If I become an citizen of another country, or even just swear an oath to another country, don't I lose my US citizenship?
So if I donate money to TBB and become a "citizen" of TBB/Sealand am I no longer a US citizen?
Not that US citizenship really means anything anymore, what with having lost habeas corpus, being able to be called an "enemy combatant" and disappeared, and imigration laws not really being enforced on a broad scale.
Acer still makes computers? People still buy them?
I remember Acer being a budget brand with a bad rep for quality and customer service back in the mid- to late-90s. I can't believe they are still a going concern.
We dropped early this summer, after the spring season. We were able to ween ourselves during the already lean summer months and haven't missed Cable/Satellite TV this fall. TV on DVD via Netflix is far superior than Broadcast/Cable/Satellite TV anyway. In fact, we've been watching way more TV since canceling than before! Seriously.
My wife and I just watched seasons 1 & 2 of Veronica Mars on DVD via Netflix. We'd never heard of let alone seen it because, frankly, who the hell actually watched UPN? We both had it recommended to us on Netflix, were intrigued and added it to our queue at the same time.
We got hooked, loved it, and sucked it all it over the summer. We couldn't wait for season 3 to start on, what is it, CW? So we sit down on opening night and it sucked! The pacing was all off, we couldn't rewind it to hear that line we missed because the baby decided she wasn't ready sleep after all, and we had to sit through terrible ads aimed at people 10-15 years younger than us. We're sitting this season out and will put it in our queue next spring when the DVD comes out.
The troubling thing about this is that we are die-hard fans of this show and rave about it to everyone whenever TV comes up, but we could be part of what will kill this show. We aren't watching ads and we aren't buying the DVDs, so I don't think we exist to the producers of Veronica Mars. If a majority start watching TV like we do, I afraid of the shake-out period during which TV shows suck because the producers can't figure out how to make money in this new world.
This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP, although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors."
WinXP is little more than a skin or theme for Win2k plus the downgrade of mandatory product registration. Please note that 2k is Windows version 5.0 and XP is 5.1. I acknowledge some enhancements to the OS, but most could have made an appearance in 2k SP5.
Whenever I bring this up I always have someone come back with "But XP is better for games." I've never seen this. To this day I play all my PC games on 2k with absolutely no problems or notable performance degradation.
2k is all the Windows OS you'll ever need on your desktop.
You missed my point that if Wal-Mart doesn't carry a DVD, the customer will just go to another physical store. The studios don't lose any money in this case, but Wal-Mart does.
Wal-Mart, for once, has no leverage here. If customers can't get The Little Mermaid super platinum eternal edition from Wal-Mart, they'll go down the street to Target or Kmart or Amazon.
I can't imagine studios would lose money if Wal-mart didn't carry their albums, especially if they replace physical sales revenue with digital. Of course the studios would like to keep physical and digital revenue flowing, but steady revenues are better than declining revenues.
If the studios did cave to this threat they are short sighted and craven.
I recommend instead of trying to make the case yourself, hire an independent firm to review the IT security and controls you are using. A CPA firm's IT consultants/auditors lend a bit more weight -- deserved or not-- than straight-up tech consultancies.
Then, during the review, tell the auditor that you are concerned about your organization's poor use of passwords and want to see it on the final report of findings and recommendations. If you have any other security or training wants/needs that you haven't been able to swing, bring these up with the auditors too.
Blah blah blah. Stealing v Infringement. It's a pedantic semantic argument that has been lost by your side.
Also, re: the argument whether civil disobedience is moral. Personal morality is a personal decision. People can have different morals with no one being wrong (or right).
I don't want to do anything that gets me sued by a *AA because I have a car payment, mortgage, wife, and daughter that all need the money that would be used defending myself.
What about back catalog material? I've been slowly building a library of the rock classics from the last century: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, etc.
Part of creating and appreciating art is understanding and appreciating the art that came before. If I'm not buying these albums from RIAA-member labels then how do I study the past masters? Stealing the music by taking it from p2p networks doesn't appeal to me.
True, when finding new media I can avoid that created by RIAA- and MPAA-members. But there is only one Beatles and only one place to get them legitimately.
It's really terrible right now. It has a very confusing UI and doesn't work well in Safari. I tried it for a week and found I hated visiting Slashdot. Good way to break a bad habit I guess, except here I am again. YMMV
Battlestar Galactica has raised the bar, for me, personally, so high that most other sci-fi fare looks and sounds like scrapings from the bottom of a barrel. I realize and understand that the two shows have completely different themes, styles, etc., but the differences in production values and acting quality are especially marked.
