Amazon is a piece of shit company, yet another example of the corporate mandate to make money at all cost without regard to honor or moral obligation. Honestly, I'd ship pipe bombs to those jerks if I didn't think it might hurt an innocent order processing drone or warehouse worker.
Case in point:
My company sells a series of books. One day, by accident, a mislabeled box was sent to Amazon. The box contained fifty copies of the first volume in the series. (Amazon never orders fifty copies at a time. They order only 5 copies of one book at a time despite a three year solid sales record which would indicate that holding fifty copies each title wouldn't be a risk. --It would certainly help me out by dramatically cutting back on the endless shipping charges of small packages.).
Anyway, those fifty rogue copies were not reported by their inventory system. This did not stop them, however, from selling those copies to customers.
Over the next few months, Amazon stopped ordering copies of the first volume, (presumably since they had 50 unreported copies to dip into). Orders for volumes 2 and 3, however, continued to come in as usual every other week, and after about 50 copies of each of those had moved through Amazon, orders for the first volume started up once again. (Do can see the pattern? A customer can't read volumes 2, or 3 until they read volume 1.)
My interpretation, (despite endless stone-walling whenever Amazon was contacted about the rogue 50 copies, which according to them they never received, despite UPS's insistence to the contrary.). . .
Amazon a secondary, off the books system, which somebody had to actually code and implement for the express purpose of capitalizing on mistakes made by publishers. Charming.
Caveat Emptor, and similar attitudes are fine and dandy, but I don't always think they are appropriate. My company doesn't play vulture waiting for my customers to screw up so that I might profit by their errors. I ALWAYS make an effort to solve problems in a fair and decent manner. But Amazon is apparently run by a bunch of capitalist Daleks.
Here's the other thing which cheeses me off. --Amazon's business model is sneaky as hell: They have a significantly reduced warehousing to inventory ratio cost, (as compared to other distributors, since they order only what they absolutely need to cover a half month period), and they have absolutely none of the actual distribution costs other companies must deal with, since their customers pay for ALL shipping. (A MASSIVE savings, and a fact which begs the question, "Is Amazon really a distributor?" They certainly don't run a fleet of trucks. They sit on their asses and let FedEx and UPS do all their distribution for them at the customer's expense. Compared to other distributors, Amazon has virtually no overhead.
And yet, Amazon STILL takes the same cut from a book's cover price as any normal distributor does when by any moral standard, they should bloody well pass at least a portion of those savings to the consumer.
Amazon is run by a bunch of greasy, greedy opportunists. Fuck 'em. The day they fully automate is the day I start shipping pipe bombs.
You do realize that the guy who played Darth Maul is a martial artist?
And a good one at that. Unfortunately, he didn't write or direct the entire film.
You think the movie would have been better if he'd written and directed? Nah. I'm sure you don't really mean that. --In any case, that guy was an egotistical moron, not to mention a total babe in the woods compared the real thing; guys like Jet Lee.
Anyway, that's not what I'm talking about.
Alec Guiness didn't know any kung fu, and he was a more convincing Jedi than any of the lame characters in Menace. He could move your heart with his eyes and words alone. That's a Jedi.
But you're right. You can chalk the problems in Menace up to direction and writing.
I walked out of the theater feeling as though I was underwater. I was taken in very deep while watching. But I'm afraid I won't be ranking it up with the greatest movies of all time.
A truly GREAT movie, I think, should be able to touch nerves in every age group and demographic. Crouching Tiger, however, is one of those films which would leave most kids squirming in their seats before the first ten minutes had passed. (Granted, this is my definition.)
Plus, (and this is rather personal), I seem to prefer to be able to be the characters, rather than just watch them from an emotional distance, so to speak, like chess pieces. Crouching Tiger didn't clearly point out one character as the primary focus.
Essentially, without a main character, (a Luke, or a Jackie Chan, or an Indiana Jones), around whom the bulk of the story and emotional charges rotate, the viewer is forced to take a god's eye approach to watching the movie rather than an ego-centric human's eye perspective. 'Me in the middle.'
Good, or bad? Hmm.
Watching this film, and others like it, is like being forced to be a very old and responsible grown up. I feel a loss of personal cohesion and intensity whenever that happens, and it isn't comfortable.
But maybe that's not such a bad thing. Security blankets have a time and place, and I suspect these are lessons we all must learn.
I know people who can do most of what that bone head who played the red and black stripy faced guy was doing without digital effects.
Imagine how good Phantom Menace could have been if Lucas had taken the time to study the martial arts and perhaps even consult with a chi master. -Not so that he could duplicate Chinese kung fu styles in his films, (That would feel wrong for Star Wars, which seemed to be more a mix of Japanese feudal Samarai lore combined with Chinese chi/energy practice.), but rather, so that he would know where ground was. That way he might have written something which wouldn't have felt so confused and shallow. To be honest, I thought after the first three films that he already understood this stuff! That's why Menace was such a shocker to me.
