I have been in a similar position before, though for me it was spamming for a company. I was working for this designer lighting manufacturer as an admin and we were definitely feeling some of the effects of the economy at the time (right after the.com bust). So the CEO came to me with the option of gaining customers through spamming. I have never liked spam, and like most right minded geeks, find its existance annoying and unnessessary. However, I am a college student and jobs like this do not come along all the time (decent pay, good coworkers, very flexible), so I went along with it and did a round of spamming. I did try to convince the boss of other methods, but the fact of the matter is the he had his mind set on this. I figured its either my job, or a lot of pissed off/annoyed people who I will never see. I shot out 27,000 spams, not that much next to some, but 27,000 nonetheless. We got a lot of hate mail the next day, it was actually rather amusing in some respects since the rants were often JeffK worthy. So I kept my job, and 27,000 people got spammed. Those 27,000 people have now completely forgotten about that spam, and I have not forgotten about keeping my job. In short, its a dog-eat-dog world, and sometimes you gotta bite the bullet to stay afloat. If you won't do it, some other monkey with a lot less scruples than you will do it, and probably even worst.
Let me get this straight, Microsoft hires her to do this little commercial, I imagine not giving much of a shit whether or not she switched. Perhaps she mentioned the word switch, so she seemed to be qualified. Then they will actually punish her for their retarded PR mistake? This is like a parent telling their kids, "Jonny, go tell our neighbors about our dog that we don't have." And then once the neighbors call up asking why Jonny is going on and on about a non-existant dog, the parents say, "JONNY! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, YOU LYING YOU LITTLE SOB, IMA GONNA SMACK YOU DOWN!" Punishing your workers for the very thing you hired them to do demonstrates piss poor decision making on the managers parts. MS is the one who came up with this rediculous faux-switch campaign, shooting the messenger who brought it to the people is just irresponsible. Personally, this sounds like a pink-slip relay, everyone handing the responsiblity down until it arrives at the foot of the person who listened to what everyone told them to do.
Yea, i agree with you. People act as if this is any real indicator of life outside our solar system. Honestly, lets look at the facts: we have billions of galaxies (for arguments sake, ill assme the universe if finite), and in each of those galaxies millions of stars. The very fact that we're here typing this demonstates that life is not impossible, so why is it so absolutely hard to believe it could happen elsewhere, though not nessessarily with the same results. Whenever people try to impress their 'laws of biology' as being the end all of proof that life is hard to beget. I find this ironic, as we have a hard time leaving our planet surface without blowing millions/billions, let alone actually visiting other planets. So I would put our 'Universe Experience' at pretty much a low ass number. Before we all get giddy trying to create laws & theories about all this stuff, why not think about the possiblity for life to form in environments that would not be hospital towards us. I am all for debate, but people who act as if we really know anything in this respect and apply the 'rules' of our evolution with religous strictness to other planets are being a little rediculous and closed minded. Just because it happened one way does not mean that is THE way.
This item will most likely not get more valuable as time passes, so if you wish to make any monetary gain on it, the sooner you sell it the more money you make on it. Now, in the short run this may not be true, but as privitized space programs start becoming more prevailent, meteorites are going to become 'common' items. A meteorite is merely a piece of rock thats been moving through space for a while; there's a lot of them out there, we just don't have immediate access. Once companies can easily procure such items, they will start selling them to labs in record speed. Unless they pull some sort of 'diamond-mining' scheme, prices will drop. So in short, do not depend upon the meteor as a longterm investment.
Wow, same song, different year. Last time Sony acted like the PS2 chip was 'God-on-a-PCB'. They even claimed that they could make highend 3D dev systems that could blow the machines of that time away with super realtime rendering, etc. And now, they say they have a supercomputer-like chip. Maybe for the PS4 they can tell us about the NASA beowulf-cluster-like chip which can predict the stock market's picks up to 1 year in advance. Oh, and also create a 1:1 model of the universe, complete with infinity. Seriously, I understand that these chips are powerful, but Sony hypes this crap like its god-in-a-can. Lets not buy into it.
