In agreement with what you said, every paradigm in communication begins deregulated, and a powerful new tool for anyone to use as they see fit (print, radio, TV, internet). Then the government sees this new form of mass communication and becomes very afraid that they're losing control over the population. And Big Business looks at this and sees a huge Loss of Potential Revenue. To solve this problem, they ingeniously use the people against eachother to not just take their new tool away, but to convince them to actually give it away (because Big Brother doesn't want you to just accept Big Brother. Big Brother wants you to love Big Brother). People cry out over their fears (in the case of the internet, "thinkoftehchildren" and "theterrorists,ohnoes!") and the government sees an opportunity to play the good guy but still be the bad guy by stepping in and saying, "Don't worry. I can handle this!" As usual, the average person suffers while the bad people find new ways to do bad things. Ultimately, we can thank criminals for continually giving the government the chances to tighten its grip on the throat of everything we enjoy. So we get caught in the middle of yet another arms race between "cops and robbers", and Big Business sees the opportunity to cash in.
I like to think that being so vast and versatile, the internet will always be able to offer some amount of freedom and sanctuary to the average person, but if history has taught us anything, it's that the wonderful internet will eventually become the nightmare scenario you described.
You think they care? Most large ISPs already know that everyone hates them. The fact is, all the bad publicity in the world doesn't matter when there's no alternative for broadband access in many areas. Perhaps in your area there are choices, but many, probably most, people don't have that luxury.
I can't believe how many people are focusing on the fact that it just won't work and is a pointless idea, and not the fact that it is completely invasive and fundamentally wrong.
What if they do come up with a similar idea that works? Say for instance the 360-degree camera you speak of. That's just that much more invasive. Also, when was the last time the U.S. government did anything sane?
I agree that it is ridiculous how much it costs to attend college, but having a faculty and cirriculum is important. And if you notice, the professors making $40,000 a year at community colleges don't exactly have their hearts in it.
I've taken distance classes and have to say that I could have learned just as much just as quickly by reading Wikipedia articles. The faculty doesn't do shit for you when taking an online class except to provide you with a piece of paper that "proves" you know the material. Which is the only reason most people attend college. So this is their latest attempt to prevent cheating? Most of the companies I've spoken with don't even take distance learning seriously anyway.
Its compatibility issues are one of the main reasons people are reluctant to adopt it. The sad part is, the main reason hardware manufacturers aren't rushing to provide Linux drivers is because people have been so slow to adopt it. I must also add that Linux needs a new advertising department. People are afraid of things they don't understand (penguins) and they think that free = crappy. They bitch about windows, but when you try to tell them about Linux they won't even listen. They either argue or just get this glazed-over look. It's like their heads are filled with some kind of evil propaganda that came from where? I actually had one person say "but isn't that what terrorists use?"
But let them walk by my computer and see XGL's rotating cube and funny rubbery windows, and suddenly they want it. *Sigh*
I stand corrected. However, TFA says it comes with a quad-core Cell processor. My thoughts are that it would be incompatible with games specifically designed to have 6 (or 7) cores at their command.
Re:One thing Google could do about incoming spam..
on
Spammers Choose GMail
·
· Score: 1
September 2008/. headline:
Google launches new "unbreakable" Captcha-Phrase validation system
December 2008/. headline (3 months later):
Spammers in Nigeria beat scientists to creating world's first sentient AI
Subsequent comments read:
I for one... Welcome our new CaptchaPhrase-cracking artificial overlords!
The PS3 uses 8 cell processors. A lot of the games for PS3 are specifically coded for this system, ie the program tells each processor which threads to run. So unless you can find a motherboard that will support 8 of these processors, you're out of luck. Although I do think adding a cell processor to a laptop is a good idea. They excel at certain types of processing which could eat up valuable clock cycles on the main processor, and are considerably cheap.
I really don't understand why so many people talk bad about the PS3. The fact is, it's a more powerful system in almost every way. It has 150% the memory bandwidth and processing speed as the 360 (believe me, I did the research) and free online gaming. It also has a controller with tilt-sensors that weighs about 1/5 what the 360 controller weighs. AND it comes with built-in blu-ray support. The only reason I ever bought a 360 was because it had so many more games but that was last year; now that ps3 has more games than I could ever buy so I gave the 360 to my brother because all the games for it suck anyway. I could keep going on about why the ps3 is an awesome system, but I think anybody who actually plays one will see that.
And HD-DVD is dead, and blu-ray prices haven't shot through the roof. Maybe Sony has done some other things to piss me off (fortunately I was never a victim of the rootkit) and I keep them away from my computer, but I really can't complain about the PS3 at all, except to say that I hate having to install all those damn updates.
