Your tax dollars became their tax dollars when you paid them. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic.
Those dollars pay for a practical version of justice -- through the courts -- not for the right to see whatever you want. Your tax dollars pay for medicare hospital visits across the country, but nobody thinks you're allowed to storm into the hospital and demand medical records for everyone that paid anything but cash.
I'm not dumb enough to think that funding the battling of two hulking companies are the same as somebody's medical records, but in this case, they probably reached an agreement in order to protect trade secrets, privileged communications, and so on.
With the holiday season fast approaching, there are certainly a lot of 'toys' and 'gadgets' that we all want, and certainly it's your job to report on them.
Please don't.
I have bills, I have payments, and I swear to God I really can't see another Nintendo DS lust-o-mercial without like, yanno, buying one. And since they network, what's one when you can have two for twice the price. Then I have to get games, maybe once of those overpriced suede carrying cases which nobody needs, some decorations (rhinestones? pearls? i can never decided), and in my lesser moments, shoes that match my DS. Then the mouse is way past having a cookie; he's getting his stomach stapled to keep from having a triple bypass and weekly insulin.
Dude, I agree with you. But propaganda doesn't mean 'bad', in fact, the definitions ignore whether it is good, bad, correct, incorrect, etc. It's just persuasive language, so to speak:
"information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause"
"publicity intended to spread ideas or information that will persuade or convince people."
"the systematic spreading of ideas or beliefs reflecting the views and interests of those advocating a doctrine or cause."
16 year olds have ruined so much of the English language..
Damn straight. I've been doing various forms of media consulting for a while, but it didn't start to pay off until a while ago, when I realized both client and designer need to be fully invested in the project, financially and otherwise. College kids can't do that.
By which I mean, I had a lawyer draw up a very detailed contract on the rights and responsibilities of both parties. I visit him building every time there's a new client; contracts aren't one-size-fits-all.
You'd think contracts and big prices scare off potential customers, and you'd be right, but you have to think a little bigger. You're thinking about scaring off enormously consuming projects for $500, and I'm talking retainers of thousands and tens of thousands. If you spend all your time on the little fish, you won't have time to spend on the big ones.
A few months ago, somebody needed some design work done, called my ratecard outrageous, went to a college kid, paid him something that would have barely made a night out. Came to me the week afterwards. Shock! You get what you pay for.
Pay a designer well and they'll do good work. Pay them poorly and you'll find out why.
Sir, if I had a mod point, I would plant it, lovingly cultivate it and nurture it in the earth, wait until it blossomed and grew a mod point tree, pick them off, and give you a big fucking mod point basket with a bow and some seasonal jellies.
Agreed. Moreover, I've been hearing too many theories about how voters were forced, deceived or generally brainwashed into voting for Bush. I've heard similar gripes about 'stupid' vs. 'smart', and of course seen the standard IQ by state chart.
Guess what, kids: sometimes in a democracy, other people win. This is what most of the American voters wanted, and that's the way it works.
My dad loves floppy disks. He's one of those guys who's locked in a particular era of computing, probably around 1995, he loves WordPerfect and Lotus Notes, simple websites and lets the computer run overnight -- after closing all other programs -- for 1 meg downloads. (If you touch it, it might stop.)
He also won't, for the life of him, trust hard drives, zip disks, CD-Rs, dedicated network storagem or anything else to store his resume, which he updates and tweaks nightly. Not really in need of a job, being an international energy lawyer (i.e., oil man, and in *this* administration of all times), it's more of a hobby.
Luckily, there's something about the size and heft of the disk for him that makes it oh-so-magical, so I got him a DynaMO drive, which is a magneto-optical drive. I won't go into details (someone feel free to provide), but because of the way the media is written to the disk (not to mention the casing), they can take a beating, and much more than flash or other 'sensitive' media where scratches, low heat, or simply Murphy's Law can kill your data.
Pricey (~$200-250), but not considering you're writing books. Use some of your advance money and invest.
