WOW! Cool sabers! (But you're still wrong.)
on
Seven League Boots
·
· Score: 1
That lightsaber MPG looked great! Man, I wish I could have made home movies like that when I was of Star-Wars age!
Kids today don't realize how good they have it.
But then, I tend to think stuff like that being impossible when I was young lent a significant ingredient in the magic of Star Wars. In a way, kids today are sort of deprived.
Anyway, I gotta disagree with you though about the spring books being fake. --Computer animating a light saber is easy to do for a low-rent April Fool's gag. But the kind of work needed to pull off just one or two of the JPEG's on the funky foot-wear page, however, would have required a far greater degree of expertise. --The kind you need a team of people and several weeks of labor to pull together. Just building the boots would be a mission in itself! That sort of effort doesn't come cheep.
In any case, the technology has been proven sound in the past, (a couple of times, it sounds like, by reading the posts here), so even if it is an elaborate joke, it wouldn't mean that somebody couldn't still make a pair of these things.
An interesting experiment, though, would be to watch the trend of belief or disbelief in this product. If we're lucky, the school of humans might all swim toward disbelief and we could observe another Cold Fusion in microcosm. That'd be too cool! I've never in the past gotten my thoughts ordered enough to be able to chart one of systems from the outset.
-Fantastic Lad
I might have said the same thing about skiing. . .
on
Seven League Boots
·
· Score: 1
I'd have been doubtful in the same way you are if somebody had first described the idea of people strapping slippery boards to their feet and hurling themselves down mountain sides. But look at how that queer-ass idea took off!
Come to think of it. . . What must people have thought of early bicycles? "What? Hurtling about on only two wheels? What a preposterous and disreputable notion! I'll have none of it! Bah!"
You can't tell me that with the proper protective gear, you wouldn't enjoy, just a little, playing real life 'power-mech' for an afternoon.
I wouldn't be surprised, though, to see municipalities slap some extensively prohibitive laws down lickety-split if these things ever become popular. You think bike couriors scare the shit out of people!
You, sir, are a moron. Today is April Fool's Day, and if you weren't such a flaming newbie, you would know that Slashdot posts dumb stuff like this every April Fool's Day.
Hmm. Am I feeling a sense of Deja Vu. . ? The smell of this Anonymous Coward is familiar somehow. . .
Being attacked by an A.C. is rather like being bitten by a duck.
Aw. Don't feel bad. I'm just April Foolin' with your silly little head. (Third World Country, indeed! Tsk, Tsk. You DO need to grow up, don't you? Give it time.)
Fantastic Lad --Right, True and Arrogant 85% of the time! When wrong, will crash and burn with Style! (Inquire for appointments.)
I saw an early prototype of these things. . .
on
Seven League Boots
·
· Score: 1
Back in the early 90's, some obscure news/science show on prosthetic limbs had a piece on this kooky old guy who had come up with a pair of ostrich-type legs he'd made from some garage door springs and parts from an old bed frame.
His set-up was much bigger than this current version and it squeeked like an old bed when he ran down his suburban street, but WOW, could he move! Back then, I was considering trying to get in touch with him, 'cuz I wanted to make a pair. What a great way to get to school! Springing over cars and stuff. --Especially if you're the first one to have even heard of them by a decade or so. (I like that.)
I hope this current version was made with a significant tip of the hat to that guy. Better yet, I'd like to see him still involved with the project.
Try using different word combos than the ones I just burned your sad ass with if you want to TRULY be an Anonymous Coward.
And yes, I am without question desperately unusual, but at least my world view didn't come in a box with a Nike swish on it. --Anyway, the weight of evidence tends to support what I'm saying, whereas you're just clinging to what the popular lemmings tell you to believe. In the words of Brad Pitt: "How's that working out for you?"
Gotta fly. Have a nice rest of your life!
-Fantastic Lad --He's just crazy, right guys. . ? Right?
Is this the result of Slashdot pulling a joke, or was it instead somebody asleep at the switch?
If I was a jokester and got my website reported on Slashdot as actual news, (not that the real 'news' is worth much), I'd probably feel pretty darn perky for about a half hour. --A half hour being the length of time it takes to descend back into the total boredom which makes pranks like this a requirement for those with a creative bent and nowhere to put it.
All in all, I guess this is more responsible than a DOD attack. I'd be more interested in something a little more sophisticated and convincing, though. Lossy storage and infinite size reduction are kind of Sit-com for my taste.
I give whoever is responsible a 4 out of 10. A percentage of Slashdotters would have to have been fooled to gain higher marks.
Okay you pathetic dorks, listen up for two seconds before descending back into your comfortable Playstation fuzz of stupid, happy, pre-programmed thoughts:
-They're already here and they have been for a long, long time.
