So when you were surfing the 'Net in the United States, you went to "America Is Evil And the American Government Should Be Violently Overthrown" -dot-com, and you got a 404 error? Or are you equivocating here?
(I guess you *did* get a 404 error, that's a ridiculously long URL.)
Is it just me, or is it that since RIM's shown that they'd give ground to world governments (even if it's a face-saving maneuver, as some here have said), that everybody and their brother now wants access to their servers?
God is love. You believe in love, don't you? So there must be God, because there is love.
Obviously, it follows that love created the world in six days. Then love created a flood that destroyed just about fucking everyone, because you don't fuck with love, love is a sociopath.
I think his point is that humans are a problem because they are not extinct. He's anti-war, he says, not because there's anything with people killing each other off, but because it might hurt a gazelle. At this point, you can pretty much conclude that even if you agree with something in his manifesto, he still doesn't have a point. Anything that he says that you might agree with, or makes you think, "Well, that's not completely insane," actually is, and it's only incidental that you have said the same thing.
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who have read The Silmarillion, and people who started reading it, got bored, and did something else. Neal Stephenson is firmly in the former camp, he is a self-professed geek who loves to "geek out." I have a friend who does not consider himself to have finished a Final Fantasy game until he has killed every monster, collected everything that can be collected, maxed out every character, and unlocked every achievement. (Or whatever they do in FF, it's been a long time since I played any of them.) Most people prefer to read the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and then stop reading Tolkien, and once they've saved the world from Sephiroth/Sin/somebody bad, then they put down their game controller. There is a market for this kind of obscene dedication to supplemental materials, obscure lore, and extras; Trekkies do learn Klingon, after all. But this kind of dedication is unpredictable, and fan communities will grow organically if they grow at all, without shepherding. I do not think that this sort of product has the market that Neal Stephenson thinks it has.
Galston crept through the dark halls of Heinlich manor, his footsteps whispers against the pine-beam floors. Two guards had almost spotted him within the space of an hour; he was getting old, getting clumsy. Down the corridor, the warm bath of an oil lantern flickered against carved stone walls. He blinked. It was moving toward him. Heavy boots hit the floor, where had they come from? Deftly, he slid across the hallway to the unmarked wooden door and tried lifting the handle. Locked. He tried the next one. All locked. The footsteps were getting heavier. There was nothing---no place to hide, nothing to distance himself from Heinlich's toadies and their steel-tipped boots. The window behind him was still open. He could still make a break for it, now, before it was too late.
"Galston Tree-Hung, I presume?" said a deep voice from down the hall.
He froze. The words were knives. How did they know his name?
---And now, a Map of Heinlich manor, a user-contributed sketch of the Mysterious Stranger, a short animated video of Galston as a young thief in his hometown of Freeport, and a word from our sponsors---
...provided that the national emergency in question is that the machines have become self-aware and have decided to kill all humans. Under those conditions, a kill switch would be very, very useful.
On the other hand, if the "national emergency" is defined by the same people who define "breaking news" on 24-hour cable newsertainment networks, then this could be a problem.
It's not any particular story. It typifies the Shaggy God story cliche. Two space travelers are on their way to a mysterious blue planet, after some sort of apocalypse on their homeworld, some stuff happens, and then we discover that they're really Adam and Eve and their space ship is Eden or something. I remember reading a story like that somewhere, at some point, but apparently there are dozens.
I've never watched the Twilight Zone, but I'm rather surprised that the aliens had such a knack for the subtleties of the English language.
You forget that the space travelers' names were Adam and Eve, Darth Vader was Luke's father, Sephiroth kills Aries, Soylent Green is people, the guy had already caught the killer and just forgotten about it, and Snape was a good guy the whole time.
God, I hope I didn't spoil Memento for anyone.
Yeah, but you have to wait for bids to close, shipping, etc.
I have an even simpler solution that I've used successfully for many household devices. Granted, the TI calculator presents some interesting challenges for engineering this solution, but I think a smart engineering student should be able to figure it out.
