If you have so many problems with your device and its software - like it's not performing the way you'd like it to - do what I did and *not buy an iPod*.
I have a Sansa Clip Zip. It's very small, cheap, manages songs, playlists, audiobooks, etc. I can copy to it like an external hard disk straight from my collection of MP3s - which are arranged in folders on my hard disk, because after all, they're just files. The Sansa reads all the ID info once they're copied on, and then lets me select by artists or whatever. It's not a touch device, it has actual buttons and does everything I need. You can even flash it and put on an enhanced OS than fans put together. The sound is brilliant.
Try a different device, you may prefer it. iPods aren't the only portable music players.
The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine [...]
Not IMO. Letting a 9 year old play around on the internet is far worse than downloading a song. If she does it unsupervised, her parents might need a lesson in how to raise a kid in the 21st century.
Not that any long term studies have been done yet, that I've seen, on the effects of all that stuff on a child's emotions / behaviour / attention span (apart from bullying), but I suspect it's not positive to be exposed to the entire internet like that at a young age. And there's already concern about the sexualisation of young people, without them having easy access to "what sex is" on the internet, without someone there to explain that it's all just a cynical money-making exercise aimed at men.
I'm not even sure if minds that young should even be made aware of the extent of cynicism in the world. We all benefit from the "innocent" imaginations of kids, it makes the world a better place. By "innocence" I simply mean "bereft of cynicism". Pure belief in possibility. Life is a constant battle between belief and doubt - in oneself, in others, in life itself sometimes. There's time enough for them to experience that complexity, and learn from it, AFTER they've had time enough to find what their own, personal dreams are, unencumbered by doubt and expectation. That's what we treasure so much about "innocence".
Examines the past 100 years of Australian climate data. Very interesting program and good to show to anyone who needs convincing that warming has already been taking place.
Yep, and then there's free-to-air TV. If I want to watch Batman Begins or whatever with NO ADS, I can either record it from the TV - which is perfectly legal - or I can download it and watch it - which is somehow illegal, even though it's exactly the same thing.
Well, Rapidshare accepts PayPal, so that's at least one level of removal. If someone wanted to find out who that RS account belongs to, they'd have to go for IP address from RS, then go to the relevant ISP to get the customer details (good luck with that in most countries), or go to PayPal to get the c/card details of the payment. Not sure what PayPal's policy is on that - hopefully would require an actual subpoena (good luck with that).
There is no end to the amount of crimes that could be prevented or solved if only we were ready to embrace draconian governmental invasions of our privacy and restrictions on our freedom of choice.
How silly you people are. Do you complain that your bank knows everything you purchase, when and where, on your credit card? Are you prepared to march the streets to end Facebook's privacy invasions? Do you complain about your curtailed freedom to drive through red lights or go twice the speed limit? Do you complain about speed cameras "spying on everyone" just in case someone breaks the law? Do you complain to shopowners that their CCTV camera is violating your precious privacy?
We live lives surrounded by rules, regulations, restrictions and invasions of privacy. We accept them all for one reason - because we understand the need for them, in order to live in a reasonably functional society. You are NOT against rules per se. You are NOT against invasion of privacy per se.
Don't fool yourself like everyone else does. You accept those things with open arms. What you aren't convinced of is simply whether this SPECIFIC rule (keeping all DNA on file) will be a benefit that outweighs the privacy invasion. Nothing more, nothing less. Just say simply that, and you won't sound like a mindless reactionary.
more violence begin carried on today in the name of Islam than any other religion
Keep in mind most Muslims live in 3rd world countries and SE Asia - places like Pakistan and Indonesia where government isn't particularly progressive. The socio-economic and political situation in the places populated by most Muslims DOES have an effect on how people behave.
So, in that sense, you are bound to see a lot of repressions and violence in Muslim populations, simple because of where most of them live. Compare it with the behaviour of the majority of Muslims in Western countries, and then tell me if the rate of violence is higher among them than the wider Western population.
TL;DR: Don't be so simplistic as to border on ignorance.
There are true statements that cannot be proven, but that does not mean every unproven statement is true.
The preponderance of evidence suggests there is no external *moral* entity (as least for human values of "moral") influencing events in the universe. Darwin observed as much about Ichneumonidae. One could argue that as evidence for God's absence - as opposed to lack of evidence of his presence.