-They control everything. They control your thoughts. They control your genetics. They control your environment. They control your past, present and future.
-We are food. While some mammal blood products can be consumed, primarily, it works like this: Fear, trauma and the extreme emotions created upon drawn-out painful death create surges of energy which are consumed. And the plate of the world is getting full and fat and ripe. (Look at the U.S. Filled with stupid Taco-Bell eating non-thinking lambs.)
-The world as you know it is already on borrowed time and is slated to change radically and/or end sometime in the next 11 years.
-The Wave is coming.
The signs are there for those who aren't too scared/stupid to ignore them: Crop Circle messages from concerned parties, Cattle Mutilations by both hungry aliens and military copy-cat actions performed to confuse the information, daily U.F.O. abductions world-wide, Thousands of temples destroyed and energy-aware practitioners slaughtered whole-sale throughout China, (didn't know about that one, did you?) Cell Phone and CRT radiation dulling your brains, (The body is 70% electrolyte. --Of course EMR is affecting you. There's tons of solid research supporting this.)
And on, and on.
You may now return to your calming collective delirium and the dream that all is well. After all, these sorts of things are just pranks and silly stories told by whackos.
Ahh. The ego-impaired poster who thinks using the word 'kid' will automatically promote him to a superior level of authority, or some shit.
If you're superior, then why the heck do you read and post here? Can't "Keep it Real" all by your self? --Newsflash, moron: If you feel the need tell everybody how superior you are, you're not.
-Fantastic Lad --Spending the weekend slumming around, bashing on the other low-brow morons; Kinda like a mosh-pit for assholes.
Sheesh. If people must march around with some meaningless & moronic banner slogan, I wish they'd pick one which hasn't already come out of Bart Simpson's mouth.
Please tell me you were joking.
"This is your brain on stupid, pre-fab ideas." Nice on toast with a touch of Dijon. Until you decide to think for yourself, you'll always be some rich fuck's low-cal lunch & handi-wipe combo.
I am not president; I am Chairman and Chief Software Architect. You Brits should try to keep up with modern trends... that's why you lost the War of 1812, you know! H4w h4w, the US 0wNz Eurotrash scum
Gee. Gates isn't President? What a shocker. Please see my comment one post down.
BTW, I'm Canadian. And if you're not careful, we'll come and burn down your Whitehouse.
Again.
(Look it up, dipshit.)
-Fantastic Lad! -The Most Irritating Lad of Them All!
But we can thank Mr. Anonymous Coward for volunteering to prove the point. He can still win in the bonus round if he can answer me this:
I stated things above which are far more open to question than which penis was where, but instead, he reacted only when the tabloid nonsense of his world didn't line up properly. Ask yourself why.
As long as we live in this world, we must kill living things to survive, (animal or vegetable, it's not really terribly different). As such we are selfish. That's the nature of this existence, and there's no way of getting around it. Even Gandhi had to conform.
But one's outlook in this regard is an elastic one. You can lean towards Service to Others, or Service to Self. (And despite your protesting, it sounds to me as though you have a leaning toward 'Service to Others' behavior. Sorry, but I think of that as a 'good guy' trait.)
In any case, if everybody did volunteer work, (as you have done), then communities would thrive and life would be made easier and more comfortable for everybody to pass through. If, however, everybody approached life from a, "All for me! Fuck sharing!" attitude. . , well, you end up with a much shittier, much more competitive world to live in. -A world, where most people are mostly miserable. A competitive society is like the lottery; while there are some who attain vast benefit, most don't.
As for government forcing you to give to the community?
Well, the government, (even in Canada) is deeply, deeply flawed, but I don't see how regulating gas prices so that society experiences a uniform level of fairness and comfort forces you into a negative situation. All it does is hinder the leeches from diverting wealth and accumulating power. It's too bad that this system of regulation is on its way out up here. Canada is going to die an ugly death fairly soon as well. We'll just be a decade or so behind the U.S.
I think that the balancing powers of economics are quite sensible. But the key word is 'Balance'.
That kid I blasted one post up was just annoying me because he typified all those who, just because they can understand the logic on one side of an equation, seem to think said logic can and should work all on its own.
Liberalism when taken too far can cause just as much damage as any conservative platform.
It seems strange to me that people don't automatically understand this. --That there's nothing wrong with guiding a naturally competitive system with a liberal hand. Balance healthy, and imbalance always leads to sickness and eventually, death.
News Flash: Nobody outside your theme-park country gives a hoot.
Yet, the fact that so many 'mericans can be distracted by that sort of nonsense (and write stupid songs about it), is to a large degree why your country is so intensely messed up.
Happy trails, moron, and try cutting your LSD with some pot next time.
--And hats off to those who 'Get it.' The fight may be a losing one, but its not the winning that counts; it's the breaking out of the coma.
