Availability is infrastructure plus process. You need to have the supporting process to go along with the hardware - maintenance schedules, change management (well FCAPS in general), etc. It's not just a big box.
Hmm... let's take it a step further and assign approximate value to infrastructure and process. At a company where I used to work, I smoked more cigarettes than I have ever smoked in my life, and this was directly due to failures of hardware and software. There was never, ever a shortage of queer (strange, not take-it-in-the-bum) little men running around telling us that they were working on expunging the demon/rebooting the server machines/whatever... but boy, was there ever a lack of infrastructure.
So I would say that without sufficiently redundant hardware and code well-enough written to not explode upon severe slashdotting (you know, just as an example), you can have all the process you want, and it will just result in tech staff telling the end-users to go out and have a smoke, 'cause the computers are down and will be back ASAP.
What a horrible thing to do to one's ex-boss. (/redundant)
We all knew this was going to happen at some point. We are already a walking advertisements (nike hats, shoes, shirts, etc..) it's really about time in this day and age that human advertising machine became interactive.
Yeah, I read some story someplace about how in the future, newspapers will be sold by shouting children on street corners instead of those dumb old machines.
(I, personally, could never spend six hours watching other people play gamecube at my expense. I'd have to take on all comers in a Super Monkey Ball deathmatch.)
TV news is bound by the same rules as all other TV!!
Stop the presses!!
Of COURSE cable news is going to be sensational drama with a healthy dose of celebrity thrown in. Of COURSE legitimate stories will be sanitized and sensitized and ratings-ified. MSNBC doesn't compete with Salon or Slashdot. MSNBC competes with Friends. People seem surprised, stupefied even that television is not a public service but a business, and even more stupefied to learn that a business exists to make money.
The solution is not to make laws about what is and is not news, nor is it to use perfectly useful news outlets to cry about how TV news pretends to be legitimate when it is, in fact, poisoning the minds and hearts of people everywhere.
The solution is quite simple. TURN OFF YOUR TV. Instead of using that coax jack in your wall for the polished product of five companies and their subsidiaries, use it for broadband and get your news from the Internet. Or, heaven forbid, go to a library.
I fear this article is merely preaching to the choir (as am I); most people here are smart enough to learn about the world around them from an amalgamation of sources, not simply the editor's desk at a TV station co-owned by Microsoft (or Ted Turner).
(bullcrap. The server encountered an error and now I lost my post. That's twice in two days on two different servers... oh well.)
The whole concept of the EULA is so silly... I really hope it gets tossed out of court ASAP. Where else can the manufacturer of a product hold you under a contract you did not sign, and change the terms of that contract at any time without notifying you or getting your agreement on the changes?
Ah, but you DID sign it. Remember the "Agree" button you clicked when you were installing the software/patch? Or perhaps it was labeled "Install" to confuse and distract you. Either way, you agreed to the terms, and you can either put up and shut up, or not use the software. Oh, you NEED the software? That's the Bill-Borg in action... too bad "...but everybody at work uses Word, and Windows won't recognize my Apple-formatted floppies!" isn't admissible in court.
The EULA is really no more abusive than some of the insane agreements one signs to get a bank account or credit card or loan. (There's something about money that makes people want to take it from other people who don't have it.) If you don't like it... here's a tissue, go cry. ^_^
Re:a companion article..
on
Built For Use
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· Score: 1
"In one study, a site provided links to related books on Amazon.com, which opened in a second browser window. Using Amazon wasn't relevant to our test, so as soon as the page came up the users tried to back out. One pair of users, upon discovering the grayed-out 'Back' button, looked at each other with something akin to horror. "
Granted these people might be techno-shmucks, but I think we geeks seem to forget that too easily. I found a lady just last year still using win 3.11 as her OS and was *irate* to find out that she was being forced to upgrade to a brand new PC. I had to spend hours with her explaining the new OS and even then she was *not* happy with the situation. These people do exist!;)
Call me cold and unfeeling, or even tell me that I'm an elitist, but I don't think everybody is meant to buy things over the Internet. Certainly there are many advantages and bargains to using the Net to get whatever it is you want (usually books, movies, video, and ebay junk). However, one must put a price on their time - for the average newbie, it's probably less expensive in terms of afternoons wasted and Aleve taken if they just go to B. Dalton (or B&N, or wherever) and buy their book from a cashier than try to understand the logic of a new window having no back button (notwithstanding that the original window is still there).
In my town, our Big KMart has a self-service aisle. You scan your own purchases and pay for them yourself; the till will scan your credit card and has a slot for cash. Many people (particularly the elderly and the distracted-by-children) do not have the capacity to use said aisle; that's fine. They shouldn't have to. In fact, they just shouldn't, period. It slows them down, and it slows down those of us who would use the self-service aisle correctly. (Standing in line while an employee sorts out how one person managed to scan their purchases along with somebody else's, and then pay for it without noticing, can cause headaches and possible aneurysm.)
