On that note, why limit nuclear war to the increase in the number of nuclear plants? Russia has huge oil reserves and is one of the world's biggest suppliers... no doubt any move that makes that oil worthless is guaranteed to piss them off. Perhaps any technology that reduces oil consumption should have it's upper mortality limit at the complete extinction of the human race?
Somebody oughta hold douchebags like this researcher responsible for their efforts to delay human progress. It's bad research like this that slows down the technological advancement we need to fix the problems we really ARE facing, and to improve the condition of humanity in general.
Whoops, just re-read that part and I realize I got it wrong, they weighted average is of the RANK of each solution in each category, so for example the ridiculously high difference in mortality between nuclear and the truly dangerous technologies is lost. Because of the global nuclear warfare scenario, it even moves down a place against a technology which is actually LIKELY to kill many more people (CCS) than nuclear realistically would.
Only a fucking idiot would use a blind ranking system like that. If one technology solves all energy problems for 0 dollars with 0 pollution, but ranked in a close 5th place for the other options like land footprint (most of the rankings are decided by very small margins, with a few huge leaps separating truly bad technologies from others which are essentially the same), guess what... that option loses to fucking solar because solar squeaked out a few rank positions better on other categories.
Just finished reading this garbage, and you're 100% right. The "study" was conducted to prove a certain worldview (that solar and hydro and wind are the only possible solution). Take for example the following:
Estimates of future (c. 2020) US premature deaths per year from vehicles replacing light- and heavy-duty gasoline onroad vehicles and their upstream emissions assuming full penetration of each vehicle type or fuel, as discussed in the text. Low (solid) and high (solid+vertical lines) estimates are given. In the case of nuclear-BEV, the upper limit of the number of deaths, scaled to US population, due to a nuclear exchange caused by the proliferation of nuclear energy facilities worldwide is also given (horizontal lines). In the case of corn-E85 and cellulosic-E85, the dots are the additional US death rate due to upstream emissions from producing and distributing E85 minus those from producing and distributing gasoline (see text) and the slanted lines are the additional tailpipe emissions of E85 over gasoline for the US
Essentially, they are assuming that converting to nuclear power results in global nuclear warfare. Yes, it's only the "upper limit" for the range of possible deaths that they throw into their calculations, but let me break it down for you... they have a weighted average of factors used to calculate what is the best solution, and each factor is actually a probability distribution, and they set the upper 10% (or whatever) of potential deaths per year (one of the factors in their model) for one of the solutions (nuclear) to infinity (essentially infinity.... a number so high as to completely skew the resulting weighted average), then guess what... they stated nuclear wasn't an option.
I know of no one who wants drugs who can't find them.
I'm sorry, but I just moved and can't find an eighth of the green anywhere, this place is dry as a bone. This Joe the Biker you speak of, what bar is he at again?
On a related note, no doubt the maker of Replay Media Catcher, Applian, has seen a bump in both sales, and online warez activity. Their solution to combatting the latter? http://www.applian.com/replay-media-catcher/crack.php
Umm, while researching the information in this article... *cough*... I discovered this. It shows up very highly on google.
In my opinion, this is a truly insightful move by Applian. It appeals to the vast majority of minor-league pirate types who really just don't want to pay for something (probably less appealing to the types of people who believe everything should be free)... people who are much less likely to value their privacy a highly as many of us here on Slashdot do. I say, bravo Applian.
It'll be a neat day when you can create in 3D the same kind of evocative visual character in a tree stump or a bit of masonry as an artist can do with a pencil and few tubes of gauche, but that day hasn't arrived yet.
Perhaps the 3D artists just need to use more tubes of tactlessness to catch up with their pencil-and-paper peers?
Sometimes we powerless voters - who do not have hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the legislation we want, nor a high-priced legal team to use as an extortion racket, and whose votes are being thrown away by the counters (diebold...) - have only one reasonable course of action left: play two corrupt power blocs against each other.
Sadly, this can all be resolved by them very easily with a transfer of funds between the two organizations to make them best friends supporting amended legislation to exclude MediaSentry-style investigations from the rules, or to allow super-easy licensing of MediaSentry-type investigators.
