EFNET? EFNET?!? Home of channel flooders, net splits, and a little channel called #startrek? Man oh man, that takes me back to 1995:-)
I switched to the scifi channel's dominion convention irc server (events.scifi.com? something like that) back in like 19...97? Anyone out remember the original name of scifact's (before he turned into rifraf) channel? I got to ask Walter Koenig two questions (including the final question). Very exciting for the nerdular teenage boy that I was. Just check out the transcript. I'm still using the name nick (Gulthek - don't ask).
I still maintain contact with three people I met on that server.
In the early years of US copyright law, Jefferson required a submission of two copies of for registered works: one for the public record and one for his personal library.:-)
Side note: this was back when copyright lasted 14 years, and *could* be extended another 14. But that was it. None of this "milking the work of your great-great-grandfather nonsense." Just think, if that were the case then the first Jurassic Park movie's first copyright term would be running out in 2007. Hasn't it already generated pretty much as much profit as it can? Sure there could be a hyperglobalcompumega release, but the people buying that really want the extra content, so they'll pay for that even if the movie itself is in the public domain.
Repeat after me: Just because a work is in the public domain, does NOT mean that it has lost all ability to make profit. It does enable more people than the copyright holder to make profit though. Just imagine, MST3Ked versions of movies from 14 to 28 years ago. No cost to license the movie, so it could be done on the cheap and sold on the cheap.
Computer games and movies from 1980 would this year be having their maximum copyright term expire. Surely their profit potential is dryer than a Shelbyville turnip.
Now what Disney wants to protect is Mickey Mouse and other brand representation characters. Fine. Put in a special case into copyright law: if a company can show that certain copyright works are an integral part of their company image they have the craptacular 75 million year-whatever extension.
Just because Disney's cartoons are still in use, doesn't mean that ALL works from that era have to be prevented from entering the public domain -- as they should!
The founding father's argument for copyright law was this:
We want people to make art. People want money. We will allow people to make money from their art by giving them the sole right to copy.
Artistic works enrich our culture. Such works should be available to all, even those that cannot afford them, for inspiration and delight. Therefore, the sole distribution rights granted to the creator shall be limited to a "reasonable time."
I don't think Jurassic Park needs to have its copyright restricted until 2153, do you?
Not in this case. The army was already in the city and had plenty of opportunity to seize power. If the PLA had subverted the government by force, what was their goal? They did a bit of protestor crack down but only reluctantly and sparingly. The PLA commanders knew that there was political infighting going on and they didn't know which side was going to win, so they played it safe. They went through the motions of obeying the orders to disperse the protestors and they didn't crack down with extreme measures (i.e. there were survivors).
Remember that the PLA is essentially the CCP, just a different part of it. So while the CCP is in power, the PLA is in power. They aren't rivals or even political opponents but the same team.
The Chinese students weren't actually protesting for democracy, but against their current government. Yes an art class made a representation of the statue of liberty and people love to tout that visual, but the truth is that the students started a protest that simply got out of control. Their demands were essentially: less evil! They had a point, but they were clearly angst filled students (justified angst to be sure) with a "noble cause." Many in the protests weren't even marginally protesting for democracy, but for money. Without getting too much into it almost a great many people nationwide were unemployed after Deng Xiaoping had cut government spending. Those that were in Beijing seized the student protest as an opportunity to voice their dissent.
Remember that the students had essentially shut down the capital city for weeks before the government reacted. When they did react it was after word had got out that protests were starting in other cities as well. In their then current economic crisis they could hardly afford to have other cities production hindered.
None of this excuses the Chinese Government's horrible actions of the protest. But we can't speak as if the government was a cohesive entity either. In 1989 the current government was barely ten years old and hardly working well. The military reaction to the protests was initiated by a few members of the CCP, against the wishes of the others (who hadn't decided what to do).
I can't go into the details of the government's internal fighting because I honestly don't remember it well enough. But if you are interested in the development and mishandling of the entire affair, read "The Tianamen Papers." Also watch "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" from PBS, it is a truly excellent documentary.
