For pete's sake, a firewire card is like $40. This is nothing more than another pathetic (and probably intel-backed) attempt to promote the ubiquity of USB and the elimination of the obviously superior firewire.
It's a "modern" Anime with a "retro" look. The sets, vehicles, design, etc. all is super-detailed, nicely drafted, but the characters follow the more cartoony approach of 70's-era anime like "Speed Racer" and "Star Blazer", "Battle of the Planets" (um Gachaman, Space Cruiser Yamato, and Go Go Go, IIRC). Or even Lupin. Not that there's anything wrong with the Shirow-ites of the 90's. The more realistic approach is cool too - but it lacks a little bit of that light-hearted "life" of the older style.
The main characters are extremely likeable, the stories are about as deep as you can go within a half-hour framework. There's an arc, that comes to a tragic end in the last episode.
The action, is typical edge-of-your-seat anime.
There's good music too.
In fact, I think pretty much everything that I like about CB, I also like about Lupin. (btw - Steven Speilberg was quoted back in the 80's as saying that Lupin III: Castle Cagliostro was the greatest action/adventure movie of all time, I happen to agree).
Another absolutely laugh-riot bit of irony here is how US officials have been bitching at third world companies and governments for the past 20 years to "clean up the corruption" - blaming all the economic woes of those nations on fraud and bribery - when basically the same thing is going on right here at home.
Reviewing my portfolio, I respectfully submit things were going to hell in a hand basket starting in the spring before Bush took office.
True- but that was simply "the bubble" popping. Hell, if that had not happened, we probably would not have caught HALF these fuckers with their pants down. This cloud has a silver lining.
But the bubble popping, and even Sept 11 were really just a tempest in a teacup compared to what's been coming down the past 3-5 weeks. Just look at the fucking chart.
If we spent 1 TENTH the money on "The War On Corporate Fraud" as we are on "The War On (some) Terrorism" or "The War On (some) Drugs" - and put Ebbers in an orange jumpsuit at Camp X-Ray, I think this problem would go away real fast.
Laws would be a much more effective deterrant if the same percentage of accounting-fraud abusers went to jail and got fucked up the ass as people who smoked a joint.
No matter whether he was innocent or guilty, he's a damaged "brand name" now. Nobody's EVER going to trust the stock market again, until he and Cheney come clean on their past dealings. And he's refusing to do that - whether out of pure stubbornness, or a feeling of right and wrong, has nothing to do with it. It's portraying a sense of "something to hide" - and people are so unsure now, that that is creating mistrust. And it does not matter one bit whether he actually did anything wrong.
So right now, just by not releasing his documentation, Bush is making this situation far worse. And by not dumping Pitt. It's all based on the mass-psychology and lack of trust, and he's not doing a damn thing about it. Now the shoes on the other foot isn't it. "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear" - poetic justice. I savor every dollar I've lost in the stock market knowing that Bush has proved to the world that he's not willing to do what it takes to make things right. He's an idiot, and he's proven it. If he thinks he's getting reelected in 04, he's got another thing coming. The Dems would have to front Hillary Clinton or Jesse Jackson to lose against Bush in 04! (keeping in mind that it would have nothing to do with her female-ness or Jackson's blackness - but with their own alleged misdeeds!)
I want armed Predator drones adopted for use on multi-billion-dollar mansions owned by recently fired CEO's of companies who have recently filed for Chapter 11 and are being sued in a class action and under investigation by the FTC, SEC, and grand juries for criminal fraud.
A comprehensive, searchable database of freely downloadable mp3s, recorded at multiple bitrates and including all the relevant song information in the file. Price: $29/year.
It would take one weekend to have a million subscribers.
While, as a music consumer, I would consider this to be "the holy grail" of music - I would probably become very quickly pissed off to jump onto their server I just paid $29 for and find that due to insufficiently allocated resources, their server can only handle 100 people downloading at a time, and that for all practical purposes, I could probably only get one or two downloads in the space of a week because of that.
I might pay perhaps - oh - $50, $60, maybe even $70, if the service level was fairly decent - or if it was supplemented by a P2P system. (with a file-verification mechanism that made sure I wasn't downloading ads or loops or mislabled corrupted garbage.)
