Because if they don't deliver the technology to us, then China will.
Oh, good. So we can be expecting the Chinese Electric Car/Geothermal/Solar/Ocean power to replace world oil dependence any day now?
Get back to me when my food isn't deliberately toxic and money can't be made from selling medicine.
The West will nuke China before they are allowed to alleviate world slavery through the capitalist nonsense dogma kids are fed in their first year college! Fucking mind-mold factories with ivy and buildings which are SOOOO big and overwhelming and home is SOOOO far away; dazed as such, any shit which sounds Smart and Strong, delivered by a Charismatic Leader, (with no prevailing counter argument to be seen or heard), goes into a kid's head and sticks to the gray matter like super-glue. No matter how obviously stupid it is.
Heck, China loves slavery even more than we do, and that's saying something. It would be insane to think that the version of the military industrial complex which comes with Chinese "Stop or We'll Shoot" warning labels doesn't extend to hyper-paranoid control over technology distribution in the land of the Rising Sun. Just like it does here.
There's something very Zen or perhaps Tardis-Threatening-Paradoxy about your observation.
Dubious research about dubious science.
Is it any wonder that the Human Race's general perception of reality resembles one vast fever dream?
Of course, if you happen to be dreaming the dream, then everything must appear quite normal.
But. . ,
"Pirates of the Caribbean" "Pirates of Copyright" "Pirates of Somalia"
Heck, there was even an "International Pirate Day" a few months back.
And when one considers that the origins of international banking, I can only laugh. The world is evidently one giant dream-state metaphor.
Science is fine and grand, but I'm sure digital fire still needs digital oxygen on a holodeck. On a pretend starship. In a reality which no longer exists anyway, thanks to J.J. Abrams.
It is rare when the entirety of Slashdot is united behind a single message, and so I feel no need to elaborate further on that which should be obvious. But I will anyway, because I feel like I've got another angle on this thing. . .
Micheal Lynton is a million-dollar corporate tool who probably really, honestly for-real sees the world in black & white while everybody else is getting along just fine in full color. That we get.
Here's the new bit. . .
Joss Whedon, had he not screwed up the last episode of Doctor Horrible (thus setting back direct-to-internet-television-by-actual-paid-professionals about, oh, 5 years), showed us a glimpse of the future. Every media outlet in the West which had anything to do with pop culture TV was singing the praises of that little project. But while the world was going electric with excitement for two days, a sad ending on the third threw a bucket of cold water on the whole parade, so not a peep from big media was to be heard again and all the little studio execs pulled their heads back into their little shells. Or saw their shadows perhaps. . .
All of which is to say that awesome content will continue to exist, and for a while it will probably suck waaaaay less than the current fare, because only daring people with imagination will have the gonads to go West.
I one third wonder if Dollhouse was renewed just to keep Joss where they could keep him under thumb. Doc Horrible, even in all its un-wisdom, made enough money to pay the crew and turn a profit. Imagine if it hadn't sucked at the end? We'd be up to our necks in direct to Web content right about now. Kind of like George Lucas and his weird obsession with selling those silly three-inch plastic dolls that nobody could understand until he founded an empire on the things.
And while back room deals are the back bone of this and every other corporate/government-born fiasco, the all-important element is that the majority of people believe the lies necessary to seal the deal.
Democracy will not work so long as Advertising does.
I find I go through periods where I feel rather closed in, looking at severely limiting systems and wonder, "How can one survive in this war-zone?"
While I found elements of their culture and arts interesting, (what would be considered a typical anime-fan in Jr. High, but in a time when nobody had ever heard the word, "manga"), actually living or growing up in Japan would drive me absolutely nuts. I've hung out with some ex-pat Japanese kids, and more often than not, (meaning in every single one of the half dozen cases I encountered), the leading reason for their traveling abroad was to get the hell out of Japan and its crushing round-pegs-into-square-holes, the-nail-which-stands-up-will-be-hammered-down culture.
While they didn't feel at home in the West, (wandering around in a bit of a daze), they all spent time going on at length about how lousy it had been at home. The Chinese people I ask about this seem to think a similar thing, except they don't want to talk about it because, apparently, they still feel the hot eyes of the "One China" government thought-police burning between their shoulder blades.
I quite like the ability to be rude. --That which is considered "Rude" is often not thoughtless mean-spirited behavior, (I know how to stand to one side on an escalator and shut up in a movie theater), but rather it is simply allowing oneself to not spend every minute of every day scanning others for signs of not fitting in. I've been at parties where the Asian kids in the room spend all their time playing at "chicken pecking order", mercilessly picking on one another while trying to avoid being picked on. It seems to make up the bulk of their activities at any given social gathering. The funny/sad part is that when you jump into the middle of it and show that you are not scared of ridicule and that you have an expressive, light-hearted and self-confident personality, they scatter like. . , well chickens, and hates you precious from the corners of the room, planning your eventual demise and not-so-secretly wishing (because one on one they'll tell you as much), they could have grown up in a less socially oppressive culture like you did.
As for real rudeness, I find it's not actually that big a problem in the West if you know how it works. It seems to be regional. Some cities simply seem to be more filled with mentally immature and inconsiderate people than others. I currently live in a small town where people are incredibly gracious and caring. I've lived in others where the opposite is true. The smaller the population center, the nicer people seem to be.
Not having lived in Japan, I can't say if the same might be true there, but one would hope that water finds its own level in other countries as well. But on the whole, not to be entirely racist, (because I think it's as much about cultural programming as it is about genetics), Mongoloid Asia scares the willies out of me. There seems to be a whole lot of robotic thinking going on in a way which cleaves to obedient, self-policing slave-type thinking. --Though, that's not to say that Caucasian culture isn't just as boxed in. There's a lot of conservative Walmart shoppers out there. Hm. --Buying up all that Chinese product. I wonder if there's a metaphor to be found in there somewhere. . ?
Damn. Will you please make a movie? I would pay to see it. The challenges you outline are insurmountable, and thus the solutions, if they make sense, would be awesome and would set people's imaginations on fire. What made John Conner so great anyway?
The more comments I read, the more I realize that I will be downloading this film. Much later. If I'm extremely bored. Maybe.
Oh, but you do need to put Summer in your film. She's adorable!