It is the corporate DNA to pay workers as little as the can get away with and produce as much work from workers as possible.
The way you state this, it appears as though you are implying that the amount they are willing to pay is unfair, not just the minimum necessary for the maximum productivity. Popular models of the appropriate wage to pay employees which are commonly used by hr departments tend to indicate that the minimum wage for maximum productivity is actually the wage that the employee feels is fair, or even more than that. By definition, I cannot see that as being unfair.
By joining a union, workers can push back against being treated as nothing more than a disposable tool.
It won't be until workers really feel the sting of boots on their necks grinding them into the pavement will workers actually get pissed off enough to fight back.
We are not coal miners being killed left and right by severe overwork, ignored safety requirements, and untreated work-related diseases... believe it or not, the job you are so fed up with is a cushy, well-paying, white-collar job that most people would kill for, regardless of the on-call nature of the work, long hours, and so forth. We happen to have the right talents and knowledge to be able to work in this industry... we're lucky. You use fiery words to describe what's really a pretty cushy deal. Is there a ton of burnout? Heck yeah. Are people working really hard, without overtime (it's expected that we work more than 40 hours a week... how unfair!!!), under highly stressful conditions? Absolutely! Would you rather work at McDonalds? You can, anytime you want... I guarantee you could get a job there today. We're generally highly paid for a reason, and only part of that is because we're so smart and talented and wonderful... a good part of the reason we are paid higher-than-average salaries is because of the high demands our work places on us.
Ask you grandfather or great grandfather who got his head cracked open with a club for participating in a strike.
We still have the vast majority of the benefits you mention, excepting the 40 hour work week and overtime pay, and the important ones are enshrined in laws. If things really get bad (i.e. huge numbers of people dying of heart attacks or something), who knows. Right now, you sound a little too whiny... as if you were brought up with an overbearing sense of entitlement. I have a hard time believing that your grandfather or great-grandfather would get his head cracked open to improve conditions at the horrible job you are forced to endure.
But ff they were smart, and could learn to stick together (get over that rugged individualism bullshit they like to believe), techs could do a lot for themselves here and now.
I should know. I'm a union guy working in the tech industry.
Sorry but this is one of the few industries that is perfectly suited to raw capitalism at its unadulterated worst... our jobs can disappear overnight, offshored to any of a dozen countries where unions are less of a problem. If the IT industry unionized en masse, it'd take a decade or less for the whole thing to go the way of the US steel industry. If small pockets of us unionize as is apparently happening now, who knows... but I'll say one thing: I need a job, and if your union ever strikes, I'd be happy to scab. Who wouldn't want a high-paying white collar job in this economy? Judging by 99% of the other posts here, I'm not alone.
Since it seems perfectly acceptable for tripe like this comic to lie about the law and threaten file sharers with wholly illegal procedures, perhaps we could make a comic response directly to these executives and lawyers who ruin our lives. Here's a quick outline of a good response comic, which could build directly on the one above.
It starts immediately after the propaganda piece leaves off, except more realistically the prosecutor is replaced with an RIAA attorney. The RIAA attorney is on his cell phone, talking to some industry exec about how great the case went, while walking out of the courtroom. They both erupt into laughter as the attorney is walking down the marble stairs of the courthouse, when suddenly his laughter is cut short as a sniper's bullet turns his head inside out. The executive on the other side of the line starts panicking, saying "Are you there? What happened?", when a man in all black wearing a ski mask picks up the blood-spattered cell phone and informs the executive that his wife and children are being held back at his home. The man in the mask connects the executive to another masked individual at the executive's house in a three-way fun chat, so he can hear the screams and cries of his family as they are raped and murdered, one at a time. As his youngest child, the last family he has left, is slowly cut from ear to ear, a bomb explodes under the executive's desk. The moral of the comic: business execs shouldn't abuse the legal system to ruin people's lives. Perhaps the punitive measures described in the comic are illegal, and perhaps they are even a direct threat aimed at the target audience. What's the inherent difference between this and the propaganda piece above? The punishment dished out to poor Megan is about a million times worse than her "crime", how much worse is one family being murdered in retaliation for destroying the lives of 40000 families?