Get a Maha charger. Get either the C4012FS , the C204F, or the C204W.
All are good, the C401FS is their most intelligent charger and has a gentle charge time of 5 hours or a fast charge time of ~100 minutes. I own the C204F and it has been solid like a rock for two years. With the 204F you still have to recondition the batteries every 5 charges or so, the C401FS eliminates that need so I'd go with that if I were buying a new charger. Use the C204W if you want easy international power use.
Then get a Jetta Wagon with the TDI engine. Assuming that you drive an SUV for the space then you won't be loosing quite as much as if you got the lil Prius or the itty bitty Insight. I'm averaging 44 MPG and I drive that car like a maniac (every once in a while):-). That car is just so much fun to drive!
It's also great to fill up at the diesel pump which is about 30 cents less per gallon than regular unleaded these days.
Machiavellian?? Nicolò Machiavelli would have stolen Palpatine's power base and obliterated opposition in that idiotic senate before breakfast. Palpatine's rise to power was as a subtle as a sledgehammer and about as dull.
The lauded Jedi Council was also a room full of idiots. Blindly they walked into trap after trap and then got slaughtered by the hundreds by flying into an ambush on purpose! "Gee Yoda, maybe we should fly down under cover fire, load up our friends, get the hell out, and nuke the site from orbit." "No no, let's try to attack from the center of the combatants, yeah!"
Did the Jedi, at the height of their power, just not like to use the force? I expect that a few hundred Jedi would have some seriously cool tactics involving force manipulation. But no, all I saw was isolated force pushes and medieval sword twirling.
You do realize that the hacker character in independence day was connected to the alien ship which was in turn connected to the mainframe, right?
I'm sure that during the fifty-some years of study the Roswell scientists figured out how to interface with the alien ship. For all we know the modern age of computing was created as a result of a study of the ship!
So putting it simply just to be safe: Mac -> Alien Ship -> Mainframe
Why is that so hard, especially when its context is the rest of that movie?
Welfare takes money - but it puts the money into a black hole - welfare receipents will breed to fill the available funds.
Putting money into research, education, even military on the other hand will cause some trickle down - because researchers need starbucks, teachers need houses, and haliburton hires bankrupt dairy farmers to drive trucks.
How does the welfare money go into a black hole? That only makes sense if they don't spend it. It's odd that you mention researchers drinking coffee as a benefit, but it's different if someone on welfare does the same thing?
Do you think welfare recipients treat their children as some sort of livestock, having kids just to get more welfare money?
Spending money on foreign countries is much more of a black hole that giving money to our citizens. Unless the foreign countries use that money to buy things from the United States then it isn't returning into the economy. I doubt that many welfare recipients don't spend their money. In fact, seeing as how many on welfare can't afford to keep a large bank account balance, giving money to welfare is practically a direct line for government funds to return to the economy.
I'd say we are quite diversified. Our genome is incredibly complex and chock full of hearty mutation potential. But even if we aren't, all the more reason to not actively try and eliminate "bad" genes.
Ah...? If I help you...I have unhelped someone else. Really. Are you saying that "help" is a zero sum game? You aren't just saying that if one person gets help, one person doesn't (clearly a true statement), you are saying that if one person gets help one person gets anti-help.
Welfare takes money from the government, they have already taken your taxes. If welfare were abolished tomorrow you wouldn't get any more money.
None of your ramblings has anything to do with arguing any kind of point about gene selection and being for or against medical treatment.
Doctoring (hate to say it) but doctoring is a statistically self defeating enteprise (We ensure the ability of the weakest genes to survive and procreate - increasing the number of weak genes and polluters - creating more desease, war, famine, and additional work for doctors) This is challenging - but doctoring does not affect the quality of life as much as (for example) good plumbing.
Arg! And this doesn't sound too terribly like a troll.
Ok. Listen unto me and repeateth:
There are no bad genes. None. Not one.
