The thing I always wanted to see was the phase-cloak introduced in the episode "Pegasus." That was like the coolest thing.
Also the ease with which they went back in time in Star Trek IV was sort of disconcerting. It was like "Make the calculations for time travel." "Ok, done; let's go!"
I don't see why the Mac Mini is so revolutionary other than for the fact that Apple made it and it's $500. The size isn't the selling point. Small-form-factor PCs have been around for years. I remember seeing ads for the Cappucino PC at least 2 or 3 years ago on Slashdot/Thinkgeek. The form factor isn't the selling point, it's the fact that you can get an OSX system for $500.
Last time I mentioned that the MPAA/RIAA were trying to equate copyright violations with terrorism this guy "Big Al B" kept pooh-poohing it saying I was overreacting. At least here's some more concrete evidence. Since we are now in the never-ending "War On Terror," the easiest way for corporate America to get the government to stop activities it finds unprofitable is to equate them with terrorism. Expect more of this as we slide down the slope.
And remember the old truism - just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
We're talking about Science Fiction here. Nothing is permanent, and normal physical constraints do not apply. In soap operas, they have characters die off if there's a contract dispute or something, then bring them back when it's convenient. Star Trek made 3 movies around Spock's death and the quest to resurrect him. While Morpheus's death may certainly be permanent if the writers choose to leave it that way, they can also bring him back at any time if they want. This really isn't a big deal, it's the nature of fiction, especially sci-fi.
I remember I stopped watching Melrose Place when that redhead (who I think is now on Desperate Housewives) who had died in a car accident came back.
You just listed several places in which it is illegal to live. Most basement "apartments" are illegal because the windows are too small. You proved my point.
Because it's unsafe? A room with no windows is unsafe. Think about fires and such.
Whether the government should force people not to risk their lives is another debate... if you want to lock yourself in a completely isolated room with thousands of watts of electricity passing through it... I say do it!
Of all the people who ever suggested Apple shifting to Intel processors (which I've been hearing since at least 1997), why credit Dvorak with this groundbreaking idea?
Everybody knew how Titanic ended and it made a boatload of money. Just because you know the "ending" doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work to do to get the story from point A to point B.
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 vs. Linux Competitive File Server Performance Comparison
Test report prepared under contract from Microsoft
Executive summary Microsoft commissioned VeriTest, a division of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., to conduct a series of tests comparing the File serving performance of the following server operating system configurations running on a variety of server hardware and processor configurations:
In short, this is a company paid by Microsoft to make reports/whitepapers that make Microsoft look good. Nothing wrong with that as long as everyone's aware
I don't know how things have changed since I was there, but when I was at Dartmouth they didn't have Cable TV in the dorms. I think the jacks were there but no signal. The campus long distance system (DarTalk) was horrid as well. While I agree that moving this all to WiFi seems frighteningly dumb (the dorms have had network connections since like 1991 or something). I suspect that most dorms will retain their wired ports and that the wireless stuff is intended for use in classes and libraries etc. Though, why you'd want to enable students to watch TV during class is something that's making me scratch my head. But moving everything to an integrated system makes a lot of sense, especially if it enables students to use voip for long distance. And eventually (mostly) everything will be wireless, so I guess this makes sense in that sense.
This is true, it took me an hour or three to build the PC, but when it's something I do so rarely (like once a year tops) I find it an enjoyable exercise. And it helps keep me in the loop about new technologies; I wouldn't know anything about SATA if I hadn't seen that the motherboard I wanted (Abit KV8-MAX3) had SATA connectors, so I ended up getting a SATA disk (120 gig included in that $1000) as well. But I'm talking $1000 including tax - the AW machine is pre-shipping and pre-tax, so you can probably tack on another $100-200 to that price, and I don't know any self-respecting gamer who sports 512 megs ram, so another $50 or so for more ram. As for the service, I've heard some not-so-good things about AW support, including some from AW employees.
