnetd people were totally scrupulous, other people can swoop in, modify the source, and create servers for illegally obtained clients. So what is Blizzard supposed to do? Turn their CD key validation code over to the public? Then what is the point of having keys at all? It ridiculous to expect Blizzard to do so. As I said before, it's exactly the same thing is requiring Microsoft to turn over their Office CD validation code to the public. What is your solution to Blizzard dilemma, simply trust that people won't use illegal clients and beta leaks? Oh wait, they already tried that one didn't they... The sad truth is that it really does only take a few morons to ruin it for everyone. I don't know if Blizzard has a legal leg to stand on, but I really don't think they have a choice.
Furthermore, I have yet to hear a single reason how or why that the "ardent supporters" are "fucked". Because they have to use Kali (which is currently free and support up to Starcraft Brood War)? Because it takes them an extra 10 seconds to set up a game on Battle.net? As I said, its a complete joke.
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80s punk all dead hard and serious?
Cop this picture of Wattie (out of The Exploited) being dead serious in the 80s.
Yeah there were some hard edges as well, I got my copy of Dead Cities by The Exploited etc. (one of the best ever episodes of Top of the Pops on BBC, that was, when they appeared). Yeah the police moved in on shows and there was a fair bit of street fighting, but that first wave of punk really shook up the culture of the UK (sorry, can't speak for other countries), really changed things for ever.
Who cares if it all fragmented and moved in different directions quickly, I think that was part of its success. It was always a lot of people with a lot of ideas, and we had some damn fine silly fun in the 80s as well as the angry stuff as well. "Where's Captain Kirk?" by Spizzenergi, anybody?
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Re:Good for themI don't have time to go through all of your list, so I'll just point you to other people's complaints on some of the easy ones - Home Depot, State Farm, P&G:
Home Depot
State Farm
Proctor & Gamble
I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find info on the other companies, but it was pretty easy... Here's some links for the other companies, just for fun:
Boeing (2)
Morgan Stanley
Fannie Mae
Apparently, Target isn't well-liked, either.
SafewayGranted, you may not agree with all of these people's opinions, but the complaints are there.
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Re:Mergint trends
I presume you're fishing for this: CatDog
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and some other "Hoo'd Win" topics...
...you should never, ever bring up in a geek forum:
Spider-Man versus Wolverine
Superman versus Hulk
Thanos versus everybody
The Joker versus Hostess Fruit Pies
CowboyNeal versus Grodd the Gorilla -
Re:Worms and 'payload'I don't know whether these are original thoughts, created by you, or whether you are simply passing along something that you'd read elsewhere...
In either case, you appear to be an Evil Genius [tm].
You should join S.P.E.C.T.R.E (Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion).
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Re:what the...?
[...] as Dijkstra (RIP) put it, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
He was the quintessential modern programmer. Every one of his writings is a modernist manifesto in itself (cf. Marinetti [1]).
AEsthetic movements strive for that kernel of emptiness present in every stylistic endeavor: Michelangelo spoke famously of sculpture being already present in the block of marble, waiting for him to chop away the excess and liberate it. Futurism saw poetry in the void between the stars as much as in the void between the electrons. Postmodernism vacates the space of global narratives (i.e., myths) and lets the dust of the micro-stories to settle down afterwards (think of minimalism in architecture).
Art is about hacking off the crud, as much as programming is.
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5th place for Canada is bullshit
At least one local paper in virtually every major city, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Halifax, is owned by the CanWest Global. The same organization owns the National Post, one of the two national papers, and Global TV, one of three national broadcasters. CanWest Global is owned by Izzy Asper, who is an open supporter of the ruling Liberal party and is chummy with the Prime Minister. (In most cities, the only other paper is owned by the Sun group, which publishes tabloid-quality news at best.)
CanWest Global has ordered every member paper to run unsigned national editorial, and not to publish local editorials that contradict the national line. Within the past few months, Russell Mills, the editor of the Ottawa Citizen, was fired by the parent company for publishing an article suggesting that the Prime Minister had been involved in a conflict of interest.
Fifth place, my ass.
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Re:Free Universes
It would be nice if we also had something like free literary universes. I mean, you could write fiction which would add to an existing universe and its storylines.
Aside from fanfic with its dubious legal status and contention with "canon", there is one example of this very idea which Slashdot readers may be familiar with: the Cthulhu Mythos.
The Mythos was begun by H. P. Lovecraft, who encouraged his fans to write stories in his settings. (There was little audience for the horror-SF genre at the time, and every good story was a boon to its popularity.) After Lovecraft's death, and to the present day, followers have continued to write and publish stories featuring Lovecraft's strange gods and cosmic horrors.
Like more commercially produced shared settings such as Star Trek, the Mythos and associated tales have spawned movies, magazines, and even a roleplaying game.
Sad to say, Lovecraft died in obscurity and poverty, which does not say much for starting a freely expandable universe as a means of employment. Nonetheless, it has certainly been a success in terms of storytelling.
(Lovecraft was by no means the only author who has invited fans to write in his universe. Another, rather more recently, told his readers to go ahead and write stories in his universe -- and then rescinded the offer after a fan wrote a story that offended him! The author in question was Larry Niven; the universe was Known Space; the fan was Elf Sternberg; the story was "The Only Fair Game".)
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Re:Wow
I always through we should take out Canada first
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MACS ARE GH3Y!
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Does this mean that Aurora exists as well?
Cool looking plane, but it does make one wonder if the fabled "Project Aurora" (spaceplane) also exists. Goodness knows the shape is similar to some of the stories that have been put out there about it (for example, here).
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Michael Flanders had this sussed in 1959
A Song of Reproduction:
High Fidelity
Hi-Fi's the thing for me
With an LP disc and an FM set
And a corner reflex cabinet
High frequency range
Complete with auto-change
All the highest notes neither sharp nor flat
The ear can't hear as high as that
Still I ought to please any passing bat
With my High Fidelity
[...]
High decibel gain
Is easy to obtain
With the tone control at a single touch
Bel canto sounds like double Dutch
But I never did care for music much,
It's the high fidelity.
IMO, the gloat factor that drives people to buy such things is not really there, as they're all buying HDTV sets and Home Theater speaker systems instead, and buying DVDs instead of CDs. -
Re:There is no life at all there.
Ahh, but there really are canals on Venus, along with landing strips, power plants, and anything else that this kookwas able to imagine in a bunch of really bad JPG images.