If you were me, and I were you, which certainly is not the case, how would I feel if I were the one being interviewed by random slashdot users' questions and you were the one trying to come up with some random question to ask some random slashdot user selected for some random interview?
"Send back those 15 sweaters you received, and find the Linux laptop of your dreams!"
For the first time... EVER... I did not receive any hideous clothing from any of my relatives this year. In fact, the closest thing to clothing that I received was a belt that I desperately needed. However, I did sort of receive a laptop. My best friend's laptop's (AMD K6-2 300MHz, 3GB HD, 32MB RAM) screen went nuts on him the last couple of weeks of school, and since he absolutely needs a laptop for school, his dad ordered him a new one. The day his new laptop came in, his old laptop's screen suddenly started working again! So, temporarily permanently I have myself a kickass laptop! However, Linux is not included, since my school revolves around Microsoft Office, and I kinda need to have it installed.:-) Maybe next year!
How does a space program "lose contact" with a space station? Wait, duh. Better question. How does a space program regain contact with a space station?! I don't mean to be a pessimist, but if this thing is coming down and we can't control it, um, who's gonna get hit?
Who am I to say now that no such "Santa Claus" ever existed? I don't know the names of every human being ever to have lived. I don't know that mythological gods and goddesses existed or not, either. Such a thing can never be proven.
But that's not the point. A man referred to as "Saint Nicholas" certainly existed about 1600 years ago (roughly), and I'm sure a Kris Kringle and his many other aliases existed as well. Perhaps, then, the question should not be whether or not Santa Claus exists, but how the hell he's acquired so many names!? I mean com'on, even Superman only has one "secret" identity.
You do realize, don't you, that if this new generation of hard drives is to include these copyright protecting... traits... that nearly any and all hard disks of the old type will instantly shoot upwards in price, because everyone will want a "free" hard disk. Thank you, ATA, for infringing on our rights as paying consumers.
Isn't this a country for the people and by the people?
Sorry about that subject line. I think I've been watching too much Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy (with Sean Connery, ya know?).
Anyway, I'm thrilled to know that the hard drive mp3 players are finally starting to hit and hit big. As with any software/hardware, it will only get better... so I think I'll hold out on buying one for just a little while. (And as Murphy's Law says, as soon as you buy one, they'll release the "next-generation" kickass edition that you don't need because you just bought the excellent-but-now-crappy-in-comparison edition.)
Also, though I'm not an advocate of this myself, my father wouldn't mind a nice little mp3 player with an AM/FM tuner as well. Anyone that has ever worked with radio technology should know that implementing an AM/FM tuner would take a very tiny chip and very little power when used, and I personally think it's a great idea. It's a known fact... sometimes we just get tired of listening to the same old thing! Besides, what if you're caught in a horrible storm and need to hear some good (or bad) news, but your mp3 player is all you've got?! See, it's worth the extra $8.42!
Wasn't there an online poll just a few weeks ago asking what visitors thought about such a raise? I distinctly remember the visitors of... whatever web site it was... being largely in favor of giving NASA their much-deserved raise. Is this connected? Does William Jefferson Clinton use the internet as a guide? Is this some kind of oddball hint that the internet is the future? Probably not, probably not, probably not. Which brings up another point... the word "probably" has absolutely no need for the second "b" - it's like the English language chooses to drag the word out longer than necessary for some odd reason. It doesn't get its deserved amount of attention so they give it an extra syllable to really make it annoying... Sorry, that's unrelated. They probably argue about stuff like this in space, though.
I don't expect such items to sell. Remember, in America, we are a democracy - "by the people, for the people." If we as a people decide that something is unjust and that we do not want it, all we have to do is stand together against it. Our government is arranged so that we are in control, though sometimes it may not seem like it (only because so many people don't believe their opinion means anything in the grand scheme of things).
However, if such a thing were to become a standard, computer sales would go down drastically, not to mention all new methods of cheating and piracy. I would never buy such a hard drive...
"The RPC system may be sued to prevent cheap imports."
The world is in a constant downward spiral as a result of everyone infinitely suing everyone else. Is it not obvious that the world revolves around money? Can't we just do things for each other and be happy? Apparently we are too far gone for such a thing, but wouldn't it be nice.
The ideas under which this calendar seems to have been constructed don't seem too far off from the totalitarian ideas expressed in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Naming the days Oneday, Twoday, etc... Sounds a bit like attempting to make things easier on the people to slip something by. Avoiding the unlucky 13th month by numbering one of them 0? Just another subtle way of making the transition feel "nice."