Usability is vital, yes. However, no amount of usability will compensate for a human being holding the hand of a newbie who can barely navigate the Web., and no developer should waste their time trying to cater to those people. Doing so would prevent the use of many absolutely smashing features (such as the Amazon.com new-window trick mentioned above - that kicks ass) available to those who understand what their computers are doing/can do.
Of course Ken Lay hasn't been charged with anything.
None of the Toledo bandwidth thieves are socialites with a history of making donations to political parties. Nor can they afford fantastic legal advice. If they could, they wouldn't need to steal bandwidth.
President Bush said something about how "95 percent of American business is run honestly and fairly, without incident." Too bad that other 5 percent is stealing MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from people who never had it to begin with.
I am comfortable assuming that there is no complex network of Al-Qaeda fundamentalists planning to destroy landmarks or kill Americans in Toledo.
I am also comfortable assuming that the FBI had already woken up the three fat guys sleeping at the Toledo airport security checkpoint that day, and were able to move on to matters less pressing than national security.
Terrorism doesn't stop the world, folks. These kids (and adults) broke the law, and instead of simply having their service turned off, the FBI came and took their computers, probably for purposes of evidence. No homes were firebombed, no needles will be inserted under the fingernails of anybody, and nobody is being held without charges in a military brig. Oh well. Don't uncap your cable modems!!
Bush won, I'm over it, and he'll be out of office in two years when the Democrats recover from a serious identity crisis and wage the greatest campaign they've waged since '96.
Also, my conscious mind is telling me that my alarm will go off in three hours and wake me up. *sigh*
w/regard to the tax cut bit, if I'm not mistaken, the government took money it had already taken from us (part of the budget surplus) and then gave it back to us. I think this move was absolute folly, especially now that there suddenly isn't any more money.
All this, of course, is conjecture. There is one thing you said that I can speak from personal experience to:
On the flip side, you can do just about anything you want in North Dakota and no-one will even notice let alone care. So, on balance, you might actually come out ahead. Sometimes going "unnoticed" is a blessing.
This is not true. Many of the outlying areas of ND are under heavy police scrutiny due to the popularity of meth labs in old farm buildings (not to mention all the anhydrous ammonia farmers have). Where there are people, there are also many, many police officers, and since there is very little violent crime in this area, they have the freedom and the courts have the time to chase down perpetrators of minor property crime and send them to jail. Not only that, but most property owners in the cities around the state are more than happy to call the police the second they see something amiss in their neighborhood. Also, even if the victim of a crime has no desire to press charges against their attacker (such as in cases of domestic abuse), the state is more than willing to step in and press charges on its own. Hence, the state motto among the unseemly: "North Dakota... come on vacation, leave on probation."
In summary: Everything you say is wrong. Do the world a favor and say nothing to anyone, ever.:-)
On, not much is stopping them. There isn't much stopping me, on the other hand, from saying to the person that I need to see the branch's VP so that I can close my account and walk over to the local credit union
Oh no. Bank of America/First Second Third Bank loses a customer who was probably too smart anyways, and would probably have jumped in on the class-action lawsuit when the bank DID violate the terms of their own agreement. (My bank did this a few years back; they sold information such as SSNs and *account balances* to third parties, and I made a couple hundred bucks) I suspect they are counting on people who don't have the time to be bothered with things like the integrity of their, um, butt print and will sign whatever lines are put in front of them.
Don't forget that if all the companies are requiring finger prints, retinal scans, and your butt print, then you can always start your own.
Great idea. How do I cash this check for $10,000 in startup capital that I have? I'll just loan myself the money.:P
Apparently, my vote does not matter. During the last presidential election, neither Bush nor Gore nor Ralph Nader made any effort to campaign or advertise in my home state of North Dakota. Why not? Who would waste time or money on three electoral votes? Still, I voted Democrat and our state went Bush almost 70-30.
The Supreme Court vote regarding the Florida recounts fell EXACTLY along party lines. That notwithstanding the Florida Republican attempts to end the recount early. Oh, and let's not forget that if we were operating on the basis of the people's vote, Al Gore would be president.
