I hear a lot of talk about smashing shit up, killing people, and sending letter bombs, but I don't see a lot of news stories about heroic revolutionary acts committed by someone known only as "JockTroll."
Remember how many said the same thing about Apple. They had never released a cell phone before, and had no core competencies in that area... up until they suddenly did.
I don't anticipate Google getting into the camera business, though, or Apple for that matter. There are already a lot of competitors, dividing up a market that is probably shrinking, and meanwhile few people are complaining that all available digital cameras suck. I could be wrong, though... they might be working on a line of subsidized cameras that insert product placements into the photos you take.:-P If Google did produce cameras, there would need to be some kind of strategic angle like that.
Sounds like you've spent a bit too much time gazing into the proverbial abyss. I said I would consider the hypothetical Google Camera, not instantly buy it sight-unseen. I'd have no reason to reject it without knowing anything about it.
OTOH, while I wouldn't consider an Apple-manufactured car since I enjoy violating the occasional speed limit, I probably would buy a hypothetical Apple car stereo head unit without asking too many questions, just because all of the existing options suck so badly.
With cameras, there are a large number of reputable manufacturers who all have products that range from tolerable to excellent, and who have not historically attempted to sodomize their own customers with a pipe wrench. I don't need to consider Sony when buying a camera because whatever they're doing that's so awesome is also available from Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Fuji, Leica, or whoever.
No kidding. To the American left, the Federal government is one big huge giant confederacy of armed and dangerous dunces, which should be given as much of somebody else's money as possible.
I don't know how the so-called "99%ers" can maintain their ideology without dying from acute cognitive dissonance. In a way, I envy their neural plasticity.
I can't wait for the P2P age. To hell with the cloud. A solid P2P network where people can set up services with even more ease than we do now (Tor) will be so much better than this crappy age of the internet.
I agree with you 110%. It has to happen, because all we seem to be doing now is recentralizing everything the Internet (and personal computing in general) promised to liberate.
Of course, we can expect the coming "P2P age" to be fought as if it the Nazis had allied with the Mongol hordes and were invading with a cavalry of bears.
Internet 1.0 caught the Establishment napping. Internet 2.0 is going to find guards at the gates, and plenty of them... awake, alert, and armed to the teeth.
. ..contemplating the scale of the universe always gets me down.
It's interesting that people feel that way. Personally I find it comforting to realize that the universe is so much larger than I am that I couldn't possibly be an important part of it. A study of the cosmos actually helps me focus on life in the here-and-now, to respect and enjoy the progress made by those who came before me, and to value the company of the humans around me, on the grounds that these things are all I'll ever get to experience.
IMO, astronomy and cosmology are worthwhile pursuits, not because of what they tell us about the stars, but because of what they tell us about ourselves. Through these sciences we've come to understand that the Universe sees us the way we see atoms in the antennae of ants, if the Universe contemplates us at all.
It seems important for humans to get past the idea that we serve a mystical universal entity with specific plans for us as individuals. Put simply, in the post-nuclear age, humility is a survival tool. Letting go of one's sense of cosmic self-importance should be a liberating sensation, not a depressing one.
(Shrug) That was the correct decision on HP's part. No analogies between Woz's garage and Xerox PARC can be drawn, IMHO. An inexpensive 6502-based micro board didn't fit into HP's marketing and sales strategies in any respect. No traditional HP customers would have been interested in early personal computers, and no rock-star product managers were itching to pivot the whole company in that direction, as later happened with printers.
Instead of helping to launch a new industry, the Apple I would've died on the vine at HP. They could have been dicks about it and stopped Wozniak dead in his tracks, but instead they told him to party on with their blessing. Under the HP Way it was considered a good thing for entrepreneurs to get their start at the company, and Woz was perhaps one of the last employees to benefit from that kind of forward thinking.
Do read some material on the russian point-of-view during the Cold War. It is utterly fascinating, really. For all we know, the Kreml viewed the US as at least partially insane, and highly dangerous. Instead of the aggressive monsters they are painted at, the upper levels of the communist party were very much afraid of western aggression. If I recall correctly, when Reagan was elected, the Kreml believed the west had gone entirely insane, and actually braced for nuclear war. They could not estimate how much of Reagan's big talking was just politics and propaganda and how much he really meant.
Very true. Hell, Reagan was scary enough here in the US. I prefer not to leave nuclear policy in the hands of senile people who don't make a move without consulting clergymen and astrologers... and I'm sure the Soviets felt the same way about him, as you likely did in Germany.