--Granted, Lucas did well by studying Kurosawa way back in the beginning, but that's inbreeding. You don't study film to make film, or science fiction to write science fiction. Not exclusively, anyway. You need to study real life, otherwise you just won't have the insight.
I love Lucas, but when he was young, he knew his limits, and let real writers who knew their craft do the key script work. He should have done that again.
For straight wordprocessing where no layouts are required, it's great. It's ascii with the expressive power of italics and extended symbol recognition. For straight word smithing, that's all anybody needs.
Here's what I do:
1. Do all wordprocessing using a very basic text editor which saves very basic RTFs.
2. Import those files to whatever layout program is needed. (Quark, Pagemaker, whatever.)
The stability of RTFs lies in two areas; Firstly, there will ALWAYS be a selection of homemade editors available upon which to do your writing, and second, there is no financial incentive for big software manufacturers to make RTFs un-importable to their suites and layout packages.
This means that doing all your basic work in RTF will make files readable for a long time to come.
In any case, particularly in the print publishing field, today's software is finally about as good as it needs to get. There's no real reason to switch tools. Unlike with graphics technology, Times Roman simply doesn't need to motion blur and bump map for a writer to work his or her craft. As long as we all keep our old copies of Wordperfect and Pagemaker, everything is fine.
On the one side, we have the mind controled human slave and on the other, we have the wild & free individual.
If, for instance, bovines can be transformed from the proud and wild plains roaming beasts they once were, into the domesticated meat & milk factories they have become, then I don't think we can be at all confident that the human species might not similarly be transformed by such an endlessly striving and massively powerful force as corporate destiny. It's so clearly happening already. This whole hard drive thing is simply further evidence that we're deep into the later stages of the disease.
Perhaps corporate interests WILL eventually succeed in reducing our powers to nothing, so that all we are able to do is suck on the information they want to feed us, (while we pay them for the privilage.). But perhaps there is a chance that the vigilant hacker and the instinctive human societal drive to freely dispense and share in information. . , perhaps these forces will be enough to overcome the evil.
There's a fight on, and I don't feel as though we're winning. But it's still a little early to tell. --The unpredictable not only happens, but happens often. . .
Fantastic Lad --Looks like legacy hardware only for the Lad-Cave!
You are a total moron. Everyday Americans like myself aren't the least bit responsible for Hollywood or the MPAA. Just like your crackwhore mom isn't responsible that gave birth to such a dumbass as yourself. She should of flushed you.
Awww. Did I hurt your Everyday American feelings?
I'm sorry.
But I actually DO blame you for Hollywood and the MPAA. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'Everyday American' is generally in full support of insane capitalist materialism. Hollywood and the MPAA are both direct results of this sort of national philosophy. The philosophy of unfettered Greed.
If you practice recycling, live close to work rather than own a car, don't support environmentally destructive technologies or invest in non-ethical mutual funds, make yourself aware of world issues and do your own research rather than suck on CNN's poison teat. . . If this is how you live, well then by all means, count yourself out of my gross generalization. Otherwise, shut the fuck up, because you're not just part of the problem; you ARE the problem.
In any case, it's your bloody country. If it isn't your responsibility, then whose is it? It's so damned typical. Consume like a rabid dog and stick your head in the sand when it comes to ramifications and clean up bills.
And it's, "She should HAVE flushed". Not "She should OF flushed." But gee, I guess I shouldn't blame you. It's just your fucked up school system speaking. But hey, there's nothing you can do about that, is there? You're just an Everyday American.
Wake up or drop dead.
Fantastic Lad --The most amazing Son Of A Crackwhore of them all!
Tulips & Breadcrumbs is essentially a Hayo Miyazaki film, not animated, with Italian actors, and directed by some guy who isn't Miyazaki, and who's name I can't remember but which I will surely soon know by heart as he currently resides on my top 5 list of favorite creators.
If you can find his movie, you win a prize because it ain't easy to locate. (After all, it's got the entire weight of the American Film Distribution muscle behind it. Like, waaaay behind it. Like in a different time zone, behind it. Sitting on its fat ass jerking off over Charlie's Slutz dolls.).
America is an evil fucking joke. You need a violent & bloody revolution BAD. Noook Dubyah. It's your only hope.
Fantastic Lad --The greatest costumed Lad of them all!
I consider it my civic duty to rip off DVD and Hollywood media manufacturers whenever possible. Problem is, I tend to neglect my duties because 99% of Hollywood's output sucks complete and total lame-ass shit.
Just to put the debate to rest:
Tom Cruise IS indeed a fucked up scientologist dipshit with a demon grafted onto his head. And yet people still pay to watch his stupid movies. Stupid, Stupid Americans. You will all burn. Ha Ha Ha!