Because everybody's definition of "incentive" is different. Everyone can make a living at just about every business. But nowadays, just making a living isn't worth the effort it seems. Now, it seems, the only way to give someone the incentive to start a business is if they can get a monopoly, corner the market, sit back, and rake in obscene amounts of money.
You know this to be true. Look at the stock performance of a completely (as yet) unregulated monopoly, Intel. Or Microsoft. Compare those to the rest of the market. Why in hell would anybody spend money on stock of a company that's eventually going to get destroyed or swallowed by the monopoly? Answer is: nobody would.
Why in hell would the RIAA want to spend money to allow people to download songs at $1 a pop, with full access to their complete range of artists from the beginning of recording history to the present - only to allow people to freely make copies - despite the fact that they'd likely sell billions, - no trillions, the mere fact that they can't "maximize" their profits, because part of the equation is out of their control - the copying, no fucking way are they going to do that - which is why you see no widely RIAA adopted or approved music download service like that available today.
Why in hell would oil companies allow alternative fueled vehicles be developed when they can make obscene amounts of profits by pumping black crap out of the ground for next to nothing? There's no "incentive" - despite the fact that they could still make obscene profits - someone else will invariably have their fingers in their pie - ethanol or biodeisel-producing farmers, or solar-cell producers (although BPAmoco is one of the bigger players in solar cells right now).
I not only got DSL broadband service, but I also got Satellite TV. FUCK cable.
Where I used to live, AT&T came in and provided competition to Charter. Rates went down for about a year and a half. Then when they took out enough of Charter's marketshare, they bought them, and they're back to one provider. I hear the latest scam is that they've purposely degraded the FUCK out of the analog signal, then when people call in and complain, they try to sell them the supposedly higher quality digital signal, for $20 a month more. Does digital improve PQ? No, it only allows them to cram more home shopping channels into the package.
FUCK cable. Fuck them in the ass with a red-hot poker covered with razor blades.
I think what happens here is these guys get pointed to some "underground" news site on the internet, and they read some "shocking" story about coverups, and they think; "My God, normal Joe Sixpack would NEVER read this site, nobody could find this site but because I have an open mind and such cool friends, *I* found it, and now I know *THE TRUTH* - and everyone else is duped by this huge corporate conglomerate media conspiracy! I MUST get the word out! I know, I'll start with slashdot - - they seem pretty open minded. . . "
Bah! Look at Charles T. Tart, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UC Davis. A man who has had a long, and successful career as a psychology professor - a staunch believer in "Transpersonal Psychology" - (here's his web page: http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/ )
He's had his share of critics mind you, but nobody sabotaged his career or mind controlled him into silence or assassinated him. You'd think that if there were underhanded efforts to discredit the whole "supernatural phenomenon" deal, that he would have been a prime target.
I'm a proponent of the supernatural (somewhat) myself, but I sure as hell don't believe in some vast conspiracy to silence those who study these phenomena seriously. That's just plain bullshit. Any field like this, of course, is going to attract people who are flakes. Those flakes get discredited, and generally bad things happen to them. And there are also perfectly good scientists who DO make some observations which are unexplainable. Nothing is happening to those people.
That's impossible. The airlines were once heavily regulated, but were desparate to get out from under the yoke of the feds. When they got their wishes granted, all airlines instantly became the highly profitable companies with ecstatic customers that the feds kept them from being. Everybody knows that the free market is always perfect. Any other information is propaganda.
. . . in the Bizzarro world.
Airlines, under regulation or deregulation, are traditionally "geared highly" - that is, they run on razor-thin margins, and every little economic hiccup tends to, in general, throw airlines into major hassles - where they'll start overselling flights, cutting service in marginal markets (in other words, the flight you want from your city to your destination is no longer every 3 hours, it's every 3 days, if you're lucky). etc. That's why on Sept 11, after days of having to cancel flights, all the majors laid off hundreds of thousands, got hundreds of millions from the governemnt, and are still whining like little babies witha tummy ache from eating too much candy.
The reason why the guv bites a pillow for the airlines no matter how many people are put out of work (while their tax money goes into the corporate coffers)? Because the US economy depends on the airlines more than any other factor. Business people need to travel - otherwise business does not happen. But more than anything, it's about cheap fuel prices. (which is another way the guv helps out).
