Because you were man enough to post your opinion with your actual user name, I'm going to respond. I love Apple, and I'm a fanboi. I used to run an old Samsung phone that was the first generation to have a color screen and texting capability (don't remember what model it was, just that it was big, had an antenna and camera, and was blue). Bought that back in 2004. I resisted the whole smartphone/iPhone rush up until this year because I was on T-Mobile, I loved their service, and I didn't want to pay assloads of money. But my wife got an iPhone and was on AT&T, and she loved it. So finally this year after much nagging by her, I left T-Mobile, went to AT&T, and got an iPhone 3G for $99 plus the standard 2 year service agreement. So now I pay $15 more a month now with AT&T for unlimited data and voice than I did with T-Mobile for just 400 minutes and unlimited texts, and I get all the versatility and features that the iPhone has. I also refuse to jailbreak it because I do not want to waste my time having to dodge getting my phone bricked. It does everything I want it to do. I really don't care how much a year I'm spending, because it's within my monthly budget and I'm getting far more in terms of features than I used to. Plus, once my two year term is up, AT&T's lock on Apple will be over, and I'll be able to go back to T-Mobile with my iPhone. So now that I've bored the absolute fuck out of you with my long-winded summary, let me say this - I love Mac and iPhone because it does what I want it to do, when I want it done, with a very low minimum of hassle and cost in my opinion. This is obviously not your sentiment. But I would ask that before you just badmouth us Mac fanbois again, you consider that SOME of us chose Mac not because it's anti-MS, but because it meets our needs. Now get off my lawn:-)
Speaking as a member of the Cold Y generation, I believe a lot of the decline of the space program has to do with the attitude of the American public in general. I think our government, our military, and NASA would cheerfully push the envelope if they could, but as a number of different posters have pointed out previously in this thread, the biggest obstacle is us as a people. Even though we all benefit now from technologies developed then, space travel still means completely nothing to the average American citizen. They take microwave ovens for granted, for instance. Most people (excluding most everyone on/.) aren't aware (or particularly care) that a lot of our world dominance came from the technologies developed in the space race. To them, the Moon is just the moon, unreachable and nothing comes from it except reflected sunlight. No one they know goes to space, no one they know works in the space industry. But they ARE affected by climate change, and by social problems like crime, homelessness, poverty, etc. I feel that's why we hear so many calls for abolishing the space program or reducing its funding: because our politicians are being told by the American people that they consider climate change et al more important than a space program. They see more tangible results from funding going towards social concerns than putting a base on Mars. If we ever really want to get the space program going again, we have to present the American public with either a threat (Soviet dominance of space in the 50's and 60's), or one hell of an opportunity that they can understand. My personal favorite option is the sudden appearance of a star-faring alien race... but fat chance of that happening:O(
Ye gods! We've actually been visited by a THREE DIGIT ID! How many feet of cobwebs are YOU trailing, old timer? And what hoary tomb did you crawl out of to inflict your will upon this dark earth? Does this mean that we could possibly be visited by a *GASP!* TWO DIGIT ID Methuselah!
Which is offset by the fact that he has enough money to afford the bike, maintain the bike, knows how to ride it, and that he doesn't have to worry about impressing you.
If I may ask, is the Engine Control more chaotic because the "secret sauce" is in the physical parts? Like how Boeing and Airbus's trade secrets are all located in the wings and not the main body of the aircraft?
Mmm.. I'm going to disagree with you. IMHO, exposing him to the world is exactly what was needed. Yes, there's going to be lots of jackass 15 year old imitators, but I think there would have been lots of those anyway, and if it wasn't Malik, it'd be someone else. No, guys like these need to get exposed to the world because then the world knows who they are. PrankNet's power was in its secrecy. No one knew about it, except for the 'in' crowd. But now, he's exposed. People know about him. He'll be famous for a brief amount of time... but then the fame will fade. He'll be old news, and his power to deceive and pull pranks will go with it. That's why it's critical to expose these guys. Let the world see them, get their message out in the open, let people make up their minds, and ultimately, let time fade them away to nothing. That's the greatest punishment one could visit: to make Malik irrelevant.
