Uh huh. Sure, your points are all valid, based on the existing social contract ("forever minus a day"). However, based on the social contract that the Beatles entered into when they created their works, their works should already be in the public domain by now. Just who is cheating who, here?
There aren't other options. Which would you prefer?
Um, the one that in fact aligns with "don't be evil"? Duh. Any sort of pragmatism devolves that into "don't be evil, in general, unless it means more money and the chance for eventually not being the same sort of evil that made us that money", which is absolutely not their stated corporate charter.
Hussein was trying very hard to be a threat, and if something wasn't done when Bush had political favor to get away with it then it might not be until Hussein succeeded in attacking an ally that any president would be able to do anything about him.
Fine, let him hit an ally, that's not thousands of American lives snuffed out. Or something. Dammit it's always been about the resources, all wars are. Grr.
I have the option to disable ads on Slashdot natively, but I don't even use the option. Why do people care so much about little images trying to sell things?
Slashdot is not the only site. If you follow the links to the articles (yeah, yeah, I know), then you will likely see a ton of ads. Many of these are Flash ads, that never stop moving.
We are wired to be distracted by movement; it generally means either there's some prey we can hunt, or there's a predator that's going to eat us. Hence it's very, very important that we pay attention to peripheral movement.
But with Flash ads, this just tends to completely distract one from the simple act of reading the content on the web page you clicked on, with the intention of absorbing said content. Hence, things like FlashBlock et al are well worth it. It's not that I don't want to be sold to; I'd love to know that there's a product out there that will cut my X expenses by Y%. However, I don't want to be distracted by e.g. tampon commercials when I don't even have a uterus.
For me, I've got so many tabs loaded in various windows in Firefox that keep crashing, that I only use Chrome. I mean, I love Firefox and the extensions (Chrome shows me the Flash ads that I have to scroll down from to remove(or hide)...), but every time I bring it up, it crashes a few hours later. Usually while I'm playing Starcraft, if that's any indication. But I don't want to debug it, I just want browsers to stay up with the shit I'm viewing; so, now, I use Chrome for most browsing.
What would be very interesting to see is an exhaustive third-party study with a decent resolution. What would be involved in calculating this for all major nationwide carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc.).
That should be fairly simple: write an app that polls both the GPS position, and the signal strength, at regular intervals (every 5 minutes, perhaps?). Then have it feed back to a central server, and aggregate the data. (And, of course, queue the feedback, for times when signal == 0.)
Fairly quickly, we'd have very good maps.
Then as new towers were constructed and brought on-line, the viewer portion could use diffs and show new areas in a different color (etc).
This would work well on Droid et al, but on the iPhone which can't run apps simultaneously, it would have to come from Apple to be able to run in the background (like the Clock app can, and the one I initially downloaded (not knowing a timer was built-in) could not -- and helped me burn my dinner).
First time I saw a fast-forward-tailored commercial, I was using a VCR as my DVR back in the mid-90s. It was a Volkswagon Beetle commercial. The background was a slowly rotating flower, and there were words in the middle of the screen. I, fast-forwarding, got the entire message they intended to convey. I was very impressed.
Others had some reasons, but I think the real (management) reason is based on "Data Retention Policies". Which, really, are "Data Shredding Policies" -- they state "we will retain this data for at least 30 days" (or other time limit), but what they really mean is "we will dispose of this data on day 31, and will not be liable for any losses caused by it because it's stated right here in our policy."
Similar to the "this phone call may be monitored or recorded to promote customer service" etc; what it really means is "every phone call is being recorded, so govern yourselves accordingly."
That's a really good idea. I hope someone from Canonical is reading. A SHARE button somewhere that burns a Ubuntu disk.
Bonus points if it has the ability to burn the same desktop theme and layout. Some when someone says, "Hey, your desktop is really cool." You can click a button and hand it to them, minus your data hopefully.
You won't see that in Windows 7 any time soon, either.
