Think a moment about your comment: Microsoft sets you up with an SO who will prevent you from using your computer in ways they do not like. Cool huh?
That would mean she not only prevents you from using Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever), but she also prevents you from associating with uncertain "undesirable influences" (aka friends) or even going to Defcon.
Furthermore, it couldn't possibly be cost effective for Microsoft. I just took a recent survey of hot-looking women in a local Starbuck's, asking, "Would you date me for a hundred bucks?" This response is always followed by a resounding "No!" or "Do I look like a cheap slut to you?" However, changing the dollar amount to one million dollars often elicits the phrase, "Hah hah, yeah, sure OK.... if you *did* have a million dollars." Therefore, we can conclude that a woman will date me^h^h a geek for one million dollars.
Let's assume it takes a geek 30 dates to reach SO status - that would translate to a $30 million girlfriend.
Now, let's look at Microsoft's emergency fund: $30 Billion. That's only enough to bribe 1000 unsuspecting women to carry on an ongoing semi-permenent relationship with us.
Then again, being Microsoft, they could make this cost effective by following their normal business strategy:
- One SO must be shared amongst several geeks. (Sloppy Sevenths, anyone?)
- You will never come home to the same girlfriend twice, because they keep swapping out with each other. The parent company informs you that they're simply upgrading you to MS Significant Other 4.0, whether you want to or not.
- Even if she is consistent, her presence is your home will present a serious security liability; she'll let anyone in.
- All her ports will be open to anyone who wants access.
Before long, she'll be replaced by MS Significant Other XP, who:
- Must call home the moment she arrives at your pad.
- Must call home again if you change your furniture or decor or bathroom reading.
- Becomes totally unresponsive to you if she can't call home.
- Reserves to right to tell you that your lifestyle is so improved that she wants more money.
(Come to think of it, I *did* date someone like that.)
Personally, I find Aluminum more than adequate for stopping annoying cell phones, if you apply a little ingenuity. Here's how:
You should start with a long aluminum rod, preferably 20 grain, weighing in between 7-15 pounds. I recommend a piece between 37 and 45 inches long and 2-3 inches in diameter.
Shopping tip: while you can obtain such a bar from any conventional hardware store, one of my faithful readers, T. Harding, maintains you may purchase such economy hardware at a Big 5 or Play It Again Sports. For our purposes, she recommends the following brand names: Easton, Demarini, or Louisville Slugger.
Bring this item with you the next time you go to a movie. When one of your fellow theater patrons' cell phone rings and he acquires the unmitigated audacity to answer it, do as follows:
1. Move in front of him with your aluminum rod.
2. Stand very close to him.
3. Quietly wave your toy over his phone.
Voila! His phone call will die out without warning! It happens so suddenly, neither party has a chance to even say goodbye! It works nine times out of ten*.
* One time out of ten, you require a liberal, repeated application of your aluminum against that subject's patella, in a downwards motion towards the bottom of the femur. Once the device is on the ground, firm (and direct) impact from your aluminum will terminate its functionality.
Saruman [to a/. reader]: do you know where geeks come from? They were once human, but captured on the battlefield [playground] and forced into Torture Camps [enrolled them into school] where our Dark Lord [the Establishment] worked his sinister magick [Varsity Hubris and Bullying] on them, twisting them into their current hideous forms [showed them Slashdot]. But you my Uruk-ha^H^H^H^H^H^Hber-Geek, you were made to withstand the light of the sun, to not cringe in horror at the sound of a football game, and possibly get laid! So gather up your arms, and go destroy our enemies!
Well, you can learn a lot. I'll bet the (pirated) Director's Cut of Monty Python's Erik the Viking and Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead are in there... The article did say *most* of Norwegian history, right?
