You're not intolerant for disagreeing with someone. Intolerance is not allowing a person to enjoy the same rights as you have. You have the right to spend millions of dollars to promote an argument, wrong or right. So do they. As long as you don't say "they can't do that, but I can", you're not intolerant.
What you should be, and what any rational person should be, is dismayed at the fact that slick presentation might just be enough to sway people into believing an argument that can be taken apart with a mere application of facts. Saying something loudly or eloquently does not make it truth. However, there is a significant part of our population that will believe what they're told if the source is "reputable" (TV, museum, magazine) without research. That is what is appalling, and these Creation Museum folks are taking advantage of that. But then again, so are politicians and marketing people and....
Anyway, not that it matters much, but I fall into the non-literal Christian camp myself. I believe the Old Testament is mythology inspired by God (stories told to convey spiritual messages or to explain the world), but I don't believe it's 100% literal fact. As such, I find the Creation Museum's message to be fantasy and not representative of my beliefs or the beliefs of most of my Christian friends. However, they have the right to present their point of view...just as I and any of us have the right to point out how wrong they are.
Um, you don't run your screensaver and game at the same time, so why would you expect a 3d desktop to behave with a game?
Beryl's got a really neat feature where you can toggle between metacity and beryl via the config tray icon. Just turn on metacity when you're gaming, then turn beryl back on afterwards.
'Tis not the fault of the desktop manager...maybe when cards get bigger running multiple 3d apps won't drag it down so much.
Sounds less like you were using the paddle and more like the Indy 500 driving controller. That one sent the same signals as a joystick, so it could theoretically be used on any game that didn't require you to move up and down.
Ok, it's sad I still know that.
I was running XP on my second box at home and wanted to try making a Linux box out of it. I didn't want to commit to a repartition, so I tried Knoppix. While playing with it, I discovered this method of install...
No partioning or constant CD loading neccessary. Works fine from NTFS. Biggest problem here would be getting an ISO image of the disk down to the hard drive.
Of course, if you're comfortable doing the repartitioning, I would recommend the HD install (sudo knoppix-installer). That way you can use apt-get to keep the system up to date.
Look, the 18 seconds of "Enterprise" I saw this year included and alien dressed as a Nazi. An alien Nazi! It just underscores the lack of originality in Star Trek dating back to The Next Generation.
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I like science fiction that starts with a science or technology concept and then expands upon that and then looks at how people react or adapt to it. BSG is putting the cart before the horse.
I agree that there's a difference between "true" science fiction and technology based fantasy (ie Star Wars, Star Trek, both BSGs, B5, etc). However, thanks to marketing and such the lines are pretty much blurred. It's all semantics anyway, since true SF fans can tell the difference.
It really bothers me that the Cylons do so many things, and have so many abilities that have no given explanation
I think that's due to more of a storytelling device than anything else. Cylon=mysterious enemy...so there's going to be things that aren't explained immediately. Hopefully, the writers will explain it out later on ('cause I'd really like to know why the Cylons felt bio-engineering was the way to go to beat us "inferior" humans).
Plus, that story has been told, why not tell a new one?
Well, if you want the honest truth, this new series is basically a totally different story. I think that's why it's so popular. The show takes its premise from the original, but it goes in a different direction.
I'm the first to admit I was one of the nay-sayers. Human-looking Cylons? Female characters? No way. However, they pulled it off.
apart from the blowing up of the worlds at the beginning (which wasn't even shown - they started after this) they have no common elements.
Actually, there was a miniseries last year that told the very beginning of the story. It explains the human-Cylon relationship and how the beat the humans' defenses so easily. There are also some incidental tie ins to the original series in there. It's on DVD, and I'd recommend it for anyone who's just coming in on the new series.
P.S. I don't know who Mos is, I looked at his website, nothing rings a bell. Maybe he's a good actor (I hope).
I had the pleasure of accidentally catching this movie on HBO (which incidentally won an Emmy).
Your hopes are well founded. He can act quite well, and I for one was happy to see he got the role. It's a sad loss for anyone who can't see past the color of his skin.
This same review was posted on Fark a couple weeks ago, but by someone else, so I'm going out on a limb here to suggest that this guy just plageriazed the review.
Nope, same guy. He just apparently felt the need to repeat himself.