Non-Renewable? This is the first I've heard of it!
So yes! We must install a system at once which uses the excuse of 'scarce' resources, (there's shit loads of natural gas, fool.), to generate an atmosphere where gas companies can make a killing selling only to the wealthy. And you're right! Fuck the old people! Heck, why delay the inevitable? Let's force Social Darwinism down the throats of those who were not smart enough to take business degrees but instead decided to occupy themselves in the 'lesser' occupations which still need doing in our society but which are not geared toward total greed! Let's ship them off to concentration camps at once! (Because you know, I've heard that they're dirty and don't even bath. They are certainly less worthy of life than you!)
But seriously. . .
While the government up here does, (or rather, did until recently), regulate prices, nobody was out of pocket. No borrowing was needed. Gas was mined, sold at a modest profit, and the city had heat at a reasonable price. Gee. That evil liberal thinking will be our undoing!
And I don't know what morally deficient headspace you think I'm from, but I certainly don't need to have punishment hanging over me in order to use fuel sensibly. I turn the heat down when I leave the house like everybody else. Fifty bucks off my gas bill is fifty bucks off my gas bill.
And yes, natural gas is nonrenewable, but it is the cleanest alternative at the moment. And yes, I'd love to run a Cold Fusion cell in my basement, or a ZPE amplifier, or a Tesla generator, but so far the plans for such are not forthcoming. And pardon me for being 'hypocritical' but what form of political thinking do you believe is primarily responsible for this? Here's a hint: it's certainly not the people you voted for. (You'd actually derive self satisfaction from old people dying of frostbite? You're calling me selfish?)
-Oh, I'm sorry. Have you been programmed so well that you didn't even bother to do your own research into how free energy technologies have been suppressed, believing the crap that CNN feeds you? If you'd bothered to do your homework, (And yes, it takes work to acquire knowledge), you would certainly have a different opinion of things. (And I'm not talking about X-files conspiracy nonesense. The story behind Cold Fusion in particular was fascinating to follow. There was a mountain of info regarding how it was covered up and who did the covering. Granted, there's a lot less info now, but the scramble at the time to kill it was unbelievably messy. Everything from doctored results at M.I.T. to covered up deaths from exploding cells. It all seemed to work, though. The sleepers certainly bought it!)
As it stands, though, smarmy twerp like you might just as well take your gullible ass and pull on a clean Gap T-shirt, drink another Coke, and go back to your Playstation with the warm & fuzzy belief that, Yes you are better and smarter than old people and hypocrites like me.
Depleted Uranium is still 60% active, and highly toxic. --Effective as a weapons system, certainly, but isn't it interesting just how conveniently so much of the U.S. supply of this waste material gets dumped in the form of spent ammo during wars generated by the U.S.?
Sorry, but I can't condemn environmentalists for caring about this sort of thing. And those who do are ignorant, programmed, and/or just plain evil.
In any case, anybody who thinks that alternative energy methods were really given a fair shake, and were not tampered with by oil interests. . . It's called P.R., folks. --aka, Propaganda. Try not to fall for it so easily. It's embarrassing to watch supposedly smart people suck it up so easily.
Go watch "Tucker" if you want a clue on how these things work. Lucas back then was more or less uninfected by Hollywood B.S., so the film is a pretty reliable picture of just how vicious big money interests will get.
Yeah, Rah Rah for the Capitalist system which sends you $400 bills on your 'reliable' natural gas source. You stupid, stupid loser. In Canada I pay $95 for gas. In the dead of winter. And those are Canadian dollars.
Of course, the F--ing conservatives have also hoodwinked the public up here over the last ten years and massive deregulation is on the way.
I expect brownouts, $600 gas bills, and plenty of old folks frozen to death in this berg over the next few years thanks to bone heads like you who can't find the pencil, and so vote with their greedy little penises.
Oh, that's right. Votes don't count down there in the World's Flagship of Democracy, do they? My apologies. I forgot about that.
Wow. The good guys won one. Congratulations. This kind of fight is worth the trouble, even if it is only a shade more real than being entirely symbolic.
Winning in the private sector is kind of like winning a video game. While it might help to slow the geometric growth of junk mail arriving at you from all quarters, it won't stop you from getting your ass hauled off to a concentration camp.
Some would suggest that there are bigger fish to fry. (True, some would also be called crazy, but there's some interesting food for thought out there nonetheless.)
To those interested in looking at what some of those bigger fish might be, check out this amazing site I just found: (Real or not, who cares? Clean and intelligent writing, it makes for the BEST sci-fi I've read in years! The Swiss watch of conspiracy theories. And frankly, any geek who isn't familiar with this cutting edge, web-based story telling technique can just turn in his membership card and kick his lame ass out the door. This is actually something new.) (Once you get past the cheesy opening page, it gets good fast.)