I don't know about you, but I installed a workstation right in front of my throne, just so that certain annoying biological functions don't get in the way of Everquest or reading Slashdot. The keyboard rests comfortably in my lap while typing, although the splashback (cumulatively over time) has begun to make it kinda gross on the bottom. When I have particularly bad indigestion or food poisoning, the splashback factor is strong enough to reach even the computer screen.
Hmm, it'd appear that while typing this, my pointing device just slipped between my legs and landed in the water. Oh well, I'll just dry it off...
Anyway, for some strange reason, none of my friends come over for network parties anymore, and those who do always want to bring their own computers... The nerve! I always buy the best hardware money can buy, and they want to use their own. Hmmph! Some friends they are! Note: not all my workstations are located in my bathrooms - one of them is located in my bedroom and just happens to be surrounded by wads of crumpled kleenexes, but otherwise appears to be pretty clean.
Mitch "Motormouth" Moshita(sp?). I also used to have his album, "Five Minute University". I'm trying to track down another album of his... I think it was called "Moby Dick in 30 minutes".
neither governments nor religious groups will be able to stop this" in the next few decades, says Christine Petersen, president of the Foresight Institute running the program.
Didn't George Bush pass something to hinder fetal stem cell research? Didn't the pope state that it was immoral to create complete duplicate clones of ourselves [for spare body parts]?
I hate to say it, but our government does have a very strong stake in Xtian voters, and most Xtians I know think that messing with the body is abhorrent if you think about it long enough. After all, isn't the body supposed to be your own temple? The key point is, if religion [or a sufficiently large enough body of supporters of that religion] opposes it strongly enough, it can get written into law. If the law enforces it strongly enough, it can be stopped.
Ray Kurzweil makes an interesting point in the Age of Spiritual Machines: if you get an implant to replace the damaged hearing centers of your brain, are you still human? Now, let's say you get an implant to bolster the parts of your brain that control your ability to remember things. Are you still human? As you start replacing more and more parts of your brain with artificial equivalents, at what point do you stop being human? It appears the religious answer to this is, don't even start. I can even see that argument going as far as rejecting all medicine entirely. Suddenly I can see where Xtian Scientists come from.
Problem is, Religion sees our lumpy sacks of meat [aka bodies] as being a Sacred Thing. For as long as people are both religious and involved in government, there are going to be a hell of a lot of obstacles to overcome.
When you say personal machines, do you mean machines that are actually owned by the primary user?
Makes me think of the following war story: I worked at a company that hired a few consultants who brought their own machines in. On the day of a BSA audit, one of the contractors left his laptop unattended for a couple of hours, during which one of the auditors started going through it. The auditor was still on when the consultant came back, and needless to say, he wasn't pleased.
Consultant: Get off my notebook.
Auditor: I see you have X, Y, and Z. Do you have licenses for these packages?
[note: we hired consultants who have software that we don't - they should be responsible for their own machines]
Consultant: I know who you bastards are, and I don't have to answer to you. Nobody touches my notebook but me. Get out of my cubicle.
Auditor: Sir, you are interfering with an official BSA audit. Please be patient while I finish installing this monitoring software...
[Other auditors and employees start homing in on the disturbance.]
Consultant: I won't warn you again.
[Moment of silence, then...]
[Cursing, sounds of something tearing, loud scuffle, followed by a dull *thud*.]
At this point, I tried to see what had happened, but the crowd outside his cubicle was too tight for me to get a good view. Moments later, the consultant emerged from the crowd, into the open arms of security guards, but with a strange look of triumph on his face and notebook computer clutched under his arm. A dented metal curtain rod followed shortly after (now in my possession, which I affectionately call my "BSA Stick").
I never saw the consultant again.
You must be talking about the Convoluted But Difficult-To-Pronounce Acronym, which follows the Simple-minded Secretly Supervising Congress Acronym, which is meant to play down the well known Dull-witted Mind Control Act, right?