I have strong recommendations for Joker. I know a lot of this comes standard with a lot of places, but lemme list the talking points: Cheap ($~12), good support, free nameservers, easy administration interface, and if you use their nameservers they'll let you use their MX forwarding, and if you do, you can use their spam filters. I have a lot of clients who have never heard of a DNS entry much less the process for domain administration, and none of them has ever had issue with using their site to create and use an account.
I suppose my one catch is, they seem to be somewhat Euro-centric (this, of course coming from my US-centric mind), so some of my new users are confused by if they need to pay VAT, or why some of the transfer processes are bound by German (I think) telecom laws designed to protect the consumer (e.g., for one action on a domain, you used to be required to sign a form and fax it to them). It works out well, though, since they protect the user from any sort of fudgery as mentioned above.. like five day steals.
If I had a mod point.. anyway. Remember the polls won't close in the East for another 1h+13 at least, and these numbers are flaky like a Slashdotter's dandruff. So these could shift -- Gore *was* ahead at the beginning in 2000, so GO VOTE!!
PARTY AFFILIATION (R)epublican (D)emocrat (G)reen (B )rown (C)onstitution (L)ibertarian (W)hig (J)e di
You work it out, I don't know.
CONFIDENCE
++ Like candidate a lot + Like candidate X Neutral about candidate - Don't like candidate, but voting for them -- Really don't like candidate, but voting for them # Better than incumbent.
and state. Group multiple elements in parens.
I'm a Ke(X#)DVA.
REMEMBER TO YANNO, VOTE TOMORROW ALSO, SLASHDOT DOESN'T COUNT
"the non-metrical omission of letters or words whose absence does not impede the reader's ability to understand the expression. For example, the last line in the following leaves the lexical verb understood: Hugh, he could fancy No one but Nancy, And Sally got antsy Just thinking of Chauncy, But Nancy liked Drew And Chauncy did too. (I.L.)"
Apologies, I used two instead of three periods. Geez.
I read about this, but hadn't seen the post. To be honest, it's strong, but I'd stop way short of calling it investigation-worthy, or even worth a trip to the kid's house. (But, the Secret Service investigates all threats made against the President, so that one's out of my jurisdiction.)
If someone said this at a public event, or on the radio, or written it in a newspaper:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much.. I want terrible things to happen to him.. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff.. Please, please, please kill Dubya. And Dick Cheney. And everyone else in the Bush Administration."
He would be having a much, much worse night than a visit from a couple of guys in unmarked cars. I see this is marked under "Politics" not YRO, which makes it sound like a free-speech issue. It is, but it's not like Bush just started enforcing that when he took office OMGWTF LUONG LIVE TEH AMERICA!!!. It has, and always was, a felony to threaten the life of the President. Actually, it has been, and always was, a felony to threaten anybody's life; but not everybody has as diligent a private police force as the Service.
This kid was trolling, plain and simple: free speech, on the internet or anywhere else, can't be taken for granted, though I'd like to think we should expect it to be. You're behind a keyboard, so it's easy to say things without realizing you have a world-sized audience. This is one of the reasons I don't have a blog; frankly, I have a Montana-sized ego, so people know I have a knack for expressing my opinion. But I'd rather not have a google-cached word-for-word dossier of my views.
The only way, I believe, that this would have come to the attention of the Secret Service is if someone submitted it to them. And I respect their response -- they apologized and left.
Back in 1997, the number of internet users was lower than it is today. Now that I think about it, the rise of the web really has been an amazing transformation. I remember when my grade was trying to get funding among the teachers for a modem of triple digit speed.. anyway.
Additionally, the number of people who were *on* the internet of that lower count were, well, Slashdotters. And sometimes, you know, you're bored at work, and maybe you have a cubicle with your screen away from.. well, anyway.
I'd like to see raw data on sex-based searches, not percentages.
I think you kind of underscored the grandparent's point via your continuation of the analogy.
A farm is a tangible thing you can use to make money, but despite having all the tools (the tractors, the barn, the pitchforks), you still need the property. You can't farm without the land.
Now, if the creative equivalent of the farm tools is pens, paper, instruments, and recording hardware, but you're missing out on the exclusive right to farm the land -- the tools won't do you any good. The farmer's children don't necessarily make money just because they own the land, but should they choose to, they can.