Religious people, who do not take such arguments into consideration, are naturally open to mockery by those who do.
Anyway, that is just the nature of faith. You have it, or you don't. It can't be rationalised. One can also argue that faith serves many useful purposes in culture and society - or at least did at some point. Otherwise, why would so many human beings have an instinctive affinity to it? Faith is obviously an evolutionary strategy on some psychological level.
In my opinion, atheists who do not take such arguments into account are naturally open to mockery by those who do.:)
Hell we have hard enough time predicting the weather beyond 5 days in the future. What leads me to trust these predictions 50 years from now?... Just keepin' it real.
Keepin it retarded you mean.
So if it's summer now, and a scientist says that in 6 months it absolutely will be a lot cooler - you think that's about as believable as a daily weather report? What do you mean by "weather" anyway? Whether it will rain? Or whether it will be a hot day or a cool day? Because for your information they are usually pretty fucking accurate about the TEMPERATURE.
If you're referring to them saying "78% chance of rain" as an indicator of how "useless climate scientists are" then pull your head out your arse and consider how difficult it is to predict what a fucking cloud is going to do.
People like you, who stubbornly hold opinions based on nothing but your own biases, have always been, and still are, a plague on civilisations everywhere.
Also interesting (at least here in Australia) is that your private property doesn't extend downwards very far either. Mining companies can buy access to ground underneath your property *from the government*. They only have to get your permission to use the surface (to put equipment on etc.)
There is probably a law somewhere about how high your personal property extends as well.
The simple fact is writing software that can truly take advantage of even just two cores is REALLY hard
Sure, but aren't those cores handy when you're running several *different* apps at the same time? I assume a demanding app might tax one core, and another demanding app will attach itself to another core, yes? So multiple cores are good for people like developers or designers, who might have several big apps going at once, as well as SQL Server, IIS, etc.
And then you can fire up Skyrim without having to shut everything down.:)
Totally agree. I'm a software developer, not a big gamer, but my 4-year-old HP 8510 dual-core laptop does everything I need it to. Proper mobile CPU, not a PC one. I usually have several apps running at any one time - Photoshop,.NET IDE, Eclipse IDE, both Firefox and Chrome, while SQL Server 2000 and 2008 work away in the background, not to mention various little TSR helper apps. This on XP Pro, not even Win7. Mostly goes on stand-by, reboot oh once or twice a week, never a problem.
And I can also play Skyrim respectably. I keep it clean inside, temp is never above 45C. Upgraded the hard drive, otherwise not so much as a dead pixel. Great little lappy. I'll upgrade when the plastic starts to go brittle.:)
So... on one hand, if you start making laws curtailing hate speech, hateful acts and demonstrations, we have a problem with "liberty".
But on the other hand, if we let self-aggrandising sociopaths make hateful speeches, rally followers and create a personal army, we end up with civil strife or maybe another little war.
I don't know the answer, but this lovely "refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants" sentiment actually sounds like a dismal merry-go-round to me.
he is a self-obsessed moral relativist that is too comfortable with lying to be the figurehead of (what is still) the most powerful nation on Earth. He further damaged political discourse, further legitimized the fringe, ultra-right-wing of the party, and did nothing to discourage the hate-filled name calling to which you refer.
I feel your pain. We have Tony Abbott here for that.
Slashdot Mirror
but Russia Today? seriously?
They may be our last hope, the last bastion of freedom.
Because, in Russia, internet spies on government.
If you have so many problems with your device and its software - like it's not performing the way you'd like it to - do what I did and *not buy an iPod*.
I have a Sansa Clip Zip. It's very small, cheap, manages songs, playlists, audiobooks, etc. I can copy to it like an external hard disk straight from my collection of MP3s - which are arranged in folders on my hard disk, because after all, they're just files. The Sansa reads all the ID info once they're copied on, and then lets me select by artists or whatever. It's not a touch device, it has actual buttons and does everything I need. You can even flash it and put on an enhanced OS than fans put together. The sound is brilliant.
Try a different device, you may prefer it. iPods aren't the only portable music players.
I'll see your Shigeru Miyamoto and raise you a Hayao Miyazaki.