Flynn: I have to stop and rest. Tron: Not here. Flynn: Hey, wait, I remember this place... but what happened to all the 'water'? Smells like sh*t! Tron: Everytime we take a big TCP dump, Primary Domain Controller now sends it all down here and fouls the energy. [Large monstrous creature with glowing body-circuits rises out of the murky depths. A look of recognition crosses Flynn's face.] Flynn: WordPerfect? What happened to you? WP [in a deep demonically-possessed voice]: You may call me Word, now. MS-Word. Flynn: But you're so bloated... and slow. WP: No, the Redmond PDC made me better and stronger. Redmond gave me more secrets than you will ever dream of, Flynn. [With a loud burp, two brightly painted easter eggs drop out of Word's writhing, oozing flesh.] WP: Now you both die. Prepare to be de-res'd. [With a loud cry, several spider-like creature jump off Word's body, and proceed to advance on Flynn and Tron. Tron: Run! Flynn: I don't remember spiders looking like *that*... Tron: That's because they're Macros! Move it! [Both characters bend over and form light cycles, which immediately flicker and sputter before coming to a complete stop.] Disembodied Female Voice: Warning: you have attempted to engage a security circumvention device. Countermeasures are now active. Tron and Flynn simultaneously: Goddamn DMCA!
[Cut to: another scene approved for spoiler/trailer use.] Tron: That was close. Flynn: Can't we rally all your friends? Where's Sybase? Tron: Gone. Also corrupted by the Redmond PDC. He's known as "SQL Server", now. Flynn: Lotus? Tron: Excel. Flynn: Widget? Tron: ActiveX. Look, I've told you, they're all gone and twisted into evil version of their former selves. Flynn: Netscape? [Pauses. Looks up.] I.E.... Tron: Yeah, I.E.. Flynn [frantically]: No, Sark v54.1.23.475.21b (Stable Release) has found us! Aaiiyyeee! [RPDC forces, AKA 313373 shock troops, close in rapidly.] Tron: Damn it, Flynn, we probably could've escaped if you didn't spend all that time saying his Version Number! There's no other choice: we must contact my User! Flynn: You mean Allen? Tron: No, I have a new user now. Cowboy Neal. Flynn [jaw drops]: We are so doomed. Tron: My User isn't answering! We need a miracle now! [Gigantic pig with glowing body circuits lands on Sark's 313373 shock troops, crushing them to death.] Tron: Spam! I knew Redmond couldn't corrupt you into their ranks! Spam: *Oink*! Flynn: I guess Redmond isn't so bad after all. Spam: *Oink*! Tron: Flynn, this is Spam. He can find anyone, no matter where they're hiding. Spam: *Oink*! Tron: Wait a second! There must be thousands of Slashdot Users willing to help us! [To Spam] Go boy! Email all of them. Get help! Spam[Emphatically]: *Oink* *Oink*! [Four days later...] Tron[despondent]: No one's responding. I don't get it: I've sent Spam to everyone's email address, dozens of times over, and no one's going to help us. Flynn: We should keep moving. Keep sending Spam...
Sorry. I probably got the initials wrong on the second law, but that's ok. They'll change it's name the next go round anyway, so that some people won't notice it.
Here's how I remember the initials: take the heavy-handed tactics of Nazi SS Stormtroopers, and combine that with the outmoded lifestyles of the Sword Carrying *ssholes.
SS + SCA = SSSCA
Skevin
Office 2K/XP is the only MS product with accurate warnings during Setup: most of the packages tell me to "Run from My Computer".
Your search for "mysql perl dbi" turned up 2.527e8 results.
Showing 1-10 of 2.527e8:
X10: the smallest spy camera for your computer.
Need a better mortgage quote? Click here.
Women: Lose 4 inches by next week.
Men: Gain 4 inches by next week.
Look closer. Not that close. Sorority Boys opening this Firday.
This link requires your browser to support the ISO-2022-CN Chinese Characterset to display properly. BlahBlahPorkShoulderBoneGroundUpAndStuffedIntoRect angularCansForMontyPythonToWriteSongsAboutBlahBlah.