Diversity is essential to survival. This point is very, very important. If we aren't diverse, if we are genetically "perfect", then we are ripe for extinction. We survive now because some are immune, some are not immune, and life goes on.
Evolution is not a progression. Evolution is a reaction. You don't seem to be spouting the line that we are fighting against evolution with medicine, but you are very close.
Evolution is change in a species due to a change in the environment. There is nothing magical, nothing heretical, and nothing planned about it. We will not evolve into SuperGods just by waiting around a few million years. If our environment doesn't change, then we will be exactly the same come Judgment Day.
You do not and cannot know the ramifications of eliminating genes from the pool. A quirk today will be a lifesaver in the future. The gene that we think of as "weak" and "polluting" will be the genes that resist infection or the onset of a new disease in the future.
Perhaps simpler terms are called for. Take legos. Legos are genes, the building blocks that have collected together and streamlined over time to form us. Sure there are pieces that don't seem to fit, or that we can't possibly imagine a use for, but you'd sure be sorry if it's been tossed when you do think of a use for it.
By preserving our diversity, and encouraging it, we guarantee that we as a species will survive anything that our planet throws at us and gives us a fighting chance against anything from Out There that could be a little deadly to us critters.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless your name is David Brin, give credit where due.
Here is one of his latest starwars articles.
EFNET? EFNET?!? Home of channel flooders, net splits, and a little channel called #startrek? Man oh man, that takes me back to 1995 :-)
I switched to the scifi channel's dominion convention irc server (events.scifi.com? something like that) back in like 19...97? Anyone out remember the original name of scifact's (before he turned into rifraf) channel? I got to ask Walter Koenig two questions (including the final question). Very exciting for the nerdular teenage boy that I was. Just check out the transcript. I'm still using the name nick (Gulthek - don't ask).
I still maintain contact with three people I met on that server.
Thanks for the trip isotope23.
Funny story:
:-)
In the early years of US copyright law, Jefferson required a submission of two copies of for registered works: one for the public record and one for his personal library.
Side note: this was back when copyright lasted 14 years, and *could* be extended another 14. But that was it. None of this "milking the work of your great-great-grandfather nonsense." Just think, if that were the case then the first Jurassic Park movie's first copyright term would be running out in 2007. Hasn't it already generated pretty much as much profit as it can? Sure there could be a hyperglobalcompumega release, but the people buying that really want the extra content, so they'll pay for that even if the movie itself is in the public domain.
Repeat after me: Just because a work is in the public domain, does NOT mean that it has lost all ability to make profit. It does enable more people than the copyright holder to make profit though. Just imagine, MST3Ked versions of movies from 14 to 28 years ago. No cost to license the movie, so it could be done on the cheap and sold on the cheap.
Computer games and movies from 1980 would this year be having their maximum copyright term expire. Surely their profit potential is dryer than a Shelbyville turnip.
Now what Disney wants to protect is Mickey Mouse and other brand representation characters. Fine. Put in a special case into copyright law: if a company can show that certain copyright works are an integral part of their company image they have the craptacular 75 million year-whatever extension.
Just because Disney's cartoons are still in use, doesn't mean that ALL works from that era have to be prevented from entering the public domain -- as they should!
The founding father's argument for copyright law was this:
We want people to make art. People want money. We will allow people to make money from their art by giving them the sole right to copy.
Artistic works enrich our culture. Such works should be available to all, even those that cannot afford them, for inspiration and delight. Therefore, the sole distribution rights granted to the creator shall be limited to a "reasonable time."
I don't think Jurassic Park needs to have its copyright restricted until 2153, do you?
.... and slashcode doesn't support unicode chinese writing. Bah!
Alright! A slashdot reader that knows some Chinese!
????
"Looks like you bought the farm on that one."
No duh General Yeager. I slammed an SR-71 going mach 3 straight into the rows of black balls that you call the ground!