I haven't seen the film yet, but it's rather telling when a movie from a franchise doesn't live up to the mythology created by said franchise. Not getting tagged with it's own label? Wow. --I would NOT want to be a director or writer on a mythological project like Terminator or Star Wars or (gasp) Star Trek, unless I was VERY sure of myself. It's quite rare when somebody meets the demands of the challenge.
Andrews founded an organization of sci-fi writers to offer imaginative services in return for travel expenses only. Called Sigma, the group has about 40 writers. Over the years, members have addressed meetings organized by the Department of Energy, the Army, Air Force, NATO and other agencies they care not to name.
Hm. The last book Robert Ludlum wrote was called "The Sigma Protocol". It was published the same year he died. He was 73.
It was about a collective of creepy post-Nazi idea men commissioned by Hitler to re-envision the world. Well, after the war, these men carried on with their pursuit of Bad Science in the shadows. Central to the plot was a string of assassinations of old men who had fallen out of the club because they thought what they were about to achieve was too horrific even for a bunch of ex-Nazis. The cataclysmic ending resulted in explosions and heroic rewards, etc., but also with a young software billionaire carrying on the creepy work. . . (The book's last page makes a very deliberate jab at Bill Gates and his recent affiliation with the fucking creepy organization, Planned Parenthood.) Or maybe it wasn't deliberate. Still, an elbow in the ribs is an elbow in the ribs intended or not.
Whatever the case, I'll leave the obvious connective threads dangling because they're rather over-dramatic in the same way that the premier episode of Lone Gunmen was just too stupidly prophetic to be taken seriously. Even though it was right on the money.
Anyway. . . The real point I'd like to make is that any dick-head writer 'Heinlein' enough to work with the DHS needs a stern talking to or failing that, a good ass-kicking. Sci-Fi writers can be exceptional dorks sometimes.
I mean. . , did anybody else notice the distinctive Starship Troopers feel to J.J. Abram's Star Trek? (I'm talking about the cinematic version of ST, not the book).
And on a semi-related note. . . One interesting thing in the world of speculative fiction which totally caught me off guard was that Dollhouse has been renewed for a second season. WTF? I mean, that's cool and all, but. . , has hell frozen over?
These thoughts may all seem disconnected, but they really aren't. Don't think too hard though. It's Friday and the week has been long.
Corporations only feel safe when they are in control.
A group of self-motivated individuals working independently of the Corporation are THREATENING because they are not under any direct control by the company, and if their movement grows influential enough, it can start to dictate to the corporation what it ought to do. And those things might not be in the corporation's best interest. They might be in the interests of the people. (Horrors!!!)
And so, the corporation doesn't care if it destroys its market base through the issuance of infantile legal notices, because failure is worse than being under the yoke of humans. A corporation under human control is not a corporation at all. It is a co-operative. It's open source. It's pinko commie something or other. . . Whatever it is, it's frickin' scary to those who want to enslave others and enrich themselves and move into gated communities, (where apparently, the American Dream lives.)
--This is all especially so for a large and well-established corporate body. It can afford to lose a little business by pissing off the fringe of fans because it KNOWS it can simply program a bevy of mindless drones to become new fans; it's easy! Just give running shoes to inner city black kids, or whatever. That's the job of the Public Relations department, and we know it works, because people wear stupid clothes and eat toxic shit because they are told to. So really. . , fans? They're the disease! They're an unruly gob of humanity motivated by passion and not by corporate marketing science. Fuck them! In the schizoid world of the Corporate marketing world, the most intense fans are the worst kind of customer. They are motivated by Love! And everybody knows that given the choice between being Loved and Feared, the Alpha In The Room will choose to dominate rather than establish any sort of healthy human relations.
Sigh.
Establishing control over the weak is the post-coital pleasure for any large beast of prey. And Corporations are Sharks.
Yeah, and there was a time when all politicians were honest too...
Don't be silly.
Though, I LIKED Star Trek The Motion Picture back in 1979. And come to think of it. . . I was just a kid, but Jimmy Carter wasn't a total jack ass, was he? The man is pro-Palestinian today, which makes him, you have to admit, a wee bit Starfleet.
Um. . . That's Starfleet ethics according to the Old Time Line. (OTL?)
What happens when a keylogger gets installed on your system? A password on your bank account won't matter. I have to go back again to layered security. I don't mean to preach but if you think a firewall is sufficient security it's only a matter of time before you get hacked. It's that type of mentality that aids in the spread of viruses, worms, and other malware.
You live in a scary, scary world my friend. Is your whole life lived in this fashion?
A keylogger isn't going to get installed on my system because I am the active ingredient. Without me to put it there, it won't get there. Simple as that. Further, I don't keep any real money in any bank account accessible by computers. The password I was talking about was the one needed to make my card work in a bank machine. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. All systems are hackable. A keylogger on a bank machine touchpad could screw me, but I'm not going to spend my days living in fear of that. At the moment, the only people stealing money from me are the Banks themselves.
The "matter of time before I get hacked" clock started when I first got a modem twenty years ago and the alarm hasn't gone off yet, nor will it so long as I stay informed about how reality works and take appropriate steps to remain clear of problems. Layered security on my own computer is over-kill, which I feel is inappropriate given my knowledge of things and the amount of risk I am prepared to live with.
But do whatever makes you feel in control, (which you NEVER are); run a 'post-9/11' paranoia OS, but don't kid yourself. A lot of the universe you are defining only looks and behaves as it does within your own personal bubble version of it. Real reality, the one unfiltered by our personal baggage and our fears and hopes and egos and the subtle proofs we accidentally-on-purpose set up for ourselves. . , that reality is something altogether different, and it's the only one we need to prepare for. Doing otherwise is a waste of energy.
Do you kick him out before or after he wipes out your bank account?
It's never happened and it probably never will, and that's because I'm smart enough to make small, subtle choices which result in my living in a relatively disaster-free corner of reality. Password protecting my bank account is one thing, but password protecting my kitchen appliances is entirely another. It's too much work and it's largely unnecessary so long as I don't do anything stupid. But "stupid" is entirely a result of how much knowledge I happen to have.
The world is actually a very safe place if you take the time to get to know it. But living in ignorance will, I suppose, make heavy-handed safety nets seem like a good idea until one get's the hang of things. It's a natural process, I think, to wade in slowly at first.
