So Google is kind of like if the Yellow Pages and the Phone Book were published under one cover with the one subsidizing the production costs of both.
Whether or not they're making enough through ad sales to pay for the whole parade as it currently stands is questionable, but if you can convince enough investors that Google is worth pouring zillions of dollars into, then fine. Whatever.
So basically, Google is sitting on a big pile of investor money at the moment, with perhaps a modest ad based revenue. However, Google has also hired a lot of programmers and project leaders and they're doing a lot of interesting and expensive stuff, which I suspect isn't quite covered by Google Ad revenue. The water leaking in is more than is being bailed out. Google right now sounds a lot to me like one of those tech-boom start-ups swimming in IPO cash.
This means, I suspect, that expansion into new sources of revenue is probably fairly high on the To Do list around Google's board room at the moment.
How they do this is up to them. I doubt somehow, though, that it involves 'free' microwave pollution to every corner of the U.S. --Though, doing that certainly sounds reminiscent of some of the dumb things those crazy tech companies tried back in 'The Day' when investors were insane and huge gobs of IPO cash were free to any who asked.
I just hope they don't set up any microwave hot spots in my neighborhood. Cell phones are already a plague which I never agreed to.
It's going to be a time of great adventure, change and danger.
It's going to have apocalyptic events like global climate shifts and giant cometary strikes. It's going to have futuristic soldiers oppressing the populace. --Some even with ray-guns! It already has alien invaders, (UFOs and crop circles, abductions, cattle mutilations, etc.). It's got tons of bio-engineering. It's got ultra-powerful computers which span the world in a global communication web. It's got huge populations of dumbed-down, tagged and numbered worker drones living in a fog of nervous denial and state-installed 'reality'. It even has Jedi-like powers available to anybody who is aware and brave enough to explore them.
Man, our current reality has it all! Right here, right now!
The people who are bored with their lives, zoned out on television and drugs and video games and dumb jobs, those who are plugged into the bogus 'official culture', those who are fearful of looking beyond their cages are simply the mindless backdrop to this astonishing reality. Think, Blade Runner. --The backdrop to that world was one of misery and drudgery for the average person.
The question each person needs to ask is, "Am I the average person or am I an active participant in the most amazing show on Earth?"
There is so much cool stuff going on right now, it takes my breath away.
I've lost several people I know to your game. Their lives are one hold, and they feel guilty and unhappy about the hundreds of hours they've spent playing on-line, but can't seem to stop. They talk like people who are dealing with addiction.
With all the many ways an artist, writer, programmer can contribute to the (real) world, what are some of the ways your staff rationalize their involvement in something which has this particular characteristic associated with on-line games?
Or does anybody stop to think about it at all? It seems like it might be one of those elephant-in-the-living-room issues which everybody just nervously ignores.
ALEXANDRIA BAY, N.Y. -- Security officials gathered Monday at a Canadian border crossing to mark the first test of a radio frequency identification system to be used by foreign visitors.
If successful, radio "tags" carried by travelers will be part of the standard registration process for those entering the United States.
The technology is like that used to speed passage at toll booths on many highways, said P.T. Wright, the operations director for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT Program [. ..].
I'm actually pretty happy with things as they currently stand.
DVDs are pretty good, and you can get a cheep read/write one for your box.
But I don't expect that to last.
I was happily using an old 4x CD burner which I got many years ago. I paid over $500 for the thing at the time! It worked fine and it did everything I needed done and I never had any desire to replace it. Then one day, I went down to the friendly neighborhood business supply store to pick up a new spindle of blank disks, and when I got them home, they crashed my system just by putting them in the tray.
Huh?
Turns out the new pack of disks were 700 MB as opposed to the 650 MB ones which my burner knew how to deal with. Fine. Annoying, but whatever. I should have read the package. So down to the store I went once more. Guess what? They no longer sold 650 MB blanks. I mean, anywhere. I spent the better part of the afternoon hunting around, and in the end couldn't find a single blank which my old burner would swallow.
So I came home instead with a shiney new burner, (which sold OEM, naturally looked almost identical to my old one.)
"So," I thought. "THAT'S how they plan to force me into buying new products I don't need!"
Honestly! --It seems as though being satisfied with your computer as it currently sits and having no desire to upgrade it is a cardinal sin these days. I like having an old clunker, because it's plenty fast and can run everything I need. I like having trusted machines which do their job well.
So now I can see a day when I'll come back home with a new digital camera or replacement hard drive or monitor which won't operate because my old OS is no longer mentioned in the operating manual, (let alone on the driver disk). So I'll have to upgrade to a new OS, which means I'll have to buy a new platform powerful enough to run it, which means I'll be buying some of those pre-installed DMR chips I was laughing at a couple of years earlier from my legacy-built ivory tower.
And that's how they'll sell hardware DMR.
Soon to be followed, I imagine, by extra bits of government code in the DMR chips which also watch what you do and report back any 'suspicious' behavior to your neighborhood Inquisitor.