Not in this case. The army was already in the city and had plenty of opportunity to seize power. If the PLA had subverted the government by force, what was their goal? They did a bit of protestor crack down but only reluctantly and sparingly. The PLA commanders knew that there was political infighting going on and they didn't know which side was going to win, so they played it safe. They went through the motions of obeying the orders to disperse the protestors and they didn't crack down with extreme measures (i.e. there were survivors).
Remember that the PLA is essentially the CCP, just a different part of it. So while the CCP is in power, the PLA is in power. They aren't rivals or even political opponents but the same team.
The Chinese students weren't actually protesting for democracy, but against their current government. Yes an art class made a representation of the statue of liberty and people love to tout that visual, but the truth is that the students started a protest that simply got out of control. Their demands were essentially: less evil! They had a point, but they were clearly angst filled students (justified angst to be sure) with a "noble cause." Many in the protests weren't even marginally protesting for democracy, but for money. Without getting too much into it almost a great many people nationwide were unemployed after Deng Xiaoping had cut government spending. Those that were in Beijing seized the student protest as an opportunity to voice their dissent.
Remember that the students had essentially shut down the capital city for weeks before the government reacted. When they did react it was after word had got out that protests were starting in other cities as well. In their then current economic crisis they could hardly afford to have other cities production hindered.
None of this excuses the Chinese Government's horrible actions of the protest. But we can't speak as if the government was a cohesive entity either. In 1989 the current government was barely ten years old and hardly working well. The military reaction to the protests was initiated by a few members of the CCP, against the wishes of the others (who hadn't decided what to do).
I can't go into the details of the government's internal fighting because I honestly don't remember it well enough. But if you are interested in the development and mishandling of the entire affair, read "The Tianamen Papers." Also watch "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" from PBS, it is a truly excellent documentary.
You know what that reminds me of?
... Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?"
Zapp: "I hate these filthy neutrals Kif! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me."
Zapp: "What makes a man turn neutral
Neutral Official: "Your neutralness, it's a beige alert."
Neutral Leader: "If I don't survive, tell my wife: Hello."
RTP. Word. Up.
-- Triangle Fan, Holly Springs Resident, and Licensed Mortgage Loan Officer
Yes yes, Adam West is the mayor on Family Guy. :-)
... Idiotic ... yes.
Doctor: Mayor West, you have Lymphoma.
Mayor: Oh My.
Doctor: Probably from rolling around in that Toxic waste. What in God's name were you trying to prove?
Mayor: I was trying to gain super powers.
Doctor: Well that's just silly.
Mayor: Silly yes
I guess you didn't read his interview with Wired Magazine then. Smith *is a geek.
More and more offtopic, but if you haven't seen it you should watch "Six Degrees of Separation"
Get a Maha charger. Get either the C4012FS , the C204F, or the C204W.
All are good, the C401FS is their most intelligent charger and has a gentle charge time of 5 hours or a fast charge time of ~100 minutes. I own the C204F and it has been solid like a rock for two years. With the 204F you still have to recondition the batteries every 5 charges or so, the C401FS eliminates that need so I'd go with that if I were buying a new charger. Use the C204W if you want easy international power use.
Yes.
Then get a Jetta Wagon with the TDI engine. Assuming that you drive an SUV for the space then you won't be loosing quite as much as if you got the lil Prius or the itty bitty Insight. I'm averaging 44 MPG and I drive that car like a maniac (every once in a while) :-). That car is just so much fun to drive!
It's also great to fill up at the diesel pump which is about 30 cents less per gallon than regular unleaded these days.
Machiavellian?? Nicolò Machiavelli would have stolen Palpatine's power base and obliterated opposition in that idiotic senate before breakfast. Palpatine's rise to power was as a subtle as a sledgehammer and about as dull.
The lauded Jedi Council was also a room full of idiots. Blindly they walked into trap after trap and then got slaughtered by the hundreds by flying into an ambush on purpose! "Gee Yoda, maybe we should fly down under cover fire, load up our friends, get the hell out, and nuke the site from orbit." "No no, let's try to attack from the center of the combatants, yeah!"