You're accusing me of astroturfing???? AWESOME!!!! That's the first time I've ever been accused of that! Dude, that's almost like a badge of honor. Course, I can see why you'd think I was astroturfing, but the first clue I'm not would be that I'm calling the owner of the WSJ a "Rotten Bastard". Last time I checked, astroturfers usually don't insult the hand that feeds them.
(don't mean you, SatanicPuppy, I mean Murdoch).
The Rotten Bastard's right - quality journalism costs money. The "I can get anything for free, so why should I pay" ethos (in my opinion) leads to watered down crap being offered for free. People cannot make a living off "Free". Look at what we have now - 'free' news sources that don't give us much news but give us a whole lotta opinion masquerading as news (blogs, anyone?). It costs nothing to post your opinion based off of factoids gleaned from other sources, without even considering bias. But to produce honest-to-Gawd news? That's a quality product, produced by professionals who know how to separate fact from bias, and how to tell the difference between the two? That is worth money.
The Genocidal Tyrant's completely within his rights to demand that Amazon give him an increased percentage of profits PLUS the names and contact info of all the WSJ subscribers through the Kindle. He should have them anyway. The WSJ has not suffered any decrease in quality - it's political bent is well known but the Rotten Bastard actually kept one of his promises and continued to support its journalistic integrity. I was worried as everyone else when he bought it, but then I was surprised to learn that the WSJ actually increased its quality. I don't read the WSJ for its opinions, I read it because I want good, factual business news that cuts through all the BS and tells it as it is. And that costs money.
Furthermore (in my opinion), we need to face facts: In order to get good quality journalism, we have to PAY for it. Journalism was always supported by Print advertising. Now, it's going to be supported by pay-to-view websites. Free only lasts a while in an economic boom (anyone remember the dot-com rush where EVERYTHING was free), then reality sets in and you have to pay for what you get. And I will be happy to pay for it. I will pay for honest, high quality journalism (I already do), as long as I get my money's worth.
Assuming I survive the nuke, it would be rather interesting to have a Cylon jock poop on my face. Will it be carbon-based poop, or silicone-based poop? And if it's silicone-based... will it smell bad and be soft? Or will I be hit with the equivalent of a brick to the face? And will it look like Tricia Helfer, or will it be your standard tin-clad Cylon jock-trooper taking a squat over my face?
And no, I can't claim credit for the name. That belongs to a friend of mine named Dov who resides in Las Vegas, and is a very large Jewish man. The poem it goes with is brilliant.
Please spew on the following:
1 - the likelihood of a comet bearing alien spores crashing into the Earth and infecting everyone with Athlete's Face.
2 - the coming Zombie armageddon and how long it'll take all the bodies to rot away in the weather so we survivors can keep on living
3 - Megan Fox... oh wait, women in general!
4 - String Theory
5 - Spam - the actual meat
6 - Cowboy Neal's Brain
7 - carbuncles
8 - How is it that Greg Gumbel STILL has a job?
The hills of Dixie Valley in this case. Fallon, NV was witness to an above-ground nuke in the 1960's at some point. The whole town came out to watch the big boom (more than 25 miles away). Apparently you can still go out there to Dixie Valley and see the blast crater.
And yes, I'm a Nevadan. I glow in the dark and sport an absurd immunity to arsenic. When the apocalypse does come around, I and my fellow Nevadans will be duking it out with the giant mutant cockroaches and their cthonic overloads atop the mounds of your corpses. (Texans ain't got shit when it comes to heat, environment, guns per capita, or any claim to be tough in general - we laugh in their general direction)
Artifakt, you've given me a lot to chew on. Thank you! I'm going to have to mull over the questions you raised... preferably over some good cold tequila.