The trick to living gracefully is in knowing that most calamities are over-reported and are quite easy to bounce back from stronger, smarter and happier than before. Humans, with the right attitude, are wonderfully resilient. More than once, I've had friends comment on my 'ability' to survive 'crazy' risks and 'disasters' and somehow get away clean and well-rewarded. I tell them that I'm not doing anything special other than looking before I leap and then not being afraid. Anybody can do it. Trust in the Universe and it will trust you back. Being happy and lighthearted is a key. That's perhaps the part I need to work on most; when I get pissed off, it's much easier to get hurt.
In Canada, back in the good ol' socialist days of a Single Phone Company, if Bell did something greedy and stupid, all you had to do was call up the CRTC, (the Canadian Radio & Television Commission) and lodge a complaint. I'd done it a couple of time, and the problems magically vanished. That was back when I didn't mind paying taxes quite so much, because my government was actually doing something useful.
Then the Public Relations people for some greedy corporate start-up told everybody that a single phone system wasn't competitive and that we were in danger of all becoming communists or some stupid air-head shit, and the idiot masses were manipulated into pressing for Bell's system to be opened up to the glories of competition. And because people are fucking stupid in large numbers, easily swayed by emotional messages, I now have several awful phone services to choose from all of which charge too much and calling the CRTC no longer holds the kind of wonderful powers it once did.
Overarching governmental powers don't fit well for every situation, and in some cases they are downright bad. But when it comes to vital systems, like communications and medical care, I want a really big hammer to smash greedy, lazy, stupid assholes with. I USED to have that big hammer AND an efficient, affordable phone system, and now I don't. So thank-you very much for making my life that much more crappy with your stupid social experiment which I told you was going to fail back when you first jumped on the bandwagon in the heady, wide-eyed days of your first year at some ass-hat university where your young minds were molded. You know who you are.
You don't want that to be your single point of failure. Security is best applied in layers. One layer isn't going to do you any good.
Well, every year or so I do a deep search for malicious software. (Kind of like cleaning out my fridge in the Spring?) Guess what? There's never been a virus or a root kit in all the years of my using computers. Multi-layered paranoia is certainly better than a single layer, but honestly, it has always looked like serious overkill to me. Simply not opening my front door for suspicious looking characters seems to do a pretty good job of keeping unwanted intruders out of my vegetable crisper. And you know what? Even if I do come home one day to find a creep going through my cupboards, it's not really the end of the world. I'd just kick him out and buy new cans of tuna. I don't have anything on my hard drives which cannot be replaced. It's just not worth all the hassle of being strip-searched several times a week by my own gear.
The funny thing is that the only part of the ST canon which was NOT erased by the time jump thingy was mister Quantum Leap's contribution.
I enjoyed the new film as well, but it wasn't Star Trek and Abrams is still a lame jackass who thinks and writes exclusively using mechanical base emotions rather than the higher thought patterns some members of our race still try to embrace. The man and his vision is a link or two backwards on the chain of cultural evolution. That's why his characters all seem like shop-window dummies.
I sometimes enjoy Disney films, but that doesn't make Disney's vision of the world a good thing. Heck, I can also enjoy a bag of Doritoes from time to time.
There was a period when ST was not just empty calories. But hey, that's alright. As our culture has demonstrated, thinking is too much work. And now with the calming effect of the Vulcan empire gone, we humans can now focus on that stuff we all love so much; Endless War!
Sigh. Picard's Enterprise was my favorite and I knew it too good to last. People don't deserve happiness and sanity if they actively reject it in favor of pain, misery and small-mindedness.
The attitude and energy of this new film, particularly the scenes in and around Starfleet Academy, strongly reminded me of another film: "Starship Troopers".
Apple has looked into design, and their solution with MacOS X has been to do what Linux does; pop up a window asking the user for their admin username and password. You might not like it, but you can't say nobody qualified has thought about this solution that you happen to not like.
Yes, but within reason.
What I'm talking about is booting into Ubuntu for the first time while in my apartment -all by myself- connected to the internet through a router with a hardware firewall and nobody looking over my shoulder, --and NOT being able to change the contents of a simple text file because the OS said I didn't have permission. And didn't, btw, offer me the option of entering a password. Further, it was not explained anywhere that I needed something called 'root' access to use my computer, and worse, it made no effort to explain how I might go about getting 'root' access.
The moment I stepped outside the kindergarten sandbox some thoughtful IT professional decided to allow me to play within, (gee, I can listen to music and use GIMP without my graphics tablet working properly), there was absolutely zero help in understanding how the actual guts of my system functioned so that I could fix the holes left by the programmer in his condescending little world view he decided to allow me to play within as though I were an orangutan with a squeak toy. And that's total bullshit. I thought Ubuntu was for Human Beings.
All I'm saying is that with a few sign posts in place, the transition from MS to Linux could be made a LOT easier for people who are used to being able to wield power over their own computers and who feel bloody pissed off at being rendered suddenly helpless. If the Linux community REALLY, (as they keep saying), want people to adopt their system, then they might take the time to help people. . , you know, adopt their system. At the moment, however, the system wants to adopt the user, and it proceeds to treat the user like a problem child which needs to be heavily controlled/sedated and frustrated with child-proof lids.
Linux is condescending. What I think happened is this: Linux was written by a bunch of frustrated IT professionals who just wanted to corral ignorant office drones and not allow them to damage the OS and screw up their work day. And that's fine. But the private individual using Ubuntu in the comfort of his or her own home ought to be allowed to fuck up their system just as much as they damned well please.
--I REALLY don't mind killing my whole system by making ignorant mistakes and having to re-install the OS from scratch. That's how I learn. What drives me absolutely mental is being treated like a criminal intruder by the OS I just breathed life into when there is no good reason at all to do so. It's worse than visiting a damned U.S. airport terminal. Which, frankly, is very, very surprising.
I remember one of my first thoughts years ago when I first started playing with Linux was just how paranoid the whole thing was. In a system built by a large group of cooperative and giving people, this struck me as both a sad and significant comment on the world. When I'm all alone in a room, and the computer I bought and built keeps looking at me suspiciously and telling me I don't have permission to use it. . , that is truly messed up.
Here's the Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth and the secret to success: Real documentation which extends to every aspect of the OS which is clear, easy to understand, and basically written and edited not by tech geeks but by people whose job it is to communicate complex information simply and quickly to human beings who have a highschool reading level. All available right from the desktop.
--And above all. . , Root access granted by default. If you want to control people as an IT professional, then you use an office version of the OS which is designed to be unbreakable and de-humanizing. But I don't want that shit in my home, thank-you.
