'I don't think it's any accident that the educational system in America has been brought to its current state. Because only a totally uneducated mass of people will be baffled by balloons. And yellow ribbons and little flags and buzz words and guys saying "new world order" and shit like that, I mean, only a person who has been dissuaded from any kind of critical thinking and doesn't know geography, doesn't know the English language - I mean if you can't speak English, then this stuff works on you.
-- FZ
Of course, replace "new world order" with "Axis of Evil" for best effect.
'I don't think it's any accident that the educational system in America has been brought to its current state. Because only a totally uneducated mass of people will be baffled by balloons. And yellow ribbons and little flags and buzz words and guys saying "new world order" and shit like that, I mean, only a person who has been dissuaded from any kind of critical thinking and doesn't know geography, doesn't know the English language - I mean if you can't speak English, then this stuff works on you. One of the things that was taken out of the curriculum was civics. Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the '60s, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government - nobody knows what's in it. It's one of the best kept secrets. And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what is in that document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?'
'The school system that is costing so much is not delivering the goods. I think some of the reasons it doesn't deliver the goods is that it's ideologically more appealing to the right-wing elements in this country to create a nation of stupid people who are dumb enough to swallow their rhetoric so those right-wing elements can run an election campaign which is not based on facts and figures, but on bunting and sound bites that don't really tell you anything. You need a docile, stupid electorate in order for a person to be elected. And how do you keep them that way? You starve the educational system so that it doesn't really work. You control the content of the school books which are used in the educational system. You rewrite history to suit your ideology.'
'I tend to view the whole thing as a conspiracy. It is no accident that the public schools in the United States are pure shit. It is no accident that masses of drugs are available and openly used at all levels of society. In a way, the real business of government is the business of controlling the labor force. Social pressure is placed on people to become a certain type of individual, and then rewards are heaped on people who conform to that stereotype. Take the pop music business, for example. Look at the stereotypes held up by the media as great accomplishment. You see guys who are making millions of dollars and selling millions of units. And because they are making and selling millions they are stamped with the seal of approval, and it is the millions which make their work quality. Yet anyone can look at what is being done and say, "Jesus, I can do that!" You celebrate mediocrity, you get mediocrity. People who could have achieved more won't, because they know that all they have to do is be "that" and they too can sell millions and make millions and have people love them because they're merely mediocre. Few people who do anything excellent are ever heard of. You know why? Because excellence, pure excellence, terrifies the fuck out of Americans because they have been bred to appreciate the success of the mediocre. People don't like to be reminded that lurking somewhere there are people who can do some shit that you can't do. They can think a way you can't think, they can dance a way you can't dance. They are excellent. You aren't excellent. Most Americans aren't excellent, they're only OK. And so to keep them happy as a labor force, you say, "OK, let's take this mediocre chump," and we say, "He is terrific!" All the other mediocre chumps say, "Yeah, that's right and that gives me hope, because one day as mediocre and chumpish as I am I can..." It's smart labor relations.'
Apparently there was an unfortunate typo in the initial press release. Contrary to first reports, Congress is proposing a 1% tax on any science fiction- or space-related products (e.g. books, toys, and games) and using that money to fund the NSA.
By now it's grown clear that George Lucas has an agenda, one that he takes very seriously. After four "Star Wars" films, alarm bells should have gone off, even among those who don't look for morals in movies. When the chief feature distinguishing "good" from "evil" is how pretty the characters are, it's a clue that maybe the whole saga deserves a second look.
Just what bill of goods are we being sold, between the frames?
Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.
That is just the beginning of a long list of "moral" lessons relentlessly pushed by "Star Wars"...
So I guess you force your PC's graphics adapter to run at a 30Hz refresh rate, right? I mean... anything more than that would be wasted, since you can't see anything more than 30fps, right?
How many tyrants and dictators around the world would think NOTHING of squeezing their own countries $1B harder in order to crack the communications of dissidents, opposing political parties, and oppressed ethnic minorities?
ObDisclaimer: this isn't some pinko commie "FUCK YOU AMERIKKKA!" post... it's just an observation that I haven't yet seen made by another poster in the thread. I see a lot of people talking about the NSA, and breaking into banks, etc etc... but middle-class white male citizens of post-industrial western economies aren't the only people who have good reasons to use crypto, you know?
