First you tell me everything is right there in black and white...then you tell me that you can't show me the documents. I'm not saying they don't exist because they're not in a digital format, I'm saying they don't exist because *I*, nor anyone else, can see them.
And you, you're just some walking mass of internal conflict...first you go around saying that you're afraid of the SS...then you say they're good, I'm having the hardest time actually figuring out what you want.
You are the biggest spaz I've seen in eons. First off, nobody "signs" a birth certificate but your parents. You talk about having freedom and crap, and then you go off and berate everyone who doesn't believe you because you don't have sufficient information. If everyone went around believing everything that was said without doing any research, we'd all be yelling that the sky was falling all the damn time.
Now if what you're saying is the truth, I understand what you feel, you're backed into a situation where nobody believes you, and they only way you have to prove it might get you fucked. But understand everyone else's side of the story, you're trying to dissuade everyone's belief in something that's common knowledge with nothing more than your Anonymously Cowering word. I'm sorry man, I don't believe in jack shit that way.
I'm not saying to ignore anything. I'm giving you a legitimate chance to show whatever proff you have of your description of events, which to put it lightly, are highly unlikely at best. Who'd continue to run a company with 3 FBI agents working against them?
Ignore the problem?! WHAT PROBLEM?! If your tale is correct, then the FBI is perfectly justified in it's actions and there is no problem, and hence no need to be outraged. Chill on the attitude pal, I'm as free as a I ever was, and I'm not taking crap away from your "indepenace", what ever the hell that may be...and if anyone's filled with hate...that'd be you, wouldn't it?
Utah's full of Mormons...who, as it turns out, have some really whack beliefs...sure...have all the wives you want...but no caffeine for you. I could care less what Utah thinks about filtering, just as I could care less that Louisiana adopted the Napoleonic code of laws. When a real state starts doing something about it, maybe I, and the rest of the US will care.
Uh, are you the same guy who did the research for that X-Files epsiode last Sunday?
Don't plug the HD power into the master/slave jumpers, man.
If you've got some proof of this go ahead and show it...if you don't, then I'm not going to believe your off the wall stories of someone as high up as the SS and the FBI going after a game company because of warez, and 3l33t people. Boards I was on were running the same stuff, and they were never paid any visits.
Isn't that creepy how the Secret Service can be abbreviated to "SS" anyway...
Lawyers in general piss me off a whole lot. They don't produce a product, and they provide for a service that is used far too often, and in the end, both parties get screwed, and the lawyer comes out ahead...even if he loses.
Take these Class Action Lawsuits, for example. I remember hearing a while back about them filing a class action lawsuit against Intel for the Pentium math bug. They got a list of every Pentium owner, and sued for them...without asking. The lawyers got something on the order of millions, and everyone else invovled got another Pentium...even though most of them weren't complaining about their chips malfunctioning. Who did that benefit? (Aside from AMD and Cyrix...) There needs to be a huge reworking of the legal system. Something that limits the amount of cash a lawyer can get. Price gouging, or something...sheesh...
I totally agree about the hilarity thing. When I think back on the X-Files episodes I love the most, it isn't the ones where Mulder/Scully almost die, I remember episodes like the alien abduction one where the guy is doing the documentary on it. The one with the D&D guy, and the line:
"With all of these death threats going around, you weren't afraid?" "I've been playing role playing games for 20 years now, so I know a thing or two about courage."
The Lone Gunmen in Las Vegas episode was cool. So was the COPS one, and last week's episode was pretty damn funny too. The mark of a good show is that it can make episodes like that and then return back to its original form.
I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be Thresh. It looked kinda like him...but then again, a lot of us Asian guys look the same. I had to watch the credits to figure out if it was him.
As regards his gaming dominance, I'm not too sure about that. Then again, I've never faced him. So, until then, I'm just going to engage my standard cynicism, and figure he's good...but not godly.
Not crappy, just really technically flawed.
on
X-Files FPS Episode
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· Score: 2
The episode was funny and in general, entertaining. I personally like the way most of the season has gone, not taking itself seriously, and having fun with some of the characters. The serious plots are obviously being saved for movies, etc. and I guess we can just hope they won't try and spinoff the show. I don't want to finish watching Malcolm in the Middle and see "The Smoking Man Hour" someday in the future.
Granted, everything in the episode that had to do with anything technical was utter garbage. (But it was kinda nifty to find out that Mulder was a gamer.) I mean, there are obvious flaws...operating on the hard drive to perform a reset...and the hard drive not having a data cable connected to it...and the one line "cheat code" to completely wipe all his work from all his systems. You, know, industry standard stuff like that? I'm sure if you hit "Shift+Alt+AncestorCode" Win 95/98 will just delete themselves. The model of the chick...that was horrid rendering...I was also kinda disspointed in the actual woman...nice body...needed a better face, though. And the chick coder working on her own seperate game...by herself, on one machine. (How exactly was it a "house of testosterone...with one guy, and one girl working there? Did the testosterone just beat the shit out of the estrogen?) However, there were moments where I was just laughing my ass off.
I personally nearly died laughing every time the Lone Gunmen would go over to monitor someone and they would yell out "Bloodthirst is Unquenchable!" or they'd just start going off about a player, "It's because he knows no fear." The fat kid not being able to keep up, and getting wasted was hilarious. I also really liked the Thresh figure getting mauled. (He looked totally gay with the arms and guns crossed, though.) The idea of getting shot in a first person shooter and having 12 volts run through your body not letting you get back up seemed a bit extreme...I don't think I'd pay for that experience, personally.