Do all of that, and then and ONLY then will Linux be ready for the desktop.
In other words, you need permission for executing programs for exactly the same reason that you need a lock on your front door.
Well, sure. And exactly for the reasons you explain, I have a front door lock, which would be the metaphor for the fire wall, or in my case, the hardware router I use. But the OS?
That's like putting locks on my fridge and washing machine for fear of intruders. If you work in an office, (or a live in a rowdy dorm), then I can see the necessity of that. But my house is my house, and the OS ought to reflect that. A simple wizard upon installation would solve this; "Are you going to be using this computer on a network where lots of random people will have access, are you going to be sharing with your family, or are you going to be the only user?" --Give three choices with explanations of what each choice will do, and of course, allow hard core Linux users to do whatever the heck they want by making the wizard entirely optional.
Dumb it down like a Mac, but never lock people out of the guts. I never understand why so many software vendors remove their full featured option sets when they adopt simple GUIs. How hard is it to leave a an 'Advanced' button in place?
All I'm saying is that for a Linux distribution to be successful, it has to take newbies into account by making explanations and system maps easy, informed, standardized and readily available on the desktop.
They should use the Meyer Brigg's (sp?) personality profiles to come up with the three or four most common approaches to learning and sculpt three or four help menu formats to take everybody into account. I know that some help menus make zero sense to me, while with others I feel like a good friend knows me and is giving me exactly the information I can digest and use for the situation at hand.
Communication is an art, and Linux was written by geniuses who can't paint for shit.
Why do I need permission to do things? If I'm in front of my own bloody computer, then I have permission. There should be a home version with NO paranoia and a version for the office where the IT man is god.
Ubuntu goes a long way to making Linux accessible, but it still needs desktop tutorials designed to explain to a retard ape like me how to perform the most common tasks.
After years of running at the Linux wall, I eventually learned that it is actually a more logical system than Windows. --But that logic isn't explained anywhere in an even halfway reasonable manner. --Like on a desktop tour of the system actuated on start-up. Nope. --You have to cruise through web forums and basically already know everything in order to even ask a simple question. --When I tried to get my graphics tablet to be pressure sensitive, all the solutions required advanced knowledge in a variety of different areas which I found utterly baffling and alien. When I tried to understand the lingo of one of those other areas, it was invariably explained using more of the same indecipherable terms from another area.
I built my own Apple ][ with a frickin' soldering iron and I can troubleshoot some pretty complicated problems on a PC, but every time I approach Linux, I end up pissed off and confused.
Linux will be ready for the rest of the human race when somebody finally gets a brain-bing and hires a bloody design consultant who knows how to respect and communicate with the rest of the human race. So far, this at hasn't happened. I would have thought it should be a frickin' obvious course of action, but clearly it is not. Maybe that's why Gates and Jobs are millionaires.
I want to love Linux, but so far it's like being in a relationship with a woman.
Reminds me of the Russian woman asking what a "Plumber" and "Electrician" were. When these concepts were explained, she said, "Oh, in Russia, we just call that a 'Man'".
To be fair, though, not everybody thinks the same way tech geeks do. There ARE different types of people out there for whom some subjects bore the living piss out of them. I know there are a few subjects like that for me, and so I am more than happy to let somebody else do them for me. If I learn the correct basic terms, it is only to be polite.
While there are some things I just don't care for and consequently know nothing about, (the latest bullshit TV talent and reality shows are examples), there are some subjects of true value which also have this effect on me.
Gardening comes to mind. I can listen while an excited gardener explains her latest endeavor, but my knowledge retention isn't driven by a natural fascination and thus isn't so great. All I know for certain is that the white beans taste good with butter. The trick is to value people for the things they are good at and let them know they are appreciated, --and to learn your own beloved subjects as best you are able while remaining understanding when others value you for your knowledge but otherwise don't care to know the details.
It's a big, wonderful world and there isn't time to learn everything. Best to focus on the things we are most fascinated by.
But I do agree that when I take the time to learn the bare essentials of any given craft, it goes a long, long way toward being a better person. People who make the effort are far more interesting than those who make none whatsoever. (I do, actually, know a fair bit about gardening now, simply because over the years I didn't want to look like a dumb animal while my friend was talking about something she loves. I even grew my own tomato patch one year and I confess, it was quite a lot of fun.)
You are the reason the fears about free stuff killing the web are largely unfounded. That was smarter and more interesting/entertaining content than provided by the original authors.
Somebody will soon take you out for a free cheeseburger and neither of you will realize exactly why. . .
Those Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld ads which cost millions and which everybody thought were monumental failures were part of the vital ground-work for the current wave of marketing success which is Windows 7.
--The two hidden messages in those ads were these. . .
1. "Vista was a failure because Bill went walkabout and left the ship in the care of others who are not awkward geniuses." 2. "See? Bill is an awkward genius who makes us cringe when he's seen on public TV, but that's okay. Investors don't want him to be cool like Seinfeld. Investors want him to be an awkward genius who will make them tons of money when he returns home and kicks that fat 'developers, developers, developers' retard off the MS throne."
There's a reason why public relations firms you've never heard of make and spend billions of dollars every year. I wouldn't be one little bit surprised if that 'developers' video wasn't quite as naturally "viral" as people thought it was. Essentially, if you can think of a clever way to manipulate public perception through the media, then it has probably happened faster, better and smarter than the thirty seconds you took to envision it. Professional PR guys are scary people paid to be scary people 24/7.
And of course, Windows 7 boots and runs fast on my crappy old laptop where Vista crunched it to a halt. PR isn't the only force at work.
I pay about the same for news now as I did before the internet came along.
Or rather, my parents did. --They had a cable TV and newspaper subscription which, taking inflation into account, costs about the same as a high-speed internet connection.
The "How will it support itself if it's Free?" conundrum is a Living Paradox! --Like the question, "How can I get a credit card without a credit history?" or, "How can I get the required job experience if I can't get a job?", such paradoxes, while logically being impossible on paper in a strictly mathematical sense, are not restricted to a finite set of values and influences in the Real World. The Real World is big and infinite in nature, and there is almost always a Way. Indeed, lots of people have credit cards and jobs. In exactly this manner, there will always be media even if it happens to be 'free'.
