Not that a gay boycot of a toy company would do much good as it's biologically impossible for a gay couple to produce children.
As if biological impossibility had anything to do with raising children these days. Ever heard of a sperm bank? Ever heard of adpotion? Last time I checked, there were plenty of gay families raising children.
Plus, just because OutRage! is a gay organization doesn't mean only gays would participate in the boycott. HIV/AIDS is a problem for everyone, not just homosexuals.
Anyway, staging a boycott is more about the bad press than anything else. The original boycotters make enough noise to pique the interest of the larger community.
I'm really impressed to see the owners of "retro" games donating them to the public good. They (hopefully) made their money when the games were originally released, and, as Jeff Minter notes on his game download page, "software old enough to be running on emulators is not going to be exactly generating a huge amount of revenue" . Now that their work has become iconic and part of a sizeable subculture, making that work a freely available part of that subculture is generous, tasteful, artistic.
Anyone who appreciates such gestures should voice their support. Send mail thanking Ian Bell, and check out his web site. Do the same for Jeff Minter by following the links above. And hunt down these guys' circa-1980-hot-shot-game-programmer peers, show some love and relive the old days of 8-bit.
I think you're simplifying the matter a bit too much. You cannot stop people from doing what they want? So what? That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't try. Some people want to steal your car. Some people want to beat their kids. Some people want to spread information by wiretapping your phone.
"But wait! That's not the information I was talking about!" My point is simply that "information wants to be free" doesn't add to the debate. As Voltaire said, "A witty saying proves nothing."
To predict the demise of IP because "people want to spread information" misses the point. The question is not whether people want it, of course they do, everybody wants a free lunch. We have, for very good reasons, mechanisms for preventing people from doing what they want. The question is whether we should use (or augment) these mechanisms to prevent them from fulfilling this particular desire.
First: Are we sure this was written by the right guy?
Second: This wasn't originally in English, was it?
I ask these questions because anyone who reads the article in English will find it... um... less than coherent. Although the article's tone is consistent, and it is clear that Müller-Maguhn is trying to establish a position of leadership on par with those of the world's major nations, the article contains frequent references that I just couldn't keep up with.
For instance, as Müller-Maguhn caricaturizes the evolution of the Internet, he is preoccupied with the idea of the Internet as "parallel universe" , which as far as I can tell, includes
bits [that] flower, flourish and reproduce
boundless amounts of money
spaceports
(an alternative to) Blowing up concrete prisons
If you haven't read the article, you might be a little confused by these examples. Rest assured, reading the article will confuse you even more.
Additionally, Müller-Maguhn's attitude towards the "suits" is unbelievably simplistic:
And these suit-wearers wear ties,
which are known to restrict the oxygen supply to the brain --
thus depriving them of any imagination and preventing them from [blah blah blah...]
I can't believe that someone who wants to be taken seriously would write such flamebait, and otherwise fill his statement with what reminds me of an LSD trip.
So, I ask, is this a fake? Did translation so mangle the connotation of his metaphors as to completely destroy his meaning? Or does this guy have a good dealer?
I could never stand
governments. Not at all. It was only the vigilance of my mother
that prevented me from joining the left-wing terrorist
organization Red Army Faction at around the age of 11.
This guy would scare makes ESR look like Bob Dole. Pretty cool...
Not trying to flamebait or troll, but the way I see it this doesn't show that Linux is more vulnerable, only as vulnerable. Bad hardware will make any OS crash.
The problem with NT is that when everyone's so used to seeing the BSOD, you automatically expect it to be the OS's fault and seldom doubt the hardware. When Linux fails because of hardware, the problem will occur to you sooner.
Come on man, any idiot can tell that the "connections in a personal computer [that] are wired back at the factory" refer to the connections in the chip, not the software "connections" made by software programmers. Since Windows has nothing to with chip manufacturing, this "(a la Windows =))" stuff is completely without meaning. Any operating system, even Linux, will crash on broken hardware.
I hate M$ as much as the next guy, but I hate to see brain-dead digs like this one show up on the front page of Slashdot. What next, Bill Gate's Momma jokes? It makes us look stupid.
My bretheren (and sisteren), followeth this link to seeth a Divine image of His face... He has gaineth a little weight in the cheeks over the years, but verily, the True Believers will recoginize... the Time is at hand!
Hey kids,
Someone, please mod this up for awhile, just so that they'll fix the HTML in the story. As you all know, it looks like somebody forgot to put a tag and it's making the rest of the site look like one big link.
Hopefully timothy or one of the other editors will notice and fix it.
toodles
The "internet enabled protest" angle of your submission is a point well taken. However, I respectfully disagree with the idea that Slashdot is the correct forum for alerting us to this protest. This is not to belittle the gas problem; I just don't think that every internet protest that pops up suddenly gets a Slashdot headline by default.