In fact, one of the most popular ways they can make money is by selling it, or even letting others farm the land for a share of the profits. The point here is this: long-life copyrights aren't necessarily the root of the problem. The copyright holders that refuse to do anything with them is, also.
I'm on a few different sides of this. (It goes without saying, first, that it looks pretty cool.)
The iPod has revolutionized music in the past few years because of its simplicity and style. It does one thing, it does it very well, and it looks damn good while doing it. The iPod Photo kind of blurs those lines. Obviously, the iPod could become the next-gen portable media center: music, video, a Belkin iTV something-or-other. This gives us a glimmer of where they plan to go with this. iCinema Movie Store?
It might not, also, but I'm leaving it up to somebody else to consider thinking of ways the IP could change the way we even think about our personal photography and wallpapers and whatnot -- like the iPod changed the way many people listen to music (albums out, playlists & shuffle in). That is to say, it looks weird as a product now, but somebody's in a room somewhere thinking of ways to make this thing awesome -- maybe. And that's why I question its branding as a separate entity, because it can't just be an iPod with a color screen, no -- it's iPod Photo!
I know that whereas I have a good number of digital pictures, a $500 device with a color screen can't be $499.75 better than a damn CD-R (e.g., most DVD players now will do the same TV sharing thing with a CD-R full of JPEGs). And I own an iPod already, so I can easily see the argument for convenience among others.
I also want to know, where does this leave iPhoto? "Now, you too can organize your pictures.. in iTunes! But you don't. You just download them there. You organize your pictures in iPhoto but you download them with iTunes, but you can also do it in iTunes if you want. Got it?"
Music, and the way that we deal with it, is such a rich site for interaction (music, audiobooks, speeches, recordings, class lectures, whatever) that it's hard to imagine where they could take photos. But then again, I mean, music, yanno, you listen to it. Photos, yanno, you look at them. So who knows.
Yes, actually. And remember that reply doesn't always mean "gives a damn", but you're right, there are exceptions. While sometimes Senators will respond to legislation in-committee, there's a stamp labeled "Respectfully referred, not acknowledged" that gets stamped on every piece of non-constituent mail (paper mail). Senators are different in this regard, as I'd expect Senators to have the money and staff to deal with out-of-state mail. Congressional reps, not so much.
Apologies, Sec. 206 referred to the calendared version, the engrossed amendment splits it into, I believe, Sec. 1017 and any sections containing 'Information Sharing' or 'Screening'.
Time is of the essence on this one, as those campaigning in tight races need something to prop up their electoral base. Somehow I find it refreshing or disturbing that for the past few weeks I've had to call in to Washington three times for poor legislation. So here's the the deal.
The bill is S. 2845, and the portion of debate here is (Information Sharing) Sec. 206, among others. Find your Senators here. Then I want you to e-mail, call, whatever. I, personally, like to call and be firm but nonetheless polite. Don't contact Sen. McCain's office unless you're from Arizona: there is no, no, no, no national politic. None. Your message will be either be forwarded to your state Senators' offices or discarded, and I don't want some aide doing tallies to think that everybody who contacted them was from every state but the one with their voters.
E-mail will also work, and hell, if you have all of ten minutes and $2, consider writing a very basic letter and overnighting it USPS. Remember: you don't have to convince them, all you need to let them know is that you are opposed to it. Paper talks.
Slashdot Mirror
Your tax dollars became their tax dollars when you paid them. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic.
Those dollars pay for a practical version of justice -- through the courts -- not for the right to see whatever you want. Your tax dollars pay for medicare hospital visits across the country, but nobody thinks you're allowed to storm into the hospital and demand medical records for everyone that paid anything but cash.
I'm not dumb enough to think that funding the battling of two hulking companies are the same as somebody's medical records, but in this case, they probably reached an agreement in order to protect trade secrets, privileged communications, and so on.
Dear Slashdot,
With the holiday season fast approaching, there are certainly a lot of 'toys' and 'gadgets' that we all want, and certainly it's your job to report on them.