I used to own a vintage Aircooled VW (Karmann Ghia), and with the stock engine and transmission, it's top speed was 86 mph. However, power near the top end is pretty weak, especially up hills. Let me tell you, if you don't have a lot of power up above 50 mph or so, you WILL get jacked around on the freeway. Period.
(which is why I yanked the stock engine out of there and replaced it with a Porsche engine - NO problem attaining 86 mph - NO problem attaining 110+ - NO more getting jacked around on the freeway, trying to merge on enterance ramps, etc.)
I would never take a 70 MPH top-speed vehicle on ANY freeway. Speed Limit 55? What a joke. Wake up and smell the violators.
A similar concept might work well to protect against password-cracker programs. Why allow user/password entries as fast as the sytem can handle it? Why not set a limit so that the program only accepts one attempt every 10 seconds, and then after 3 such times closes?
IIRC, Solaris has such a feature - you can configure the delay between password entry attempts - and pretty much EVERY OS I know of has a "lockout after x number of failed attempts" feature - going back to Banyan - probably further.
I *do* hear gunfire some nights. Drunk cowboys driving up the street, shooting at yuppie cars parked outside. My neighbor got his VW shot up that way.
I *do* hear crickets, and wind, and frogs (during the rainy season, the frogs can be almost deafening) - and - no shit, coyotes. Where we used to live, there were thunderstorms, and the kids were afraid of the thunder. Now they hear the coyotes and they come running.
I do live very close to several state recreational parks, very convenient for camping and outdoor activities. Last July 4th weekend, my little town of 16k was jam-packed with 50,000 rowdy visitors with giant trucks and campers. Not fun.
Out of my back yard, I can see the milky way, shooting stars, etc. Somewhat of a nice thing without a hidden "dark side".
I'm so far away from the big cities, there's no big rock concerts, no opera, no plays, no nightclubs, (at least we have plenty of movie theaters, including one of the very very few drive-in's left - and some good local dining). Every store knows that there's no competition, so you pay through the nose for anything other than groceries. "Shopping" means either the internet, or driving 250 miles to the nearest big city. Repair people often make appointments to come and fix something, then they blow you off completely, and they know they won't lose any business. And the people are CONSERVATIVE. Like, *religious freak* social conservative. Not fiscal conservative. I got called for Jury duty last year. The case: Alleged horse thief. I shit you not.
There *is* a major university nearby, which is nice, because there are actual people younger than I am, the next town over. Unfortunately, housing prices are fucking outrageous because of that. (like, almost Silicon Valley-outrageous).
If I lost my job, I'd be fucked. I'd have to move.
It's sort of like the old mob racket of paying protection, "Give us $100/wk or something bad will happen to your store". They create a problem and then make you pay to cure it.
Frankly, this is the oldest form of government there is. Probably the *true* oldest profession. People were probably threatening other people in return for resources long before people were trading sex for resources. Probably long before we were people.
I think that if there's one person who might be sympathetic to this cause, it would be the good Senator from Arizona, John "I got butt-fucked by the Christian Coalition when I ran against Bush" McCain.
Last week, he publicly accused half the senate of being bought and paid for by corporate sponsors. He's my hero.
What I don't get is, when I applied for a mortgage for my house, I suddenly started getting spam from people wanting me to refinance - not the company that gave me the mortgage in the first place. Why in fuck would the company who's got my business sell my info to a competitor? Just boggles my mind how mindlessly they do this stuff.
Here is a check for $5000. By endorsing it you agree to open an account with us for that amount, with 27% interest. (this is a real one I got)
Those are illegal.
I recently collected a whopping $3.47 from a class-action suit against MBNA for sending out these checks. I remember getting one and tossing it in the shredder. But since I was on their list, I automagically qualified as a class member. God Bless class-action suits! It's not about the money. I can probably dig $3.47 out of my couch for spare change. It's about good and evil, right and wrong. (to quote Bush Sr.;)
Slashdot Mirror
For pete's sake, a firewire card is like $40. This is nothing more than another pathetic (and probably intel-backed) attempt to promote the ubiquity of USB and the elimination of the obviously superior firewire.