What, because a site's policy states something you think it's ok to not pay any attention to it? To blow-by the sign-up form with false data that just meets the field validation?
Yes, yes I do. Maybe I don't want a website knowing who I am and having my e-mail address so they can spam it all to hell just so I can download some stupid file. The anonymity of the internet is one of the things that makes it so great. Every site doesn't let you post as AC. They share your information with third parties. They put you in a database.
Now if they only start to go after all the spammers with yahoo/google/hotmail account we'll have some progress.
If history has taught us one thing, it's that spam finds a way. Almost every law that governs internet behavior only hurts the average person and does very little to stop spammers, child predators, trolls, and other evil.
After all, you are presenting a very nasty precedent for them, that copyright on music actually expires...
This isn't a precedent. Copyright on music DOES expire. The MM* is like a bratty 2-year-old; they think they're above the law and will not stop breaking it until someone slaps them on the wrist. And then as soon as they look away, they're back to their mischief.
...and that people can and do make use of it without even asking them first.
That's nothing new, people have been doing this for years. And I don't believe the MM* makes any amount of money worth mentioning off of this old music. I think they were just trying to "score one for the bad guys" again. Just to remind us that they're in charge. Just to be a bully.
Clearly this is one bully that most people can stand up to.
*I use the term "Music Mafia" because I don't know what to call the European version of the RIAA. It doesn't matter, if it wasn't them it would have been us anyway.
Just to let you know, American oil is much cheaper than foreign oil. For instance, a barrel of American oil ran somewhere around $100 through the last quarter of '08. Canadian oil has always been expensive due to the high cost of extraction, and Mexican oil has always been fairly cheap. Which means, you guessed it: it's Middle-Eastern oil which is the main culprit. While American oil companies may be making lots of money, their's is still the cheapest oil around. And honestly, the government is making their jobs a lot harder (and more expensive) thanks to all their "safety concerns" and assinine programs like TWIC.
We instead ought to vote for the worst candidate instead of the best.
And which one, exactly, are you referring to? They are both 2 of the worst candidates this country has ever seen.
There's one way to make them care: make this country go in the shitter worse than africas countries.
I hate to say this, but I fear even that wouldn't manage to make them care enough. I don't agree that all Americans are lazy and stupid, but unfortunately I do fear that just enough Americans are stupid enough to believe it's not the government's fault, and the others too lazy or too afraid to do anything about it, that it would take complete economic collapse to spark a revolution. And the sad thing is that in the face of a downward spiral, such as what we are seeing the beginning of today, 99% of Americans will just bitch and not actually do anything about it, even if they do understand why it's happening and who's to blame.
xbox controller versus ps3 controller... basically the same, except ps3 controller has sixaxis and weighs about the same as the 360 controller would on the moon. Oh and the battery on the ps3 ctrlr lasts at least 3x as long. (I own both, but almost never play the xbox). Let's face it, PS3 is way better, that's why it costs more. I just hate downloading those damn updates!
It may be 5800 K at the surface, but it will have to pass through the 5 milion K coronal temperatures first. And heat isn't the only problem. There's an insane amount of solar radiation that close to the sun.
You pay for a large suprememe but then get a medium pepperoni. The difference between Comcast and Pizza Hut, though, is that Pizza Hut will fix your order for free and then let you keep the original pizza, while Comcast will lower the quality of its HD channels and throttle internet traffic so it won't have to upgrade its shitty infrastructure.
...from the terrorists. But I do feel more afraid of the government. In fact, almost... terrified. How ironic. Call me stupid, but I always thought our government was a democracy of and for the people. Which people asked for this, again? I don't recall anyone putting this to vote.
If the American people would prefer to go back to the way things were, regardless of whatever perceived threats there may be, then who is the government to tell us no?
No, there would be no way to develop a universal mind-reading device. Because each person's mind is unique, and each person's understanding of a given word is also unique. When you say car, I might think of a red ferrari while someone else thinks of a white focus. The way my mind processes the word car is based on all my memories of cars, so that's why they have to build a unique profile for me that won't work for anybody else. And to make things even more difficult, if you say car again tomorrow, this time I might think of something completely different. Thankfully, due to the mind's fluidity and vagueness of thoughts, a true mind-reading device will never work.