Slashcode is free. If you care about it that much, how's about starting a Slashdot clone that focuses on internet protests?
"People who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch": one of Jack Nicholson's lines in As Good as it Gets, I think it's rather brilliant. Not that I'd reasonably expect anyone to catch on to that.... if it bothered you that much please let me first apologize, and second, extend to you an invitation to shampoo my crotch.
In any case, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I think Slashdot's the wrong place for your story, and that if there no appropriate forum exists, somebody should start one.
Um, which of the editors replied? Looked to me like timothy offered no comment on mattorb's story submission.
From the article:
With 100 microarcsecond resolution, astronomers could image the coronae of nearby stars, seeing the actual disks of other stars which appear now only as points of light.
This same sentence appeared both in the "Background Information" section and the press release. If they're not going to use the scope to view regular stars, why do they mention such capabilities, twice?
I get suspicious whenever I hear about a huge, seemingly sci-fi project, and nobody mentions any cost estimates. I think I read the whole article, but didn't see any dollar signs. Did anyone else?
I mean, come on: the second phase (100-nanoarcsecond res.) calls for keeping "up to 33" spacecraft flying in formation with a precision of 20 nanometers?!?! H-H-How? Or rather, How Much?
Is this a vapor dream, or has someone actually checked the $important numbers?
Learning the secrets to black holes may in fact lead us to faster than light travel. After all, black holes are so strong, they trap light too.
Not to be flippant, but nothing we know (think) about black holes points to superluminal travel. Of course, by "we" I mean "I". If I missed something please fill me in.
You'd have to wonder, though, if
MAXIM is being planned, what's up with Chandra? Did it not live up to expectations?
When it comes to research resources like big-ass telescopes, the more the merrier.
It brings up some very interesting possabilities, too, though... If anything, we'll at least find out where all those
socks go that you swear go into the dryer, but never come out:-)
I believe that link discusses the subject to which you are referring. This guy and his friend performed an experiment in which the group velocity exceeds the speed of light. As I understand it, group velocity is an idealization: it is the notion of the velocity of a pulse, not a photon. As the article explains, in some sense they've gotten the pulse to traverse a medium faster than c. But, "no object or information has been made to travel superluminally."
So, surprisingly enough, nearly seventy years' worth of physics has not been suddenly and summarily disproven.
How do you deal with supply and demand when a supply is limitless? (ie with digital media)
Supply of digital media is limitless? No, silly. First of all, duplication and distribution of digital media incurs (possibly small but still) finite costs. More importantly, you're neglecting the cost of creating the media in the first place. By "digital media" you mean software, images, music, text, etc; correct? I can't imagine how creating these things will ever be free, and so their supply will be limited. That's why, though it costs nearly nothing to copy Adobe Photoshop, the software engineers on its dev team get paid such hefty salaries.
Mabe once the consumer catches up to business and joins the online hallucination that removes time adn space from our reality.
Oh, I see, this is a joke? Or you are stoned? Or both? Hope I haven't just wasted my time. Whatever.
12 Sept 2000, Redmond: According to high-ranking Microsoft officials, the powerhouse of innovative software was nearly brought to its knees when it attempted to integrate into its Windows OS products what it calls "automated content analysis."
"The dev team was putting the finishing touches on the product -- Microsoft IdeaWizard," reports one Microsoft employee who wishes to remain nameless. "That feature went way beyond our competitors' offerings, which simply analyze the user's text for inflammatory content. Our product does that, and more!" Microsoft claims that IdeaWizard, which scans text for original ideas not contained in Microsoft's corporate knowledge base, would "save the computing industry the billions of dollars incurred in corporate buyouts by simply uploading all original content to the MKB." In related news, the USPTO recently granted patents to Microsoft on all current and future content of the MKB.
The problem came with the final integration of the IdeaWizard with the OS. According to our source, "as the new versions of Windows booted, IdeaWizard began analyzing the OS itself, creating a kind of introspection none of us had envisioned." The computer hung, displaying only 70-point white text on a blue screen cryptically stating, "Will not continue: This product makes Bill look like an idiot."
With a reported US$3 billion invested, top Microsoft brass feared the worst. That's where the lawers came in. "We realized that, since we pretty much stole the idea of automated content analysis from the Eudora project, their developers are liable for our losses. They will be hearing from our lawers."
</madness>
Gods and Denizens of Slashdot, forgive me for this sinful prose. Never again a sleep-deprived-caffine-fueled post.
A tip for my fellow/.ers: after having four wisdom teeth jackhammered out of your mouth, and sucking down Vicodin and Demorol and Valium to cope with the pain, don't post to Slashdot!!!
