honestly, i hardly see any uncritical articles on vista anywhere.. where is this hype/. seems to feel the need to react against?
Sure, Straw Men are nice and easily torched, and i don't doubt my responding to this nonsense won't do a bit of good either, since another 400 articles on vista's issues will necessarily be popping up after this one..
But really, what's the point in writing hundreds of comments with exactly the same content over and over under every article uncritical/. editors let through, as long as it's critical of vista?
OTOH, what is the use of quoting a random slogan if you don't really have anything even remotely interesting to embed the quote in?
One might even argue certain quotes are overused, or that certain people are overquoted (every time after the first time someone quoted Ayn Rand comes to mind here), or (more controversially) that quotes from 'authorities' do not a truth make
(which seems especially true if you're just throwing the quote out there without really stating how it applies.. clichés, though being what they are, are mightily less tiresome and/or trite if they're used in novel ways)
anyway, WRT surveillance societies, one might even throw Bentham's name out there, if only because his Panopticon Isn't mentioned often enough (no thanks to Foucault though, tiresome fellow that he was)
having however just tried to point out quotes can be quite pointless, i will refrain from quoting anyone else, and in stead just read on happily knowing noone has decided to throw bits of verbal flatulence by Ayn Rand yet.
sadly, with the sheer amount of discussion items like this that have popped up over the last couple of months, I find there's little in people's comments that actually goes beyond what's been said before, and i can't really think of anything original to say about it myself either, so i guess i'll just stop now.
(Note, one might even draw the conclusion something needs to be Done, rather than Said about it? oh, well, i guess i'll just be thankful that I live in continental europe for now)
Sadly, it's one of DMCA's features/loopholes to be able to do this, i suspect. granted, the exemption for researchers might be inthere, but i also suspect that that can be twisted to fit if necessary (ie. to "let the researcher prove" his publishing of the Proof of Concept was necessary to prove the concept, rather than to just send it in to MS via mail.?
"... the proposed testing of the current string theory. I use "current" because string theory is just that, a theory; and it is constantly changing as more information becomes available."
it's interesting how i see this coming back every few discussions on ST..
i wonder, is popular culture to blame here, or what? do they really assume that only theories that are created ex nihilo, and inside of the Biblical Creation Period contenders for 'valid' theories?
it seems a bit naïve somehow to assume this to be the case, really.. oh, well
I'm not quite sure i agree with you here.. We [Holland] don't have corporate rights the way you do, and yet i live in no fear whatsoever that my government will arbitrarily shut down newspapers. Why is that?
Anyway, the thing about corporations that is weird to me is how they sometimes decide to do things that are really not in favor of the people carrying out what they're doing for their 'boss', and i wonder if even the CEO (sometimes?) does things he doesn't want to do, but feels required to by the system.
I don't really mean to flame the anglo-saxon corporate model, but the strange interplay the 'maximize profit for the stockowners' (short term thinking), the rather terrible lobbying that goes on, and just the normal goings on of the free market capitalism in the form of the corporation trying to do what seems right to them (longer term perhaps, though i find it hard to point to anything specific here) seem to create a rather strange social entity 'the Corporation'.
Highly bureaucratic nations seem to do the same sort of thing (that is, lose sight of the interests of the citizens it's been created to help out), albeit usually (i'm a continental european after all) to a lesser extent, but it seems to come with the territory.
I find it a fairly interesting phenomenon, probably linkable to group psychology somehow (that is, i sometimes think i see links between the two), but i find it very curious that non-organic (or non-rational) systems/entities can display this behavior in such similar fashion
WRT your McPorkBarreling/Buying up of political power, it annoys me, but it seems very much a part of how the US works (the rather heavy bias towards acting upon that which will yield more money, rather than spending it wisely
In the end it doesn't really matter if jobs are created in one state or another, and even when you build a useless bridge to nowhere that still means people have to be hired to build it, and as such the money spent isn't a total loss, but it does seem rather useless sometimes how all your taxpayer money is spent on what basically amounts to favoritism/nepotism.
Sure, the senator that got his campaign funded doesn't benefit *directly* from repaying his sponsors by getting 'his state' more money for projects, but i really fail to see the difference between that and what happens now.
(Disclaimer: yes, i'm somewhat familiar with Foucault, but i don't really like his style, or his pessimism.)