I don't know if it was supposed to spark discussion about videogame violence and related topics...it really waffled on that issue. For me, it fell far, far by the wayside.
However, I personally expected a lot more from the X-File guys in the way of research, though. Usually, they do lots of research into the technical aspects of the show, so that when Mulder talks, he doesn't sound like a moron. However, this episode was sadly not that way. Nobody did any more than a lick of research. You figure they'd talk to some of the guys that were doing the rendering to ask about computer stuff so they didn't get reamed by the internet people...who I figure probably make up 75-80% of their viewership now. I was thoroughly let down, but I'd be lying if I told you that that was a waste of an hour. I was definitely entertained, about as much as I was during the "COPS" epsiode last week.
If people have figured how to break the encryption, how much harder is it going to be for these same people to fake region codes? My guess...not too hard. In fact, they could probably write a driver that would auto-sense region and just boot to whatever region your player is.
A lot of pirates (arr!) are located in HK, Taiwan, and Malaysia, and I guess that would be a good reason to set them apart as their own region...at least in the eyes of the DVD makers...however, that region also happens to be the region where I rent most of my movies from. Bastardly MPAA. By the way, if you're in the US, and you're looking for a way around region lock, Circuit City Online was selling the DVD player that ignored the region lock. (At least they were last week when my roomate bought it.)
I see very easily how this could work out to be very profitable. (of course, this means it probably won't.)
In theory, if we bought a bunch of shares of something, say, just for the sake of example, Pioneer. So we've got like $100,000 in it. We go to a shareholders meeting and ask, something like, "I just bought a DVD Drive of yours after investing in your company. I go to my local video store and rent the latest HK action flick, but I can't watch it because something the clerk calls "region lock"? Does this mean I can't watch any foreign movies on my DVD Rom at home? Why did you guys think that was a good idea? Why won't you let consumers use your products to view their own movies?" (Sit back and watch panic ensue.)
Then sell your $100,000 worth of shares, and reinvest in Pioneer...but open a short position.
(For those in the comp industry who don't know what a short position is, you sell stock that you don't own, essentially borrowing it from your broker. When you wish to get out of the position, you BUY it back, optimally at a lower price. You keep the difference.)
Even if the rest of the shareholders aren't as impressed by yor bashing of the company, opening the market the next day by trying to sell a bunch of shares will create the image of public distrust, and that in itself will drive the stock down short term, at least. And the pool will make money...money you can invest to strike another company...and if anyone's seting this up, here's some logistical diagrams for it all.
You will need, I figure at least 3 "leader" types: 1 Schmoozing, Public Speaker Type Guy for the sharehlders meetings. Ideally, someone who can argue, but isn't argumentative. This guy is going to have to like to travel a lot, and not have any other job besides this. (It may help to have more than one of these guys for time reasons, as well as limited recognition by the board members of the companies.)
1 Professional Trader I don't mean someone who's got a f*cking E*Trade or Ameritrade account. I'm talking about someone who has real-time access to the market. A direct access trader. (The brokers in NY have been trading for 40+ years with better tools...now that the tools are open to you, why shackle yourself with old equipment? Start REALLY trading online.) Someone who's done it for a while, so we can best manipulate the market in the event that Public Speaker Guy cannot, for whatever reason, accomplish his mission.
A crack research staff. I imagine this will be a grup of 10+ people who read through sites like slashdot and others who will find approporiate causes, do the research on them, and give public speaker guy his ammunition. They will be "Public Speaker Guy" apprentices.
If someone can show me that they've got this kind of a set-up going, count me in, too. If we can get it to work this way...maybe us hackers will have a big ol' retirement fund soon. =)
One of my coworkers has a internet business radio station that broadcasts over the net and in the San Francisco Bay Area. I told him about Linux One, and he did some follow-up research and flamed it on the air. Help get the word out. I'm trying to reach the financial sector, do your part, too! Wouldn't it be great to see us shut this guy down? I mean to pull one over on the SEC, and then have it fail miserably. Don't mess with Open Source!
I already sent off my reasoning telling her why she was a stupid old lady.
Trying to limit people's internet access and opposite sex visitation rights is just plain wrong. I mean, if there was a bill to take old people off the highways, there'd be hell raised. And they are much more dangerous...scientifically...deteriorating eyesight, slower reflexes, weaker muscles and bones. It goes on. But yet, some old ho can sit up on her high horse and tell people that since she didn't get any in college nobody can...unless you're gay.
Well...I think it's time to come with some slashdot pain. Bring da noise, especially if you're from Arizona. And people...if you're going to flame...flame intellectually. Sending stuff like, "You must be gay." and "Your laws suck." are just going to strengthen her resolve.
However, likening her to the old woman on your block who thinks that soda pop should be 5 cents a bottle like it was in her day...that might score some points for the good guys.
The reason these things are rated for newbies is because the more advanced users are going to have reviews of this stuff already. Look at you. You've already used Slackware 7, and you've got your own very strong opinions on this.
However, Joe Moron (aka, any business executive) who had no idea what the hell Linux was 6 months ago, and probably still thinks it's like Windows. (only having one basic "flavor"...namely "crap".)