Remember those TV sets people couldn't turn off in Orwell's 1984?
BushHitler??!! Nothing, but NOTHING, says it all better than calling a smirking, occaisionally obnoxious politician the equivalent of one of History's 5 worst monsters.
Actually, Hitler was a cheese-head similar to Bush. While Hitler had some charisma and strong thinking in his earlier years, he slowly melted into a loose-minded fool, making irrational and self-destructive decisions based on illusions. The Nazi government was rotting from the top down even as German troops rolled into Russia.
Hitler was capable of giving effective and rousing anger-speeches, but his brain steadily turned to mush as his reign progressed. The only difference is that Bush started out a goof. (Though, even Bush is also capable of giving effective and rousing war-speeches; this is typical of the wishful thinker because so much time is spent thinking about how the 'enemy' is the 'enemy', polishing personal gems of hatred that those thoughts at least are easily communicated.)
--But notice how the U.S.'s opening moves on the global chessboard lack much of the skill and fire which Nazi Germany's early moves had? Afghanistan was a violent mess whereas the Nazi take over of Austria and Czechoslovakia were far more precise and effective. Iraq was and is a complete mire, ("We'll be home in 10 weeks! A Cake Walk. We KNOW where the WMD's are!"), where Poland was again far more effectively invaded and controlled.
The next moves by the U.S. (Iran, Syria), will almost certainly also be total and chaotic messes where Germany didn't begin to lose cohesion until later in the game.
This, I would suggest, means that the U.S. presents an even greater danger to the world, as it's level of Wishful Thinking and resulting ill-preparedness are more further progressed. --I suspect that it's irrational desire to control and punish any opposing viewpoints will also be greater.
With Britain actually considering the implementation of star chamber courts, the temperature of the frog-water continues to rise.
My considered opinion is that 'Terrorists' are a deliberately implemented public relations tool, coaxed along where not entirely fabricated, all designed within the darker halls of the Pentagon, Zionist Israel and Elitist Governments throughout Europe to create an excuse for war without end.
This.exe completely trashes your screen, turning it into a representation of a cruddy looking inner-city highway in late evening. I hate cruddy, inner-city highways. Luckily, there's no other traffic evident.
Anyway, I managed to hit Esc and kill the thing, but it sounds like this program is spreading to Slashdot user's computers like wildfire, burning up many thousands of minutes and causing many tens of lost dollars in worker downtime.
Bad Guys don't like to fix the problems within themselves, because that's hard and scary work. So instead, and this is what makes them Bad Guys, they pretend that they're perfect and that the world outside them is imperfect. This is much easier to do, probably because it doesn't actually change anything. Changing things takes work. Wishful Thinking only takes Wishful Thinking.
Where it gets ugly is when the world says, "Uh, no, actually. You're living in an illusion and you're the ugly one. Sorry, but that's the objective reality of the situation."
When faced with this, the Bad Guy has a problem; S/he has to either fess up or fall into even more aggressive denial of the subject in order to placate themselves. Fessing up gets progressively more difficult to do as you train your brain to work in certain ways; those synaptic pathways get wider the more you use them. So typically, the classic Bad Guy will then villainize the people or things which are telling them how things really stand. And in the end if it goes far enough, the Bad Guy will actually go out and try to destroy the things or people which are making them look stupid as stupid as they are. --Usually while crying, "Evil!" or some such clattering nonsense.
The fascinating thing about it is that the Bad Guy has practiced hard at pretending fake realities into view while deliberately not seeing what's right in front of them. They are adept ignorers, and thus have horribly atrophied senses of awareness. This is they miss the obvious, like embarrassing code in their own products while hypocritically crying foul. The more Bad a Bad Guy is, the more incredibly stupid and weak-minded they become.
But even more interesting is the fact that when faced with evidence of such blatant crimes, the Bad Guy is no more able now than before to fess up to the fact that they are Bad Guys. They'll try to rationalize, and indeed lie outright that they are the ones being maligned. Where it gets interesting is that a Good Guy, (or the general public), who would be horribly embarrassed at being shown such evidence of hypocritical behavior, would turn red and fess up immediately. --That's the behavior they understand and automatically expect to see in others. So when the Bad Guy is incapable of displaying that behavior, the Good Guy automatically thinks, "Well, shit, he's not embarrassed at all! So he MUST be telling the truth!"
Weird, eh?
For a broad-scale working example of the above, look at the current U.S. administration and it's supporters.
--where all the little dots are connected by neat little lines.
Seriously.
It strikes me as far more likely that there are other forces at work out there determining how our technological reality gets shaped. --And that the almighty demi-god of 'competition' is primarily an irrelevant game played out at the lowest level of the field, where managers and owners and investors stress themselves silly over battles in a war where the outcome was long ago determined in somebody else's board room.
The Medium is the Message! --The Medium is what defines the shape and behavior of our society. And the shape and behavior of our society are hotly contested flags on the battle ground.