And those would be the BIG problems I mentioned. If it turned out that we did have souls, then what would happen next? What would stop someone from trying to figure out how to hack it, control it, etc? Or my personal favorite: if we have souls, then what created them? And are there more out there? Does that mean that something like Cthlulu exists? Or Satan? Or God? The soul question opens up a whole realm of ugly - it's a lot easier/simpler to believe we're machines because the implications of being powered by an immortal spark of energy that defies the laws of thermodynamics are really, really big. And scary.
I don't buy your argument here, but I'm doing so based on my own personal beliefs and biases, and I reserve the right to be completely wrong. You are arguing essentially the environmental/behavioralist approach - that if I somehow get my mind wiped of memories, I am a blank slate ready to be reprogrammed into anything the environment and outside stressors dictate. I suspect that if we were to look into child psychology case studies, especially in terms of cases of abuse, I suspect you'd see a large number of survivors who go on to overcome their abuses and traumas from early childhood. While a majority would probably continue to perpetrate abuse as they had been taught, there would be a sizeable minority that wouldn't, and would erode your argument's validity.
Ergo, you couldn't just mindwipe someone and then reprogram them to do what you want - there may be an inner core that defies the programming, that dictates who you truly are.
If I could answer that... well, I wouldn't be on/. I don't know, honestly. I know about the sources and case studies you're referencing. And I can't refute them, it's known fact. I do have sources I could introduce that I could use to argue my opinion but 1) I have no conclusive evidence, only very compelling circumstantial evidence and 2) this is/. - only conclusive evidence is accepted and even then it's debated:-). I suspect that I'm going to end this with a lesson learned: always think first before typing.
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I'll heartily concede your point. I know you can do a lot more with your phone than I can with me. Mine just meets my requirements and needs.
Well, here's to T-Mobile figuring out a way to offer 4G??? Or at least an iPhone-compatible 3G network?
Because you were man enough to post your opinion with your actual user name, I'm going to respond. I love Apple, and I'm a fanboi. I used to run an old Samsung phone that was the first generation to have a color screen and texting capability (don't remember what model it was, just that it was big, had an antenna and camera, and was blue). Bought that back in 2004. I resisted the whole smartphone/iPhone rush up until this year because I was on T-Mobile, I loved their service, and I didn't want to pay assloads of money. But my wife got an iPhone and was on AT&T, and she loved it. So finally this year after much nagging by her, I left T-Mobile, went to AT&T, and got an iPhone 3G for $99 plus the standard 2 year service agreement. So now I pay $15 more a month now with AT&T for unlimited data and voice than I did with T-Mobile for just 400 minutes and unlimited texts, and I get all the versatility and features that the iPhone has. I also refuse to jailbreak it because I do not want to waste my time having to dodge getting my phone bricked. It does everything I want it to do. I really don't care how much a year I'm spending, because it's within my monthly budget and I'm getting far more in terms of features than I used to. Plus, once my two year term is up, AT&T's lock on Apple will be over, and I'll be able to go back to T-Mobile with my iPhone. So now that I've bored the absolute fuck out of you with my long-winded summary, let me say this - I love Mac and iPhone because it does what I want it to do, when I want it done, with a very low minimum of hassle and cost in my opinion. This is obviously not your sentiment. But I would ask that before you just badmouth us Mac fanbois again, you consider that SOME of us chose Mac not because it's anti-MS, but because it meets our needs. Now get off my lawn :-)
What polls are you citing? I'd be interested to see them, as I don't have any polls to cite my position and would like to know if I'm wrong or not.