Things I like about Cowboy Bebop:
It's a "modern" Anime with a "retro" look. The sets, vehicles, design, etc. all is super-detailed, nicely drafted, but the characters follow the more cartoony approach of 70's-era anime like "Speed Racer" and "Star Blazer", "Battle of the Planets" (um Gachaman, Space Cruiser Yamato, and Go Go Go, IIRC). Or even Lupin.
Not that there's anything wrong with the Shirow-ites of the 90's. The more realistic approach is cool too - but it lacks a little bit of that light-hearted "life" of the older style.
The main characters are extremely likeable, the stories are about as deep as you can go within a half-hour framework. There's an arc, that comes to a tragic end in the last episode.
The action, is typical edge-of-your-seat anime.
There's good music too.
In fact, I think pretty much everything that I like about CB, I also like about Lupin.
(btw - Steven Speilberg was quoted back in the 80's as saying that Lupin III: Castle Cagliostro was the greatest action/adventure movie of all time, I happen to agree).
Another absolutely laugh-riot bit of irony here is how US officials have been bitching at third world companies and governments for the past 20 years to "clean up the corruption" - blaming all the economic woes of those nations on fraud and bribery - when basically the same thing is going on right here at home.
Lovely.
Reviewing my portfolio, I respectfully submit things were going to hell in a hand basket starting in the spring before Bush took office.
True- but that was simply "the bubble" popping. Hell, if that had not happened, we probably would not have caught HALF these fuckers with their pants down. This cloud has a silver lining.
But the bubble popping, and even Sept 11 were really just a tempest in a teacup compared to what's been coming down the past 3-5 weeks. Just look at the fucking chart.
If we spent 1 TENTH the money on "The War On Corporate Fraud" as we are on "The War On (some) Terrorism" or "The War On (some) Drugs" - and put Ebbers in an orange jumpsuit at Camp X-Ray, I think this problem would go away real fast.
Laws would be a much more effective deterrant if the same percentage of accounting-fraud abusers went to jail and got fucked up the ass as people who smoked a joint.
I think the more apt Bush (Sr.) quote here is "Voodoo Economics" :)
Best thing is - he doesn't even realize this:
No matter whether he was innocent or guilty, he's a damaged "brand name" now. Nobody's EVER going to trust the stock market again, until he and Cheney come clean on their past dealings. And he's refusing to do that - whether out of pure stubbornness, or a feeling of right and wrong, has nothing to do with it. It's portraying a sense of "something to hide" - and people are so unsure now, that that is creating mistrust. And it does not matter one bit whether he actually did anything wrong.
So right now, just by not releasing his documentation, Bush is making this situation far worse. And by not dumping Pitt. It's all based on the mass-psychology and lack of trust, and he's not doing a damn thing about it. Now the shoes on the other foot isn't it. "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear" - poetic justice.
I savor every dollar I've lost in the stock market knowing that Bush has proved to the world that he's not willing to do what it takes to make things right. He's an idiot, and he's proven it. If he thinks he's getting reelected in 04, he's got another thing coming. The Dems would have to front Hillary Clinton or Jesse Jackson to lose against Bush in 04!
(keeping in mind that it would have nothing to do with her female-ness or Jackson's blackness - but with their own alleged misdeeds!)
I want armed Predator drones adopted for use on multi-billion-dollar mansions owned by recently fired CEO's of companies who have recently filed for Chapter 11 and are being sued in a class action and under investigation by the FTC, SEC, and grand juries for criminal fraud.
A comprehensive, searchable database of freely downloadable mp3s, recorded at multiple bitrates and including all the relevant song information in the file. Price: $29/year.
It would take one weekend to have a million subscribers.
While, as a music consumer, I would consider this to be "the holy grail" of music - I would probably become very quickly pissed off to jump onto their server I just paid $29 for and find that due to insufficiently allocated resources, their server can only handle 100 people downloading at a time, and that for all practical purposes, I could probably only get one or two downloads in the space of a week because of that.
I might pay perhaps - oh - $50, $60, maybe even $70, if the service level was fairly decent - or if it was supplemented by a P2P system. (with a file-verification mechanism that made sure I wasn't downloading ads or loops or mislabled corrupted garbage.)
A military presance at US airports would have prevented the 9/11 hijackings if they'd just shot all the brown people.
(fyi - I'm joking. I think).
Because everybody's definition of "incentive" is different.