They actually needed to commission a 'task force' to figure this out? I mean, for christ sakes, I can tell you the things that piss people off the most online *right now* for free, no research required:
1. Spam
2. Popup Ads
Yes, off the top of my head I came up with those 2 stunning conclusions. Seriously, I often wonder if the employees these companies have their own brains or if they get 'CorpOS: Dumb Terminal' installed as soon as they arrive. Coming in loud and clear Captain Obvious, sir!
You guessed correctly. Actually, I have been camping in southern NJ a couple times; the pine barrens are pretty nice and I know as well as anyone the southern NJ can be as hickish & rural as Alabama. But we're still 'Dirty Jersey' since the north is where all the attention is directed, us being a massive suburb to NYC.
As a resident of NJ for the last 20 years, I can say that there is no way this could possibly happen. As my fellow residents can vouch, NJ is the cleanest place of all the places in the world. Where else in the world can you wake up to the the beautiful view of a smoke-stack filled skyline, emitting fluffy plumes of green tinged smoke. Or perhaps the placid lakes and ponds, that maintain their rainbow colored, slick surfaces all year around. No sir, you cannot be more in tune with nature unless you live in NJ.
If it is possible to supply third-world countries with food, but only of the genetically-altered variety, then perhaps we should genetically engineer the plants such that they cannot reproduce. This way, there is no fear of the plant spreading uncontrolably. I have no idea how difficult this would be, but it is definitely not impossible. No need to mill the corn, or handle it any differently from 'normal' corn.
Apple has maintained strict control over its distribution rights regarding Macs. I would imagine that they felt that Zettabyte was 'out of bounds' by selling their 'customized' macs. I was unaware of Zettabyte before this, but I am assuming they just added parts to existing macs and resell them. This would be no surprise, given Apple's iron grip on the control of the Mac in general, from design to distribution. I personally think this is dumb of Apple, since more macs being sold = bigger market share = more people buying mac stuff now & in the future. It has its disadvantages and advantages, but in light of Apple's financial situation (they have not been on really solid ground for a couple years), I would say the long term benefits of wider usage outweigh the short-term problems & loss of control. Just my $0.02.
Maya still has greater appeal on non-macs
on
Maya for Mac OS X
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I do not see 3D going the same route as video editing & 2D editing, simply because of the current road that most 3D studios are following. Increasingly linux is being used instead of NT or SGIs in these studios. Why? Because they're cheap. No licensing for the OS, great remote administration support, amongst other things. Macs do not succeed at the efficientcy vs money contest anywhere as well as a linux box would. Another issue is that Macintosh has yet to get a highend 3D development card where as the selection is quite large for PC. I am not talking about GF4's here, but about Wildcats, Quadros, Glorias, etc. Only recently did Apple finally get a real GF4 and not the hobbled GF4 MX, and a GF4 is far from a highend 3D development card. I will be surprised if Apple takes over the 3D development market unless they start trying a new strategy.
When I first played Halo (on a friend's xbox), it was fun, enjoyable and all that good stuff. It had the ability to amuse me for a couple hours or so, but got old after a couple weeks. If they are planning on doing a 75% recycle (25% new content/features), I do not think Halo will be anything close to what Half-Life was to the PC FPS community. Their only chance to make Halo a massive hit on the PC is to make sure it has extensive mod support and good communication with the mod developers. Gearbox did a great job with Opposing Forces, Blue Shift, and Half-life PS2, so they have that in their favor, but in general console to PC conversions generally seem lacking. GTA3 is a good example of this: I had never played GTA3 before when the PC version came out. According everyone I talked to, it had sweet graphics, awesome gameplay, the interesting music feature, etc. However, once I started playing it I was sorely dissappointed, especially by the graphics and gameplay. I was never a big fan of GTA1 or 2 since the gameplay was way too simple, but I figured they had solved this problem with 3 but I was wrong (though it was greatly improved). The graphics sucked, period. Sorry, after playing Sacrifice (came out in 2000), GTA looks like crap, and the post-rendering filters are just a cheap way of covering up how low poly everything is, along with the lowres textures. Halo has graphics on its side, but my question is whether it's gameplay with retain that 'console' quality. PC games are often more complex than console games these days since there are less limitations in certain respects. I just hope Halo does not follow the direct-port route, since that would be a waste.