Wow. To get full value from my $17.99 per month subscription, I have to force feed myself a minimum of three movies a month forever! Stress! ArgH! Must visit website. Mst watch moveiss. . . Hlp. Where did I put that return envelope. Go out tonight with friends? Can't! Must watch movies! What's good? Who cares! Must make minimum allotment or face vague penalty of paying weird premium for weird disk in mail service.
Okay.
To be fair, the Netflix model sounds like a pretty good deal for people whose lives happen to circulate around watching lots and lots of movies. I've been there, and it can be a lot of fun when you're in that head-space.
But for me, it sounds like WAY too much trouble. --Like working for a company which gives you a pager and has you on-call 24/7. Knowing that I MUST watch 3 movies at some point during the month seems very stressful to me. I'd rather be able to get a movie when I feel like it and not feel that it is yet another item on my To Do list.
I can happily go for a couple of months without ever watching a DVD, and then I'll blow several nights in a row consuming something which catches my interest, (like the ill-fated Bruce Campbell TV Western series, "Brisco County Jr." --Which was unbelievably cool, but is only available from my friend who downloaded pirate copies from the web and burned them to disk for me because the series was never officially released.). --And then I'll happily watch nothing for another three months.
Perhaps Netflix could offer non-member limited rental packages with no deadlines on some of those funky single-use disks. --Subscriptions bother me. I don't like feeling 'obligated' to do anything, particularly with regard to my free time activities. Though, it seems to me that the rent-a-DVD-by-mail business model depends rather heavily on the various forms of psychological momentum subscriptions create, so I somehow doubt short term purchases will come about.
you described co-discovery. These are different things. Theft is when you steal something you know about. Discovery is when you come upon something someone else knows. Trespass is being somewhere where you're physically/virtually unwanted. This isn't linguistic BS; these are readily defined semantical concepts within the context of your parable. Theft is not commendable. Co-discovery is. So is justice.
Justice? Holy smokes, dude! Philosophers have never agreed whether or not such a thing as Justice even exists.
And Co-Discovery?
I must have failed to mention that the water source in the analogy sprang from a magic conch shell kept locked inside the greedy man's kitchen cupboard.
Attempting to codify moral behavior is downright impossible because the variations of human behavior approach the infinite. (Thank goodness!) There is an appropriate time for EVERYTHING under the sun, theft included. The law is a general guide, and sometimes the law is corrupt and runs counter to rational thinking.
When Chaos threatens to overwhelm Life, the Hero is the Lawman.
When Order threatens to overwhelm Life, the Thief becomes the Hero.
--Except, of course, when it doesn't work that way.
Those who attempt to codify Life, will always end up losing their hair or living in ever expanding denial structures. (Except, of course, when it doesn't work that way either!)
So, I don't buy your parable. Theft is theft. Co-discovery and the ability to go where others go is ok. The source of the water can be public knowledge. If the thief trespassed on the land to find the water, then there's a small crime involved. Whether the crime is overlooked because of the discovery is something else. That's why we have prosecutors, and warrants, and civil process.
What's not to buy? All I'm saying is that it's important to look at the intent of the participants when examining such issues. Every case is different and sometimes theft is not just warranted, but commendable.
The Village is dying of thirst. By pure chance, a limitless wellspring is discovered. The man who discovered the spring is calculating and without pity, and he refuses to tell the village where the water source is unless the people pay his outrageous fee. The community suffers deeply.
One night a clever Thief follows the man and discovers the location of the wellspring. The Thief hurries home and tells the community. Everybody proclaims him a Hero. The community is saved, and goes on to thrive and become happy and healthy.
Sometimes the Thief is also the Hero.
I would say that Ownership of information is far less important than the Intent of the owner.
If we release it, we do so cognitively. If you steal it, you're a thief. If-- and only if-- we allow its use, then it's ok, but only within that context, and that context alone.
Hypothetical Question. . .
The Village is dying of thirst. By pure chance, a limitless wellspring is discovered. The man who discovered the spring is calculating and without pity, and he refuses to tell the village where the water source is unless the people pay his outrageous fee. The community suffers deeply.
One night a clever Thief follows the man and discovers the location of the wellspring. The Thief hurries home and tells the community. Everybody proclaims him a Hero. The community is saved, and goes on to thrive and become happy and healthy.
Sometimes the Thief is also the Hero.
I would say that Ownership of information is far less important than the Intent of the owner.
The Light Side is about the free flow and expansion of energy. Giving and Other-serving.
The Dark Side wants to collect, limit and control energy. Taking and Self-serving.
All other analogies stem from this.
The Dark Side wants your information so as to control and limit you, and they will do so through any trick in the book, up to and including saying that to not give them your name and serial number is to be a Bad Person who is a hypocrite. This is classic (and effective) BullShit employed by every predator out there seeking to guilt their prey into willfully giving up their energy. The Predator has no intention of passing that energy on to the rest of the world for the benefit of anybody but themselves. It is not just okay to say "No" to this kind of demand, but essential in order to maintain integrity. To knowingly agree to feed the Dark Side is to align with the Dark Side.