From the CNET Recommends page, they prefer iCab for the Mac. Honestly, I'd never heard of it, being too lazy to follow the "indie browsers". So I peeked at their synopsis of thier review, and found:
The good: Small, 1.3MB download; offers lots of speed and convenience configuration options; filters out ads.
The bad: Makes plug-in and JavaScript installation difficult; somewhat slow; runs only on a Mac.
WTF? It offers lots of speed while being somewhat slow? Is there some kind of new slang going on here?
The 4th floor of Soda Hall, UCB's CS building, has mounted on the wall what I think constitutes my Alma Mater's answer to this question: a giant abacus with a sign that reads, "In case of System failure, shake to reboot."
I know this might be a silly question, but I never understood how they plan to protect the space tethers from things closer to earth, like airplanes and birds. Although tethers would be infinitesimal targets, I don't suppose NASA would take any chances.
And if these things ever come outta the vapor stage, I'm climbin that sumbitch to the moon! I was the fastest rope climber in gym class...
The interesting thing about this story is that it about one of the few hardware game cheaters... the oldest (AFIK) being the old Game Genie for the NES. Remember those? They allowed users to cheat games by entering hex digits, essentially at random, which were a pair of words to be used as address/data information. Overwrite a random memory location with a random sequence of bytes, and see what happens!
Now we're telling games "Get rid of that wall!" or "Could you clear up the fog a bit?" Yikes. I'm waiting for the day we start cheating at games by saying, "Make the Colonel's brow less sweaty" or "Make Laura Croft more sexy."
Slashdot Mirror
As if biological impossibility had anything to do with raising children these days. Ever heard of a sperm bank? Ever heard of adpotion? Last time I checked, there were plenty of gay families raising children.
Plus, just because OutRage! is a gay organization doesn't mean only gays would participate in the boycott. HIV/AIDS is a problem for everyone, not just homosexuals.
Anyway, staging a boycott is more about the bad press than anything else. The original boycotters make enough noise to pique the interest of the larger community.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Anyone who appreciates such gestures should voice their support. Send mail thanking Ian Bell, and check out his web site. Do the same for Jeff Minter by following the links above. And hunt down these guys' circa-1980-hot-shot-game-programmer peers, show some love and relive the old days of 8-bit.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
"But wait! That's not the information I was talking about!" My point is simply that "information wants to be free" doesn't add to the debate. As Voltaire said, "A witty saying proves nothing."
To predict the demise of IP because "people want to spread information" misses the point. The question is not whether people want it, of course they do, everybody wants a free lunch. We have, for very good reasons, mechanisms for preventing people from doing what they want. The question is whether we should use (or augment) these mechanisms to prevent them from fulfilling this particular desire.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Um, for the money?
I'm kidding! I'm kidding! It's not flamebait, it's a joke.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Second: This wasn't originally in English, was it?
I ask these questions because anyone who reads the article in English will find it... um... less than coherent. Although the article's tone is consistent, and it is clear that Müller-Maguhn is trying to establish a position of leadership on par with those of the world's major nations, the article contains frequent references that I just couldn't keep up with.
For instance, as Müller-Maguhn caricaturizes the evolution of the Internet, he is preoccupied with the idea of the Internet as "parallel universe" , which as far as I can tell, includes
If you haven't read the article, you might be a little confused by these examples. Rest assured, reading the article will confuse you even more.
Additionally, Müller-Maguhn's attitude towards the "suits" is unbelievably simplistic:
I can't believe that someone who wants to be taken seriously would write such flamebait, and otherwise fill his statement with what reminds me of an LSD trip.
So, I ask, is this a fake? Did translation so mangle the connotation of his metaphors as to completely destroy his meaning? Or does this guy have a good dealer?
If you're not wasted, the day is.
This guy would scare makes ESR look like Bob Dole. Pretty cool...
If you're not wasted, the day is.
The problem with NT is that when everyone's so used to seeing the BSOD, you automatically expect it to be the OS's fault and seldom doubt the hardware. When Linux fails because of hardware, the problem will occur to you sooner.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
I hate M$ as much as the next guy, but I hate to see brain-dead digs like this one show up on the front page of Slashdot. What next, Bill Gate's Momma jokes? It makes us look stupid.
Cut it out.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Oh, wait, someone already thought of that one. Damn.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
(by the way, I found the Jesus link one one of the pages this story is about)
If you're not wasted, the day is.
My bretheren (and sisteren), followeth this link to seeth a Divine image of His face... He has gaineth a little weight in the cheeks over the years, but verily, the True Believers will recoginize... the Time is at hand!