That device looks remarkably like the tools 3D developers use to model objects based off sculptures. These basically read coordinates from the real 3D space that your working on, such as a sculpture of a bust, and then places vertices in the corresponding 3D space in the computer program, Maya, Softimage, etc. These devices cost a lot because of their precision. If you wanted to get laser-mouse quality movement & precision, you'd need to buy one that cost $2000+. I imagine this Phantom device follows the same system as the 3D coord mapping device. As mentioned in the write up, these devices would definately be able to have a very full range of motion, otherwise gamers would be breaking these things a lot for any range of reasons. Looks interesting however, we shall see where this goes.
Its a good thing Fred wasn't around back when Action Park was open (for those who don't live in Jersey, AP was a water park that featured non-stop action packed injuries) as he probably would have been severely screwed up in the process. No, better to use New Jersey residents since they just keep coming back for more! As for the engineers, etc involved, the way they went about designing Action Park is they walked into a local Kindergarten classroom and said to the kids, "Tell us about the bestest rides ever that you would make for a water park!" The kids handed them crayon sketches of various slides/deathtraps, and the engineers took em and built em straight from the drawings (they figured blueprints were for pansies). The result: Action Park, a place where fun is lurking around every corner (along with a lawsuit).
This is an excellent example of an institution using religion as a tool. This seems like a very cynical move on their part, and shows how religion is constantly manipulated to serve the institutions instead of the people. To clarify my point, there is a difference between the institutions of religion and religion itself. Due to Islam's very involved nature (5 prayer sessions a day, periods fasting, etc), the religion & the institution are harder to seperate. Terrorist manipulate Islamic teachings to cast themselves in a positive light, fundamentalists manipulate it to force people to believe in an extremely strict, 'holy' existance. This is just another case of that, though this time there are different reasons behind the move, though in the end it is to merely serve the desires of the religious leaders. I am not against the institutions of religion, but more often than not they twist the words of the teachings to serve their own ends.
This sounds good (anything that takes power from the RIAA is good), but will it come at some other cost (to the consumer or artist)? As long as this system was universal, ie, any site/group who wanted to distribute music like this could utilize this system over the current distribution methods. Circumvention of the RIAA altogether is impossible due to the massive amount of lobbying power they have, and their unquenched taste for money. They will stoop as low as they go to achieve their aims, and I am HIGHLY doubtful that they would agree to something that took money & power out of their hands and placed it back into the hands of artists. This is somewhat the antithesis of what they have been striving for (which is what exactly, I don't know; total control of music content on & offline?). This seems like a great idea, but the RIAA will have its way with it first. Don't get too exciting, as this proposal could end up in the wastebasket pretty quickly if the RIAA is determined enough to crush it with gobs of money. Unfortunate, but true...
From the reviews I've read, and people I've talked to, the extra laser doesn't really add too much to its percision. This product suffers from the 'more is better' stigmata, just like the Voodoo4 & Voodoo5. I personally have no desire to spend an extra $20 for some 'feature' whos use is rather dubious & redundant anyway. I'll just buy a single laser mouse for less that does the same exact thing. Regarding the boomslang, its a piece of crap, honest, facts. My friend had 2, both died within 5 months of having it, and I have heard numerous other complaints from other people regarding it. Sorry, but if I spent $80 (boomslang is not cheap) on a mouse, it better damn well work for bare minimum 2 years perfectly. People these days are very quick to judge a product purely by its speed, performance, etc etc, but no one really judges the lifetime of these products. I know I'd rather have a slighly slower HD that has a 99.9% chance of living for 5 years, than some top of the line IBM drive thats more than likely to croak within the first 7 months.
