I used to work for the abuse department of a major Irish ISP. We received hundreds of emails a day about our users allegedly breaching copyrights. Some were from studios, most were from outfits like Web Sherriff. Under the law at the time (now sure how it goes these days), we were under no obligation to follow up on these and had no inclination to either. The vast majority of the mail was from automated systems and we bulk deleted them without even reading them. The very occasional would be written by a human (or at least, would be a boilerplate mail with a human contact's name attached). These got a boilerplate reply in turn, telling them that we were not required by law to enforce their copyrights, and referring them to the police if they wanted to make a complaint. We would of course have handed over our logs had we been requested to by the police, but in the two years I worked there, we never were.
A more relevant example would be how you can set up a PC for the first time, and have all the cables carefully arranged so that there is no crossing over or tangling, and yet when you come back six months later, to add a new device or to swap out a cable, every single one of them is wrapped tightly around the others to such an extent that you can't understand how it could come about without somebody doing it intentionally.
That might sound like I'm trying to show old school creds, but that was the only browser the desperately old computer that I was using up to 1999 would run;)
I suppose I could be wrong, but I would imagine that the majority of computers in the world are owned by corporations rather than individuals. I base that on the fact that I have one computer at home, but in work I use several different machines. IT policy in almost every company worldwide will stop people installing or running software like Limewire. So assuming that 63.6% of computers in the world operate in this kind of environment, does the report not really imply that 100% of individually owned computers in the world run P2P software?
It kind of undermines the position of groups of the RIAA if they are fighting against something that 100% of the population is in favour of.
I spent a few hours today StumbleUpon'ing through the "writing" channel. I read this headline and my first thoughts ran to "Hero Robot" as a character archetype:D
It is quite possibly the worst game I have ever played. The controls are completely non-intuitive, the storyline is boring and the graphics are sub-par. Just seeing the title of this story made me think about how terrible that game was. It would actually put me off getting any Futurama games in future - especially until it had been reviewed and received top marks from everyone.
How are the licenses regulated? I assume there is a test you have to pass for the Morse Code, but if I have my PC hooked up to a transmitter and can transmit the morse at speeds faster than any human could, does that count?
Also, what's to stop somebody who has a transmitter themselves from just broadcasting without taking the exam?
(I'm not a ham, obviously, and I've never used ham radio, but the idea has always interested me)
I just finished watching it, and it is top notch all the way. I was mildly concerned that after two years the writing staff would have lost their way, but this was in my opinion on par with the best of Futurama, and I've got/watched every episode. If you watch the show over the course of its seasons, you can see the wonderfully complex threads and story arcs that run through it. The some of the characters are amazingly deep and the mixture of laugh-out-loud funny or zany episodes to emotionally touching ones makes the show entertaining and lovable. This movie is a continuation of that pattern. Because it is a bigger deal than a normal episode, it is jammed with references to its past, but manages not to make it obnoxious. For example, Fry's dog appears in several scenes, which to a casual viewer might not mean much but is a very nice reference to see.
I know, I'm probably coming off a little over the top, and I have been waiting for this for two years, but I could not be happier with the movie. I have spent time eagerly waiting for media before (new Beatles single, Star Wars Episode I, etc), and I have often been disappointed. This is not one of those times.
If you love Futurama, you will love Benders Big Score. Go buy it, now!:)
Return of the Jedi was released five months after I was born. My parents bought me a few Star Wars toys that I must have kept for years because I distinctly remember playing with them as a kid. I also had an original Return of the Jedi blanket and movie tie-in books, so I consider myself to be at the extreme edge of the group who can claim Star Wars as part of their childhood.
I'm sure some of you who are older than me by a few years will say that the Ewoks ruined the Star Wars franchise, but for me, they have always been an intrinsic part of it. Yes, they were largely a comedic species, but in RoTJ, their nievity - their childish, silly actions and noises served as a contrast to the evil of the Empire. One of the most touching moments in the original trilogy was a scene where one Ewok is killed by an imperial laser blast, and another leans down beside him, prodding him, clearly not realising his friend is dead, and possibly even unfamiliar with the concept of non-natural death itself.