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Hey kids, Someone, please mod this up for awhile, just so that they'll fix the HTML in the story. As you all know, it looks like somebody forgot to put a tag and it's making the rest of the site look like one big link. Hopefully timothy or one of the other editors will notice and fix it. toodles
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Slashcode is free. If you care about it that much, how's about starting a Slashdot clone that focuses on internet protests?
"People who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch": one of Jack Nicholson's lines in As Good as it Gets, I think it's rather brilliant. Not that I'd reasonably expect anyone to catch on to that.... if it bothered you that much please let me first apologize, and second, extend to you an invitation to shampoo my crotch.
In any case, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I think Slashdot's the wrong place for your story, and that if there no appropriate forum exists, somebody should start one.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
From the article:
This same sentence appeared both in the "Background Information" section and the press release. If they're not going to use the scope to view regular stars, why do they mention such capabilities, twice?If you're not wasted, the day is.
I mean, come on: the second phase (100-nanoarcsecond res.) calls for keeping "up to 33" spacecraft flying in formation with a precision of 20 nanometers?!?! H-H-How? Or rather, How Much?
Is this a vapor dream, or has someone actually checked the $important numbers?
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Not to be flippant, but nothing we know (think) about black holes points to superluminal travel. Of course, by "we" I mean "I". If I missed something please fill me in.
When it comes to research resources like big-ass telescopes, the more the merrier. True dat.If you're not wasted, the day is.
I believe that link discusses the subject to which you are referring. This guy and his friend performed an experiment in which the group velocity exceeds the speed of light. As I understand it, group velocity is an idealization: it is the notion of the velocity of a pulse, not a photon. As the article explains, in some sense they've gotten the pulse to traverse a medium faster than c. But, "no object or information has been made to travel superluminally."
So, surprisingly enough, nearly seventy years' worth of physics has not been suddenly and summarily disproven.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
Supply of digital media is limitless? No, silly. First of all, duplication and distribution of digital media incurs (possibly small but still) finite costs. More importantly, you're neglecting the cost of creating the media in the first place. By "digital media" you mean software, images, music, text, etc; correct? I can't imagine how creating these things will ever be free, and so their supply will be limited. That's why, though it costs nearly nothing to copy Adobe Photoshop, the software engineers on its dev team get paid such hefty salaries.
Oh, I see, this is a joke? Or you are stoned? Or both? Hope I haven't just wasted my time. Whatever.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
12 Sept 2000, Redmond: According to high-ranking Microsoft officials, the powerhouse of innovative software was nearly brought to its knees when it attempted to integrate into its Windows OS products what it calls "automated content analysis."
"The dev team was putting the finishing touches on the product -- Microsoft IdeaWizard," reports one Microsoft employee who wishes to remain nameless. "That feature went way beyond our competitors' offerings, which simply analyze the user's text for inflammatory content. Our product does that, and more!" Microsoft claims that IdeaWizard, which scans text for original ideas not contained in Microsoft's corporate knowledge base, would "save the computing industry the billions of dollars incurred in corporate buyouts by simply uploading all original content to the MKB." In related news, the USPTO recently granted patents to Microsoft on all current and future content of the MKB.
The problem came with the final integration of the IdeaWizard with the OS. According to our source, "as the new versions of Windows booted, IdeaWizard began analyzing the OS itself, creating a kind of introspection none of us had envisioned." The computer hung, displaying only 70-point white text on a blue screen cryptically stating, "Will not continue: This product makes Bill look like an idiot."
With a reported US$3 billion invested, top Microsoft brass feared the worst. That's where the lawers came in. "We realized that, since we pretty much stole the idea of automated content analysis from the Eudora project, their developers are liable for our losses. They will be hearing from our lawers."
</madness>
Gods and Denizens of Slashdot, forgive me for this sinful prose. Never again a sleep-deprived-caffine-fueled post.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
A tip for my fellow /.ers: after having four wisdom teeth jackhammered out of your mouth, and sucking down Vicodin and Demorol and Valium to cope with the pain, don't post to Slashdot!!!
If you're not wasted, the day is.
WTF? It offers lots of speed while being somewhat slow? Is there some kind of new slang going on here?
If you're not wasted, the day is.
*cough**microsoft**cough*
The 4th floor of Soda Hall, UCB's CS building, has mounted on the wall what I think constitutes my Alma Mater's answer to this question: a giant abacus with a sign that reads, "In case of System failure, shake to reboot."
And if these things ever come outta the vapor stage, I'm climbin that sumbitch to the moon! I was the fastest rope climber in gym class...
Now we're telling games "Get rid of that wall!" or "Could you clear up the fog a bit?" Yikes. I'm waiting for the day we start cheating at games by saying, "Make the Colonel's brow less sweaty" or "Make Laura Croft more sexy."