This is an attempt to give them a chance to pick up an alternative to Windows. Linux will never succeed on the support of the intelligentsia and wannabees alone. (If you don't believe me, then explain why is AOL still around. Hmm?!) The public has to have a dumbed down introduction to the product in order for them to begin to embrace it. For now, if you want knowledgeable advice on which version of Linux is best, talk to people here, or read any of the plethora of "power user" magazines in existance.
But it's not just OS reviews that get dumbed down. Look at game reviews. So many of these sites are afraid to say anything bad about big games that they just parrot out the company line. (I've seen sites/mags that liked MK Gold for the DC.) Look at the best selling games of all time. Myst and Riven. Do people that are versed enough in the game world like these games? No. But the sheep do. And it doesn't stop there. Music, movies, tv, everything is dumbed down to "lowest common denominator" in order to rake in the almighty buck. (If you don't agree on this, just look at the Spice Girls. They inexplicably got into all 3, without having the talent to do any one of them!) That's why CNET has reviews for Joe Shmuck. Because there are more Joe Shmucks out there with more cash than there are shining beacons of intelligence cutting a huge swath through the morass of ineptitude, a la myself. (Me being a beacon, not part of the morass...)
Anyone else notice that they didn't rate the LinuxOne distibution? I guess, in a way, it ended up winning, though...seeing as how it's just Redhat with a different logo.
Um...have you ever read the ingredients in "Potted Meat Food Product"? One of them is "partially defatted chicken fat" or beef fat...I forget...in any case...ick...
Reminds me of those government cans of "beef" and "pork". Great big alumnium cans, with no ingredient list.
Remember from those old GTE Yellow Pages commercials? ("Not Al's Rugs, Al's RUG. Now if I advertised in that book of yours, people would be in here trying to walk on my rug, touch my rug, maybe even buy my rug. Then it wouldn't be Al's Rug.)
Anyway, on a more pertinent note, I'd like to vote for any new drug that gets made. Xovirax, Tagamet, Claritin....the list goes on...and then of course, they've got commercials on network TV, that have NOTHING to do with what the drug is used for. And then they tell you to ask your doctor about it..."Hey Doc, what the F**k is Claritin?" Then underneatht he name, they have the chemical name for the drug, which is totally unrelated to the "layman's" name for the drug. What the hell people?!
But if it's an actual company, the number one most retarded company out there right now...
dsports.com.
I'm about to go down there with a chainsaw and cry havoc and let slip the dogs of public opinion on their sorry, not-knowing-how-to-have-not-have-people-revile-the ir-commerical asses. (And while I'm at it, I'll take out the Washington Mutual, Gap, and Amazon.com people.) And why "dsports" anyway? It's not "esports", it's "dsports"...it's one letter better! It looks too much like "despots.com".
Runner-up awards go to "fogdog.com" and "flooz". How the hell are you supposed to associate "fogdog" with sports? When I hear "fogdog", I think of this dog walking out into the street in like London, or San Francisco, right before it gets hit by a big old bus. Fogdog. Might as well call themselves "Chapter11.com".
And If anyone gives me "Flooz" I'll papercut them to death with the Flooz receipt. If I wanted e-cash, I'd just jack your credit card!
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"Fire!" "But Sir, we'll hit our own men." "Yes, but we'll hit some of theirs, too." ---------------------------------------------
Yeah...amazing tech. What the heck else would we do with "robtoic snakes"? (sic) I mean this took a lot of work, but do we really need robot forms of life? I think we should just be satisfied with natural animals. The quicker we build robot forms of it all, the sooner we all become satiated by the novelty of it, and take for granted all the complexity of actual snakes. I mean...Noah didn't nanoassemble 2 of each animal on the ark.
If someone is computer illiterate, I have no qualms about helping them. But then, should they be doing the advertising for a product that is going to be used by people who are computer illiterate? I'm not belittling people who don't know, I'm belitting who don't know, and whose job it is to act like they DO know.
Why not have 2 camps of marketing? The one for the novice end-user, and the department for the techies? (One guy who DOES know what he's talking about can handle the workload of 4 people trying to make stuff up.)
Truth of the matter is, that marketers, at least in the bloated, lying form they are present in now, do not need to exist. They get made fun of because they are responsible for the majority of the public eyesores that develop...
Hahaha...I feel sorry for you. And me...I currently do website design. All the constant "Hey, that looks good, but can you change this?" Must...control...fist of death.
Anyway, this was related to me by a friend 2 years ago, who wasn't actually there either, so this story's going to be a bit tweaked, (i.e. I don't remember specific product names, etc.) and I'll probably have other/.-ers posting the "real" way it went soon.
Story goes something like this. At some conference of another, Microsoft is unveiling a product which utilizes the Corn kernel. Some guy in the audience stands up while the drone is giving his pre-rehearsed speech. He wants to know why they used a Corn kernel because it's got so many problems. Marketing drone goes on and on about how it has perfect compatiblity, etc. The battle between the audience member and drone goes on for a good 5-10 minutes, when someone else finally stands up and says to the drone, "Dude, that's David Corn." (Sorry for the convolution, but the punch line still works.)
Hahaha...oh the evils of marketing. When I used to work at "undisclosed" entertainment software developer, there was no end to what the marketing dept. did.
It seemed to us that all they ever had to do was go to lunch, and eat with people from other marketing departments. (They insisted it wasn't true...sometimes they had to eat dinner.) Then when problems with the games would come up, they didn't field any of the phone calls or complaints. People would complain about our translations, have questions about future games, etc, and of course, none of those calls were routed to marketing.