The Ewoks are often compared to Jar Jar, but I think this is very unfair. Yes, they made the audience laugh, and yes they probably made Lucas lots more money from merchandising, but they served a purpose in terms of the film's plot, and without the contrast that they created, the Empire's actions would have had a greatly reduced impact on audiences.
None of this can be said of Jar Jar Binks. His "zany antics" serve no purpose but outright slapstick humour, and even this is not done very well. He alone does not create a contrast with the Trade Federation, nor does his innocence underscore the central themes of the film(s). He exists purely because the writers needed a "funny character", and were too lazy to create something better.
As I have said, I am (by the skin of my teeth) a member of the "Star Wars generation", but because I was not old enough to be obsessively interested in movies, I do not think that the modern trilogy "ruined my childhood" by any means. However, there is a noticable drop in quality between the two sets of films, and for me, the most blatant example of this is the presence of Jar Jar Binks.
Call me a cynic, but I'd say its more likely a case of a limited production run so they can get sites like Slashdot to report how they sold out in just 5.5 hours.
I bought a new computer shortly after Vista was released. My old PC had been getting on in years, and when it died I picked up my current laptop to replace it. I was a bit uncertain about using Vista since I had heard so many bad reviews about it, but it came pre-installed so I figured I would give it a go. After a few months of using it, I realised I was right to be worried. At least on my laptop, it was slow as hell, and buggy. It would freeze for no reason, and crash out of programs that XP had run without a hitch. Several of my friends had similar experiences. I considered going back to the store and requesting a tech have a look at it, but having worked in a similar place myself, I figured they wouldn't be able to do anything that I hadn't tried myself (and at the very best, they would send it away to be "looked at" and I would be sans laptop for a few weeks). So instead, I uninstalled the OS, and reinstalled XP SP2. My machine is now flying along and hasn't crashed since.
The desktop that died on me had been running Windows 2000 for over five years, after which I upgraded to XP when I friend offered to give me an install CD he no longer needed. I ran 2k for that long because it met my needs, and was more stable and powerful than the versions of Windows I had used previously (3.11/95/98/ME). The only reason I switched was out of curiosity, and with SP2, XP became the best Windows I had ever used.
I wasn't curious about Vista, but because of circumstances, I ended up trying it anyway. It was an absolutely terrible experience, and I am so glad to be back to my nice, stable XP. So, there's a lesson for Microsoft to learn. They had an opportunity to get a user onboard with their latest OS, but they blew it so badly, that I am now likely to keep on using XP for the next five years, and if I need to switch operating systems then, I am more likely to go with Linux, or buy a Mac.
I'm sorry to say this mate, but from the end of your post, you sound like I did - just before Enterprise was first shown on television.
My thoughts ran along the lines of "maybe this show can save Star Trek! The plot decription has so much potential, the characters sound interesting, and that guy was great in Quantum Leap! Maybe they are finally going to brush off the rubbish that was Voyager and get back to basics! Good, honest storytelling with characters you can empathise with and finally some gripping narrative, wowee!"
When I first heard the show described, I imagined Enterprise being what Firefly actually was. Gritty, well put together stuff. No "technology saves the day" plot devices, no high-heeled models in catsuits pretending to be on screen as anything other than eye candy, no terrible storylines that don't make any sense, or "here's a time travel episode because we can't think of anything better".
How wrong I was. Instead of the above, I got the biggest crap fest I have ever seen. For four years. Four years of pretending it was going to get better, of watching it just for the sake of watching Star Trek, and then finally, I gave up. A year before the end of that god damn terrible show, I just gave up on Star Trek completely. I was once upon a time a hardcore Trekkie, but no more. The shows will always have a place in my heart. I will always remember Trek for what it once was, but never again will I get excited about the next addition to the franchise.