Here's a "For Instance". . . I decided to give $50 per year to Amy Goodman and crew over at democracynow.com --Not by opting into a structured donation system, but just one day after being blown away by one of their regular hour-long pod casts. I said, "This is higher-quality signal to noise than anything I've seen on a network news channel in years. I'm going to give them $50 today because I feel like it. I'll do the same next year if it's just as good. Where's their 'donate' button. . ?"
Those who are stressed out about how Free Stuff will Ruin the World are simply locked into a linear mind-set; they need to accept that the nature of their reality is unpredictable and basically really cool. People who are politically Conservative usually have crap imaginations, which means they have trouble grasping complex notions which are not black and white, linear in nature. It is hardly surprising that such people are the most afraid of Free Stuff. --And generally afraid of giving and taking openly. Giving $50 because I felt like it was simply a particle of Pirating with a negative charge. There are ancient philosophies which discuss the nature of giving and receiving and there is a curious rule repeated in all of them which I will paraphrase thusly. . . "Systems of individuals who give openly create more energy than they consume."
There is a good chance you've never heard of the most potent of such philosophies, and there is an equally good chance that you've been inoculated against falling into such systems through the parallel media mind-control tactics which talk about the laws of conservation of energy, or the 'evils of communism' or such with a curious level of hysteria above and beyond that which is actually necessary to transmit those messages. That level of hysteria, when you see it in a subject, is usually a good indicator that somebody somewhere is trying like crazy to program you into some kind of limiting, slave-mentality without your actually looking at the real subject of concern.
There was a Slashdot article a couple of days ago where a writer posed the question, "See? My e-book is being stolen! The top 6 search returns on Google are for illegal copies of my book!"
There were many arguments back and forth, but there was something about that debate which nagged at me for a day or so, and it wasn't until the story had gone cold that I realized what it was. (And since I happened to be a moderator on that discussion, I couldn't have commented anyway.) But now seems to be a good time to bring it up. ..
The fellow's e-book was not the same as any regular bit of media. It was actually a coder's bible of sorts, a book about how to make computers and the internet work. It was being used as course material in classes which taught programming. --It struck me that this fellow's book was less like a movie video or a song using the web as a transmission medium to get its message from point A to multiple point B's, than it was actually much more like a packet of DNA for the internet. Expecting that it should NOT be pulled by the gravitational force of the internet itself seemed wildly wishful. I know when I am
He was just rambling. By contrast, mine was sloppy and obscure (due to my being too lazy at the time of posting to generalize access to the various geek references). You'd have to have a base level understanding of. . .
1. Conspiracy theory specifically with regard to how EM pollution affects human brain cells. 2. Sid Meyer's "Alpha Centauri", (as well as forgive my calling it, 'Brain Staples' rather than 'Mind Staples'.) 3. The ingredient list of a McDonald's milk shake and the urban myth which says it is one molecule shy of being a plastic.
When I post sloppily, it's often because I hit "Submit" by accident before I'm ready. This, however, was not one of those cases. It was genuine laziness. I just know the subject too well and no longer care enough to explain my thinking to others. Let 'em zombie out if they wish. I am resigned to the notion that one day I may devolve into a long-haired old man muttering to himself in a cave. I'd rather not, (it seems cliche and lame), but I'm not sure if there's much choice involved. Maybe it will be slightly less lame if I call it a "grotto," learn French and get myself some paints.
Ugh. Or maybe I just need to do some spring cleaning and get some sunshine.
They need to have WiFi, because Ronald is part of Team Evil. (Dumb down the populace electronically as well as nutritionally; the two play well off each other, after all. --Crap passes through the blood brain barrier when cells are excited by microwave EM. What are those shakes made out of again. . ?) But when your brain staples conflict with your other brain staples due to a simple seating issue, well. . , what a quandary!
They should make a video game where the clown must run around trying to juggle this impossible situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Because if they don't deliver the technology to us, then China will.
Oh, good. So we can be expecting the Chinese Electric Car/Geothermal/Solar/Ocean power to replace world oil dependence any day now?
Get back to me when my food isn't deliberately toxic and money can't be made from selling medicine.
The West will nuke China before they are allowed to alleviate world slavery through the capitalist nonsense dogma kids are fed in their first year college! Fucking mind-mold factories with ivy and buildings which are SOOOO big and overwhelming and home is SOOOO far away; dazed as such, any shit which sounds Smart and Strong, delivered by a Charismatic Leader, (with no prevailing counter argument to be seen or heard), goes into a kid's head and sticks to the gray matter like super-glue. No matter how obviously stupid it is.
Heck, China loves slavery even more than we do, and that's saying something. It would be insane to think that the version of the military industrial complex which comes with Chinese "Stop or We'll Shoot" warning labels doesn't extend to hyper-paranoid control over technology distribution in the land of the Rising Sun. Just like it does here.
-FL
There's something very Zen or perhaps Tardis-Threatening-Paradoxy about your observation.
Dubious research about dubious science.
Is it any wonder that the Human Race's general perception of reality resembles one vast fever dream?
Of course, if you happen to be dreaming the dream, then everything must appear quite normal.
But. . ,
"Pirates of the Caribbean"
"Pirates of Copyright"
"Pirates of Somalia"
Heck, there was even an "International Pirate Day" a few months back.
And when one considers that the origins of international banking, I can only laugh. The world is evidently one giant dream-state metaphor.
Science is fine and grand, but I'm sure digital fire still needs digital oxygen on a holodeck. On a pretend starship. In a reality which no longer exists anyway, thanks to J.J. Abrams.
Arrrrrr.
-FL
It is rare when the entirety of Slashdot is united behind a single message, and so I feel no need to elaborate further on that which should be obvious. But I will anyway, because I feel like I've got another angle on this thing. . .
Micheal Lynton is a million-dollar corporate tool who probably really, honestly for-real sees the world in black & white while everybody else is getting along just fine in full color. That we get.
Here's the new bit. . .
Joss Whedon, had he not screwed up the last episode of Doctor Horrible (thus setting back direct-to-internet-television-by-actual-paid-professionals about, oh, 5 years), showed us a glimpse of the future. Every media outlet in the West which had anything to do with pop culture TV was singing the praises of that little project. But while the world was going electric with excitement for two days, a sad ending on the third threw a bucket of cold water on the whole parade, so not a peep from big media was to be heard again and all the little studio execs pulled their heads back into their little shells. Or saw their shadows perhaps. . .
