This isn't really that huge of a deal--idolizing a person because they aren't actually real. I guess it seems like a bigger deal than it is because they are computer generated images. But think of all the famous "people" we have now that aren't real: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny...even CG like Woody and Buzz. No need to look at Japan for that type of thing.
Maybe because the line between what is real and what is not becomes blurred by CG makes this more of a story. Some could mistake Aki for a real person (in a still picture at least), but I don't think anyone would assume Buzz is real. As we head forward into more and more realistic CG, I think an effort should be made to distinguish what characters are real and what are not when blending them with live action--just for society's sanity:)
PS - on an unrelated note, I read that George Harrison passed away...RIP to an incredibly talented man.
This post does not necessarily deserve a rating higher than zero, but if it remains at zero, that could be an indication of just how many ms marketeering accounts actually exist here.
Please also note the rating of the pro-microsoft parent.
First, your post may stay at zero because it is an AC post. Maybe it should be +1 insightful, maybe.
Second, the rating on my original post is due to my karma, everything i post automatically gets a 2. If i post "can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these", that even gets a 2. Go figure.
A company is getting their employees to promote their products? What is next? Renting out TV air time for, say, 30 seconds or so, to showcase that product...maybe with some background music? Perhaps Madonna will do?
It's not just that this isn't "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"...it's not even NEWS!
I want to be able to to stupid things without the government getting paternalistic and throwing me in jail.
I can agree with that. I'm not saying that smoking marijuana should be illegal--but the whole "I'm not free cause I can't toke up in public" just comes off so juvenile and self-centered sometimes (er, often).
untill i can do whatever i want that does not hurt others in my own home, and at some point in public places i will not be truely free.
The ability to smoke weed does not make you free. You need some priorities. How about the ability to criticize laws that you don't agree with? How about the right to worship any God (or anything else) you want to?
Think about this big picture here--those are things you've obviously taken for granted. You obviously *are* free, if you can sit home, smoke weed, and post on slashdot, whereas many other people in the world are murdered for simply not having a long enough beard.
Actually, I've been wanting the two CF slot sleeve for my iPaq. Mostly because I use it like a very light-weight laptop:
But you're not going to be carrying all that around in your pocket, right? It seems a bit much to have *all* the time. That's why I like the iPaq so much--you can just add on what you need when you need it, and take the smaller unit most other places.
Handspring (I have an older model that barely fits in my shirt pocket):
First off, as attractive as that must be to have a friggin PDA hanging out of your shirt pocket, I think most people put them in their pants pocket or even a backpack.
Second, I have an iPaq and I've never had any problem "lugging" the extra.41" height around. It's not like you're talking about 4 inches. But then again, I have no idea who *needs* 2 slots in the PDA, plus a SD slot. Seems a little like overkill.
Sounds pretty interesting, if you can wade through the bad grammar and spelling.
My thoughts exactly--I'm almost thinking that it was originally in another language, than run through Babelfish. I mean, come on, "Doom was here, and it broke the minds."
How is that better? Maybe society is better off, which I don't think it is but we can argue that point seperatly
That is what I meant. It's not a better outcome if you want MS to go down for the count, but on the people/society end, it's better--I'd prefer software and computers for schools than a measley $10 in my pocket. (Um, not that I've *ever* used windows or anything...ahem).
It's urgent that OpenGL supports them or there might be no games left that use OpenGL.
Agreed. Unfortunately, there are barely any games *now* that use OpenGL (not that OGL is going away--it is still the only choice for more technical/scientific viz).
But not that DX8 is a bad API--it's just not portable, which is considered bad for the people on the non-ported end.
It's about time they get a programmable shading language in OpenGL--that is the most lacking feature in my opinion. Probably 90% of the textures used in things like games could be eliminated and replaced with much higher quality shaders that not only get rid of the repeatability of textures, but also *gain* detail as the distance decreases.
Can't wait! Hopefully they'll base it on something already well established, ie. Renderman SL.
