If it is anything like Sims, the console version is a waste of time. These games are all about customization, this one more than any of the others. The console versions of the Sims got old after a week because you were stuck with the same clothes and furniture etc that came with the game. It is like a completely different game.
I disagree. Can't you imagine a rider to a bill that takes any "Yea" vote off the table? Say, dropping a nuke on St. Louis? Or eliminating the judicial branch? Or how about diminishing the power of the judicial branch, by deciding a monumentally important court case for them? Congress has no right to tell the courts who can and can't be tried in court. That's what checks and balances is for. Besides which, it seems pretty clear that there has been some serious violation of the law here that seriously need to be looked into. Passing telecom immunity is participating in a cover up.
I don't see how this is a complex issue. It isn't like FISA is a great bill or even, as the media is fond of calling it, a compromise. Can you elucidate for me the reasons this bill was necessary to pass?
Yes,yes,yes and yes!
I will not be a convert until it is as convenient to highlight, scuff and annotate as it is in my dusty tomes. This would be easy to implement with software but I haven't heard of it done just yet. There could be a beautiful future in trading PDFs that have been marked and annotated extensively, the responses creating new works in themselves. Much like a blog where the comments are as intriguing as the original piece. I will never throw out my first copy of Slaughterhouse Five because it is filled with comments and insights that reveal where I was at that point in my life, and what the book meant to me. Even where the spine is damaged because it was left open, where it was dog-eared and stained, reveal the reader's frame of mind and the effect the book had on them. And loaning a book like that is far more meaningful than passing along a pdf.
And while it may be lighter to move a Kindle than my six bookcases, the Kindle is still heavier than most of the books I throw in my purse on a daily basis.
And I also like that a physical book has a cover that you expose to the world, inviting dialog.
There is some truth to this. We pay farmers to throw away crops while people in the global South are rioting because they have no food. However, just because it is technically possible for everyone to have adequate food doesn't mean that the infrastructure and distribution exists to make this possible. That's like saying just because we can create solar power (and the sun has more energy than we know what to do with) we are not facing an energy crisis. Our fishing techniques are shockingly wasteful---1/4 of the fish caught are thrown out (about 27 million). More developing nations are eating beef (it takes 7 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef) while developed nations are transforming former food crops into ethanol. Even in the U.S., we daily throw away enough food to feed every homeless person here. So sure, it is technically possible to defeat hunger but we have failed miserably so far and the situation is getting much worse.
You say, "when the need arises, we always step up," but that isn't true. In fact, when the need arises "we" go to other countries and take their resources so that "we" can continue to use eight times as much as we produce. It isn't really about passing some magical threshold where everyone starves. It is about an increase in the number of the many that are starving while more resources go to the few born lucky. So it is not some forward-facing idea, it is something that has always been (well, at least since the end of hunter-gatherer societies), a constant struggle. It is wise to see these problems and deal with them rather than saying "nature will take care of it." I suppose that is easiest to say when the vultures are not at your back.
That doesn't mean you have to agree with it. The fury behind this crusade is that, you're right, they already do have a ton of information on us. And it has already gone way too far.
I don't know if it is a moral issue. It is a safety issue. Americans, at least are spoiled. We see a country like Iran and think, "how sad for them to live in Tyranny. That could never happen here." And that's probably what they thought in Iran too. The sheer stupidity of our trust (in the government) can be infuriating. In fact, I probably shouldn't be typing this right now...but then, where are the safe havens from the prying eyes of the CIA? Surveilance is everywhere. Dissent doesn't *feel* risky at this point. It never does until it's too late.
Wow. I would much rather voluntarily offer information to a social network than be forced to give my info to the government. Remember that the more power you give the government the easier it is for them to crush resistance when it turns oppressive.
Yeah, that's what my boyfriend says.
It's more than nostalgia. I'm starting a blog with a friend from college and a woman I knew in high school. She looked up to me when I was a senior and she a freshman but that was ten years ago. Sure, I guess I could just say "fuck off" because we happened to go off to different colleges. But she turned into a brilliant woman with the same interests as me. I could read a famous blog written by strangers but I find hers as informative. Being friends with people in other cities has become acceptable through chat, at least with social networks these are people that you have at one time known. Sometimes you have watched them develop and grow.