Please don't.
I have bills, I have payments, and I swear to God I really can't see another Nintendo DS lust-o-mercial without like, yanno, buying one. And since they network, what's one when you can have two for twice the price. Then I have to get games, maybe once of those overpriced suede carrying cases which nobody needs, some decorations (rhinestones? pearls? i can never decided), and in my lesser moments, shoes that match my DS. Then the mouse is way past having a cookie; he's getting his stomach stapled to keep from having a triple bypass and weekly insulin.
So my point is: shut up.
Thanks,
Me.
Dude, I agree with you. But propaganda doesn't mean 'bad', in fact, the definitions ignore whether it is good, bad, correct, incorrect, etc. It's just persuasive language, so to speak:
"information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause"
"publicity intended to spread ideas or information that will persuade or convince people."
"the systematic spreading of ideas or beliefs reflecting the views and interests of those advocating a doctrine or cause."
16 year olds have ruined so much of the English language..
Damn straight. I've been doing various forms of media consulting for a while, but it didn't start to pay off until a while ago, when I realized both client and designer need to be fully invested in the project, financially and otherwise. College kids can't do that.
By which I mean, I had a lawyer draw up a very detailed contract on the rights and responsibilities of both parties. I visit him building every time there's a new client; contracts aren't one-size-fits-all.
You'd think contracts and big prices scare off potential customers, and you'd be right, but you have to think a little bigger. You're thinking about scaring off enormously consuming projects for $500, and I'm talking retainers of thousands and tens of thousands. If you spend all your time on the little fish, you won't have time to spend on the big ones.
A few months ago, somebody needed some design work done, called my ratecard outrageous, went to a college kid, paid him something that would have barely made a night out. Came to me the week afterwards. Shock! You get what you pay for.
Pay a designer well and they'll do good work. Pay them poorly and you'll find out why.
Sir, if I had a mod point, I would plant it, lovingly cultivate it and nurture it in the earth, wait until it blossomed and grew a mod point tree, pick them off, and give you a big fucking mod point basket with a bow and some seasonal jellies.
Well said.
Agreed. Moreover, I've been hearing too many theories about how voters were forced, deceived or generally brainwashed into voting for Bush. I've heard similar gripes about 'stupid' vs. 'smart', and of course seen the standard IQ by state chart.
Guess what, kids: sometimes in a democracy, other people win. This is what most of the American voters wanted, and that's the way it works.
Disclaimer: Kerry voter.
My dad loves floppy disks. He's one of those guys who's locked in a particular era of computing, probably around 1995, he loves WordPerfect and Lotus Notes, simple websites and lets the computer run overnight -- after closing all other programs -- for 1 meg downloads. (If you touch it, it might stop.)
He also won't, for the life of him, trust hard drives, zip disks, CD-Rs, dedicated network storagem or anything else to store his resume, which he updates and tweaks nightly. Not really in need of a job, being an international energy lawyer (i.e., oil man, and in *this* administration of all times), it's more of a hobby.
Luckily, there's something about the size and heft of the disk for him that makes it oh-so-magical, so I got him a DynaMO drive, which is a magneto-optical drive. I won't go into details (someone feel free to provide), but because of the way the media is written to the disk (not to mention the casing), they can take a beating, and much more than flash or other 'sensitive' media where scratches, low heat, or simply Murphy's Law can kill your data.
Pricey (~$200-250), but not considering you're writing books. Use some of your advance money and invest.
I object to the term 'tinfoil elitist'. When I wear my hat, it is made of only the most generic proletariat foil.
I have strong recommendations for Joker. I know a lot of this comes standard with a lot of places, but lemme list the talking points: Cheap ($~12), good support, free nameservers, easy administration interface, and if you use their nameservers they'll let you use their MX forwarding, and if you do, you can use their spam filters. I have a lot of clients who have never heard of a DNS entry much less the process for domain administration, and none of them has ever had issue with using their site to create and use an account.