The same goes for Stargate (any version), Firefly, and Enterprise or even the new Dr. Who.
I'm not judging anyone who still likes those shows or saying I don't like them anymore. BG has just completely changed my perception of what sci-fi can and should be.
There's a real fear that this includes classified disability info.
If that info gets on the web, an employer googling a potential employee's name may see that candidate has, for instance, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and decide not to hire them. It's currently illegal to discriminate like that, but there's no way anyone will ever know in this hypothetical situation.
I only bring it up because it means I see about a zillion different companies and talk to their IT Directors/CIOs/Whatevers, Fortune 500 down to Dave's Community Bank-member FDIC, every week.
They are all Microsoft shops. Yeah, they have some small-u unix boxes (various flavors of linux, bsd, solaris, or etc.) running important stuff. But the core of their network, the centralized authentication servers and groupware servers (read Active Directory and Exchange) -- which means their app servers are typically Microsoft-based even if their DB and web servers aren't -- serve the core of what they do.
None of them have any interest in Vista. Many have recently in the past year or two finally rid themselves of the last vestiges of 9x boxes. Basically, Windows 2000 satisfied any and all needs they had. Everyone running Windows 2003/R2 had a Microsoft partner consultancy come in to "help" them with their network.
That's not to say they're anxious to jump to other platforms. Most show at least mild interest in my choice of a 12" PowerBook G4 to travel with and would start switching if "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft". But no one is ready to start seriously investigating a wholesale switch to a non-Microsoft OS on desktops or servers.
There are many reasons for this.
But the core point is that enterprises have been pretty happy with their core OS since circa 2000. Everything since then is just features added to satisfy some niche constituency.
Vista would be dead on arrival if the PC manufacturers weren't so in bed with Microsoft that everyone who buys a PC after Xmas of 2007 had it coming to them by default. The reason OS X and Ubuntu, et al, are seeing their market share creep up is because they have finally caught up to the feature set and a bit of the mind share Microsoft had 6-7 years ago.
The computers in my house -- including my wife and kid's -- run OS X. My computers at work run Win XP, OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Open BSD. I am familiar with Win Server 2k and 2k3, many Linux distros, and various flavors of Unix.
Operating systems are a solved problem. The devils are in various niche details. Rational people with complete information (I heart Adam Smith) should be running OS X on the desktop and whatever they want/have to use on the server.
The real news here is that the original theater version is finally widely available on DVD.
Everyone has their own opinion on the different versions, but most haven't actually seen the original because it is so hard to get a copy of it. Now there will be access to four different versions of the film so people can have an educated opinion on the subject.
I don't see this as a cash grab or greed so much as a wrong being finally righted. I'll be in line to get this on release day.
I have Simple Design, Low Bandwidth, and No Icons checked in my preferences. This gives me a very streamlined, efficient way to read/. stories and comments. IMHO, it is the best way to view/. with no mess and a minimum of garish color schemes. The only thing it lacks is the Poll slashbox.
The winner's entry doesn't show this view of/. and I'm worried that it'll be removed as an option.
Please calm my fears! Tell me light mode will be part of the new look.
So who/should/ I be using as my VOIP provider if I don't want my phone records recorded and scoured by the government, want 911 access, and want my techno-phobic aunt to be able to call our house? I'd take 2 out of 3 (meaning I don't/really/ need to talk to my aunt).
Slashdot Mirror
If I become an citizen of another country, or even just swear an oath to another country, don't I lose my US citizenship?
So if I donate money to TBB and become a "citizen" of TBB/Sealand am I no longer a US citizen?
Not that US citizenship really means anything anymore, what with having lost habeas corpus, being able to be called an "enemy combatant" and disappeared, and imigration laws not really being enforced on a broad scale.
This news is unbelievable.
Acer still makes computers? People still buy them?
I remember Acer being a budget brand with a bad rep for quality and customer service back in the mid- to late-90s. I can't believe they are still a going concern.
Yeah, but I doubt Netflix buys as many of any given DVD compared to if everyone, or even a fraction, of those who queue it up had bought it.