The best movie I saw in 2000 came from Italy;
"Tulips & Breadcrumbs." Go watch. (Or "Breadcrumbs & Tulips". I dyslexic am.)
-Fantastic Lad --The most frustrated Lad of them all!
While some people are born with higher levels of awareness than others, 'mundane' people can certainly train their awarenesses as well.
And paying for the 'secret' is total bullshit. That kind of thinking is just another product of the social programming we get hammered with in this stupid ad-culture. The information is entirely free to those who search, and searching is not hard at all.
You will, however, not be sensing and manipulating energy overnight. The quick-gain, 'something for nothing' attitude is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and indeed, one of the most destructive forces, in Western culture.
The ultra-selfish, science-for-money, see-it-to-believe-it Western paradigm has plenty of holes in it, but you won't have a chance of seeing any of them if you insist on thrashing about like that.
Maybe you'll figure it out next life.
But just in case, here's a hint for this one: anybody asking or looking for money in return for this kind of knowledge almost certainly won't have any answers worth listening to. And as for proof. . , nobody with answers really gives a hoot about providing them to cynics for the sake of 'converting' them.
Evidence is abundant and self-providing once you honestly allow yourself to take the first few steps, but you must be in a searching frame of mind to begin with, and only you can put yourself there.
Another point to think over: This stuff does not stem from any structure like that of Big Organized Religion. --The practitioners of sorcery, chi, shamanism, etc., really don't give a flying fuck whether or not you wake up or continue to sleep. NONE of them is going to waste a second of their time trying to 'save your soul.' Arm bands and merit ribbons simply aren't won that way. --Heck, my primary reason for writing this now is simply that I enjoy heckling the unawakened. (Clowns like you.) I'm sure it's a weakness on my part which will eventually need to be weeded out, but at the moment I indulge, and in truth, there are those out there who ARE searching and who might be able to make some use of my jack-ass little words so as to begin or continue their own personal quests toward enlightenment.)
In any case, I realize that proceeding without proof completely flies in the face of our limiting Western culture. But believe it or not, that's almost the point.
Basically, guys like you don't really have a great deal of hope so long as your first questions are about how to aquire concrete proof and turn it into money. That is SOOO far away from 'getting' it!
Really. I hear another Mario-Brothers sequel is coming out. You might be able to pick that up at your local WalMart if you hurry. --And perhaps grab some Taco-Bell while you're at it. Mmm! Tacos and cute Italian plummers; that'll be sure to whisper you back into slumber.
How very well programmed you have been by this clunking and artificial culture of ours. And I bet you think that you are a rational & independant thinker, too. Very good! You get a ten out of ten and a smelly-sticker on your test, young citizen!
Or. . .
Try this for a while, (it's hard at first to break through the wall of routine, but you certainly don't need drugs to do it.):
Observe without constraint, and then experiment with and question what you see. Belief in this practice is probably already a part of your character. You're a Slashdotter, so you have the beginnings of a brain; you just need to use it without fucking CNN and the 'Discovery Channel' guiding your eyes and holding your hand.
Regarding auras. . . I doubt they exist in the U.V. spectrum, but they nonetheless remain a most intriguing phenomenon to observe. I have learned to see them myself to the point where they have become a normal part of my life. If you are interested, I can give you some pointers.
Of course, you may choose to dismiss it all, (and me), as 'crazy'.
But be cautious; 'Crazy' is an old and well used label applied by those too chicken-shit scared to examine the world without their censor-ware engaged. If you have the balls, you might try opening your eyes for real some day.
Otherwise, just go back to your Playstation. Obedience is rewarded.
Remember that great scene in "Manhattan", where Woody Allen was being driven nuts by this blowhard standing ahead of him in a movie line-up, spouting on and on about some bullshit he didn't know anything about but argued that he did because he happened to teach it at some university?
You don't remind me of Woody.
-Fantastic Lad -The most amazing script kiddie of them all!
Look at all the terrified geeks run for cover as their tidy little Euro-American paradigm begins to crumble before the advancing Yellow Hoard.
In reading all the above posts, you can see terms like, 'A Preposterous System!' and 'A Dark Day Indeed!'
You fucking losers.
What the hell did you *think* was going to happen after everybody tripped over themselves to cash in on selling billion dollar phone systems and western tech deals to China?
Silly White Folks. We must now all perish!
If you thought the Evil American Empire was bad, try one on for size which downright punishes the concept of individuality. . . "The nail which stands up will be hammered down."
Embrace the Dragon, Bomb the Dragon, or be Dragon Food.
I've been following the development of this product for some months now. And I must say, from my point of view, it appears to have all the earmarks of 'The Next Big Thing.'
