If just once, there was a boycott big enough to make a major firm change its ways, or go broke, wouldn't that be cool?
Their power exceeds that of most governments -- we should make them broke and powerless for being evil.
The fact that you can boycott them means they are less powerful than most governments. Regardless, how is a bunch of Sony haters going to boycott a company they don't patronize in the first place? And why should those Sony haters try to get people who like Sony to turn on them for the sole purpose of making them "go broke?" You are already making your choice by not buying their products. Please don't try to ruin it for the rest of us.
I was just trying to provide contrast. I do not care to restrict the internet for fear of bad information. Besides, bad information always finds a way...
I recall the Warren Buffet story. How much of his tax was ordinary income and how much dividends and interest? Or capital gains? It is easy to find anecdotes of large companies and rich individuals paying a small percentage, and it is even easier to repeat abstracted statistics about the same, but none of that tells the whole story. I'm not saying the whole story will definitely make the corporations look good, but I will not lambaste them without it.
Even the W3C uses HTML5 as a marketing ploy. How else do you think upper-management will ever back the adoption of standards? They need to be marketed to since they don't know how to read.
If you have enough money in the bank, you don't have to pay taxes.
You obviously aren't American (or one of the herd) if you believe that crap.
Why should we have an open internet when we can have a society where Joe six pack can sit in front of his tube/puter and have zero access to anything but the propaganda corporations want him to watch. Just like a good monkey.
Oh, right. Corporations are evil, man! Oddly, while I do not share your disdain for corporations, I do believe Joe Sixpack sits in front of his TV sucking up the propaganda. But I also believe he sucks up nearly the same propaganda while drooling in front of the Web. Access to information is great if you know what to do with it. Shouldn't you be afraid that unrestricted access to the wrong information is just as bad - if not worse - than simply drinking the corporate Kool Aid on network television?
The real question is what, aside from inventing the velarium, have the Romans ever done for us?
They sparked the imaginations of filmmakers to produce highly romanticized depictions of Roman life while glossing over their incredible feats of engineering.
1. Don't worry, no one is trying to force a cure on you; and,
2. What about all the people who really, truly want to be cured of "gay?"
We preach that intolerance is wrong, but we are intolerant of people with opposing views. We can't tolerate the idea of a gay man wanting to learn to be straight. Even if the idea is wholly ridiculous, people have the right to do things we think are stupid (astrology, reiki, ouija board, need I continue?)
Still, when used responsibly, it IS a win-win-win.
If Groupon was only used responsibly their IPO would be worth - well, they probably wouldn't be worth an IPO.
I don't see them as a company who will change the internet (like Google or Facebook). I wish them luck, but I wonder why anyone would think they are a good long-term investment.
When someone offers you $6 billion dollars for your company you say 'yes!'
My drumming is far from semi-professional. I based my statement mostly on an NPR (?) piece that said a "Ringo" in a Beatles tribute band scored ninety something percent on the highest level the first time he played Beatles Rock Band (or was that GH?). Also, my limited drumming experience (which may just be my natural rhythmic ability) gets me really high scores on "moderate" playing songs with which I am familiar only by ear. I do not claim that playing GH/RB makes one a better drummer; it may help coordinating left and right hand and foot separation and help the rhythmically-challenged find their tempo, but that is about it.
District 9 was an interesting idea (hey, aliens! Wait, the dregs of alien society?), but I found the execution was, well, "earthly." In the end is wasn't much more than a tale of mistreated refugees. I can watch that on CNN.
I've played guitar and drums in a band, and I have played both in Guitar Hero. Nothing beats playing with the band. The element of improvisation alone puts it miles above a video game. Not only that, but GH and Rock Band drumming are not real drumming. Yes, analogous, and yes, a real drummer has a big advantage when playing RB/GH over a non-drummer, but a RB/GH drummer doesn't benefit from the same comparison.
I'll give you this: video game drumming is more like real drumming than video game guitar is like real guitar. I'll also grant that not many people have a good practice space with a PA and drum kit all set up, so the video game is more interactive than strumming a guitar or beating a practice pad alone on one's room.
Also, playing only GH/RB is not much worse than playing only cover songs with your friends. It is fun to emulate your favorite bands, but I think your brain benefits more from self-discovery.