Agreed. Even cooler, especially considering the clusterfsck that the XP-to-7 "upgrade" process is: be able to put the CD in a drive on a Windows system, and it'll "convert" the system to Ubuntu, with all applications and data still available via WINE.
Any apps that are known not to run would be flagged prior to clicking the "point of no return" install button.
And, if it can identify the current OS and set a theme that is similar if not identical to it, then there will be pretty much no retraining required. A great selling point when Microsoft itself is saying "$2,000 per seat"...
No religion has demonstrated any grasp upon "truth" at all.
Agreed. Burning a mod point to respond to this. Please watch the first 30 or so minutes of Zeitgeist: The Movie. It explains in great scientific detail why Christianity (and many other religions) had similar concepts, all of which flow from astronomy and astrology. It's pretty amazing, and the movie is a free download.
I prefer the second movie, Zeitgeist: Addendum, as it has a much more uplifting ending. Both movies are rather eye-opening; if you watch evening news, you'll see it in a whole different light after watching.
Exactly. I just bought a ReplayTV with lifetime subscription for around $200 on eBay. The specific reason for my purchase was to replace the TiVo, so I can stop paying the subscription. Big benefit: this ReplayTV model has the auto commercial skip feature.
To be black-and-white: your rights are sovereign, or they aren't. Halting all legislation until our rights are restored makes perfect sense to me. Otherwise, we will see what we see today: "oh, sure, we'll deal with that 'in the future', but we really really need this [war funding/bank bailout/auto bailout/healthcare reform/tomorrow's issue] bill passed.
PS "Slow down cowboy, it's been 4 minutes" -- WTF? It really only takes 30 seconds to prove I'm not a bot, and to ensure that I can't rapid-post from this IP...
For a really frightening look at centralization, watch the Zeitgeist movies. I prefer the second as it has a more uplifting ending, but they're both worth the 2 hours each you'll spend. See my posting history for my reaction and some background (very recent, last night and earlier today). These are free to view and download via BitTorrent, as well.
So, I downloaded and watched the first Zeitgeist movie last night. Very similar, and markedly different.
This one started out with religion, describing how many of the religions leading up to Christianity had similar themes, all of them due to astrology: Winter Solstice is December 21st, when the sun is at its low point in the sky; it remains at that position for 3 days, and then rises 1 degree on the 25th; hence, the religious figure is killed, is dead for 3 days, and is then resurrected on the 25th, in many religions. Also the 3 wise men are seen in many religions, and those are the stars on Orion's belt, which when followed point to Sirius, the brightest start in the sky (and also in the East); and when following all four of them to the horizon, they point at the spot that the sun will rise.
Hence why many religions use that similar theme. Christianity followers then remarked on this coincidence, stating that "the Devil placed all those old religions on the planet, to tempt us."
Then it goes into the banking system, and how all four of the major wars this century were created by international bankers, who are then able to sell both the bombs and the rebuilding loans -- to both sides! (Reminds me of a line from Iron Man, the reporter from Vanity Fair answering Stark's "bigger stick" talk: "That's a great line, coming from the man selling the sticks.")
Then it discussed 9/11, and the overwhelming evidence that it was a false flag attack. Including concrete evidence that the other three wars (WWI, WWII, and Vietnam) were not something the people wanted to get in on -- until we perpetrated a false flag attack against ourselves, to rally the public. Sickening, really.
It brings it all together with such a powerful message that I'm actually rather depressed, bordering on suicidal, because I see no hope for the world with these people in power. Constant war, embedded RFID chips in everyone, and the dumbing down of America so we will be content with our "bread and circuses" which these days are HFCS and reality TV.
The second movie is much more uplifting, due to the inclusion of the Venus Project stuff -- which, like I said, seems far-fetched, but then so did nanotechnology last century.
Watch the second one first, I think is the message I'm trying to convey. Oh, and both movies feature George Carlin and Bill Hicks.