You're not trying to troll, but you mention the most interesting things for you were 'Children of Men" (trite at best) and firefly (blah) as examples of what 'good' schifi 'can' be?
I can't say i watch SG-1 very regularly, but then, neither did i watch FireFly (I saw Serenity and was because of the horrible hype that surrounded it at the time it came out, and i'm pretty much scarred for life by its superficiality).. if x million people watch SG-1 on SciFi, it would appear there is demand for it.. just as there was a demand for Joss Whedon (insert swoon here) productions.
of course, you probably won't agree with me there, but that's ok.
Yes, SG isn't really cut out to be in cinemas (though the Atlantis artwork looks nice in HD), but neither was Serenity (Especially when you hadn't watched Firefly beforehand.. Dear Lord that thing was badly put together, squishing 5 hrs worth of storyline into ~2), and even then, what movies these days are released that are worth watching at all?
The problem you perceive with people pretty much watching anything that comes out these days is hardly limited just to SciFi.
the bigger studios seem to be somewhat aware of the fact that cinema attendance is dropping every year due to the crap they're producing (read: because piracy is running rampant), and there still are a few arthouse films a year that are worth watching, but i sometimes wonder if all the original stories have already been thought-up, and all that's left is reruns and remakes.
what exactly was your point with stating scifi fans can't 'tell the difference' between weird sequelish titles and other weird titles, though? I'm afraid i didn't quite get that
Anyway, replace 'aliens and lasers' with 'fake tits, semi-automatics and cars (if this isn't accurate, it is because i don't really keep up with blockbuster productions much)', and you've got the rest of the movie-watching crowd covered.
Pretty much the only show that's on these days that i find worth watching is the remade BSG, and even there they seem to be losing me due to the weird choices they're making this season so far with regard to the storyline..
yes, i like SciFi for what it can be used for, but sadly most isn't there to make a point anymore.
on a closed/regcommunity torrentsite? on stuff like bsg or sg-1/atlantis episodes or 'wanted' movies i pretty much hit the max of what my pc will do with bittorrent (6-7MB/s)
perhaps you need to find a better torrentsite?:P
no offense then, but let's all hope for a few minor PR 'confirmations' in the form of 3 more new cat4/5 Hurricanes next year (when el Niño is gone again)?
i'm sure the amount of life lost that way is entirely negligible, and thus on some level justifiable..
and if it seems somewhat crass, feel free to call your representative now;)
lovely, yes..
We are indeed all hypocrites, if you ignore the fact that pascal's horrible ad Baculum was entirely a priori, whereas this is not quite.
still, feel free to throw the 'irony of it all' in our face
hardly.. where annah was cool (and, as far as RPG chars go, fairly hot), with a scottish accent, whatshername (sorry, i forgot already) is mostly annoying, and doesn't add much to a party if you've already got someone with Knock, and has dumb tiny horns.. still, i've yet to encounter a RPG that even approaches PS:T in coolness and depth..
on that note, it's pointless to play NWN2 as evil, because the game just doesn't allow for it.. there is no real alternative storyline, there are hardly any sidequests at all, and.. well.. yawn. granted, there are a few neat things built-in, but i still found the story to be a trite one at best.. it has KotOR2 character influence conversation options, but the 'romance', although requisite, is boring, and just sort of happens in the end.. i'm mostly waiting for Planescape Trilogy though.. it looks positively promising:D
Harddrives wear worse from int Amps than 24/7 use
on
Why Vista Took So Long
·
· Score: 1
the initialization currents that go through your HDs are a killer compared to just leaving it running 24/7.
the powerbill i could care less about, but anything extending the harddrive MBTF i will do gladly;)
on another note, i tend to use remote desktop a lot since it lets me access my agenda and outlook installation and whatnot from pretty much any location with internet access. (and using your own setup all of the time is just convenient)
i am confused. blacks are muslims now? which rape 'infidel women'? how is this even remotely relevant ?
italian men also rape women who wear tight jeans, because they are "provoking them by flaunting their bodies".. is this so different from the reasons arab men give for why women shouldn't wear western clothing? i realise it's hip to bash islam, but really, you seem to be somewhat biased.
