I sense a great disturbance in the force as if quality fiction screamed in agony and then disappeared forever. Is there any combination of words in the English language that inspires more horror than "Star Wars fan fiction"? I'd rather jump off the barge after Boba than read any of that crap.
that peer-to-peer networks could manipulate sites so children violate copyright laws more frequently than adults, exposing those children to copyright lawsuits and, in turn, make those who protect their copyrighted material appear antagonistic Oh my god this is priceless.... Somehow the evil peer-to-peer networks will mystically distinguish children from adults and then, using ultra secret psionic techniques, will manipulate those children into violating copyright laws. Innocent kids, who were using the software to search for open source materials for their next boy scout charity project will instead be lured into the depths of the interweb and exposed to illicit music which they will unwittingly download, thereby driving dozens of legitimate artists into poverty, depression, and eventual gory suicide.
And then, the world will get the mistaken impression that benevolent megacorps are antagonistic. They won't be, of course, but their innocent activities like suing dead people or small children may be made to appear antagonistic by the evil peer-to-peer software.
Bad software. No biscuit.
I for one welcome our content categorizing overlords. I look forward to getting a cushy government job in the new Ministry of Internet Content Categorization, where I will be paid big bucks to consider content before it is put online so that I can ensure that it is assigned its appropriate port number. For example, this idea could be assigned to Port 0, Dumbass Suggestions.
ITIF president Robert Atkinson warned lawmakers that there will be a 'significant cost to the economy if you hinder digital transformation' Exactly what is he talking about? Digital transformation? Is this just a buzzword for "progress" or "adopting new technologies"? Hell, the horseless carriage called. It wants its controversy back.
Greenpeace and the initial environmental movement was a truly noble cause. I am very happy to see the progress that has been made to clean up the pollution of streams and rivers, reduction of smog and sulfur emissions from factories and power plants, reduced tailpipe emissions, etc.
But now that we've 'solved' these problems, the Environmental Movement has become the Environmental Industry that is making more and more shrill claims that have little to no basis in either science or reality. Um, if you think that pollution of our air and water are problems that have been "solved", then perhaps you aren't ready to discuss something as complex as global warming. Go for a jog in Toronto in July and then get back to us on the air quality.
"One impressive piece of execution is that when you fire the machine up it plays a WAV file of a Ferrari race car revving its engine. That alone is worth the relatively low $1,899 price of admission. Even when I'm in a meeting, I don't turn the sound off because of the unbridled envy that seems to show up in the eyes of my, granted mostly male, co-attendees. So far no one has complained." Its a good thing that no one can modify a $500 dell notebook to make a sound like that on start-up, because if they could, this guy would feel pretty stupid. Oh wait...
You mean some dude was publishing/editting/commenting on stuff on the internet despite having no verifiable credentials or specific expertise in the area? Inconceivable!
They really cut back on emissions by only using the gasoline engine while they're spinning up, and then switching over to cleaner battery power while slowing back down.
I wish people would stop saying things like "The computer screwed up", or "A computer error lost my file". These are people errors - the poor computer is innocent. At some point some carbon based life form gave the computer erroneous instructions, and it was "only following orders".
If the speech does not libel or slander then who should care what is said? I think the point is that third parties (employers etc) are googling people, seeing things being said about them that might be completely untrue, and making decision that have important negative impacts on the life of the person in question. Imagine that anonymous someones show up on a tech site like Ars and starts posting things about you (using your real life info) and claiming that you're incompetent and dishonest. This may or may not be true, but if its the first thing that pops up on a google search done by prospective employer, it could very well screw up your life.
Is such a thing possible? Could it be that my meticulously gathered and maintained gallery of explicit photos of Star Trek personnel is less than authentic? Why was I informed of this earlier?