Somebody oughta make that comic.
Haha, yes I too love my oldest friend and teacher, TV. In all seriousness though, I believe what you said is actually true to some extent, in that the evidence is basically the same as character witnesses (like if your best friend testifies that you've been a great guy all your life and never seemed like the kind of person who would do such a thing). Pretty weak, legally speaking, but effective at swaying a jury. However, there are very specific rules related to how, why, and under what circumstances it can be admitted. See here. Note the list of exceptions for which criminal history can be presented:
proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident
Not nearly as all-encompassing as it appears. Generally speaking, it can be submitted as evidence that you either
-Are experienced in performing said crime, you knew what you were doing, so it wasn't all just a crazy accident, and it wasn't a one-time heat of the moment thing, but rather a planned action (opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowlede, absense of mistake or accident)
-Are the person the prosecution says you are (eg John Doe, born 01/01/1970) (identity)
So basically, it doesn't help to prove that you did it at all... all it does is help to remove some specific affirmative defenses you might use. In other words, if it's well proven with other evidence that you murdered your wife, then evidence that you have murdered your last 5 wives may be admitted to eliminate your heat of passion defense.
1: Entrapment is when a law enforcement official convinces you to break the law. If a drug dealer walks up to you on the street and convinces you to buy a kilo of heroin, you're going to jail buddy.
2: Making a habit out of something is irrelevant. In fact, a person's history of criminality is inadmissible as evidence for or against them (thanks to the Constitution, I think). It may be used in determining their punishment if convicted, but not in determining their guilt. Only evidence relating to their current trial is admissible for that. That said, records of their communications directly related to the current trial are most certainly admissible, and the police would no doubt get a warrant to obtain that obvious source of information.
As far as their attempted fraudulent financial transactions...
...they are illegal. Look up "fraud".
I dunno, IANAL
No kidding... neither am, I but this is pretty basic stuff here. How does something like that earn +5 insightful??
Whoops, lemme narrow down that range: "less than 300 total replies".
How does crap like this get onto the front page? Do the results of Slashdot's own completely useless polls become front page stories? It really seems to me that any idiot who creates some crappy little website and submits some bullshit, sensationalist story has a pretty good chance of making it onto the front page. I've given up on the idea that Slashdot's editors are capable of discerning a quality story from diarrhea, but I'm even losing faith in the ability of the firehose to screen the crap out. Seriously, what kind of idiots do we have monitoring the firehose? A bunch of Zonk's alts? (Sorry about the cheap shot but it had to be said)
Agreed that this is bullshit, but the wording and context were not misleading. FWIW, here's the original poll in its entirety.
Of course, this is some shitty little website doing a poll of it's own readership, with less than 400 total replies. Given the sample size, I'd say these results are even more useless than a Slashdot Poll... which I suppose would require some negative amount of usefulness.
How many rich small-time game developers have you met?
How many rich hobos have you met? If they were rich, they wouldn't be small-time (or hobos) anymore. Small companies that manage to succeed become big companies. How many big software companies do we have today? They seem to have done alright. Why does every small-time developer think they have a right to record-breaking profits (nobody here thinks big companies have that right, why should it be any different for anybody else).
...if you take a look at the resources required to develop Crysis or Supreme Commander and compare them with the resources required to develop Tetris or Pacman, I think we can safely assume that today's AAA titles need a bigger development budget.
And if you look at the resources required to develop smaller, better games, which have made their developers good money, then you realize this is a load of bullshit. Here's one timely example.
Does it take millions of dollars to make a multi-million dollar blockbuster? Yes, that's kinda part of the definition. Does it take millions of dollars to make a cheap, successful indie game? No.
