This is the same fucking fraud that Best Buy runs trying to get people to buy their stupidly overpriced Monster HDMI cables. I remember seeing to TVs set up next to each other with a sign telling you to SEE THE MONSTER DIFFERENCE! One of the TVs looked crisp and clear, whereas the other one was blurry and shitty. Wondering what was up, I looked behind the second TV, and lo and behold, it was connected by a single coax video connector. When I complained about this to the manager, he tried to completely ignore what I was telling him about their ridiculous display and continued to try to tell me that Monster cables really do make a difference. You are absolutely correct; this is not "misleading", it is flat out lying and fraud, and ought to be punished.
THIS. I used to work in an on-call capacity (not IT, mind you, but the idea is the same). Being on call ruined 5 years of my life. It destroys relationships and makes it so you can never truly relax. I took a huge pay cut to get off of on-call duty and I couldn't have been happier about it.
This is George Carlin's "bigger dick" foreign policy ("What? They have bigger dicks? BOMB THEM") at work. Now we are taking it a step further and talking about how deep our "bombs" will penetrate. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, it might help to have more women in positions of power?
AC has a good point -- the vast majority of people are NOT organ donors in localities where it is opt-in, vs. the vast majority participating when it is opt-out. It is really hard to argue that this is not a good thing. You could, however, argue that it reflects VERY poorly on us that we need organ donation to be opt-out before we see a large number of organ donors...
What I want to see is Kinect controls integrated into games with otherwise "traditional" control schemes. I imagine an FPS that still uses a controller for the main action, but utilizes head tracking with the Kinect; you would still control your aiming, shooting, and moving with the controller, but could peek around a corner in the game by moving your head to the side. Couple this with a 3D TV, and you've got yourself an incredibly immersive experience.
I actually see this changing very soon. People are starting to wake up to the fact that neither party represents them. We have seen this in 2008 and in 2010. In 2008, the Republicans were in power and everyone was frustrated with how badly they were getting fscked by them, so massive amounts of people voted Democrat. The Democrats saw this and said "Oh goody! This means that people support our policy platforms!" and immediately went to work trying to reshape the country in their image. People realized that the vision of America that the Democrats had sucked, so in 2010 there was a massive resurgence and people started voting Republican. This, in turn, empowered Republicans and empowered them to put in place their goals. The people saw what the Republicans started doing, and recoiled in horror. Then we had the debt limit crisis. While the Republicans and Democrats bickered about who was right, everyone else was screaming "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?! WE DON'T CARE WHICH ONE OF YOU IS RIGHT!! WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID FUCKING PARTIES!!"
So, I don't think that we will have a viable third party candidate for this election, I think that we will see it happen relatively soon, as the polarization of the two main parties is really reaching a head and making the government totally dysfunctional. I think that people can only get pissed at both parties for a limited amount of time before they tell both of them to fuck off and take their votes elsewhere.
Hence the exodus into the wonderful world of Mint. I have actually been toiling over the last few weeks, trying to de-suckify my Ubuntu install. I tried configuring the Gnome fallback, but it had nothing but issues. I tried XFCE and LXDE, but neither were really robust enough for me. I had already given Fedora the boot due to Gnome3 and I can't stand anything about KDE. I just wiped and installed Mint yesterday, and I can't believe that I haven't tried it before. It is elegant and functional right from the get go. With Mint's announcement that they will be modifying Gnome3 to be a legitimate, usable DE, I have faith that I can continue to use it into the future.
I feel your pain. I would argue, however, that a lot more of the things you want to do "just work" in Linux than in Windows (I use Windows XP, Windows 7, and a couple different flavors of Linux daily). Want to burn/mount an iso? You need to open your web browser, google around to find a good freeware solution, download it, and install it. Want to use even rudimentary hardware? You are probably going to need to install some sort of third party driver. In my experience, I would say that Linux (or at least Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and Arch) recognises and uses my hardware without the use of a driver 90% of the time. I would say Windows is lucky to be pushing 50% in the same regard. Fortunately for Microsoft users (of which I am one), Windows has a tremendous amount of third party support due to its ubiquity in the home market. This means that you can likely find a Windows driver to do what you need when you are having an issue, whereas it can be a several hour descent into config file Hell on Linux. Overall, though, I feel that the work really does balance itself out; the problems in Linux based systems generally take longer to fix but there seem to be fewer of them.
...just the ones that suck. This new movement towards "tablet-friendly" UIs has created some very crappy UIs. No matter how comfortable you are with Unity/Gnome3/Win8, the layout WILL interfere with your productivity. They are simply not well suited to keyboard and mouse input. I have tried Unity and Gnome3, and I can't wait for a touch-screen tablet running a Gnome3 based distro; it would be absolutely, mind-numbingly awesome for that. For a desktop/laptop with a decent amount of screen real estate and a keyboard and mouse, however, they hugely impede productivity.