However, the major point of your argument is legitimate; most people are much too lazy and stupid to be bothered to vote. Even fewer people can spare the five minutes it takes to write their Congressmen about an issue - as much as we complain about Congress being in the pocket of unions/big business/this or that, it is only because at the end of the day, those groups end up having the greatest influence over that particular Congressman's re-election. If the residents of a district would get off their asses, feed their minds, and vote their hearts, our Congressmen would be singing a very different tune.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I forget who said that, but it's absolutely true... and the status quo can only exist if people continue to not pay attention. It's truly sad how self-centered and willfully stupid America has become; as proud as we all are to be Americans ("I can drive my gas-guzzling SUV and give myself cancer and burn holes in the ozone layer and make my kids part of the fattest generation America has ever seen because I'm an American, dammit!"), not enough people would take the fifteen minutes to find out that the federal government has no intention of charging an American citizen with any crime at all; they just want to keep him in a military brig indefinitely, tossing the word 'torture' around as though we weren't really an enlightened nation. Nobody seems to notice that the government, having spent 1.3 trillion dollars over the next ten years on a tax cut, is ALREADY asking Congress to let it borrow more money (67 million dollars, to be exact).
So pay attention, be outraged, and for the love of God, don't move to North Dakota. Nobody will notice what you think.
The only problem I can see here is that you would have to get Company X to agree to sign the NDA. Most people only give fingerprints/eye scans/whatever when Company X has something they want; for example, my thumbprint whenever I want to cash a check. I don't just run around getting retina-scanned and fingerprinted because I like it... there's something I want, and relinquishing a part of myself that can be sold (or worse, stolen) is a necessary evil that I bitch about whenever I get the chance.
So, what's to keep a bank from denying your application for a bank card when you present them an NDA? Or what's to keep your company from firing you or limiting your security clearance because they want nothing to do with your silly legal agreement? I know if I presented any papers to the bank when I tried to cash a check, they would simply say, "I'm sorry, we can't sign this." And I would not have any money.
Much like software license agreements - I think most people would be surprised to read the rights and priviledges they sign away when they click "I agree," but for the vast majority of people, it's just one more button to click before you get your free e-mail account or install your shiny new software. And the rules are such that unless you agree to THEIR rules, you're SOL.
Rather than worry about their legal liability when they sell your eyeprint, I suspect most companies would just refuse to do business with you, especially when there is a veritable plethora of customers who don't know or care enough to defend themselves in that way. Maybe the rules are different; if not, they really should be.
I've never seen Fatboy Slim's KROQ full mix or the Breezeblock radio mix in a record store. Or Hybrid's Channel One radio mix. Or fifteen other of my favorite albums, each a copy of a broadcast or live show. I sure did find them on AG, though. And my happiness was elevated by great degrees with each treasured find.
Who owns the copyrights to these? Will the appropriate parties ever "opt-in?" I haven't the gumption to look now, but I suspect these gems will be much more difficult to find in the future... and that greatly saddens me.
Forget stealing albums via the Internet; I'd much rather burn a copy from a friend... less hassle, better quality rips,... all the things that AG/Morpheus/Napster/the next Big Thing don't give me.... hey, wait. Does this mean the RIAA is gonna outlaw friends?
What would you do, send the money to Zimbabwe? So the government can appropriate it for a civil war?
No, that would be silly, you say. You plan to give the money to Save the Children. Surprise! A hefty chunk of your 80 large goes to some white evangelist, under the guise of "administrative expenses." (More like an expensive administrator.) The rest goes to food, sure, but along with the food comes a healthy dose of Christian dogma, with the suggestion that one's indigenous beliefs be espoused in favor of the nice white woman with food who's always filming commercials in the trash dump.
Or you could move to any one of a number of war-torn African countries and try to farm, until you were harassed and possibly killed by either the recognized government or nationalist rebels.
I tell you what I'm going to do, though - I'll spend the pittance of time and money I have from being a wage-slave on helping to solve problems that hit a little closer to home, and that are more in my realm of control (such as the ongoing effort for homosexuals and homosexual unions to be afforded the same social and financial perks that any other committed couple in the USA is entitled to).
Odd. When I saw all the TNG on TNN, I thought the network may have been trying to distance themselves from the rednecks, what with calling themselves The National Network and the sci-fi and all...
But hey, rednecks watching TNG? Maybe someday they'll even catch on to the underlying morals of compassion, honor, tolerance, and having some chick with a low-cut tunic always bringing up the painfully obvious. *bridge on fire* "Captain, I sense a feeling of danger among the crew!"
are you kidding? there's an episode from season 3 where these brains come and make everybody stupid. two of my all-time favorite tv moments are contained therein; allow me to poorly describe them for you.
Morbo the News Monster is spinning around in his chair during the newscast... he gets all dizzy and falls down, and his sexy female coanchor laughs, "Hahahahahaha... you fell!" Morbo then pines about how he does not understand the letter T, "the one that looks like the little man with a hat."
Fry is trying to use a megaphone to alert the citizens of new new york that they're all getting stupid; he's holding it backwards and shouting into the speaker, but doesn't notice until a bird lands on the microphone and pecks at it, creating such a storm of noise that it blows fry away.
jesus. now there are people in the lab looking at me funny 'cause i'm laughing out loud right now.