I refer you to the following patent:
United States Patent Application 1940000000.5
Kind Code A1
Asimov, I March 1, 1940
Laws of the Behaviour of Mechanical Critters (AKA Robots)
Abstract
A series of laws intended to prevent mechanical critters from running rampant and either killing, enslaving, raping or otherwise mating with, human beings. The laws also ensure the future development of interesting if unlikely ethical dilemnas and entertaining books and movies, all of which will be considered derivative content of this patent.
Like others have said, I find it mind-boggling that "innovations" like this exist almost exclusively to cater to those who are seeking a virtually indistinguishable increase in performance from their machines. Its pretty much just another inch on the tape measure used to distinguish who has the biggest e-penis.
I am glad I live in a socalist member state in Europe and my apartment has a nuclear bunker right below it (as do most here):) We still have the siren's regularly nationwide (when they stop we have been invaded or something and we report to our posts). Wow, you have nuclear powered bunkers in your apartment buildings? What do you do with the waste?
Wow, you have sirens blaring all the time and if they stop you know there's a problem? How odd, one would have thought that the opposite was more conducive to sleeping.
And let us not forget that most people don't immediately put their underwear and pjs on after having drunken one-night stands, thereby allowing them to get up all embarassed but fully clothed in the morning.
Everytime I see that I laugh out loud. Like, babe, 6 hours ago you were chugging his cock, and NOW you're embarassed?
According to a Sunday New York Times article, 6 in 10 Americans believe in the devil and hell, 7 in 10 believe in angels, heaven and the existence of miracles and life after death, while 92% believe in a personal God. And yet, in other news, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 0.005% of Americans actually seem to be acting on those beliefs and behaving in a manner consistent with the ultimate love expected of a all-compassionate god, or with the fear of eternal torment expected from a judgemental, vengeful god. Go figure...
The video card can't handle any of the fancy graphics. With only 512 MB of RAM, heavy use of virtual memory, so the system as a whole feels sluggish. Dude, neither of these is a flaw with Vista. Having a crappy video card and 512 MB of RAM is a flaw with your computer, not with the OS, and even a minimal amount of research would have informed you that a computer with such modest hardware would not have a good experience with VISTA.
Did you bother to read anything about it before you upgraded?
I understand a lot of child molesters use public washrooms to attack kids in, so we should ban access to public washrooms.
Come to think of it, most kids are molested by members of their own families, so clearly we should ban families.
Heck, I once heard that a molester drove a volkswagen, so hell, lets ban them too.
The article summary should have at least mentioned his M.D. Some background info on him from Wikipedia:
He attended Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts as an undergraduate, graduating summa cum laude in 1964. Crichton was also initiated into the honors organization Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to become the Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellow, 1964-65 and Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Cambridge University, England, 1965. He graduated at Harvard Medical School, gaining an M.D. in 1969 and did post-doctoral fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, in 1969-1970. And getting an MD in 1969 would qualify him to comment on patents how exactly? Its a legal question, not a medical one. Even if it was a medical question, I'm pretty sure medical school was a little sparse on the gene splicing back in 1969.
People still buy books, including audio books and eBooks, even though photocopier exist. I'm no fan of DRM, but I have to point out that if copying digital music was as time consuming as photocopying a book, no one would do it. Until a photocopier can turn the pages for me and give me a good bound copy of a book, I for one won't be bothering.
This is a bit absurd. Traditionally, a "cooling off" period has applied to large purchases that someone might have second thoughts about. It is intended to protect consumers from slick, high pressure sales tactics. Its to help little old ladies who wake up in the morning and realize they bought a timeshare condo in Mexico just because the nice man told them to. Rarely does anyone bolt upright at 02:00 and scream, "WTF was I thinking? I HATE Justin Timberlake! AHHHHH. Good thing I have that 7 day cooling off period to come to my sense and get my money back."
It's not a concept that translates well to mundane, daily purchases. There is no cooling off period for cheeseburgers, beer, or *shudder* condoms. There certainly shouldn't be a cooling off period for digital goods, because whatever your take on DRM, you have to admit that pretty much nobody is honest enough to be trusted to erase all traces of a downloaded song they wanted to return due to having "cooled off".