And I like the way it is more focused than IRC. In chat, people go through the rigamarole of "How are you?...How's your job?" poking around to get at the heart of the matter. In a personal blog, the person is self-filtering through all that crap. They are only going to take the time to write about what's thrilling them at the moment, whether it's a book, a relationship, a piece of software...my point is, they decide what's important and give you all the details. And you respond if you feel like it.
The truth is keeping in touch with people is difficult. I have met some amazing people in my life. And true, I don't want to have an hour long conversation with most of them every week. It is a lower level of committment to check their page or read their blog. But these people are mostly interested in the same things I am passionate about so i want to keep up with not just them as individuals but their projects as well.
About a month ago, I saw a bulletin on myspace that a friend from college was road-tripping through my city. I offered her a place to crash and now she has decided to move here. That's not living in the past at all.
I will say though, I have enjoyed finding out what became of the first boy I ever kissed and my best friend in first grade. I don't check these pages often but if people weren't ever curious about such things, there wouldn't be high school reunions.
This is the first time I have heard this POV. Do you have any sources to back this up? I'd be interested to learn more.
Let's not forget that the actual programmers that work for these companies (at least the ones I know) are big fans of open source and/or Linux. That has to have _some_ influence on those at the top. If not, (in this hypothetical future) there's bound to be some break-away, wherein serious programmers start making games for Linux because there's clearly a market and that market is being denied. And maybe that will take as long to develop as Linux has but I doubt it. You can already see the fringes of such efforts.
That's a chicken and egg problem. You can't get it in the stores until people use it. So it has to get to a certain critical mass. The question is whether it has reached that level of usability.
Haven't you ever wondered what happened to your best friend from Elementary school? Your favorite acquaintances from college? It's not about chat. It is about keeping a link to people that would otherwise get left behind. As (at least in the U.S.) society becomes more mobile there is a strong desire to keep those ties. There's a lot of lonely people out there who treasure reading the blogs, hearing the music, and looking at pictures of former in-the-flesh friends.
This discussion is about Ubuntu, not Linux in general. I have been through four upgrades of Ubuntu and I have yet to have your problem. Firefox comes installed and works right of the bat. Your experiences with other distros is irrelevant here.
On the one hand, you are completely right. I have seen potential job candidates judged on the cleavage in their Facebook photos--and this is all without accessing the actual page.
But you don't have to put anything questionable on your page. There's nothing inherent in myspace etc that you couldn't put on your homepage. So I think some people will lose jobs over it but they will get jobs eventually and learn their lesson.
Much scarier is what corporations and governments may want to do with that info. Facebook scares the friendliness out of me and I'm not too pleased that Murdoch owns Myspace. The same people that don't want their names on the PETA mailing list are happy to post pics of themselves protesting free trade.
Linux will always be one or more steps behind Microsoft when it comes to supporting the latest hardware. Like how when Vista came out 90% of new games wouldn't work on it and it was suggested that users by a new computer to get it to work? Most users don't have the latest hardware. If we lost the early adopters there would still be a solid "market" there.
Don't forget that the developing world is catching on to the world of computing and a free OS is going to mean a lot more to many of them than one that requires a total hardware upgrade to use. Add to this Linux's penchant for having more languages than Windows and you have several billion more users.
BTW, I don't run a server and I'm not a programmer. I use Ubuntu for my home PC. I used to have a Windows partition but after the last update I finally deleted it (this may change when Spore comes out!).
I think we have to keep in mind that we are comparing Ubuntu to the other O.S.s out there. Case in point: When I was running a dual boot, clicking on the drive that contained Ubuntu while I was in Windows resulted in the message: "This drive is unformatted. Would you like to format it now?"
Fortunately I know better than to reformat my Ubuntu drive but that is hardly what I would call "idiot proof."
Ubuntu is not perfect. But neither is Windows/Mac. But you can get tons of free support for Ubuntu. More importantly, people have this idea that Linux is all on the command line because that's what most people have seen. If more people had exposure to it I think more would make the switch. Because it is certainly as entry-level as the others. Let's not get caught up in minutiae
On a related note, even This American Life is getting political. The most recent episode is about the Bush administration's strategy of pushing for absolute power on even the smallest issues. It is actually really disturbing, particularly for a show that generally focuses on quaint tales from grandmas and do-gooders.