All of which is to say that awesome content will continue to exist, and for a while it will probably suck waaaaay less than the current fare, because only daring people with imagination will have the gonads to go West.
I one third wonder if Dollhouse was renewed just to keep Joss where they could keep him under thumb. Doc Horrible, even in all its un-wisdom, made enough money to pay the crew and turn a profit. Imagine if it hadn't sucked at the end? We'd be up to our necks in direct to Web content right about now. Kind of like George Lucas and his weird obsession with selling those silly three-inch plastic dolls that nobody could understand until he founded an empire on the things.
-FL
Yup.
That's how it is, alright.
And while back room deals are the back bone of this and every other corporate/government-born fiasco, the all-important element is that the majority of people believe the lies necessary to seal the deal.
Democracy will not work so long as Advertising does.
-FL
Interesting observations.
I find I go through periods where I feel rather closed in, looking at severely limiting systems and wonder, "How can one survive in this war-zone?"
While I found elements of their culture and arts interesting, (what would be considered a typical anime-fan in Jr. High, but in a time when nobody had ever heard the word, "manga"), actually living or growing up in Japan would drive me absolutely nuts. I've hung out with some ex-pat Japanese kids, and more often than not, (meaning in every single one of the half dozen cases I encountered), the leading reason for their traveling abroad was to get the hell out of Japan and its crushing round-pegs-into-square-holes, the-nail-which-stands-up-will-be-hammered-down culture.
While they didn't feel at home in the West, (wandering around in a bit of a daze), they all spent time going on at length about how lousy it had been at home. The Chinese people I ask about this seem to think a similar thing, except they don't want to talk about it because, apparently, they still feel the hot eyes of the "One China" government thought-police burning between their shoulder blades.
I quite like the ability to be rude. --That which is considered "Rude" is often not thoughtless mean-spirited behavior, (I know how to stand to one side on an escalator and shut up in a movie theater), but rather it is simply allowing oneself to not spend every minute of every day scanning others for signs of not fitting in. I've been at parties where the Asian kids in the room spend all their time playing at "chicken pecking order", mercilessly picking on one another while trying to avoid being picked on. It seems to make up the bulk of their activities at any given social gathering. The funny/sad part is that when you jump into the middle of it and show that you are not scared of ridicule and that you have an expressive, light-hearted and self-confident personality, they scatter like. . , well chickens, and hates you precious from the corners of the room, planning your eventual demise and not-so-secretly wishing (because one on one they'll tell you as much), they could have grown up in a less socially oppressive culture like you did.
As for real rudeness, I find it's not actually that big a problem in the West if you know how it works. It seems to be regional. Some cities simply seem to be more filled with mentally immature and inconsiderate people than others. I currently live in a small town where people are incredibly gracious and caring. I've lived in others where the opposite is true. The smaller the population center, the nicer people seem to be.
Not having lived in Japan, I can't say if the same might be true there, but one would hope that water finds its own level in other countries as well. But on the whole, not to be entirely racist, (because I think it's as much about cultural programming as it is about genetics), Mongoloid Asia scares the willies out of me. There seems to be a whole lot of robotic thinking going on in a way which cleaves to obedient, self-policing slave-type thinking. --Though, that's not to say that Caucasian culture isn't just as boxed in. There's a lot of conservative Walmart shoppers out there. Hm. --Buying up all that Chinese product. I wonder if there's a metaphor to be found in there somewhere. . ?
-FL
Damn. Will you please make a movie? I would pay to see it. The challenges you outline are insurmountable, and thus the solutions, if they make sense, would be awesome and would set people's imaginations on fire. What made John Conner so great anyway?
The more comments I read, the more I realize that I will be downloading this film. Much later. If I'm extremely bored. Maybe.
Oh, but you do need to put Summer in your film. She's adorable!
-FL
Ha ha. You're right!
I haven't seen the film yet, but it's rather telling when a movie from a franchise doesn't live up to the mythology created by said franchise. Not getting tagged with it's own label? Wow. --I would NOT want to be a director or writer on a mythological project like Terminator or Star Wars or (gasp) Star Trek, unless I was VERY sure of myself. It's quite rare when somebody meets the demands of the challenge.
-FL
Andrews founded an organization of sci-fi writers to offer imaginative services in return for travel expenses only. Called Sigma, the group has about 40 writers. Over the years, members have addressed meetings organized by the Department of Energy, the Army, Air Force, NATO and other agencies they care not to name.
Hm. The last book Robert Ludlum wrote was called "The Sigma Protocol". It was published the same year he died. He was 73.
It was about a collective of creepy post-Nazi idea men commissioned by Hitler to re-envision the world. Well, after the war, these men carried on with their pursuit of Bad Science in the shadows. Central to the plot was a string of assassinations of old men who had fallen out of the club because they thought what they were about to achieve was too horrific even for a bunch of ex-Nazis. The cataclysmic ending resulted in explosions and heroic rewards, etc., but also with a young software billionaire carrying on the creepy work. . . (The book's last page makes a very deliberate jab at Bill Gates and his recent affiliation with the fucking creepy organization, Planned Parenthood.) Or maybe it wasn't deliberate. Still, an elbow in the ribs is an elbow in the ribs intended or not.
Whatever the case, I'll leave the obvious connective threads dangling because they're rather over-dramatic in the same way that the premier episode of Lone Gunmen was just too stupidly prophetic to be taken seriously. Even though it was right on the money.
Anyway. . . The real point I'd like to make is that any dick-head writer 'Heinlein' enough to work with the DHS needs a stern talking to or failing that, a good ass-kicking. Sci-Fi writers can be exceptional dorks sometimes.
I mean. . , did anybody else notice the distinctive Starship Troopers feel to J.J. Abram's Star Trek? (I'm talking about the cinematic version of ST, not the book).
And on a semi-related note. . . One interesting thing in the world of speculative fiction which totally caught me off guard was that Dollhouse has been renewed for a second season. WTF? I mean, that's cool and all, but. . , has hell frozen over?
These thoughts may all seem disconnected, but they really aren't. Don't think too hard though. It's Friday and the week has been long.
-FL
Corporations only feel safe when they are in control.
A group of self-motivated individuals working independently of the Corporation are THREATENING because they are not under any direct control by the company, and if their movement grows influential enough, it can start to dictate to the corporation what it ought to do. And those things might not be in the corporation's best interest. They might be in the interests of the people. (Horrors!!!)