When we finished our big project of the year everyone who worked on the project got these nice gifts, even the receptionist, who worked for a temp agency, and was leaving fairly soon. There was a hugely upbuilding for everyone, except for the software testers, some of whom had stayed at the office 96 hours straight, who got nothing, because they couldn't order enough. When we asked if we could order more from the company that made them, we were informed that they cost too much. (It's nice to know that Marketing was really looking out for the testing department, and not letting them spend their meager paychecks frivolously.)
Also on repeated occasions, we requested soundtracks, posters, action figures, etc. of the characters from the games we were working on, but apparently, there was only enough of that stuff to hand out to the important people in marketing...and all of our vendors.
And if you ever want to see some other people really get screwed, watch for the next time Interplay (obviously not the company I used to work for.) releases something that is developed in-house. Those games are replete with bugs, because the Marketing people push for the games to be released ahead of schedule. The games come out with errors that have been documented, well before the game is released, and then when the public finds them, the company message boards are full of people flaming the testers. Do the Marketing people say, "Hey, we made a mistake, we set an unreachable deadline." Of course not. They let the testers get flamed, and forbid the testers from saying anything to the contrary of the public opinion of them.
I guess in Marketing, you've got to lie a lot. And in order to lie effectively, you have to delude yourself into thinking that what you're saying is the truth. Maybe it makes it just oh-so much easier to phase out the stupid things you're doing, as well as everything else that goes on around you, so that you think you're the center of the Universe. (Which makes you really uncomfortable when Stephen Hawking talks about whether the Universe is expanding or not. "Should I go on a diet? Am I really expanding that much?")
Or maybe they should all be rounded up and stuck in internment camps.
But it's not just me...there's a great story that I've heard (passed down through many others, of course.) about a Microsoft Marketing Drone and David Corn.
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"You mean to tell me that the citizens of New York are drinking water with all the electricity taken out of it?!" -Former Mayor of New York, while on a tour of a hydroelectric dam.
Well...the fact that Nintendo is using it in its next generation console totally eliminates any possibility of me buying it. Look at all the crud on that system. The 64 came out years later, and couldn't even out-tech the existing systems on the market. Talk about a company that is behind the times...
Now as to why Slashdot uses an N64 controller as the "games" icon, I'll never really know...It does look cooler than the Dreamcast/Cinnabon swirl, though.
As long as it's not Leo...
on
Dear Mr. Lucas
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· Score: 2
Although I believe it said they were looking for a 19-year old "actor", so DiCaprio wouldn't really qualify, now would he.
By the way, the cover version of "My Heart Will Go On" by "Good Enough" is much better, IMHO.
I'd be in favor of giving the Onion guy the part, but I don't want him going off on some diatribe halfway through the movie about how young podracers didn't make enough cash to make ends meet and how he'd have to sell his body for food if he didn't get more sex scenes with Natalie Portman.
This is a bit off-kilter too, but since we're talking about sequels, how about Tron2K. The MCP will be the Y2K Bug, and Bill Gates will play Bill Gates. If there are any Hollywood execs out there, I got a script!
Re:No wonder... TRUE..oh so true.
on
Happy Odd Day!
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· Score: 1
Dude, 1999 is still odd, whether in seperate digits or as a whole.
Although, this isn't terribly fascinating, seeing as how 11-19-1997 was all odd, too.
Just add this article to the "Whoopty-frickin'-doo" dept.
I can just see 4 people trying to deathmatch on any console, the Playstation, the rapidly dying Dreamcast, or the Atari Ja--oh wait, I mean the N64...sorry, that 3rd gaming system that nobody pays attention to is just so hard to remember. Sure you've got a 30 inch TV, it's probably about 28 in. viewable, so you're going to play on like a 5x7 screen...while sitting on your couch...yeah...I see that being veritable iotas of fun.
The hardware could probably handle a stripped down version. Down give me this crap about how the hardware can't handle it. You people don't remember the days of the original NES, and how these ingenious sound programmers got those POS chips to do all kinds of great music. It's just the logistics of it all. Quake III is best played with both hands on different input devices. Any game console out there relies on the singular input device, namely, the controller (or joypad, joystick, etc...) In order for it work effectively, you'd not only need a console mouse, but a meypad type thing, as well. (You want to try using on hand to mash the left "button" on your Dreamcast controller without it flipping over, be my guest. I'll send an appropriate taunt over after I'm through beating you 20 to -5.)
You just don't want to be in the heat of battle trying to remember which of the stupid shoulder buttons moves which direction.
In response to it "looking better" on the TV, the TV resolution is FAR lower than any monitor. It will always look better on a monitor. Your TV also has "free" anti-aliasing. If you ever want to see how "detail challenged" your TV set is, play any video game that has a stop light, or a any sort of red light in it. Check out how many adjacent pixels it bleeds into. This is invariably why any console to PC port ends up looking really bad...it looks just fine on a TV, a less forgiving PC monitor is something different entirely. Granted, the Dreamcast comes with better hardware, and you can even get an S-Video/VGA output cables for your Dreamcast, but it can't beat a PC's number crunching ability. If it could, it'd be a shame to have that powerful a machine just to play video games...
Which is why I have a word processor installed on my PC...
-Alkaiser
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"Just can't stand this bobbin' and pretendin'/ Listnin' to some bullethead and the madness that he's sayin'."