Its good that our lifespans are increasing, however with the current over-population issues, this is a definate double-edge sword. With increased lifespans, we'd have to rework retirement since theres no way that the workforce can support a massive increase in elderly people. The current age for retirement is suited for the current 'normal' lifespan, but would fall apart if we started living 80+ years on average. The economy works because a majority of your population is either working or going to be working. If that balance shifted, where the non-working force was greater than that of the current working force, the problems would be endless. With increased lifespan must come increased retirement. But as we know, most people are definately ready for retirement by 60, and their bodies (and their state of being) is what determines this. If we could both increase lifespan *AND* reduce the aging of the body over that period of time, we would have the best of both worlds. This is by no means impossible, but will really determine if long-living en-mass is a real possibility or not.
I agree that we should definately continue looking for answers for this old question (the origins of the universe), but the fact of the matter is that any conclusion we come up with is more or less assumed from postulated data. This includes yesterday's post regarding the age of the universe. We can examine the universe from our position in it, but its impossible to make 100% factual judgements about certain things such as the mass of the universe, etc since there is a great deal we cannot see, and whatever is hiding behind what we can't see is included. Our data pool is limited due to our lack of ability to leave our planet or solar system in any 'real' sense. Again, we should not stop for that would be foolish, but we must remember that these findings are not fact, but theory and should be thought as such.
Why did slashdot post a consumer-ended computer review? This is meant to be viewed by people who are relatively ignorant of computers (software package?! I dont need no stinking software package!), and I would think most people on slashdot are WELL beyond the level of knowledge presented in that article. Next time post something about REAL computing issues such as stability, performance, long term investment, etc.
It seems pretty obvious, but I think a lot of people don't realize how much fun camping really is. Before I start, let me clarify what I mean: there is camping where you bring a shitload of beer, drive to a campsite (or hike 1/4 mile to it) and proceed to get wasted. This is not camping, its partying in the forest. Try finding a local state forest that has some good hiking routes, grab a backpack, and head out for the weekend. I have gone camping with friends many times, and almost everytime there is a good tory or two to tell as a result. And BTW, do not go to one of these places where it looks like a refugee camp because of all the families camping within 15 feet of one another. Do yourself a favor and leave the laptop, palm, etc at home.
Jesus, come on here Slashdot, why the hell would you post this as a frontpage item? This is like posting 'Newbies Guide to Webpages'. Lets use a little more discression when posting stuff, esp rediculous crap like this. If your reading slashdot and you do not have any knowledge of JPEG compression, you should probably kill yourself for the greater good of humanity. This is some basic stuff that even my little bros (who only know how to browse the web, talk with friends on AIM, and make basic webpages) are familiar with. Don't insult us with this sort of material.
Your statement that these books are not for children is about as logical as saying 'candy rot's children's teeth out so obviously candy is meant for adults, but I see why children like candy.' Come on here, the cover design is definately not that of a traditional 'adult book cover', is clearly geared towards the younger crowd (colorful, clear illustrations), then there is the merchandising. If this doesn't say the books are for children, I have no idea what does. Harry Potter action figures? Lunchboxes? Boardgame? The list goes on, this franchise is CLEARLY aimed at children. Personally, I don't know too many adults that would buy the Harry Potter dressup set, or the "Harry Potter Quiddich Glow Puzzle". Then if you look at the books themselves, the writing is obviously of a very simple variety which children would have not trouble reading. Finally, forget about the witches and magic, look at the entire social structure that exists in the book, it matches what goes on in a school perfectly, which serves to help the children readers to the characters. Who hasn't met a Malfoy who was a rotten bastard and picked on other kids, etc. This book is carefully tailored to children, and its simple language and ease of accessibility through the writing (which is what separates it from LoTR, which uses more complex writing and is generally much more long winded about everythng). If you think magic appeals only to adults, your crazy. Many of us here at slashdot can attest to spending many hours playing AD&D, both when we were younger & older. end_rant();
From the article: "Regardless of whether a site uses P3P, the system won't prevent sites from collecting data or sharing the information with marketers, nor would it let users negotiate with sites on how information gets used."
Though this is a nice idea and all, I highly doubt its going to accomplish anything. Websites will continue to violate your privacy for marketing purposes whether P3P is installed or not. Next time perhaps they could do something to actually help consumers in a more aggressive fashion.