It's very true that both the US and Soviet regimes profited greatly by making the other regime appear to be as monstrous, inhuman, and threatening as possible. It was almost a symbiotic relationship in some ways... certainly from the point of view of the American military-industrial-Congressional complex.
The thing is, though, in the Soviets' case, many of the worst horror stories about the government were true. We know this from the accounts of people like A. I. Solzhenitsyn who were lucky to survive the years between the 1930s and 1950s. It really is a silly equivocation fallacy to compare the deeds of the US government with those of Lenin and Stalin. Pro tip: when you aren't sure who the bad guy is, see who shoots you for trying to leave.
In the light of that, one could argue just as well that the NATOs consistent gamble with MAD delayed peace talks and the end of the whole madness for at least a decade if not more. We will never know for sure, but it certainly isn't that simple.
Also true enough. At this point the legends have already been written in stone, and we're unlikely to uncover any new insights regarding what might have been, or what could have happened if X did Y instead of Z. About the only thing that everybody can agree on is that things could have been worse.
Just watching all the various religions running around in circles trying to fit the fact into their sacred canons would be hilarious
In a sense, the whole idea behind any religion is to assimilate various contradictions and conundrums and take ownership of them. A religion that didn't rely on inexplicable weird stuff wouldn't last long.
With Christianity, for instance, nothing we'll ever find in the Universe is going to be harder to retcon than what's already written in the Bible, but that hasn't kept the Christian faith from being very successful.
Equivocation fallacy. There is no way to compare the regime of censorship in China with that in the US. In the United States, things like nudity may be "taboo", but the fact is, unless you get into child pornography or threaten to kill the President, nobody from the government will give you any trouble whatsoever.
I could say any number of things in this very post that would get me arrested in China. Conversely, short of posting direct threats or incitements to violence, I can't think of anything I could say that would have criminal consequences.
That is a very important difference, one that renders your whole post irrelevant.
They are going ape-shit dumping solar panels for way below the cost of materials + labor in the US market in effort to kill that industry and take it over for themselves.
I'd be curious to read more about this. Any good links you would recommend?
It's helpful to keep in mind the old adage that "Nations do not have friends or enemies -- they have interests." Rest assured, nobody with any influence in the US ever saw the East German citizenry as dirty commies or evil monsters, or whatever. Our fight (yes, including McCarthy's) was with the Communist ideology. Rightly or wrongly, we always saw the common people as victims, confined against their will within a framework of economic and political enforcement that had to be kept from spreading at any price.
It's indeed debatable whether stationing nukes in West Germany against the citizens' wishes was an ethical thing to do, and I can understand the widespread anger and contempt held by many Germans of the time. But surely you can't argue with the outcome. Those weapons were an important element in NATO's half of the MAD doctrine, which was aptly named but appears to have been effective. Their role was never to fight the next war, but to prevent it. It seems to have worked.
Pretty tired of seeing this nonsense that the U.S. is the only country on the planet that helps other people being repeated. (snip 12 more lines of tangential wharrgarbl)
Looks like you meant this reply for a different thread, or perhaps a different story altogether.
Because the rest of the world has understood decades ago that when you leave, the "saved" are generally a lot worse off than they were before.
Arguably if it hadn't been for our presence in West Germany throughout the Cold War, life would have sucked for a very large number of Europeans. There was very little gratitude for that at the time, which never made much sense to me.
Whatever you say or think, lots of people outside the US feel that way, you better take these words to heart even if they hurt your ego.
(Shrug) I have no dog in the fight. Just pointing out that it's hypocritical to make fun of another country's establishment of self-defense rights, when the lessons of history tell us all too clearly what happens when the state is given a monopoly on the use of force.
Slashdot Mirror
If they got no salary, and no "campaign donations" either, they'd vote exactly the same way.
Question for you: who do you think wrote the SOPA legislation, and where do you think it was done?
I hear a lot of talk about smashing shit up, killing people, and sending letter bombs, but I don't see a lot of news stories about heroic revolutionary acts committed by someone known only as "JockTroll."
101st Fighting Keyboarders, pre-sent arms!
Well, OK, we've got one "No" vote from someone who claims to be a right-winger. Any other dissenting opinions from the peanut gallery?
True, but I think he was mostly referring to DSLRs.
