"You know something. I find it very disgusting how so many people who advocate an anonymous internet when it comes to file sharing on Napster, and so forth, but the MINUTE they get spammed, they are all shouting about accountability and how we need better records of who is using the internt."
"You're making a common mistake. You're confusing insanity with style." - Quintin Stone
Basically, if someone wants an anonymous internet, too bad. No one (who is sane) wants that. What people want (that you don't seem to grasp) is Free Speech and privacy. These are not the same as anonimity. A handle or nick is not the same as being anonymous. The only time anonimity is good is when it contributes to Free Speech. Something spammers will try very hard to argue in their favor, as they have in the past.
Anyone who cries out to be anonymous on Napster or Gnutella is just wanting to not be held accountable. They are not trying to be anonymous to protect their rights.
In the end, a spammer is no different than a person who sends out 5000 faxes to people who didn't ask for them. Instead of paying for 5000 sheets of paper, the spammer is relying on someone else to foot the bill and pay for the fax paper their ad is printed on. This is nothing short of theft of resources in order to make a profit.
*DISCLAIMERS* 1) Yes, I know I make some assumptions in this post. I'm sure there are some people who want the internet to be totally anonymous. I think those people are crazy. 2) I know I can't spell. Sorry. I try.
I am for a tougher stance by the public of their prospective elected officials. I say that we shoot them in the head with a.45. If they live, they were destined to rule. If they die, they obviously had poor constitution. Once no one wants to be an elected official, we could throw this method of doing things away and start from scratch.
I realize this wouldn't stop anything, but it would allow my to see some stupid people get shot in the head.
"I'm not terribly fond of RPMs. Half the time it seems to work but the program won't execute."
I'm willing to bet that this might be a problem with the system you are installing on, how you are installing the RPM, or the person making the RPM. I really don't think it's RPM. I have had very few (if any) problems with RPM. It's software and it tends to do its job very well as long as everyone along the way does theirs.
Hey, go find a post about environmentalism and post there instead of trying to read your inane views into a discussion on wether we should alter another planet's current state.
You don't seem to get my drift. I don't care about what we've done or not done to Earth. Why do we have to terraform Mars to live there? It's a waste of effort and time and (in my opinion) a perfectly good planet.
"I think terraforming Mars is a GOOD first step in our interplanetary expansions."
If we can't live on Mars without terraforming it, what makes you think we can terraform it? The science and knowledge required to terraform a planet are barely within our grasp. It's a much better concept to make Mars a home before we begin to re-decorate.
It's quite possible teraforming Mars could be the most dangerous thing we can do with Mars. Getting there and living there will do many positive things without us having to re-arrange Mars. We can learn about Mars. We can learn about new technologies that will help us be self sufficient on a new world. Then, and only then, should we start to think about teraforming. Here we are sureying a new entire branch of technology and seeing no drawbacks. Well, we also thought anti-bacterial soap was a good idea. Now we're over-run with bacteria that's resistant. Just because teraforming LOOKS like a sure thing, or APPEARS to be harmless doesn't mean it won't come back to bite us.
Sure, I may sound too much like some raving luddite, but when Mars is sitting in a super dense, poison filled, CO2 atmosphere because we made some mistake, don't say I didn't warn you.
I think the question was `wether a distributed.net system would do weather predection work well', but it was answered that running distributed.net type problems on the supercomputer would be a waste. It seems that there was a misunderstanding there. I'm still curious as to wether or not the weather prediction problem could benefit from a distributed.net style `fix'.
Carmack has, in the past, been a very even keeled, logical person. Maybe it's all an act, but I really don't think he is being untruthful in his representation of the situation.
It's also worth noting that Carmack seems to just want to code and work on something fun. There is much wonder as to wether id would be where it is without him. I don't think it would be for sure. To deny Carmack (and the others there) to work on a project they enjoy seems to be cutting into the way id has worked in the past. id is not a BIG company and they don't work like one. So any attitude that the major share holders are always right, is wrong.
Ok, go read the.plan update! Then come back and finish reading. Carmack explains things to a certain degree in the.plan file.
Basically, so far, is seems Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (no relation) have had a fit over J. Carmack and gang wanting to work on a Doom remake. No matter what game id cranks out, it's going to sell at least marginally well. I can see no justification for two guys to fire Paul Steed just to get back at Carmack for doing what he and the development staff WANT to work on.