And then there comes the holiday bit... ALL OUR HOLIDAYS ARE GONE. Well, most. Birthdays will never be the same, There will only be one fourth Thursday in November, and it will always be the same day under this plan, and Memorial Day can no longer be the weekend of May 29-31, since the month ends with May 28. Not to mention, the idea of a birthday is which day of the year you were born on. If you reconfigure the calendar, your birthday will no longer be on the same day. For instance, my birthday is July 18. Under this plan, it would move to mid-June (being roughly the 200th day of the year) or it would just be four weeks later (after waiting on July to come around a couple weeks late).
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII established a calendar for the sake of conforming the world to one idea of time, thus eliminating that confusion. At the current day and time, every computer in the world (almost) is based on that calendar. Changing now is only asking for chaos. I say, if you want that calendar, you go ahead and separate yourself from society and start using it. If you're like me, however, you'll stick with the old calendar... I mean com'on! It's a calendar! I think we know how to use it...
"a ban is entirely unnecessary"
on
Nazis on Napster
·
· Score: 1
"A ban is entirely unnecessary: it really just draws attention to what would otherwise be overwhelmingly ignored."
That sums it all up in one sentence. Napster's usage didn't triple until the bans started popping up. So, to those of you that hadn't discovered Napster until Metallica and Dr. Dre brought it to your attention, thank them. Their idiotic lawsuits have brought forth a new movement conceived in unity and dedicated to the proposition that all music is created equal. For goodness sakes - it's SOUND. Everyone makes SOUND. To some super-intellegent being monitoring our planet this music we make is nothing more than a really hideous sound. So why the hell is it being copyrighted? And why the hell are we allowing people to make a living off of it for their entire lives when they only do it for a few years.
A tangent, I know, but I believe that far too many artists make a living off of lawsuits and such against those that are supposedly robbing them of the money they so rightfully deserve. There are two ineherent problems here. (1) They are contributing to the idea that our world revolves around money. (that's just sad) (2) They're claiming they deserve money that they would only deserve if they got off of their asses and worked for it. NEWSFLASH: Being a celebrity does not entitle you to a good sized check the rest of your life. Working for it does. If you want to reap the benefits of the system, you've got to be a worker for that system. There are the cheaters, of course, but they should be shot.
I know this is slighty off-topic, but it isn't often that the link to the article slashdot provides is broken, and I figured it should be known. I am feeling "beer in space" deprived now. I was looking forward to reading that, too.
Perhaps, though, alcohol being a depressant, drinking a little beer before a spacewalk can help to calm the nerves and repress the panic/anxiety attacks that would otherwise endanger the particular mission. I've never heard of one or two cans of beer doing any damage (unless they were thrown)... so I don't see why a couple beers would cause any damage in space. A kegger might not be to smart, though.
I don't see why we shouldn't explore Pluto; not like there's a lot to look at. It's a tiny block of ice.:-)
What about that possible tenth planet out there, the one labeled "Planet X" that they're not sure is even there, but they think something might be because they've noticed some rather odd dents in Plutos orbit that could only be caused by another planet's gravity sucking it slightly off course. Eh, it's probably nothing, but I suspect we'll know about it within this next century, if it is to exist.
This is another reason why I do my best to avoid confrontation with "the system." They'll always tell you that you can win, but they'll never let you. This is a prime example. Oh, the teacher wanted that award, but it's not worth losing his job. I say it's best to work subtly if such work is to be done; and as for the kid that was suspended, I say he should be a hero and have a parade organized for him during his time away from school.
Hey! Doesn't the U.S. government have a name for things like this? Like, entrapment? The kid was more or less bribed into the act and then hung out to dry! I don't see this as fair play...
Re:Dammit - why did I register honeypot.net?
on
The Honeypot Project
·
· Score: 1
And in direct response...
A hint to l33t w3bm4st3rs: if you tell the l33t scr1pt k1dd13z that a computer with "honeypot" in the name is probably not really a honeypot, then isn't that what they're looking for?