Did the Jedi, at the height of their power, just not like to use the force? I expect that a few hundred Jedi would have some seriously cool tactics involving force manipulation. But no, all I saw was isolated force pushes and medieval sword twirling.
Bah!
You do realize that the hacker character in independence day was connected to the alien ship which was in turn connected to the mainframe, right?
I'm sure that during the fifty-some years of study the Roswell scientists figured out how to interface with the alien ship. For all we know the modern age of computing was created as a result of a study of the ship!
So putting it simply just to be safe: Mac -> Alien Ship -> Mainframe
Why is that so hard, especially when its context is the rest of that movie?
Welfare takes money - but it puts the money into a black hole - welfare receipents will breed to fill the available funds.
Putting money into research, education, even military on the other hand will cause some trickle down - because researchers need starbucks, teachers need houses, and haliburton hires bankrupt dairy farmers to drive trucks.
How does the welfare money go into a black hole? That only makes sense if they don't spend it. It's odd that you mention researchers drinking coffee as a benefit, but it's different if someone on welfare does the same thing?
Do you think welfare recipients treat their children as some sort of livestock, having kids just to get more welfare money?
Spending money on foreign countries is much more of a black hole that giving money to our citizens. Unless the foreign countries use that money to buy things from the United States then it isn't returning into the economy. I doubt that many welfare recipients don't spend their money. In fact, seeing as how many on welfare can't afford to keep a large bank account balance, giving money to welfare is practically a direct line for government funds to return to the economy.
I'd say we are quite diversified. Our genome is incredibly complex and chock full of hearty mutation potential. But even if we aren't, all the more reason to not actively try and eliminate "bad" genes.
When you help one person - you UNHELP another.
Ah...? If I help you...I have unhelped someone else. Really. Are you saying that "help" is a zero sum game? You aren't just saying that if one person gets help, one person doesn't (clearly a true statement), you are saying that if one person gets help one person gets anti-help.
Welfare takes money from the government, they have already taken your taxes. If welfare were abolished tomorrow you wouldn't get any more money.
None of your ramblings has anything to do with arguing any kind of point about gene selection and being for or against medical treatment.
Arg! And this doesn't sound too terribly like a troll.
Ok. Listen unto me and repeateth:
Evolution is change in a species due to a change in the environment. There is nothing magical, nothing heretical, and nothing planned about it. We will not evolve into SuperGods just by waiting around a few million years. If our environment doesn't change, then we will be exactly the same come Judgment Day.
You do not and cannot know the ramifications of eliminating genes from the pool. A quirk today will be a lifesaver in the future. The gene that we think of as "weak" and "polluting" will be the genes that resist infection or the onset of a new disease in the future.
Perhaps simpler terms are called for. Take legos. Legos are genes, the building blocks that have collected together and streamlined over time to form us. Sure there are pieces that don't seem to fit, or that we can't possibly imagine a use for, but you'd sure be sorry if it's been tossed when you do think of a use for it.
By preserving our diversity, and encouraging it, we guarantee that we as a species will survive anything that our planet throws at us and gives us a fighting chance against anything from Out There that could be a little deadly to us critters.
Anakin Skywalker is that you?
[Enter a Hairbot which has replacement hair for the crew growing on it.]
Hairbot: I got your page Mr Fry, your new hair is ready!
[He takes the hair off his head and puts it on Fry's head. Fry shuffles it into place.]
That robot was always just...weirdly creepy.
Funny, it reminds me of this Calvin and Hobbes strip:
Calvin: Dad, how does a lightbulb work?
Dad: Magic.
(third panel)
Calvin (turning on a lamp): Look Mom, magic!
Mom: That's not magic!
Rap:
;-)
Blackalicious
OutKast
Downtempo:
Zero 7
Portishead
Tortoise (their new cd is out!)
Classical:
Yo Yo Ma
This is just off the top of my head on a few seconds thought. Also check out the iTunes "Next Best Thing" collection.
Of course the best thing would be for you to just gimme those credits.