How do you know how to tell the two sides apart? It all comes down to Intent; Is the force collecting information Self-Serving or Other-Serving? Is the Intent behind the request Light or Dark? This is easy to tell. Just ask your gut.
While Cliff's wording is clever and thought-provoking, it is also misleading.
Now THAT was a film which could have given me a head-ache even without the stupid glasses.
Having had that experience burned into my memory, I can tell you honestly that unless somebody comes up with a way to make 3D films which don't involve glasses or lousy scripts, I will never go to another such production again.
Unless, that is, a girlfriend or child wants me to take them because they've never seen one before and are really excited about going. --If that's the case, then I'll happily pay for all the admission fees and probably even enjoy the head-ache afterwards.
1. People in power become aware of an unpleasant truth which, if everybody knew about it, would upset the balance of things, (i.e., the muggles will stop working and shopping.)
2. The people in power say, "We cannot keep this a secret. It's impossible to jam the lid down tightly enough on any secret. But we simply cannot afford to have the public become aware of this latest item."
3. A social scientist in the back row sticks his hand up and says, "No problem. It's true that you cannot keep a secret, but you CAN prevent the people from looking or believing in the facts when they leak out."
4. And so. . .
5. The counter intelligence powers flood the media with dozens of conflicting bits of semi-honest confabulations. The craziest examples of which, (Nibiru) are believe wholesale by the wild-eyed crazies that nobody is going to take seriously. The rest you distribute through other outlets, resulting in things like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone films, and items like the infamous, "NASA Moon Landing was Faked Documentary", all of which has the net result of making everybody so confused and fed up that nearly every misses the real story going down.
6. You associate 'conspiracy theory' with 'uncool', and make sure everybody has gone through an educational system which makes people so petrified of being 'uncool' that they would be happier going along with an obviously flawed official story rather than risk flexing any of their own brain muscles for fear of being laughed at.
7. Voila! People see nothing and do nothing.
Honestly. This Nibiru stuff is crap. --The last time I looked at that theory, the 12th planet was hollow and contained a master race which was going to attempt to invade Earth. This theory is incredibly simplistic and stupid, and with all the genuinely intriguing things going on out there, anybody who buys into this one is a serious chump.
This is not to say that something very big isn't going on; there is. But Nibiru isn't it.
It might have something more to do with this theory. But it may not. It might just be that a big rock was found out in space beyond Pluto.
It will be interesting to watch how this story develops.
Your over-simplified world view appears to be nothing more than a precious ball of hate you take bitter pleasure in polishing for no other reason than to indulge in obsessive outrage.
The issue has many more sides than you allow for and your argument can only function when you blank out a large portion of reality.
There is no simple Yes/No answer to the union question. Or as Obi-Wan put it, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."
And BTW, "you're" and "your" are two different words. Why is it that people who can't spell tend to so often hold such silly world-views?
US INVESTIGATORS, including CIA agents, will be allowed interrogate Irish citizens on Irish soil in total secrecy, under an agreement signed between Ireland and the US last week.
Suspects will also have to give testimony and allow property to be searched and seized even if what the suspect is accused of is not a crime in Ireland.
Under 'instruments of agreement' signed last week by Justice Minister Michael McDowell, Ireland and the US pledged mutual co-operation in the investigation of criminal activity. It is primarily designed to assist America's so-called 'war on terror' in the wake of the September 11 atrocities.
[. ..]
Although the Department of Justice insists that the arrangement merely updates existing agreements, it goes much further. The US may ask Irish authorities:
-To track down people in Ireland. -Transfer prisoners in Irish custody to the US. -Carry out searches and seize evidence on behalf of the US Government.
It also allows US authorities access to an Irish suspect's confidential bank information. The Irish authorities must keep all these activities secret if asked to do so by the US.
The person who will request co-operation is US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man who, as White House counsel, instigated the notorious 'torture memo' to US President George W Bush which advised how far CIA agents could go in torturing prisoners. The person to whom the request is sent is the Minister for Justice.
About 20,000 immigrants, who have not been charged with any crime, are currently in prison in the US. In two recent US Supreme Court cases, the US Government argued that US citizens could be imprisoned indefinitely without charge if the president designated them as "enemy combatants".
ICCL director Aisling Reidy said: "An extraordinary aspect to this treaty is, despite its scope and its potential to violate basic constitutional and human rights, that all this happened without debate or transparency.
It never occurred to me before that one might combat some of the toxic effects of Aspartame by consuming the stuff along with, say, a tomato which might be enough to counter the methanol produced when the body breaks down the Aspartame as well as the methanol naturally occurring in the tomato.
Still. ..