Reliaquote: Save up to 70% on Life Insurance.
Take this short survey and win $100.
This link requires your browser to support the ISO-2022-KR Korean Characterset to display properly. BlahBlahPorkShoulderBoneGroundUpAndStuffedIntoRect angularCansForMontyPythonToWriteSongsAboutBlahBlah.
Learn the Secrets of Financial Independence in 30 days!
Solomon Chang
Office 2K/XP is the only MS product with accurate warnings during Setup: most of the packages tell me to "Run from My Computer".
I have a much better option, performed from stricly hardware. As soon as I have enough money, I'm going to buy a million monkeys and a million typewriters....
After all, look at all us computer geeks who seem to ultimately be the lifeblood at the heart of our modern economy. Now, look at all the women who don't want to breed with us (almost all of them). Ah, so the human race is doomed.
There's a story, which caps evolution quite nicely: two homo sapiens are sitting on the African Savannah long ago, when a lion approaches. Both of them start running towards the trees. The one who makes the correlation between climbing the tree and safety becomes our ancestor. The one who doesn't... well, he doesn't.
But seriously, the evolutionary factors that have shaped our biological being are no longer in effect - i.e. If there were some natural factor in our environment that destroyed people with weak vision (I'm legally blind, myself), then the human race would quickly find itself with 20/20 vision as a whole. If we proceeded to start killing off everyone with an unfavorable trait, that trait would quickly disappear from our species, or at the very least, become dormant.
Indeed, we may have come to a dead end because we value the individual too much, and often we have the medical technology to carry an "unfavorable" individual to survive to sexual maturity, as it were. Traditionally, nature would simply weed out everyone with those traits. If you start picking at it too much, all those proponents of Eugenics almost start to make sense. Scary, isn't it? Personally, I have no problem with thinking we've reached a plateau in our evolution.
Okay, that covers the Death part. Now, we look at suffering as a necessary part of our improvement as a race...
It is a well known fact that if you have an island where resources are plentiful and people's needs are few, then that particular culture will never develop a significant economy, much less develop any appreciable technology. Fire was invented because people were cold. The bow and arrow was invented because people needed to catch food with less effort. Hell, the cotton gin was invented because free slave labor was in noticeable decline. Slashdot gets built up because Hemos doesn't want to work as a grocery clerk for the rest of his life. Human Suffering begets innovation. As the old saying goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
Along these lines, it is impossible for the economy of Star Trek to ever come into existence, where all money is eliminated, and everyone contributes to society for only the joy of self improvement.
I therefore posit the following: the End of Human Evolution/Improvement actually comes if we eliminate Poverty, Suffering, and Mortality. In Complacency, the human race dies off as a whole.
I'd love to see the press coverage of a few hundred programmers slaughtered by the federal government while bunkered up in some compound. Sign me up! (My hand-to-mouth existence since the dot-com crash has made me a little reckless about my own survival anyway.)
Of course, in order to hold any water at first, we need some marginal constitutional protection - therefore, I hereby found the religion of The First Church of Information Sharing and Reverse Engineering, of which I declare myself as High Templar Priest Coder. Upon establishing religious recognition, my first task as the Church's spiritual leader will be to render petty licensing and security laws inapplicable to faithful followers, since such edicts blatantly violate our Consitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of religion. Rally unto my banner, O Slashdot Members! Let not the Oppressor restrain thy hand at undoing weak security algothithms! Come before me and find safety at http://ww-...
[1:26 AM] Er, ummm, it looks like someone just broke into my webserver and decompiled all my servlets. Wow, oh boy, they certainly did a fair number to my machine. Gimme a few hours, I'll try to get the Church back online in just a moment...:)
Slashdot Mirror
Think a moment about your comment: Microsoft sets you up with an SO who will prevent you from using your computer in ways they do not like. Cool huh?