I am a fan of J.J. Abrams. I like Simon Pegg in everything I've seen him in, and the new Spock is pretty good in Heroes. I read somewere that Abrams hasn't watched the most recent few Trek films, and hasn't seen Enterprise at all, all of which bodes well for the quality of the new film. However, I refuse to get excited about it. The film will be released, and depending on the reviews I may or may not see it. If it is reviewed as particularly terrible, then I wont watch it even if its on television some night years from now.
Star Trek has gone from being my absolute favourite show (my favourite interest, even - when I was a kid I had the action figures, models, books etc), to being just another movie being made amongst the general crap that Hollywood pumps out.
It actually makes me sad to think of it like that, but there you go.
If you hire engineers who are used to working with budgets on a NASA size, you'll get a solution that costs NASA price tags, or close to them.
I would say you could stop the costs ballooning by hiring NASA engineers, and not NASA bureaucrats. I have been of the opinion for some time that the problem with NASA is that it is expected to do too little science with too much money (don't hate me!). Give these people ten million and tell them to get to the moon, and you will come out with a lean, well designed system that can get there and do what you want. Give them one hundred million and you'll get a bloated project with too many unnecessary people on board and too much red tape to do anything properly. That is the whole point of things like the X-Prize. The knowledge and experience are out there. The technology (or close to it) is out there. The scientific community is slowly coming to the realisation that leaving things like this to government agencies will not give results. NASA has provided the groundwork without which none of this would be possible, but it is time to take what we have learned there, and run with it.
That logic can be applied both ways. Imagine right now, on Tehrandot.org:
"I heard on Al Jazeera last week, from an American protesting in Washington, that there are a large contingent of the population is is pro-peace, and who are looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government?"
I'm looking at this from an outsiders perspective, but it seems to me that in both countries (United States and Iran), there are a reasonable, sane majority of people just trying to get on with their lives, who are being pushed into war by a vocal, fundamentalist minority.
Rational people on both side look out, and see only the extremists. Joe Washington doesn't want war but everything he hears regarding Iran is negative - they want to wipe out Israel, they want to build nukes. Joe Tehran has a generally pacifist outlook too, but when he reads about America, it is usually because of attrocities like Abu Ghraib, or some other massacre. Time passes, and the crazies on both sides get louder and louder, while the rational people - constantly exposed to this propaganda, start to feel that even though they want peace, the "other side" is giving them no choice but to go to war.
Apologies, after I had posted, I realised that I had meant that Kilmainham Gaol was designed as a panopticon, not Mountjoy. I'm not sure how Mountjoy was constructed:)
I'm not sure why people would be unfamiliar with the panopticon concept - it has been widely known and used in the west for centuries. Mountjoy Gaol in Dublin is built around the concept
You are being a bit closed minded there. What gives you the right to determine what is "real" or "important"? I'm not saying I entirely disagree with your view on the value of such things, but your argument could really be turned on its head for any point of view. Replace the Slashdot POV with Entertainment Weekly and we get something that is just as valid as your argument:
'It would be interesting to know how many "real" articles there are. That is, if you took out the individual articles for all the boring scientific rubbish that wikipedia seems to excel at, all the articles for individual chemicals or compounds, basically all the meaningless cruft that nerds deem important'
I wouldn't deny a peroxide addled nitwit their juicy celebrity gossip any more than I would deny a geek his in-depth biography of Wolverine, or a nerd his scientific definitions. Just because it is unimportant to you or I does not mean that it is without merit to somebody.
I vaguely remember reading about the human genome being found to contain the genome of viruses that we our bodies had defeated aeons ago, but which had been incorporated into our own genetic code as a result. I can't find the text now, but I'm guessing I read it on Slashdot. It is an intriguing idea - imagine in millenia to come, some gigantic alien species carrying around the human genetic code inside their own bodies:)
Slashdot Mirror
I used to work for the abuse department of a major Irish ISP. We received hundreds of emails a day about our users allegedly breaching copyrights. Some were from studios, most were from outfits like Web Sherriff. Under the law at the time (now sure how it goes these days), we were under no obligation to follow up on these and had no inclination to either. The vast majority of the mail was from automated systems and we bulk deleted them without even reading them. The very occasional would be written by a human (or at least, would be a boilerplate mail with a human contact's name attached). These got a boilerplate reply in turn, telling them that we were not required by law to enforce their copyrights, and referring them to the police if they wanted to make a complaint. We would of course have handed over our logs had we been requested to by the police, but in the two years I worked there, we never were.