Slashdot Mirror
First you tell me everything is right there in black and white...then you tell me that you can't show me the documents. I'm not saying they don't exist because they're not in a digital format, I'm saying they don't exist because *I*, nor anyone else, can see them.
And you, you're just some walking mass of internal conflict...first you go around saying that you're afraid of the SS...then you say they're good, I'm having the hardest time actually figuring out what you want.
You are the biggest spaz I've seen in eons. First off, nobody "signs" a birth certificate but your parents. You talk about having freedom and crap, and then you go off and berate everyone who doesn't believe you because you don't have sufficient information. If everyone went around believing everything that was said without doing any research, we'd all be yelling that the sky was falling all the damn time.
Now if what you're saying is the truth, I understand what you feel, you're backed into a situation where nobody believes you, and they only way you have to prove it might get you fucked. But understand everyone else's side of the story, you're trying to dissuade everyone's belief in something that's common knowledge with nothing more than your Anonymously Cowering word. I'm sorry man, I don't believe in jack shit that way.
I'm not saying to ignore anything. I'm giving you a legitimate chance to show whatever proff you have of your description of events, which to put it lightly, are highly unlikely at best. Who'd continue to run a company with 3 FBI agents working against them?
Ignore the problem?! WHAT PROBLEM?! If your tale is correct, then the FBI is perfectly justified in it's actions and there is no problem, and hence no need to be outraged. Chill on the attitude pal, I'm as free as a I ever was, and I'm not taking crap away from your "indepenace", what ever the hell that may be...and if anyone's filled with hate...that'd be you, wouldn't it?
Utah's full of Mormons...who, as it turns out, have some really whack beliefs...sure...have all the wives you want...but no caffeine for you. I could care less what Utah thinks about filtering, just as I could care less that Louisiana adopted the Napoleonic code of laws. When a real state starts doing something about it, maybe I, and the rest of the US will care.
Uh, are you the same guy who did the research for that X-Files epsiode last Sunday?
Don't plug the HD power into the master/slave jumpers, man.
If you've got some proof of this go ahead and show it...if you don't, then I'm not going to believe your off the wall stories of someone as high up as the SS and the FBI going after a game company because of warez, and 3l33t people. Boards I was on were running the same stuff, and they were never paid any visits.
Isn't that creepy how the Secret Service can be abbreviated to "SS" anyway...
Lawyers in general piss me off a whole lot. They don't produce a product, and they provide for a service that is used far too often, and in the end, both parties get screwed, and the lawyer comes out ahead...even if he loses.
Take these Class Action Lawsuits, for example. I remember hearing a while back about them filing a class action lawsuit against Intel for the Pentium math bug. They got a list of every Pentium owner, and sued for them...without asking. The lawyers got something on the order of millions, and everyone else invovled got another Pentium...even though most of them weren't complaining about their chips malfunctioning. Who did that benefit? (Aside from AMD and Cyrix...) There needs to be a huge reworking of the legal system. Something that limits the amount of cash a lawyer can get. Price gouging, or something...sheesh...
I totally agree about the hilarity thing. When I think back on the X-Files episodes I love the most, it isn't the ones where Mulder/Scully almost die, I remember episodes like the alien abduction one where the guy is doing the documentary on it. The one with the D&D guy, and the line:
"With all of these death threats going around, you weren't afraid?"
"I've been playing role playing games for 20 years now, so I know a thing or two about courage."
The Lone Gunmen in Las Vegas episode was cool. So was the COPS one, and last week's episode was pretty damn funny too. The mark of a good show is that it can make episodes like that and then return back to its original form.
I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be Thresh. It looked kinda like him...but then again, a lot of us Asian guys look the same. I had to watch the credits to figure out if it was him.
As regards his gaming dominance, I'm not too sure about that. Then again, I've never faced him. So, until then, I'm just going to engage my standard cynicism, and figure he's good...but not godly.
The episode was funny and in general, entertaining. I personally like the way most of the season has gone, not taking itself seriously, and having fun with some of the characters. The serious plots are obviously being saved for movies, etc. and I guess we can just hope they won't try and spinoff the show. I don't want to finish watching Malcolm in the Middle and see "The Smoking Man Hour" someday in the future.
Granted, everything in the episode that had to do with anything technical was utter garbage. (But it was kinda nifty to find out that Mulder was a gamer.) I mean, there are obvious flaws...operating on the hard drive to perform a reset...and the hard drive not having a data cable connected to it...and the one line "cheat code" to completely wipe all his work from all his systems. You, know, industry standard stuff like that? I'm sure if you hit "Shift+Alt+AncestorCode" Win 95/98 will just delete themselves. The model of the chick...that was horrid rendering...I was also kinda disspointed in the actual woman...nice body...needed a better face, though. And the chick coder working on her own seperate game...by herself, on one machine. (How exactly was it a "house of testosterone...with one guy, and one girl working there? Did the testosterone just beat the shit out of the estrogen?) However, there were moments where I was just laughing my ass off.
I personally nearly died laughing every time the Lone Gunmen would go over to monitor someone and they would yell out "Bloodthirst is Unquenchable!" or they'd just start going off about a player, "It's because he knows no fear." The fat kid not being able to keep up, and getting wasted was hilarious. I also really liked the Thresh figure getting mauled. (He looked totally gay with the arms and guns crossed, though.) The idea of getting shot in a first person shooter and having 12 volts run through your body not letting you get back up seemed a bit extreme...I don't think I'd pay for that experience, personally.