And so, the corporation doesn't care if it destroys its market base through the issuance of infantile legal notices, because failure is worse than being under the yoke of humans. A corporation under human control is not a corporation at all. It is a co-operative. It's open source. It's pinko commie something or other. . . Whatever it is, it's frickin' scary to those who want to enslave others and enrich themselves and move into gated communities, (where apparently, the American Dream lives.)
--This is all especially so for a large and well-established corporate body. It can afford to lose a little business by pissing off the fringe of fans because it KNOWS it can simply program a bevy of mindless drones to become new fans; it's easy! Just give running shoes to inner city black kids, or whatever. That's the job of the Public Relations department, and we know it works, because people wear stupid clothes and eat toxic shit because they are told to. So really. . , fans? They're the disease! They're an unruly gob of humanity motivated by passion and not by corporate marketing science. Fuck them! In the schizoid world of the Corporate marketing world, the most intense fans are the worst kind of customer. They are motivated by Love! And everybody knows that given the choice between being Loved and Feared, the Alpha In The Room will choose to dominate rather than establish any sort of healthy human relations.
Sigh.
Establishing control over the weak is the post-coital pleasure for any large beast of prey. And Corporations are Sharks.
-FL
Yeah, and there was a time when all politicians were honest too...
Don't be silly.
Though, I LIKED Star Trek The Motion Picture back in 1979. And come to think of it. . . I was just a kid, but Jimmy Carter wasn't a total jack ass, was he? The man is pro-Palestinian today, which makes him, you have to admit, a wee bit Starfleet.
Um. . . That's Starfleet ethics according to the Old Time Line. (OTL?)
-FL
What happens when a keylogger gets installed on your system? A password on your bank account won't matter. I have to go back again to layered security. I don't mean to preach but if you think a firewall is sufficient security it's only a matter of time before you get hacked. It's that type of mentality that aids in the spread of viruses, worms, and other malware.
You live in a scary, scary world my friend. Is your whole life lived in this fashion?
A keylogger isn't going to get installed on my system because I am the active ingredient. Without me to put it there, it won't get there. Simple as that. Further, I don't keep any real money in any bank account accessible by computers. The password I was talking about was the one needed to make my card work in a bank machine. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. All systems are hackable. A keylogger on a bank machine touchpad could screw me, but I'm not going to spend my days living in fear of that. At the moment, the only people stealing money from me are the Banks themselves.
The "matter of time before I get hacked" clock started when I first got a modem twenty years ago and the alarm hasn't gone off yet, nor will it so long as I stay informed about how reality works and take appropriate steps to remain clear of problems. Layered security on my own computer is over-kill, which I feel is inappropriate given my knowledge of things and the amount of risk I am prepared to live with.
But do whatever makes you feel in control, (which you NEVER are); run a 'post-9/11' paranoia OS, but don't kid yourself. A lot of the universe you are defining only looks and behaves as it does within your own personal bubble version of it. Real reality, the one unfiltered by our personal baggage and our fears and hopes and egos and the subtle proofs we accidentally-on-purpose set up for ourselves. . , that reality is something altogether different, and it's the only one we need to prepare for. Doing otherwise is a waste of energy.
-FL
Do you kick him out before or after he wipes out your bank account?
It's never happened and it probably never will, and that's because I'm smart enough to make small, subtle choices which result in my living in a relatively disaster-free corner of reality. Password protecting my bank account is one thing, but password protecting my kitchen appliances is entirely another. It's too much work and it's largely unnecessary so long as I don't do anything stupid. But "stupid" is entirely a result of how much knowledge I happen to have.
The world is actually a very safe place if you take the time to get to know it. But living in ignorance will, I suppose, make heavy-handed safety nets seem like a good idea until one get's the hang of things. It's a natural process, I think, to wade in slowly at first.
The trick to living gracefully is in knowing that most calamities are over-reported and are quite easy to bounce back from stronger, smarter and happier than before. Humans, with the right attitude, are wonderfully resilient. More than once, I've had friends comment on my 'ability' to survive 'crazy' risks and 'disasters' and somehow get away clean and well-rewarded. I tell them that I'm not doing anything special other than looking before I leap and then not being afraid. Anybody can do it. Trust in the Universe and it will trust you back. Being happy and lighthearted is a key. That's perhaps the part I need to work on most; when I get pissed off, it's much easier to get hurt.
-FL
In Canada, back in the good ol' socialist days of a Single Phone Company, if Bell did something greedy and stupid, all you had to do was call up the CRTC, (the Canadian Radio & Television Commission) and lodge a complaint. I'd done it a couple of time, and the problems magically vanished. That was back when I didn't mind paying taxes quite so much, because my government was actually doing something useful.
Then the Public Relations people for some greedy corporate start-up told everybody that a single phone system wasn't competitive and that we were in danger of all becoming communists or some stupid air-head shit, and the idiot masses were manipulated into pressing for Bell's system to be opened up to the glories of competition. And because people are fucking stupid in large numbers, easily swayed by emotional messages, I now have several awful phone services to choose from all of which charge too much and calling the CRTC no longer holds the kind of wonderful powers it once did.
Overarching governmental powers don't fit well for every situation, and in some cases they are downright bad. But when it comes to vital systems, like communications and medical care, I want a really big hammer to smash greedy, lazy, stupid assholes with. I USED to have that big hammer AND an efficient, affordable phone system, and now I don't. So thank-you very much for making my life that much more crappy with your stupid social experiment which I told you was going to fail back when you first jumped on the bandwagon in the heady, wide-eyed days of your first year at some ass-hat university where your young minds were molded. You know who you are.
-FL
You don't want that to be your single point of failure. Security is best applied in layers. One layer isn't going to do you any good.
Well, every year or so I do a deep search for malicious software. (Kind of like cleaning out my fridge in the Spring?) Guess what? There's never been a virus or a root kit in all the years of my using computers. Multi-layered paranoia is certainly better than a single layer, but honestly, it has always looked like serious overkill to me. Simply not opening my front door for suspicious looking characters seems to do a pretty good job of keeping unwanted intruders out of my vegetable crisper. And you know what? Even if I do come home one day to find a creep going through my cupboards, it's not really the end of the world. I'd just kick him out and buy new cans of tuna. I don't have anything on my hard drives which cannot be replaced. It's just not worth all the hassle of being strip-searched several times a week by my own gear.