I had to look up estoppel. For a split second while the page was loading, I thought it meant, "a legal formulation by which a corporation can assert that no, really, we're not lying to you this time."
I tried writing an application for my toaster in.NET, and it wouldn't run properly. There are no workarounds..NET is completely broken for toaster platforms.
Look, if Microsoft released its.NET implementation under the Apache license, the FSF would criticize them for not open-sourcing all of their software.
If Microsoft released all of its software under the Apache license, the FSF would criticize them for not using the GPL.
If Microsoft released all of its software under the GPL, the FSF would criticize them for not going far enough to ensure that third-party applications on the Windows platform were also released under the GPL, and that it would run drivers with binary blobs.
If Microsoft demanded that all software for Windows and all compatible drivers also be GPL'ed, the FSF would criticize them for not demanding that the hardware that Windows runs on also be open-source.
If Microsoft asked hardware manufacturers to also open-source their designs, then, as it faded into irrelevance and Apple/Google/Red Hat took over the PC market, the FSF would criticize them for not understanding how free software works.
Well, sure, and if SkyNet is destroying all humans and you can stop it by infecting it with a nasty virus, then you're a hero. But that's not really what we're talking about.
Maybe they're hoping that by concentrating enough evil in one room, they'll create a black hole of iniquity that will flush these fuckers down a cosmic toilet.
I think the prosecution is going to go wild with the idea that you're already under police surveillance, for whatever reason, and then you shoot the police officer who is trying to catch you committing a crime. You might as well throw away your own key.
Not really. Scalia and Thomas's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence falls short of Big Brother-ish, but is hardly bankable. The justice you really want is Ginsburg.
Slashdot Mirror
So when you were surfing the 'Net in the United States, you went to "America Is Evil And the American Government Should Be Violently Overthrown" -dot-com, and you got a 404 error? Or are you equivocating here?
(I guess you *did* get a 404 error, that's a ridiculously long URL.)
Is it just me, or is it that since RIM's shown that they'd give ground to world governments (even if it's a face-saving maneuver, as some here have said), that everybody and their brother now wants access to their servers?
God is love. You believe in love, don't you? So there must be God, because there is love.
Obviously, it follows that love created the world in six days. Then love created a flood that destroyed just about fucking everyone, because you don't fuck with love, love is a sociopath.
We're all going to fucking die. I'm just hoping I die before my car runs out of gas.
Hah! You think those guys are the extremists! Wait until you see a real extremist!
I think his point is that humans are a problem because they are not extinct. He's anti-war, he says, not because there's anything with people killing each other off, but because it might hurt a gazelle. At this point, you can pretty much conclude that even if you agree with something in his manifesto, he still doesn't have a point. Anything that he says that you might agree with, or makes you think, "Well, that's not completely insane," actually is, and it's only incidental that you have said the same thing.
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who have read The Silmarillion, and people who started reading it, got bored, and did something else. Neal Stephenson is firmly in the former camp, he is a self-professed geek who loves to "geek out." I have a friend who does not consider himself to have finished a Final Fantasy game until he has killed every monster, collected everything that can be collected, maxed out every character, and unlocked every achievement. (Or whatever they do in FF, it's been a long time since I played any of them.) Most people prefer to read the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and then stop reading Tolkien, and once they've saved the world from Sephiroth/Sin/somebody bad, then they put down their game controller. There is a market for this kind of obscene dedication to supplemental materials, obscure lore, and extras; Trekkies do learn Klingon, after all. But this kind of dedication is unpredictable, and fan communities will grow organically if they grow at all, without shepherding. I do not think that this sort of product has the market that Neal Stephenson thinks it has.
Galston crept through the dark halls of Heinlich manor, his footsteps whispers against the pine-beam floors. Two guards had almost spotted him within the space of an hour; he was getting old, getting clumsy. Down the corridor, the warm bath of an oil lantern flickered against carved stone walls. He blinked. It was moving toward him. Heavy boots hit the floor, where had they come from? Deftly, he slid across the hallway to the unmarked wooden door and tried lifting the handle. Locked. He tried the next one. All locked. The footsteps were getting heavier. There was nothing---no place to hide, nothing to distance himself from Heinlich's toadies and their steel-tipped boots. The window behind him was still open. He could still make a break for it, now, before it was too late.