I don't know if it was supposed to spark discussion about videogame violence and related topics...it really waffled on that issue. For me, it fell far, far by the wayside.
However, I personally expected a lot more from the X-File guys in the way of research, though. Usually, they do lots of research into the technical aspects of the show, so that when Mulder talks, he doesn't sound like a moron. However, this episode was sadly not that way. Nobody did any more than a lick of research. You figure they'd talk to some of the guys that were doing the rendering to ask about computer stuff so they didn't get reamed by the internet people...who I figure probably make up 75-80% of their viewership now. I was thoroughly let down, but I'd be lying if I told you that that was a waste of an hour. I was definitely entertained, about as much as I was during the "COPS" epsiode last week.
If people have figured how to break the encryption, how much harder is it going to be for these same people to fake region codes? My guess...not too hard. In fact, they could probably write a driver that would auto-sense region and just boot to whatever region your player is.
A lot of pirates (arr!) are located in HK, Taiwan, and Malaysia, and I guess that would be a good reason to set them apart as their own region...at least in the eyes of the DVD makers...however, that region also happens to be the region where I rent most of my movies from. Bastardly MPAA. By the way, if you're in the US, and you're looking for a way around region lock, Circuit City Online was selling the DVD player that ignored the region lock. (At least they were last week when my roomate bought it.)
I see very easily how this could work out to be very profitable. (of course, this means it probably won't.)
In theory, if we bought a bunch of shares of something, say, just for the sake of example, Pioneer. So we've got like $100,000 in it. We go to a shareholders meeting and ask, something like, "I just bought a DVD Drive of yours after investing in your company. I go to my local video store and rent the latest HK action flick, but I can't watch it because something the clerk calls "region lock"? Does this mean I can't watch any foreign movies on my DVD Rom at home? Why did you guys think that was a good idea? Why won't you let consumers use your products to view their own movies?" (Sit back and watch panic ensue.)
Then sell your $100,000 worth of shares, and reinvest in Pioneer...but open a short position.
(For those in the comp industry who don't know what a short position is, you sell stock that you don't own, essentially borrowing it from your broker. When you wish to get out of the position, you BUY it back, optimally at a lower price. You keep the difference.)
Even if the rest of the shareholders aren't as impressed by yor bashing of the company, opening the market the next day by trying to sell a bunch of shares will create the image of public distrust, and that in itself will drive the stock down short term, at least. And the pool will make money...money you can invest to strike another company...and if anyone's seting this up, here's some logistical diagrams for it all.
You will need, I figure at least 3 "leader" types:
1 Schmoozing, Public Speaker Type Guy for the sharehlders meetings. Ideally, someone who can argue, but isn't argumentative. This guy is going to have to like to travel a lot, and not have any other job besides this. (It may help to have more than one of these guys for time reasons, as well as limited recognition by the board members of the companies.)
1 Professional Trader
I don't mean someone who's got a f*cking E*Trade or Ameritrade account. I'm talking about someone who has real-time access to the market. A direct access trader. (The brokers in NY have been trading for 40+ years with better tools...now that the tools are open to you, why shackle yourself with old equipment? Start REALLY trading online.) Someone who's done it for a while, so we can best manipulate the market in the event that Public Speaker Guy cannot, for whatever reason, accomplish his mission.
A crack research staff.
I imagine this will be a grup of 10+ people who read through sites like slashdot and others who will find approporiate causes, do the research on them, and give public speaker guy his ammunition. They will be "Public Speaker Guy" apprentices.
If someone can show me that they've got this kind of a set-up going, count me in, too. If we can get it to work this way...maybe us hackers will have a big ol' retirement fund soon. =)
One of my coworkers has a internet business radio station that broadcasts over the net and in the San Francisco Bay Area. I told him about Linux One, and he did some follow-up research and flamed it on the air. Help get the word out. I'm trying to reach the financial sector, do your part, too! Wouldn't it be great to see us shut this guy down? I mean to pull one over on the SEC, and then have it fail miserably. Don't mess with Open Source!
Here's the email to drop a line to if you want:
jmcgrath@azleg.state.az.us
I already sent off my reasoning telling her why she was a stupid old lady.
Trying to limit people's internet access and opposite sex visitation rights is just plain wrong. I mean, if there was a bill to take old people off the highways, there'd be hell raised. And they are much more dangerous...scientifically...deteriorating eyesight, slower reflexes, weaker muscles and bones. It goes on. But yet, some old ho can sit up on her high horse and tell people that since she didn't get any in college nobody can...unless you're gay.
Well...I think it's time to come with some slashdot pain. Bring da noise, especially if you're from Arizona. And people...if you're going to flame...flame intellectually. Sending stuff like, "You must be gay." and "Your laws suck." are just going to strengthen her resolve.
However, likening her to the old woman on your block who thinks that soda pop should be 5 cents a bottle like it was in her day...that might score some points for the good guys.
The reason these things are rated for newbies is because the more advanced users are going to have reviews of this stuff already. Look at you. You've already used Slackware 7, and you've got your own very strong opinions on this.
However, Joe Moron (aka, any business executive) who had no idea what the hell Linux was 6 months ago, and probably still thinks it's like Windows. (only having one basic "flavor"...namely "crap".)