But yeah, if you don't want to build it yourself you're going to be paying a premium, and... yeah, that decal.:-|
$1499 for a PC with an AMD 3000, 512 MB ram and a GeForce 6600, no DVD or CD burner, no screen, and Windows XP Home? I built a PC for about $1000 a year ago with an AMD 3200, 1 gig ram, GF 5700 FX, and a DVD-ROM/CDRW.
Oh, but the case has a nice decal on it, I forgot.
Microsoft's marriage to Intel has broken up on a few fronts. Most importantly probably are the facts that MS's servers are now running AMD chips (look for the recent articles about Microsoft's switch to 64-bit), and that the next Xbox (Xbox360) will apparently be sporting PowerPC processor(s). The "Wintel" moniker is now mostly defunct. Maybe WMD...:-)
Oh, I understood their point perfectly once I got to the third paragraph or so. Opening an article with factually incorrect statements and then turning around and going "Imagine if that really happened!" just seems unprofessional, and moreover, lame, from a "news source." Just seems like crappy writing and/or "reporting" on their part.
After seeing how many people relied on the Register as a news source I figured I should check it out. After a few days I gave up; I was really put off by their lack of professionalism in reporting (I know lightning will strike me for writing that on Slashdot...) and the blatant bias in everything they write. I have come to view it as a cross between the Weekly World News and People Magazine of technology reporting. It's more like entertainment than news.
Can you imagine a newspaper printing, "Here's a quote from president Bush. Haha... just kidding!" I have a sense of humor, but there are times when stuff like that is appropriate and times when it's not. It's like an entire site of editorials and wannabe pundits.
When Voyager came out it had to compete with DS9 new episodes as well as TNG and TOS reruns. But I guess it's foolish to expect them to say "yeah, Enterprise sucked, sorry." The whole premise of the show was stupid. Kirk's crew was supposed to be "the first" and Enterprise ruined all of that backstory time and time again. I remember when they were brainstorming ideas for the new show, one of them was like Star Fleet special ops or something, I felt sure they'd go with that since it really sounded interesting. I even said "Man, they'd never do a show that predated Kirk, the fans would throw a fit," but apparently they aren't that in-touch with their fanbase. Which I guess is logical, since Star Trek isn't that popular, and finding fans must be very difficult.
ST: Nemesis was also a flaming pile of dung, rivalling Star Trek V in the crap department. No need to rehash the reasons that movie sucked. But suffice it to say that while oversaturation probably contributed to people being sick of the show, the quality of the content they're producing has gone down the tubes.
I'm sorry you feel it's played out and haven't the sense to realize it's already been done. I didn't make that up, they did - testifying before the House Judiciary Committee to that extent.
Governments Note Links to Terrorism
Mr. Chairman, let me commend to your attention an article by Kathleen Millar in the November 2002 issue of US Customs Today entitled "Financing Terror: Profits from Counterfeit Goods Pay for Attacks."
With your permission, I would like to enter this article into the
record. The article outlines the "close connections between
transnational crime and terrorism." It states that the participants at
the 1st International Conference on IPR hosted by Interpol in Lyon,
France in 2001 "all agreed the evidence was indisputable: a lucrative
trafficking in counterfeit and pirate products - music, movies, seed
patents, software, tee-shirts, Nikes, knock-off CDs and 'fake drugs'
accounts for much of the money the international terrorist network
depends on to feed its operations." The article concludes that "The new
link between commercial-scale piracy and counterfeiting has redirected
public attention in 2002, and law enforcement agencies like Customs and
Interpol are going after the organized crime syndicates in charge of
what was too often viewed as a "victimless crime." September 11 changed
the way Americans look at the world. It also changed the way American
law enforcement looks at Intellectual Property crimes."
Your pal Jack said that. Just a matter of time (read: money) before they convince the senators they own to legally mandate filesharing=terrorism.