-Fantastic Lad. -Ten Steps Ahead and Lost With Confidence!
Develop strips as banner ads; that is, a blank bit of code that people are invited to put on their pages as a constantly updating strip which will make people want to visit their site.
This has been done before, and the result is that hundreds of thousands of people read the strips on-line each day.
Next step; take these stats to a large company which is looking to advertise, and incorporate their ads with your cartoon banner.
It's very simple, and it fits with the kind of remuneration system I was talking about a couple of posts above.
Is anybody listening to me? These ideas are a LOT more simple than micropayment nonesense, and they have the ability to reshape the web in a non-evil way. For crying out loud, people! Take note!
Publishing content on the internet takes a lot more time and energy than "telling a story" at a party. Actually creating something interesting and original is hard work.
Actually creating something interesting and original is hard work.
Yes, creating something interesting and original is hard work. I create content myself, so I know.
But where did people get the notion that just because something takes 'hard work' one should automatically be compensated for it? That's nonesense. Nobody deserves anything. If you want compensation, you have to do more than just get pouty. To make money from your creations, you have to go where the market rewards work. On line can be a place for that, but not through Mircopayments, as McCloud suggests. To do so would undermine the essential value of the web; changing it into something ugly(er).
--Keep in mind, I'm not saying that artists shouldn't be paid, but that the payment structure should revolve around the understanding that content is not the sale item. The physical medium is.
To this you say:
No one would buy a blank book (or a blank CD). The content gives the book value.
I agree. Indeed, that's essentially what I said!
Think of it this way: When you lay down money for a book, you're physically walking home with paper and dried ink layed out in patterns. That's ALL you have. The meaning of those ink patterns is interpretive and ephemeral. They're ideas. And, yes, that's what people want to see when they buy the medium, but the ideas want to be free; that's the nature of communication. Artists should be paid a percentage of the physical product sold for having provided the draw for people to buy the product. That's how the thinking should work.
There ARE ways to make this work on line. Ask yourself what the physical product is that people are really paying for when they surf. (There are many more than one.) Review the obvious. Review what you know.
The problem is that people have been led to believe that ideas should be bought and sold. But if people freely shared ideas, the world would be a MUCH better place to live in. I'd just as soon see the net remain a positive, selfless thing than have it turn into something where thoughts are price-tagged, (even ones that require 'hard work')
The internet is like a big party in a convention center, filled with lots of people talking and sharing ideas.
If one guy tells a story at one end of the building, and it's good, it's going to spread. It's SUPPOSED to spread. That's the nature of the human drive to communicate. It's INSANE to try to limit this to those with credit cards. It leads to elitism and cultural brain damage.
I've read Scott's stuff many times in many places before, and I think the man has a heart of gold, but I also think he's dead wrong about micropayments.
Here's the key: Comic book publishers sell COMIC BOOKS. Content is simply the draw to buy the book. The ideas themselves are, and should be free.
If anything, Scott should be trying to get cash off the ISP's.
10 to 1, this is what the resulting playing field will look like in a couple of years. . .
1) Regular people won't have a clue, and won't care, and whatever happens, they'll end up with their asses planted in front of funky flatscreens and cruddy CRTs for even more hours a day sucking up mind-cum with their pudgy brains and bleeding their free will down a highspeed access wire. And they will be happy and content because that's what they will be told.
2) Hackers and Subversives will find a clever back-door, probably involving a soldering iron or something. They'll save a few nickels from online subscription services, and they'll be content because they'll think they've 'won' through cleverness and guile, when really they'll just end up listening to and watching the same old mass-market, pre-programmed crap as always,
In the end, NOBODY IS GOING TO BE SPENDING LESS TIME IN FRONT OF THEIR MONITERS. The ensuing hard drive drama will keep all the minds that matter tied up, distracted from the real show.
To those who might like a possible view on what the real show is, check out this amazing site I just found: (Real or not, who cares? Clean and intelligent writing, it makes for the BEST sci-fi I've read in years! The Swiss watch of conspiracy theories. And frankly, any geek who isn't familiar with this cutting edge, web-based story telling technique can just turn in his membership card and kick his lame ass out the door. This is actually something new.) (Once you get past the cheesy opening page, it gets good fast.)
-Fantastic Lad. -Ten Steps Ahead and Lost With Confidence!
Umm... you read that in "Contact" by Carl Sagan. Its a fictional book.
"Umm..."??
What do you mean, "Umm..."?
Do you know not know your fact with confidence or are you just trying to put that little twist of innocent-nastiness in your message to make the poster feel bad?
I was beginning to hope that this mean spirited posting trend was dead. Go back to Jr. High, you jerk.
But none that I can turn into a weekend hobby project.