I believe he was trying to keep his post on-topic.
;)
Clearly he is referring to the Slashdot of 1998
A more relevant example would be how you can set up a PC for the first time, and have all the cables carefully arranged so that there is no crossing over or tangling, and yet when you come back six months later, to add a new device or to swap out a cable, every single one of them is wrapped tightly around the others to such an extent that you can't understand how it could come about without somebody doing it intentionally.
...but the first web browser I used was Lynx.
;)
That might sound like I'm trying to show old school creds, but that was the only browser the desperately old computer that I was using up to 1999 would run
I suppose I could be wrong, but I would imagine that the majority of computers in the world are owned by corporations rather than individuals. I base that on the fact that I have one computer at home, but in work I use several different machines. IT policy in almost every company worldwide will stop people installing or running software like Limewire. So assuming that 63.6% of computers in the world operate in this kind of environment, does the report not really imply that 100% of individually owned computers in the world run P2P software?
It kind of undermines the position of groups of the RIAA if they are fighting against something that 100% of the population is in favour of.
I spent a few hours today StumbleUpon'ing through the "writing" channel. I read this headline and my first thoughts ran to "Hero Robot" as a character archetype :D
It is quite possibly the worst game I have ever played. The controls are completely non-intuitive, the storyline is boring and the graphics are sub-par. Just seeing the title of this story made me think about how terrible that game was. It would actually put me off getting any Futurama games in future - especially until it had been reviewed and received top marks from everyone.
How are the licenses regulated? I assume there is a test you have to pass for the Morse Code, but if I have my PC hooked up to a transmitter and can transmit the morse at speeds faster than any human could, does that count?
Also, what's to stop somebody who has a transmitter themselves from just broadcasting without taking the exam?
(I'm not a ham, obviously, and I've never used ham radio, but the idea has always interested me)
I just finished watching it, and it is top notch all the way. I was mildly concerned that after two years the writing staff would have lost their way, but this was in my opinion on par with the best of Futurama, and I've got/watched every episode. If you watch the show over the course of its seasons, you can see the wonderfully complex threads and story arcs that run through it. The some of the characters are amazingly deep and the mixture of laugh-out-loud funny or zany episodes to emotionally touching ones makes the show entertaining and lovable. This movie is a continuation of that pattern. Because it is a bigger deal than a normal episode, it is jammed with references to its past, but manages not to make it obnoxious. For example, Fry's dog appears in several scenes, which to a casual viewer might not mean much but is a very nice reference to see.
:)
I know, I'm probably coming off a little over the top, and I have been waiting for this for two years, but I could not be happier with the movie. I have spent time eagerly waiting for media before (new Beatles single, Star Wars Episode I, etc), and I have often been disappointed. This is not one of those times.
If you love Futurama, you will love Benders Big Score. Go buy it, now!
Return of the Jedi was released five months after I was born. My parents bought me a few Star Wars toys that I must have kept for years because I distinctly remember playing with them as a kid. I also had an original Return of the Jedi blanket and movie tie-in books, so I consider myself to be at the extreme edge of the group who can claim Star Wars as part of their childhood.
I'm sure some of you who are older than me by a few years will say that the Ewoks ruined the Star Wars franchise, but for me, they have always been an intrinsic part of it. Yes, they were largely a comedic species, but in RoTJ, their nievity - their childish, silly actions and noises served as a contrast to the evil of the Empire. One of the most touching moments in the original trilogy was a scene where one Ewok is killed by an imperial laser blast, and another leans down beside him, prodding him, clearly not realising his friend is dead, and possibly even unfamiliar with the concept of non-natural death itself.
The Ewoks are often compared to Jar Jar, but I think this is very unfair. Yes, they made the audience laugh, and yes they probably made Lucas lots more money from merchandising, but they served a purpose in terms of the film's plot, and without the contrast that they created, the Empire's actions would have had a greatly reduced impact on audiences.