That would mean she not only prevents you from using Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever), but she also prevents you from associating with uncertain "undesirable influences" (aka friends) or even going to Defcon.
Furthermore, it couldn't possibly be cost effective for Microsoft. I just took a recent survey of hot-looking women in a local Starbuck's, asking, "Would you date me for a hundred bucks?" This response is always followed by a resounding "No!" or "Do I look like a cheap slut to you?" However, changing the dollar amount to one million dollars often elicits the phrase, "Hah hah, yeah, sure OK.... if you *did* have a million dollars." Therefore, we can conclude that a woman will date me^h^h a geek for one million dollars.
Let's assume it takes a geek 30 dates to reach SO status - that would translate to a $30 million girlfriend.
Now, let's look at Microsoft's emergency fund: $30 Billion. That's only enough to bribe 1000 unsuspecting women to carry on an ongoing semi-permenent relationship with us.
Then again, being Microsoft, they could make this cost effective by following their normal business strategy:
- One SO must be shared amongst several geeks. (Sloppy Sevenths, anyone?)
- You will never come home to the same girlfriend twice, because they keep swapping out with each other. The parent company informs you that they're simply upgrading you to MS Significant Other 4.0, whether you want to or not.
- Even if she is consistent, her presence is your home will present a serious security liability; she'll let anyone in.
- All her ports will be open to anyone who wants access.
Before long, she'll be replaced by MS Significant Other XP, who:
- Must call home the moment she arrives at your pad.
- Must call home again if you change your furniture or decor or bathroom reading.
- Becomes totally unresponsive to you if she can't call home.
- Reserves to right to tell you that your lifestyle is so improved that she wants more money.
(Come to think of it, I *did* date someone like that.)
Solomon
Aluminum won't block enough signal.
Personally, I find Aluminum more than adequate for stopping annoying cell phones, if you apply a little ingenuity. Here's how:
You should start with a long aluminum rod, preferably 20 grain, weighing in between 7-15 pounds. I recommend a piece between 37 and 45 inches long and 2-3 inches in diameter.
Shopping tip: while you can obtain such a bar from any conventional hardware store, one of my faithful readers, T. Harding, maintains you may purchase such economy hardware at a Big 5 or Play It Again Sports. For our purposes, she recommends the following brand names: Easton, Demarini, or Louisville Slugger.
Bring this item with you the next time you go to a movie. When one of your fellow theater patrons' cell phone rings and he acquires the unmitigated audacity to answer it, do as follows:
1. Move in front of him with your aluminum rod.
2. Stand very close to him.
3. Quietly wave your toy over his phone.
Voila! His phone call will die out without warning! It happens so suddenly, neither party has a chance to even say goodbye! It works nine times out of ten*.
* One time out of ten, you require a liberal, repeated application of your aluminum against that subject's patella, in a downwards motion towards the bottom of the femur. Once the device is on the ground, firm (and direct) impact from your aluminum will terminate its functionality.
Solomon
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!"
In another scene...
/. reader]: do you know where geeks come from? They were once human, but captured on the battlefield [playground] and forced into Torture Camps [enrolled them into school] where our Dark Lord [the Establishment] worked his sinister magick [Varsity Hubris and Bullying] on them, twisting them into their current hideous forms [showed them Slashdot]. But you my Uruk-ha^H^H^H^H^H^Hber-Geek, you were made to withstand the light of the sun, to not cringe in horror at the sound of a football game, and possibly get laid! So gather up your arms, and go destroy our enemies!
Saruman [to a
...and they....they....STRAIGHTENED HIM!!!
What? the Office Assistant isn't straight?
Well, you can learn a lot. I'll bet the (pirated) Director's Cut of Monty Python's Erik the Viking and Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead are in there... The article did say *most* of Norwegian history, right?
Solomon
HP Must Defend Half-Empty "Economy" Ink Cartidges
Apparently. These "cartidges" also seem to have half as many R's.
