I want to add that maybe not. A pirate, or a heavy downloader of media, may be less likely to subscribe to a cable TV package. Suddenlink does triple-play, Hulu/Netflix/The Pirate Bay are all threats to a lucrative segment of their business. I don't know their coverage area, but my parents have them in a small town outside of Austin, they're the only game in town over there. The pirates can't switch, they don't buy the cable package, it might be a reasonable business decision. I don't know.
That's true, but also consider that the heavy downloaders are also willing to pay the most for their Internet connection. I got the fastest Internet I could find in my area, I'd gladly pay more if FiOS or U-Verse build their networks out a few miles, and I figure that the most ISPs end up making bigger profits off of people like me, despite the additional bandwidth usage.
So the solution is: go without Internet, or with crappy dial-up Internet, to make a principled stand against a company that could give a fuck? While he's at it, he should stop buying oil from the Middle East, or anything made in China. Use only solar power, drink only rainwater, et cetera, et cetera. Stop using Windows, it's proprietary; stop using pre-built Linux distros, they have binary blobs; live in a cave and perfect the art of Zen.
I thought the Kindle 1 was pretty decent in that regard. I don't think it was perfect, but it was good for a fiction novel that I was reading once, sequentially. If I were re-reading or I wanted to jump around, or it were a textbook or a reference book, or I wanted to show a section to someone, or I wanted to lend a book, and so on, it would not have even remotely cut it. But the ergonomics and visual presentation were good.
The title should be, "Holy crap, an entire 6% of books sold are eBooks."
The vast majority of the reading public doesn't own an ebook reader. The vast majority of people say things like, "I like the feel of a paper book, I wouldn't want to read a novel on my computer." The fact that, despite the relative novelty of the medium, and endemic resistance to ebooks, they've already captured a sizeable percentage of the venerable book market says quite a bit about the future. And frankly I'm surprised.
Holy crap! I never knew that the Federalist Papers---written between 1787 and 1788---actually went and time-traveled back to 1775 to start the Revolution! You know, in this country, we revere the Founding Fathers as saints, but I didn't realize that they could actually perform miracles!
I'll make my standard, flamewar-ish response to those three points.
1) Maybe as big as a chihuahua. And with a lot of ground cover. But you're right---there likely are a lot of species that haven't been discovered yet that aren't bugs and microbes.
2) Well, the Neaderthals, to our best knowledge, were already dead, and the hobbits from Indonesia aren't exactly Bigfoot. It's hardly a silly notion--the evidence we have indicates that it didn't happen.
3) Zoos started breeding orangutans in the 1920s, but there had been orangutans in captivity, in the West, for quite some time by then.
In any case, I'll admit that the Bigfoot claims aren't as preposterous as government conspiracies about flying saucers and mind-reading---they're at least plausible, if ill-conceived.
And there's nothing wrong with the "we would have found it" argument, not when so many dedicated people have been looking. Montana isn't exactly the Amazon. I was looking for my scientific calculator a few days ago, I was sure that it was in my living room, so I looked around for about fifteen minutes and didn't find it. So I reasonably concluded that it was actually somewhere else.
The difference between myself and the cryptozoologist is that the cryptozoologist concludes that the calculator must just be really good at hiding from people who are looking for calculators, and starts looking for clues that may lead to the ultimate discovery of the calculator in my living room. Since the existence of Bigfoot can be verified, but never falsified, they keep on going no matter how bleak the prospects. The argument: who knows? The calculator might be under the futon or something.
I see the "Funny" moderation, did someone mod that "Insightful"? Hell, I'd slash my own karma over that.
I'm gonna call semi-whoosh. Not that you didn't get it, but that you feel compelled to explain it, and don't seem to get that everyone else also got it. Like a child who haughtily proclaims to a group of adults that no, the Tooth Fairy is not real, it's just make-believe, and everyone smiles and says, "Oh, really?"
So we pick and choose which crazy-sounding theories to disregard and which crazy theories to investigate. How do we distinguish? Hint: if it's about aliens, Big Foot, or ESP, it goes on the bottom of a very large pile.
'Sblood, you don't need any craven expletives to get across your teeth, sirrah. You apple-john, you dewberry, golly, I'd like to whip your churlish hide!
Slashdot Mirror
It was a joke, maybe one that misfired. If you really are the person in question, I'd like to say "thank you" for your efforts.
I guess they're not very successful at it.
And this is why I'd never join the military.
<b>Offier:</b> "Private, go charge that machine gun nest!"
<b>Me:</b> "But they're shooting bullets!"
<b>Officer:</b> "That's an order, private!"
<b>Me:</b> "No! Fuck you!"
I mean, he could shoot me I guess, but at least I tried. I'm really just gunning for a court marshal.
I'd do the same. Get the fuck off my mountain, there's a limit of one sage per. You can sit on that hill over there.