Anybody want to build a backyard Tesla Coil with me? Or a garden shed ZPE amplifier? -You know. To run the coffee machine after the fall of civilization?
Shit. I sure do!
So anybody with plans and schematics, please post them here, or meet me out behind the Slashdot cafeteria dumpster. I'll trade you a chocolate pudding, a Jamaican Elbow and a stack of CCR 8-tracks I got from some Dude's car I jacked. And don't worry about the NSA. Nobody believes in ZPE and most people think Tesla Coils walk downstairs and make a slinkety sound, (or appear solely in dumb-ass Westwood video crack), so we can deal with some vague certainty that you will go unnoticed by the evil powers that be. -That is, before you get, 'disappeared' by the magic Echelon Web Watchers Consortium for buying dope. Jamaican Elbows, indeed. . !
Slashdot Mirror
Kids today don't realize how good they have it.
But then, I tend to think stuff like that being impossible when I was young lent a significant ingredient in the magic of Star Wars. In a way, kids today are sort of deprived.
Anyway, I gotta disagree with you though about the spring books being fake. --Computer animating a light saber is easy to do for a low-rent April Fool's gag. But the kind of work needed to pull off just one or two of the JPEG's on the funky foot-wear page, however, would have required a far greater degree of expertise. --The kind you need a team of people and several weeks of labor to pull together. Just building the boots would be a mission in itself! That sort of effort doesn't come cheep.
In any case, the technology has been proven sound in the past, (a couple of times, it sounds like, by reading the posts here), so even if it is an elaborate joke, it wouldn't mean that somebody couldn't still make a pair of these things.
An interesting experiment, though, would be to watch the trend of belief or disbelief in this product. If we're lucky, the school of humans might all swim toward disbelief and we could observe another Cold Fusion in microcosm. That'd be too cool! I've never in the past gotten my thoughts ordered enough to be able to chart one of systems from the outset.
-Fantastic Lad
Come to think of it. . . What must people have thought of early bicycles? "What? Hurtling about on only two wheels? What a preposterous and disreputable notion! I'll have none of it! Bah!"
You can't tell me that with the proper protective gear, you wouldn't enjoy, just a little, playing real life 'power-mech' for an afternoon.
I wouldn't be surprised, though, to see municipalities slap some extensively prohibitive laws down lickety-split if these things ever become popular. You think bike couriors scare the shit out of people!
-Fantastic Lad
Hmm. Am I feeling a sense of Deja Vu. . ? The smell of this Anonymous Coward is familiar somehow. . .
Being attacked by an A.C. is rather like being bitten by a duck.
Aw. Don't feel bad. I'm just April Foolin' with your silly little head. (Third World Country, indeed! Tsk, Tsk. You DO need to grow up, don't you? Give it time.)
Fantastic Lad --Right, True and Arrogant 85% of the time! When wrong, will crash and burn with Style! (Inquire for appointments.)
His set-up was much bigger than this current version and it squeeked like an old bed when he ran down his suburban street, but WOW, could he move! Back then, I was considering trying to get in touch with him, 'cuz I wanted to make a pair. What a great way to get to school! Springing over cars and stuff. --Especially if you're the first one to have even heard of them by a decade or so. (I like that.)
I hope this current version was made with a significant tip of the hat to that guy. Better yet, I'd like to see him still involved with the project.
-Fantastic Lad
Try using different word combos than the ones I just burned your sad ass with if you want to TRULY be an Anonymous Coward.
And yes, I am without question desperately unusual, but at least my world view didn't come in a box with a Nike swish on it. --Anyway, the weight of evidence tends to support what I'm saying, whereas you're just clinging to what the popular lemmings tell you to believe. In the words of Brad Pitt: "How's that working out for you?"
Gotta fly. Have a nice rest of your life!
-Fantastic Lad --He's just crazy, right guys. . ? Right?
If I was a jokester and got my website reported on Slashdot as actual news, (not that the real 'news' is worth much), I'd probably feel pretty darn perky for about a half hour. --A half hour being the length of time it takes to descend back into the total boredom which makes pranks like this a requirement for those with a creative bent and nowhere to put it.
All in all, I guess this is more responsible than a DOD attack. I'd be more interested in something a little more sophisticated and convincing, though. Lossy storage and infinite size reduction are kind of Sit-com for my taste.
I give whoever is responsible a 4 out of 10. A percentage of Slashdotters would have to have been fooled to gain higher marks.
-Fantastic Lad
-They're already here and they have been for a long, long time.
-They control everything. They control your thoughts. They control your genetics. They control your environment. They control your past, present and future.