It reeks of arrogance so far and I really hope Steed gets back on the project. While he's known to be an asshole, I think he's the right guy to work on Doom 2000 models and animations. And in the end, I trust J. Carmack over Adrian and Kevin when it comes to what is a good game and who is good for the job.
And many people have been giving Carmack shit for exposing this publically. Well, good. I like to know why Steed is gone and what kind of position Carmack is in. I hope I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but Carmack seems to be the kind of guy who just wants to be left alone to do his own thing and not deal with politcal business crap.
Until Kevin and Adrian have some kind of rational other than, "we don't want to do D2K", shame on them!
"Is it right or wrong? I don't know, but eventually it will happen."
"Let use redefine progress to mean that just because we CAN do a thing, does not mean that we MUST do that thing."
There is no reason why we couldn't just live on mars without trying to turn it into another Earth. At some point I would like to see us accept a planet for what it is and try to live there without bending it to our will. I think it would be nice to know that Mars will always be red and never be green or blue. To think that someday, we might have technology and not feel obligated to use it to destroy something that is pretty beautiful to begin with is a nice dream. Wouldn't that be a more difficult thing to do that teraforming? To NOT mess it up?
"Anything you transmit or post may be sued by Apogee or its affiliates for any purpose, including, but not limited to, reproduction, disclosure, transmission, publication, broadcast and posting."
I see, they are suing anything I transmit or post to Apogee. Can I send Microsoft to them? I would like Apogee to sue MS.;)
BTW, while I'm at it, Duke Nukem(r) sucked big fat floppy donkey dicks.
The issue is not a LOVE for war or a DISTASTE for war. The issue is a lack of involvement and consequence. In WWII, there was a chance we could lose. In the Gulf war, there was NO chance we could lose. These things have drastic effects on HOW we end up winning and what it means to us.
And, BTW, it's nice to see that you consider honor and glory in battle to be `lightly taken' things.
"My skinny white ass, we're isolated. Can you say Selective Service?"
We ARE issolated. In the Gulf war, you were more likely to be killed by your OWN men than the enemy. What kind of war consequence is that on the personal level? Frankly, I'de feel pretty safe serving in the military right now.
"What's the difference? It cost us fewer lives than Korea or Vietnam, and was more successful. And you claim that makes it wrong? Or that we entered too easily?"
I never said it was wrong. You should READ before you go and make assumptions. I said that when a war is too easily won, winning becomes a nebulous unsatisfying thing.
You're missing the point. In the past, war was something both sides did not take lightly. War used to be something serious that posed a legitimate threat to the sons and daughters of your country. It mattered wether you won or lost.
But now, war is so detached and distant that we're isolated from consequences. Thus, we are isolated from the effects of what winning or losing a war even means.
I'm not Metallica fan. I like a few of their songs. They seem to be somehwat talented. But I can't for the life of me, listen or read Lars. He's like a damned valley girl in post-op and his thought process is all over the place. It makes it very hard to even get what he's talking about other than a stream of consciencesness. Ugh!
No matter how bad Diakatana is, there is one thing you must remember. Ion Storm releases nothing but crappy games. Let's see. Dominion: sucked! Diakatana: sucked! Therefore, I reason that Ion Storm is a creater of crap. And BTW, LGS sold more copies of excellent games than Ion Storm did. All Ion Storm had was Boobies (KillCreek) and Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3. You can't honestly expect me to beleive that LGS didn't warrant some cash for System Shock 1 and Theif but Ion Storm did warrant $20M for Dominion?
Now, KillCreek might be worth $20M, but that's my personal sex craved opinion.;)
"1) Everyone will. Because you won't be buying it from Joe Schmoe, but from companies like Dell or Gateway, or from places like Red Hat (when the PC maker outsources it's OS development)"
I beg to differ. Compaq is not going to hire a mess of coders to re-write Windows in some herculean Mozilla-esque rewrite to produce a better product. It'll simply make it easier to change refrences to MS into Compaq and release the same buggy, crappy code over and over.
"The writing is uninspired, the plot twists are predictable and mundane, and virtually all dialogs are so contrived that they are completely unbelievable."
I used to think about stuff like this. Then I started meeting people who actually talked and acted like someone who couldn't act or talk. Maybe actors and writers who seem bad, are really just doing really good jobs portraying badly done people?