We dropped early this summer, after the spring season. We were able to ween ourselves during the already lean summer months and haven't missed Cable/Satellite TV this fall. TV on DVD via Netflix is far superior than Broadcast/Cable/Satellite TV anyway. In fact, we've been watching way more TV since canceling than before! Seriously.
My wife and I just watched seasons 1 & 2 of Veronica Mars on DVD via Netflix. We'd never heard of let alone seen it because, frankly, who the hell actually watched UPN? We both had it recommended to us on Netflix, were intrigued and added it to our queue at the same time.
We got hooked, loved it, and sucked it all it over the summer. We couldn't wait for season 3 to start on, what is it, CW? So we sit down on opening night and it sucked! The pacing was all off, we couldn't rewind it to hear that line we missed because the baby decided she wasn't ready sleep after all, and we had to sit through terrible ads aimed at people 10-15 years younger than us. We're sitting this season out and will put it in our queue next spring when the DVD comes out.
The troubling thing about this is that we are die-hard fans of this show and rave about it to everyone whenever TV comes up, but we could be part of what will kill this show. We aren't watching ads and we aren't buying the DVDs, so I don't think we exist to the producers of Veronica Mars. If a majority start watching TV like we do, I afraid of the shake-out period during which TV shows suck because the producers can't figure out how to make money in this new world.
Is it safe to buy a MacBook Pro now? Is this considered a version 2?
I've learned not to buy version 1 of an Apple product unless I want to get cut by the bleeding edge.
Really? I don't know of anywhere in the rural US (where I live) that has a Wal-Mart but doesn't have at least a K-Mart.
This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP, although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors."
WinXP is little more than a skin or theme for Win2k plus the downgrade of mandatory product registration. Please note that 2k is Windows version 5.0 and XP is 5.1. I acknowledge some enhancements to the OS, but most could have made an appearance in 2k SP5.
Whenever I bring this up I always have someone come back with "But XP is better for games." I've never seen this. To this day I play all my PC games on 2k with absolutely no problems or notable performance degradation.
2k is all the Windows OS you'll ever need on your desktop.
You missed my point that if Wal-Mart doesn't carry a DVD, the customer will just go to another physical store. The studios don't lose any money in this case, but Wal-Mart does.
Wal-Mart, for once, has no leverage here. If customers can't get The Little Mermaid super platinum eternal edition from Wal-Mart, they'll go down the street to Target or Kmart or Amazon.
I can't imagine studios would lose money if Wal-mart didn't carry their albums, especially if they replace physical sales revenue with digital. Of course the studios would like to keep physical and digital revenue flowing, but steady revenues are better than declining revenues.
If the studios did cave to this threat they are short sighted and craven.
I recommend instead of trying to make the case yourself, hire an independent firm to review the IT security and controls you are using. A CPA firm's IT consultants/auditors lend a bit more weight -- deserved or not-- than straight-up tech consultancies.
Then, during the review, tell the auditor that you are concerned about your organization's poor use of passwords and want to see it on the final report of findings and recommendations. If you have any other security or training wants/needs that you haven't been able to swing, bring these up with the auditors too.
Works wonders, I tell ya.
Blah blah blah. Stealing v Infringement. It's a pedantic semantic argument that has been lost by your side.
Also, re: the argument whether civil disobedience is moral. Personal morality is a personal decision. People can have different morals with no one being wrong (or right).
I don't want to do anything that gets me sued by a *AA because I have a car payment, mortgage, wife, and daughter that all need the money that would be used defending myself.
What about back catalog material? I've been slowly building a library of the rock classics from the last century: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, etc.
Part of creating and appreciating art is understanding and appreciating the art that came before. If I'm not buying these albums from RIAA-member labels then how do I study the past masters? Stealing the music by taking it from p2p networks doesn't appeal to me.
True, when finding new media I can avoid that created by RIAA- and MPAA-members. But there is only one Beatles and only one place to get them legitimately.
It's really terrible right now. It has a very confusing UI and doesn't work well in Safari. I tried it for a week and found I hated visiting Slashdot. Good way to break a bad habit I guess, except here I am again. YMMV
I'm sorry, but I can't watch Babylon 5 anymore.
Battlestar Galactica has raised the bar, for me, personally, so high that most other sci-fi fare looks and sounds like scrapings from the bottom of a barrel. I realize and understand that the two shows have completely different themes, styles, etc., but the differences in production values and acting quality are especially marked.