Is it easy for small developers to make money? No. Where in the Constitution does it guarantee that the pursuit of happiness will end quickly and easily with the obtainment of lasting and abundant happiness? It's never been easy to start a business from the ground up and succeed... never will be. However, some people really are talented enough to make it happen, and a select few will continue to succeed, no matter what the current DRM or legislation of the day happens to be.
I think it's rather a case of them hating Microsoft... they aren't doing this to show you how wrong you are in choosing Vista, they are doing this to add one more reason for people to choose an alternative to Vista. They aren't going to teach you anything, but maybe when someone is buying Vista using their "PERSONAL choice", they will PERSONALLY choose not to use Vista because now they know it has a broken security mechanism.
Yes, IE drives you competitively... so you look to Opera for great ideas to rip off so you can beat IE. IE does hold the market share you so desperately want, so yes they are the ones who "drive" you. They drive you to copy Opera.
Is it just me, or was Alfred's story about hunting down that guy in Cambodia (actually I forget the country) pretty much awesome? I know Alfred isn't exactly supposed to be the center of the story, but Michael Caine is an awesome actor and I would have liked him to have a little more screen time.
Funny it includes the sender's phone number... oughta MMS everyone back and tell them to start taking some photos of hot chicks.
Presents an interesting new way for us Slashdotters to meet girls...
Slashdot... News for nerds, stuff that matters.
I'd say that news about almost anything NASA does fits the bill pretty nicely. Better than slashvertisements and the other junk that occasionally pops up on here, at least.
...when it comes to things like torture, indefinite detention without trial...
"Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where -- in the CIA's view -- federal and international legal safeguards do not apply."
"The current policy traces its roots to the administration of former President Bill Clinton." Source
...deliberate subversion of the Constitution...
...killing tens of thousands of human lives in unnecessary wars based on lies...
Oh God, just googling around and reading for good examples of Democrats doing these very things makes me want to kill myself, there's no hope for this country, especially if idiots like you really believe your-favorite-toy-party is any different from the "evil party" you so vehemently oppose. Perhaps we had a chance with Paul or with a Libertarian candidate (after all, their entire platform is fighting the evils you speak of), but fucking retards like you still cling to your prejudices about anybody who isn't a member of your party. You either 1: don't listen to new ideas, or 2: immediately interpret new ideas through your shit-colored glasses since it wasn't your favorite big-party liar who was espousing them. I don't have the strength to finish this post with good quotes and links, anybody who has the strength please take up the task for me. Some good ideas to start with: For wars, Vietnam (JFK), and Korea (Truman). For subversion of the Constitution, nearly every single bill passed through Congress in the last 100 years.
Slashdot Mirror
On that note, why limit nuclear war to the increase in the number of nuclear plants? Russia has huge oil reserves and is one of the world's biggest suppliers... no doubt any move that makes that oil worthless is guaranteed to piss them off. Perhaps any technology that reduces oil consumption should have it's upper mortality limit at the complete extinction of the human race?
Somebody oughta hold douchebags like this researcher responsible for their efforts to delay human progress. It's bad research like this that slows down the technological advancement we need to fix the problems we really ARE facing, and to improve the condition of humanity in general.
Whoops, just re-read that part and I realize I got it wrong, they weighted average is of the RANK of each solution in each category, so for example the ridiculously high difference in mortality between nuclear and the truly dangerous technologies is lost. Because of the global nuclear warfare scenario, it even moves down a place against a technology which is actually LIKELY to kill many more people (CCS) than nuclear realistically would.
Only a fucking idiot would use a blind ranking system like that. If one technology solves all energy problems for 0 dollars with 0 pollution, but ranked in a close 5th place for the other options like land footprint (most of the rankings are decided by very small margins, with a few huge leaps separating truly bad technologies from others which are essentially the same), guess what... that option loses to fucking solar because solar squeaked out a few rank positions better on other categories.
This research stinks.
Essentially, they are assuming that converting to nuclear power results in global nuclear warfare. Yes, it's only the "upper limit" for the range of possible deaths that they throw into their calculations, but let me break it down for you... they have a weighted average of factors used to calculate what is the best solution, and each factor is actually a probability distribution, and they set the upper 10% (or whatever) of potential deaths per year (one of the factors in their model) for one of the solutions (nuclear) to infinity (essentially infinity.... a number so high as to completely skew the resulting weighted average), then guess what... they stated nuclear wasn't an option.