I am not against these changes because I fear change; I am always looking for new and interesting ways to interface with my computer. I just don't want the interface to get in the way. Is that too much to ask?
Even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that it doesn't kill men (it does, just in drastically lower numbers), it is still a good idea to vaccinate men. You see, even if it is mandated for women, not every woman on the planet will get the vaccination. Some will forget or opt-out, while others may not be able to for various health reasons. If men have to get it as well, it creates a herd immunity, offering a degree of protection even to un-vaccinated women. I mean, come on guys, is it really that big of a deal?
Yeah, I mean, how are we going to build all those tubes? If it were just a dump truck, we would be all set but, alas, we are stuck working with tubes...
Yes, 'Terrorist' is just a new word for 'Communist', now that the Soviet Union isn't around anymore. The U.S. government derives its power from the fear of the populace. When the population is afraid of an external enemy, it makes them less critical of their own government. Thereby, when the U.S. government runs out of real threats, it is imperative that they invent new threats.
Not only that, but all this machine is doing is detecting whether or not you are nervous. I can guarantee you that at least 99.9999999% of people who are nervous at an airport are NOT feeling that way because they are about the blow up the plane. I think they are probably mostly nervous about things like, oh I don't know, having to not look nervous because they have to walk in front of a machine that will make people think they are a terrorists if they are a little nervous...
In principle, I totally agree with you. It would be amazing if the big movie studios were to go under, forcing someone else to fill the void and learn from their mistakes. The only problem is that these clowns have Washington in their back pocket; they won't be allowed to go under without a fight and WE will get to pay for their mistakes...
This right here is my answer to Pascal's Wager. For those not familiar with it, it is an argument touted about by theists as to why I should believe in whatever magic sky-wizard they are peddling. It goes like this; if you right and there is no god then I have lost nothing by being a Christian. If I am right, and you are wrong, however, you will spend all eternity in Hell.
The best and most obvious answer to this is that is a clear fallacy to say that you lose nothing by belief, it clouds your judgment and puts a barrier between your mind and the world as it really is.
If I want to have a little bit more fun with this argument, I will point out that with the vanishingly small probability that the god they are selling is true, it is equally likely that there is a god with a sense of humor; a god who would send all the believers to Hell and the atheists to Heaven. Either that, or god could favor honest disbelief over pandering belief.
Scientists: "Well, we have this really funny phenomenon here where we are measuring neutrinos as moving faster than the speed of light. We are pretty sure that this is an error either in our calculations on in the calibration of our equipment, but we have yet to find any flaws in our methodology. Here is the data that we have accumulated, in the hope that a distributed effort around the globe will help us get to the bottom of this.
Media: "Scientists say: FUCK YOU EINSTEIN!!! YEAH THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKER, WE FOUND SOME SHIT MOVING FASTER THAN LIGHT YOU OLD DEAD FUCK!!! SO MUCH FOR THAT RELATIVITY BULLSHIT YOU CAME UP WITH!!!"
Actually, this is pretty much the way the media deals with everything anymore...
I can't speak for all atheists, but my biggest problem with the religious is not that they want to tell me about their faith - it is the fact that they want their faith to be mandatory. You can't tell me that the opposition to gay marriage cones from anywhere other than religious intolerence, for instance. This becomes even more dangerous when a majority of the population buys into such bullshit.
MS is really talking about using HTML as the best way to port code between the different versions of Windows 8? That is at least 4 different kinds of fail.
I would argue that this is only the case because of the rampant anti-intellectual sentiment in 'Merca these days. In Europe, learning for the sake of learning is still valued and is something that is feasible to the average person. By contrast, in America, where nobody gives a fuck about anything that does not have a dollar sign attached to it, this is not the case. Tuition goes up year after year and nobody does anything about it, because it is viewed as an investment rather than a tool to be used for personal growth. In fact, just the idea of self-awareness and personal growth seem to be looked down upon, as there is no immediate cash value to them. This inability to see past the next ledger sheet is, in my opinion, the biggest problem that America is currently facing today. This will be the reason that our nation of fat retards will fall.
I signed a two year contract with verizon about a year ago while under the impression that I had an unlimited data plan. They really should not be allowed to change their end of the deal and expect me to stick around. In my mind, there are two ways to make this move legitimate - either grandfather in everyone that already has a contract our give of them a chance to terminate their account with no penalties. If they do anything other than this it is nothing more than as bait and switch. Of course, as they have the US legislature in their pocket they will get away with it...