"4% of muslims in the UK commit 72% of all antisemitic attacks in the uk"
again, marvellous figures. who invented antisemitism again? islam? right, let's move on
try to remember.. police officers are people, who bring their own taught biases to their work with them. i could probably also pull figures either out of my ass or from some report that tell you minorities are far more likely to be fined or taken in for crimes committed than 'majority' members of the population.
also try to remember how well pro bono lawyers do their work [i'm sure you can find multiple cases reported where the lawyers either fall asleep during trial or show up drunk], and look up the definition of "class justice".. i'm sure you'll find the notion shocking.
sure, people who have few good job opportunities will commit more crimes than those who have many, but i don't think you're trying to cast doubt on that.
i think you actually believe that somehow, race or religion is indicative of whether or not people will commit crimes at all [insert shocked face here], rather than economic prospects being the primary motivation.
yes, there are countries where women have fewer rights than men, but it's not like we haven't had the same thing happen here at some time in the past (and not even that far off, too)
"but as always, check your facts" -- sure. but as always, try to be unbiased. far more important
honestly.. this is the case for what, a decade now, max 2?
there was a reason for the rodney king trial, and it wasn't because 2 cops freaked out once during their career, and no others in any other police force ever used more force against certain racial groups than others.
that's also why what, 70% of all inmates are blacks, and the rest is mexican. this obviously isn't because they're biased, but because caucasians in the US, other than in the rest of the world, are actually paragons of virtue, whereas the black and mexican populations have to compensate for all that goodness.
so you understand all the parts, but refuse to connect the dots? granted, your parent is generalizing somewhat, but you're suggesting what he's saying hardly happens at all, which is where you and he disagree, seemingly.
the sarcasm aside, you *do* realise a mailserver is hardly comparable to the tubes the data on the internet moves through?:p (it having to actually process all the headers and whatnot, putting them into the correct mailboxes? there is a reason troubles arise when viruses that abuse email contactlists appear, and it isn't because of the raw data being sent..
sigh. why don't/. comments show up with the same layout as the comment field entry?
there's supposed to be a period and an enter after "in english" and before "as a historical", as well as a period after "slimp"
honestly.. "you should have used the preview button"
hm.. this statement of yours actually works better if you also speak dutch.. seeing how 'slim' means intelligent in it, fairly similar in form to how 'clever' is used in english
as a historical curiosity, i just looked at the m-w entry for slim, and found this:
Etymology: Dutch: bad, inferior, from Middle Dutch slimp
very odd how the meaning of that word has come around so much.. oh well
hm.. most interesting, in a way.. could you also claim the right to look at all the RIAA's communication with the parent companies to see if there's a conspiracy going on to say, bash the poor consumers into submission? or would that be "unreasonable"?
Slashdot Mirror
honestly, i hardly see any uncritical articles on vista anywhere.. where is this hype /. seems to feel the need to react against?
/. editors let through, as long as it's critical of vista?
Sure, Straw Men are nice and easily torched, and i don't doubt my responding to this nonsense won't do a bit of good either, since another 400 articles on vista's issues will necessarily be popping up after this one..
But really, what's the point in writing hundreds of comments with exactly the same content over and over under every article uncritical
OTOH, what is the use of quoting a random slogan if you don't really have anything even remotely interesting to embed the quote in?
One might even argue certain quotes are overused, or that certain people are overquoted (every time after the first time someone quoted Ayn Rand comes to mind here), or (more controversially) that quotes from 'authorities' do not a truth make
(which seems especially true if you're just throwing the quote out there without really stating how it applies.. clichés, though being what they are, are mightily less tiresome and/or trite if they're used in novel ways)
anyway, WRT surveillance societies, one might even throw Bentham's name out there, if only because his Panopticon Isn't mentioned often enough (no thanks to Foucault though, tiresome fellow that he was)
having however just tried to point out quotes can be quite pointless, i will refrain from quoting anyone else, and in stead just read on happily knowing noone has decided to throw bits of verbal flatulence by Ayn Rand yet.
sadly, with the sheer amount of discussion items like this that have popped up over the last couple of months, I find there's little in people's comments that actually goes beyond what's been said before, and i can't really think of anything original to say about it myself either, so i guess i'll just stop now.