This isn't research, this is propaganda.
I know of no one who wants drugs who can't find them.
I'm sorry, but I just moved and can't find an eighth of the green anywhere, this place is dry as a bone. This Joe the Biker you speak of, what bar is he at again?
Okay, seriously? Europa. Come on NASA, pretty much the entire scientific agrees... we want to know more about Europa. Just do it already.
I should say, it shows up very highly on google with specific searches... compare:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22replay+media+catcher%22+crack
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22replay+media+catcher%22
On a related note, no doubt the maker of Replay Media Catcher, Applian, has seen a bump in both sales, and online warez activity. Their solution to combatting the latter?
http://www.applian.com/replay-media-catcher/crack.php
Umm, while researching the information in this article... *cough*... I discovered this. It shows up very highly on google.
In my opinion, this is a truly insightful move by Applian. It appeals to the vast majority of minor-league pirate types who really just don't want to pay for something (probably less appealing to the types of people who believe everything should be free)... people who are much less likely to value their privacy a highly as many of us here on Slashdot do. I say, bravo Applian.
It'll be a neat day when you can create in 3D the same kind of evocative visual character in a tree stump or a bit of masonry as an artist can do with a pencil and few tubes of gauche, but that day hasn't arrived yet.
Perhaps the 3D artists just need to use more tubes of tactlessness to catch up with their pencil-and-paper peers?
Sometimes we powerless voters - who do not have hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the legislation we want, nor a high-priced legal team to use as an extortion racket, and whose votes are being thrown away by the counters (diebold...) - have only one reasonable course of action left: play two corrupt power blocs against each other.
Sadly, this can all be resolved by them very easily with a transfer of funds between the two organizations to make them best friends supporting amended legislation to exclude MediaSentry-style investigations from the rules, or to allow super-easy licensing of MediaSentry-type investigators.
It is the corporate DNA to pay workers as little as the can get away with and produce as much work from workers as possible.
The way you state this, it appears as though you are implying that the amount they are willing to pay is unfair, not just the minimum necessary for the maximum productivity. Popular models of the appropriate wage to pay employees which are commonly used by hr departments tend to indicate that the minimum wage for maximum productivity is actually the wage that the employee feels is fair, or even more than that. By definition, I cannot see that as being unfair.
By joining a union, workers can push back against being treated as nothing more than a disposable tool.
It won't be until workers really feel the sting of boots on their necks grinding them into the pavement will workers actually get pissed off enough to fight back.
We are not coal miners being killed left and right by severe overwork, ignored safety requirements, and untreated work-related diseases... believe it or not, the job you are so fed up with is a cushy, well-paying, white-collar job that most people would kill for, regardless of the on-call nature of the work, long hours, and so forth. We happen to have the right talents and knowledge to be able to work in this industry... we're lucky. You use fiery words to describe what's really a pretty cushy deal. Is there a ton of burnout? Heck yeah. Are people working really hard, without overtime (it's expected that we work more than 40 hours a week... how unfair!!!), under highly stressful conditions? Absolutely! Would you rather work at McDonalds? You can, anytime you want... I guarantee you could get a job there today. We're generally highly paid for a reason, and only part of that is because we're so smart and talented and wonderful... a good part of the reason we are paid higher-than-average salaries is because of the high demands our work places on us.
Ask you grandfather or great grandfather who got his head cracked open with a club for participating in a strike.
We still have the vast majority of the benefits you mention, excepting the 40 hour work week and overtime pay, and the important ones are enshrined in laws. If things really get bad (i.e. huge numbers of people dying of heart attacks or something), who knows. Right now, you sound a little too whiny... as if you were brought up with an overbearing sense of entitlement. I have a hard time believing that your grandfather or great-grandfather would get his head cracked open to improve conditions at the horrible job you are forced to endure.