"Country X in Europe comes with a new encryption. US and no one else can break it. They then decide to start taking over other countries. They have a unbreakable encryption method that no one can tell what they are doing. Morse code and other codes were used in previous wars to send messages, with an unbreakable encryption method it could be a new way to send secrete messages."
Been there, done that, cracked it. That little scenario took place during WWII. The Allies won out over the "unbreakable" code. There is NO SUCH THING as an unbreakable code in reality. There is always someone who will spill the beans. There is always someway to capture an encoding device. I'm more worried about Country X launching nuclear missiles than wether or not Country X can talk in private or not.
If books had to justify their existance in this world, this book would surely be one of the very few around. No other book that I have read has proved it's worth to be published so clearly.
I think everyone who can, should read this book. Reading it online will never do justice. Having it read will not be the same. And seeing the movie is almost blasphemous. If anything, it's a wonderful warning about how society can crush an individuals freedoms without vigilance. Not to mention a good story about a guy who is willing to fight the status quo for something as silly as some pressed wood and ink.
Fire is bright. Fire is clean. Burn all. Burn everything.
This is a very dangerous line to walk. There's a small step from a company helping it's employees make computer purchases and a company providing a computer and access. And once someone in the corporate world sees some potential for keeping their home employees under their thumb, perhaps corporate owned PCs and network access at home isn't such a bad idea. The corp will own the PC and the access and will have little trouble reading your e-mail and checking out your browsing habits. All, of course, to make sure you aren't violating the terms of your employement and conditions of use of their system.
Sure, it sounds like I'm an alarmist, but I really see this creeping in so slowly as such a benfit to employees, only to be used against them. Hopefully it'll continue to be corps helping employees buy computers and not some horrible 1984 infestation of speechless netizens.
Slashdot Mirror
"You know something. I find it very disgusting how so many people who advocate an anonymous internet when it comes to file sharing on Napster, and so forth, but the MINUTE they get spammed, they are all shouting about accountability and how we need better records of who is using the internt."
"You're making a common mistake. You're confusing insanity with style." - Quintin Stone
Basically, if someone wants an anonymous internet, too bad. No one (who is sane) wants that. What people want (that you don't seem to grasp) is Free Speech and privacy. These are not the same as anonimity. A handle or nick is not the same as being anonymous. The only time anonimity is good is when it contributes to Free Speech. Something spammers will try very hard to argue in their favor, as they have in the past.
Anyone who cries out to be anonymous on Napster or Gnutella is just wanting to not be held accountable. They are not trying to be anonymous to protect their rights.
In the end, a spammer is no different than a person who sends out 5000 faxes to people who didn't ask for them. Instead of paying for 5000 sheets of paper, the spammer is relying on someone else to foot the bill and pay for the fax paper their ad is printed on. This is nothing short of theft of resources in order to make a profit.
*DISCLAIMERS*
1) Yes, I know I make some assumptions in this post. I'm sure there are some people who want the internet to be totally anonymous. I think those people are crazy.
2) I know I can't spell. Sorry. I try.
Bad Mojo
"You know what's crazy? Majority rules. *THAT'S* crazy."
Bad Mojo
I am for a tougher stance by the public of their prospective elected officials. I say that we shoot them in the head with a .45. If they live, they were destined to rule. If they die, they obviously had poor constitution. Once no one wants to be an elected official, we could throw this method of doing things away and start from scratch.
I realize this wouldn't stop anything, but it would allow my to see some stupid people get shot in the head.
Bad Mojo
"I'm not terribly fond of RPMs. Half the time it seems to work but the program won't execute."
I'm willing to bet that this might be a problem with the system you are installing on, how you are installing the RPM, or the person making the RPM. I really don't think it's RPM. I have had very few (if any) problems with RPM. It's software and it tends to do its job very well as long as everyone along the way does theirs.
Bad Mojo
Hey, go find a post about environmentalism and post there instead of trying to read your inane views into a discussion on wether we should alter another planet's current state.
Bad Mojo
You don't seem to get my drift. I don't care about what we've done or not done to Earth. Why do we have to terraform Mars to live there? It's a waste of effort and time and (in my opinion) a perfectly good planet.
"I think terraforming Mars is a GOOD first step in our interplanetary expansions."
If we can't live on Mars without terraforming it, what makes you think we can terraform it? The science and knowledge required to terraform a planet are barely within our grasp. It's a much better concept to make Mars a home before we begin to re-decorate.