"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised!" - Zapp Branigan
you're damn right, freeloaders will ruin everything.
i, for one, plan on freeloading until the day i die. or at least until the day i can pay my rent on time.
it's not that i *wouldn't* pay more to see better TV... it's that i *can't.* hell, i don't even have cable. stealing episodes of family guy and futurama and whatever is the only chance i get to see them (no fox over the air here). i suppose that doesn't help the cause or anything... but at the end of the day, i can watch fifteen episodes of futurama all in a row, commercial-free. and i don't even have to wait until the day before MLB's all-star game for it to be on TV. ^_^
Let's find twelve million people who have never seen Futurama to sign the petition (which, btw, is riddled with errors and poor style... looks like some kid in junior high wrote it).
capital idea.
the difference being that the FDA tests new prescription drugs for YEARS; laboratory testing, clinical trials, and the like.
Meanwhile, I still have to delete the prefs file for MSN Messenger for Mac every so often because it corrupts itself. Sure, it's not life-threatening, but it would sure be nice if I didn't have to waste those few man-seconds deleting the file... especially given that none of the other programs I use regularly do that. Messages to Microsoft, of course, go unheeded.
It's a perfectly valid analogy - so few people die from problems stemming from their drugs in the United States because there is mondo testing going on before the public sees anything. OTOH, the world's largest software company is falling all over itself to release a product which has been repeatedly shown to be laced with bugs larger than saw palmetto bugs and security loopholes that one could fly a 747 through. When you take into consideration the amount of personal information that is spread around online (credit cards, SSNs, addresses, phone numbers, etc.), and the relative insecurity of all this data... well, having one's identity stolen could be as calamitous as suffering an allergic reaction to some anti-cancer drug because nobody thought to test it appropriately.
And, of course, making matters worse are the vast numbers of people who will GIVE their credit card to a server making minimum wage plus tips at a restaurant... but are afraid that the moment they send their CC info over an ssl-encrypted connection, their entire credit line will be sucked up by some thirteen-year-old kid who hasn't showered in two weeks. This, like most other problems, can be traced to a breakdown (or utter lack) of communication between the nerds and the masses.
I've taken the view of a friend of mine and decided that I shall watch no more X-Files until the last few episodes, when they finally wrap up the mythology. Just watch - the show will end the way it always has... without ending.
That night, you'll find me in my living room, on my knees, screaming, "KHAAAAAANN!!! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!"
Linux users (gurus?) are not smarting from years of being pushed into lockers, picked last for dodgeball, made fun of by pop culture, or being forced out to the fringe by Microsoft.
They're not poor teachers, they're not lacking in social grace, they don't feel like they have years of untapped worth to prove to the average Joe who didn't grow up in front of a monitor.
What a silly discussion. Of course video games are art. If there were a story on/. asking if movies or plays were art, the poster would be ridiculed and strung by their toenails on a hanging fiber-optic line. Play a video game like Final Fantasy IX or Zelda: Majora's Mask or Devil May Cry... they all bear striking resemblance to more conventional, recognizable forms of art.
i asked my 13 year old brother this question and he immediately replied, "yes!"... he didn't know why videogames were art at first, but he settled on the idea that they incorporate pretty pictures and sound - two easily recognizable art forms.
videogames incorporate pictures and sound for the purpose of getting an aesthetic/emotional rise out of the player... a statement which parallels what I feel is the purpose of art - to seek an emotional response with a symbol of some sort.
Some videogames are more artistic than others, but they're as much an art as anything could ever be.
As much as it gives me an equally warm, fuzzy feeling inside to read such a quote, it gives me a cold, sinking feeling that crushes the warm, fuzzy one very quicky. Wanna know why?
The likelihood of Microsoft ever having to pay the piper is about equal to that of Ralph Nader's chances of becoming President.
It's unfortunate, but we really are in the pockets of the two major parties. Too bad the American people had to fuck everything up and put us in the pockets of the 4,000 richest people in America.
Reading this thread only made me want to cry. I can still find solace in the fact that Netscape 6.2 beats the crap out of IE any day of the week and twice on Sunday, and that all the security threats mentioned in that asinine essay by the Microsoft fellow simply roll off my iMac like water from an oil-slicked duck's back (thank you oil barons!). So I'm off to find some more pleasant news... maybe I'll just read more about the iPod. It's a portable 5g FireWire hard drive, you guys!! that's fucking awesome!!
Slashdot Mirror
Availability is infrastructure plus process. You need to have the supporting process to go along with the hardware - maintenance schedules, change management (well FCAPS in general), etc. It's not just a big box.