I suppose my one catch is, they seem to be somewhat Euro-centric (this, of course coming from my US-centric mind), so some of my new users are confused by if they need to pay VAT, or why some of the transfer processes are bound by German (I think) telecom laws designed to protect the consumer (e.g., for one action on a domain, you used to be required to sign a form and fax it to them). It works out well, though, since they protect the user from any sort of fudgery as mentioned above.. like five day steals.
"He's your planet." ::sigh::
"I did it last night."
We used to say, "The customer is always right, just not at this store."
The machines where the software stored votes per precinct in an integer, causing the votes (having hit 32,767) to overflow.
I haven't written much code in a while, but I can figure out 'square peg, round hole'.
If I had a mod point.. anyway. Remember the polls won't close in the East for another 1h+13 at least, and these numbers are flaky like a Slashdotter's dandruff. So these could shift -- Gore *was* ahead at the beginning in 2000, so GO VOTE!!
Let's do some unscientific polling.
P e)routka
B )rowne di
Introducing 'Geek Code Election 2004'.
VOTE
(Bu)ush
(Ke)erry
(Bk)dnarik
(Na)der
(
PARTY AFFILIATION
(R)epublican
(D)emocrat
(G)reen
(
(C)onstitution
(L)ibertarian
(W)hig
(J)
You work it out, I don't know.
CONFIDENCE
++ Like candidate a lot
+ Like candidate
X Neutral about candidate
- Don't like candidate, but voting for them
-- Really don't like candidate, but voting for them
# Better than incumbent.
and state. Group multiple elements in parens.
I'm a Ke(X#)DVA.
REMEMBER TO YANNO, VOTE TOMORROW ALSO, SLASHDOT DOESN'T COUNT
I've also heard about this new site that plans to post links to "News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters". I can't wait until it goes live!
Seiko Epson uses an inkjet-based manufacturing process, which has many advantages over a traditional photolithography process
Great. Now I'm going to have to run out in the middle of the night to buy overpriced Epson inkjet refills in two aisles.
And the paperjams on a PCB? Insane.
Ellipsis:
"the non-metrical omission of letters or words whose absence does not impede the reader's ability to understand the expression. For example, the last line in the following leaves the lexical verb understood: Hugh, he could fancy No one but Nancy, And Sally got antsy Just thinking of Chauncy, But Nancy liked Drew And Chauncy did too. (I.L.)"
Apologies, I used two instead of three periods. Geez.
I read about this, but hadn't seen the post. To be honest, it's strong, but I'd stop way short of calling it investigation-worthy, or even worth a trip to the kid's house. (But, the Secret Service investigates all threats made against the President, so that one's out of my jurisdiction.)
If someone said this at a public event, or on the radio, or written it in a newspaper:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much.. I want terrible things to happen to him.. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff.. Please, please, please kill Dubya. And Dick Cheney. And everyone else in the Bush Administration."
He would be having a much, much worse night than a visit from a couple of guys in unmarked cars. I see this is marked under "Politics" not YRO, which makes it sound like a free-speech issue. It is, but it's not like Bush just started enforcing that when he took office OMGWTF LUONG LIVE TEH AMERICA!!!. It has, and always was, a felony to threaten the life of the President. Actually, it has been, and always was, a felony to threaten anybody's life; but not everybody has as diligent a private police force as the Service.
This kid was trolling, plain and simple: free speech, on the internet or anywhere else, can't be taken for granted, though I'd like to think we should expect it to be. You're behind a keyboard, so it's easy to say things without realizing you have a world-sized audience. This is one of the reasons I don't have a blog; frankly, I have a Montana-sized ego, so people know I have a knack for expressing my opinion. But I'd rather not have a google-cached word-for-word dossier of my views.
The only way, I believe, that this would have come to the attention of the Secret Service is if someone submitted it to them. And I respect their response -- they apologized and left.
Back in 1997, the number of internet users was lower than it is today. Now that I think about it, the rise of the web really has been an amazing transformation. I remember when my grade was trying to get funding among the teachers for a modem of triple digit speed.. anyway.
Additionally, the number of people who were *on* the internet of that lower count were, well, Slashdotters. And sometimes, you know, you're bored at work, and maybe you have a cubicle with your screen away from.. well, anyway.