I respect the ideas brought forth by such a bill, but I think most of us know that there is no way they can block specific material from being viewed. Sure, it can block specific addresses, specific words, and so on, but new stuff pops up every day, and there's always a few sites that use a "questionable" word in a completely different manner, thus allowing their site to be censored when it definitely should not be. And then there are the sites that should definitely be censored, but because they do not meet the criteria of the typically censored sites, they are not. It's a lose-lose situation; the only way to prevent webtrash from prevailing is by taking out specific sites individually (a near impossible task, and by taking out I mean making them childproof and whatnot), or hey... Why don't we put a little more faith in the people for a change? Warn them of the trashiness of the web, convince them to avoid it. We all know that very few people will ignore it 100%, and some will bury themselves in it... But those people that choose to do this... doesn't that make them trash, anyway? While I am not an advocate of degrading any human soul, why should we try to raise them from the depths they sink themselves into any more than they try? If they don't care about themselves, I do not see why we should care so much. Granted, caring should be expected, but no more so than anyone cares for him-/herself.
A little over a year ago I installed Linux on my old PII 300mhz computer just for grins. I became somewhat familiar with how the OS was operated, etc... but I never enjoyed using it because there was just not enough software to support my wants and needs in a computer. I have pretty much gotten out of gaming and reverted back to somewhat of a basic internet existence - AIM, IRC, Napster, web browsing. All of which can be done using Linux.
This article points out some incredible games, and I think I'll download them and give them a shot just to get my own personal opinion on a few of them and to see how they compare with the Windows games I've played, but I don't expect myself to switch to Linux anytime soon. (At least, not until I start running my own server.) Perhaps some of you have similar opinions, or would even go so far as to recommend some software/games for Linux that I might enjoy, given the above information?
And to wrap this up, Pingus looks like it would be one of my favorite games! I've always loved Lemmings, even being an old and simple game. I also liked Sim City at one point, but found that it was too time consuming. FPSs are my personal favorite, but again, I've just moved on in my life and don't want to spend loads of time on gaming, so I don't think I'll be giving Soldier of Fortune any serious run... Card games are decent... for extreme boredom, such as when Internet lines are down!:-)
Either way, thanks for posting this article, Mark. You've opened my eyes to Linux just a bit...
I recently purchased one of the Philips 40-second skip-resistant players, and I was pleasantly surprised. However, as someone who jogs very frequently, the CD walkman got plenty of use, and after only a couple of months it began to give me some occasional skips, hence my argument for a very stationary method of preventing skips... something stationary and stable enough to prevent itself from taking damage so early in its life... Thanks, though. I probably should have mentioned this in the first place.
I personally do not consider card games and trivia games to qualify one person to be labeled a "gamer." While I understand that many of them require the same types of teamwork, strategy, quick thinking, etc., they do not require the dedication that such games as Half-Life would require to excel. Personally, I think this article should rid itself of the label "gamer" and give us information on "people who play computer games."
And to answer the question in the article, what do I feel is the most addictive game? Well, I am torn between two particular genres: First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games. By RPGs I mean the Final Fantasy, Lunar, Chrono Cross type, generally the popular PlayStation Square RPGs. Since I do not own a PlayStation, I have often just found myself involved in a friend's game(s), watching him play through, and only helping him out with details that I've picked up by paying attention to the story. Note that I do not consider Zelda (N64) an RPG. As for FPSs, I specifically mean Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, The World Is Not Enough on the N64 (Turok 1-3 are okay, but not exactly for me) or Half-Life and Tribes (my first PC game) on the PC.
If I had to pick one of those games as my all-time favorite and most addictive, it would easily be Perfect Dark. Never did I involve myself so much in the story of a game and in figuring out every single little detail on my own. I rarely have the capacity to dedicate myself to a game such as the way I did Perfect Dark - I nearly always look through a guide for tips here and there - not in Perfect Dark. I honestly enjoyed every last drop of this game, and I still enjoy it now that I have earned every possible extra. I continue to enjoy it now through Game Shark codes that allow me to modify the way the game is played, such as weapons modifications.... Oh, man. I'm rambling. I told you it was addictive.:-)
I'm sorry, I guess I was being selfish. Your counter arguments are sound and justified, mine were just that of a little boy screaming because he isn't happy with what he's got. I have learned not to be like that, but it comes out pretty easily on the net... so much encouragement from so much immaturity out there, it's hard for it not to wear off a little. Sorry for the lack of good judgement in my previous post!