It seems a little silly to be eating a known poison in the first place, and one produced by a corporation with such a shamefully long track record of deceit and foul play.
I tend to think that by eating Monsanto's product, is to accept Monsanto's low moral position in the world, and to welcome the villainy not just into the world, but into one's body. Like giving the nod and a wink to a serial rapist.
Accepting or rejecting such things acts in a powerful way to define who each of us is, and that it takes both curiosity and elegance to shape ourselves and the world differently through our choices and actions.
The perceived need for diet pop is produced artificially anyway. Why do people feel happy about letting large corporations dictate their behavior? Of course, I know the answer to that, since I used to be that way as well as I was a kid who had no shields up to protect my brain against advertising. I understand the trap, but as an adult I now recognize that it is possible to make new choices and take charge of who I am. There is power in not bending over for liars and killers.
Methanol metabolizes into formaldehyde, which attacks nerves throughout the brain, most notably those which connect the eye to the brain. This is why methanol can make you blind; it literally dissolves the nerve and disconnects the eye. I mean, sheesh! I'd rather just reject such stuff from my diet altogether than mess around with balancing fruits with my poisons, which is not something that most soda pop drinkers do.
But whatever. I guess is can be hard to let go of one's favorite treat. Life is short, so why not enjoy it with your favorite corporate beverage? But still. . . I may simply have different priorities than most, but I tend to think that once people know, they have new options to choose from. As they say; "Knowledge protects. Ignorance endangers."
Okay, man!
I've got to run. It's been very refreshing to post with you! You're one of the better Slashdotters. I've run into many whose egos do not allow their viewpoints to move in any direction. Cheers!
Slashdot Mirror
It's called, "Living under the Radar."
-FL
Where the heck is Google getting that kind of cash?
If it didn't come from investors, then where???
What the heck are they selling? Ad spots are making three BILLION dollars in revenue?
Did they figure out "Step 2" in that Profit! joke?
And if it's just investor cash, then, yes, it's very similar to one of those tech bubble companies swimming in IPO cash.
-FL
So Google is kind of like if the Yellow Pages and the Phone Book were published under one cover with the one subsidizing the production costs of both.
Whether or not they're making enough through ad sales to pay for the whole parade as it currently stands is questionable, but if you can convince enough investors that Google is worth pouring zillions of dollars into, then fine. Whatever.
So basically, Google is sitting on a big pile of investor money at the moment, with perhaps a modest ad based revenue. However, Google has also hired a lot of programmers and project leaders and they're doing a lot of interesting and expensive stuff, which I suspect isn't quite covered by Google Ad revenue. The water leaking in is more than is being bailed out. Google right now sounds a lot to me like one of those tech-boom start-ups swimming in IPO cash.
This means, I suspect, that expansion into new sources of revenue is probably fairly high on the To Do list around Google's board room at the moment.
How they do this is up to them. I doubt somehow, though, that it involves 'free' microwave pollution to every corner of the U.S. --Though, doing that certainly sounds reminiscent of some of the dumb things those crazy tech companies tried back in 'The Day' when investors were insane and huge gobs of IPO cash were free to any who asked.
I just hope they don't set up any microwave hot spots in my neighborhood. Cell phones are already a plague which I never agreed to.
-FL
It's going to be a time of great adventure, change and danger.
It's going to have apocalyptic events like global climate shifts and giant cometary strikes. It's going to have futuristic soldiers oppressing the populace. --Some even with ray-guns! It already has alien invaders, (UFOs and crop circles, abductions, cattle mutilations, etc.). It's got tons of bio-engineering. It's got ultra-powerful computers which span the world in a global communication web. It's got huge populations of dumbed-down, tagged and numbered worker drones living in a fog of nervous denial and state-installed 'reality'. It even has Jedi-like powers available to anybody who is aware and brave enough to explore them.
Man, our current reality has it all! Right here, right now!
The people who are bored with their lives, zoned out on television and drugs and video games and dumb jobs, those who are plugged into the bogus 'official culture', those who are fearful of looking beyond their cages are simply the mindless backdrop to this astonishing reality. Think, Blade Runner. --The backdrop to that world was one of misery and drudgery for the average person.
The question each person needs to ask is, "Am I the average person or am I an active participant in the most amazing show on Earth?"
There is so much cool stuff going on right now, it takes my breath away.
-FL
With all the many ways an artist, writer, programmer can contribute to the (real) world, what are some of the ways your staff rationalize their involvement in something which has this particular characteristic associated with on-line games?
Or does anybody stop to think about it at all? It seems like it might be one of those elephant-in-the-living-room issues which everybody just nervously ignores.
What are your thoughts?
-FL
-FL
Some other interesting thoughts here.
-FL
Indeed? Can you explain that reaction? One word statements aren't worth much around here.
-FL
DVDs are pretty good, and you can get a cheep read/write one for your box.
But I don't expect that to last.