Slashdot Mirror
I have been in a similar position before, though for me it was spamming for a company. I was working for this designer lighting manufacturer as an admin and we were definitely feeling some of the effects of the economy at the time (right after the .com bust). So the CEO came to me with the option of gaining customers through spamming. I have never liked spam, and like most right minded geeks, find its existance annoying and unnessessary. However, I am a college student and jobs like this do not come along all the time (decent pay, good coworkers, very flexible), so I went along with it and did a round of spamming. I did try to convince the boss of other methods, but the fact of the matter is the he had his mind set on this. I figured its either my job, or a lot of pissed off/annoyed people who I will never see. I shot out 27,000 spams, not that much next to some, but 27,000 nonetheless. We got a lot of hate mail the next day, it was actually rather amusing in some respects since the rants were often JeffK worthy. So I kept my job, and 27,000 people got spammed. Those 27,000 people have now completely forgotten about that spam, and I have not forgotten about keeping my job. In short, its a dog-eat-dog world, and sometimes you gotta bite the bullet to stay afloat. If you won't do it, some other monkey with a lot less scruples than you will do it, and probably even worst.
Let me get this straight, Microsoft hires her to do this little commercial, I imagine not giving much of a shit whether or not she switched. Perhaps she mentioned the word switch, so she seemed to be qualified. Then they will actually punish her for their retarded PR mistake? This is like a parent telling their kids, "Jonny, go tell our neighbors about our dog that we don't have." And then once the neighbors call up asking why Jonny is going on and on about a non-existant dog, the parents say, "JONNY! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, YOU LYING YOU LITTLE SOB, IMA GONNA SMACK YOU DOWN!" Punishing your workers for the very thing you hired them to do demonstrates piss poor decision making on the managers parts. MS is the one who came up with this rediculous faux-switch campaign, shooting the messenger who brought it to the people is just irresponsible. Personally, this sounds like a pink-slip relay, everyone handing the responsiblity down until it arrives at the foot of the person who listened to what everyone told them to do.
Yea, i agree with you. People act as if this is any real indicator of life outside our solar system. Honestly, lets look at the facts: we have billions of galaxies (for arguments sake, ill assme the universe if finite), and in each of those galaxies millions of stars. The very fact that we're here typing this demonstates that life is not impossible, so why is it so absolutely hard to believe it could happen elsewhere, though not nessessarily with the same results. Whenever people try to impress their 'laws of biology' as being the end all of proof that life is hard to beget. I find this ironic, as we have a hard time leaving our planet surface without blowing millions/billions, let alone actually visiting other planets. So I would put our 'Universe Experience' at pretty much a low ass number. Before we all get giddy trying to create laws & theories about all this stuff, why not think about the possiblity for life to form in environments that would not be hospital towards us. I am all for debate, but people who act as if we really know anything in this respect and apply the 'rules' of our evolution with religous strictness to other planets are being a little rediculous and closed minded. Just because it happened one way does not mean that is THE way.
This item will most likely not get more valuable as time passes, so if you wish to make any monetary gain on it, the sooner you sell it the more money you make on it. Now, in the short run this may not be true, but as privitized space programs start becoming more prevailent, meteorites are going to become 'common' items. A meteorite is merely a piece of rock thats been moving through space for a while; there's a lot of them out there, we just don't have immediate access. Once companies can easily procure such items, they will start selling them to labs in record speed. Unless they pull some sort of 'diamond-mining' scheme, prices will drop. So in short, do not depend upon the meteor as a longterm investment.
Wow, same song, different year. Last time Sony acted like the PS2 chip was 'God-on-a-PCB'. They even claimed that they could make highend 3D dev systems that could blow the machines of that time away with super realtime rendering, etc. And now, they say they have a supercomputer-like chip. Maybe for the PS4 they can tell us about the NASA beowulf-cluster-like chip which can predict the stock market's picks up to 1 year in advance. Oh, and also create a 1:1 model of the universe, complete with infinity. Seriously, I understand that these chips are powerful, but Sony hypes this crap like its god-in-a-can. Lets not buy into it.