Speaking as a member of the Cold Y generation, I believe a lot of the decline of the space program has to do with the attitude of the American public in general. I think our government, our military, and NASA would cheerfully push the envelope if they could, but as a number of different posters have pointed out previously in this thread, the biggest obstacle is us as a people. Even though we all benefit now from technologies developed then, space travel still means completely nothing to the average American citizen. They take microwave ovens for granted, for instance. Most people (excluding most everyone on /.) aren't aware (or particularly care) that a lot of our world dominance came from the technologies developed in the space race. To them, the Moon is just the moon, unreachable and nothing comes from it except reflected sunlight. No one they know goes to space, no one they know works in the space industry. But they ARE affected by climate change, and by social problems like crime, homelessness, poverty, etc. I feel that's why we hear so many calls for abolishing the space program or reducing its funding: because our politicians are being told by the American people that they consider climate change et al more important than a space program. They see more tangible results from funding going towards social concerns than putting a base on Mars. If we ever really want to get the space program going again, we have to present the American public with either a threat (Soviet dominance of space in the 50's and 60's), or one hell of an opportunity that they can understand. My personal favorite option is the sudden appearance of a star-faring alien race... but fat chance of that happening :O(
Mod this up!
Ye gods! We've actually been visited by a THREE DIGIT ID! How many feet of cobwebs are YOU trailing, old timer? And what hoary tomb did you crawl out of to inflict your will upon this dark earth? Does this mean that we could possibly be visited by a *GASP!* TWO DIGIT ID Methuselah!
Damn. The idea of having a loaded trebuchet on the moon is just freakishly awesome. The mind boggles at the possibilities inherent in this...
Which is offset by the fact that he has enough money to afford the bike, maintain the bike, knows how to ride it, and that he doesn't have to worry about impressing you.
Brilliant, sir! I applaud you! I'm going to have to remember that line on the Rapture and the early martyrs.
If I may ask, is the Engine Control more chaotic because the "secret sauce" is in the physical parts? Like how Boeing and Airbus's trade secrets are all located in the wings and not the main body of the aircraft?
Yup, I failed. Rebuke accepted.
Mmm.. I'm going to disagree with you. IMHO, exposing him to the world is exactly what was needed. Yes, there's going to be lots of jackass 15 year old imitators, but I think there would have been lots of those anyway, and if it wasn't Malik, it'd be someone else. No, guys like these need to get exposed to the world because then the world knows who they are. PrankNet's power was in its secrecy. No one knew about it, except for the 'in' crowd. But now, he's exposed. People know about him. He'll be famous for a brief amount of time... but then the fame will fade. He'll be old news, and his power to deceive and pull pranks will go with it. That's why it's critical to expose these guys. Let the world see them, get their message out in the open, let people make up their minds, and ultimately, let time fade them away to nothing. That's the greatest punishment one could visit: to make Malik irrelevant.
Prove it. You're just spouting your opinion at this point.
You're accusing me of astroturfing???? AWESOME!!!! That's the first time I've ever been accused of that! Dude, that's almost like a badge of honor. Course, I can see why you'd think I was astroturfing, but the first clue I'm not would be that I'm calling the owner of the WSJ a "Rotten Bastard". Last time I checked, astroturfers usually don't insult the hand that feeds them.
(don't mean you, SatanicPuppy, I mean Murdoch). The Rotten Bastard's right - quality journalism costs money. The "I can get anything for free, so why should I pay" ethos (in my opinion) leads to watered down crap being offered for free. People cannot make a living off "Free". Look at what we have now - 'free' news sources that don't give us much news but give us a whole lotta opinion masquerading as news (blogs, anyone?). It costs nothing to post your opinion based off of factoids gleaned from other sources, without even considering bias. But to produce honest-to-Gawd news? That's a quality product, produced by professionals who know how to separate fact from bias, and how to tell the difference between the two? That is worth money. The Genocidal Tyrant's completely within his rights to demand that Amazon give him an increased percentage of profits PLUS the names and contact info of all the WSJ subscribers through the Kindle. He should have them anyway. The WSJ has not suffered any decrease in quality - it's political bent is well known but the Rotten Bastard actually kept one of his promises and continued to support its journalistic integrity. I was worried as everyone else when he bought it, but then I was surprised to learn that the WSJ actually increased its quality. I don't read the WSJ for its opinions, I read it because I want good, factual business news that cuts through all the BS and tells it as it is. And that costs money. Furthermore (in my opinion), we need to face facts: In order to get good quality journalism, we have to PAY for it. Journalism was always supported by Print advertising. Now, it's going to be supported by pay-to-view websites. Free only lasts a while in an economic boom (anyone remember the dot-com rush where EVERYTHING was free), then reality sets in and you have to pay for what you get. And I will be happy to pay for it. I will pay for honest, high quality journalism (I already do), as long as I get my money's worth.