In other words, this article seems to say, when we figure a way to search our libraries of files without having such libraries and information all contained in a central server (such as Napster), we will be able to exchange our music (or other files) freely on a purely peer-to-peer connection, or that's what we think. I would suspect that about the time we figure out how to do that, the government will stick its nose in even farther and really undermine the privacy of its people. This brings up a good question. Is this business of sharing music so "dangerous" that it requires so much attention from the media, the government, and nearly everyone else? It's not like we've stopped buying CDs, and I know the government has other more serious issues to be dealing with. But they won't deal with them. They'd rather get involved with this, because it's contraversial, and it involves money.
This goes to show you the depths to which the world has fallen to; The dollar is the center of the universe (or pound in Britain, you get the point).
What are advertisers thinking? When you put any information in front of someone's face that they do not want to see, especially something that gets in the way of what they do want to see, it's only going to piss someone off.
If this web advertising gets any worse, I can only predict a stronger resistance to it. We, as humans, always tend to resist what we do not like, and we fight it as best we can. To some degree, I believe, this constant presence of some form of advertisement could be an infringement of some sort (in fact, I'm sure it already is, but we just haven't found the right means of combatting it yet). What was it that Thomas Jefferson said, that we "are endowed with certain unalienable Rights," and that among these are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? How the hell do I pursue my happiness if I'm going nuts with these damn ads every fourteen seconds?
The internet, if used properly, has tremendous potential to serve the world well and provide quality information and whatnot. But what are the chances that any government would not be willing to sell out to the highest bidder?
What I want in such a player is to be able to put in any audio CD, compressed to mp3 or not, and the CD player can just "discover" what type of data is on the disk and play the files. This would require a few adjustments, but I'm sure it can't be too difficult for the industry as a whole.
Also, while I'm thinking about it, why are CD's so prone to skipping? It would take a simple roller utility (rubber wheel on both sides in three places, 120 apart) to spin the disc and hold it on place, only touching the disc on the outer edges? Such wheels would not only keep the disc spinning, but they would hold the disc in place (for the most part) on those bumpy rides. Hmm, just a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
If you were me, and I were you, which certainly is not the case, how would I feel if I were the one being interviewed by random slashdot users' questions and you were the one trying to come up with some random question to ask some random slashdot user selected for some random interview?
For the first time ... EVER ... I did not receive any hideous clothing from any of my relatives this year. In fact, the closest thing to clothing that I received was a belt that I desperately needed. However, I did sort of receive a laptop. My best friend's laptop's (AMD K6-2 300MHz, 3GB HD, 32MB RAM) screen went nuts on him the last couple of weeks of school, and since he absolutely needs a laptop for school, his dad ordered him a new one. The day his new laptop came in, his old laptop's screen suddenly started working again! So, temporarily permanently I have myself a kickass laptop! However, Linux is not included, since my school revolves around Microsoft Office, and I kinda need to have it installed. :-) Maybe next year!
How does a space program "lose contact" with a space station? Wait, duh. Better question. How does a space program regain contact with a space station?! I don't mean to be a pessimist, but if this thing is coming down and we can't control it, um, who's gonna get hit?
But that's not the point. A man referred to as "Saint Nicholas" certainly existed about 1600 years ago (roughly), and I'm sure a Kris Kringle and his many other aliases existed as well. Perhaps, then, the question should not be whether or not Santa Claus exists, but how the hell he's acquired so many names!? I mean com'on, even Superman only has one "secret" identity.
Isn't this a country for the people and by the people?
Anyway, I'm thrilled to know that the hard drive mp3 players are finally starting to hit and hit big. As with any software/hardware, it will only get better ... so I think I'll hold out on buying one for just a little while. (And as Murphy's Law says, as soon as you buy one, they'll release the "next-generation" kickass edition that you don't need because you just bought the excellent-but-now-crappy-in-comparison edition.)
Also, though I'm not an advocate of this myself, my father wouldn't mind a nice little mp3 player with an AM/FM tuner as well. Anyone that has ever worked with radio technology should know that implementing an AM/FM tuner would take a very tiny chip and very little power when used, and I personally think it's a great idea. It's a known fact ... sometimes we just get tired of listening to the same old thing! Besides, what if you're caught in a horrible storm and need to hear some good (or bad) news, but your mp3 player is all you've got?! See, it's worth the extra $8.42!
Wasn't there an online poll just a few weeks ago asking what visitors thought about such a raise? I distinctly remember the visitors of ... whatever web site it was ... being largely in favor of giving NASA their much-deserved raise. Is this connected? Does William Jefferson Clinton use the internet as a guide? Is this some kind of oddball hint that the internet is the future? Probably not, probably not, probably not. Which brings up another point... the word "probably" has absolutely no need for the second "b" - it's like the English language chooses to drag the word out longer than necessary for some odd reason. It doesn't get its deserved amount of attention so they give it an extra syllable to really make it annoying... Sorry, that's unrelated. They probably argue about stuff like this in space, though.