They actually needed to commission a 'task force' to figure this out? I mean, for christ sakes, I can tell you the things that piss people off the most online *right now* for free, no research required: 1. Spam 2. Popup Ads Yes, off the top of my head I came up with those 2 stunning conclusions. Seriously, I often wonder if the employees these companies have their own brains or if they get 'CorpOS: Dumb Terminal' installed as soon as they arrive. Coming in loud and clear Captain Obvious, sir!
You guessed correctly. Actually, I have been camping in southern NJ a couple times; the pine barrens are pretty nice and I know as well as anyone the southern NJ can be as hickish & rural as Alabama. But we're still 'Dirty Jersey' since the north is where all the attention is directed, us being a massive suburb to NYC.
As a resident of NJ for the last 20 years, I can say that there is no way this could possibly happen. As my fellow residents can vouch, NJ is the cleanest place of all the places in the world. Where else in the world can you wake up to the the beautiful view of a smoke-stack filled skyline, emitting fluffy plumes of green tinged smoke. Or perhaps the placid lakes and ponds, that maintain their rainbow colored, slick surfaces all year around. No sir, you cannot be more in tune with nature unless you live in NJ.
If it is possible to supply third-world countries with food, but only of the genetically-altered variety, then perhaps we should genetically engineer the plants such that they cannot reproduce. This way, there is no fear of the plant spreading uncontrolably. I have no idea how difficult this would be, but it is definitely not impossible. No need to mill the corn, or handle it any differently from 'normal' corn.
Apple has maintained strict control over its distribution rights regarding Macs. I would imagine that they felt that Zettabyte was 'out of bounds' by selling their 'customized' macs. I was unaware of Zettabyte before this, but I am assuming they just added parts to existing macs and resell them. This would be no surprise, given Apple's iron grip on the control of the Mac in general, from design to distribution. I personally think this is dumb of Apple, since more macs being sold = bigger market share = more people buying mac stuff now & in the future. It has its disadvantages and advantages, but in light of Apple's financial situation (they have not been on really solid ground for a couple years), I would say the long term benefits of wider usage outweigh the short-term problems & loss of control. Just my $0.02.
I do not see 3D going the same route as video editing & 2D editing, simply because of the current road that most 3D studios are following. Increasingly linux is being used instead of NT or SGIs in these studios. Why? Because they're cheap. No licensing for the OS, great remote administration support, amongst other things. Macs do not succeed at the efficientcy vs money contest anywhere as well as a linux box would. Another issue is that Macintosh has yet to get a highend 3D development card where as the selection is quite large for PC. I am not talking about GF4's here, but about Wildcats, Quadros, Glorias, etc. Only recently did Apple finally get a real GF4 and not the hobbled GF4 MX, and a GF4 is far from a highend 3D development card. I will be surprised if Apple takes over the 3D development market unless they start trying a new strategy.
When I first played Halo (on a friend's xbox), it was fun, enjoyable and all that good stuff. It had the ability to amuse me for a couple hours or so, but got old after a couple weeks. If they are planning on doing a 75% recycle (25% new content/features), I do not think Halo will be anything close to what Half-Life was to the PC FPS community. Their only chance to make Halo a massive hit on the PC is to make sure it has extensive mod support and good communication with the mod developers. Gearbox did a great job with Opposing Forces, Blue Shift, and Half-life PS2, so they have that in their favor, but in general console to PC conversions generally seem lacking. GTA3 is a good example of this: I had never played GTA3 before when the PC version came out. According everyone I talked to, it had sweet graphics, awesome gameplay, the interesting music feature, etc. However, once I started playing it I was sorely dissappointed, especially by the graphics and gameplay. I was never a big fan of GTA1 or 2 since the gameplay was way too simple, but I figured they had solved this problem with 3 but I was wrong (though it was greatly improved). The graphics sucked, period. Sorry, after playing Sacrifice (came out in 2000), GTA looks like crap, and the post-rendering filters are just a cheap way of covering up how low poly everything is, along with the lowres textures. Halo has graphics on its side, but my question is whether it's gameplay with retain that 'console' quality. PC games are often more complex than console games these days since there are less limitations in certain respects. I just hope Halo does not follow the direct-port route, since that would be a waste.