I just saw the free movie Zeitgeist Addendum last night. It explains how the US keeps the whole world under our thumb through the Federal Reserve, the fractional lending reserves, and the World Bank which gives loans to other countries in order for our corporations to go in there and build infrastructure -- in other words, we loan them money, they pay it to us (via our corporations), and then they still owe the entire amount of money.
And the fact that our money is created out of thin air, via debt, is just stunning. I urge everyone to watch this; it completely explains how international banking systems are corrupting the planet.
There are some flaws! You may want to fast-forward through the first 7 minutes or so, until they start talking about the banking system, as the beginning drags on (and doesn't follow the excellent speech-writer's take: "tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them", but oh well -- it's full of great stuff). And the last hour is pretty out there; it makes sense, but it sounds more like a sales pitch for The Venus Project (which is not necessarily a bad thing, they're very forward-thinking). Also, you may want to watch it with the captions on, as many portions of the movie are rather dark, with no motion, so the captions helped both with recall, and also gave my eyes something to pay attention to.
Anyway, your post reminded me of a part from it, which describes how our corporations control the media (the thread on the ad for the medical marijuana reviewer had a post repeating what most of us already heard on-line, that Mexico recently reclassified pot with laws similar to how Amsterdam treats it, and rightly said "bet you didn't hear that on the six o'clock news") -- a few major corporations control almost every newspaper and TV station in the country. Politicians looking to gain media exposure need to "toe the line" or they won't get funding; or, more realistically, the corporations choose a politician that nobody has ever even heard of, but through constant repetition are able to convince us that we've known of that person for some time. Even someone as insipid as Sarah Palin.
Don't want to make this a huge rant, so I'll just end with: watch the movie. I actually haven't seen the first one, and am going to download it right now (from the first link, above). Enjoy!
The other two posters corrected the manual vs. automatic issue; I just wanted to add a story from my childhood (well, at 17 you're basically an adult, but anyway). A friend let his girlfriend borrow his van, and she jammed it in park for some reason, while doing 45. Left the transmission on the road.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Uh huh. Sure, your points are all valid, based on the existing social contract ("forever minus a day"). However, based on the social contract that the Beatles entered into when they created their works, their works should already be in the public domain by now. Just who is cheating who, here?
Um, the one that in fact aligns with "don't be evil"? Duh. Any sort of pragmatism devolves that into "don't be evil, in general, unless it means more money and the chance for eventually not being the same sort of evil that made us that money", which is absolutely not their stated corporate charter.
Yes, and I Stare At Goats too.
Fine, let him hit an ally, that's not thousands of American lives snuffed out. Or something. Dammit it's always been about the resources, all wars are. Grr.
Mod parent up. I feel the energy as a tingling in my fingertips. Jin Shin Jyutsu, and now EFT. But, whatever, nobody will believe me anyway.
Slashdot is not the only site. If you follow the links to the articles (yeah, yeah, I know), then you will likely see a ton of ads. Many of these are Flash ads, that never stop moving.
We are wired to be distracted by movement; it generally means either there's some prey we can hunt, or there's a predator that's going to eat us. Hence it's very, very important that we pay attention to peripheral movement.
But with Flash ads, this just tends to completely distract one from the simple act of reading the content on the web page you clicked on, with the intention of absorbing said content. Hence, things like FlashBlock et al are well worth it. It's not that I don't want to be sold to; I'd love to know that there's a product out there that will cut my X expenses by Y%. However, I don't want to be distracted by e.g. tampon commercials when I don't even have a uterus.
For me, I've got so many tabs loaded in various windows in Firefox that keep crashing, that I only use Chrome. I mean, I love Firefox and the extensions (Chrome shows me the Flash ads that I have to scroll down from to remove(or hide)...), but every time I bring it up, it crashes a few hours later. Usually while I'm playing Starcraft, if that's any indication. But I don't want to debug it, I just want browsers to stay up with the shit I'm viewing; so, now, I use Chrome for most browsing.