This is an attempt to give them a chance to pick up an alternative to Windows. Linux will never succeed on the support of the intelligentsia and wannabees alone. (If you don't believe me, then explain why is AOL still around. Hmm?!) The public has to have a dumbed down introduction to the product in order for them to begin to embrace it. For now, if you want knowledgeable advice on which version of Linux is best, talk to people here, or read any of the plethora of "power user" magazines in existance.
But it's not just OS reviews that get dumbed down. Look at game reviews. So many of these sites are afraid to say anything bad about big games that they just parrot out the company line. (I've seen sites/mags that liked MK Gold for the DC.) Look at the best selling games of all time. Myst and Riven. Do people that are versed enough in the game world like these games? No. But the sheep do. And it doesn't stop there. Music, movies, tv, everything is dumbed down to "lowest common denominator" in order to rake in the almighty buck. (If you don't agree on this, just look at the Spice Girls. They inexplicably got into all 3, without having the talent to do any one of them!) That's why CNET has reviews for Joe Shmuck. Because there are more Joe Shmucks out there with more cash than there are shining beacons of intelligence cutting a huge swath through the morass of ineptitude, a la myself. (Me being a beacon, not part of the morass...)
Anyone else notice that they didn't rate the LinuxOne distibution? I guess, in a way, it ended up winning, though...seeing as how it's just Redhat with a different logo.
Um...have you ever read the ingredients in "Potted Meat Food Product"? One of them is "partially defatted chicken fat" or beef fat...I forget...in any case...ick...
Reminds me of those government cans of "beef" and "pork". Great big alumnium cans, with no ingredient list.
Remember from those old GTE Yellow Pages commercials? ("Not Al's Rugs, Al's RUG. Now if I advertised in that book of yours, people would be in here trying to walk on my rug, touch my rug, maybe even buy my rug. Then it wouldn't be Al's Rug.)
e ir-commerical asses. (And while I'm at it, I'll take out the Washington Mutual, Gap, and Amazon.com people.) And why "dsports" anyway? It's not "esports", it's "dsports"...it's one letter better! It looks too much like "despots.com".
Anyway, on a more pertinent note, I'd like to vote for any new drug that gets made. Xovirax, Tagamet, Claritin....the list goes on...and then of course, they've got commercials on network TV, that have NOTHING to do with what the drug is used for. And then they tell you to ask your doctor about it..."Hey Doc, what the F**k is Claritin?" Then underneatht he name, they have the chemical name for the drug, which is totally unrelated to the "layman's" name for the drug. What the hell people?!
But if it's an actual company, the number one most retarded company out there right now...
dsports.com.
I'm about to go down there with a chainsaw and cry havoc and let slip the dogs of public opinion on their sorry, not-knowing-how-to-have-not-have-people-revile-th
Runner-up awards go to "fogdog.com" and "flooz". How the hell are you supposed to associate "fogdog" with sports? When I hear "fogdog", I think of this dog walking out into the street in like London, or San Francisco, right before it gets hit by a big old bus. Fogdog. Might as well call themselves "Chapter11.com".
And If anyone gives me "Flooz" I'll papercut them to death with the Flooz receipt. If I wanted e-cash, I'd just jack your credit card!
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"Fire!"
"But Sir, we'll hit our own men."
"Yes, but we'll hit some of theirs, too."
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Yeah...amazing tech. What the heck else would we do with "robtoic snakes"? (sic) I mean this took a lot of work, but do we really need robot forms of life? I think we should just be satisfied with natural animals. The quicker we build robot forms of it all, the sooner we all become satiated by the novelty of it, and take for granted all the complexity of actual snakes. I mean...Noah didn't nanoassemble 2 of each animal on the ark.
If someone is computer illiterate, I have no qualms about helping them. But then, should they be doing the advertising for a product that is going to be used by people who are computer illiterate? I'm not belittling people who don't know, I'm belitting who don't know, and whose job it is to act like they DO know.
Why not have 2 camps of marketing? The one for the novice end-user, and the department for the techies? (One guy who DOES know what he's talking about can handle the workload of 4 people trying to make stuff up.)
Truth of the matter is, that marketers, at least in the bloated, lying form they are present in now, do not need to exist. They get made fun of because they are responsible for the majority of the public eyesores that develop...
Just gotta give Erik Naggum props for supporting my contention that Scheme is a POS.
Hahaha...I feel sorry for you. And me...I currently do website design. All the constant "Hey, that looks good, but can you change this?" Must...control...fist of death.
/.-ers posting the "real" way it went soon.
Anyway, this was related to me by a friend 2 years ago, who wasn't actually there either, so this story's going to be a bit tweaked, (i.e. I don't remember specific product names, etc.) and I'll probably have other
Story goes something like this. At some conference of another, Microsoft is unveiling a product which utilizes the Corn kernel. Some guy in the audience stands up while the drone is giving his pre-rehearsed speech. He wants to know why they used a Corn kernel because it's got so many problems. Marketing drone goes on and on about how it has perfect compatiblity, etc. The battle between the audience member and drone goes on for a good 5-10 minutes, when someone else finally stands up and says to the drone, "Dude, that's David Corn." (Sorry for the convolution, but the punch line still works.)
I've seen it 2 years running at E3. Here's a tip from me to you. Don't look forward to it.
Hahaha...oh the evils of marketing. When I used to work at "undisclosed" entertainment software developer, there was no end to what the marketing dept. did.