I was happily using an old 4x CD burner which I got many years ago. I paid over $500 for the thing at the time! It worked fine and it did everything I needed done and I never had any desire to replace it. Then one day, I went down to the friendly neighborhood business supply store to pick up a new spindle of blank disks, and when I got them home, they crashed my system just by putting them in the tray.
Huh?
Turns out the new pack of disks were 700 MB as opposed to the 650 MB ones which my burner knew how to deal with. Fine. Annoying, but whatever. I should have read the package. So down to the store I went once more. Guess what? They no longer sold 650 MB blanks. I mean, anywhere. I spent the better part of the afternoon hunting around, and in the end couldn't find a single blank which my old burner would swallow.
So I came home instead with a shiney new burner, (which sold OEM, naturally looked almost identical to my old one.)
"So," I thought. "THAT'S how they plan to force me into buying new products I don't need!"
Honestly! --It seems as though being satisfied with your computer as it currently sits and having no desire to upgrade it is a cardinal sin these days. I like having an old clunker, because it's plenty fast and can run everything I need. I like having trusted machines which do their job well.
So now I can see a day when I'll come back home with a new digital camera or replacement hard drive or monitor which won't operate because my old OS is no longer mentioned in the operating manual, (let alone on the driver disk). So I'll have to upgrade to a new OS, which means I'll have to buy a new platform powerful enough to run it, which means I'll be buying some of those pre-installed DMR chips I was laughing at a couple of years earlier from my legacy-built ivory tower.
And that's how they'll sell hardware DMR.
Soon to be followed, I imagine, by extra bits of government code in the DMR chips which also watch what you do and report back any 'suspicious' behavior to your neighborhood Inquisitor.
Remember those TV sets people couldn't turn off in Orwell's 1984?
Oh, do sign me up.
-FL
Actually, Hitler was a cheese-head similar to Bush. While Hitler had some charisma and strong thinking in his earlier years, he slowly melted into a loose-minded fool, making irrational and self-destructive decisions based on illusions. The Nazi government was rotting from the top down even as German troops rolled into Russia.
Hitler was capable of giving effective and rousing anger-speeches, but his brain steadily turned to mush as his reign progressed. The only difference is that Bush started out a goof. (Though, even Bush is also capable of giving effective and rousing war-speeches; this is typical of the wishful thinker because so much time is spent thinking about how the 'enemy' is the 'enemy', polishing personal gems of hatred that those thoughts at least are easily communicated.)
--But notice how the U.S.'s opening moves on the global chessboard lack much of the skill and fire which Nazi Germany's early moves had? Afghanistan was a violent mess whereas the Nazi take over of Austria and Czechoslovakia were far more precise and effective. Iraq was and is a complete mire, ("We'll be home in 10 weeks! A Cake Walk. We KNOW where the WMD's are!"), where Poland was again far more effectively invaded and controlled.
The next moves by the U.S. (Iran, Syria), will almost certainly also be total and chaotic messes where Germany didn't begin to lose cohesion until later in the game.
This, I would suggest, means that the U.S. presents an even greater danger to the world, as it's level of Wishful Thinking and resulting ill-preparedness are more further progressed. --I suspect that it's irrational desire to control and punish any opposing viewpoints will also be greater.
With Britain actually considering the implementation of star chamber courts, the temperature of the frog-water continues to rise.
My considered opinion is that 'Terrorists' are a deliberately implemented public relations tool, coaxed along where not entirely fabricated, all designed within the darker halls of the Pentagon, Zionist Israel and Elitist Governments throughout Europe to create an excuse for war without end.
-FL
Anyway, I managed to hit Esc and kill the thing, but it sounds like this program is spreading to Slashdot user's computers like wildfire, burning up many thousands of minutes and causing many tens of lost dollars in worker downtime.
Beware!
-FL
Bad Guys don't like to fix the problems within themselves, because that's hard and scary work. So instead, and this is what makes them Bad Guys, they pretend that they're perfect and that the world outside them is imperfect. This is much easier to do, probably because it doesn't actually change anything. Changing things takes work. Wishful Thinking only takes Wishful Thinking.
Where it gets ugly is when the world says, "Uh, no, actually. You're living in an illusion and you're the ugly one. Sorry, but that's the objective reality of the situation."
When faced with this, the Bad Guy has a problem; S/he has to either fess up or fall into even more aggressive denial of the subject in order to placate themselves. Fessing up gets progressively more difficult to do as you train your brain to work in certain ways; those synaptic pathways get wider the more you use them. So typically, the classic Bad Guy will then villainize the people or things which are telling them how things really stand. And in the end if it goes far enough, the Bad Guy will actually go out and try to destroy the things or people which are making them look stupid as stupid as they are. --Usually while crying, "Evil!" or some such clattering nonsense.
The fascinating thing about it is that the Bad Guy has practiced hard at pretending fake realities into view while deliberately not seeing what's right in front of them. They are adept ignorers, and thus have horribly atrophied senses of awareness. This is they miss the obvious, like embarrassing code in their own products while hypocritically crying foul. The more Bad a Bad Guy is, the more incredibly stupid and weak-minded they become.