That is, it's not a Cool Idea being worked on by some small and unknown company anxiously seeking investors. It's not some guy in a Japanese garage with a flying car design, or some once-great game consol company desperately trying to hype up their next box before their upstart competitors snatch the limelight with some asshole in a coyote suit.
This disk tech has some real money and a technology sound enough to convince other companies to retool in order to produce the materials needed to go full steam ahead.
My question is this:
I need WAY more than 650 mbs of recordable disk storage. In my line of work, I fill many, many CDR's with hi-res graphics. And I know many other people who are also feeling the pinch.
But I wonder if we're actually going to get a useful consumer level recordable version of this new product. We haven't got a decent recordable DVD system, and with all the concerns of the MPAA, I wonder if this tech won't be shafted too. I have honest files I need to back up and move quickly between often changing companies, and it's stupid having to blow ten or more CDR's to do it. We NEED a standardized, inexpensive large format read/write system for PC's, and if the movie industry puts a choke hold on it, then I'll be about ready to start pulling my hair out. Or start lobbing bricks.
-Fantastic Lad, the most pissed off lad of them all!
Gentlemen, we have the technology to rebuild this man, but if we can make more money by only doing a half-assed job while hitting him with an endless stream of service charges and repair fees, then that's exactly what we will do! It's the American Way!
Made up, sure. . , but thanks. You made me think and as a result, I have now transformed into "Egomaniacal Fact Correcter Lad."
The moon is WAY far away. Like a quarter million miles or something. I doubt there's enough wire in ASCI White to get even a sliver of the way to the moon.
I bet that monster could process way more than 2.85 miles of floppies worth of info in a day. That's not so much, when you think about it.
As for the sailors. . . Who knows? I say a live test is in order. Send in the marines!
Let's all put on our Conspiracy Goggles and examine the following formula. . .
Where,
X = Amount of Money made from disposable battery sales.
Y = Amount of Money which could be made if cell phones could be on-line more often & for longer periods.
If, realizing Y cancels out X, then there's a fucking problem, isn't there, Smithers?
Solution: allow NEC to come up with a half-assed battery which is good enough to power a nation of stupid cell phone users but does not threaten the income of the energizer bunny.
Silly citizens. . . We've had the technology to rebuild this man for ages. But if we can make more money in service charges by leaving him in pieces on the operating table, then that's where he'll stay.
Fantastic Lad - "Okay, my goggles are on nice and tight, now what?"
I actually don't mind MS so much, and I generally despise most large corporate entities. But the only reason for my lack of concern is that since MS is already so widely hated, most of its evil actions are quickly detected, publically slammed, and otherwise subject to rigorous control. (Or at least, control which is more rigorous than might otherwise be with a corp which is not under the lens of public bitterness. Everybody hates a winner!)
Corporations are greedy, selfish, power-hungry organisms with zero care for the human condition, so the better watched they are, the happier I am.
But the fact is, it would probably be more fair if MS was taxed. As you pointed out, when those share holders try to capitalize on their holdings, (which they certainly maintain in lieu of a bigger salary), the government will get a bigger chunk than if the money was taxed at the source. MS doesn't care, since their pay-out remains constant; only as much as they would otherwise be paying in normal salaries. Shift the tax burden to the mules. Clever.
Win, win, fucking win.
Corporate America:....2452
The Individual:.......14 and falling.
Flat screens are lame and too expensive, and they'll probably stay that for another few years.
The tech I'm excited about is that one pioneered by Texas Instruments, (of all players!) The one which uses an array of micro-mirrors that you reflect a light from onto a screen.
They're already using this for theatrical film releases in some test markets. It looks awesome. (I actually forced myself to sit through a showing of 'Mission to Mars' to preview this system.)
When I can project my computer screen onto my wall, (and back up my hard drive on to 30gig phosphorescent CDR disks), then I'll finally be happy with the state of affairs in the computer world.
Probably won't become available for the lowest common denominator, though. Reflected light is too passive. You can't play Black-Ops team and scan a room from a white van like you can with CRT rays. (Paranoia, Paranoia. ..) I expect the dominant tech will end up being something that bathes us with rays, in order to keep the secret government happy!
-Fantastic Lad
Gentlemen, we have the technology to rebuild this man, but let's dick around and act like children and not actually do it for another decade, Okay?
I steal files all the time. I'd certainly never buy the stuff. I didn't before, so what sales, exactly are being lost? The stuff I actually WOULD buy, I do anyway. (Not that it ever does the artist much good the way the business world is currently organized.)
And what's with the example you picked? Salon magazine? Canada's leading magazine for the professional beauty industry? News Flash, asshole; Salon doesn't make a thin dime from their actual paper sales. It's all advertising, baby! In fact, in the magazine biz, if they experience a 20% sell-through on the news stands, it's considered a bonanza. The rest, thousands upon thousands of copies made from prime Canadian rain forest, get hauled to the dumpster. (To the recycle bin? Hmph. All that hot press, clayed, glossy paper doesn't do too well in the recycle vats, kipper-my-man.)