Assuming I survive the nuke, it would be rather interesting to have a Cylon jock poop on my face. Will it be carbon-based poop, or silicone-based poop? And if it's silicone-based... will it smell bad and be soft? Or will I be hit with the equivalent of a brick to the face? And will it look like Tricia Helfer, or will it be your standard tin-clad Cylon jock-trooper taking a squat over my face?
And no, I can't claim credit for the name. That belongs to a friend of mine named Dov who resides in Las Vegas, and is a very large Jewish man. The poem it goes with is brilliant.
Please tell me they clean the numbers first?
Please spew on the following: 1 - the likelihood of a comet bearing alien spores crashing into the Earth and infecting everyone with Athlete's Face. 2 - the coming Zombie armageddon and how long it'll take all the bodies to rot away in the weather so we survivors can keep on living 3 - Megan Fox... oh wait, women in general! 4 - String Theory 5 - Spam - the actual meat 6 - Cowboy Neal's Brain 7 - carbuncles 8 - How is it that Greg Gumbel STILL has a job?
The hills of Dixie Valley in this case. Fallon, NV was witness to an above-ground nuke in the 1960's at some point. The whole town came out to watch the big boom (more than 25 miles away). Apparently you can still go out there to Dixie Valley and see the blast crater. And yes, I'm a Nevadan. I glow in the dark and sport an absurd immunity to arsenic. When the apocalypse does come around, I and my fellow Nevadans will be duking it out with the giant mutant cockroaches and their cthonic overloads atop the mounds of your corpses. (Texans ain't got shit when it comes to heat, environment, guns per capita, or any claim to be tough in general - we laugh in their general direction)
Artifakt, you've given me a lot to chew on. Thank you! I'm going to have to mull over the questions you raised... preferably over some good cold tequila.
And those would be the BIG problems I mentioned. If it turned out that we did have souls, then what would happen next? What would stop someone from trying to figure out how to hack it, control it, etc? Or my personal favorite: if we have souls, then what created them? And are there more out there? Does that mean that something like Cthlulu exists? Or Satan? Or God? The soul question opens up a whole realm of ugly - it's a lot easier/simpler to believe we're machines because the implications of being powered by an immortal spark of energy that defies the laws of thermodynamics are really, really big. And scary.
I don't buy your argument here, but I'm doing so based on my own personal beliefs and biases, and I reserve the right to be completely wrong. You are arguing essentially the environmental/behavioralist approach - that if I somehow get my mind wiped of memories, I am a blank slate ready to be reprogrammed into anything the environment and outside stressors dictate. I suspect that if we were to look into child psychology case studies, especially in terms of cases of abuse, I suspect you'd see a large number of survivors who go on to overcome their abuses and traumas from early childhood. While a majority would probably continue to perpetrate abuse as they had been taught, there would be a sizeable minority that wouldn't, and would erode your argument's validity. Ergo, you couldn't just mindwipe someone and then reprogram them to do what you want - there may be an inner core that defies the programming, that dictates who you truly are.
If I could answer that... well, I wouldn't be on /. I don't know, honestly. I know about the sources and case studies you're referencing. And I can't refute them, it's known fact. I do have sources I could introduce that I could use to argue my opinion but 1) I have no conclusive evidence, only very compelling circumstantial evidence and 2) this is /. - only conclusive evidence is accepted and even then it's debated :-). I suspect that I'm going to end this with a lesson learned: always think first before typing.