But even more interesting is the fact that when faced with evidence of such blatant crimes, the Bad Guy is no more able now than before to fess up to the fact that they are Bad Guys. They'll try to rationalize, and indeed lie outright that they are the ones being maligned. Where it gets interesting is that a Good Guy, (or the general public), who would be horribly embarrassed at being shown such evidence of hypocritical behavior, would turn red and fess up immediately. --That's the behavior they understand and automatically expect to see in others. So when the Bad Guy is incapable of displaying that behavior, the Good Guy automatically thinks, "Well, shit, he's not embarrassed at all! So he MUST be telling the truth!"
Weird, eh?
For a broad-scale working example of the above, look at the current U.S. administration and it's supporters.
-FL
Seriously.
It strikes me as far more likely that there are other forces at work out there determining how our technological reality gets shaped. --And that the almighty demi-god of 'competition' is primarily an irrelevant game played out at the lowest level of the field, where managers and owners and investors stress themselves silly over battles in a war where the outcome was long ago determined in somebody else's board room.
The Medium is the Message! --The Medium is what defines the shape and behavior of our society. And the shape and behavior of our society are hotly contested flags on the battle ground.
Why WiFi?
-FL
Okay.
To be fair, the Netflix model sounds like a pretty good deal for people whose lives happen to circulate around watching lots and lots of movies. I've been there, and it can be a lot of fun when you're in that head-space.
But for me, it sounds like WAY too much trouble. --Like working for a company which gives you a pager and has you on-call 24/7. Knowing that I MUST watch 3 movies at some point during the month seems very stressful to me. I'd rather be able to get a movie when I feel like it and not feel that it is yet another item on my To Do list.
I can happily go for a couple of months without ever watching a DVD, and then I'll blow several nights in a row consuming something which catches my interest, (like the ill-fated Bruce Campbell TV Western series, "Brisco County Jr." --Which was unbelievably cool, but is only available from my friend who downloaded pirate copies from the web and burned them to disk for me because the series was never officially released.). --And then I'll happily watch nothing for another three months.
Perhaps Netflix could offer non-member limited rental packages with no deadlines on some of those funky single-use disks. --Subscriptions bother me. I don't like feeling 'obligated' to do anything, particularly with regard to my free time activities. Though, it seems to me that the rent-a-DVD-by-mail business model depends rather heavily on the various forms of psychological momentum subscriptions create, so I somehow doubt short term purchases will come about.
-FL
Justice? Holy smokes, dude! Philosophers have never agreed whether or not such a thing as Justice even exists.
And Co-Discovery?
I must have failed to mention that the water source in the analogy sprang from a magic conch shell kept locked inside the greedy man's kitchen cupboard.
Attempting to codify moral behavior is downright impossible because the variations of human behavior approach the infinite. (Thank goodness!) There is an appropriate time for EVERYTHING under the sun, theft included. The law is a general guide, and sometimes the law is corrupt and runs counter to rational thinking.
When Chaos threatens to overwhelm Life, the Hero is the Lawman.
When Order threatens to overwhelm Life, the Thief becomes the Hero.
--Except, of course, when it doesn't work that way.
Those who attempt to codify Life, will always end up losing their hair or living in ever expanding denial structures. (Except, of course, when it doesn't work that way either!)
-FL
What's not to buy? All I'm saying is that it's important to look at the intent of the participants when examining such issues. Every case is different and sometimes theft is not just warranted, but commendable.
-FL
Labels in lieu of thought.
-FL
The Village is dying of thirst. By pure chance, a limitless wellspring is discovered. The man who discovered the spring is calculating and without pity, and he refuses to tell the village where the water source is unless the people pay his outrageous fee. The community suffers deeply.
One night a clever Thief follows the man and discovers the location of the wellspring. The Thief hurries home and tells the community. Everybody proclaims him a Hero. The community is saved, and goes on to thrive and become happy and healthy.
Sometimes the Thief is also the Hero.
I would say that Ownership of information is far less important than the Intent of the owner.
-FL
Hypothetical Question. . .
The Village is dying of thirst. By pure chance, a limitless wellspring is discovered. The man who discovered the spring is calculating and without pity, and he refuses to tell the village where the water source is unless the people pay his outrageous fee. The community suffers deeply.
One night a clever Thief follows the man and discovers the location of the wellspring. The Thief hurries home and tells the community. Everybody proclaims him a Hero. The community is saved, and goes on to thrive and become happy and healthy.
Sometimes the Thief is also the Hero.
I would say that Ownership of information is far less important than the Intent of the owner.
-FL
The Light Side is about the free flow and expansion of energy. Giving and Other-serving.
The Dark Side wants to collect, limit and control energy. Taking and Self-serving.
All other analogies stem from this.