-We are food. While some mammal blood products can be consumed, primarily, it works like this: Fear, trauma and the extreme emotions created upon drawn-out painful death create surges of energy which are consumed. And the plate of the world is getting full and fat and ripe. (Look at the U.S. Filled with stupid Taco-Bell eating non-thinking lambs.)
-The world as you know it is already on borrowed time and is slated to change radically and/or end sometime in the next 11 years.
-The Wave is coming.
The signs are there for those who aren't too scared/stupid to ignore them: Crop Circle messages from concerned parties, Cattle Mutilations by both hungry aliens and military copy-cat actions performed to confuse the information, daily U.F.O. abductions world-wide, Thousands of temples destroyed and energy-aware practitioners slaughtered whole-sale throughout China, (didn't know about that one, did you?) Cell Phone and CRT radiation dulling your brains, (The body is 70% electrolyte. --Of course EMR is affecting you. There's tons of solid research supporting this.)
And on, and on.
You may now return to your calming collective delirium and the dream that all is well. After all, these sorts of things are just pranks and silly stories told by whackos.
Thank you for your time.
If you're superior, then why the heck do you read and post here? Can't "Keep it Real" all by your self? --Newsflash, moron: If you feel the need tell everybody how superior you are, you're not.
-Fantastic Lad --Spending the weekend slumming around, bashing on the other low-brow morons; Kinda like a mosh-pit for assholes.
Sheesh. If people must march around with some meaningless & moronic banner slogan, I wish they'd pick one which hasn't already come out of Bart Simpson's mouth.
Please tell me you were joking.
"This is your brain on stupid, pre-fab ideas." Nice on toast with a touch of Dijon. Until you decide to think for yourself, you'll always be some rich fuck's low-cal lunch & handi-wipe combo.
-Fantastic Lad
(If bored /.ers have nothing to say, why must they always speak with such proliferation?)
You're welcome.
Gee. Gates isn't President? What a shocker. Please see my comment one post down.
BTW, I'm Canadian. And if you're not careful, we'll come and burn down your Whitehouse.
Again.
(Look it up, dipshit.)
-Fantastic Lad! -The Most Irritating Lad of Them All!
But we can thank Mr. Anonymous Coward for volunteering to prove the point. He can still win in the bonus round if he can answer me this:
I stated things above which are far more open to question than which penis was where, but instead, he reacted only when the tabloid nonsense of his world didn't line up properly. Ask yourself why.
Thank you. You may now go back to your seat.
-Fantastic Lad.
But one's outlook in this regard is an elastic one. You can lean towards Service to Others, or Service to Self. (And despite your protesting, it sounds to me as though you have a leaning toward 'Service to Others' behavior. Sorry, but I think of that as a 'good guy' trait.)
In any case, if everybody did volunteer work, (as you have done), then communities would thrive and life would be made easier and more comfortable for everybody to pass through. If, however, everybody approached life from a, "All for me! Fuck sharing!" attitude. . , well, you end up with a much shittier, much more competitive world to live in. -A world, where most people are mostly miserable. A competitive society is like the lottery; while there are some who attain vast benefit, most don't.
As for government forcing you to give to the community?
Well, the government, (even in Canada) is deeply, deeply flawed, but I don't see how regulating gas prices so that society experiences a uniform level of fairness and comfort forces you into a negative situation. All it does is hinder the leeches from diverting wealth and accumulating power. It's too bad that this system of regulation is on its way out up here. Canada is going to die an ugly death fairly soon as well. We'll just be a decade or so behind the U.S.
-Fantastic Lad
That kid I blasted one post up was just annoying me because he typified all those who, just because they can understand the logic on one side of an equation, seem to think said logic can and should work all on its own.
Liberalism when taken too far can cause just as much damage as any conservative platform.
It seems strange to me that people don't automatically understand this. --That there's nothing wrong with guiding a naturally competitive system with a liberal hand. Balance healthy, and imbalance always leads to sickness and eventually, death.
-Fantastic Lad
News Flash: Nobody outside your theme-park country gives a hoot.
Yet, the fact that so many 'mericans can be distracted by that sort of nonsense (and write stupid songs about it), is to a large degree why your country is so intensely messed up.
Happy trails, moron, and try cutting your LSD with some pot next time.
--And hats off to those who 'Get it.' The fight may be a losing one, but its not the winning that counts; it's the breaking out of the coma.
Awareness is everything.
-Fantastic Lad
So yes! We must install a system at once which uses the excuse of 'scarce' resources, (there's shit loads of natural gas, fool.), to generate an atmosphere where gas companies can make a killing selling only to the wealthy. And you're right! Fuck the old people! Heck, why delay the inevitable? Let's force Social Darwinism down the throats of those who were not smart enough to take business degrees but instead decided to occupy themselves in the 'lesser' occupations which still need doing in our society but which are not geared toward total greed! Let's ship them off to concentration camps at once! (Because you know, I've heard that they're dirty and don't even bath. They are certainly less worthy of life than you!)