Do you think a poor inner-city school has the money to hire a MS sysad?
From the MSNBC article:
"Microsoft also would be responsible for making available 200,000 reconditioned computers and laptop computers during that period, $90 million in teacher training and $38 million in technical support."
This is all such typical slashdot negativity. Read this yahoo news article. Basically, this was a class action suit between 65 million consumers and MSFT. They have determined that even if the consumers won, each would only get about $10. This settlement donates between $1.1-$1.7 billion of software.
This is a much better outcome even if the consumers had "won". And say what you want about Windows--an MS OS is better than no OS at all (don't bring up Linux--do you think that a poor inner city school has the money to hire a Linux sysadmin? And who would take that job?).
f so, then anyone who have access to software in high demand could give out a discustingly huge number of licenses and take care of their taxes with almost *NO* real cost to them...
I think in that case it is technically true, but BillG doesn't own Windows, Microsoft does. So any donations from Microsoft are tax-deductable for the company.
look at Gates' recent donations, and how they nicely cancel out most of his taxes owed
I may be off on this, but I figure that in order to cancel out any owed taxes, you'd have to give away the same amount of $$ as is your adjusted gross income. And if that's the case, if you were really greedy, it would be better for you just to hold onto your money and pay the taxes.
For example, if Bill earned $100M (bad year for him), he would owe about $40M in taxes. But to owe nothing, he would have to get his AGI down to near $0. So if he does that he is out $100M, whereas if he just paid his taxes he would pocket $60M. Or am i wrong?
yeah, and i didn't think that a bunch of farmers could beat the british army in the 1700s either, but i was apparently wrong.
That's slightly different--back then, the farmers and the british had basically the same weaponry--muskets. Yeah, the british had cannons, but so did we.
Now, a march with a bunch of people carrying rifles isn't quite a match agains F-15s, helicopter gunships, and cluster bombs.
did read the article, and thats why I find it odd that people could simply hide technology under the noses of the taliban so easily if they were sooo oppressive...
Um, if the stuff is *hidden* from the Taliban, how are they supposed to just destroy it? They did destroy everything they could--just look at those 1800 year old Buddha statues they blew up in March.
Sort of like the drug "war" in the US--according to your logic, the US government should be able to find drugs and get rid of them in a moment, even though they are right under their noses.
If I lived under the Taliban for 5 years and finally got back a net connection, emailing JonKatz wouldn't be on the top of my list. Maybe the Taliban really messed with his mind...
ICQ on mobile phones?
on
New Nokia Phone
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Wow, I really can't wait to have the newest beta of ICQ on my phone? Maybe they should wait until there is actually an official version...in say, 5-10 years?
There already is a sales tax for mail order catalogs, which is what the Internet is, that people simply don't pay because it's too difficult for the state governments to track down every purchase.
I don't think so--most mail order purchases say something like "CA residents add X % sales tax." or a few other states. That's because the company that you're ordering from operates from CA (or whatever). IANAL, but I beleive that you only have to pay sales taxes if you're buying from a company that operates from the state you currently are in.
That's why if you order something from, say, Sears over the internet or from the web, you have to pay sales tax, because they operate in every state. As another example, I once went to a store, bought something, and had them ship it to another state. Because i was shipping it elsewhere, there was no sales tax. *This* doesn't seem quite correct, but it was the case.
Of course, there's still the matter of that other "tax" -- shipping costs. And many times those can be significantly larger than a regular sales tax.
Think about it, a $100 purchase in a store with 5% tax is $5. What can you buy for $100 and ship for only $5? Of course, I saw that Amazon is waiving shipping costs for orders over $100...so maybe the point is moot for now:)
Slashdot Mirror
Why, did you discover imortality? Everyone dies, it's "inevitable"
And taxes, so sayeth BF.
You've never asked my 2yr old son then *grin*...
Hah, true. Let me clarify that--I don't think anyone *over 7* would think Buzz is real.