I want to add that maybe not. A pirate, or a heavy downloader of media, may be less likely to subscribe to a cable TV package. Suddenlink does triple-play, Hulu/Netflix/The Pirate Bay are all threats to a lucrative segment of their business. I don't know their coverage area, but my parents have them in a small town outside of Austin, they're the only game in town over there. The pirates can't switch, they don't buy the cable package, it might be a reasonable business decision. I don't know.
That's true, but also consider that the heavy downloaders are also willing to pay the most for their Internet connection. I got the fastest Internet I could find in my area, I'd gladly pay more if FiOS or U-Verse build their networks out a few miles, and I figure that the most ISPs end up making bigger profits off of people like me, despite the additional bandwidth usage.
So the solution is: go without Internet, or with crappy dial-up Internet, to make a principled stand against a company that could give a fuck? While he's at it, he should stop buying oil from the Middle East, or anything made in China. Use only solar power, drink only rainwater, et cetera, et cetera. Stop using Windows, it's proprietary; stop using pre-built Linux distros, they have binary blobs; live in a cave and perfect the art of Zen.
I can dig it, so long as I don't have to do it.
Someone always says this whenever anyone is found guilty of anything.
I'm thinking that if the penal code were written by random people on the Internet, we'd guillotine more people than Robespierre.
You and I must be the only people who have used the word 'sblood on Slashdot.
I thought the Kindle 1 was pretty decent in that regard. I don't think it was perfect, but it was good for a fiction novel that I was reading once, sequentially. If I were re-reading or I wanted to jump around, or it were a textbook or a reference book, or I wanted to show a section to someone, or I wanted to lend a book, and so on, it would not have even remotely cut it. But the ergonomics and visual presentation were good.
The title should be, "Holy crap, an entire 6% of books sold are eBooks."
The vast majority of the reading public doesn't own an ebook reader. The vast majority of people say things like, "I like the feel of a paper book, I wouldn't want to read a novel on my computer." The fact that, despite the relative novelty of the medium, and endemic resistance to ebooks, they've already captured a sizeable percentage of the venerable book market says quite a bit about the future. And frankly I'm surprised.
I know, I know, I figured as much, but I couldn't resist.
I have a half-dozen schematics for perpetual motion machines that prove otherwise.
Two drums and a symbol fall out a window. Ba-dum-CHH!
Holy crap! I never knew that the Federalist Papers---written between 1787 and 1788---actually went and time-traveled back to 1775 to start the Revolution! You know, in this country, we revere the Founding Fathers as saints, but I didn't realize that they could actually perform miracles!
I must be a rube, because I took took the link and thought, "Man, that porno guy sure does look like a paleontologist!"
I'll make my standard, flamewar-ish response to those three points. 1) Maybe as big as a chihuahua. And with a lot of ground cover. But you're right---there likely are a lot of species that haven't been discovered yet that aren't bugs and microbes. 2) Well, the Neaderthals, to our best knowledge, were already dead, and the hobbits from Indonesia aren't exactly Bigfoot. It's hardly a silly notion--the evidence we have indicates that it didn't happen. 3) Zoos started breeding orangutans in the 1920s, but there had been orangutans in captivity, in the West, for quite some time by then. In any case, I'll admit that the Bigfoot claims aren't as preposterous as government conspiracies about flying saucers and mind-reading---they're at least plausible, if ill-conceived.
And there's nothing wrong with the "we would have found it" argument, not when so many dedicated people have been looking. Montana isn't exactly the Amazon. I was looking for my scientific calculator a few days ago, I was sure that it was in my living room, so I looked around for about fifteen minutes and didn't find it. So I reasonably concluded that it was actually somewhere else.
The difference between myself and the cryptozoologist is that the cryptozoologist concludes that the calculator must just be really good at hiding from people who are looking for calculators, and starts looking for clues that may lead to the ultimate discovery of the calculator in my living room. Since the existence of Bigfoot can be verified, but never falsified, they keep on going no matter how bleak the prospects. The argument: who knows? The calculator might be under the futon or something.
I see the "Funny" moderation, did someone mod that "Insightful"? Hell, I'd slash my own karma over that.
I'm gonna call semi-whoosh. Not that you didn't get it, but that you feel compelled to explain it, and don't seem to get that everyone else also got it. Like a child who haughtily proclaims to a group of adults that no, the Tooth Fairy is not real, it's just make-believe, and everyone smiles and says, "Oh, really?"
Goddamn, I Googled it and it's true.
Well, I had never heard of them before. And now I have. Funny how that works. Maybe I'll look into it.
I also fantasize about dinosaurs fucking.
Maybe there are others like us. I should start a website.
And these guys.
We can't disregard every crazy-sounding theory.
So we pick and choose which crazy-sounding theories to disregard and which crazy theories to investigate. How do we distinguish? Hint: if it's about aliens, Big Foot, or ESP, it goes on the bottom of a very large pile.
'Sblood, you don't need any craven expletives to get across your teeth, sirrah. You apple-john, you dewberry, golly, I'd like to whip your churlish hide!
Datum is the singular of data, but data is not necessarily the plural of datum. Try saying, "number of data" and not cracking up.