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1236
As a publicist I can confirm this is true. Almost weekly I go to pitch a story to a journalist only to find out that their job has been eliminated. Newspapers still have a Travel section and a Religion section, etc, but more and more all these beats are covered by one person. You can't get the same quality if you have one person doing the job of three. It is actually quite similar to the cut-backs in education that we're all familiar with. There are many papers that no longer have a Book Reviews editor or a Fine Arts editor but still have three Sports editors.
It's easy to say that when you work on the security end of it. You have never, for example, had to deal with a seven year-old computer that wipes out any changes every time you restart. Kind of makes it hard to upgrade "allowed" programs. Or computers that no one uses because the person who set the password doesn't work there any more.
That kind of top-down thinking doesn't take advantage of the collective smarts of your staff. I work in a very small office now where I am trusted to install whatever I please. And yes, switching from Notepad to Notepad++ does make me more productive. Switching from Globalscape to WinSCP does make me more productive. Kompozer and Opera would never be corporate "approved" programs but they _do_ make me more productive. When I'm not on Slashdot, anyway.;)
Download mixes from torrent sites (you can DL torrents with one click using Opera). I feel good about this ethically as you are only listening to one song by each band. I particularly like "indie rock playlist" which has a new list every month. Keep only a fraction of those songs, the very best.
Listen to music podcasts: KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has great live recordings. NPR's All Songs Considered. The Sound Opinions podcast keeps one up to date on really mainstream stuff. The Bay Bridged to gives a good sampling of local music, should one be lucky enough to live in San Francisco.
Listen to Pandora.com, to see if it can recommend any songs based on your old favorites (if using Pandora, be sure to keep genres separate or it gets confused. And monitor it or before you know it it will be playing crap). Other people like lastfm but the only times I tried it it mostly played good songs that I have already heard too many times.
Then I see if you can find your new favorite songs (found on isohunt or podcasts) on finetune.com, which is a site where you can put up your own "radio station." You can pick three by any artist, which is plenty to get a sampling. Finetune will also, like lastfm, reccommend songs, bands and other stations for you to listen to. You can also search through tags, DJs and bands to find things similar to what you know you like. Then if you find anything catchy or intrguing, you can throw it on your playlist.
When you find that you have either downloaded three or four songs by a band or are really excited to hear one of their songs come up on your station, that is the time to go to emusic and buy the album. At this point you will be so excited about your recent finds that you will want to make mix tapes for all your friends of the best of these best ofs. There are tons of other great sites, this is just one person's technique. Of course I don't do this because it all starts with (horrors!) file sharing.
One person's finetune station (must have flash), that isn't neccessarily me: http://www.finetune.com/user/daretoeatapeach/
Not true! Corporate radio sucks: they only play the "safe" (read: not innovative) songs and they play less variety. So you get established bands that are doing the same old same old that occasionally still have brilliance and the recording industry's best guess on the best new track from whatever musical revolution has already happened . When I hear the radio it sounds like they are still looking for the next Nirvana or Rage Against the Machine when they should be looking for _new_ innovators. By the time a a good band (the Postal Service, for example) makes it to the radio the fans that sparked the scene have overplayed it themselves and moved on. If you are relying on radio for your music you won't have much luck. But there are tons of great bands out there that won't get played if their fans don't make mixtapes and pass along the goodness.
I could never support DRM tunes because half the joy of finding new music is passing it along to others. Because of Napster I discovered whole genres of music--blues, punk, emo, swing--that I would never have gotten into if I had to buy a ton of albums. I believe those downloading today have more diverse tastes than the generations before me because it is so much easier to research and download a sample.
If I download three songs by a band that none of my friends have heard of and put the best one on a mix tape and give it to all of my friends, that is free publicity for the band. Remember that the major labels pay people to go to clubs and hand out free CDs before an album breaks big (or you sometimes see them in stacks for free at record stores) to spread word of mouth. And also remember that the overwhelming majority of bands (IE not Brittany) make their money off of touring so passing along a good tune may put more money in their pockets.
In the spirit of sharing, you might find some good songs here: http://www.finetune.com/user/daretoeatapeach but then again these are just my preferences. I have 500 songs on this playlist and 99% of them you won't here on the radio.