(Note, one might even draw the conclusion something needs to be Done, rather than Said about it? oh, well, i guess i'll just be thankful that I live in continental europe for now)
Sadly, it's one of DMCA's features/loopholes to be able to do this, i suspect. granted, the exemption for researchers might be inthere, but i also suspect that that can be twisted to fit if necessary (ie. to "let the researcher prove" his publishing of the Proof of Concept was necessary to prove the concept, rather than to just send it in to MS via mail.?
it's interesting how i see this coming back every few discussions on ST..
i wonder, is popular culture to blame here, or what? do they really assume that only theories that are created ex nihilo, and inside of the Biblical Creation Period contenders for 'valid' theories?
it seems a bit naïve somehow to assume this to be the case, really.. oh, well
Why is that?
Anyway, the thing about corporations that is weird to me is how they sometimes decide to do things that are really not in favor of the people carrying out what they're doing for their 'boss', and i wonder if even the CEO (sometimes?) does things he doesn't want to do, but feels required to by the system.
I don't really mean to flame the anglo-saxon corporate model, but the strange interplay the 'maximize profit for the stockowners' (short term thinking), the rather terrible lobbying that goes on, and just the normal goings on of the free market capitalism in the form of the corporation trying to do what seems right to them (longer term perhaps, though i find it hard to point to anything specific here) seem to create a rather strange social entity 'the Corporation'.
Highly bureaucratic nations seem to do the same sort of thing (that is, lose sight of the interests of the citizens it's been created to help out), albeit usually (i'm a continental european after all) to a lesser extent, but it seems to come with the territory.
I find it a fairly interesting phenomenon, probably linkable to group psychology somehow (that is, i sometimes think i see links between the two), but i find it very curious that non-organic (or non-rational) systems/entities can display this behavior in such similar fashion
WRT your McPorkBarreling/Buying up of political power, it annoys me, but it seems very much a part of how the US works (the rather heavy bias towards acting upon that which will yield more money, rather than spending it wisely
In the end it doesn't really matter if jobs are created in one state or another, and even when you build a useless bridge to nowhere that still means people have to be hired to build it, and as such the money spent isn't a total loss, but it does seem rather useless sometimes how all your taxpayer money is spent on what basically amounts to favoritism/nepotism.
Sure, the senator that got his campaign funded doesn't benefit *directly* from repaying his sponsors by getting 'his state' more money for projects, but i really fail to see the difference between that and what happens now.
(Disclaimer: yes, i'm somewhat familiar with Foucault, but i don't really like his style, or his pessimism.)
I can't say i watch SG-1 very regularly, but then, neither did i watch FireFly (I saw Serenity and was because of the horrible hype that surrounded it at the time it came out, and i'm pretty much scarred for life by its superficiality).. if x million people watch SG-1 on SciFi, it would appear there is demand for it.. just as there was a demand for Joss Whedon (insert swoon here) productions.
of course, you probably won't agree with me there, but that's ok.
Yes, SG isn't really cut out to be in cinemas (though the Atlantis artwork looks nice in HD), but neither was Serenity (Especially when you hadn't watched Firefly beforehand.. Dear Lord that thing was badly put together, squishing 5 hrs worth of storyline into ~2), and even then, what movies these days are released that are worth watching at all?
The problem you perceive with people pretty much watching anything that comes out these days is hardly limited just to SciFi.
the bigger studios seem to be somewhat aware of the fact that cinema attendance is dropping every year due to the crap they're producing (read: because piracy is running rampant), and there still are a few arthouse films a year that are worth watching, but i sometimes wonder if all the original stories have already been thought-up, and all that's left is reruns and remakes.
what exactly was your point with stating scifi fans can't 'tell the difference' between weird sequelish titles and other weird titles, though? I'm afraid i didn't quite get that
Anyway, replace 'aliens and lasers' with 'fake tits, semi-automatics and cars (if this isn't accurate, it is because i don't really keep up with blockbuster productions much)', and you've got the rest of the movie-watching crowd covered.
Pretty much the only show that's on these days that i find worth watching is the remade BSG, and even there they seem to be losing me due to the weird choices they're making this season so far with regard to the storyline..
yes, i like SciFi for what it can be used for, but sadly most isn't there to make a point anymore.
on a closed/regcommunity torrentsite? on stuff like bsg or sg-1/atlantis episodes or 'wanted' movies i pretty much hit the max of what my pc will do with bittorrent (6-7MB/s) perhaps you need to find a better torrentsite? :P
no offense then, but let's all hope for a few minor PR 'confirmations' in the form of 3 more new cat4/5 Hurricanes next year (when el Niño is gone again)? ;)
i'm sure the amount of life lost that way is entirely negligible, and thus on some level justifiable..
and if it seems somewhat crass, feel free to call your representative now
lovely, yes..