Might be close, but my money's on Miyazaki san, since games don't get played over and over, year after year at festivals all over the world. :)
will scream bloody murder
Blue murder, even. Appropriately.
The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine [...]
Not IMO. Letting a 9 year old play around on the internet is far worse than downloading a song. If she does it unsupervised, her parents might need a lesson in how to raise a kid in the 21st century.
Not that any long term studies have been done yet, that I've seen, on the effects of all that stuff on a child's emotions / behaviour / attention span (apart from bullying), but I suspect it's not positive to be exposed to the entire internet like that at a young age. And there's already concern about the sexualisation of young people, without them having easy access to "what sex is" on the internet, without someone there to explain that it's all just a cynical money-making exercise aimed at men.
I'm not even sure if minds that young should even be made aware of the extent of cynicism in the world. We all benefit from the "innocent" imaginations of kids, it makes the world a better place. By "innocence" I simply mean "bereft of cynicism". Pure belief in possibility. Life is a constant battle between belief and doubt - in oneself, in others, in life itself sometimes. There's time enough for them to experience that complexity, and learn from it, AFTER they've had time enough to find what their own, personal dreams are, unencumbered by doubt and expectation. That's what we treasure so much about "innocence".
"Coal spews more radiation than a nuclear meltdown"
Not sure why, but I initially read that as "Cows spew more radiation than a nuclear meltdown"
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3633447.htm
Examines the past 100 years of Australian climate data. Very interesting program and good to show to anyone who needs convincing that warming has already been taking place.
back in the 1990's before Babar was running
Correction - Babar's first run was in 1989.
I'm not sure what the direction of time has to do with it, but.. heheh.. .funny elephant.
Yep, and then there's free-to-air TV. If I want to watch Batman Begins or whatever with NO ADS, I can either record it from the TV - which is perfectly legal - or I can download it and watch it - which is somehow illegal, even though it's exactly the same thing.
Well, Rapidshare accepts PayPal, so that's at least one level of removal. If someone wanted to find out who that RS account belongs to, they'd have to go for IP address from RS, then go to the relevant ISP to get the customer details (good luck with that in most countries), or go to PayPal to get the c/card details of the payment. Not sure what PayPal's policy is on that - hopefully would require an actual subpoena (good luck with that).
Not entirely certain why everyone's worried about 2100, when worldwide socio-economic collapse will arrive in 2050.
http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Multimedia/CSIROpod/Growth-Limits.aspx
You'd think the World Bank would be all over that one.
There is no end to the amount of crimes that could be prevented or solved if only we were ready to embrace draconian governmental invasions of our privacy and restrictions on our freedom of choice.
How silly you people are. Do you complain that your bank knows everything you purchase, when and where, on your credit card? Are you prepared to march the streets to end Facebook's privacy invasions? Do you complain about your curtailed freedom to drive through red lights or go twice the speed limit? Do you complain about speed cameras "spying on everyone" just in case someone breaks the law? Do you complain to shopowners that their CCTV camera is violating your precious privacy?
We live lives surrounded by rules, regulations, restrictions and invasions of privacy. We accept them all for one reason - because we understand the need for them, in order to live in a reasonably functional society. You are NOT against rules per se. You are NOT against invasion of privacy per se.
Don't fool yourself like everyone else does. You accept those things with open arms. What you aren't convinced of is simply whether this SPECIFIC rule (keeping all DNA on file) will be a benefit that outweighs the privacy invasion. Nothing more, nothing less. Just say simply that, and you won't sound like a mindless reactionary.
I'd rather err on the side of having murders and rapes go unsolved
You, sir, have assumedly never been murdered or raped. Here, have a gold star for mediocrity.
more violence begin carried on today in the name of Islam than any other religion
Keep in mind most Muslims live in 3rd world countries and SE Asia - places like Pakistan and Indonesia where government isn't particularly progressive. The socio-economic and political situation in the places populated by most Muslims DOES have an effect on how people behave.
So, in that sense, you are bound to see a lot of repressions and violence in Muslim populations, simple because of where most of them live. Compare it with the behaviour of the majority of Muslims in Western countries, and then tell me if the rate of violence is higher among them than the wider Western population.