It's quite possible teraforming Mars could be the most dangerous thing we can do with Mars. Getting there and living there will do many positive things without us having to re-arrange Mars. We can learn about Mars. We can learn about new technologies that will help us be self sufficient on a new world. Then, and only then, should we start to think about teraforming. Here we are sureying a new entire branch of technology and seeing no drawbacks. Well, we also thought anti-bacterial soap was a good idea. Now we're over-run with bacteria that's resistant. Just because teraforming LOOKS like a sure thing, or APPEARS to be harmless doesn't mean it won't come back to bite us.
Sure, I may sound too much like some raving luddite, but when Mars is sitting in a super dense, poison filled, CO2 atmosphere because we made some mistake, don't say I didn't warn you.
Bad Mojo
I think the question was `wether a distributed.net system would do weather predection work well', but it was answered that running distributed.net type problems on the supercomputer would be a waste. It seems that there was a misunderstanding there. I'm still curious as to wether or not the weather prediction problem could benefit from a distributed.net style `fix'.
Bad Mojo
Carmack has, in the past, been a very even keeled, logical person. Maybe it's all an act, but I really don't think he is being untruthful in his representation of the situation.
It's also worth noting that Carmack seems to just want to code and work on something fun. There is much wonder as to wether id would be where it is without him. I don't think it would be for sure. To deny Carmack (and the others there) to work on a project they enjoy seems to be cutting into the way id has worked in the past. id is not a BIG company and they don't work like one. So any attitude that the major share holders are always right, is wrong.
Bad Mojo
Ok, go read the .plan update! Then come back and finish reading. Carmack explains things to a certain degree in the .plan file.
Basically, so far, is seems Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (no relation) have had a fit over J. Carmack and gang wanting to work on a Doom remake. No matter what game id cranks out, it's going to sell at least marginally well. I can see no justification for two guys to fire Paul Steed just to get back at Carmack for doing what he and the development staff WANT to work on.
It reeks of arrogance so far and I really hope Steed gets back on the project. While he's known to be an asshole, I think he's the right guy to work on Doom 2000 models and animations. And in the end, I trust J. Carmack over Adrian and Kevin when it comes to what is a good game and who is good for the job.
And many people have been giving Carmack shit for exposing this publically. Well, good. I like to know why Steed is gone and what kind of position Carmack is in. I hope I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but Carmack seems to be the kind of guy who just wants to be left alone to do his own thing and not deal with politcal business crap.
Until Kevin and Adrian have some kind of rational other than, "we don't want to do D2K", shame on them!
Bad Mojo
"Is it right or wrong? I don't know, but eventually it will happen."
"Let use redefine progress to mean that just because we CAN do a thing, does not mean that we MUST do that thing."
There is no reason why we couldn't just live on mars without trying to turn it into another Earth. At some point I would like to see us accept a planet for what it is and try to live there without bending it to our will. I think it would be nice to know that Mars will always be red and never be green or blue. To think that someday, we might have technology and not feel obligated to use it to destroy something that is pretty beautiful to begin with is a nice dream. Wouldn't that be a more difficult thing to do that teraforming? To NOT mess it up?
Bad Mojo
Does anyone else think (like myself) that maybe we shouldn't teraform Mars?
Bad Mojo
"Anything you transmit or post may be sued by Apogee or its affiliates for any purpose, including, but not limited to, reproduction, disclosure, transmission, publication, broadcast and posting."
;)
I see, they are suing anything I transmit or post to Apogee. Can I send Microsoft to them? I would like Apogee to sue MS.
BTW, while I'm at it, Duke Nukem(r) sucked big fat floppy donkey dicks.
Bad Mojo
The issue is not a LOVE for war or a DISTASTE for war. The issue is a lack of involvement and consequence. In WWII, there was a chance we could lose. In the Gulf war, there was NO chance we could lose. These things have drastic effects on HOW we end up winning and what it means to us.
And, BTW, it's nice to see that you consider honor and glory in battle to be `lightly taken' things.
Bad Mojo
"My skinny white ass, we're isolated. Can you say Selective Service?"
We ARE issolated. In the Gulf war, you were more likely to be killed by your OWN men than the enemy. What kind of war consequence is that on the personal level? Frankly, I'de feel pretty safe serving in the military right now.