We are indeed all hypocrites, if you ignore the fact that pascal's horrible ad Baculum was entirely a priori, whereas this is not quite.
still, feel free to throw the 'irony of it all' in our face
he's reading/regurgitating the babylonian creation myth, which has since gone out of vogue.
hardly.. where annah was cool (and, as far as RPG chars go, fairly hot), with a scottish accent, whatshername (sorry, i forgot already) is mostly annoying, and doesn't add much to a party if you've already got someone with Knock, and has dumb tiny horns.. still, i've yet to encounter a RPG that even approaches PS:T in coolness and depth.. on that note, it's pointless to play NWN2 as evil, because the game just doesn't allow for it.. there is no real alternative storyline, there are hardly any sidequests at all, and.. well.. yawn. granted, there are a few neat things built-in, but i still found the story to be a trite one at best.. it has KotOR2 character influence conversation options, but the 'romance', although requisite, is boring, and just sort of happens in the end.. i'm mostly waiting for Planescape Trilogy though.. it looks positively promising :D
the powerbill i could care less about, but anything extending the harddrive MBTF i will do gladly ;)
on another note, i tend to use remote desktop a lot since it lets me access my agenda and outlook installation and whatnot from pretty much any location with internet access. (and using your own setup all of the time is just convenient)
honestly. i kid you not. i do not know why, either, but i suspect it has something to do with an untraceable form of meningitis.
italian men also rape women who wear tight jeans, because they are "provoking them by flaunting their bodies".. is this so different from the reasons arab men give for why women shouldn't wear western clothing? i realise it's hip to bash islam, but really, you seem to be somewhat biased.
"4% of muslims in the UK commit 72% of all antisemitic attacks in the uk"
again, marvellous figures. who invented antisemitism again? islam? right, let's move on
try to remember.. police officers are people, who bring their own taught biases to their work with them. i could probably also pull figures either out of my ass or from some report that tell you minorities are far more likely to be fined or taken in for crimes committed than 'majority' members of the population.
also try to remember how well pro bono lawyers do their work [i'm sure you can find multiple cases reported where the lawyers either fall asleep during trial or show up drunk], and look up the definition of "class justice".. i'm sure you'll find the notion shocking.
sure, people who have few good job opportunities will commit more crimes than those who have many, but i don't think you're trying to cast doubt on that.
i think you actually believe that somehow, race or religion is indicative of whether or not people will commit crimes at all [insert shocked face here], rather than economic prospects being the primary motivation. yes, there are countries where women have fewer rights than men, but it's not like we haven't had the same thing happen here at some time in the past (and not even that far off, too)
"but as always, check your facts" -- sure. but as always, try to be unbiased. far more important
that's also why what, 70% of all inmates are blacks, and the rest is mexican. this obviously isn't because they're biased, but because caucasians in the US, other than in the rest of the world, are actually paragons of virtue, whereas the black and mexican populations have to compensate for all that goodness.
nonsense. they ban using the machine, since it's crap. that isn't to say there might in the future be found a valid and acceptable alternative
so you understand all the parts, but refuse to connect the dots? granted, your parent is generalizing somewhat, but you're suggesting what he's saying hardly happens at all, which is where you and he disagree, seemingly.
the sarcasm aside, you *do* realise a mailserver is hardly comparable to the tubes the data on the internet moves through? :p (it having to actually process all the headers and whatnot, putting them into the correct mailboxes? there is a reason troubles arise when viruses that abuse email contactlists appear, and it isn't because of the raw data being sent..
sigh. why don't /. comments show up with the same layout as the comment field entry?
there's supposed to be a period and an enter after "in english" and before "as a historical", as well as a period after "slimp"
honestly.. "you should have used the preview button"
hm.. this statement of yours actually works better if you also speak dutch.. seeing how 'slim' means intelligent in it, fairly similar in form to how 'clever' is used in english as a historical curiosity, i just looked at the m-w entry for slim, and found this: Etymology: Dutch: bad, inferior, from Middle Dutch slimp very odd how the meaning of that word has come around so much.. oh well
hm.. most interesting, in a way.. could you also claim the right to look at all the RIAA's communication with the parent companies to see if there's a conspiracy going on to say, bash the poor consumers into submission? or would that be "unreasonable"?