TL;DR: Don't be so simplistic as to border on ignorance.
There are true statements that cannot be proven, but that does not mean every unproven statement is true.
The preponderance of evidence suggests there is no external *moral* entity (as least for human values of "moral") influencing events in the universe. Darwin observed as much about Ichneumonidae. One could argue that as evidence for God's absence - as opposed to lack of evidence of his presence.
Religious people, who do not take such arguments into consideration, are naturally open to mockery by those who do.
Anyway, that is just the nature of faith. You have it, or you don't. It can't be rationalised. One can also argue that faith serves many useful purposes in culture and society - or at least did at some point. Otherwise, why would so many human beings have an instinctive affinity to it? Faith is obviously an evolutionary strategy on some psychological level.
In my opinion, atheists who do not take such arguments into account are naturally open to mockery by those who do. :)
Speak for yourself!
(That's also what we do.)
Hell we have hard enough time predicting the weather beyond 5 days in the future. What leads me to trust these predictions 50 years from now? ... Just keepin' it real.
Keepin it retarded you mean.
So if it's summer now, and a scientist says that in 6 months it absolutely will be a lot cooler - you think that's about as believable as a daily weather report? What do you mean by "weather" anyway? Whether it will rain? Or whether it will be a hot day or a cool day? Because for your information they are usually pretty fucking accurate about the TEMPERATURE.
If you're referring to them saying "78% chance of rain" as an indicator of how "useless climate scientists are" then pull your head out your arse and consider how difficult it is to predict what a fucking cloud is going to do.
People like you, who stubbornly hold opinions based on nothing but your own biases, have always been, and still are, a plague on civilisations everywhere.
Also interesting (at least here in Australia) is that your private property doesn't extend downwards very far either. Mining companies can buy access to ground underneath your property *from the government*. They only have to get your permission to use the surface (to put equipment on etc.)
There is probably a law somewhere about how high your personal property extends as well.
Make a policy which requires communication in ODF. block DOCX at the Firewall. ... 90% of bullshit solved.
Forcing others to play by your rules is what you would criticise MS for, now you're suggesting they do the same?
The simple fact is writing software that can truly take advantage of even just two cores is REALLY hard
Sure, but aren't those cores handy when you're running several *different* apps at the same time? I assume a demanding app might tax one core, and another demanding app will attach itself to another core, yes? So multiple cores are good for people like developers or designers, who might have several big apps going at once, as well as SQL Server, IIS, etc.
And then you can fire up Skyrim without having to shut everything down. :)
Totally agree. I'm a software developer, not a big gamer, but my 4-year-old HP 8510 dual-core laptop does everything I need it to. Proper mobile CPU, not a PC one. I usually have several apps running at any one time - Photoshop, .NET IDE, Eclipse IDE, both Firefox and Chrome, while SQL Server 2000 and 2008 work away in the background, not to mention various little TSR helper apps. This on XP Pro, not even Win7. Mostly goes on stand-by, reboot oh once or twice a week, never a problem.
And I can also play Skyrim respectably. I keep it clean inside, temp is never above 45C. Upgraded the hard drive, otherwise not so much as a dead pixel. Great little lappy. I'll upgrade when the plastic starts to go brittle. :)
So... on one hand, if you start making laws curtailing hate speech, hateful acts and demonstrations, we have a problem with "liberty".
But on the other hand, if we let self-aggrandising sociopaths make hateful speeches, rally followers and create a personal army, we end up with civil strife or maybe another little war.
I don't know the answer, but this lovely "refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants" sentiment actually sounds like a dismal merry-go-round to me.
do you pay the slightest attention to what our politicians do?
Try to win votes while making deals with business to run their $billion campaigns? In between that, they age a lot.
he is a self-obsessed moral relativist that is too comfortable with lying to be the figurehead of (what is still) the most powerful nation on Earth. He further damaged political discourse, further legitimized the fringe, ultra-right-wing of the party, and did nothing to discourage the hate-filled name calling to which you refer.
I feel your pain. We have Tony Abbott here for that.
The allusions to Matthew 22:37-39 and Philippians 3:14 are what makes me believe his sincerity.
Really? The fact he's a politician, with great speech-writers, going after the biggest prize in the country doesn't come into it at all?