The same goes for Stargate (any version), Firefly, and Enterprise or even the new Dr. Who.
I'm not judging anyone who still likes those shows or saying I don't like them anymore. BG has just completely changed my perception of what sci-fi can and should be.
Which really makes it Windows 2000 SP8?
(Win 2k SP4 [4]+ XP [5]+ XP SP 1 & 2 [6, 7]+ Longhorn [8]= Vista)
There's a real fear that this includes classified disability info.
If that info gets on the web, an employer googling a potential employee's name may see that candidate has, for instance, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and decide not to hire them. It's currently illegal to discriminate like that, but there's no way anyone will ever know in this hypothetical situation.
So, I'm a tech security consultant.
I only bring it up because it means I see about a zillion different companies and talk to their IT Directors/CIOs/Whatevers, Fortune 500 down to Dave's Community Bank-member FDIC, every week.
They are all Microsoft shops. Yeah, they have some small-u unix boxes (various flavors of linux, bsd, solaris, or etc.) running important stuff. But the core of their network, the centralized authentication servers and groupware servers (read Active Directory and Exchange) -- which means their app servers are typically Microsoft-based even if their DB and web servers aren't -- serve the core of what they do.
None of them have any interest in Vista. Many have recently in the past year or two finally rid themselves of the last vestiges of 9x boxes. Basically, Windows 2000 satisfied any and all needs they had. Everyone running Windows 2003/R2 had a Microsoft partner consultancy come in to "help" them with their network.
That's not to say they're anxious to jump to other platforms. Most show at least mild interest in my choice of a 12" PowerBook G4 to travel with and would start switching if "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft". But no one is ready to start seriously investigating a wholesale switch to a non-Microsoft OS on desktops or servers.
There are many reasons for this.
But the core point is that enterprises have been pretty happy with their core OS since circa 2000. Everything since then is just features added to satisfy some niche constituency.
Vista would be dead on arrival if the PC manufacturers weren't so in bed with Microsoft that everyone who buys a PC after Xmas of 2007 had it coming to them by default. The reason OS X and Ubuntu, et al, are seeing their market share creep up is because they have finally caught up to the feature set and a bit of the mind share Microsoft had 6-7 years ago.
The computers in my house -- including my wife and kid's -- run OS X. My computers at work run Win XP, OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Open BSD. I am familiar with Win Server 2k and 2k3, many Linux distros, and various flavors of Unix.
Operating systems are a solved problem. The devils are in various niche details. Rational people with complete information (I heart Adam Smith) should be running OS X on the desktop and whatever they want/have to use on the server.
Flame at will.
The real news here is that the original theater version is finally widely available on DVD.
Everyone has their own opinion on the different versions, but most haven't actually seen the original because it is so hard to get a copy of it. Now there will be access to four different versions of the film so people can have an educated opinion on the subject.
I don't see this as a cash grab or greed so much as a wrong being finally righted. I'll be in line to get this on release day.
What about the light mode?
/. stories and comments. IMHO, it is the best way to view /. with no mess and a minimum of garish color schemes. The only thing it lacks is the Poll slashbox.
/. and I'm worried that it'll be removed as an option.
I have Simple Design, Low Bandwidth, and No Icons checked in my preferences. This gives me a very streamlined, efficient way to read
The winner's entry doesn't show this view of
Please calm my fears! Tell me light mode will be part of the new look.
So who /should/ I be using as my VOIP provider if I don't want my phone records recorded and scoured by the government, want 911 access, and want my techno-phobic aunt to be able to call our house? I'd take 2 out of 3 (meaning I don't /really/ need to talk to my aunt).
As serious a question as it comes, I'm afraid.
We've just started using Ars Magica 5th Ed. It's really great and I recommend the core book to everyone no matter what system they currently use.
http://www.atlas-games.com/arm5/index.php
The "hi-fi" is a bit late to the show. It doesn't add anything the exisiting iPod hi-fi's already have except a bigger price tag and the Apple logo.
The cases are also pretty but lame. No way to access the controls, no way to view the screen, and a $100 price tag add up to DOA.
I'm really confused why they would release these. I would think the market for these two categories of iPod add-ons is pretty saturated.
How the hell did this completely uninteresting story hit the front page?
Very, very, very lame.
Hello fellow North Dakotan! It's damn cold today, dontcha know?
It's not the cold, it's the wind chill. Uff-da!