Well there is one positive thing to this story, the fact that a private sector company got a hold of this software before the govt. did.
At this in this case, NA will be somewhat hesitant to allow the government to use this technology
Um, do you really think if the government flashed enough money at NA, they wouldn't sell it in a heartbeat? This is a corporation we're talking about here. Wish I didn't have to be so cynical, but I have this gut feeling the next press release will be how NA signed a multimillion deal with the NSA/FBI for this new product.
The problem with new technology is that people marvel at what they can do so much that they don't stopt to think whether it should be done or not (thank you Jurassic Park for that one). Yeah, this system may have wonderful uses, but it's got much more capacity for abuse by both the private sector and the government. "Oh look, you're sending encrypted data? You must be a terrorist...let's drag you in for questioning and take all your equipment while we're at it. It may take us a few years to clear your name, but it's all in the name of national security":(
Just as an FYI, I believe enable/disable popups is part of the "Quick Preferences" menu, which keeps you from having to dig for some of the more useful configs that you might change a lot like cookies enabled/disabled or what version of browser Opera reports as (an incredibly useful trick, especially with IE-only sites).
You can find quick preferences right next to the regular preferences menu under File.
*affecting a bad surfer accent* Dell, you're going to hell...
Seriously, before we go off on a big spree about how Microsoft is bad and all that, let's keep in mind that Dell could have fought the licensing in court if they really wanted to. They could have used the precedent of Microsoft as a monopoly to tell them to fsck off. Microsoft could have tried to "punish" them, and Dell could have beat them down even further. There is/was a perfect chance to fight against the monopoly, but Dell just turned over and gave up.
Yes we're all QUITE aware of how evil M$ is. I could rant about that for days, but here on Slashdot it's preaching to the choir. What I see here is a company (Dell) basically enabling that evil to thrive. Wanna boycott something? Boycott Dell and make them realize they should have fought back.
Umm... if the government were doing it it would be wrong. How is it illegal for Private citizens and cooporations to censor things?
Would you think it wrong if someone went into a library and marked out lines in a book because they found it offensive? I thought so...that falls under the category of destruction of property.
What these folks in Utah are doing is taking months or years of someone's work in acting, directing, and editing and saying "I can do it better and make money off of it". So they spend a few hours snipping and repacking, and voila...they make money off of someone else's work while at the same time diluting the art.
I believe that's why there's a copyright law, and I'm sure the copyright law (even without the DMCA) can be used to stop the practice. I hope they do, personally. As an artist myself, I find the practice deplorable.
Having your own personal copy edited for your own use should be legal and fair use. You bought it, it's yours to do with what you please as long as you don't redistribute it. You want to have someone chop the violent bits out of the Matrix tape that you've bought, fine...that's your loss. Don't expect me to ask for a copy.
It's the rental/sale of third-party edited videos that is most offensive here. That corrupts the artists' intent, and distributing such material (especially selling it) SHOULD be against copyright, if it's not already. Only the owners of the rights to that art should have the right to edit and redistribute it for revenue, period.
I for one would be very upset to get a copy of a movie just to find out somebody else besides the people involved in making the movie decided I didn't need to see a scene, so they cut it. That's real censorship at work, and I hope the MPAA nails them to the wall. Maybe that'll keep em too busy to bother the DVR owners:)
It's worse than apples and oranges (although it would be more accurate to compare Apple and Microsoft). Microsoft has revenue from standalone sales and OEMs. Every computer sold is more revenue for Microsoft. Then add the retail upgrades that some people purchase at $99 or more. Yeah, lots of revenue.
Linux, on the other hand, is either bought standalone or downloaded. Most folks download it. It's loaded on very few computers when they're sold, plus Linux is the minority OS in comparison.
Next thing they'll tell us is rainy weather is wetter than dry weather:P
If you're so ignorant as to think spamming is a better alternative to a real job (like a truck driver), then you don't deserve to be on-line.
Note I said truck driving was a real job...it's not the occupation I had a problem with. It's the change from a non-technical career to becoming a psuedo-technical nightmare that bothers me. It's people like that, who get online with no conception of the technology or the culture, who often become a Net menace. Call em lamers, trolls, or spammers...it's those folks that have turned some corners of the internet into cesspools.