If you are not finding good music than your friends are clearly not downloading enough.;)
Slashdot Mirror
If it is anything like Sims, the console version is a waste of time. These games are all about customization, this one more than any of the others. The console versions of the Sims got old after a week because you were stuck with the same clothes and furniture etc that came with the game. It is like a completely different game.
I disagree. Can't you imagine a rider to a bill that takes any "Yea" vote off the table? Say, dropping a nuke on St. Louis? Or eliminating the judicial branch? Or how about diminishing the power of the judicial branch, by deciding a monumentally important court case for them? Congress has no right to tell the courts who can and can't be tried in court. That's what checks and balances is for. Besides which, it seems pretty clear that there has been some serious violation of the law here that seriously need to be looked into. Passing telecom immunity is participating in a cover up. I don't see how this is a complex issue. It isn't like FISA is a great bill or even, as the media is fond of calling it, a compromise. Can you elucidate for me the reasons this bill was necessary to pass?
Yes,yes,yes and yes! I will not be a convert until it is as convenient to highlight, scuff and annotate as it is in my dusty tomes. This would be easy to implement with software but I haven't heard of it done just yet. There could be a beautiful future in trading PDFs that have been marked and annotated extensively, the responses creating new works in themselves. Much like a blog where the comments are as intriguing as the original piece. I will never throw out my first copy of Slaughterhouse Five because it is filled with comments and insights that reveal where I was at that point in my life, and what the book meant to me. Even where the spine is damaged because it was left open, where it was dog-eared and stained, reveal the reader's frame of mind and the effect the book had on them. And loaning a book like that is far more meaningful than passing along a pdf. And while it may be lighter to move a Kindle than my six bookcases, the Kindle is still heavier than most of the books I throw in my purse on a daily basis. And I also like that a physical book has a cover that you expose to the world, inviting dialog.
There is some truth to this. We pay farmers to throw away crops while people in the global South are rioting because they have no food. However, just because it is technically possible for everyone to have adequate food doesn't mean that the infrastructure and distribution exists to make this possible. That's like saying just because we can create solar power (and the sun has more energy than we know what to do with) we are not facing an energy crisis. Our fishing techniques are shockingly wasteful---1/4 of the fish caught are thrown out (about 27 million). More developing nations are eating beef (it takes 7 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef) while developed nations are transforming former food crops into ethanol. Even in the U.S., we daily throw away enough food to feed every homeless person here. So sure, it is technically possible to defeat hunger but we have failed miserably so far and the situation is getting much worse. You say, "when the need arises, we always step up," but that isn't true. In fact, when the need arises "we" go to other countries and take their resources so that "we" can continue to use eight times as much as we produce. It isn't really about passing some magical threshold where everyone starves. It is about an increase in the number of the many that are starving while more resources go to the few born lucky. So it is not some forward-facing idea, it is something that has always been (well, at least since the end of hunter-gatherer societies), a constant struggle. It is wise to see these problems and deal with them rather than saying "nature will take care of it." I suppose that is easiest to say when the vultures are not at your back.
That doesn't mean you have to agree with it. The fury behind this crusade is that, you're right, they already do have a ton of information on us. And it has already gone way too far.
I don't know if it is a moral issue. It is a safety issue. Americans, at least are spoiled. We see a country like Iran and think, "how sad for them to live in Tyranny. That could never happen here." And that's probably what they thought in Iran too. The sheer stupidity of our trust (in the government) can be infuriating. In fact, I probably shouldn't be typing this right now...but then, where are the safe havens from the prying eyes of the CIA? Surveilance is everywhere. Dissent doesn't *feel* risky at this point. It never does until it's too late.
Wow. I would much rather voluntarily offer information to a social network than be forced to give my info to the government. Remember that the more power you give the government the easier it is for them to crush resistance when it turns oppressive.
Yeah, that's what my boyfriend says. It's more than nostalgia. I'm starting a blog with a friend from college and a woman I knew in high school. She looked up to me when I was a senior and she a freshman but that was ten years ago. Sure, I guess I could just say "fuck off" because we happened to go off to different colleges. But she turned into a brilliant woman with the same interests as me. I could read a famous blog written by strangers but I find hers as informative. Being friends with people in other cities has become acceptable through chat, at least with social networks these are people that you have at one time known. Sometimes you have watched them develop and grow.