So fuck Salon. They're ad whores. Plus, who the hell cares about beauty secrets, anyway? The whole beauty biz is pretty much totally evil. I like my girls sans make-up, thank you kindly.
Typical of people like you to choose a stupid, evil example to uphold a stupid, evil world view.
Slashdot Mirror
Guess it's a case of acronym overlap.
BTW, IMHO, /. needs an FAQ detailing all the BDSA's. (Bloody Damned Stinking Acronyms).
There's always a handful of geek-speak all caps terminology there to amuse and confound.
-Fantastic Lad
Case in point:
My company sells a series of books. One day, by accident, a mislabeled box was sent to Amazon. The box contained fifty copies of the first volume in the series. (Amazon never orders fifty copies at a time. They order only 5 copies of one book at a time despite a three year solid sales record which would indicate that holding fifty copies each title wouldn't be a risk. --It would certainly help me out by dramatically cutting back on the endless shipping charges of small packages.).
Anyway, those fifty rogue copies were not reported by their inventory system. This did not stop them, however, from selling those copies to customers.
Over the next few months, Amazon stopped ordering copies of the first volume, (presumably since they had 50 unreported copies to dip into). Orders for volumes 2 and 3, however, continued to come in as usual every other week, and after about 50 copies of each of those had moved through Amazon, orders for the first volume started up once again. (Do can see the pattern? A customer can't read volumes 2, or 3 until they read volume 1.)
My interpretation, (despite endless stone-walling whenever Amazon was contacted about the rogue 50 copies, which according to them they never received, despite UPS's insistence to the contrary.). . .
Amazon a secondary, off the books system, which somebody had to actually code and implement for the express purpose of capitalizing on mistakes made by publishers. Charming.
Caveat Emptor, and similar attitudes are fine and dandy, but I don't always think they are appropriate. My company doesn't play vulture waiting for my customers to screw up so that I might profit by their errors. I ALWAYS make an effort to solve problems in a fair and decent manner. But Amazon is apparently run by a bunch of capitalist Daleks.
Here's the other thing which cheeses me off. --Amazon's business model is sneaky as hell: They have a significantly reduced warehousing to inventory ratio cost, (as compared to other distributors, since they order only what they absolutely need to cover a half month period), and they have absolutely none of the actual distribution costs other companies must deal with, since their customers pay for ALL shipping. (A MASSIVE savings, and a fact which begs the question, "Is Amazon really a distributor?" They certainly don't run a fleet of trucks. They sit on their asses and let FedEx and UPS do all their distribution for them at the customer's expense. Compared to other distributors, Amazon has virtually no overhead.
And yet, Amazon STILL takes the same cut from a book's cover price as any normal distributor does when by any moral standard, they should bloody well pass at least a portion of those savings to the consumer.
Amazon is run by a bunch of greasy, greedy opportunists. Fuck 'em. The day they fully automate is the day I start shipping pipe bombs.
-Fantastic Lad
And a good one at that. Unfortunately, he didn't write or direct the entire film.
You think the movie would have been better if he'd written and directed? Nah. I'm sure you don't really mean that. --In any case, that guy was an egotistical moron, not to mention a total babe in the woods compared the real thing; guys like Jet Lee.
Anyway, that's not what I'm talking about.
Alec Guiness didn't know any kung fu, and he was a more convincing Jedi than any of the lame characters in Menace. He could move your heart with his eyes and words alone. That's a Jedi.
But you're right. You can chalk the problems in Menace up to direction and writing.
I walked out of the theater feeling as though I was underwater. I was taken in very deep while watching. But I'm afraid I won't be ranking it up with the greatest movies of all time.
A truly GREAT movie, I think, should be able to touch nerves in every age group and demographic. Crouching Tiger, however, is one of those films which would leave most kids squirming in their seats before the first ten minutes had passed. (Granted, this is my definition.)
Plus, (and this is rather personal), I seem to prefer to be able to be the characters, rather than just watch them from an emotional distance, so to speak, like chess pieces. Crouching Tiger didn't clearly point out one character as the primary focus.
Essentially, without a main character, (a Luke, or a Jackie Chan, or an Indiana Jones), around whom the bulk of the story and emotional charges rotate, the viewer is forced to take a god's eye approach to watching the movie rather than an ego-centric human's eye perspective. 'Me in the middle.'
Good, or bad? Hmm.
Watching this film, and others like it, is like being forced to be a very old and responsible grown up. I feel a loss of personal cohesion and intensity whenever that happens, and it isn't comfortable.
But maybe that's not such a bad thing. Security blankets have a time and place, and I suspect these are lessons we all must learn.
Still, I miss childhood.
I know people who can do most of what that bone head who played the red and black stripy faced guy was doing without digital effects.