Bad Mojo
"What's the difference? It cost us fewer lives than Korea or Vietnam, and was more successful. And you claim that makes it wrong? Or that we entered too easily?"
I never said it was wrong. You should READ before you go and make assumptions. I said that when a war is too easily won, winning becomes a nebulous unsatisfying thing.
Bad Mojo
You're missing the point. In the past, war was something both sides did not take lightly. War used to be something serious that posed a legitimate threat to the sons and daughters of your country. It mattered wether you won or lost.
But now, war is so detached and distant that we're isolated from consequences. Thus, we are isolated from the effects of what winning or losing a war even means.
Bad Mojo
I *ONLY* wear wool from Venusian sheep. Nothing less will do, frankly.
Bad Mojo
If anyone cares to check out the NC LAN party, follow this URL.
Free Range Action Gaming
Bad Mojo
I'm not Metallica fan. I like a few of their songs. They seem to be somehwat talented. But I can't for the life of me, listen or read Lars. He's like a damned valley girl in post-op and his thought process is all over the place. It makes it very hard to even get what he's talking about other than a stream of consciencesness. Ugh!
Bad Mojo
No matter how bad Diakatana is, there is one thing you must remember. Ion Storm releases nothing but crappy games. Let's see. Dominion: sucked! Diakatana: sucked! Therefore, I reason that Ion Storm is a creater of crap. And BTW, LGS sold more copies of excellent games than Ion Storm did. All Ion Storm had was Boobies (KillCreek) and Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3. You can't honestly expect me to beleive that LGS didn't warrant some cash for System Shock 1 and Theif but Ion Storm did warrant $20M for Dominion?
;)
Now, KillCreek might be worth $20M, but that's my personal sex craved opinion.
Bad Mojo
"1) Everyone will. Because you won't be buying it from Joe Schmoe, but from companies like Dell or Gateway, or from places like Red Hat (when the PC maker outsources it's OS development)"
I beg to differ. Compaq is not going to hire a mess of coders to re-write Windows in some herculean Mozilla-esque rewrite to produce a better product. It'll simply make it easier to change refrences to MS into Compaq and release the same buggy, crappy code over and over.
Bad Mojo
"The writing is uninspired, the plot twists are predictable and mundane, and virtually all dialogs are so contrived that they are completely unbelievable."
I used to think about stuff like this. Then I started meeting people who actually talked and acted like someone who couldn't act or talk. Maybe actors and writers who seem bad, are really just doing really good jobs portraying badly done people?
Still, there's no excuse for Battlefield Earth.
Bad Mojo
"Country X in Europe comes with a new encryption. US and no one else can break it. They then decide to start taking over other countries. They have a unbreakable encryption method that no one can tell what they are doing. Morse code and other codes were used in previous wars to send messages, with an unbreakable encryption method it could be a new way to send secrete messages."
Been there, done that, cracked it. That little scenario took place during WWII. The Allies won out over the "unbreakable" code. There is NO SUCH THING as an unbreakable code in reality. There is always someone who will spill the beans. There is always someway to capture an encoding device. I'm more worried about Country X launching nuclear missiles than wether or not Country X can talk in private or not.
Bad Mojo
If books had to justify their existance in this world, this book would surely be one of the very few around. No other book that I have read has proved it's worth to be published so clearly.
I think everyone who can, should read this book. Reading it online will never do justice. Having it read will not be the same. And seeing the movie is almost blasphemous. If anything, it's a wonderful warning about how society can crush an individuals freedoms without vigilance. Not to mention a good story about a guy who is willing to fight the status quo for something as silly as some pressed wood and ink.
Fire is bright. Fire is clean. Burn all. Burn everything.
Bad Mojo
This is a very dangerous line to walk. There's a small step from a company helping it's employees make computer purchases and a company providing a computer and access. And once someone in the corporate world sees some potential for keeping their home employees under their thumb, perhaps corporate owned PCs and network access at home isn't such a bad idea. The corp will own the PC and the access and will have little trouble reading your e-mail and checking out your browsing habits. All, of course, to make sure you aren't violating the terms of your employement and conditions of use of their system.
Sure, it sounds like I'm an alarmist, but I really see this creeping in so slowly as such a benfit to employees, only to be used against them. Hopefully it'll continue to be corps helping employees buy computers and not some horrible 1984 infestation of speechless netizens.
Bad Mojo