No word yet on whether the formerly autistic mice were still able to play the piano, perform complex calculus in their heads, or consistently beat the house at Blackjack.
Slashdot Mirror
I sense a great disturbance in the force as if quality fiction screamed in agony and then disappeared forever. Is there any combination of words in the English language that inspires more horror than "Star Wars fan fiction"? I'd rather jump off the barge after Boba than read any of that crap.
I for one welcome our content categorizing overlords. I look forward to getting a cushy government job in the new Ministry of Internet Content Categorization, where I will be paid big bucks to consider content before it is put online so that I can ensure that it is assigned its appropriate port number. For example, this idea could be assigned to Port 0, Dumbass Suggestions.
This could lead to a distinct shortage of NE hotties running around Ironforge in their thongs.
But now that we've 'solved' these problems, the Environmental Movement has become the Environmental Industry that is making more and more shrill claims that have little to no basis in either science or reality. Um, if you think that pollution of our air and water are problems that have been "solved", then perhaps you aren't ready to discuss something as complex as global warming. Go for a jog in Toronto in July and then get back to us on the air quality.
You mean some dude was publishing/editting/commenting on stuff on the internet despite having no verifiable credentials or specific expertise in the area? Inconceivable!
They really cut back on emissions by only using the gasoline engine while they're spinning up, and then switching over to cleaner battery power while slowing back down.
I wish people would stop saying things like "The computer screwed up", or "A computer error lost my file". These are people errors - the poor computer is innocent. At some point some carbon based life form gave the computer erroneous instructions, and it was "only following orders".
Is such a thing possible? Could it be that my meticulously gathered and maintained gallery of explicit photos of Star Trek personnel is less than authentic? Why was I informed of this earlier?
Will it run WOW?
I refer you to the following patent: United States Patent Application 1940000000.5 Kind Code A1 Asimov, I March 1, 1940 Laws of the Behaviour of Mechanical Critters (AKA Robots) Abstract A series of laws intended to prevent mechanical critters from running rampant and either killing, enslaving, raping or otherwise mating with, human beings. The laws also ensure the future development of interesting if unlikely ethical dilemnas and entertaining books and movies, all of which will be considered derivative content of this patent.
Like others have said, I find it mind-boggling that "innovations" like this exist almost exclusively to cater to those who are seeking a virtually indistinguishable increase in performance from their machines. Its pretty much just another inch on the tape measure used to distinguish who has the biggest e-penis.
And let us not forget that most people don't immediately put their underwear and pjs on after having drunken one-night stands, thereby allowing them to get up all embarassed but fully clothed in the morning.
Everytime I see that I laugh out loud. Like, babe, 6 hours ago you were chugging his cock, and NOW you're embarassed?
I understand a lot of child molesters use public washrooms to attack kids in, so we should ban access to public washrooms. Come to think of it, most kids are molested by members of their own families, so clearly we should ban families. Heck, I once heard that a molester drove a volkswagen, so hell, lets ban them too.
This is a bit absurd. Traditionally, a "cooling off" period has applied to large purchases that someone might have second thoughts about. It is intended to protect consumers from slick, high pressure sales tactics. Its to help little old ladies who wake up in the morning and realize they bought a timeshare condo in Mexico just because the nice man told them to. Rarely does anyone bolt upright at 02:00 and scream, "WTF was I thinking? I HATE Justin Timberlake! AHHHHH. Good thing I have that 7 day cooling off period to come to my sense and get my money back." It's not a concept that translates well to mundane, daily purchases. There is no cooling off period for cheeseburgers, beer, or *shudder* condoms. There certainly shouldn't be a cooling off period for digital goods, because whatever your take on DRM, you have to admit that pretty much nobody is honest enough to be trusted to erase all traces of a downloaded song they wanted to return due to having "cooled off".
No word yet on whether the formerly autistic mice were still able to play the piano, perform complex calculus in their heads, or consistently beat the house at Blackjack.