What makes me rail is that this person had a non-computer based real job that produced things and benefitted society. He dove into the Internet, started spamming, and now tries to justify his destructive behavior as a good business model. In my eyes, not only has he not earned the right to justify a Net business model, he's lost EVERY right to the Internet for engaging in one of the worst practices known...all because of apparent ignorance of Net culture. His defense of his "business" reaks of ignorance and stubborness, and that's stinkier crap than any perceived elitism you might have seen from me.
I do not disagree with you, however unless _some_ people were actually _buying_ the crap advertised by those yelling cyberstreet vendors, they would stop
I completely agree with you there too. I was addressing the ignorance of the spammers interviewed in the article, but the point is there to be made that it wouldn't happen at all if there was no revenue stream. The article quoted a number like 1 in 1000. When you send to a million addresses, that means you got 1000 interested customers (better than I did in my small venture in selling stuff at a market).
Yep, humans are an ignorant bunch...if it's in an ad, it must be true. The sun may be shining, and replicants may not be running around, but we're edging closer to cyberpunk hell every day.
of the flawed marketing logic "if we cram the ads down enough people's throats, someone will buy it". This is the same logic that created the flood of AOL CDs and intrusive web marketing such as pop-ups and those aggravating flash ads (the ones that co-opt the whole page). Guess the idea of getting your product to sell because it's actually worth buying is nearly dead.
It's obvious that spammers are an ignorant lot. If you're being threatened and ISPs don't want you around, what makes you think anyone wants your spam? It's like a street vendor grabbing people and yelling in their face. In the real world, that would get you chased off at best and possibly arrested. Yet they keep coming back, and they have the absolute nerve to say the hostile response they get is not their fault.
In closing, "truck driver and pinball machine mechanic"? Wonder if he knows anything about a computer besides how to click the "send" button on his spambot. More fuel to my personal fire that you really should have a license to operate a computer. If you're so ignorant as to think spamming is a better alternative to a real job (like a truck driver), then you don't deserve to be on-line. If there was a Darwin Award for computer stupidity, spammers would be a shoe-in.
How often do shell replacements break applications that are expecting the original?
In my experience, not very often. Most programs don't care what shell is running, actually:) In fact, any program can be a shell. It's an easy tweak in Win9x, and just slightly more difficult in the NT flavors.
The biggest problem you might run into interaction wise are things that rely on a system tray, since many shell replacements don't have them (Litestep has a module for it, and there's a freeware app that can be a systray if one doesn't exist). Aside from that, the worst thing to worry about in a shell replacement is instability. Some of them are crash prone, although older ones with active dev teams like Litestep are much more stable (sometimes even more so than Explorer).
One caveat...shell replacements aren't always as newbie friendly as Explorer. There's often a lot of manual editing of config files that has to happen. No sweat for the Linux inclined, but I wouldn't recommend them for someone who's Notepad-phobic:)
I'd be great if Windows would give you those kinds of capabilities. I find myself frustrated every time I use it. Mostly because it's not what I'm used to, but partially because I can't change the way it works when I disagree with what the human-computer interaction, GUI-gurus have dictated everyone needs.
Have you looked at Shellcity? There's lots of great UI tweaks and utilities for making Windows look a lot better, including replacements for the Explorer shell like Litestep (the Litestep site seems to be down right now, however). With a shell replacement, you can regain that control of having the desktop you want.
(and I'm going to ignore that "complaining about flash" != "debate about coding standards")
Right now IE is the dominant browser. As we all know, the winner of a war gets to write history. Thus, IE is the standard as far as most business and personal users are concerned. Your average Joe Blow off the street doesn't know or care about any standards body making rules. All he cares about is whether www.whatever.www will work in his browser, which statistics show is most likely IE.
We can lament the failure of Opera, Mozilla, etc to be the Redmond giant, but that doesn't change the fact that programmers will be told to code for IE because that's what everyone uses. When time is an issue, the big suits are going to want it working on the majority of systems in the shortest amount of time. That means coding for IE and leaving the rest behind.
If you want to make a difference, go to the sites that are coded for IE only and let them know there is a demand for them to be cross-browser compliant. Word your email rationally and explain why they are losing customers due to their lack of support for other platforms. If they don't respond, don't go there anymore. Enough people doing that should get the suits attention (if they care, and if they don't then why do you bother). MS will only take over the web if you let them.