Imad's 6.5.8ckt build 07, based on the 6.5.8 source, is in beta now and will be released shortly. The Win32 binaries have been fixed to be compatible with Windows XP. So NAI won't release an XP-compatible 7.x? Who cares?
For good reason. If you don't KNOW the reason, then you're not exactly equipped to comment.
> introduced bugs like the one which allowed an unsigned key to be added to your keyring
Bugs which were discovered by peer review -- discovery made possible by the Open Source code release.
> backdoored the shit out of it in ways which were sufficiently sneaky not to be obvious
Your inability to actually name any of these ways shoots you down far more eloquently than I ever could. Put the tinfoil hat back on, sit down, and STFU.
As I see it (and I may be completely wrong) the reason behind the bnetd-shutdown is that the imitation-Battle.Net created by bnetd does not check for invalid/duplicate CD keys, and thus enables warez kiddies to obtain the full benefit of a legitimate game from a warez version.
If this is the case, the action seems perfectly reasonable to me.
"Some movies - Black Hawk Down - are greatly enhanced by 9/11. Because it was true and well done...
I hate to resort to Americanisms, but... puh-LEASE. Is this the "Black Hawk Down" that's being panned worldwide as a shallow piece of historically-inaccurate propaganda, or are we talking about different films?
"And of many people (like me) whose entry onto the Net and Web has been made easier for the first programming language that really made sense to non-techies."
For the life of me, I can't work out what the hell he's trying to say.
Slashdot Mirror
'I don't think it's any accident that the educational system in America has been brought to its current state. Because only a totally uneducated mass of people will be baffled by balloons. And yellow ribbons and little flags and buzz words and guys saying "new world order" and shit like that, I mean, only a person who has been dissuaded from any kind of critical thinking and doesn't know geography, doesn't know the English language - I mean if you can't speak English, then this stuff works on you. One of the things that was taken out of the curriculum was civics. Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the '60s, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government - nobody knows what's in it. It's one of the best kept secrets. And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what is in that document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?'
'The school system that is costing so much is not delivering the goods. I think some of the reasons it doesn't deliver the goods is that it's ideologically more appealing to the right-wing elements in this country to create a nation of stupid people who are dumb enough to swallow their rhetoric so those right-wing elements can run an election campaign which is not based on facts and figures, but on bunting and sound bites that don't really tell you anything. You need a docile, stupid electorate in order for a person to be elected. And how do you keep them that way? You starve the educational system so that it doesn't really work. You control the content of the school books which are used in the educational system. You rewrite history to suit your ideology.'
'I tend to view the whole thing as a conspiracy. It is no accident that the public schools in the United States are pure shit. It is no accident that masses of drugs are available and openly used at all levels of society. In a way, the real business of government is the business of controlling the labor force. Social pressure is placed on people to become a certain type of individual, and then rewards are heaped on people who conform to that stereotype. Take the pop music business, for example. Look at the stereotypes held up by the media as great accomplishment. You see guys who are making millions of dollars and selling millions of units. And because they are making and selling millions they are stamped with the seal of approval, and it is the millions which make their work quality. Yet anyone can look at what is being done and say, "Jesus, I can do that!" You celebrate mediocrity, you get mediocrity. People who could have achieved more won't, because they know that all they have to do is be "that" and they too can sell millions and make millions and have people love them because they're merely mediocre. Few people who do anything excellent are ever heard of. You know why? Because excellence, pure excellence, terrifies the fuck out of Americans because they have been bred to appreciate the success of the mediocre. People don't like to be reminded that lurking somewhere there are people who can do some shit that you can't do. They can think a way you can't think, they can dance a way you can't dance. They are excellent. You aren't excellent. Most Americans aren't excellent, they're only OK. And so to keep them happy as a labor force, you say, "OK, let's take this mediocre chump," and we say, "He is terrific!" All the other mediocre chumps say, "Yeah, that's right and that gives me hope, because one day as mediocre and chumpish as I am I can..." It's smart labor relations.'