It seemed to us that all they ever had to do was go to lunch, and eat with people from other marketing departments. (They insisted it wasn't true...sometimes they had to eat dinner.) Then when problems with the games would come up, they didn't field any of the phone calls or complaints. People would complain about our translations, have questions about future games, etc, and of course, none of those calls were routed to marketing.
When we finished our big project of the year everyone who worked on the project got these nice gifts, even the receptionist, who worked for a temp agency, and was leaving fairly soon. There was a hugely upbuilding for everyone, except for the software testers, some of whom had stayed at the office 96 hours straight, who got nothing, because they couldn't order enough. When we asked if we could order more from the company that made them, we were informed that they cost too much. (It's nice to know that Marketing was really looking out for the testing department, and not letting them spend their meager paychecks frivolously.)
Also on repeated occasions, we requested soundtracks, posters, action figures, etc. of the characters from the games we were working on, but apparently, there was only enough of that stuff to hand out to the important people in marketing...and all of our vendors.
And if you ever want to see some other people really get screwed, watch for the next time Interplay (obviously not the company I used to work for.) releases something that is developed in-house. Those games are replete with bugs, because the Marketing people push for the games to be released ahead of schedule. The games come out with errors that have been documented, well before the game is released, and then when the public finds them, the company message boards are full of people flaming the testers. Do the Marketing people say, "Hey, we made a mistake, we set an unreachable deadline." Of course not. They let the testers get flamed, and forbid the testers from saying anything to the contrary of the public opinion of them.
I guess in Marketing, you've got to lie a lot. And in order to lie effectively, you have to delude yourself into thinking that what you're saying is the truth. Maybe it makes it just oh-so much easier to phase out the stupid things you're doing, as well as everything else that goes on around you, so that you think you're the center of the Universe. (Which makes you really uncomfortable when Stephen Hawking talks about whether the Universe is expanding or not. "Should I go on a diet? Am I really expanding that much?")
Or maybe they should all be rounded up and stuck in internment camps.
But it's not just me...there's a great story that I've heard (passed down through many others, of course.) about a Microsoft Marketing Drone and David Corn.
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"You mean to tell me that the citizens of New York are drinking water with all the electricity taken out of it?!"
-Former Mayor of New York, while on a tour of a hydroelectric dam.
Well...the fact that Nintendo is using it in its next generation console totally eliminates any possibility of me buying it. Look at all the crud on that system. The 64 came out years later, and couldn't even out-tech the existing systems on the market. Talk about a company that is behind the times...
Now as to why Slashdot uses an N64 controller as the "games" icon, I'll never really know...It does look cooler than the Dreamcast/Cinnabon swirl, though.
Although I believe it said they were looking for a 19-year old "actor", so DiCaprio wouldn't really qualify, now would he.
By the way, the cover version of "My Heart Will Go On" by "Good Enough" is much better, IMHO.
I'd be in favor of giving the Onion guy the part, but I don't want him going off on some diatribe halfway through the movie about how young podracers didn't make enough cash to make ends meet and how he'd have to sell his body for food if he didn't get more sex scenes with Natalie Portman.
This is a bit off-kilter too, but since we're talking about sequels, how about Tron2K. The MCP will be the Y2K Bug, and Bill Gates will play Bill Gates. If there are any Hollywood execs out there, I got a script!
Dude, 1999 is still odd, whether in seperate digits or as a whole.
Although, this isn't terribly fascinating, seeing as how 11-19-1997 was all odd, too.
Just add this article to the "Whoopty-frickin'-doo" dept.
-Alkaiser
I can just see 4 people trying to deathmatch on any console, the Playstation, the rapidly dying Dreamcast, or the Atari Ja--oh wait, I mean the N64...sorry, that 3rd gaming system that nobody pays attention to is just so hard to remember. Sure you've got a 30 inch TV, it's probably about 28 in. viewable, so you're going to play on like a 5x7 screen...while sitting on your couch...yeah...I see that being veritable iotas of fun.
The hardware could probably handle a stripped down version. Down give me this crap about how the hardware can't handle it. You people don't remember the days of the original NES, and how these ingenious sound programmers got those POS chips to do all kinds of great music. It's just the logistics of it all. Quake III is best played with both hands on different input devices. Any game console out there relies on the singular input device, namely, the controller (or joypad, joystick, etc...) In order for it work effectively, you'd not only need a console mouse, but a meypad type thing, as well. (You want to try using on hand to mash the left "button" on your Dreamcast controller without it flipping over, be my guest. I'll send an appropriate taunt over after I'm through beating you 20 to -5.)
You just don't want to be in the heat of battle trying to remember which of the stupid shoulder buttons moves which direction.
In response to it "looking better" on the TV, the TV resolution is FAR lower than any monitor. It will always look better on a monitor. Your TV also has "free" anti-aliasing. If you ever want to see how "detail challenged" your TV set is, play any video game that has a stop light, or a any sort of red light in it. Check out how many adjacent pixels it bleeds into. This is invariably why any console to PC port ends up looking really bad...it looks just fine on a TV, a less forgiving PC monitor is something different entirely. Granted, the Dreamcast comes with better hardware, and you can even get an S-Video/VGA output cables for your Dreamcast, but it can't beat a PC's number crunching ability. If it could, it'd be a shame to have that powerful a machine just to play video games...
Which is why I have a word processor installed on my PC...
-Alkaiser
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"Just can't stand this bobbin' and pretendin'/ Listnin' to some bullethead and the madness that he's sayin'."
Your Racist Friend, by They Might Be Giants.