Hmm... let's take it a step further and assign approximate value to infrastructure and process. At a company where I used to work, I smoked more cigarettes than I have ever smoked in my life, and this was directly due to failures of hardware and software. There was never, ever a shortage of queer (strange, not take-it-in-the-bum) little men running around telling us that they were working on expunging the demon/rebooting the server machines/whatever... but boy, was there ever a lack of infrastructure.
So I would say that without sufficiently redundant hardware and code well-enough written to not explode upon severe slashdotting (you know, just as an example), you can have all the process you want, and it will just result in tech staff telling the end-users to go out and have a smoke, 'cause the computers are down and will be back ASAP.
What a horrible thing to do to one's ex-boss. (/redundant)
We all knew this was going to happen at some point. We are already a walking advertisements (nike hats, shoes, shirts, etc..) it's really about time in this day and age that human advertising machine became interactive.
Yeah, I read some story someplace about how in the future, newspapers will be sold by shouting children on street corners instead of those dumb old machines.
(I, personally, could never spend six hours watching other people play gamecube at my expense. I'd have to take on all comers in a Super Monkey Ball deathmatch.)
Holy crap, everybody!
TV news is bound by the same rules as all other TV!!
Stop the presses!!
Of COURSE cable news is going to be sensational drama with a healthy dose of celebrity thrown in. Of COURSE legitimate stories will be sanitized and sensitized and ratings-ified. MSNBC doesn't compete with Salon or Slashdot. MSNBC competes with Friends. People seem surprised, stupefied even that television is not a public service but a business, and even more stupefied to learn that a business exists to make money.
The solution is not to make laws about what is and is not news, nor is it to use perfectly useful news outlets to cry about how TV news pretends to be legitimate when it is, in fact, poisoning the minds and hearts of people everywhere.
The solution is quite simple. TURN OFF YOUR TV. Instead of using that coax jack in your wall for the polished product of five companies and their subsidiaries, use it for broadband and get your news from the Internet. Or, heaven forbid, go to a library.
I fear this article is merely preaching to the choir (as am I); most people here are smart enough to learn about the world around them from an amalgamation of sources, not simply the editor's desk at a TV station co-owned by Microsoft (or Ted Turner).
And that's too bad.
(bullcrap. The server encountered an error and now I lost my post. That's twice in two days on two different servers... oh well.)
The whole concept of the EULA is so silly... I really hope it gets tossed out of court ASAP. Where else can the manufacturer of a product hold you under a contract you did not sign, and change the terms of that contract at any time without notifying you or getting your agreement on the changes?
Ah, but you DID sign it. Remember the "Agree" button you clicked when you were installing the software/patch? Or perhaps it was labeled "Install" to confuse and distract you. Either way, you agreed to the terms, and you can either put up and shut up, or not use the software. Oh, you NEED the software? That's the Bill-Borg in action... too bad "...but everybody at work uses Word, and Windows won't recognize my Apple-formatted floppies!" isn't admissible in court.
The EULA is really no more abusive than some of the insane agreements one signs to get a bank account or credit card or loan. (There's something about money that makes people want to take it from other people who don't have it.) If you don't like it... here's a tissue, go cry. ^_^
"In one study, a site provided links to related books on Amazon.com, which opened in a second browser window. Using Amazon wasn't relevant to our test, so as soon as the page came up the users tried to back out. One pair of users, upon discovering the grayed-out 'Back' button, looked at each other with something akin to horror. "
;)
Granted these people might be techno-shmucks, but I think we geeks seem to forget that too easily. I found a lady just last year still using win 3.11 as her OS and was *irate* to find out that she was being forced to upgrade to a brand new PC. I had to spend hours with her explaining the new OS and even then she was *not* happy with the situation. These people do exist!
Call me cold and unfeeling, or even tell me that I'm an elitist, but I don't think everybody is meant to buy things over the Internet. Certainly there are many advantages and bargains to using the Net to get whatever it is you want (usually books, movies, video, and ebay junk). However, one must put a price on their time - for the average newbie, it's probably less expensive in terms of afternoons wasted and Aleve taken if they just go to B. Dalton (or B&N, or wherever) and buy their book from a cashier than try to understand the logic of a new window having no back button (notwithstanding that the original window is still there).
In my town, our Big KMart has a self-service aisle. You scan your own purchases and pay for them yourself; the till will scan your credit card and has a slot for cash. Many people (particularly the elderly and the distracted-by-children) do not have the capacity to use said aisle; that's fine. They shouldn't have to. In fact, they just shouldn't, period. It slows them down, and it slows down those of us who would use the self-service aisle correctly. (Standing in line while an employee sorts out how one person managed to scan their purchases along with somebody else's, and then pay for it without noticing, can cause headaches and possible aneurysm.)