This is just the next step in the evolution of the format. Now that it's gained customer acceptance, the stores can get rid of the inferior technology (VHS) and concentrate their business. It happened with audio cassettes (vinyl was killed), and it happened with CDs (bye bye cassettes).
As far as being a premature move, everyone that I talk to nowadays either has a DVD player or plans on getting one within the year. Sounds like the perfect opportunity for the stores to push those last few stragglers to DVD by eliminating the VHS market for new releases.
Besides, wouldn't you rather have more room on the shelves for the latest anime imports?;)
Slashdot Mirror
You're not intolerant for disagreeing with someone. Intolerance is not allowing a person to enjoy the same rights as you have. You have the right to spend millions of dollars to promote an argument, wrong or right. So do they. As long as you don't say "they can't do that, but I can", you're not intolerant. What you should be, and what any rational person should be, is dismayed at the fact that slick presentation might just be enough to sway people into believing an argument that can be taken apart with a mere application of facts. Saying something loudly or eloquently does not make it truth. However, there is a significant part of our population that will believe what they're told if the source is "reputable" (TV, museum, magazine) without research. That is what is appalling, and these Creation Museum folks are taking advantage of that. But then again, so are politicians and marketing people and.... Anyway, not that it matters much, but I fall into the non-literal Christian camp myself. I believe the Old Testament is mythology inspired by God (stories told to convey spiritual messages or to explain the world), but I don't believe it's 100% literal fact. As such, I find the Creation Museum's message to be fantasy and not representative of my beliefs or the beliefs of most of my Christian friends. However, they have the right to present their point of view...just as I and any of us have the right to point out how wrong they are.
Um, you don't run your screensaver and game at the same time, so why would you expect a 3d desktop to behave with a game?
Beryl's got a really neat feature where you can toggle between metacity and beryl via the config tray icon. Just turn on metacity when you're gaming, then turn beryl back on afterwards.
'Tis not the fault of the desktop manager...maybe when cards get bigger running multiple 3d apps won't drag it down so much.
Sounds less like you were using the paddle and more like the Indy 500 driving controller. That one sent the same signals as a joystick, so it could theoretically be used on any game that didn't require you to move up and down. Ok, it's sad I still know that.
I was running XP on my second box at home and wanted to try making a Linux box out of it. I didn't want to commit to a repartition, so I tried Knoppix. While playing with it, I discovered this method of install...
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition
No partioning or constant CD loading neccessary. Works fine from NTFS. Biggest problem here would be getting an ISO image of the disk down to the hard drive.
Of course, if you're comfortable doing the repartitioning, I would recommend the HD install (sudo knoppix-installer). That way you can use apt-get to keep the system up to date.
Look, the 18 seconds of "Enterprise" I saw this year included and alien dressed as a Nazi. An alien Nazi! It just underscores the lack of originality in Star Trek dating back to The Next Generation.
e pisode/68764.html
Since we've nearly invoked Godwin's Law here anyway, let me point out you forgot about this OS episode involving Nazis... http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I like science fiction that starts with a science or technology concept and then expands upon that and then looks at how people react or adapt to it. BSG is putting the cart before the horse.
I agree that there's a difference between "true" science fiction and technology based fantasy (ie Star Wars, Star Trek, both BSGs, B5, etc). However, thanks to marketing and such the lines are pretty much blurred. It's all semantics anyway, since true SF fans can tell the difference.
It really bothers me that the Cylons do so many things, and have so many abilities that have no given explanation
I think that's due to more of a storytelling device than anything else. Cylon=mysterious enemy...so there's going to be things that aren't explained immediately. Hopefully, the writers will explain it out later on ('cause I'd really like to know why the Cylons felt bio-engineering was the way to go to beat us "inferior" humans).
Plus, that story has been told, why not tell a new one?
Well, if you want the honest truth, this new series is basically a totally different story. I think that's why it's so popular. The show takes its premise from the original, but it goes in a different direction.
I'm the first to admit I was one of the nay-sayers. Human-looking Cylons? Female characters? No way. However, they pulled it off.
apart from the blowing up of the worlds at the beginning (which wasn't even shown - they started after this) they have no common elements.