Made of carbon nanotubes?
Well, what's going to happen if you want to snap a picture of them?
Solomon
So I guess your machine has Splashdot: News from Turds, Stuff that Splattered?
I don't know about you, but I installed a workstation right in front of my throne, just so that certain annoying biological functions don't get in the way of Everquest or reading Slashdot. The keyboard rests comfortably in my lap while typing, although the splashback (cumulatively over time) has begun to make it kinda gross on the bottom. When I have particularly bad indigestion or food poisoning, the splashback factor is strong enough to reach even the computer screen.
Hmm, it'd appear that while typing this, my pointing device just slipped between my legs and landed in the water. Oh well, I'll just dry it off...
Anyway, for some strange reason, none of my friends come over for network parties anymore, and those who do always want to bring their own computers... The nerve! I always buy the best hardware money can buy, and they want to use their own. Hmmph! Some friends they are! Note: not all my workstations are located in my bathrooms - one of them is located in my bedroom and just happens to be surrounded by wads of crumpled kleenexes, but otherwise appears to be pretty clean.
I just mv it to dev/null. I don't know anyone who can steal it from me at that point.
Skevin
When I was your age...
We didn't have none of them Transformers - We had "Conformers", and your Transformers ripped off their theme song from us:
Conformers.
Campaigns full of lies.
Democrats wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Republicans.
Skevin
and the Micromachines guy
Mitch "Motormouth" Moshita(sp?). I also used to have his album, "Five Minute University". I'm trying to track down another album of his... I think it was called "Moby Dick in 30 minutes".
Skevin
neither governments nor religious groups will be able to stop this" in the next few decades, says Christine Petersen, president of the Foresight Institute running the program.
Didn't George Bush pass something to hinder fetal stem cell research? Didn't the pope state that it was immoral to create complete duplicate clones of ourselves [for spare body parts]?
I hate to say it, but our government does have a very strong stake in Xtian voters, and most Xtians I know think that messing with the body is abhorrent if you think about it long enough. After all, isn't the body supposed to be your own temple? The key point is, if religion [or a sufficiently large enough body of supporters of that religion] opposes it strongly enough, it can get written into law. If the law enforces it strongly enough, it can be stopped.
Ray Kurzweil makes an interesting point in the Age of Spiritual Machines: if you get an implant to replace the damaged hearing centers of your brain, are you still human? Now, let's say you get an implant to bolster the parts of your brain that control your ability to remember things. Are you still human? As you start replacing more and more parts of your brain with artificial equivalents, at what point do you stop being human? It appears the religious answer to this is, don't even start. I can even see that argument going as far as rejecting all medicine entirely. Suddenly I can see where Xtian Scientists come from.
Problem is, Religion sees our lumpy sacks of meat [aka bodies] as being a Sacred Thing. For as long as people are both religious and involved in government, there are going to be a hell of a lot of obstacles to overcome.
When you say personal machines, do you mean machines that are actually owned by the primary user?
Makes me think of the following war story: I worked at a company that hired a few consultants who brought their own machines in. On the day of a BSA audit, one of the contractors left his laptop unattended for a couple of hours, during which one of the auditors started going through it. The auditor was still on when the consultant came back, and needless to say, he wasn't pleased.
Consultant: Get off my notebook.
Auditor: I see you have X, Y, and Z. Do you have licenses for these packages?
[note: we hired consultants who have software that we don't - they should be responsible for their own machines]
Consultant: I know who you bastards are, and I don't have to answer to you. Nobody touches my notebook but me. Get out of my cubicle.
Auditor: Sir, you are interfering with an official BSA audit. Please be patient while I finish installing this monitoring software...
[Other auditors and employees start homing in on the disturbance.]
Consultant: I won't warn you again.
[Moment of silence, then...]
[Cursing, sounds of something tearing, loud scuffle, followed by a dull *thud*.]