Slashdot Mirror
In agreement with what you said, every paradigm in communication begins deregulated, and a powerful new tool for anyone to use as they see fit (print, radio, TV, internet). Then the government sees this new form of mass communication and becomes very afraid that they're losing control over the population. And Big Business looks at this and sees a huge Loss of Potential Revenue. To solve this problem, they ingeniously use the people against eachother to not just take their new tool away, but to convince them to actually give it away (because Big Brother doesn't want you to just accept Big Brother. Big Brother wants you to love Big Brother). People cry out over their fears (in the case of the internet, "thinkoftehchildren" and "theterrorists,ohnoes!") and the government sees an opportunity to play the good guy but still be the bad guy by stepping in and saying, "Don't worry. I can handle this!" As usual, the average person suffers while the bad people find new ways to do bad things. Ultimately, we can thank criminals for continually giving the government the chances to tighten its grip on the throat of everything we enjoy. So we get caught in the middle of yet another arms race between "cops and robbers", and Big Business sees the opportunity to cash in.
I like to think that being so vast and versatile, the internet will always be able to offer some amount of freedom and sanctuary to the average person, but if history has taught us anything, it's that the wonderful internet will eventually become the nightmare scenario you described.
If that fails, they will get bad publicity.
You think they care? Most large ISPs already know that everyone hates them. The fact is, all the bad publicity in the world doesn't matter when there's no alternative for broadband access in many areas. Perhaps in your area there are choices, but many, probably most, people don't have that luxury.
I can't believe how many people are focusing on the fact that it just won't work and is a pointless idea, and not the fact that it is completely invasive and fundamentally wrong.
What if they do come up with a similar idea that works? Say for instance the 360-degree camera you speak of. That's just that much more invasive. Also, when was the last time the U.S. government did anything sane?
I agree that it is ridiculous how much it costs to attend college, but having a faculty and cirriculum is important. And if you notice, the professors making $40,000 a year at community colleges don't exactly have their hearts in it.
I've taken distance classes and have to say that I could have learned just as much just as quickly by reading Wikipedia articles. The faculty doesn't do shit for you when taking an online class except to provide you with a piece of paper that "proves" you know the material. Which is the only reason most people attend college. So this is their latest attempt to prevent cheating? Most of the companies I've spoken with don't even take distance learning seriously anyway.
Except for the airplane hijacking and crashing into buildings respect.
Its compatibility issues are one of the main reasons people are reluctant to adopt it. The sad part is, the main reason hardware manufacturers aren't rushing to provide Linux drivers is because people have been so slow to adopt it. I must also add that Linux needs a new advertising department. People are afraid of things they don't understand (penguins) and they think that free = crappy. They bitch about windows, but when you try to tell them about Linux they won't even listen. They either argue or just get this glazed-over look. It's like their heads are filled with some kind of evil propaganda that came from where? I actually had one person say "but isn't that what terrorists use?"
But let them walk by my computer and see XGL's rotating cube and funny rubbery windows, and suddenly they want it. *Sigh*
If AMD dies, someone else will take their place.
I stand corrected. However, TFA says it comes with a quad-core Cell processor. My thoughts are that it would be incompatible with games specifically designed to have 6 (or 7) cores at their command.
September 2008 /. headline:
/. headline (3 months later):
Google launches new "unbreakable" Captcha-Phrase validation system
December 2008
Spammers in Nigeria beat scientists to creating world's first sentient AI
Subsequent comments read:
I for one...
Welcome our new CaptchaPhrase-cracking artificial overlords!
Frist Post?
First post!
The PS3 uses 8 cell processors. A lot of the games for PS3 are specifically coded for this system, ie the program tells each processor which threads to run. So unless you can find a motherboard that will support 8 of these processors, you're out of luck. Although I do think adding a cell processor to a laptop is a good idea. They excel at certain types of processing which could eat up valuable clock cycles on the main processor, and are considerably cheap.
It made Big Macs look like they came out of a vending machine.
They don't?!?
I really don't understand why so many people talk bad about the PS3. The fact is, it's a more powerful system in almost every way. It has 150% the memory bandwidth and processing speed as the 360 (believe me, I did the research) and free online gaming. It also has a controller with tilt-sensors that weighs about 1/5 what the 360 controller weighs. AND it comes with built-in blu-ray support. The only reason I ever bought a 360 was because it had so many more games but that was last year; now that ps3 has more games than I could ever buy so I gave the 360 to my brother because all the games for it suck anyway. I could keep going on about why the ps3 is an awesome system, but I think anybody who actually plays one will see that.
And HD-DVD is dead, and blu-ray prices haven't shot through the roof. Maybe Sony has done some other things to piss me off (fortunately I was never a victim of the rootkit) and I keep them away from my computer, but I really can't complain about the PS3 at all, except to say that I hate having to install all those damn updates.
What, because a site's policy states something you think it's ok to not pay any attention to it? To blow-by the sign-up form with false data that just meets the field validation?