On a related note, here is some not researched, anecdotal opinion: the best bands often site as influential bands that weren't nearly as successful. True genre busting, cutting edge musicians bring together ideas from a variety of places. Learning every Nirvana song will not make you the next Nirvana. I'd go so far as to say cannot make you the next Nirvana.
I have nothing against Cesium atoms. In reality, seconds don't exist anyway. Time is just a construct within which we can understand the world around us. Precise measurement is required as a scientific standard to help launch us into space and chat with guys posing as underage girls as we pose as underage girls. I can bake a loaf of bread without our time construct ever getting involved simply by seeing and feeling the loaf of bread. Hm, maybe I should start a new branch of time: The new unit of time is how long it takes to bring to 200 degrees F the center of a 1500g boule in a 450 degree F oven. BTW - the trip to grandma's house takes 4.3 loafs.
Even the IE8 debugger (F12 - "developer tools") is really nice. I have only used FF DOM inspector sparingly since discovering it. My only real complaint with Firebug is that it can't handle a poorly designed, JavaScript-heavy site. A company I worked for (not in "web guy" capacity) was web-retarded, and their JavaScript laden,.Net platform site stopped Firebug in its tracks when debugging script.
Back on topic, we shouldn't hate IE9 simply because it comes from Microsoft. That isn't the worst reason to hate it, but if it works, well, tens of millions of people will be using it regardless. It may even be a good thing as the browser becomes ubiquitous and "disappears" into the operating system. If browser choice becomes less apparent to the guy-on-the-web, and the browser ceases to be a program one must open (rather, it is "always on"), we will all appreciate the lengths to which M$ has gone to embrace web standards. Unless the government steps in (again?) to force browser choice on the wary and unknowing public - and it makes one wonder if forced choice is good - we could see the tide of market share swing back toward IE.
Epic fail. All school are not for profit. Thanks for playing.
Epic fail epic fail. Everything - almost literally save for some genuine hippie communes where free love is still the rule - has money associated with it. Whether "for profit," "not for profit," or "non-profit" someone is making money, taking a salary, or otherwise benefiting from it, and therefore "monetary gain = untrustworthy" applies.
Furthermore, I know three Yale PhDs - two of which you could have either seen on Discovery Channel or read in Nat Geo or Smithsonian magazines - who are having a hard time finding jobs either academic or in the public sector, and who are not happy with (their words) "the pyramid scheme" that is higher education.
All that said, yes, the "institutes" in the article/summary are more sales-orientated and preying on a less educated populace, and I definitely see that as a problem.
Wow, you only managed to bubble four idiots to the surface with that thoughtful post? That's what you get for posting late. There is no end to the frustration I feel when people rant on about the military and all of its evil, particularly this gem of a response:
Which pretty much sums up what's so fundamentally dangerous about the military - it's constructed, from the bottom up, to coerce large groups of people into taking actions that result in others being killed or seriously injured without considering the morality of their actions.
The military is made of people, and people - though generally not evil - can easily be led astray by the few who are evil. But the UCMJ covers that, too. For example, the r-tards at Abu Graib could have not followed the orders they were allegedly given. And if PFC Manning didn't like the situation he was in personally he could have dealt with it through appropriate channels, eventually even getting some meathead senator on his side. But he didn't. In fact, he probably did enough to get some time in Leavenworth by merely collecting that information off various secured networks.
People will always protest the military and war. In Monterey, California in 1990 we would see a couple people at the gate to the presidio with their placards about war crimes, and all we did was kick a dictator out of a country he invaded. Such is life.
I like the part where he docked with a cheerleader under the bleachers. That happened, right? I am too lazy to RTFA, so I just imagined what I would do with a robot surrogate.
No eyestrain until I go outside and see the bright shiny thing
Bender's ass?
I like magazines - real paper - better than any electronic format because of the layout of pages and the magazine as a whole. I do get some eye strain from concentrated reading on a monitor for long periods of time, though I do spend nine or more hours a day on a computer with little to no problem (programming is different than reading).
I have been paying $15 per year for a GQ subscription for 15 years, and will continue to do so as long as they publish it. The sum is greater than the parts; online one gets only the parts of a traditionally laid out magazine.*
Slashdot Mirror
If just once, there was a boycott big enough to make a major firm change its ways, or go broke, wouldn't that be cool? Their power exceeds that of most governments -- we should make them broke and powerless for being evil.