At this point, I tried to see what had happened, but the crowd outside his cubicle was too tight for me to get a good view. Moments later, the consultant emerged from the crowd, into the open arms of security guards, but with a strange look of triumph on his face and notebook computer clutched under his arm. A dented metal curtain rod followed shortly after (now in my possession, which I affectionately call my "BSA Stick").
I never saw the consultant again.
You must be talking about the Convoluted But Difficult-To-Pronounce Acronym, which follows the Simple-minded Secretly Supervising Congress Acronym, which is meant to play down the well known Dull-witted Mind Control Act, right?
Flynn: I have to stop and rest.
Tron: Not here.
Flynn: Hey, wait, I remember this place... but what happened to all the 'water'? Smells like sh*t!
Tron: Everytime we take a big TCP dump, Primary Domain Controller now sends it all down here and fouls the energy.
[Large monstrous creature with glowing body-circuits rises out of the murky depths. A look of recognition crosses Flynn's face.]
Flynn: WordPerfect? What happened to you?
WP [in a deep demonically-possessed voice]: You may call me Word, now. MS-Word.
Flynn: But you're so bloated... and slow.
WP: No, the Redmond PDC made me better and stronger. Redmond gave me more secrets than you will ever dream of, Flynn.
[With a loud burp, two brightly painted easter eggs drop out of Word's writhing, oozing flesh.]
WP: Now you both die. Prepare to be de-res'd.
[With a loud cry, several spider-like creature jump off Word's body, and proceed to advance on Flynn and Tron.
Tron: Run!
Flynn: I don't remember spiders looking like *that*...
Tron: That's because they're Macros! Move it!
[Both characters bend over and form light cycles, which immediately flicker and sputter before coming to a complete stop.]
Disembodied Female Voice: Warning: you have attempted to engage a security circumvention device. Countermeasures are now active.
Tron and Flynn simultaneously: Goddamn DMCA!
[Cut to: another scene approved for spoiler/trailer use.]
Tron: That was close.
Flynn: Can't we rally all your friends? Where's Sybase?
Tron: Gone. Also corrupted by the Redmond PDC. He's known as "SQL Server", now.
Flynn: Lotus?
Tron: Excel.
Flynn: Widget?
Tron: ActiveX. Look, I've told you, they're all gone and twisted into evil version of their former selves.
Flynn: Netscape? [Pauses. Looks up.] I.E....
Tron: Yeah, I.E..
Flynn [frantically]: No, Sark v54.1.23.475.21b (Stable Release) has found us! Aaiiyyeee!
[RPDC forces, AKA 313373 shock troops, close in rapidly.]
Tron: Damn it, Flynn, we probably could've escaped if you didn't spend all that time saying his Version Number! There's no other choice: we must contact my User!
Flynn: You mean Allen?
Tron: No, I have a new user now. Cowboy Neal.
Flynn [jaw drops]: We are so doomed.
Tron: My User isn't answering! We need a miracle now!
[Gigantic pig with glowing body circuits lands on Sark's 313373 shock troops, crushing them to death.]
Tron: Spam! I knew Redmond couldn't corrupt you into their ranks!
Spam: *Oink*!
Flynn: I guess Redmond isn't so bad after all.
Spam: *Oink*!
Tron: Flynn, this is Spam. He can find anyone, no matter where they're hiding.
Spam: *Oink*!
Tron: Wait a second! There must be thousands of Slashdot Users willing to help us! [To Spam] Go boy! Email all of them. Get help!
Spam[Emphatically]: *Oink* *Oink*!
[Four days later...]
Tron[despondent]: No one's responding. I don't get it: I've sent Spam to everyone's email address, dozens of times over, and no one's going to help us.
Flynn: We should keep moving. Keep sending Spam...
Sorry. I probably got the initials wrong on the second law, but that's ok. They'll change it's name the next go round anyway, so that some people won't notice it.