Whoever just moderated this comment down to a zero, you are EXACTLY the type of idiot I'm talking about.
However, if such a thing were to become a standard, computer sales would go down drastically, not to mention all new methods of cheating and piracy. I would never buy such a hard drive...
The world is in a constant downward spiral as a result of everyone infinitely suing everyone else. Is it not obvious that the world revolves around money? Can't we just do things for each other and be happy? Apparently we are too far gone for such a thing, but wouldn't it be nice.
I like cheese.
Yes, I reminded myself of that about three seconds after clicking "submit." My mistake.
And then there comes the holiday bit... ALL OUR HOLIDAYS ARE GONE. Well, most. Birthdays will never be the same, There will only be one fourth Thursday in November, and it will always be the same day under this plan, and Memorial Day can no longer be the weekend of May 29-31, since the month ends with May 28. Not to mention, the idea of a birthday is which day of the year you were born on. If you reconfigure the calendar, your birthday will no longer be on the same day. For instance, my birthday is July 18. Under this plan, it would move to mid-June (being roughly the 200th day of the year) or it would just be four weeks later (after waiting on July to come around a couple weeks late).
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII established a calendar for the sake of conforming the world to one idea of time, thus eliminating that confusion. At the current day and time, every computer in the world (almost) is based on that calendar. Changing now is only asking for chaos. I say, if you want that calendar, you go ahead and separate yourself from society and start using it. If you're like me, however, you'll stick with the old calendar ... I mean com'on! It's a calendar! I think we know how to use it...
That sums it all up in one sentence. Napster's usage didn't triple until the bans started popping up. So, to those of you that hadn't discovered Napster until Metallica and Dr. Dre brought it to your attention, thank them. Their idiotic lawsuits have brought forth a new movement conceived in unity and dedicated to the proposition that all music is created equal. For goodness sakes - it's SOUND. Everyone makes SOUND. To some super-intellegent being monitoring our planet this music we make is nothing more than a really hideous sound. So why the hell is it being copyrighted? And why the hell are we allowing people to make a living off of it for their entire lives when they only do it for a few years.
A tangent, I know, but I believe that far too many artists make a living off of lawsuits and such against those that are supposedly robbing them of the money they so rightfully deserve. There are two ineherent problems here. (1) They are contributing to the idea that our world revolves around money. (that's just sad) (2) They're claiming they deserve money that they would only deserve if they got off of their asses and worked for it. NEWSFLASH: Being a celebrity does not entitle you to a good sized check the rest of your life. Working for it does. If you want to reap the benefits of the system, you've got to be a worker for that system. There are the cheaters, of course, but they should be shot.
Perhaps, though, alcohol being a depressant, drinking a little beer before a spacewalk can help to calm the nerves and repress the panic/anxiety attacks that would otherwise endanger the particular mission. I've never heard of one or two cans of beer doing any damage (unless they were thrown) ... so I don't see why a couple beers would cause any damage in space. A kegger might not be to smart, though.
What about that possible tenth planet out there, the one labeled "Planet X" that they're not sure is even there, but they think something might be because they've noticed some rather odd dents in Plutos orbit that could only be caused by another planet's gravity sucking it slightly off course. Eh, it's probably nothing, but I suspect we'll know about it within this next century, if it is to exist.
Hey! Doesn't the U.S. government have a name for things like this? Like, entrapment? The kid was more or less bribed into the act and then hung out to dry! I don't see this as fair play...
A hint to l33t w3bm4st3rs: if you tell the l33t scr1pt k1dd13z that a computer with "honeypot" in the name is probably not really a honeypot, then isn't that what they're looking for?