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This is the same fucking fraud that Best Buy runs trying to get people to buy their stupidly overpriced Monster HDMI cables. I remember seeing to TVs set up next to each other with a sign telling you to SEE THE MONSTER DIFFERENCE! One of the TVs looked crisp and clear, whereas the other one was blurry and shitty. Wondering what was up, I looked behind the second TV, and lo and behold, it was connected by a single coax video connector. When I complained about this to the manager, he tried to completely ignore what I was telling him about their ridiculous display and continued to try to tell me that Monster cables really do make a difference. You are absolutely correct; this is not "misleading", it is flat out lying and fraud, and ought to be punished.
THIS. I used to work in an on-call capacity (not IT, mind you, but the idea is the same). Being on call ruined 5 years of my life. It destroys relationships and makes it so you can never truly relax. I took a huge pay cut to get off of on-call duty and I couldn't have been happier about it.
This is George Carlin's "bigger dick" foreign policy ("What? They have bigger dicks? BOMB THEM") at work. Now we are taking it a step further and talking about how deep our "bombs" will penetrate. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, it might help to have more women in positions of power?
I agree. Also, I think that 640k should be enough for anyone.
I didn't know that Insanity Wolf was on Slashdot...
AC has a good point -- the vast majority of people are NOT organ donors in localities where it is opt-in, vs. the vast majority participating when it is opt-out. It is really hard to argue that this is not a good thing. You could, however, argue that it reflects VERY poorly on us that we need organ donation to be opt-out before we see a large number of organ donors...
What I want to see is Kinect controls integrated into games with otherwise "traditional" control schemes. I imagine an FPS that still uses a controller for the main action, but utilizes head tracking with the Kinect; you would still control your aiming, shooting, and moving with the controller, but could peek around a corner in the game by moving your head to the side. Couple this with a 3D TV, and you've got yourself an incredibly immersive experience.
I actually see this changing very soon. People are starting to wake up to the fact that neither party represents them. We have seen this in 2008 and in 2010. In 2008, the Republicans were in power and everyone was frustrated with how badly they were getting fscked by them, so massive amounts of people voted Democrat. The Democrats saw this and said "Oh goody! This means that people support our policy platforms!" and immediately went to work trying to reshape the country in their image. People realized that the vision of America that the Democrats had sucked, so in 2010 there was a massive resurgence and people started voting Republican. This, in turn, empowered Republicans and empowered them to put in place their goals. The people saw what the Republicans started doing, and recoiled in horror. Then we had the debt limit crisis. While the Republicans and Democrats bickered about who was right, everyone else was screaming "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?! WE DON'T CARE WHICH ONE OF YOU IS RIGHT!! WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID FUCKING PARTIES!!"
So, I don't think that we will have a viable third party candidate for this election, I think that we will see it happen relatively soon, as the polarization of the two main parties is really reaching a head and making the government totally dysfunctional. I think that people can only get pissed at both parties for a limited amount of time before they tell both of them to fuck off and take their votes elsewhere.
Hence the exodus into the wonderful world of Mint. I have actually been toiling over the last few weeks, trying to de-suckify my Ubuntu install. I tried configuring the Gnome fallback, but it had nothing but issues. I tried XFCE and LXDE, but neither were really robust enough for me. I had already given Fedora the boot due to Gnome3 and I can't stand anything about KDE. I just wiped and installed Mint yesterday, and I can't believe that I haven't tried it before. It is elegant and functional right from the get go. With Mint's announcement that they will be modifying Gnome3 to be a legitimate, usable DE, I have faith that I can continue to use it into the future.
I feel your pain. I would argue, however, that a lot more of the things you want to do "just work" in Linux than in Windows (I use Windows XP, Windows 7, and a couple different flavors of Linux daily). Want to burn/mount an iso? You need to open your web browser, google around to find a good freeware solution, download it, and install it. Want to use even rudimentary hardware? You are probably going to need to install some sort of third party driver. In my experience, I would say that Linux (or at least Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and Arch) recognises and uses my hardware without the use of a driver 90% of the time. I would say Windows is lucky to be pushing 50% in the same regard. Fortunately for Microsoft users (of which I am one), Windows has a tremendous amount of third party support due to its ubiquity in the home market. This means that you can likely find a Windows driver to do what you need when you are having an issue, whereas it can be a several hour descent into config file Hell on Linux. Overall, though, I feel that the work really does balance itself out; the problems in Linux based systems generally take longer to fix but there seem to be fewer of them.
...just the ones that suck. This new movement towards "tablet-friendly" UIs has created some very crappy UIs. No matter how comfortable you are with Unity/Gnome3/Win8, the layout WILL interfere with your productivity. They are simply not well suited to keyboard and mouse input. I have tried Unity and Gnome3, and I can't wait for a touch-screen tablet running a Gnome3 based distro; it would be absolutely, mind-numbingly awesome for that. For a desktop/laptop with a decent amount of screen real estate and a keyboard and mouse, however, they hugely impede productivity.