-- FZ
Apparently there was an unfortunate typo in the initial press release. Contrary to first reports, Congress is proposing a 1% tax on any science fiction- or space-related products (e.g. books, toys, and games) and using that money to fund the NSA.
Thank you.
That is just the beginning of a long list of "moral" lessons relentlessly pushed by "Star Wars"...
The Brin piece is very interesting reading. Full text: http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15 / rin_main/print.html.
Yeah, that sure worked for Atari.
So I guess you force your PC's graphics adapter to run at a 30Hz refresh rate, right? I mean... anything more than that would be wasted, since you can't see anything more than 30fps, right?
Geeks: "Fuck the MPAA! Fuck the RIAA! Fight the power!"
MPAA: (dangles new DVD release)
Geeks: (digging for wallets) "GIMME!"
How many tyrants and dictators around the world would think NOTHING of squeezing their own countries $1B harder in order to crack the communications of dissidents, opposing political parties, and oppressed ethnic minorities?
ObDisclaimer: this isn't some pinko commie "FUCK YOU AMERIKKKA!" post... it's just an observation that I haven't yet seen made by another poster in the thread. I see a lot of people talking about the NSA, and breaking into banks, etc etc... but middle-class white male citizens of post-industrial western economies aren't the only people who have good reasons to use crypto, you know?
Imad's 6.5.8ckt build 07, based on the 6.5.8 source, is in beta now and will be released shortly. The Win32 binaries have been fixed to be compatible with Windows XP. So NAI won't release an XP-compatible 7.x? Who cares?
Anyone care to comment on how long ldap://certserver.pgp.com will remain operational?
My kingdom for a mod point. PGP 6.5.8ckt is the most feature-powerful and trustworthy version of PGP available.
(I)t's just too damn violent ... what are you GTA fans thinking when you watch blood pool around a dead bystander's head in GTA3?
That doesn't sound at ALL violent to me. Disturbing, maybe, but not violent. It seems to me that violence isn't what's offending you about the game.
...but you guys all realise that the SSSCA would make the use of Linux illegal within the United States, right? Just checking.
> No you dope, they changed from RSA to DH
For good reason. If you don't KNOW the reason, then you're not exactly equipped to comment.
> introduced bugs like the one which allowed an unsigned key to be added to your keyring
Bugs which were discovered by peer review -- discovery made possible by the Open Source code release.
> backdoored the shit out of it in ways which were sufficiently sneaky not to be obvious
Your inability to actually name any of these ways shoots you down far more eloquently than I ever could. Put the tinfoil hat back on, sit down, and STFU.
PGP 5 binaries were released by PGP, Inc, and accompanied by a full source release. Put the tinfoil hat back on.
Not to mentioned the exportation of warefare and drugs...
Well, "Reseller of drugs" is probably more accurate. "Urban distributor" maybe.
As I see it (and I may be completely wrong) the reason behind the bnetd-shutdown is that the imitation-Battle.Net created by bnetd does not check for invalid/duplicate CD keys, and thus enables warez kiddies to obtain the full benefit of a legitimate game from a warez version.
If this is the case, the action seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Best wishes, you two. A very pleasant surprise in today's Slashdot.
Don't worry, even now the fire still looks cool.
"Some movies - Black Hawk Down - are greatly enhanced by 9/11. Because it was true and well done...
I hate to resort to Americanisms, but... puh-LEASE. Is this the "Black Hawk Down" that's being panned worldwide as a shallow piece of historically-inaccurate propaganda, or are we talking about different films?
We in Australia will take your California flakes and let them have a bit of outback all their own -- but you get our legislators.
Deal?
A mod point, my kingdom for a mod point.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
...this sentence from Katz's article:
"And of many people (like me) whose entry onto the Net and Web has been made easier for the first programming language that really made sense to non-techies."
For the life of me, I can't work out what the hell he's trying to say.
> all the computer has to do is meet 30 frames per second. The human eye is not fast enough to see 100 frames per second.
Tell me, can you discern a difference between your display at a refresh rate of 60Hz and a refresh rate of 100Hz? I thought so.
They're admitting that it's all done with mirrors?