But ff they were smart, and could learn to stick together (get over that rugged individualism bullshit they like to believe), techs could do a lot for themselves here and now.
I should know. I'm a union guy working in the tech industry.
Sorry but this is one of the few industries that is perfectly suited to raw capitalism at its unadulterated worst... our jobs can disappear overnight, offshored to any of a dozen countries where unions are less of a problem. If the IT industry unionized en masse, it'd take a decade or less for the whole thing to go the way of the US steel industry. If small pockets of us unionize as is apparently happening now, who knows... but I'll say one thing: I need a job, and if your union ever strikes, I'd be happy to scab. Who wouldn't want a high-paying white collar job in this economy? Judging by 99% of the other posts here, I'm not alone.
Since it seems perfectly acceptable for tripe like this comic to lie about the law and threaten file sharers with wholly illegal procedures, perhaps we could make a comic response directly to these executives and lawyers who ruin our lives. Here's a quick outline of a good response comic, which could build directly on the one above.
It starts immediately after the propaganda piece leaves off, except more realistically the prosecutor is replaced with an RIAA attorney. The RIAA attorney is on his cell phone, talking to some industry exec about how great the case went, while walking out of the courtroom. They both erupt into laughter as the attorney is walking down the marble stairs of the courthouse, when suddenly his laughter is cut short as a sniper's bullet turns his head inside out. The executive on the other side of the line starts panicking, saying "Are you there? What happened?", when a man in all black wearing a ski mask picks up the blood-spattered cell phone and informs the executive that his wife and children are being held back at his home. The man in the mask connects the executive to another masked individual at the executive's house in a three-way fun chat, so he can hear the screams and cries of his family as they are raped and murdered, one at a time. As his youngest child, the last family he has left, is slowly cut from ear to ear, a bomb explodes under the executive's desk. The moral of the comic: business execs shouldn't abuse the legal system to ruin people's lives. Perhaps the punitive measures described in the comic are illegal, and perhaps they are even a direct threat aimed at the target audience. What's the inherent difference between this and the propaganda piece above? The punishment dished out to poor Megan is about a million times worse than her "crime", how much worse is one family being murdered in retaliation for destroying the lives of 40000 families?
Somebody oughta make that comic.
proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident Not nearly as all-encompassing as it appears. Generally speaking, it can be submitted as evidence that you either
-Are experienced in performing said crime, you knew what you were doing, so it wasn't all just a crazy accident, and it wasn't a one-time heat of the moment thing, but rather a planned action (opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowlede, absense of mistake or accident)
-Are the person the prosecution says you are (eg John Doe, born 01/01/1970) (identity)
So basically, it doesn't help to prove that you did it at all... all it does is help to remove some specific affirmative defenses you might use. In other words, if it's well proven with other evidence that you murdered your wife, then evidence that you have murdered your last 5 wives may be admitted to eliminate your heat of passion defense.
2: Making a habit out of something is irrelevant. In fact, a person's history of criminality is inadmissible as evidence for or against them (thanks to the Constitution, I think). It may be used in determining their punishment if convicted, but not in determining their guilt. Only evidence relating to their current trial is admissible for that. That said, records of their communications directly related to the current trial are most certainly admissible, and the police would no doubt get a warrant to obtain that obvious source of information.
As far as their attempted fraudulent financial transactions...
...they are illegal. Look up "fraud".
I dunno, IANAL
No kidding... neither am, I but this is pretty basic stuff here. How does something like that earn +5 insightful??
Whoops, lemme narrow down that range: "less than 300 total replies".
How does crap like this get onto the front page? Do the results of Slashdot's own completely useless polls become front page stories? It really seems to me that any idiot who creates some crappy little website and submits some bullshit, sensationalist story has a pretty good chance of making it onto the front page. I've given up on the idea that Slashdot's editors are capable of discerning a quality story from diarrhea, but I'm even losing faith in the ability of the firehose to screen the crap out. Seriously, what kind of idiots do we have monitoring the firehose? A bunch of Zonk's alts? (Sorry about the cheap shot but it had to be said)
Agreed that this is bullshit, but the wording and context were not misleading. FWIW, here's the original poll in its entirety.