Imagine how good Phantom Menace could have been if Lucas had taken the time to study the martial arts and perhaps even consult with a chi master. -Not so that he could duplicate Chinese kung fu styles in his films, (That would feel wrong for Star Wars, which seemed to be more a mix of Japanese feudal Samarai lore combined with Chinese chi/energy practice.), but rather, so that he would know where ground was. That way he might have written something which wouldn't have felt so confused and shallow. To be honest, I thought after the first three films that he already understood this stuff! That's why Menace was such a shocker to me.
--Granted, Lucas did well by studying Kurosawa way back in the beginning, but that's inbreeding. You don't study film to make film, or science fiction to write science fiction. Not exclusively, anyway. You need to study real life, otherwise you just won't have the insight.
I love Lucas, but when he was young, he knew his limits, and let real writers who knew their craft do the key script work. He should have done that again.
Fantastic Lad --Still depressed by Episode One.
For straight wordprocessing where no layouts are required, it's great. It's ascii with the expressive power of italics and extended symbol recognition. For straight word smithing, that's all anybody needs.
Here's what I do:
1. Do all wordprocessing using a very basic text editor which saves very basic RTFs.
2. Import those files to whatever layout program is needed. (Quark, Pagemaker, whatever.)
The stability of RTFs lies in two areas; Firstly, there will ALWAYS be a selection of homemade editors available upon which to do your writing, and second, there is no financial incentive for big software manufacturers to make RTFs un-importable to their suites and layout packages.
This means that doing all your basic work in RTF will make files readable for a long time to come.
In any case, particularly in the print publishing field, today's software is finally about as good as it needs to get. There's no real reason to switch tools. Unlike with graphics technology, Times Roman simply doesn't need to motion blur and bump map for a writer to work his or her craft. As long as we all keep our old copies of Wordperfect and Pagemaker, everything is fine.
Fantastic Lad
On the one side, we have the mind controled human slave and on the other, we have the wild & free individual.
If, for instance, bovines can be transformed from the proud and wild plains roaming beasts they once were, into the domesticated meat & milk factories they have become, then I don't think we can be at all confident that the human species might not similarly be transformed by such an endlessly striving and massively powerful force as corporate destiny. It's so clearly happening already. This whole hard drive thing is simply further evidence that we're deep into the later stages of the disease.
Perhaps corporate interests WILL eventually succeed in reducing our powers to nothing, so that all we are able to do is suck on the information they want to feed us, (while we pay them for the privilage.). But perhaps there is a chance that the vigilant hacker and the instinctive human societal drive to freely dispense and share in information. . , perhaps these forces will be enough to overcome the evil.
There's a fight on, and I don't feel as though we're winning. But it's still a little early to tell. --The unpredictable not only happens, but happens often. . .
Fantastic Lad --Looks like legacy hardware only for the Lad-Cave!
Awww. Did I hurt your Everyday American feelings?
I'm sorry.
But I actually DO blame you for Hollywood and the MPAA. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'Everyday American' is generally in full support of insane capitalist materialism. Hollywood and the MPAA are both direct results of this sort of national philosophy. The philosophy of unfettered Greed.
If you practice recycling, live close to work rather than own a car, don't support environmentally destructive technologies or invest in non-ethical mutual funds, make yourself aware of world issues and do your own research rather than suck on CNN's poison teat. . . If this is how you live, well then by all means, count yourself out of my gross generalization. Otherwise, shut the fuck up, because you're not just part of the problem; you ARE the problem.
In any case, it's your bloody country. If it isn't your responsibility, then whose is it? It's so damned typical. Consume like a rabid dog and stick your head in the sand when it comes to ramifications and clean up bills.
And it's, "She should HAVE flushed". Not "She should OF flushed." But gee, I guess I shouldn't blame you. It's just your fucked up school system speaking. But hey, there's nothing you can do about that, is there? You're just an Everyday American.
Wake up or drop dead.
Fantastic Lad --The most amazing Son Of A Crackwhore of them all!
If you can find his movie, you win a prize because it ain't easy to locate. (After all, it's got the entire weight of the American Film Distribution muscle behind it. Like, waaaay behind it. Like in a different time zone, behind it. Sitting on its fat ass jerking off over Charlie's Slutz dolls.).
America is an evil fucking joke. You need a violent & bloody revolution BAD. Noook Dubyah. It's your only hope.
Fantastic Lad --The greatest costumed Lad of them all!
Just to put the debate to rest:
Tom Cruise IS indeed a fucked up scientologist dipshit with a demon grafted onto his head. And yet people still pay to watch his stupid movies. Stupid, Stupid Americans. You will all burn. Ha Ha Ha!
The best movie I saw in 2000 came from Italy;
"Tulips & Breadcrumbs." Go watch. (Or "Breadcrumbs & Tulips". I dyslexic am.)