Usability is vital, yes. However, no amount of usability will compensate for a human being holding the hand of a newbie who can barely navigate the Web., and no developer should waste their time trying to cater to those people. Doing so would prevent the use of many absolutely smashing features (such as the Amazon.com new-window trick mentioned above - that kicks ass) available to those who understand what their computers are doing/can do.
Of course Ken Lay hasn't been charged with anything.
None of the Toledo bandwidth thieves are socialites with a history of making donations to political parties. Nor can they afford fantastic legal advice. If they could, they wouldn't need to steal bandwidth.
President Bush said something about how "95 percent of American business is run honestly and fairly, without incident." Too bad that other 5 percent is stealing MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from people who never had it to begin with.
I am comfortable assuming that there is no complex network of Al-Qaeda fundamentalists planning to destroy landmarks or kill Americans in Toledo.
I am also comfortable assuming that the FBI had already woken up the three fat guys sleeping at the Toledo airport security checkpoint that day, and were able to move on to matters less pressing than national security.
Terrorism doesn't stop the world, folks. These kids (and adults) broke the law, and instead of simply having their service turned off, the FBI came and took their computers, probably for purposes of evidence. No homes were firebombed, no needles will be inserted under the fingernails of anybody, and nobody is being held without charges in a military brig. Oh well. Don't uncap your cable modems!!
no way.
Bush won, I'm over it, and he'll be out of office in two years when the Democrats recover from a serious identity crisis and wage the greatest campaign they've waged since '96.
:-)
Also, my conscious mind is telling me that my alarm will go off in three hours and wake me up. *sigh*
w/regard to the tax cut bit, if I'm not mistaken, the government took money it had already taken from us (part of the budget surplus) and then gave it back to us. I think this move was absolute folly, especially now that there suddenly isn't any more money.
All this, of course, is conjecture. There is one thing you said that I can speak from personal experience to:
On the flip side, you can do just about anything you want in North Dakota and no-one will even notice let alone care. So, on balance, you might actually come out ahead. Sometimes going "unnoticed" is a blessing.
This is not true. Many of the outlying areas of ND are under heavy police scrutiny due to the popularity of meth labs in old farm buildings (not to mention all the anhydrous ammonia farmers have). Where there are people, there are also many, many police officers, and since there is very little violent crime in this area, they have the freedom and the courts have the time to chase down perpetrators of minor property crime and send them to jail. Not only that, but most property owners in the cities around the state are more than happy to call the police the second they see something amiss in their neighborhood. Also, even if the victim of a crime has no desire to press charges against their attacker (such as in cases of domestic abuse), the state is more than willing to step in and press charges on its own. Hence, the state motto among the unseemly: "North Dakota... come on vacation, leave on probation."
In summary: Everything you say is wrong. Do the world a favor and say nothing to anyone, ever.
On, not much is stopping them. There isn't much stopping me, on the other hand, from saying to the person that I need to see the branch's VP so that I can close my account and walk over to the local credit union
:P
Oh no. Bank of America/First Second Third Bank loses a customer who was probably too smart anyways, and would probably have jumped in on the class-action lawsuit when the bank DID violate the terms of their own agreement. (My bank did this a few years back; they sold information such as SSNs and *account balances* to third parties, and I made a couple hundred bucks) I suspect they are counting on people who don't have the time to be bothered with things like the integrity of their, um, butt print and will sign whatever lines are put in front of them.
Don't forget that if all the companies are requiring finger prints, retinal scans, and your butt print, then you can always start your own.
Great idea. How do I cash this check for $10,000 in startup capital that I have? I'll just loan myself the money.
A few thoughts I had while reading this exchange:
Apparently, my vote does not matter. During the last presidential election, neither Bush nor Gore nor Ralph Nader made any effort to campaign or advertise in my home state of North Dakota. Why not? Who would waste time or money on three electoral votes? Still, I voted Democrat and our state went Bush almost 70-30.
The Supreme Court vote regarding the Florida recounts fell EXACTLY along party lines. That notwithstanding the Florida Republican attempts to end the recount early. Oh, and let's not forget that if we were operating on the basis of the people's vote, Al Gore would be president.
However, the major point of your argument is legitimate; most people are much too lazy and stupid to be bothered to vote. Even fewer people can spare the five minutes it takes to write their Congressmen about an issue - as much as we complain about Congress being in the pocket of unions/big business/this or that, it is only because at the end of the day, those groups end up having the greatest influence over that particular Congressman's re-election. If the residents of a district would get off their asses, feed their minds, and vote their hearts, our Congressmen would be singing a very different tune.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I forget who said that, but it's absolutely true... and the status quo can only exist if people continue to not pay attention. It's truly sad how self-centered and willfully stupid America has become; as proud as we all are to be Americans ("I can drive my gas-guzzling SUV and give myself cancer and burn holes in the ozone layer and make my kids part of the fattest generation America has ever seen because I'm an American, dammit!"), not enough people would take the fifteen minutes to find out that the federal government has no intention of charging an American citizen with any crime at all; they just want to keep him in a military brig indefinitely, tossing the word 'torture' around as though we weren't really an enlightened nation. Nobody seems to notice that the government, having spent 1.3 trillion dollars over the next ten years on a tax cut, is ALREADY asking Congress to let it borrow more money (67 million dollars, to be exact).