None of this can be said of Jar Jar Binks. His "zany antics" serve no purpose but outright slapstick humour, and even this is not done very well. He alone does not create a contrast with the Trade Federation, nor does his innocence underscore the central themes of the film(s). He exists purely because the writers needed a "funny character", and were too lazy to create something better.
As I have said, I am (by the skin of my teeth) a member of the "Star Wars generation", but because I was not old enough to be obsessively interested in movies, I do not think that the modern trilogy "ruined my childhood" by any means. However, there is a noticable drop in quality between the two sets of films, and for me, the most blatant example of this is the presence of Jar Jar Binks.
Call me a cynic, but I'd say its more likely a case of a limited production run so they can get sites like Slashdot to report how they sold out in just 5.5 hours.
I bought a new computer shortly after Vista was released. My old PC had been getting on in years, and when it died I picked up my current laptop to replace it. I was a bit uncertain about using Vista since I had heard so many bad reviews about it, but it came pre-installed so I figured I would give it a go. After a few months of using it, I realised I was right to be worried. At least on my laptop, it was slow as hell, and buggy. It would freeze for no reason, and crash out of programs that XP had run without a hitch. Several of my friends had similar experiences. I considered going back to the store and requesting a tech have a look at it, but having worked in a similar place myself, I figured they wouldn't be able to do anything that I hadn't tried myself (and at the very best, they would send it away to be "looked at" and I would be sans laptop for a few weeks). So instead, I uninstalled the OS, and reinstalled XP SP2. My machine is now flying along and hasn't crashed since.
The desktop that died on me had been running Windows 2000 for over five years, after which I upgraded to XP when I friend offered to give me an install CD he no longer needed. I ran 2k for that long because it met my needs, and was more stable and powerful than the versions of Windows I had used previously (3.11/95/98/ME). The only reason I switched was out of curiosity, and with SP2, XP became the best Windows I had ever used.
I wasn't curious about Vista, but because of circumstances, I ended up trying it anyway. It was an absolutely terrible experience, and I am so glad to be back to my nice, stable XP. So, there's a lesson for Microsoft to learn. They had an opportunity to get a user onboard with their latest OS, but they blew it so badly, that I am now likely to keep on using XP for the next five years, and if I need to switch operating systems then, I am more likely to go with Linux, or buy a Mac.
Well at least they have relevant experience for the task. I wonder if any of the crew served on that mission a few years back, studying the effects of weightlessness on tiny screws.
I'm sorry to say this mate, but from the end of your post, you sound like I did - just before Enterprise was first shown on television.
My thoughts ran along the lines of "maybe this show can save Star Trek! The plot decription has so much potential, the characters sound interesting, and that guy was great in Quantum Leap! Maybe they are finally going to brush off the rubbish that was Voyager and get back to basics! Good, honest storytelling with characters you can empathise with and finally some gripping narrative, wowee!"
When I first heard the show described, I imagined Enterprise being what Firefly actually was. Gritty, well put together stuff. No "technology saves the day" plot devices, no high-heeled models in catsuits pretending to be on screen as anything other than eye candy, no terrible storylines that don't make any sense, or "here's a time travel episode because we can't think of anything better".
How wrong I was. Instead of the above, I got the biggest crap fest I have ever seen. For four years. Four years of pretending it was going to get better, of watching it just for the sake of watching Star Trek, and then finally, I gave up. A year before the end of that god damn terrible show, I just gave up on Star Trek completely. I was once upon a time a hardcore Trekkie, but no more. The shows will always have a place in my heart. I will always remember Trek for what it once was, but never again will I get excited about the next addition to the franchise.
I am a fan of J.J. Abrams. I like Simon Pegg in everything I've seen him in, and the new Spock is pretty good in Heroes. I read somewere that Abrams hasn't watched the most recent few Trek films, and hasn't seen Enterprise at all, all of which bodes well for the quality of the new film. However, I refuse to get excited about it. The film will be released, and depending on the reviews I may or may not see it. If it is reviewed as particularly terrible, then I wont watch it even if its on television some night years from now.