-Fantastic Lad --The most frustrated Lad of them all!
And paying for the 'secret' is total bullshit. That kind of thinking is just another product of the social programming we get hammered with in this stupid ad-culture. The information is entirely free to those who search, and searching is not hard at all.
You will, however, not be sensing and manipulating energy overnight. The quick-gain, 'something for nothing' attitude is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and indeed, one of the most destructive forces, in Western culture.
If you are still interested, let me know at. . .
yobthra@yahoo.ca
Take care
-Fantastic Lad
Maybe you'll figure it out next life.
But just in case, here's a hint for this one: anybody asking or looking for money in return for this kind of knowledge almost certainly won't have any answers worth listening to. And as for proof. . , nobody with answers really gives a hoot about providing them to cynics for the sake of 'converting' them.
Evidence is abundant and self-providing once you honestly allow yourself to take the first few steps, but you must be in a searching frame of mind to begin with, and only you can put yourself there.
Another point to think over: This stuff does not stem from any structure like that of Big Organized Religion. --The practitioners of sorcery, chi, shamanism, etc., really don't give a flying fuck whether or not you wake up or continue to sleep. NONE of them is going to waste a second of their time trying to 'save your soul.' Arm bands and merit ribbons simply aren't won that way. --Heck, my primary reason for writing this now is simply that I enjoy heckling the unawakened. (Clowns like you.) I'm sure it's a weakness on my part which will eventually need to be weeded out, but at the moment I indulge, and in truth, there are those out there who ARE searching and who might be able to make some use of my jack-ass little words so as to begin or continue their own personal quests toward enlightenment.)
In any case, I realize that proceeding without proof completely flies in the face of our limiting Western culture. But believe it or not, that's almost the point.
Basically, guys like you don't really have a great deal of hope so long as your first questions are about how to aquire concrete proof and turn it into money. That is SOOO far away from 'getting' it!
Really. I hear another Mario-Brothers sequel is coming out. You might be able to pick that up at your local WalMart if you hurry. --And perhaps grab some Taco-Bell while you're at it. Mmm! Tacos and cute Italian plummers; that'll be sure to whisper you back into slumber.
-Fantastic Lad
How very well programmed you have been by this clunking and artificial culture of ours. And I bet you think that you are a rational & independant thinker, too. Very good! You get a ten out of ten and a smelly-sticker on your test, young citizen!
Or. . .
Try this for a while, (it's hard at first to break through the wall of routine, but you certainly don't need drugs to do it.):
Observe without constraint, and then experiment with and question what you see. Belief in this practice is probably already a part of your character. You're a Slashdotter, so you have the beginnings of a brain; you just need to use it without fucking CNN and the 'Discovery Channel' guiding your eyes and holding your hand.
Regarding auras. . . I doubt they exist in the U.V. spectrum, but they nonetheless remain a most intriguing phenomenon to observe. I have learned to see them myself to the point where they have become a normal part of my life. If you are interested, I can give you some pointers.
Of course, you may choose to dismiss it all, (and me), as 'crazy'.
But be cautious; 'Crazy' is an old and well used label applied by those too chicken-shit scared to examine the world without their censor-ware engaged. If you have the balls, you might try opening your eyes for real some day.
Otherwise, just go back to your Playstation. Obedience is rewarded.
-Fantastic Lad
You don't remind me of Woody.
-Fantastic Lad -The most amazing script kiddie of them all!
Somebody please smack the jack-ass who came up with that brown-noser term. Ugh!
Can anybody else smell another round of make-believe boardroom scrabble coming at us at light fucking speed?
Sigh.
Fantastic Lad -The most amazing script-kiddie of them all!
Duh.
Tell me I wasn't the only one making a bee-line for the pictures of pretty girls wearing hi-tech halloween costumes.
Too bad such pictures weren't available.
-Fantastic Lad The most amazing script kiddie of them all!
Look at all the terrified geeks run for cover as their tidy little Euro-American paradigm begins to crumble before the advancing Yellow Hoard.
In reading all the above posts, you can see terms like, 'A Preposterous System!' and 'A Dark Day Indeed!'
You fucking losers.
What the hell did you *think* was going to happen after everybody tripped over themselves to cash in on selling billion dollar phone systems and western tech deals to China?
Silly White Folks. We must now all perish!
If you thought the Evil American Empire was bad, try one on for size which downright punishes the concept of individuality. . . "The nail which stands up will be hammered down."
Embrace the Dragon, Bomb the Dragon, or be Dragon Food.
-Fantastic Lad
I love the Smell of Xenophobia in the Morning!
That is, it's not a Cool Idea being worked on by some small and unknown company anxiously seeking investors. It's not some guy in a Japanese garage with a flying car design, or some once-great game consol company desperately trying to hype up their next box before their upstart competitors snatch the limelight with some asshole in a coyote suit.