Of course, this is some shitty little website doing a poll of it's own readership, with less than 400 total replies. Given the sample size, I'd say these results are even more useless than a Slashdot Poll... which I suppose would require some negative amount of usefulness.
You're thinking too mainstream... I'll bet there's a relatively large niche for a Spore penis-monster movie in the Adult Entertainment market.
How many rich small-time game developers have you met?
How many rich hobos have you met? If they were rich, they wouldn't be small-time (or hobos) anymore. Small companies that manage to succeed become big companies. How many big software companies do we have today? They seem to have done alright. Why does every small-time developer think they have a right to record-breaking profits (nobody here thinks big companies have that right, why should it be any different for anybody else).
And if you look at the resources required to develop smaller, better games, which have made their developers good money, then you realize this is a load of bullshit.
Here's one timely example.
Does it take millions of dollars to make a multi-million dollar blockbuster? Yes, that's kinda part of the definition. Does it take millions of dollars to make a cheap, successful indie game? No.
Is it easy for small developers to make money? No. Where in the Constitution does it guarantee that the pursuit of happiness will end quickly and easily with the obtainment of lasting and abundant happiness? It's never been easy to start a business from the ground up and succeed... never will be. However, some people really are talented enough to make it happen, and a select few will continue to succeed, no matter what the current DRM or legislation of the day happens to be.
I think it's rather a case of them hating Microsoft... they aren't doing this to show you how wrong you are in choosing Vista, they are doing this to add one more reason for people to choose an alternative to Vista. They aren't going to teach you anything, but maybe when someone is buying Vista using their "PERSONAL choice", they will PERSONALLY choose not to use Vista because now they know it has a broken security mechanism.
Yes, IE drives you competitively... so you look to Opera for great ideas to rip off so you can beat IE. IE does hold the market share you so desperately want, so yes they are the ones who "drive" you. They drive you to copy Opera.
kind Alfred
Is it just me, or was Alfred's story about hunting down that guy in Cambodia (actually I forget the country) pretty much awesome? I know Alfred isn't exactly supposed to be the center of the story, but Michael Caine is an awesome actor and I would have liked him to have a little more screen time.
settled out of court and everyone gets 1000 free picture and MMS messaging while we fix our system.
And $100 million in attorney's fees for those representing the class action suit.
Funny it includes the sender's phone number... oughta MMS everyone back and tell them to start taking some photos of hot chicks.
Presents an interesting new way for us Slashdotters to meet girls...
Slashdot... News for nerds, stuff that matters.
I'd say that news about almost anything NASA does fits the bill pretty nicely. Better than slashvertisements and the other junk that occasionally pops up on here, at least.
what if one of the parties actually is evil?
Well, we ought to look into that then!
...when it comes to things like torture, indefinite detention without trial...
"Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where -- in the CIA's view -- federal and international legal safeguards do not apply."
"The current policy traces its roots to the administration of former President Bill Clinton."
Source
...deliberate subversion of the Constitution...
...killing tens of thousands of human lives in unnecessary wars based on lies...
Oh God, just googling around and reading for good examples of Democrats doing these very things makes me want to kill myself, there's no hope for this country, especially if idiots like you really believe your-favorite-toy-party is any different from the "evil party" you so vehemently oppose. Perhaps we had a chance with Paul or with a Libertarian candidate (after all, their entire platform is fighting the evils you speak of), but fucking retards like you still cling to your prejudices about anybody who isn't a member of your party. You either 1: don't listen to new ideas, or 2: immediately interpret new ideas through your shit-colored glasses since it wasn't your favorite big-party liar who was espousing them. I don't have the strength to finish this post with good quotes and links, anybody who has the strength please take up the task for me. Some good ideas to start with: For wars, Vietnam (JFK), and Korea (Truman). For subversion of the Constitution, nearly every single bill passed through Congress in the last 100 years.
'bout them apostrophes. I can see why he was so upset.