Yes, yes I do. Maybe I don't want a website knowing who I am and having my e-mail address so they can spam it all to hell just so I can download some stupid file. The anonymity of the internet is one of the things that makes it so great. Every site doesn't let you post as AC. They share your information with third parties. They put you in a database.
Now if they only start to go after all the spammers with yahoo/google/hotmail account we'll have some progress.
If history has taught us one thing, it's that spam finds a way. Almost every law that governs internet behavior only hurts the average person and does very little to stop spammers, child predators, trolls, and other evil.
I haven't see it either... but now I know where the "I, for one" comments come from!
What creeps me out is that the topic of "Every breath you take" is simply and plainly stalking.
What creeps me out is the fact that the song made "Song of the Year" and topped the charts for 8 weeks!
After all, you are presenting a very nasty precedent for them, that copyright on music actually expires...
This isn't a precedent. Copyright on music DOES expire. The MM* is like a bratty 2-year-old; they think they're above the law and will not stop breaking it until someone slaps them on the wrist. And then as soon as they look away, they're back to their mischief.
...and that people can and do make use of it without even asking them first.
That's nothing new, people have been doing this for years. And I don't believe the MM* makes any amount of money worth mentioning off of this old music. I think they were just trying to "score one for the bad guys" again. Just to remind us that they're in charge. Just to be a bully.
Clearly this is one bully that most people can stand up to.
*I use the term "Music Mafia" because I don't know what to call the European version of the RIAA. It doesn't matter, if it wasn't them it would have been us anyway.
Just to let you know, American oil is much cheaper than foreign oil. For instance, a barrel of American oil ran somewhere around $100 through the last quarter of '08. Canadian oil has always been expensive due to the high cost of extraction, and Mexican oil has always been fairly cheap. Which means, you guessed it: it's Middle-Eastern oil which is the main culprit. While American oil companies may be making lots of money, their's is still the cheapest oil around. And honestly, the government is making their jobs a lot harder (and more expensive) thanks to all their "safety concerns" and assinine programs like TWIC.
We instead ought to vote for the worst candidate instead of the best.
And which one, exactly, are you referring to? They are both 2 of the worst candidates this country has ever seen.
There's one way to make them care: make this country go in the shitter worse than africas countries.
I hate to say this, but I fear even that wouldn't manage to make them care enough. I don't agree that all Americans are lazy and stupid, but unfortunately I do fear that just enough Americans are stupid enough to believe it's not the government's fault, and the others too lazy or too afraid to do anything about it, that it would take complete economic collapse to spark a revolution. And the sad thing is that in the face of a downward spiral, such as what we are seeing the beginning of today, 99% of Americans will just bitch and not actually do anything about it, even if they do understand why it's happening and who's to blame.
xbox controller versus ps3 controller... basically the same, except ps3 controller has sixaxis and weighs about the same as the 360 controller would on the moon. Oh and the battery on the ps3 ctrlr lasts at least 3x as long. (I own both, but almost never play the xbox). Let's face it, PS3 is way better, that's why it costs more. I just hate downloading those damn updates!
It may be 5800 K at the surface, but it will have to pass through the 5 milion K coronal temperatures first. And heat isn't the only problem. There's an insane amount of solar radiation that close to the sun.
And that's exactly what the RIAA is trying to do. If everyone is too scared to seed, then the leechers won't have anything to leech.
No, I haven't, because I don't watch CSI. But I did see it on Google Earth. And it was pretty impressive years ago when it came out.
You pay for a large suprememe but then get a medium pepperoni. The difference between Comcast and Pizza Hut, though, is that Pizza Hut will fix your order for free and then let you keep the original pizza, while Comcast will lower the quality of its HD channels and throttle internet traffic so it won't have to upgrade its shitty infrastructure.
...from the terrorists. But I do feel more afraid of the government. In fact, almost... terrified. How ironic. Call me stupid, but I always thought our government was a democracy of and for the people. Which people asked for this, again? I don't recall anyone putting this to vote.
If the American people would prefer to go back to the way things were, regardless of whatever perceived threats there may be, then who is the government to tell us no?
No, there would be no way to develop a universal mind-reading device. Because each person's mind is unique, and each person's understanding of a given word is also unique. When you say car, I might think of a red ferrari while someone else thinks of a white focus. The way my mind processes the word car is based on all my memories of cars, so that's why they have to build a unique profile for me that won't work for anybody else. And to make things even more difficult, if you say car again tomorrow, this time I might think of something completely different. Thankfully, due to the mind's fluidity and vagueness of thoughts, a true mind-reading device will never work.
Well if they really want to pick and choose, then they would shit themselves if they saw the FCC Frequency Allocation Table (pdf)