The 2yr old part is fine, of course, that's the point of animated films. N
This isn't really that huge of a deal--idolizing a person because they aren't actually real. I guess it seems like a bigger deal than it is because they are computer generated images. But think of all the famous "people" we have now that aren't real: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny...even CG like Woody and Buzz. No need to look at Japan for that type of thing.
:)
Maybe because the line between what is real and what is not becomes blurred by CG makes this more of a story. Some could mistake Aki for a real person (in a still picture at least), but I don't think anyone would assume Buzz is real. As we head forward into more and more realistic CG, I think an effort should be made to distinguish what characters are real and what are not when blending them with live action--just for society's sanity
PS - on an unrelated note, I read that George Harrison passed away...RIP to an incredibly talented man.
This post does not necessarily deserve a rating higher than zero, but if it remains at zero, that could be an indication of just how many ms marketeering accounts actually exist here.
Please also note the rating of the pro-microsoft parent.
First, your post may stay at zero because it is an AC post. Maybe it should be +1 insightful, maybe.
Second, the rating on my original post is due to my karma, everything i post automatically gets a 2. If i post "can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these", that even gets a 2. Go figure.
A company is getting their employees to promote their products? What is next? Renting out TV air time for, say, 30 seconds or so, to showcase that product...maybe with some background music? Perhaps Madonna will do?
It's not just that this isn't "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"...it's not even NEWS!
I want to be able to to stupid things without the government getting paternalistic and throwing me in jail.
I can agree with that. I'm not saying that smoking marijuana should be illegal--but the whole "I'm not free cause I can't toke up in public" just comes off so juvenile and self-centered sometimes (er, often).
untill i can do whatever i want that does not hurt others in my own home, and at some point in public places i will not be truely free.
The ability to smoke weed does not make you free. You need some priorities. How about the ability to criticize laws that you don't agree with? How about the right to worship any God (or anything else) you want to?
Think about this big picture here--those are things you've obviously taken for granted. You obviously *are* free, if you can sit home, smoke weed, and post on slashdot, whereas many other people in the world are murdered for simply not having a long enough beard.
Actually, I've been wanting the two CF slot sleeve for my iPaq. Mostly because I use it like a very light-weight laptop:
But you're not going to be carrying all that around in your pocket, right? It seems a bit much to have *all* the time. That's why I like the iPaq so much--you can just add on what you need when you need it, and take the smaller unit most other places.
And a pocket protector is stylish?
No, that's why I don't wear one of those either.
Handspring (I have an older model that barely fits in my shirt pocket):
.41" height around. It's not like you're talking about 4 inches. But then again, I have no idea who *needs* 2 slots in the PDA, plus a SD slot. Seems a little like overkill.
First off, as attractive as that must be to have a friggin PDA hanging out of your shirt pocket, I think most people put them in their pants pocket or even a backpack.
Second, I have an iPaq and I've never had any problem "lugging" the extra
Sounds pretty interesting, if you can wade through the bad grammar and spelling.
My thoughts exactly--I'm almost thinking that it was originally in another language, than run through Babelfish. I mean, come on, "Doom was here, and it broke the minds."
How is that better? Maybe society is better off, which I don't think it is but we can argue that point seperatly
That is what I meant. It's not a better outcome if you want MS to go down for the count, but on the people/society end, it's better--I'd prefer software and computers for schools than a measley $10 in my pocket. (Um, not that I've *ever* used windows or anything...ahem).
It's urgent that OpenGL supports them or there might be no games left that use OpenGL.
Agreed. Unfortunately, there are barely any games *now* that use OpenGL (not that OGL is going away--it is still the only choice for more technical/scientific viz).
But not that DX8 is a bad API--it's just not portable, which is considered bad for the people on the non-ported end.
It's about time they get a programmable shading language in OpenGL--that is the most lacking feature in my opinion. Probably 90% of the textures used in things like games could be eliminated and replaced with much higher quality shaders that not only get rid of the repeatability of textures, but also *gain* detail as the distance decreases.