So pay attention, be outraged, and for the love of God, don't move to North Dakota. Nobody will notice what you think.
/tangent
The only problem I can see here is that you would have to get Company X to agree to sign the NDA. Most people only give fingerprints/eye scans/whatever when Company X has something they want; for example, my thumbprint whenever I want to cash a check. I don't just run around getting retina-scanned and fingerprinted because I like it... there's something I want, and relinquishing a part of myself that can be sold (or worse, stolen) is a necessary evil that I bitch about whenever I get the chance.
So, what's to keep a bank from denying your application for a bank card when you present them an NDA? Or what's to keep your company from firing you or limiting your security clearance because they want nothing to do with your silly legal agreement? I know if I presented any papers to the bank when I tried to cash a check, they would simply say, "I'm sorry, we can't sign this." And I would not have any money.
Much like software license agreements - I think most people would be surprised to read the rights and priviledges they sign away when they click "I agree," but for the vast majority of people, it's just one more button to click before you get your free e-mail account or install your shiny new software. And the rules are such that unless you agree to THEIR rules, you're SOL.
Rather than worry about their legal liability when they sell your eyeprint, I suspect most companies would just refuse to do business with you, especially when there is a veritable plethora of customers who don't know or care enough to defend themselves in that way. Maybe the rules are different; if not, they really should be.
Hell, if the file is less than 1mb, you may as well just print it and hand the dude the paper.
While we're at it, why not just go back to communicating with pheromones?
*sniff sniff* What's that? You don't like it? Oh...
That's funny...
... all the things that AG/Morpheus/Napster/the next Big Thing don't give me. ... hey, wait. Does this mean the RIAA is gonna outlaw friends?
I've never seen Fatboy Slim's KROQ full mix or the Breezeblock radio mix in a record store. Or Hybrid's Channel One radio mix. Or fifteen other of my favorite albums, each a copy of a broadcast or live show. I sure did find them on AG, though. And my happiness was elevated by great degrees with each treasured find.
Who owns the copyrights to these? Will the appropriate parties ever "opt-in?" I haven't the gumption to look now, but I suspect these gems will be much more difficult to find in the future... and that greatly saddens me.
Forget stealing albums via the Internet; I'd much rather burn a copy from a friend... less hassle, better quality rips,
What would you do, send the money to Zimbabwe? So the government can appropriate it for a civil war?
/., that is.
No, that would be silly, you say. You plan to give the money to Save the Children. Surprise! A hefty chunk of your 80 large goes to some white evangelist, under the guise of "administrative expenses." (More like an expensive administrator.) The rest goes to food, sure, but along with the food comes a healthy dose of Christian dogma, with the suggestion that one's indigenous beliefs be espoused in favor of the nice white woman with food who's always filming commercials in the trash dump.
Or you could move to any one of a number of war-torn African countries and try to farm, until you were harassed and possibly killed by either the recognized government or nationalist rebels.
I tell you what I'm going to do, though - I'll spend the pittance of time and money I have from being a wage-slave on helping to solve problems that hit a little closer to home, and that are more in my realm of control (such as the ongoing effort for homosexuals and homosexual unions to be afforded the same social and financial perks that any other committed couple in the USA is entitled to).
After I finish trolling
Odd. When I saw all the TNG on TNN, I thought the network may have been trying to distance themselves from the rednecks, what with calling themselves The National Network and the sci-fi and all...
But hey, rednecks watching TNG? Maybe someday they'll even catch on to the underlying morals of compassion, honor, tolerance, and having some chick with a low-cut tunic always bringing up the painfully obvious. *bridge on fire* "Captain, I sense a feeling of danger among the crew!"
Come on...
the bit about giving her a token ring was classic ^_^
are you kidding? there's an episode from season 3 where these brains come and make everybody stupid. two of my all-time favorite tv moments are contained therein; allow me to poorly describe them for you.
Morbo the News Monster is spinning around in his chair during the newscast... he gets all dizzy and falls down, and his sexy female coanchor laughs, "Hahahahahaha... you fell!" Morbo then pines about how he does not understand the letter T, "the one that looks like the little man with a hat."