"Galston Tree-Hung, I presume?" said a deep voice from down the hall.
He froze. The words were knives. How did they know his name?
---And now, a Map of Heinlich manor, a user-contributed sketch of the Mysterious Stranger, a short animated video of Galston as a young thief in his hometown of Freeport, and a word from our sponsors---
...provided that the national emergency in question is that the machines have become self-aware and have decided to kill all humans. Under those conditions, a kill switch would be very, very useful.
On the other hand, if the "national emergency" is defined by the same people who define "breaking news" on 24-hour cable newsertainment networks, then this could be a problem.
Not really.
It's not any particular story. It typifies the Shaggy God story cliche. Two space travelers are on their way to a mysterious blue planet, after some sort of apocalypse on their homeworld, some stuff happens, and then we discover that they're really Adam and Eve and their space ship is Eden or something. I remember reading a story like that somewhere, at some point, but apparently there are dozens.
I've never watched the Twilight Zone, but I'm rather surprised that the aliens had such a knack for the subtleties of the English language.
Wall of Stink-Eye
You forget that the space travelers' names were Adam and Eve, Darth Vader was Luke's father, Sephiroth kills Aries, Soylent Green is people, the guy had already caught the killer and just forgotten about it, and Snape was a good guy the whole time. God, I hope I didn't spoil Memento for anyone.
Yeah, but you have to wait for bids to close, shipping, etc. I have an even simpler solution that I've used successfully for many household devices. Granted, the TI calculator presents some interesting challenges for engineering this solution, but I think a smart engineering student should be able to figure it out.
This. I can find my way around the DC mall entirely because of Fallout 3.
You're using the wrong metaphor. The correct one involves a stampede.
Well, sure, but what if you're an early adopter?
Another Java? Don't we have two of them already?
(Dammit, COBOL! We already have FORTRAN and Lisp!)
I had to look up estoppel. For a split second while the page was loading, I thought it meant, "a legal formulation by which a corporation can assert that no, really, we're not lying to you this time."
I tried writing an application for my toaster in .NET, and it wouldn't run properly. There are no workarounds. .NET is completely broken for toaster platforms.
Look, if Microsoft released its .NET implementation under the Apache license, the FSF would criticize them for not open-sourcing all of their software.
If Microsoft released all of its software under the Apache license, the FSF would criticize them for not using the GPL.
If Microsoft released all of its software under the GPL, the FSF would criticize them for not going far enough to ensure that third-party applications on the Windows platform were also released under the GPL, and that it would run drivers with binary blobs.
If Microsoft demanded that all software for Windows and all compatible drivers also be GPL'ed, the FSF would criticize them for not demanding that the hardware that Windows runs on also be open-source.
If Microsoft asked hardware manufacturers to also open-source their designs, then, as it faded into irrelevance and Apple/Google/Red Hat took over the PC market, the FSF would criticize them for not understanding how free software works.
Well, sure, and if SkyNet is destroying all humans and you can stop it by infecting it with a nasty virus, then you're a hero. But that's not really what we're talking about.
Ethical Malcoding: From the people who brought you:
...and many, many more!
Ethical Terrorism
Ethical Oppression
Ethical Genocide
Ethical Cannibalism
Ethical Amorality
Maybe they're hoping that by concentrating enough evil in one room, they'll create a black hole of iniquity that will flush these fuckers down a cosmic toilet.
I think the prosecution is going to go wild with the idea that you're already under police surveillance, for whatever reason, and then you shoot the police officer who is trying to catch you committing a crime. You might as well throw away your own key.
Not really. Scalia and Thomas's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence falls short of Big Brother-ish, but is hardly bankable. The justice you really want is Ginsburg.
But he would have made an excellent food source for these guys.