NO! Try responding to two posts in two minutes. Fail.
Yeah, more like "don't be evil ... unless in China."
That should be fairly simple: write an app that polls both the GPS position, and the signal strength, at regular intervals (every 5 minutes, perhaps?). Then have it feed back to a central server, and aggregate the data. (And, of course, queue the feedback, for times when signal == 0.)
Fairly quickly, we'd have very good maps.
Then as new towers were constructed and brought on-line, the viewer portion could use diffs and show new areas in a different color (etc).
This would work well on Droid et al, but on the iPhone which can't run apps simultaneously, it would have to come from Apple to be able to run in the background (like the Clock app can, and the one I initially downloaded (not knowing a timer was built-in) could not -- and helped me burn my dinner).
Hmm, or how about the new Mattress Discounter's slogan, "there's a nap for that"?
Not if it's digital...
Ahem, sorry sir, I cannot sell you these bullets and you'll have to leave the store.
First time I saw a fast-forward-tailored commercial, I was using a VCR as my DVR back in the mid-90s. It was a Volkswagon Beetle commercial. The background was a slowly rotating flower, and there were words in the middle of the screen. I, fast-forwarding, got the entire message they intended to convey. I was very impressed.
Others had some reasons, but I think the real (management) reason is based on "Data Retention Policies". Which, really, are "Data Shredding Policies" -- they state "we will retain this data for at least 30 days" (or other time limit), but what they really mean is "we will dispose of this data on day 31, and will not be liable for any losses caused by it because it's stated right here in our policy."
Similar to the "this phone call may be monitored or recorded to promote customer service" etc; what it really means is "every phone call is being recorded, so govern yourselves accordingly."
Agreed. Even cooler, especially considering the clusterfsck that the XP-to-7 "upgrade" process is: be able to put the CD in a drive on a Windows system, and it'll "convert" the system to Ubuntu, with all applications and data still available via WINE.
Any apps that are known not to run would be flagged prior to clicking the "point of no return" install button.
And, if it can identify the current OS and set a theme that is similar if not identical to it, then there will be pretty much no retraining required. A great selling point when Microsoft itself is saying "$2,000 per seat"...
Agreed. Burning a mod point to respond to this. Please watch the first 30 or so minutes of Zeitgeist: The Movie. It explains in great scientific detail why Christianity (and many other religions) had similar concepts, all of which flow from astronomy and astrology. It's pretty amazing, and the movie is a free download.
I prefer the second movie, Zeitgeist: Addendum, as it has a much more uplifting ending. Both movies are rather eye-opening; if you watch evening news, you'll see it in a whole different light after watching.
I apologize if I came across as pushy, I was merely trying to inform.
Exactly. I just bought a ReplayTV with lifetime subscription for around $200 on eBay. The specific reason for my purchase was to replace the TiVo, so I can stop paying the subscription. Big benefit: this ReplayTV model has the auto commercial skip feature.
FYI, you can double-blockquote (if that's what I understand the bold to be); e.g.:
To be black-and-white: your rights are sovereign, or they aren't. Halting all legislation until our rights are restored makes perfect sense to me. Otherwise, we will see what we see today: "oh, sure, we'll deal with that 'in the future', but we really really need this [war funding/bank bailout/auto bailout/healthcare reform/tomorrow's issue] bill passed.
PS "Slow down cowboy, it's been 4 minutes" -- WTF? It really only takes 30 seconds to prove I'm not a bot, and to ensure that I can't rapid-post from this IP...
For a really frightening look at centralization, watch the Zeitgeist movies. I prefer the second as it has a more uplifting ending, but they're both worth the 2 hours each you'll spend. See my posting history for my reaction and some background (very recent, last night and earlier today). These are free to view and download via BitTorrent, as well.
So, I downloaded and watched the first Zeitgeist movie last night. Very similar, and markedly different.