This disk tech has some real money and a technology sound enough to convince other companies to retool in order to produce the materials needed to go full steam ahead.
My question is this:
I need WAY more than 650 mbs of recordable disk storage. In my line of work, I fill many, many CDR's with hi-res graphics. And I know many other people who are also feeling the pinch.
But I wonder if we're actually going to get a useful consumer level recordable version of this new product. We haven't got a decent recordable DVD system, and with all the concerns of the MPAA, I wonder if this tech won't be shafted too. I have honest files I need to back up and move quickly between often changing companies, and it's stupid having to blow ten or more CDR's to do it. We NEED a standardized, inexpensive large format read/write system for PC's, and if the movie industry puts a choke hold on it, then I'll be about ready to start pulling my hair out. Or start lobbing bricks.
-Fantastic Lad, the most pissed off lad of them all!
Gentlemen, we have the technology to rebuild this man, but if we can make more money by only doing a half-assed job while hitting him with an endless stream of service charges and repair fees, then that's exactly what we will do! It's the American Way!
The moon is WAY far away. Like a quarter million miles or something. I doubt there's enough wire in ASCI White to get even a sliver of the way to the moon.
I bet that monster could process way more than 2.85 miles of floppies worth of info in a day. That's not so much, when you think about it.
As for the sailors. . . Who knows? I say a live test is in order. Send in the marines!
-Egomaniacle Fact Correcter Lad
Where,
X = Amount of Money made from disposable battery sales.
Y = Amount of Money which could be made if cell phones could be on-line more often & for longer periods.
If, realizing Y cancels out X, then there's a fucking problem, isn't there, Smithers?
Solution: allow NEC to come up with a half-assed battery which is good enough to power a nation of stupid cell phone users but does not threaten the income of the energizer bunny.
Silly citizens. . . We've had the technology to rebuild this man for ages. But if we can make more money in service charges by leaving him in pieces on the operating table, then that's where he'll stay.
Fantastic Lad - "Okay, my goggles are on nice and tight, now what?"
Corporations are greedy, selfish, power-hungry organisms with zero care for the human condition, so the better watched they are, the happier I am.
But the fact is, it would probably be more fair if MS was taxed. As you pointed out, when those share holders try to capitalize on their holdings, (which they certainly maintain in lieu of a bigger salary), the government will get a bigger chunk than if the money was taxed at the source. MS doesn't care, since their pay-out remains constant; only as much as they would otherwise be paying in normal salaries. Shift the tax burden to the mules. Clever.
Win, win, fucking win.
Corporate America:....2452
The Individual:.......14 and falling.
-Fantastic Lad
The tech I'm excited about is that one pioneered by Texas Instruments, (of all players!) The one which uses an array of micro-mirrors that you reflect a light from onto a screen.
They're already using this for theatrical film releases in some test markets. It looks awesome. (I actually forced myself to sit through a showing of 'Mission to Mars' to preview this system.)
When I can project my computer screen onto my wall, (and back up my hard drive on to 30gig phosphorescent CDR disks), then I'll finally be happy with the state of affairs in the computer world.
Probably won't become available for the lowest common denominator, though. Reflected light is too passive. You can't play Black-Ops team and scan a room from a white van like you can with CRT rays. (Paranoia, Paranoia. . .) I expect the dominant tech will end up being something that bathes us with rays, in order to keep the secret government happy!
-Fantastic Lad
Gentlemen, we have the technology to rebuild this man, but let's dick around and act like children and not actually do it for another decade, Okay?
I steal files all the time. I'd certainly never buy the stuff. I didn't before, so what sales, exactly are being lost? The stuff I actually WOULD buy, I do anyway. (Not that it ever does the artist much good the way the business world is currently organized.)
And what's with the example you picked? Salon magazine? Canada's leading magazine for the professional beauty industry? News Flash, asshole; Salon doesn't make a thin dime from their actual paper sales. It's all advertising, baby! In fact, in the magazine biz, if they experience a 20% sell-through on the news stands, it's considered a bonanza. The rest, thousands upon thousands of copies made from prime Canadian rain forest, get hauled to the dumpster. (To the recycle bin? Hmph. All that hot press, clayed, glossy paper doesn't do too well in the recycle vats, kipper-my-man.)
So fuck Salon. They're ad whores. Plus, who the hell cares about beauty secrets, anyway? The whole beauty biz is pretty much totally evil. I like my girls sans make-up, thank you kindly.
Typical of people like you to choose a stupid, evil example to uphold a stupid, evil world view.
-Fantastic Lad, The Most Caustic Lad of Them All!
-Fantastic Lad
I found this story to be a little disappointing. . .
I thought the bug was going to be piloting a real car.
That would have been way cooler.
-Fantastic Lad