Everyone can make a living at just about every business. But nowadays, just making a living isn't worth the effort it seems. Now, it seems, the only way to give someone the incentive to start a business is if they can get a monopoly, corner the market, sit back, and rake in obscene amounts of money.
You know this to be true. Look at the stock performance of a completely (as yet) unregulated monopoly, Intel. Or Microsoft. Compare those to the rest of the market. Why in hell would anybody spend money on stock of a company that's eventually going to get destroyed or swallowed by the monopoly? Answer is: nobody would.
Why in hell would the RIAA want to spend money to allow people to download songs at $1 a pop, with full access to their complete range of artists from the beginning of recording history to the present - only to allow people to freely make copies - despite the fact that they'd likely sell billions, - no trillions, the mere fact that they can't "maximize" their profits, because part of the equation is out of their control - the copying, no fucking way are they going to do that - which is why you see no widely RIAA adopted or approved music download service like that available today.
Why in hell would oil companies allow alternative fueled vehicles be developed when they can make obscene amounts of profits by pumping black crap out of the ground for next to nothing? There's no "incentive" - despite the fact that they could still make obscene profits - someone else will invariably have their fingers in their pie - ethanol or biodeisel-producing farmers, or solar-cell producers (although BPAmoco is one of the bigger players in solar cells right now).
I not only got DSL broadband service, but I also got Satellite TV. FUCK cable.
Where I used to live, AT&T came in and provided competition to Charter. Rates went down for about a year and a half. Then when they took out enough of Charter's marketshare, they bought them, and they're back to one provider.
I hear the latest scam is that they've purposely degraded the FUCK out of the analog signal, then when people call in and complain, they try to sell them the supposedly higher quality digital signal, for $20 a month more. Does digital improve PQ? No, it only allows them to cram more home shopping channels into the package.
FUCK cable. Fuck them in the ass with a red-hot poker covered with razor blades.
I think what happens here is these guys get pointed to some "underground" news site on the internet, and they read some "shocking" story about coverups, and they think;
"My God, normal Joe Sixpack would NEVER read this site, nobody could find this site but because I have an open mind and such cool friends, *I* found it, and now I know *THE TRUTH* - and everyone else is duped by this huge corporate conglomerate media conspiracy! I MUST get the word out! I know, I'll start with slashdot - - they seem pretty open minded. . . "
Bah! Look at Charles T. Tart, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UC Davis. A man who has had a long, and successful career as a psychology professor - a staunch believer in "Transpersonal Psychology" -
(here's his web page: http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/
)
He's had his share of critics mind you, but nobody sabotaged his career or mind controlled him into silence or assassinated him. You'd think that if there were underhanded efforts to discredit the whole "supernatural phenomenon" deal, that he would have been a prime target.
I'm a proponent of the supernatural (somewhat) myself, but I sure as hell don't believe in some vast conspiracy to silence those who study these phenomena seriously. That's just plain bullshit. Any field like this, of course, is going to attract people who are flakes. Those flakes get discredited, and generally bad things happen to them. And there are also perfectly good scientists who DO make some observations which are unexplainable. Nothing is happening to those people.
That's impossible. The airlines were once heavily regulated, but were desparate to get out from under the yoke of the feds. When they got their wishes granted, all airlines instantly became the highly profitable companies with ecstatic customers that the feds kept them from being. Everybody knows that the free market is always perfect. Any other information is propaganda.
. . . in the Bizzarro world.
Airlines, under regulation or deregulation, are traditionally "geared highly" - that is, they run on razor-thin margins, and every little economic hiccup tends to, in general, throw airlines into major hassles - where they'll start overselling flights, cutting service in marginal markets (in other words, the flight you want from your city to your destination is no longer every 3 hours, it's every 3 days, if you're lucky). etc.
That's why on Sept 11, after days of having to cancel flights, all the majors laid off hundreds of thousands, got hundreds of millions from the governemnt, and are still whining like little babies witha tummy ache from eating too much candy.
The reason why the guv bites a pillow for the airlines no matter how many people are put out of work (while their tax money goes into the corporate coffers)? Because the US economy depends on the airlines more than any other factor. Business people need to travel - otherwise business does not happen.
But more than anything, it's about cheap fuel prices. (which is another way the guv helps out).
70 mph is slow.