If the guy used a domain that was only 1 character off from a legitimate Wal-Mart domain, and people could reasonably confuse his site with Wal-Mart's, that's another story.
Also, what are you going to say when the MPAA/RIAA starts referring to unauthorized copying as "Terrorism" rather than "piracy?"
These college kids, they think they're not hurting anyone... but the way they're distributing Rocky XVI on the college lan... it's tantamount to terrorism - we'll never recover that money!
Just wait for it. Just because the English language allows words to have multiple meanings doesn't mean any word should be given any meaning. Once they start calling it terrorism the government will have no choice but to execute all filesharing terrorists on sight!
I'm not disputing that words can gain new meanings. However by using a term that is inherently bad to describe an action that is NOT inherently bad it creates a subconcious association that the act must be bad. I mean, who would defend piracy? I wouldn't. I'd defend file sharing, but nobody in their right mind would defend "piracy." And would you mind citing some sources showing that "geekdom" originated the use of the word "pirate" in regard to making unauthorized copies of software/media? Because I'm pretty sure it's been used by the RIAA long before the Internet was popular; they referred to the guys selling tapes on the street as pirates back in the 80s.
Also, most media is not digitized, and even if it was, it wouldn't make the term any more appropriate than if it was all digitized.
Your plea, while moderately eloquent, is completely wrong, so I must refuse.
Wal-Mart does not care about this kind of bad PR. The people who would find this type of action detestable are not Wal-Mart's target demographic. Wal-Mart has continually eaten bags of poop in the mainstream media over their staunch opposition to unions and the way they've destroyed most mom-and-pop type stores, but this hasn't translated to lost sales for them, because the people who shop at Wal-Mart care about one thing, and one thing only: low prices. As long as this suit doesn't lead to higher prices, Wal-Mart will come out of it financially unscathed.
I don't know how the word "pirate" came to be associated with the downloading of movies or songs, but it makes no sense in this context. A pirate is someone who boarded other ships on the high seas and robbed them of their treasures. Providing a movie or song for download without authorization may not be ethical, but it's not piracy. By calling it such the MPAA/RIAA have managed to raise the perceived level of badness by several orders of magnitude.
The bill is not targeting "p2p pirates," but rather people who put movies up for download before release (which, really, they should be hunting down the people who got access to the movies in the first place). Calling them pirates implicity plays into the ??AA's game of criminalizing anything that doesn't net them a profit.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing I always wanted to see was the phase-cloak introduced in the episode "Pegasus." That was like the coolest thing.
Also the ease with which they went back in time in Star Trek IV was sort of disconcerting. It was like "Make the calculations for time travel." "Ok, done; let's go!"
I don't see why the Mac Mini is so revolutionary other than for the fact that Apple made it and it's $500. The size isn't the selling point. Small-form-factor PCs have been around for years. I remember seeing ads for the Cappucino PC at least 2 or 3 years ago on Slashdot/Thinkgeek. The form factor isn't the selling point, it's the fact that you can get an OSX system for $500.
Last time I mentioned that the MPAA/RIAA were trying to equate copyright violations with terrorism this guy "Big Al B" kept pooh-poohing it saying I was overreacting. At least here's some more concrete evidence. Since we are now in the never-ending "War On Terror," the easiest way for corporate America to get the government to stop activities it finds unprofitable is to equate them with terrorism. Expect more of this as we slide down the slope.
And remember the old truism - just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
We're talking about Science Fiction here. Nothing is permanent, and normal physical constraints do not apply. In soap operas, they have characters die off if there's a contract dispute or something, then bring them back when it's convenient. Star Trek made 3 movies around Spock's death and the quest to resurrect him. While Morpheus's death may certainly be permanent if the writers choose to leave it that way, they can also bring him back at any time if they want. This really isn't a big deal, it's the nature of fiction, especially sci-fi.
I remember I stopped watching Melrose Place when that redhead (who I think is now on Desperate Housewives) who had died in a car accident came back.