And I like the way it is more focused than IRC. In chat, people go through the rigamarole of "How are you?...How's your job?" poking around to get at the heart of the matter. In a personal blog, the person is self-filtering through all that crap. They are only going to take the time to write about what's thrilling them at the moment, whether it's a book, a relationship, a piece of software...my point is, they decide what's important and give you all the details. And you respond if you feel like it.
The truth is keeping in touch with people is difficult. I have met some amazing people in my life. And true, I don't want to have an hour long conversation with most of them every week. It is a lower level of committment to check their page or read their blog. But these people are mostly interested in the same things I am passionate about so i want to keep up with not just them as individuals but their projects as well.
About a month ago, I saw a bulletin on myspace that a friend from college was road-tripping through my city. I offered her a place to crash and now she has decided to move here. That's not living in the past at all.
I will say though, I have enjoyed finding out what became of the first boy I ever kissed and my best friend in first grade. I don't check these pages often but if people weren't ever curious about such things, there wouldn't be high school reunions.
This is the first time I have heard this POV. Do you have any sources to back this up? I'd be interested to learn more. Let's not forget that the actual programmers that work for these companies (at least the ones I know) are big fans of open source and/or Linux. That has to have _some_ influence on those at the top. If not, (in this hypothetical future) there's bound to be some break-away, wherein serious programmers start making games for Linux because there's clearly a market and that market is being denied. And maybe that will take as long to develop as Linux has but I doubt it. You can already see the fringes of such efforts.
That's a chicken and egg problem. You can't get it in the stores until people use it. So it has to get to a certain critical mass. The question is whether it has reached that level of usability.
Haven't you ever wondered what happened to your best friend from Elementary school? Your favorite acquaintances from college? It's not about chat. It is about keeping a link to people that would otherwise get left behind. As (at least in the U.S.) society becomes more mobile there is a strong desire to keep those ties. There's a lot of lonely people out there who treasure reading the blogs, hearing the music, and looking at pictures of former in-the-flesh friends.
This discussion is about Ubuntu, not Linux in general. I have been through four upgrades of Ubuntu and I have yet to have your problem. Firefox comes installed and works right of the bat. Your experiences with other distros is irrelevant here.
On the one hand, you are completely right. I have seen potential job candidates judged on the cleavage in their Facebook photos--and this is all without accessing the actual page.
But you don't have to put anything questionable on your page. There's nothing inherent in myspace etc that you couldn't put on your homepage. So I think some people will lose jobs over it but they will get jobs eventually and learn their lesson.
Much scarier is what corporations and governments may want to do with that info. Facebook scares the friendliness out of me and I'm not too pleased that Murdoch owns Myspace. The same people that don't want their names on the PETA mailing list are happy to post pics of themselves protesting free trade.
Don't forget that the developing world is catching on to the world of computing and a free OS is going to mean a lot more to many of them than one that requires a total hardware upgrade to use. Add to this Linux's penchant for having more languages than Windows and you have several billion more users.
BTW, I don't run a server and I'm not a programmer. I use Ubuntu for my home PC. I used to have a Windows partition but after the last update I finally deleted it (this may change when Spore comes out!).
I think we have to keep in mind that we are comparing Ubuntu to the other O.S.s out there. Case in point: When I was running a dual boot, clicking on the drive that contained Ubuntu while I was in Windows resulted in the message: "This drive is unformatted. Would you like to format it now?" Fortunately I know better than to reformat my Ubuntu drive but that is hardly what I would call "idiot proof."
Ubuntu is not perfect. But neither is Windows/Mac. But you can get tons of free support for Ubuntu. More importantly, people have this idea that Linux is all on the command line because that's what most people have seen. If more people had exposure to it I think more would make the switch. Because it is certainly as entry-level as the others. Let's not get caught up in minutiae
On a related note, even This American Life is getting political. The most recent episode is about the Bush administration's strategy of pushing for absolute power on even the smallest issues. It is actually really disturbing, particularly for a show that generally focuses on quaint tales from grandmas and do-gooders. http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1236
As a publicist I can confirm this is true. Almost weekly I go to pitch a story to a journalist only to find out that their job has been eliminated. Newspapers still have a Travel section and a Religion section, etc, but more and more all these beats are covered by one person. You can't get the same quality if you have one person doing the job of three. It is actually quite similar to the cut-backs in education that we're all familiar with. There are many papers that no longer have a Book Reviews editor or a Fine Arts editor but still have three Sports editors.