The Dark Side wants your information so as to control and limit you, and they will do so through any trick in the book, up to and including saying that to not give them your name and serial number is to be a Bad Person who is a hypocrite. This is classic (and effective) BullShit employed by every predator out there seeking to guilt their prey into willfully giving up their energy. The Predator has no intention of passing that energy on to the rest of the world for the benefit of anybody but themselves. It is not just okay to say "No" to this kind of demand, but essential in order to maintain integrity. To knowingly agree to feed the Dark Side is to align with the Dark Side.
How do you know how to tell the two sides apart? It all comes down to Intent; Is the force collecting information Self-Serving or Other-Serving? Is the Intent behind the request Light or Dark? This is easy to tell. Just ask your gut.
While Cliff's wording is clever and thought-provoking, it is also misleading.
-FL
Having had that experience burned into my memory, I can tell you honestly that unless somebody comes up with a way to make 3D films which don't involve glasses or lousy scripts, I will never go to another such production again.
Unless, that is, a girlfriend or child wants me to take them because they've never seen one before and are really excited about going. --If that's the case, then I'll happily pay for all the admission fees and probably even enjoy the head-ache afterwards.
Life is funny, ain't it?
-FL
1. People in power become aware of an unpleasant truth which, if everybody knew about it, would upset the balance of things, (i.e., the muggles will stop working and shopping.)
2. The people in power say, "We cannot keep this a secret. It's impossible to jam the lid down tightly enough on any secret. But we simply cannot afford to have the public become aware of this latest item."
3. A social scientist in the back row sticks his hand up and says, "No problem. It's true that you cannot keep a secret, but you CAN prevent the people from looking or believing in the facts when they leak out."
4. And so. . .
5. The counter intelligence powers flood the media with dozens of conflicting bits of semi-honest confabulations. The craziest examples of which, (Nibiru) are believe wholesale by the wild-eyed crazies that nobody is going to take seriously. The rest you distribute through other outlets, resulting in things like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone films, and items like the infamous, "NASA Moon Landing was Faked Documentary", all of which has the net result of making everybody so confused and fed up that nearly every misses the real story going down.
6. You associate 'conspiracy theory' with 'uncool', and make sure everybody has gone through an educational system which makes people so petrified of being 'uncool' that they would be happier going along with an obviously flawed official story rather than risk flexing any of their own brain muscles for fear of being laughed at.
7. Voila! People see nothing and do nothing.
Honestly. This Nibiru stuff is crap. --The last time I looked at that theory, the 12th planet was hollow and contained a master race which was going to attempt to invade Earth. This theory is incredibly simplistic and stupid, and with all the genuinely intriguing things going on out there, anybody who buys into this one is a serious chump.
This is not to say that something very big isn't going on; there is. But Nibiru isn't it.
It might have something more to do with this theory. But it may not. It might just be that a big rock was found out in space beyond Pluto.
It will be interesting to watch how this story develops.
-FL
The issue has many more sides than you allow for and your argument can only function when you blank out a large portion of reality.
There is no simple Yes/No answer to the union question. Or as Obi-Wan put it, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."
And BTW, "you're" and "your" are two different words. Why is it that people who can't spell tend to so often hold such silly world-views?
-FL
Treaty gives CIA powers over Irish citizens
Coming soon to your shores.
-FL
Still. .
It seems a little silly to be eating a known poison in the first place, and one produced by a corporation with such a shamefully long track record of deceit and foul play.
I tend to think that by eating Monsanto's product, is to accept Monsanto's low moral position in the world, and to welcome the villainy not just into the world, but into one's body. Like giving the nod and a wink to a serial rapist.
Accepting or rejecting such things acts in a powerful way to define who each of us is, and that it takes both curiosity and elegance to shape ourselves and the world differently through our choices and actions.
The perceived need for diet pop is produced artificially anyway. Why do people feel happy about letting large corporations dictate their behavior? Of course, I know the answer to that, since I used to be that way as well as I was a kid who had no shields up to protect my brain against advertising. I understand the trap, but as an adult I now recognize that it is possible to make new choices and take charge of who I am. There is power in not bending over for liars and killers.
Methanol metabolizes into formaldehyde, which attacks nerves throughout the brain, most notably those which connect the eye to the brain. This is why methanol can make you blind; it literally dissolves the nerve and disconnects the eye. I mean, sheesh! I'd rather just reject such stuff from my diet altogether than mess around with balancing fruits with my poisons, which is not something that most soda pop drinkers do.
But whatever. I guess is can be hard to let go of one's favorite treat. Life is short, so why not enjoy it with your favorite corporate beverage? But still. . . I may simply have different priorities than most, but I tend to think that once people know, they have new options to choose from. As they say; "Knowledge protects. Ignorance endangers."
Okay, man!
I've got to run. It's been very refreshing to post with you! You're one of the better Slashdotters. I've run into many whose egos do not allow their viewpoints to move in any direction. Cheers!
-FL