But seriously. . .
While the government up here does, (or rather, did until recently), regulate prices, nobody was out of pocket. No borrowing was needed. Gas was mined, sold at a modest profit, and the city had heat at a reasonable price. Gee. That evil liberal thinking will be our undoing!
And I don't know what morally deficient headspace you think I'm from, but I certainly don't need to have punishment hanging over me in order to use fuel sensibly. I turn the heat down when I leave the house like everybody else. Fifty bucks off my gas bill is fifty bucks off my gas bill.
And yes, natural gas is nonrenewable, but it is the cleanest alternative at the moment. And yes, I'd love to run a Cold Fusion cell in my basement, or a ZPE amplifier, or a Tesla generator, but so far the plans for such are not forthcoming. And pardon me for being 'hypocritical' but what form of political thinking do you believe is primarily responsible for this? Here's a hint: it's certainly not the people you voted for. (You'd actually derive self satisfaction from old people dying of frostbite? You're calling me selfish?)
-Oh, I'm sorry. Have you been programmed so well that you didn't even bother to do your own research into how free energy technologies have been suppressed, believing the crap that CNN feeds you? If you'd bothered to do your homework, (And yes, it takes work to acquire knowledge), you would certainly have a different opinion of things. (And I'm not talking about X-files conspiracy nonesense. The story behind Cold Fusion in particular was fascinating to follow. There was a mountain of info regarding how it was covered up and who did the covering. Granted, there's a lot less info now, but the scramble at the time to kill it was unbelievably messy. Everything from doctored results at M.I.T. to covered up deaths from exploding cells. It all seemed to work, though. The sleepers certainly bought it!)
As it stands, though, smarmy twerp like you might just as well take your gullible ass and pull on a clean Gap T-shirt, drink another Coke, and go back to your Playstation with the warm & fuzzy belief that, Yes you are better and smarter than old people and hypocrites like me.
-Fantastic Lad
Sorry, but I can't condemn environmentalists for caring about this sort of thing. And those who do are ignorant, programmed, and/or just plain evil.
In any case, anybody who thinks that alternative energy methods were really given a fair shake, and were not tampered with by oil interests. . . It's called P.R., folks. --aka, Propaganda. Try not to fall for it so easily. It's embarrassing to watch supposedly smart people suck it up so easily.
Go watch "Tucker" if you want a clue on how these things work. Lucas back then was more or less uninfected by Hollywood B.S., so the film is a pretty reliable picture of just how vicious big money interests will get.
-Fantastic Lad.
Yeah, Rah Rah for the Capitalist system which sends you $400 bills on your 'reliable' natural gas source. You stupid, stupid loser. In Canada I pay $95 for gas. In the dead of winter. And those are Canadian dollars.
Of course, the F--ing conservatives have also hoodwinked the public up here over the last ten years and massive deregulation is on the way.
I expect brownouts, $600 gas bills, and plenty of old folks frozen to death in this berg over the next few years thanks to bone heads like you who can't find the pencil, and so vote with their greedy little penises.
Oh, that's right. Votes don't count down there in the World's Flagship of Democracy, do they? My apologies. I forgot about that.
Get your head out of the sand.
-Fantastic Lad. --Politically Disabled!
Winning in the private sector is kind of like winning a video game. While it might help to slow the geometric growth of junk mail arriving at you from all quarters, it won't stop you from getting your ass hauled off to a concentration camp.
Some would suggest that there are bigger fish to fry. (True, some would also be called crazy, but there's some interesting food for thought out there nonetheless.)
To those interested in looking at what some of those bigger fish might be, check out this amazing site I just found: (Real or not, who cares? Clean and intelligent writing, it makes for the BEST sci-fi I've read in years! The Swiss watch of conspiracy theories. And frankly, any geek who isn't familiar with this cutting edge, web-based story telling technique can just turn in his membership card and kick his lame ass out the door. This is actually something new.) (Once you get past the cheesy opening page, it gets good fast.)
-Fantastic Lad. -Ten Steps Ahead and Lost With Confidence!
This has been done before, and the result is that hundreds of thousands of people read the strips on-line each day.
Next step; take these stats to a large company which is looking to advertise, and incorporate their ads with your cartoon banner.
It's very simple, and it fits with the kind of remuneration system I was talking about a couple of posts above.
Is anybody listening to me? These ideas are a LOT more simple than micropayment nonesense, and they have the ability to reshape the web in a non-evil way. For crying out loud, people! Take note!
-Fantastic Lad
Actually creating something interesting and original is hard work.
Yes, creating something interesting and original is hard work. I create content myself, so I know.