The atoms are not the same, or more specifically, the electrons in those atoms are not the same. See Mr. Heisenberg for more info.
You just listed several places in which it is illegal to live. Most basement "apartments" are illegal because the windows are too small. You proved my point.
Because it's unsafe? A room with no windows is unsafe. Think about fires and such.
Whether the government should force people not to risk their lives is another debate... if you want to lock yourself in a completely isolated room with thousands of watts of electricity passing through it... I say do it!
According to physical theory, atoms are interchangable.
Not that I disagree, but what do you suggest is the difference between someone's atoms a millisecond before death and a millisecond after death?
Of all the people who ever suggested Apple shifting to Intel processors (which I've been hearing since at least 1997), why credit Dvorak with this groundbreaking idea?
http://www.google.com/search?q=pet+gps
that was hard!
Everybody knew how Titanic ended and it made a boatload of money. Just because you know the "ending" doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work to do to get the story from point A to point B.
And yes that pun made me cringe as I typed it.
At least they're up-front about it these days.
Other Veritest-Microsoft fun:
http://www.veritest.com/clients/reports/microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/fact
http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/compare/veritest.as
In short, this is a company paid by Microsoft to make reports/whitepapers that make Microsoft look good. Nothing wrong with that as long as everyone's aware
I don't know how things have changed since I was there, but when I was at Dartmouth they didn't have Cable TV in the dorms. I think the jacks were there but no signal. The campus long distance system (DarTalk) was horrid as well. While I agree that moving this all to WiFi seems frighteningly dumb (the dorms have had network connections since like 1991 or something). I suspect that most dorms will retain their wired ports and that the wireless stuff is intended for use in classes and libraries etc. Though, why you'd want to enable students to watch TV during class is something that's making me scratch my head. But moving everything to an integrated system makes a lot of sense, especially if it enables students to use voip for long distance. And eventually (mostly) everything will be wireless, so I guess this makes sense in that sense.
This is true, it took me an hour or three to build the PC, but when it's something I do so rarely (like once a year tops) I find it an enjoyable exercise. And it helps keep me in the loop about new technologies; I wouldn't know anything about SATA if I hadn't seen that the motherboard I wanted (Abit KV8-MAX3) had SATA connectors, so I ended up getting a SATA disk (120 gig included in that $1000) as well. But I'm talking $1000 including tax - the AW machine is pre-shipping and pre-tax, so you can probably tack on another $100-200 to that price, and I don't know any self-respecting gamer who sports 512 megs ram, so another $50 or so for more ram. As for the service, I've heard some not-so-good things about AW support, including some from AW employees.
... yeah, that decal. :-|
But yeah, if you don't want to build it yourself you're going to be paying a premium, and
$1499 for a PC with an AMD 3000, 512 MB ram and a GeForce 6600, no DVD or CD burner, no screen, and Windows XP Home? I built a PC for about $1000 a year ago with an AMD 3200, 1 gig ram, GF 5700 FX, and a DVD-ROM/CDRW.
Oh, but the case has a nice decal on it, I forgot.
Microsoft's marriage to Intel has broken up on a few fronts. Most importantly probably are the facts that MS's servers are now running AMD chips (look for the recent articles about Microsoft's switch to 64-bit), and that the next Xbox (Xbox360) will apparently be sporting PowerPC processor(s). The "Wintel" moniker is now mostly defunct. Maybe WMD... :-)
Oh, I understood their point perfectly once I got to the third paragraph or so. Opening an article with factually incorrect statements and then turning around and going "Imagine if that really happened!" just seems unprofessional, and moreover, lame, from a "news source." Just seems like crappy writing and/or "reporting" on their part.
After seeing how many people relied on the Register as a news source I figured I should check it out. After a few days I gave up; I was really put off by their lack of professionalism in reporting (I know lightning will strike me for writing that on Slashdot...) and the blatant bias in everything they write. I have come to view it as a cross between the Weekly World News and People Magazine of technology reporting. It's more like entertainment than news.
a ttack/ .