Fry is trying to use a megaphone to alert the citizens of new new york that they're all getting stupid; he's holding it backwards and shouting into the speaker, but doesn't notice until a bird lands on the microphone and pecks at it, creating such a storm of noise that it blows fry away.
jesus. now there are people in the lab looking at me funny 'cause i'm laughing out loud right now.
"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised!" - Zapp Branigan
you're damn right, freeloaders will ruin everything.
i, for one, plan on freeloading until the day i die. or at least until the day i can pay my rent on time.
it's not that i *wouldn't* pay more to see better TV... it's that i *can't.* hell, i don't even have cable. stealing episodes of family guy and futurama and whatever is the only chance i get to see them (no fox over the air here). i suppose that doesn't help the cause or anything... but at the end of the day, i can watch fifteen episodes of futurama all in a row, commercial-free. and i don't even have to wait until the day before MLB's all-star game for it to be on TV. ^_^
Perhaps you're right.
Let's find twelve million people who have never seen Futurama to sign the petition (which, btw, is riddled with errors and poor style... looks like some kid in junior high wrote it).
capital idea.
the difference being that the FDA tests new prescription drugs for YEARS; laboratory testing, clinical trials, and the like.
Meanwhile, I still have to delete the prefs file for MSN Messenger for Mac every so often because it corrupts itself. Sure, it's not life-threatening, but it would sure be nice if I didn't have to waste those few man-seconds deleting the file... especially given that none of the other programs I use regularly do that. Messages to Microsoft, of course, go unheeded.
It's a perfectly valid analogy - so few people die from problems stemming from their drugs in the United States because there is mondo testing going on before the public sees anything. OTOH, the world's largest software company is falling all over itself to release a product which has been repeatedly shown to be laced with bugs larger than saw palmetto bugs and security loopholes that one could fly a 747 through. When you take into consideration the amount of personal information that is spread around online (credit cards, SSNs, addresses, phone numbers, etc.), and the relative insecurity of all this data... well, having one's identity stolen could be as calamitous as suffering an allergic reaction to some anti-cancer drug because nobody thought to test it appropriately.
And, of course, making matters worse are the vast numbers of people who will GIVE their credit card to a server making minimum wage plus tips at a restaurant... but are afraid that the moment they send their CC info over an ssl-encrypted connection, their entire credit line will be sucked up by some thirteen-year-old kid who hasn't showered in two weeks. This, like most other problems, can be traced to a breakdown (or utter lack) of communication between the nerds and the masses.
in vino, veritas.
I've taken the view of a friend of mine and decided that I shall watch no more X-Files until the last few episodes, when they finally wrap up the mythology. Just watch - the show will end the way it always has... without ending.
That night, you'll find me in my living room, on my knees, screaming, "KHAAAAAANN!!! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!"
I knew it.
Linux users (gurus?) are not smarting from years of being pushed into lockers, picked last for dodgeball, made fun of by pop culture, or being forced out to the fringe by Microsoft.
They're not poor teachers, they're not lacking in social grace, they don't feel like they have years of untapped worth to prove to the average Joe who didn't grow up in front of a monitor.
They're just too smart.
Give me a fuckin' break.
(everybody buy macs!)
dust
What a silly discussion. Of course video games are art. If there were a story on /. asking if movies or plays were art, the poster would be ridiculed and strung by their toenails on a hanging fiber-optic line. Play a video game like Final Fantasy IX or Zelda: Majora's Mask or Devil May Cry... they all bear striking resemblance to more conventional, recognizable forms of art.
... he didn't know why videogames were art at first, but he settled on the idea that they incorporate pretty pictures and sound - two easily recognizable art forms.
i asked my 13 year old brother this question and he immediately replied, "yes!"
videogames incorporate pictures and sound for the purpose of getting an aesthetic/emotional rise out of the player... a statement which parallels what I feel is the purpose of art - to seek an emotional response with a symbol of some sort.
Some videogames are more artistic than others, but they're as much an art as anything could ever be.
As much as it gives me an equally warm, fuzzy feeling inside to read such a quote, it gives me a cold, sinking feeling that crushes the warm, fuzzy one very quicky. Wanna know why?
The likelihood of Microsoft ever having to pay the piper is about equal to that of Ralph Nader's chances of becoming President.
It's unfortunate, but we really are in the pockets of the two major parties. Too bad the American people had to fuck everything up and put us in the pockets of the 4,000 richest people in America.
Reading this thread only made me want to cry. I can still find solace in the fact that Netscape 6.2 beats the crap out of IE any day of the week and twice on Sunday, and that all the security threats mentioned in that asinine essay by the Microsoft fellow simply roll off my iMac like water from an oil-slicked duck's back (thank you oil barons!). So I'm off to find some more pleasant news... maybe I'll just read more about the iPod. It's a portable 5g FireWire hard drive, you guys!! that's fucking awesome!!