This one started out with religion, describing how many of the religions leading up to Christianity had similar themes, all of them due to astrology: Winter Solstice is December 21st, when the sun is at its low point in the sky; it remains at that position for 3 days, and then rises 1 degree on the 25th; hence, the religious figure is killed, is dead for 3 days, and is then resurrected on the 25th, in many religions. Also the 3 wise men are seen in many religions, and those are the stars on Orion's belt, which when followed point to Sirius, the brightest start in the sky (and also in the East); and when following all four of them to the horizon, they point at the spot that the sun will rise.
Hence why many religions use that similar theme. Christianity followers then remarked on this coincidence, stating that "the Devil placed all those old religions on the planet, to tempt us."
Then it goes into the banking system, and how all four of the major wars this century were created by international bankers, who are then able to sell both the bombs and the rebuilding loans -- to both sides! (Reminds me of a line from Iron Man, the reporter from Vanity Fair answering Stark's "bigger stick" talk: "That's a great line, coming from the man selling the sticks.")
Then it discussed 9/11, and the overwhelming evidence that it was a false flag attack. Including concrete evidence that the other three wars (WWI, WWII, and Vietnam) were not something the people wanted to get in on -- until we perpetrated a false flag attack against ourselves, to rally the public. Sickening, really.
It brings it all together with such a powerful message that I'm actually rather depressed, bordering on suicidal, because I see no hope for the world with these people in power. Constant war, embedded RFID chips in everyone, and the dumbing down of America so we will be content with our "bread and circuses" which these days are HFCS and reality TV.
The second movie is much more uplifting, due to the inclusion of the Venus Project stuff -- which, like I said, seems far-fetched, but then so did nanotechnology last century.
Watch the second one first, I think is the message I'm trying to convey. Oh, and both movies feature George Carlin and Bill Hicks.
I just saw the free movie Zeitgeist Addendum last night. It explains how the US keeps the whole world under our thumb through the Federal Reserve, the fractional lending reserves, and the World Bank which gives loans to other countries in order for our corporations to go in there and build infrastructure -- in other words, we loan them money, they pay it to us (via our corporations), and then they still owe the entire amount of money.
And the fact that our money is created out of thin air, via debt, is just stunning. I urge everyone to watch this; it completely explains how international banking systems are corrupting the planet.
There are some flaws! You may want to fast-forward through the first 7 minutes or so, until they start talking about the banking system, as the beginning drags on (and doesn't follow the excellent speech-writer's take: "tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them", but oh well -- it's full of great stuff). And the last hour is pretty out there; it makes sense, but it sounds more like a sales pitch for The Venus Project (which is not necessarily a bad thing, they're very forward-thinking). Also, you may want to watch it with the captions on, as many portions of the movie are rather dark, with no motion, so the captions helped both with recall, and also gave my eyes something to pay attention to.
Anyway, your post reminded me of a part from it, which describes how our corporations control the media (the thread on the ad for the medical marijuana reviewer had a post repeating what most of us already heard on-line, that Mexico recently reclassified pot with laws similar to how Amsterdam treats it, and rightly said "bet you didn't hear that on the six o'clock news") -- a few major corporations control almost every newspaper and TV station in the country. Politicians looking to gain media exposure need to "toe the line" or they won't get funding; or, more realistically, the corporations choose a politician that nobody has ever even heard of, but through constant repetition are able to convince us that we've known of that person for some time. Even someone as insipid as Sarah Palin.
Don't want to make this a huge rant, so I'll just end with: watch the movie. I actually haven't seen the first one, and am going to download it right now (from the first link, above). Enjoy!
The other two posters corrected the manual vs. automatic issue; I just wanted to add a story from my childhood (well, at 17 you're basically an adult, but anyway). A friend let his girlfriend borrow his van, and she jammed it in park for some reason, while doing 45. Left the transmission on the road. :)