I am not against these changes because I fear change; I am always looking for new and interesting ways to interface with my computer. I just don't want the interface to get in the way. Is that too much to ask?
I am sad to say that that movie contained about as much science as any given 24 hours on the Discovery Channel nowadays...
Now if we could just get our Western governments to stop using the same bullshit...
Even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that it doesn't kill men (it does, just in drastically lower numbers), it is still a good idea to vaccinate men. You see, even if it is mandated for women, not every woman on the planet will get the vaccination. Some will forget or opt-out, while others may not be able to for various health reasons. If men have to get it as well, it creates a herd immunity, offering a degree of protection even to un-vaccinated women. I mean, come on guys, is it really that big of a deal?
Yeah, I mean, how are we going to build all those tubes? If it were just a dump truck, we would be all set but, alas, we are stuck working with tubes...
Yes, 'Terrorist' is just a new word for 'Communist', now that the Soviet Union isn't around anymore. The U.S. government derives its power from the fear of the populace. When the population is afraid of an external enemy, it makes them less critical of their own government. Thereby, when the U.S. government runs out of real threats, it is imperative that they invent new threats.
Not only that, but all this machine is doing is detecting whether or not you are nervous. I can guarantee you that at least 99.9999999% of people who are nervous at an airport are NOT feeling that way because they are about the blow up the plane. I think they are probably mostly nervous about things like, oh I don't know, having to not look nervous because they have to walk in front of a machine that will make people think they are a terrorists if they are a little nervous...
In principle, I totally agree with you. It would be amazing if the big movie studios were to go under, forcing someone else to fill the void and learn from their mistakes. The only problem is that these clowns have Washington in their back pocket; they won't be allowed to go under without a fight and WE will get to pay for their mistakes...
This right here is my answer to Pascal's Wager. For those not familiar with it, it is an argument touted about by theists as to why I should believe in whatever magic sky-wizard they are peddling. It goes like this; if you right and there is no god then I have lost nothing by being a Christian. If I am right, and you are wrong, however, you will spend all eternity in Hell.
The best and most obvious answer to this is that is a clear fallacy to say that you lose nothing by belief, it clouds your judgment and puts a barrier between your mind and the world as it really is.
If I want to have a little bit more fun with this argument, I will point out that with the vanishingly small probability that the god they are selling is true, it is equally likely that there is a god with a sense of humor; a god who would send all the believers to Hell and the atheists to Heaven. Either that, or god could favor honest disbelief over pandering belief.
Scientists: "Well, we have this really funny phenomenon here where we are measuring neutrinos as moving faster than the speed of light. We are pretty sure that this is an error either in our calculations on in the calibration of our equipment, but we have yet to find any flaws in our methodology. Here is the data that we have accumulated, in the hope that a distributed effort around the globe will help us get to the bottom of this.
Media: "Scientists say: FUCK YOU EINSTEIN!!! YEAH THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKER, WE FOUND SOME SHIT MOVING FASTER THAN LIGHT YOU OLD DEAD FUCK!!! SO MUCH FOR THAT RELATIVITY BULLSHIT YOU CAME UP WITH!!!"
Actually, this is pretty much the way the media deals with everything anymore...
I can't speak for all atheists, but my biggest problem with the religious is not that they want to tell me about their faith - it is the fact that they want their faith to be mandatory. You can't tell me that the opposition to gay marriage cones from anywhere other than religious intolerence, for instance. This becomes even more dangerous when a majority of the population buys into such bullshit.
How many days could you take a shit in your living room until you could no longer tolerate it?
Well, I started watching Transformers that one time, so I guess it would be about 15 minutes...
MS is really talking about using HTML as the best way to port code between the different versions of Windows 8? That is at least 4 different kinds of fail.
I would argue that this is only the case because of the rampant anti-intellectual sentiment in 'Merca these days. In Europe, learning for the sake of learning is still valued and is something that is feasible to the average person. By contrast, in America, where nobody gives a fuck about anything that does not have a dollar sign attached to it, this is not the case. Tuition goes up year after year and nobody does anything about it, because it is viewed as an investment rather than a tool to be used for personal growth. In fact, just the idea of self-awareness and personal growth seem to be looked down upon, as there is no immediate cash value to them. This inability to see past the next ledger sheet is, in my opinion, the biggest problem that America is currently facing today. This will be the reason that our nation of fat retards will fall.
I signed a two year contract with verizon about a year ago while under the impression that I had an unlimited data plan. They really should not be allowed to change their end of the deal and expect me to stick around. In my mind, there are two ways to make this move legitimate - either grandfather in everyone that already has a contract our give of them a chance to terminate their account with no penalties. If they do anything other than this it is nothing more than as bait and switch. Of course, as they have the US legislature in their pocket they will get away with it...