But where did people get the notion that just because something takes 'hard work' one should automatically be compensated for it? That's nonesense. Nobody deserves anything. If you want compensation, you have to do more than just get pouty. To make money from your creations, you have to go where the market rewards work. On line can be a place for that, but not through Mircopayments, as McCloud suggests. To do so would undermine the essential value of the web; changing it into something ugly(er).
--Keep in mind, I'm not saying that artists shouldn't be paid, but that the payment structure should revolve around the understanding that content is not the sale item. The physical medium is.
To this you say:
No one would buy a blank book (or a blank CD). The content gives the book value.
I agree. Indeed, that's essentially what I said!
Think of it this way: When you lay down money for a book, you're physically walking home with paper and dried ink layed out in patterns. That's ALL you have. The meaning of those ink patterns is interpretive and ephemeral. They're ideas. And, yes, that's what people want to see when they buy the medium, but the ideas want to be free; that's the nature of communication. Artists should be paid a percentage of the physical product sold for having provided the draw for people to buy the product. That's how the thinking should work.
There ARE ways to make this work on line. Ask yourself what the physical product is that people are really paying for when they surf. (There are many more than one.) Review the obvious. Review what you know.
The problem is that people have been led to believe that ideas should be bought and sold. But if people freely shared ideas, the world would be a MUCH better place to live in. I'd just as soon see the net remain a positive, selfless thing than have it turn into something where thoughts are price-tagged, (even ones that require 'hard work')
Do you understand?
-Fantastic Lad
Okay. The basics:
The internet is like a big party in a convention center, filled with lots of people talking and sharing ideas.
If one guy tells a story at one end of the building, and it's good, it's going to spread. It's SUPPOSED to spread. That's the nature of the human drive to communicate. It's INSANE to try to limit this to those with credit cards. It leads to elitism and cultural brain damage.
I've read Scott's stuff many times in many places before, and I think the man has a heart of gold, but I also think he's dead wrong about micropayments.
Here's the key: Comic book publishers sell COMIC BOOKS. Content is simply the draw to buy the book. The ideas themselves are, and should be free.
If anything, Scott should be trying to get cash off the ISP's.
I can't believe I have to point this stuff out.
-Fantastic Lad.
10 to 1, this is what the resulting playing field will look like in a couple of years. . .
1) Regular people won't have a clue, and won't care, and whatever happens, they'll end up with their asses planted in front of funky flatscreens and cruddy CRTs for even more hours a day sucking up mind-cum with their pudgy brains and bleeding their free will down a highspeed access wire. And they will be happy and content because that's what they will be told.
2) Hackers and Subversives will find a clever back-door, probably involving a soldering iron or something. They'll save a few nickels from online subscription services, and they'll be content because they'll think they've 'won' through cleverness and guile, when really they'll just end up listening to and watching the same old mass-market, pre-programmed crap as always,
In the end, NOBODY IS GOING TO BE SPENDING LESS TIME IN FRONT OF THEIR MONITERS. The ensuing hard drive drama will keep all the minds that matter tied up, distracted from the real show.
To those who might like a possible view on what the real show is, check out this amazing site I just found: (Real or not, who cares? Clean and intelligent writing, it makes for the BEST sci-fi I've read in years! The Swiss watch of conspiracy theories. And frankly, any geek who isn't familiar with this cutting edge, web-based story telling technique can just turn in his membership card and kick his lame ass out the door. This is actually something new.) (Once you get past the cheesy opening page, it gets good fast.)
-Fantastic Lad. -Ten Steps Ahead and Lost With Confidence!
"Umm..."??
What do you mean, "Umm..."?
Do you know not know your fact with confidence or are you just trying to put that little twist of innocent-nastiness in your message to make the poster feel bad?
I was beginning to hope that this mean spirited posting trend was dead. Go back to Jr. High, you jerk.
-Fantastic Lad. --The Pouty and Grumpy Today Lad.
But none that I can turn into a weekend hobby project.
Anybody want to build a backyard Tesla Coil with me? Or a garden shed ZPE amplifier? -You know. To run the coffee machine after the fall of civilization?
Shit. I sure do!
So anybody with plans and schematics, please post them here, or meet me out behind the Slashdot cafeteria dumpster. I'll trade you a chocolate pudding, a Jamaican Elbow and a stack of CCR 8-tracks I got from some Dude's car I jacked. And don't worry about the NSA. Nobody believes in ZPE and most people think Tesla Coils walk downstairs and make a slinkety sound, (or appear solely in dumb-ass Westwood video crack), so we can deal with some vague certainty that you will go unnoticed by the evil powers that be. -That is, before you get, 'disappeared' by the magic Echelon Web Watchers Consortium for buying dope. Jamaican Elbows, indeed. . !
-Fantastic Lad -Fast & Confused Culture Jamming Deluxe!