The fact that you can boycott them means they are less powerful than most governments. Regardless, how is a bunch of Sony haters going to boycott a company they don't patronize in the first place? And why should those Sony haters try to get people who like Sony to turn on them for the sole purpose of making them "go broke?" You are already making your choice by not buying their products. Please don't try to ruin it for the rest of us.
No, it just explodes your throat.
Giggiddy.
I was just trying to provide contrast. I do not care to restrict the internet for fear of bad information. Besides, bad information always finds a way...
I recall the Warren Buffet story. How much of his tax was ordinary income and how much dividends and interest? Or capital gains? It is easy to find anecdotes of large companies and rich individuals paying a small percentage, and it is even easier to repeat abstracted statistics about the same, but none of that tells the whole story. I'm not saying the whole story will definitely make the corporations look good, but I will not lambaste them without it.
Even the W3C uses HTML5 as a marketing ploy. How else do you think upper-management will ever back the adoption of standards? They need to be marketed to since they don't know how to read.
Considering that the moon landing was STAGED in a desert it just might!
If you have enough money in the bank, you don't have to pay taxes.
You obviously aren't American (or one of the herd) if you believe that crap.
Why should we have an open internet when we can have a society where Joe six pack can sit in front of his tube/puter and have zero access to anything but the propaganda corporations want him to watch. Just like a good monkey.
Oh, right. Corporations are evil, man! Oddly, while I do not share your disdain for corporations, I do believe Joe Sixpack sits in front of his TV sucking up the propaganda. But I also believe he sucks up nearly the same propaganda while drooling in front of the Web. Access to information is great if you know what to do with it. Shouldn't you be afraid that unrestricted access to the wrong information is just as bad - if not worse - than simply drinking the corporate Kool Aid on network television?
I'm so glad I'm not an American...
I, too, am glad you are not an American.
It bothers me to see a "gay cure" app.
We preach that intolerance is wrong, but we are intolerant of people with opposing views. We can't tolerate the idea of a gay man wanting to learn to be straight. Even if the idea is wholly ridiculous, people have the right to do things we think are stupid (astrology, reiki, ouija board, need I continue?)
Still, when used responsibly, it IS a win-win-win.
If Groupon was only used responsibly their IPO would be worth - well, they probably wouldn't be worth an IPO.
I don't see them as a company who will change the internet (like Google or Facebook). I wish them luck, but I wonder why anyone would think they are a good long-term investment.
When someone offers you $6 billion dollars for your company you say 'yes!'
A computer can't teach improv, but when it comes to measurement of accuracy in timing, a computer can't be beat.
And that is why God invented the Jam Station!
My drumming is far from semi-professional. I based my statement mostly on an NPR (?) piece that said a "Ringo" in a Beatles tribute band scored ninety something percent on the highest level the first time he played Beatles Rock Band (or was that GH?). Also, my limited drumming experience (which may just be my natural rhythmic ability) gets me really high scores on "moderate" playing songs with which I am familiar only by ear. I do not claim that playing GH/RB makes one a better drummer; it may help coordinating left and right hand and foot separation and help the rhythmically-challenged find their tempo, but that is about it.
District 9 was an interesting idea (hey, aliens! Wait, the dregs of alien society?), but I found the execution was, well, "earthly." In the end is wasn't much more than a tale of mistreated refugees. I can watch that on CNN.
The best directors and actors do not guarantee anything, and massive marketing is why (how?) utter crap becomes popular.
I've played guitar and drums in a band, and I have played both in Guitar Hero. Nothing beats playing with the band. The element of improvisation alone puts it miles above a video game. Not only that, but GH and Rock Band drumming are not real drumming. Yes, analogous, and yes, a real drummer has a big advantage when playing RB/GH over a non-drummer, but a RB/GH drummer doesn't benefit from the same comparison.
I'll give you this: video game drumming is more like real drumming than video game guitar is like real guitar. I'll also grant that not many people have a good practice space with a PA and drum kit all set up, so the video game is more interactive than strumming a guitar or beating a practice pad alone on one's room.
Also, playing only GH/RB is not much worse than playing only cover songs with your friends. It is fun to emulate your favorite bands, but I think your brain benefits more from self-discovery.
On a related note, here is some not researched, anecdotal opinion: the best bands often site as influential bands that weren't nearly as successful. True genre busting, cutting edge musicians bring together ideas from a variety of places. Learning every Nirvana song will not make you the next Nirvana. I'd go so far as to say cannot make you the next Nirvana.