Actually, there was a miniseries last year that told the very beginning of the story. It explains the human-Cylon relationship and how the beat the humans' defenses so easily. There are also some incidental tie ins to the original series in there. It's on DVD, and I'd recommend it for anyone who's just coming in on the new series.
P.S. I don't know who Mos is, I looked at his website, nothing rings a bell. Maybe he's a good actor (I hope).
I had the pleasure of accidentally catching this movie on HBO (which incidentally won an Emmy).
Your hopes are well founded. He can act quite well, and I for one was happy to see he got the role. It's a sad loss for anyone who can't see past the color of his skin.
This same review was posted on Fark a couple weeks ago, but by someone else, so I'm going out on a limb here to suggest that this guy just plageriazed the review.
Nope, same guy. He just apparently felt the need to repeat himself.
Of course it's the same guy. That's not the issue. The problem I have is the multiple submission of the exact same overblown rant.
The whole deal smacks of "Let's post my review on as many sites as I can. That way, the world can see how big my ---- is."
You can find this same review, word for word, on a different site.
http://www.gamegrene.com/node/419/
That's pretty low. If you're going to trash something on multiple sites, at least don't just copy and paste the same thing.
Um, do you really think if the government flashed enough money at NA, they wouldn't sell it in a heartbeat? This is a corporation we're talking about here. Wish I didn't have to be so cynical, but I have this gut feeling the next press release will be how NA signed a multimillion deal with the NSA/FBI for this new product.
The problem with new technology is that people marvel at what they can do so much that they don't stopt to think whether it should be done or not (thank you Jurassic Park for that one). Yeah, this system may have wonderful uses, but it's got much more capacity for abuse by both the private sector and the government. "Oh look, you're sending encrypted data? You must be a terrorist...let's drag you in for questioning and take all your equipment while we're at it. It may take us a few years to clear your name, but it's all in the name of national security" :(
You can find quick preferences right next to the regular preferences menu under File.
Seriously, before we go off on a big spree about how Microsoft is bad and all that, let's keep in mind that Dell could have fought the licensing in court if they really wanted to. They could have used the precedent of Microsoft as a monopoly to tell them to fsck off. Microsoft could have tried to "punish" them, and Dell could have beat them down even further. There is/was a perfect chance to fight against the monopoly, but Dell just turned over and gave up.
Yes we're all QUITE aware of how evil M$ is. I could rant about that for days, but here on Slashdot it's preaching to the choir. What I see here is a company (Dell) basically enabling that evil to thrive. Wanna boycott something? Boycott Dell and make them realize they should have fought back.
Would you think it wrong if someone went into a library and marked out lines in a book because they found it offensive? I thought so...that falls under the category of destruction of property.
What these folks in Utah are doing is taking months or years of someone's work in acting, directing, and editing and saying "I can do it better and make money off of it". So they spend a few hours snipping and repacking, and voila...they make money off of someone else's work while at the same time diluting the art.
I believe that's why there's a copyright law, and I'm sure the copyright law (even without the DMCA) can be used to stop the practice. I hope they do, personally. As an artist myself, I find the practice deplorable.
It's the rental/sale of third-party edited videos that is most offensive here. That corrupts the artists' intent, and distributing such material (especially selling it) SHOULD be against copyright, if it's not already. Only the owners of the rights to that art should have the right to edit and redistribute it for revenue, period.
I for one would be very upset to get a copy of a movie just to find out somebody else besides the people involved in making the movie decided I didn't need to see a scene, so they cut it. That's real censorship at work, and I hope the MPAA nails them to the wall. Maybe that'll keep em too busy to bother the DVR owners :)
Linux, on the other hand, is either bought standalone or downloaded. Most folks download it. It's loaded on very few computers when they're sold, plus Linux is the minority OS in comparison.
Next thing they'll tell us is rainy weather is wetter than dry weather :P
If you're so ignorant as to think spamming is a better alternative to a real job (like a truck driver), then you don't deserve to be on-line.
Note I said truck driving was a real job...it's not the occupation I had a problem with. It's the change from a non-technical career to becoming a psuedo-technical nightmare that bothers me. It's people like that, who get online with no conception of the technology or the culture, who often become a Net menace. Call em lamers, trolls, or spammers...it's those folks that have turned some corners of the internet into cesspools.