I respect the ideas brought forth by such a bill, but I think most of us know that there is no way they can block specific material from being viewed. Sure, it can block specific addresses, specific words, and so on, but new stuff pops up every day, and there's always a few sites that use a "questionable" word in a completely different manner, thus allowing their site to be censored when it definitely should not be. And then there are the sites that should definitely be censored, but because they do not meet the criteria of the typically censored sites, they are not. It's a lose-lose situation; the only way to prevent webtrash from prevailing is by taking out specific sites individually (a near impossible task, and by taking out I mean making them childproof and whatnot), or hey... Why don't we put a little more faith in the people for a change? Warn them of the trashiness of the web, convince them to avoid it. We all know that very few people will ignore it 100%, and some will bury themselves in it... But those people that choose to do this... doesn't that make them trash, anyway? While I am not an advocate of degrading any human soul, why should we try to raise them from the depths they sink themselves into any more than they try? If they don't care about themselves, I do not see why we should care so much. Granted, caring should be expected, but no more so than anyone cares for him-/herself.
This article points out some incredible games, and I think I'll download them and give them a shot just to get my own personal opinion on a few of them and to see how they compare with the Windows games I've played, but I don't expect myself to switch to Linux anytime soon. (At least, not until I start running my own server.) Perhaps some of you have similar opinions, or would even go so far as to recommend some software/games for Linux that I might enjoy, given the above information?
And to wrap this up, Pingus looks like it would be one of my favorite games! I've always loved Lemmings, even being an old and simple game. I also liked Sim City at one point, but found that it was too time consuming. FPSs are my personal favorite, but again, I've just moved on in my life and don't want to spend loads of time on gaming, so I don't think I'll be giving Soldier of Fortune any serious run... Card games are decent ... for extreme boredom, such as when Internet lines are down! :-)
Either way, thanks for posting this article, Mark. You've opened my eyes to Linux just a bit...
I recently purchased one of the Philips 40-second skip-resistant players, and I was pleasantly surprised. However, as someone who jogs very frequently, the CD walkman got plenty of use, and after only a couple of months it began to give me some occasional skips, hence my argument for a very stationary method of preventing skips ... something stationary and stable enough to prevent itself from taking damage so early in its life... Thanks, though. I probably should have mentioned this in the first place.
And to answer the question in the article, what do I feel is the most addictive game? Well, I am torn between two particular genres: First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games. By RPGs I mean the Final Fantasy, Lunar, Chrono Cross type, generally the popular PlayStation Square RPGs. Since I do not own a PlayStation, I have often just found myself involved in a friend's game(s), watching him play through, and only helping him out with details that I've picked up by paying attention to the story. Note that I do not consider Zelda (N64) an RPG. As for FPSs, I specifically mean Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, The World Is Not Enough on the N64 (Turok 1-3 are okay, but not exactly for me) or Half-Life and Tribes (my first PC game) on the PC.
If I had to pick one of those games as my all-time favorite and most addictive, it would easily be Perfect Dark. Never did I involve myself so much in the story of a game and in figuring out every single little detail on my own. I rarely have the capacity to dedicate myself to a game such as the way I did Perfect Dark - I nearly always look through a guide for tips here and there - not in Perfect Dark. I honestly enjoyed every last drop of this game, and I still enjoy it now that I have earned every possible extra. I continue to enjoy it now through Game Shark codes that allow me to modify the way the game is played, such as weapons modifications.... Oh, man. I'm rambling. I told you it was addictive. :-)
I'm sorry, I guess I was being selfish. Your counter arguments are sound and justified, mine were just that of a little boy screaming because he isn't happy with what he's got. I have learned not to be like that, but it comes out pretty easily on the net... so much encouragement from so much immaturity out there, it's hard for it not to wear off a little. Sorry for the lack of good judgement in my previous post!
This goes to show you the depths to which the world has fallen to; The dollar is the center of the universe (or pound in Britain, you get the point).
If this web advertising gets any worse, I can only predict a stronger resistance to it. We, as humans, always tend to resist what we do not like, and we fight it as best we can. To some degree, I believe, this constant presence of some form of advertisement could be an infringement of some sort (in fact, I'm sure it already is, but we just haven't found the right means of combatting it yet). What was it that Thomas Jefferson said, that we "are endowed with certain unalienable Rights," and that among these are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? How the hell do I pursue my happiness if I'm going nuts with these damn ads every fourteen seconds?
The internet, if used properly, has tremendous potential to serve the world well and provide quality information and whatnot. But what are the chances that any government would not be willing to sell out to the highest bidder?
Also, while I'm thinking about it, why are CD's so prone to skipping? It would take a simple roller utility (rubber wheel on both sides in three places, 120 apart) to spin the disc and hold it on place, only touching the disc on the outer edges? Such wheels would not only keep the disc spinning, but they would hold the disc in place (for the most part) on those bumpy rides. Hmm, just a thought.