It's easy to say that when you work on the security end of it. You have never, for example, had to deal with a seven year-old computer that wipes out any changes every time you restart. Kind of makes it hard to upgrade "allowed" programs. Or computers that no one uses because the person who set the password doesn't work there any more. That kind of top-down thinking doesn't take advantage of the collective smarts of your staff. I work in a very small office now where I am trusted to install whatever I please. And yes, switching from Notepad to Notepad++ does make me more productive. Switching from Globalscape to WinSCP does make me more productive. Kompozer and Opera would never be corporate "approved" programs but they _do_ make me more productive. When I'm not on Slashdot, anyway. ;)
Download mixes from torrent sites (you can DL torrents with one click using Opera). I feel good about this ethically as you are only listening to one song by each band. I particularly like "indie rock playlist" which has a new list every month. Keep only a fraction of those songs, the very best. Listen to music podcasts: KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has great live recordings. NPR's All Songs Considered. The Sound Opinions podcast keeps one up to date on really mainstream stuff. The Bay Bridged to gives a good sampling of local music, should one be lucky enough to live in San Francisco. Listen to Pandora.com, to see if it can recommend any songs based on your old favorites (if using Pandora, be sure to keep genres separate or it gets confused. And monitor it or before you know it it will be playing crap). Other people like lastfm but the only times I tried it it mostly played good songs that I have already heard too many times. Then I see if you can find your new favorite songs (found on isohunt or podcasts) on finetune.com, which is a site where you can put up your own "radio station." You can pick three by any artist, which is plenty to get a sampling. Finetune will also, like lastfm, reccommend songs, bands and other stations for you to listen to. You can also search through tags, DJs and bands to find things similar to what you know you like. Then if you find anything catchy or intrguing, you can throw it on your playlist. When you find that you have either downloaded three or four songs by a band or are really excited to hear one of their songs come up on your station, that is the time to go to emusic and buy the album. At this point you will be so excited about your recent finds that you will want to make mix tapes for all your friends of the best of these best ofs. There are tons of other great sites, this is just one person's technique. Of course I don't do this because it all starts with (horrors!) file sharing. One person's finetune station (must have flash), that isn't neccessarily me: http://www.finetune.com/user/daretoeatapeach/
Not true! Corporate radio sucks: they only play the "safe" (read: not innovative) songs and they play less variety. So you get established bands that are doing the same old same old that occasionally still have brilliance and the recording industry's best guess on the best new track from whatever musical revolution has already happened . When I hear the radio it sounds like they are still looking for the next Nirvana or Rage Against the Machine when they should be looking for _new_ innovators. By the time a a good band (the Postal Service, for example) makes it to the radio the fans that sparked the scene have overplayed it themselves and moved on. If you are relying on radio for your music you won't have much luck. But there are tons of great bands out there that won't get played if their fans don't make mixtapes and pass along the goodness.
I could never support DRM tunes because half the joy of finding new music is passing it along to others. Because of Napster I discovered whole genres of music--blues, punk, emo, swing--that I would never have gotten into if I had to buy a ton of albums. I believe those downloading today have more diverse tastes than the generations before me because it is so much easier to research and download a sample.
If I download three songs by a band that none of my friends have heard of and put the best one on a mix tape and give it to all of my friends, that is free publicity for the band. Remember that the major labels pay people to go to clubs and hand out free CDs before an album breaks big (or you sometimes see them in stacks for free at record stores) to spread word of mouth. And also remember that the overwhelming majority of bands (IE not Brittany) make their money off of touring so passing along a good tune may put more money in their pockets.
In the spirit of sharing, you might find some good songs here: http://www.finetune.com/user/daretoeatapeach but then again these are just my preferences. I have 500 songs on this playlist and 99% of them you won't here on the radio.
If you are not finding good music than your friends are clearly not downloading enough. ;)