Here's an example of their crapola: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/11/torvalds_
Can you imagine a newspaper printing, "Here's a quote from president Bush. Haha... just kidding!" I have a sense of humor, but there are times when stuff like that is appropriate and times when it's not. It's like an entire site of editorials and wannabe pundits.
When Voyager came out it had to compete with DS9 new episodes as well as TNG and TOS reruns. But I guess it's foolish to expect them to say "yeah, Enterprise sucked, sorry." The whole premise of the show was stupid. Kirk's crew was supposed to be "the first" and Enterprise ruined all of that backstory time and time again. I remember when they were brainstorming ideas for the new show, one of them was like Star Fleet special ops or something, I felt sure they'd go with that since it really sounded interesting. I even said "Man, they'd never do a show that predated Kirk, the fans would throw a fit," but apparently they aren't that in-touch with their fanbase. Which I guess is logical, since Star Trek isn't that popular, and finding fans must be very difficult.
ST: Nemesis was also a flaming pile of dung, rivalling Star Trek V in the crap department. No need to rehash the reasons that movie sucked. But suffice it to say that while oversaturation probably contributed to people being sick of the show, the quality of the content they're producing has gone down the tubes.
http://www.mpaa.org/jack/2003/2003_03_13B.htm
Everybody keeps saying this... you realize that parody has a fair-use exception under copyright law, right?
http://www.publaw.com/parody.html
If the guy used a domain that was only 1 character off from a legitimate Wal-Mart domain, and people could reasonably confuse his site with Wal-Mart's, that's another story.
Also, what are you going to say when the MPAA/RIAA starts referring to unauthorized copying as "Terrorism" rather than "piracy?"
... but the way they're distributing Rocky XVI on the college lan ... it's tantamount to terrorism - we'll never recover that money!
These college kids, they think they're not hurting anyone
Just wait for it. Just because the English language allows words to have multiple meanings doesn't mean any word should be given any meaning. Once they start calling it terrorism the government will have no choice but to execute all filesharing terrorists on sight!
I'm not disputing that words can gain new meanings. However by using a term that is inherently bad to describe an action that is NOT inherently bad it creates a subconcious association that the act must be bad. I mean, who would defend piracy? I wouldn't. I'd defend file sharing, but nobody in their right mind would defend "piracy." And would you mind citing some sources showing that "geekdom" originated the use of the word "pirate" in regard to making unauthorized copies of software/media? Because I'm pretty sure it's been used by the RIAA long before the Internet was popular; they referred to the guys selling tapes on the street as pirates back in the 80s.
Also, most media is not digitized, and even if it was, it wouldn't make the term any more appropriate than if it was all digitized.
Your plea, while moderately eloquent, is completely wrong, so I must refuse.
Wal-Mart does not care about this kind of bad PR. The people who would find this type of action detestable are not Wal-Mart's target demographic. Wal-Mart has continually eaten bags of poop in the mainstream media over their staunch opposition to unions and the way they've destroyed most mom-and-pop type stores, but this hasn't translated to lost sales for them, because the people who shop at Wal-Mart care about one thing, and one thing only: low prices. As long as this suit doesn't lead to higher prices, Wal-Mart will come out of it financially unscathed.
I don't know how the word "pirate" came to be associated with the downloading of movies or songs, but it makes no sense in this context. A pirate is someone who boarded other ships on the high seas and robbed them of their treasures. Providing a movie or song for download without authorization may not be ethical, but it's not piracy. By calling it such the MPAA/RIAA have managed to raise the perceived level of badness by several orders of magnitude.
The bill is not targeting "p2p pirates," but rather people who put movies up for download before release (which, really, they should be hunting down the people who got access to the movies in the first place). Calling them pirates implicity plays into the ??AA's game of criminalizing anything that doesn't net them a profit.