Remember how many said the same thing about Apple. They had never released a cell phone before, and had no core competencies in that area... up until they suddenly did.
I don't anticipate Google getting into the camera business, though, or Apple for that matter. There are already a lot of competitors, dividing up a market that is probably shrinking, and meanwhile few people are complaining that all available digital cameras suck. I could be wrong, though... they might be working on a line of subsidized cameras that insert product placements into the photos you take. :-P If Google did produce cameras, there would need to be some kind of strategic angle like that.
Sounds like you've spent a bit too much time gazing into the proverbial abyss. I said I would consider the hypothetical Google Camera, not instantly buy it sight-unseen. I'd have no reason to reject it without knowing anything about it.
OTOH, while I wouldn't consider an Apple-manufactured car since I enjoy violating the occasional speed limit, I probably would buy a hypothetical Apple car stereo head unit without asking too many questions, just because all of the existing options suck so badly.
With cameras, there are a large number of reputable manufacturers who all have products that range from tolerable to excellent, and who have not historically attempted to sodomize their own customers with a pipe wrench. I don't need to consider Sony when buying a camera because whatever they're doing that's so awesome is also available from Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Fuji, Leica, or whoever.
But if they did, I would consider their camera when shopping for a new one, because they haven't given me any reason not to.
I don't recall getting any rootkits from Google.
No kidding. To the American left, the Federal government is one big huge giant confederacy of armed and dangerous dunces, which should be given as much of somebody else's money as possible.
I don't know how the so-called "99%ers" can maintain their ideology without dying from acute cognitive dissonance. In a way, I envy their neural plasticity.
You're not alone there. The whole Sony brand is pure poison, at this point.
I can't wait for the P2P age. To hell with the cloud. A solid P2P network where people can set up services with even more ease than we do now (Tor) will be so much better than this crappy age of the internet.
I agree with you 110%. It has to happen, because all we seem to be doing now is recentralizing everything the Internet (and personal computing in general) promised to liberate.
Of course, we can expect the coming "P2P age" to be fought as if it the Nazis had allied with the Mongol hordes and were invading with a cavalry of bears.
Internet 1.0 caught the Establishment napping. Internet 2.0 is going to find guards at the gates, and plenty of them... awake, alert, and armed to the teeth.
He has altered the English language. Pray he does not alter it further.
But they also know that the US doesn't *want* a war right now. The public are already sick war
But do they know that no one in the US government gives a shit what the public thinks?
. . .contemplating the scale of the universe always gets me down.
It's interesting that people feel that way. Personally I find it comforting to realize that the universe is so much larger than I am that I couldn't possibly be an important part of it. A study of the cosmos actually helps me focus on life in the here-and-now, to respect and enjoy the progress made by those who came before me, and to value the company of the humans around me, on the grounds that these things are all I'll ever get to experience.
IMO, astronomy and cosmology are worthwhile pursuits, not because of what they tell us about the stars, but because of what they tell us about ourselves. Through these sciences we've come to understand that the Universe sees us the way we see atoms in the antennae of ants, if the Universe contemplates us at all.
It seems important for humans to get past the idea that we serve a mystical universal entity with specific plans for us as individuals. Put simply, in the post-nuclear age, humility is a survival tool. Letting go of one's sense of cosmic self-importance should be a liberating sensation, not a depressing one.
(Shrug) That was the correct decision on HP's part. No analogies between Woz's garage and Xerox PARC can be drawn, IMHO. An inexpensive 6502-based micro board didn't fit into HP's marketing and sales strategies in any respect. No traditional HP customers would have been interested in early personal computers, and no rock-star product managers were itching to pivot the whole company in that direction, as later happened with printers.
Instead of helping to launch a new industry, the Apple I would've died on the vine at HP. They could have been dicks about it and stopped Wozniak dead in his tracks, but instead they told him to party on with their blessing. Under the HP Way it was considered a good thing for entrepreneurs to get their start at the company, and Woz was perhaps one of the last employees to benefit from that kind of forward thinking.
Do read some material on the russian point-of-view during the Cold War. It is utterly fascinating, really. For all we know, the Kreml viewed the US as at least partially insane, and highly dangerous. Instead of the aggressive monsters they are painted at, the upper levels of the communist party were very much afraid of western aggression. If I recall correctly, when Reagan was elected, the Kreml believed the west had gone entirely insane, and actually braced for nuclear war. They could not estimate how much of Reagan's big talking was just politics and propaganda and how much he really meant.