What makes me rail is that this person had a non-computer based real job that produced things and benefitted society. He dove into the Internet, started spamming, and now tries to justify his destructive behavior as a good business model. In my eyes, not only has he not earned the right to justify a Net business model, he's lost EVERY right to the Internet for engaging in one of the worst practices known...all because of apparent ignorance of Net culture. His defense of his "business" reaks of ignorance and stubborness, and that's stinkier crap than any perceived elitism you might have seen from me.
I completely agree with you there too. I was addressing the ignorance of the spammers interviewed in the article, but the point is there to be made that it wouldn't happen at all if there was no revenue stream. The article quoted a number like 1 in 1000. When you send to a million addresses, that means you got 1000 interested customers (better than I did in my small venture in selling stuff at a market).
Yep, humans are an ignorant bunch...if it's in an ad, it must be true. The sun may be shining, and replicants may not be running around, but we're edging closer to cyberpunk hell every day.
It's obvious that spammers are an ignorant lot. If you're being threatened and ISPs don't want you around, what makes you think anyone wants your spam? It's like a street vendor grabbing people and yelling in their face. In the real world, that would get you chased off at best and possibly arrested. Yet they keep coming back, and they have the absolute nerve to say the hostile response they get is not their fault.
In closing, "truck driver and pinball machine mechanic"? Wonder if he knows anything about a computer besides how to click the "send" button on his spambot. More fuel to my personal fire that you really should have a license to operate a computer. If you're so ignorant as to think spamming is a better alternative to a real job (like a truck driver), then you don't deserve to be on-line. If there was a Darwin Award for computer stupidity, spammers would be a shoe-in.
In my experience, not very often. Most programs don't care what shell is running, actually :) In fact, any program can be a shell. It's an easy tweak in Win9x, and just slightly more difficult in the NT flavors.
The biggest problem you might run into interaction wise are things that rely on a system tray, since many shell replacements don't have them (Litestep has a module for it, and there's a freeware app that can be a systray if one doesn't exist). Aside from that, the worst thing to worry about in a shell replacement is instability. Some of them are crash prone, although older ones with active dev teams like Litestep are much more stable (sometimes even more so than Explorer).
One caveat...shell replacements aren't always as newbie friendly as Explorer. There's often a lot of manual editing of config files that has to happen. No sweat for the Linux inclined, but I wouldn't recommend them for someone who's Notepad-phobic :)
Have you looked at Shellcity? There's lots of great UI tweaks and utilities for making Windows look a lot better, including replacements for the Explorer shell like Litestep (the Litestep site seems to be down right now, however). With a shell replacement, you can regain that control of having the desktop you want.
(and I'm going to ignore that "complaining about flash" != "debate about coding standards")
Right now IE is the dominant browser. As we all know, the winner of a war gets to write history. Thus, IE is the standard as far as most business and personal users are concerned. Your average Joe Blow off the street doesn't know or care about any standards body making rules. All he cares about is whether www.whatever.www will work in his browser, which statistics show is most likely IE.
We can lament the failure of Opera, Mozilla, etc to be the Redmond giant, but that doesn't change the fact that programmers will be told to code for IE because that's what everyone uses. When time is an issue, the big suits are going to want it working on the majority of systems in the shortest amount of time. That means coding for IE and leaving the rest behind.
If you want to make a difference, go to the sites that are coded for IE only and let them know there is a demand for them to be cross-browser compliant. Word your email rationally and explain why they are losing customers due to their lack of support for other platforms. If they don't respond, don't go there anymore. Enough people doing that should get the suits attention (if they care, and if they don't then why do you bother). MS will only take over the web if you let them.
This is just the next step in the evolution of the format. Now that it's gained customer acceptance, the stores can get rid of the inferior technology (VHS) and concentrate their business. It happened with audio cassettes (vinyl was killed), and it happened with CDs (bye bye cassettes).
;)
As far as being a premature move, everyone that I talk to nowadays either has a DVD player or plans on getting one within the year. Sounds like the perfect opportunity for the stores to push those last few stragglers to DVD by eliminating the VHS market for new releases.
Besides, wouldn't you rather have more room on the shelves for the latest anime imports?