That device looks remarkably like the tools 3D developers use to model objects based off sculptures. These basically read coordinates from the real 3D space that your working on, such as a sculpture of a bust, and then places vertices in the corresponding 3D space in the computer program, Maya, Softimage, etc. These devices cost a lot because of their precision. If you wanted to get laser-mouse quality movement & precision, you'd need to buy one that cost $2000+. I imagine this Phantom device follows the same system as the 3D coord mapping device. As mentioned in the write up, these devices would definately be able to have a very full range of motion, otherwise gamers would be breaking these things a lot for any range of reasons. Looks interesting however, we shall see where this goes.
Its a good thing Fred wasn't around back when Action Park was open (for those who don't live in Jersey, AP was a water park that featured non-stop action packed injuries) as he probably would have been severely screwed up in the process. No, better to use New Jersey residents since they just keep coming back for more! As for the engineers, etc involved, the way they went about designing Action Park is they walked into a local Kindergarten classroom and said to the kids, "Tell us about the bestest rides ever that you would make for a water park!" The kids handed them crayon sketches of various slides/deathtraps, and the engineers took em and built em straight from the drawings (they figured blueprints were for pansies). The result: Action Park, a place where fun is lurking around every corner (along with a lawsuit).
This is an excellent example of an institution using religion as a tool. This seems like a very cynical move on their part, and shows how religion is constantly manipulated to serve the institutions instead of the people. To clarify my point, there is a difference between the institutions of religion and religion itself. Due to Islam's very involved nature (5 prayer sessions a day, periods fasting, etc), the religion & the institution are harder to seperate. Terrorist manipulate Islamic teachings to cast themselves in a positive light, fundamentalists manipulate it to force people to believe in an extremely strict, 'holy' existance. This is just another case of that, though this time there are different reasons behind the move, though in the end it is to merely serve the desires of the religious leaders. I am not against the institutions of religion, but more often than not they twist the words of the teachings to serve their own ends.
This sounds good (anything that takes power from the RIAA is good), but will it come at some other cost (to the consumer or artist)? As long as this system was universal, ie, any site/group who wanted to distribute music like this could utilize this system over the current distribution methods. Circumvention of the RIAA altogether is impossible due to the massive amount of lobbying power they have, and their unquenched taste for money. They will stoop as low as they go to achieve their aims, and I am HIGHLY doubtful that they would agree to something that took money & power out of their hands and placed it back into the hands of artists. This is somewhat the antithesis of what they have been striving for (which is what exactly, I don't know; total control of music content on & offline?). This seems like a great idea, but the RIAA will have its way with it first. Don't get too exciting, as this proposal could end up in the wastebasket pretty quickly if the RIAA is determined enough to crush it with gobs of money. Unfortunate, but true...
From the reviews I've read, and people I've talked to, the extra laser doesn't really add too much to its percision. This product suffers from the 'more is better' stigmata, just like the Voodoo4 & Voodoo5. I personally have no desire to spend an extra $20 for some 'feature' whos use is rather dubious & redundant anyway. I'll just buy a single laser mouse for less that does the same exact thing. Regarding the boomslang, its a piece of crap, honest, facts. My friend had 2, both died within 5 months of having it, and I have heard numerous other complaints from other people regarding it. Sorry, but if I spent $80 (boomslang is not cheap) on a mouse, it better damn well work for bare minimum 2 years perfectly. People these days are very quick to judge a product purely by its speed, performance, etc etc, but no one really judges the lifetime of these products. I know I'd rather have a slighly slower HD that has a 99.9% chance of living for 5 years, than some top of the line IBM drive thats more than likely to croak within the first 7 months.