I used to own a vintage Aircooled VW (Karmann Ghia), and with the stock engine and transmission, it's top speed was 86 mph. However, power near the top end is pretty weak, especially up hills. Let me tell you, if you don't have a lot of power up above 50 mph or so, you WILL get jacked around on the freeway. Period.
(which is why I yanked the stock engine out of there and replaced it with a Porsche engine - NO problem attaining 86 mph - NO problem attaining 110+ - NO more getting jacked around on the freeway, trying to merge on enterance ramps, etc.)
I would never take a 70 MPH top-speed vehicle on ANY freeway. Speed Limit 55? What a joke. Wake up and smell the violators.
A similar concept might work well to protect against password-cracker programs. Why allow user/password entries as fast as the sytem can handle it? Why not set a limit so that the program only accepts one attempt every 10 seconds, and then after 3 such times closes?
IIRC, Solaris has such a feature - you can configure the delay between password entry attempts - and pretty much EVERY OS I know of has a "lockout after x number of failed attempts" feature - going back to Banyan - probably further.
aw - if these things were everywhere like that - spouting ads, then I have a formula to counter it:
:)
hacking+pr0n=no more ads!
The charms of Middle of nowhere -
I *do* hear gunfire some nights. Drunk cowboys driving up the street, shooting at yuppie cars parked outside. My neighbor got his VW shot up that way.
I *do* hear crickets, and wind, and frogs (during the rainy season, the frogs can be almost deafening) - and - no shit, coyotes. Where we used to live, there were thunderstorms, and the kids were afraid of the thunder. Now they hear the coyotes and they come running.
I do live very close to several state recreational parks, very convenient for camping and outdoor activities. Last July 4th weekend, my little town of 16k was jam-packed with 50,000 rowdy visitors with giant trucks and campers. Not fun.
Out of my back yard, I can see the milky way, shooting stars, etc. Somewhat of a nice thing without a hidden "dark side".
I'm so far away from the big cities, there's no big rock concerts, no opera, no plays, no nightclubs, (at least we have plenty of movie theaters, including one of the very very few drive-in's left - and some good local dining). Every store knows that there's no competition, so you pay through the nose for anything other than groceries. "Shopping" means either the internet, or driving 250 miles to the nearest big city. Repair people often make appointments to come and fix something, then they blow you off completely, and they know they won't lose any business. And the people are CONSERVATIVE. Like, *religious freak* social conservative. Not fiscal conservative. I got called for Jury duty last year. The case: Alleged horse thief. I shit you not.
There *is* a major university nearby, which is nice, because there are actual people younger than I am, the next town over. Unfortunately, housing prices are fucking outrageous because of that. (like, almost Silicon Valley-outrageous).
If I lost my job, I'd be fucked. I'd have to move.
Canada's not full of . So nobody has any reason to bomb Canada, because ther e are no in Canada. At least not a whole lot of them like in Israel.
Well, I'd *really* swoon over a p1800. That's a sweet-lookin Volvo.
It's sort of like the old mob racket of paying protection, "Give us $100/wk or something bad will happen to your store". They create a problem and then make you pay to cure it.
Frankly, this is the oldest form of government there is. Probably the *true* oldest profession. People were probably threatening other people in return for resources long before people were trading sex for resources. Probably long before we were people.
I think that if there's one person who might be sympathetic to this cause, it would be the good Senator from Arizona, John "I got butt-fucked by the Christian Coalition when I ran against Bush" McCain.
Last week, he publicly accused half the senate of being bought and paid for by corporate sponsors. He's my hero.
What I don't get is, when I applied for a mortgage for my house, I suddenly started getting spam from people wanting me to refinance - not the company that gave me the mortgage in the first place. Why in fuck would the company who's got my business sell my info to a competitor? Just boggles my mind how mindlessly they do this stuff.
Here is a check for $5000. By endorsing it you agree to open an account with us for that amount, with 27% interest. (this is a real one I got)
;)
Those are illegal.
I recently collected a whopping $3.47 from a class-action suit against MBNA for sending out these checks. I remember getting one and tossing it in the shredder. But since I was on their list, I automagically qualified as a class member. God Bless class-action suits! It's not about the money. I can probably dig $3.47 out of my couch for spare change. It's about good and evil, right and wrong. (to quote Bush Sr.