Star Trek has gone from being my absolute favourite show (my favourite interest, even - when I was a kid I had the action figures, models, books etc), to being just another movie being made amongst the general crap that Hollywood pumps out.
It actually makes me sad to think of it like that, but there you go.
If you hire engineers who are used to working with budgets on a NASA size, you'll get a solution that costs NASA price tags, or close to them.
I would say you could stop the costs ballooning by hiring NASA engineers, and not NASA bureaucrats. I have been of the opinion for some time that the problem with NASA is that it is expected to do too little science with too much money (don't hate me!). Give these people ten million and tell them to get to the moon, and you will come out with a lean, well designed system that can get there and do what you want. Give them one hundred million and you'll get a bloated project with too many unnecessary people on board and too much red tape to do anything properly. That is the whole point of things like the X-Prize. The knowledge and experience are out there. The technology (or close to it) is out there. The scientific community is slowly coming to the realisation that leaving things like this to government agencies will not give results. NASA has provided the groundwork without which none of this would be possible, but it is time to take what we have learned there, and run with it.
That logic can be applied both ways. Imagine right now, on Tehrandot.org:
"I heard on Al Jazeera last week, from an American protesting in Washington, that there are a large contingent of the population is is pro-peace, and who are looking for better relations with the rest of the world. But if that's the case, why has there been no real groundswell to remove the current government?"
I'm looking at this from an outsiders perspective, but it seems to me that in both countries (United States and Iran), there are a reasonable, sane majority of people just trying to get on with their lives, who are being pushed into war by a vocal, fundamentalist minority.
Rational people on both side look out, and see only the extremists. Joe Washington doesn't want war but everything he hears regarding Iran is negative - they want to wipe out Israel, they want to build nukes. Joe Tehran has a generally pacifist outlook too, but when he reads about America, it is usually because of attrocities like Abu Ghraib, or some other massacre. Time passes, and the crazies on both sides get louder and louder, while the rational people - constantly exposed to this propaganda, start to feel that even though they want peace, the "other side" is giving them no choice but to go to war.
"This bomb (was) made (when) Chuck Norris sneeze(d)."
Fixed that for you.
Apologies, after I had posted, I realised that I had meant that Kilmainham Gaol was designed as a panopticon, not Mountjoy. I'm not sure how Mountjoy was constructed :)
I'm not sure why people would be unfamiliar with the panopticon concept - it has been widely known and used in the west for centuries. Mountjoy Gaol in Dublin is built around the concept
Its the best show in the World!... (of Warcraft)
Your phone stays on, running programs and checking services even after you have switched it off. You can't get much more different than that!
You are being a bit closed minded there. What gives you the right to determine what is "real" or "important"? I'm not saying I entirely disagree with your view on the value of such things, but your argument could really be turned on its head for any point of view. Replace the Slashdot POV with Entertainment Weekly and we get something that is just as valid as your argument:
'It would be interesting to know how many "real" articles there are. That is, if you took out the individual articles for all the boring scientific rubbish that wikipedia seems to excel at, all the articles for individual chemicals or compounds, basically all the meaningless cruft that nerds deem important'
I wouldn't deny a peroxide addled nitwit their juicy celebrity gossip any more than I would deny a geek his in-depth biography of Wolverine, or a nerd his scientific definitions. Just because it is unimportant to you or I does not mean that it is without merit to somebody.
...with Google Sky?
:D
Start thrusters, take off, aim nose towards Andromeda, sit back and wait for two million years, find an airport, land.
Sweet!
...but call me when there's a tool to measure the truthiness of an article.
I vaguely remember reading about the human genome being found to contain the genome of viruses that we our bodies had defeated aeons ago, but which had been incorporated into our own genetic code as a result. I can't find the text now, but I'm guessing I read it on Slashdot. It is an intriguing idea - imagine in millenia to come, some gigantic alien species carrying around the human genetic code inside their own bodies :)