Its good that our lifespans are increasing, however with the current over-population issues, this is a definate double-edge sword. With increased lifespans, we'd have to rework retirement since theres no way that the workforce can support a massive increase in elderly people. The current age for retirement is suited for the current 'normal' lifespan, but would fall apart if we started living 80+ years on average. The economy works because a majority of your population is either working or going to be working. If that balance shifted, where the non-working force was greater than that of the current working force, the problems would be endless. With increased lifespan must come increased retirement. But as we know, most people are definately ready for retirement by 60, and their bodies (and their state of being) is what determines this. If we could both increase lifespan *AND* reduce the aging of the body over that period of time, we would have the best of both worlds. This is by no means impossible, but will really determine if long-living en-mass is a real possibility or not.
I agree that we should definately continue looking for answers for this old question (the origins of the universe), but the fact of the matter is that any conclusion we come up with is more or less assumed from postulated data. This includes yesterday's post regarding the age of the universe. We can examine the universe from our position in it, but its impossible to make 100% factual judgements about certain things such as the mass of the universe, etc since there is a great deal we cannot see, and whatever is hiding behind what we can't see is included. Our data pool is limited due to our lack of ability to leave our planet or solar system in any 'real' sense. Again, we should not stop for that would be foolish, but we must remember that these findings are not fact, but theory and should be thought as such.
What about life, the universe, and everything?
Why did slashdot post a consumer-ended computer review? This is meant to be viewed by people who are relatively ignorant of computers (software package?! I dont need no stinking software package!), and I would think most people on slashdot are WELL beyond the level of knowledge presented in that article. Next time post something about REAL computing issues such as stability, performance, long term investment, etc.
It seems pretty obvious, but I think a lot of people don't realize how much fun camping really is. Before I start, let me clarify what I mean: there is camping where you bring a shitload of beer, drive to a campsite (or hike 1/4 mile to it) and proceed to get wasted. This is not camping, its partying in the forest. Try finding a local state forest that has some good hiking routes, grab a backpack, and head out for the weekend. I have gone camping with friends many times, and almost everytime there is a good tory or two to tell as a result. And BTW, do not go to one of these places where it looks like a refugee camp because of all the families camping within 15 feet of one another. Do yourself a favor and leave the laptop, palm, etc at home.
Jesus, come on here Slashdot, why the hell would you post this as a frontpage item? This is like posting 'Newbies Guide to Webpages'. Lets use a little more discression when posting stuff, esp rediculous crap like this. If your reading slashdot and you do not have any knowledge of JPEG compression, you should probably kill yourself for the greater good of humanity. This is some basic stuff that even my little bros (who only know how to browse the web, talk with friends on AIM, and make basic webpages) are familiar with. Don't insult us with this sort of material.
Your statement that these books are not for children is about as logical as saying 'candy rot's children's teeth out so obviously candy is meant for adults, but I see why children like candy.' Come on here, the cover design is definately not that of a traditional 'adult book cover', is clearly geared towards the younger crowd (colorful, clear illustrations), then there is the merchandising. If this doesn't say the books are for children, I have no idea what does. Harry Potter action figures? Lunchboxes? Boardgame? The list goes on, this franchise is CLEARLY aimed at children. Personally, I don't know too many adults that would buy the Harry Potter dressup set, or the "Harry Potter Quiddich Glow Puzzle". Then if you look at the books themselves, the writing is obviously of a very simple variety which children would have not trouble reading. Finally, forget about the witches and magic, look at the entire social structure that exists in the book, it matches what goes on in a school perfectly, which serves to help the children readers to the characters. Who hasn't met a Malfoy who was a rotten bastard and picked on other kids, etc. This book is carefully tailored to children, and its simple language and ease of accessibility through the writing (which is what separates it from LoTR, which uses more complex writing and is generally much more long winded about everythng). If you think magic appeals only to adults, your crazy. Many of us here at slashdot can attest to spending many hours playing AD&D, both when we were younger & older. end_rant();
From the article: "Regardless of whether a site uses P3P, the system won't prevent sites from collecting data or sharing the information with marketers, nor would it let users negotiate with sites on how information gets used." Though this is a nice idea and all, I highly doubt its going to accomplish anything. Websites will continue to violate your privacy for marketing purposes whether P3P is installed or not. Next time perhaps they could do something to actually help consumers in a more aggressive fashion.