Can't wait! Hopefully they'll base it on something already well established, ie. Renderman SL.
Do you think a poor inner-city school has the money to hire a MS sysad?
From the MSNBC article:
"Microsoft also would be responsible for making available 200,000 reconditioned computers and laptop computers during that period, $90 million in teacher training and $38 million in technical support."
I'd say they do now.
This is all such typical slashdot negativity. Read this yahoo news article. Basically, this was a class action suit between 65 million consumers and MSFT. They have determined that even if the consumers won, each would only get about $10. This settlement donates between $1.1-$1.7 billion of software.
This is a much better outcome even if the consumers had "won". And say what you want about Windows--an MS OS is better than no OS at all (don't bring up Linux--do you think that a poor inner city school has the money to hire a Linux sysadmin? And who would take that job?).
f so, then anyone who have access to software in high demand could give out a discustingly huge number of licenses and take care of their taxes with almost *NO* real cost to them...
I think in that case it is technically true, but BillG doesn't own Windows, Microsoft does. So any donations from Microsoft are tax-deductable for the company.
look at Gates' recent donations, and how they nicely cancel out most of his taxes owed
I may be off on this, but I figure that in order to cancel out any owed taxes, you'd have to give away the same amount of $$ as is your adjusted gross income. And if that's the case, if you were really greedy, it would be better for you just to hold onto your money and pay the taxes.
For example, if Bill earned $100M (bad year for him), he would owe about $40M in taxes. But to owe nothing, he would have to get his AGI down to near $0. So if he does that he is out $100M, whereas if he just paid his taxes he would pocket $60M. Or am i wrong?
yeah, and i didn't think that a bunch of farmers could beat the british army in the 1700s either, but i was apparently wrong.
That's slightly different--back then, the farmers and the british had basically the same weaponry--muskets. Yeah, the british had cannons, but so did we.
Now, a march with a bunch of people carrying rifles isn't quite a match agains F-15s, helicopter gunships, and cluster bombs.
did read the article, and thats why I find it odd that people could simply hide technology under the noses of the taliban so easily if they were sooo oppressive...
Um, if the stuff is *hidden* from the Taliban, how are they supposed to just destroy it? They did destroy everything they could--just look at those 1800 year old Buddha statues they blew up in March.
Sort of like the drug "war" in the US--according to your logic, the US government should be able to find drugs and get rid of them in a moment, even though they are right under their noses.
If I lived under the Taliban for 5 years and finally got back a net connection, emailing JonKatz wouldn't be on the top of my list. Maybe the Taliban really messed with his mind...
Wow, I really can't wait to have the newest beta of ICQ on my phone? Maybe they should wait until there is actually an official version...in say, 5-10 years?
There already is a sales tax for mail order catalogs, which is what the Internet is, that people simply don't pay because it's too difficult for the state governments to track down every purchase.
I don't think so--most mail order purchases say something like "CA residents add X % sales tax." or a few other states. That's because the company that you're ordering from operates from CA (or whatever). IANAL, but I beleive that you only have to pay sales taxes if you're buying from a company that operates from the state you currently are in.
That's why if you order something from, say, Sears over the internet or from the web, you have to pay sales tax, because they operate in every state. As another example, I once went to a store, bought something, and had them ship it to another state. Because i was shipping it elsewhere, there was no sales tax. *This* doesn't seem quite correct, but it was the case.
Of course, there's still the matter of that other "tax" -- shipping costs. And many times those can be significantly larger than a regular sales tax.
:)
Think about it, a $100 purchase in a store with 5% tax is $5. What can you buy for $100 and ship for only $5? Of course, I saw that Amazon is waiving shipping costs for orders over $100...so maybe the point is moot for now
besides, we all know that it takes MS 3 times to get it right.
Come on, that's not fair and you know it. It took 5 versions of DOS to finally get the damn thing to use high memory.