Here's how I remember the initials: take the heavy-handed tactics of Nazi SS Stormtroopers, and combine that with the outmoded lifestyles of the Sword Carrying *ssholes.
SS + SCA = SSSCA
Skevin
Office 2K/XP is the only MS product with accurate warnings during Setup: most of the packages tell me to "Run from My Computer".
Showing 1-10 of 2.527e8:
Solomon Chang
Office 2K/XP is the only MS product with accurate warnings during Setup: most of the packages tell me to "Run from My Computer".
I have a much better option, performed from stricly hardware. As soon as I have enough money, I'm going to buy a million monkeys and a million typewriters....
After all, look at all us computer geeks who seem to ultimately be the lifeblood at the heart of our modern economy. Now, look at all the women who don't want to breed with us (almost all of them). Ah, so the human race is doomed.
Solomon Chang
There's a story, which caps evolution quite nicely: two homo sapiens are sitting on the African Savannah long ago, when a lion approaches. Both of them start running towards the trees. The one who makes the correlation between climbing the tree and safety becomes our ancestor. The one who doesn't... well, he doesn't.
But seriously, the evolutionary factors that have shaped our biological being are no longer in effect - i.e. If there were some natural factor in our environment that destroyed people with weak vision (I'm legally blind, myself), then the human race would quickly find itself with 20/20 vision as a whole. If we proceeded to start killing off everyone with an unfavorable trait, that trait would quickly disappear from our species, or at the very least, become dormant.
Indeed, we may have come to a dead end because we value the individual too much, and often we have the medical technology to carry an "unfavorable" individual to survive to sexual maturity, as it were. Traditionally, nature would simply weed out everyone with those traits. If you start picking at it too much, all those proponents of Eugenics almost start to make sense. Scary, isn't it? Personally, I have no problem with thinking we've reached a plateau in our evolution.
Okay, that covers the Death part. Now, we look at suffering as a necessary part of our improvement as a race...
It is a well known fact that if you have an island where resources are plentiful and people's needs are few, then that particular culture will never develop a significant economy, much less develop any appreciable technology. Fire was invented because people were cold. The bow and arrow was invented because people needed to catch food with less effort. Hell, the cotton gin was invented because free slave labor was in noticeable decline. Slashdot gets built up because Hemos doesn't want to work as a grocery clerk for the rest of his life. Human Suffering begets innovation. As the old saying goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
Along these lines, it is impossible for the economy of Star Trek to ever come into existence, where all money is eliminated, and everyone contributes to society for only the joy of self improvement.
I therefore posit the following: the End of Human Evolution/Improvement actually comes if we eliminate Poverty, Suffering, and Mortality. In Complacency, the human race dies off as a whole.
Solomon Chang
I'd love to see the press coverage of a few hundred programmers slaughtered by the federal government while bunkered up in some compound. Sign me up! (My hand-to-mouth existence since the dot-com crash has made me a little reckless about my own survival anyway.)
:)
Of course, in order to hold any water at first, we need some marginal constitutional protection - therefore, I hereby found the religion of The First Church of Information Sharing and Reverse Engineering, of which I declare myself as High Templar Priest Coder. Upon establishing religious recognition, my first task as the Church's spiritual leader will be to render petty licensing and security laws inapplicable to faithful followers, since such edicts blatantly violate our Consitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of religion. Rally unto my banner, O Slashdot Members! Let not the Oppressor restrain thy hand at undoing weak security algothithms! Come before me and find safety at http://ww-...
[1:26 AM] Er, ummm, it looks like someone just broke into my webserver and decompiled all my servlets. Wow, oh boy, they certainly did a fair number to my machine. Gimme a few hours, I'll try to get the Church back online in just a moment...
Skevin
Serious? I never heard of such a thing: perfectly working copies of Windows! Where can I find some? Or are you pulling my leg?
Solomon
...every year around this time we see lists of the most dangerous children's toys, but no one bothers with lists of the most dangerous *adult* toys?