I have nothing against Cesium atoms. In reality, seconds don't exist anyway. Time is just a construct within which we can understand the world around us. Precise measurement is required as a scientific standard to help launch us into space and chat with guys posing as underage girls as we pose as underage girls. I can bake a loaf of bread without our time construct ever getting involved simply by seeing and feeling the loaf of bread. Hm, maybe I should start a new branch of time: The new unit of time is how long it takes to bring to 200 degrees F the center of a 1500g boule in a 450 degree F oven. BTW - the trip to grandma's house takes 4.3 loafs.
Religion explains everything. Science demystifies religion. Everyone becomes a scientist. The average intelligence of scientists decreases. Science becomes religion. Repeat. Always repeat.
Isn't that measurement just the closest thing to how we define a second? I'm pretty sure the concept of time existed prior to the concept of atoms.
Even the IE8 debugger (F12 - "developer tools") is really nice. I have only used FF DOM inspector sparingly since discovering it. My only real complaint with Firebug is that it can't handle a poorly designed, JavaScript-heavy site. A company I worked for (not in "web guy" capacity) was web-retarded, and their JavaScript laden, .Net platform site stopped Firebug in its tracks when debugging script.
Back on topic, we shouldn't hate IE9 simply because it comes from Microsoft. That isn't the worst reason to hate it, but if it works, well, tens of millions of people will be using it regardless. It may even be a good thing as the browser becomes ubiquitous and "disappears" into the operating system. If browser choice becomes less apparent to the guy-on-the-web, and the browser ceases to be a program one must open (rather, it is "always on"), we will all appreciate the lengths to which M$ has gone to embrace web standards. Unless the government steps in (again?) to force browser choice on the wary and unknowing public - and it makes one wonder if forced choice is good - we could see the tide of market share swing back toward IE.
He's probably just worried about a sub-prime organ market.
Epic fail. All school are not for profit. Thanks for playing.
Epic fail epic fail. Everything - almost literally save for some genuine hippie communes where free love is still the rule - has money associated with it. Whether "for profit," "not for profit," or "non-profit" someone is making money, taking a salary, or otherwise benefiting from it, and therefore "monetary gain = untrustworthy" applies.
Furthermore, I know three Yale PhDs - two of which you could have either seen on Discovery Channel or read in Nat Geo or Smithsonian magazines - who are having a hard time finding jobs either academic or in the public sector, and who are not happy with (their words) "the pyramid scheme" that is higher education.
All that said, yes, the "institutes" in the article/summary are more sales-orientated and preying on a less educated populace, and I definitely see that as a problem.
I'm gonna hold out for the D.P. model. Maybe that one will have real hands and true "reach around" capability.
Wow, you only managed to bubble four idiots to the surface with that thoughtful post? That's what you get for posting late. There is no end to the frustration I feel when people rant on about the military and all of its evil, particularly this gem of a response:
Which pretty much sums up what's so fundamentally dangerous about the military - it's constructed, from the bottom up, to coerce large groups of people into taking actions that result in others being killed or seriously injured without considering the morality of their actions.
The military is made of people, and people - though generally not evil - can easily be led astray by the few who are evil. But the UCMJ covers that, too. For example, the r-tards at Abu Graib could have not followed the orders they were allegedly given. And if PFC Manning didn't like the situation he was in personally he could have dealt with it through appropriate channels, eventually even getting some meathead senator on his side. But he didn't. In fact, he probably did enough to get some time in Leavenworth by merely collecting that information off various secured networks.
People will always protest the military and war. In Monterey, California in 1990 we would see a couple people at the gate to the presidio with their placards about war crimes, and all we did was kick a dictator out of a country he invaded. Such is life.
I like the part where he docked with a cheerleader under the bleachers. That happened, right? I am too lazy to RTFA, so I just imagined what I would do with a robot surrogate.
No eyestrain until I go outside and see the bright shiny thing
Bender's ass?
I like magazines - real paper - better than any electronic format because of the layout of pages and the magazine as a whole. I do get some eye strain from concentrated reading on a monitor for long periods of time, though I do spend nine or more hours a day on a computer with little to no problem (programming is different than reading).
I have been paying $15 per year for a GQ subscription for 15 years, and will continue to do so as long as they publish it. The sum is greater than the parts; online one gets only the parts of a traditionally laid out magazine.*