I'd like to see raw data on sex-based searches, not percentages.
Because large people in groups don't always think the right things. Like the Nazis. LIKE HITLER!!
Godwin's law, baby!! Let the word ring forth, I ATE THAT THREAD FOR BREAKFAST!! Boo-yah!
I think you kind of underscored the grandparent's point via your continuation of the analogy.
A farm is a tangible thing you can use to make money, but despite having all the tools (the tractors, the barn, the pitchforks), you still need the property. You can't farm without the land.
Now, if the creative equivalent of the farm tools is pens, paper, instruments, and recording hardware, but you're missing out on the exclusive right to farm the land -- the tools won't do you any good. The farmer's children don't necessarily make money just because they own the land, but should they choose to, they can.
In fact, one of the most popular ways they can make money is by selling it, or even letting others farm the land for a share of the profits. The point here is this: long-life copyrights aren't necessarily the root of the problem. The copyright holders that refuse to do anything with them is, also.
I'm on a few different sides of this. (It goes without saying, first, that it looks pretty cool.)
The iPod has revolutionized music in the past few years because of its simplicity and style. It does one thing, it does it very well, and it looks damn good while doing it. The iPod Photo kind of blurs those lines. Obviously, the iPod could become the next-gen portable media center: music, video, a Belkin iTV something-or-other. This gives us a glimmer of where they plan to go with this. iCinema Movie Store?
It might not, also, but I'm leaving it up to somebody else to consider thinking of ways the IP could change the way we even think about our personal photography and wallpapers and whatnot -- like the iPod changed the way many people listen to music (albums out, playlists & shuffle in). That is to say, it looks weird as a product now, but somebody's in a room somewhere thinking of ways to make this thing awesome -- maybe. And that's why I question its branding as a separate entity, because it can't just be an iPod with a color screen, no -- it's iPod Photo!
I know that whereas I have a good number of digital pictures, a $500 device with a color screen can't be $499.75 better than a damn CD-R (e.g., most DVD players now will do the same TV sharing thing with a CD-R full of JPEGs). And I own an iPod already, so I can easily see the argument for convenience among others.
I also want to know, where does this leave iPhoto? "Now, you too can organize your pictures.. in iTunes! But you don't. You just download them there. You organize your pictures in iPhoto but you download them with iTunes, but you can also do it in iTunes if you want. Got it?"
Music, and the way that we deal with it, is such a rich site for interaction (music, audiobooks, speeches, recordings, class lectures, whatever) that it's hard to imagine where they could take photos. But then again, I mean, music, yanno, you listen to it. Photos, yanno, you look at them. So who knows.
Yes, actually. And remember that reply doesn't always mean "gives a damn", but you're right, there are exceptions. While sometimes Senators will respond to legislation in-committee, there's a stamp labeled "Respectfully referred, not acknowledged" that gets stamped on every piece of non-constituent mail (paper mail). Senators are different in this regard, as I'd expect Senators to have the money and staff to deal with out-of-state mail. Congressional reps, not so much.
Apologies, Sec. 206 referred to the calendared version, the engrossed amendment splits it into, I believe, Sec. 1017 and any sections containing 'Information Sharing' or 'Screening'.
Time is of the essence on this one, as those campaigning in tight races need something to prop up their electoral base. Somehow I find it refreshing or disturbing that for the past few weeks I've had to call in to Washington three times for poor legislation. So here's the the deal.
The bill is S. 2845, and the portion of debate here is (Information Sharing) Sec. 206, among others. Find your Senators here. Then I want you to e-mail, call, whatever. I, personally, like to call and be firm but nonetheless polite. Don't contact Sen. McCain's office unless you're from Arizona: there is no, no, no, no national politic. None. Your message will be either be forwarded to your state Senators' offices or discarded, and I don't want some aide doing tallies to think that everybody who contacted them was from every state but the one with their voters.
E-mail will also work, and hell, if you have all of ten minutes and $2, consider writing a very basic letter and overnighting it USPS. Remember: you don't have to convince them, all you need to let them know is that you are opposed to it. Paper talks.