Very true. Hell, Reagan was scary enough here in the US. I prefer not to leave nuclear policy in the hands of senile people who don't make a move without consulting clergymen and astrologers... and I'm sure the Soviets felt the same way about him, as you likely did in Germany.
It's very true that both the US and Soviet regimes profited greatly by making the other regime appear to be as monstrous, inhuman, and threatening as possible. It was almost a symbiotic relationship in some ways... certainly from the point of view of the American military-industrial-Congressional complex.
The thing is, though, in the Soviets' case, many of the worst horror stories about the government were true. We know this from the accounts of people like A. I. Solzhenitsyn who were lucky to survive the years between the 1930s and 1950s. It really is a silly equivocation fallacy to compare the deeds of the US government with those of Lenin and Stalin. Pro tip: when you aren't sure who the bad guy is, see who shoots you for trying to leave.
In the light of that, one could argue just as well that the NATOs consistent gamble with MAD delayed peace talks and the end of the whole madness for at least a decade if not more. We will never know for sure, but it certainly isn't that simple.
Also true enough. At this point the legends have already been written in stone, and we're unlikely to uncover any new insights regarding what might have been, or what could have happened if X did Y instead of Z. About the only thing that everybody can agree on is that things could have been worse.
Just watching all the various religions running around in circles trying to fit the fact into their sacred canons would be hilarious
In a sense, the whole idea behind any religion is to assimilate various contradictions and conundrums and take ownership of them. A religion that didn't rely on inexplicable weird stuff wouldn't last long.
With Christianity, for instance, nothing we'll ever find in the Universe is going to be harder to retcon than what's already written in the Bible, but that hasn't kept the Christian faith from being very successful.
Equivocation fallacy. There is no way to compare the regime of censorship in China with that in the US. In the United States, things like nudity may be "taboo", but the fact is, unless you get into child pornography or threaten to kill the President, nobody from the government will give you any trouble whatsoever.
I could say any number of things in this very post that would get me arrested in China. Conversely, short of posting direct threats or incitements to violence, I can't think of anything I could say that would have criminal consequences.
That is a very important difference, one that renders your whole post irrelevant.
They are going ape-shit dumping solar panels for way below the cost of materials + labor in the US market in effort to kill that industry and take it over for themselves.
I'd be curious to read more about this. Any good links you would recommend?
What's more, pretty much everything delivered in the form of these i-things already existed in things other makers have made.
But they sucked. People don't like things that suck, unless they are in the market for blowjobs or a new vacuum cleaner.
It's not Apple's fault that nobody else in the entire consumer electronics industry understands that.
It's helpful to keep in mind the old adage that "Nations do not have friends or enemies -- they have interests." Rest assured, nobody with any influence in the US ever saw the East German citizenry as dirty commies or evil monsters, or whatever. Our fight (yes, including McCarthy's) was with the Communist ideology. Rightly or wrongly, we always saw the common people as victims, confined against their will within a framework of economic and political enforcement that had to be kept from spreading at any price.
It's indeed debatable whether stationing nukes in West Germany against the citizens' wishes was an ethical thing to do, and I can understand the widespread anger and contempt held by many Germans of the time. But surely you can't argue with the outcome. Those weapons were an important element in NATO's half of the MAD doctrine, which was aptly named but appears to have been effective. Their role was never to fight the next war, but to prevent it. It seems to have worked.
Pretty tired of seeing this nonsense that the U.S. is the only country on the planet that helps other people being repeated. (snip 12 more lines of tangential wharrgarbl)
Looks like you meant this reply for a different thread, or perhaps a different story altogether.
Yeah. It's always somebody else's fault, isn't it.
They did nothing in 1944 that Russia wouldn't have done six months later.
Clue time, dumbass: in East Germany, they shot people for trying to leave.
Because the rest of the world has understood decades ago that when you leave, the "saved" are generally a lot worse off than they were before.
Arguably if it hadn't been for our presence in West Germany throughout the Cold War, life would have sucked for a very large number of Europeans. There was very little gratitude for that at the time, which never made much sense to me.
Whatever you say or think, lots of people outside the US feel that way, you better take these words to heart even if they hurt your ego.
(Shrug) I have no dog in the fight. Just pointing out that it's hypocritical to make fun of another country's establishment of self-defense rights, when the lessons of history tell us all too clearly what happens when the state is given a monopoly on the use of force.