-FL
The funny thing is that the only part of the ST canon which was NOT erased by the time jump thingy was mister Quantum Leap's contribution.
I enjoyed the new film as well, but it wasn't Star Trek and Abrams is still a lame jackass who thinks and writes exclusively using mechanical base emotions rather than the higher thought patterns some members of our race still try to embrace. The man and his vision is a link or two backwards on the chain of cultural evolution. That's why his characters all seem like shop-window dummies.
I sometimes enjoy Disney films, but that doesn't make Disney's vision of the world a good thing. Heck, I can also enjoy a bag of Doritoes from time to time.
There was a period when ST was not just empty calories. But hey, that's alright. As our culture has demonstrated, thinking is too much work. And now with the calming effect of the Vulcan empire gone, we humans can now focus on that stuff we all love so much; Endless War!
Sigh. Picard's Enterprise was my favorite and I knew it too good to last. People don't deserve happiness and sanity if they actively reject it in favor of pain, misery and small-mindedness.
The attitude and energy of this new film, particularly the scenes in and around Starfleet Academy, strongly reminded me of another film: "Starship Troopers".
-FL
Apple has looked into design, and their solution with MacOS X has been to do what Linux does; pop up a window asking the user for their admin username and password. You might not like it, but you can't say nobody qualified has thought about this solution that you happen to not like.
Yes, but within reason.
What I'm talking about is booting into Ubuntu for the first time while in my apartment -all by myself- connected to the internet through a router with a hardware firewall and nobody looking over my shoulder, --and NOT being able to change the contents of a simple text file because the OS said I didn't have permission. And didn't, btw, offer me the option of entering a password. Further, it was not explained anywhere that I needed something called 'root' access to use my computer, and worse, it made no effort to explain how I might go about getting 'root' access.
The moment I stepped outside the kindergarten sandbox some thoughtful IT professional decided to allow me to play within, (gee, I can listen to music and use GIMP without my graphics tablet working properly), there was absolutely zero help in understanding how the actual guts of my system functioned so that I could fix the holes left by the programmer in his condescending little world view he decided to allow me to play within as though I were an orangutan with a squeak toy. And that's total bullshit. I thought Ubuntu was for Human Beings.
All I'm saying is that with a few sign posts in place, the transition from MS to Linux could be made a LOT easier for people who are used to being able to wield power over their own computers and who feel bloody pissed off at being rendered suddenly helpless. If the Linux community REALLY, (as they keep saying), want people to adopt their system, then they might take the time to help people. . , you know, adopt their system. At the moment, however, the system wants to adopt the user, and it proceeds to treat the user like a problem child which needs to be heavily controlled/sedated and frustrated with child-proof lids.
Linux is condescending. What I think happened is this: Linux was written by a bunch of frustrated IT professionals who just wanted to corral ignorant office drones and not allow them to damage the OS and screw up their work day. And that's fine. But the private individual using Ubuntu in the comfort of his or her own home ought to be allowed to fuck up their system just as much as they damned well please.
--I REALLY don't mind killing my whole system by making ignorant mistakes and having to re-install the OS from scratch. That's how I learn. What drives me absolutely mental is being treated like a criminal intruder by the OS I just breathed life into when there is no good reason at all to do so. It's worse than visiting a damned U.S. airport terminal. Which, frankly, is very, very surprising.
I remember one of my first thoughts years ago when I first started playing with Linux was just how paranoid the whole thing was. In a system built by a large group of cooperative and giving people, this struck me as both a sad and significant comment on the world. When I'm all alone in a room, and the computer I bought and built keeps looking at me suspiciously and telling me I don't have permission to use it. . , that is truly messed up.
Here's the Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth and the secret to success: Real documentation which extends to every aspect of the OS which is clear, easy to understand, and basically written and edited not by tech geeks but by people whose job it is to communicate complex information simply and quickly to human beings who have a highschool reading level. All available right from the desktop.
--And above all. . , Root access granted by default. If you want to control people as an IT professional, then you use an office version of the OS which is designed to be unbreakable and de-humanizing. But I don't want that shit in my home, thank-you.
Do all of that, and then and ONLY then will Linux be ready for the desktop.
-FL
In other words, you need permission for executing programs for exactly the same reason that you need a lock on your front door.
Well, sure. And exactly for the reasons you explain, I have a front door lock, which would be the metaphor for the fire wall, or in my case, the hardware router I use. But the OS?
That's like putting locks on my fridge and washing machine for fear of intruders. If you work in an office, (or a live in a rowdy dorm), then I can see the necessity of that. But my house is my house, and the OS ought to reflect that. A simple wizard upon installation would solve this; "Are you going to be using this computer on a network where lots of random people will have access, are you going to be sharing with your family, or are you going to be the only user?" --Give three choices with explanations of what each choice will do, and of course, allow hard core Linux users to do whatever the heck they want by making the wizard entirely optional.
Dumb it down like a Mac, but never lock people out of the guts. I never understand why so many software vendors remove their full featured option sets when they adopt simple GUIs. How hard is it to leave a an 'Advanced' button in place?
All I'm saying is that for a Linux distribution to be successful, it has to take newbies into account by making explanations and system maps easy, informed, standardized and readily available on the desktop.
They should use the Meyer Brigg's (sp?) personality profiles to come up with the three or four most common approaches to learning and sculpt three or four help menu formats to take everybody into account. I know that some help menus make zero sense to me, while with others I feel like a good friend knows me and is giving me exactly the information I can digest and use for the situation at hand.
Communication is an art, and Linux was written by geniuses who can't paint for shit.
-FL
Why do I need permission to do things? If I'm in front of my own bloody computer, then I have permission. There should be a home version with NO paranoia and a version for the office where the IT man is god.
Ubuntu goes a long way to making Linux accessible, but it still needs desktop tutorials designed to explain to a retard ape like me how to perform the most common tasks.
After years of running at the Linux wall, I eventually learned that it is actually a more logical system than Windows. --But that logic isn't explained anywhere in an even halfway reasonable manner. --Like on a desktop tour of the system actuated on start-up. Nope. --You have to cruise through web forums and basically already know everything in order to even ask a simple question. --When I tried to get my graphics tablet to be pressure sensitive, all the solutions required advanced knowledge in a variety of different areas which I found utterly baffling and alien. When I tried to understand the lingo of one of those other areas, it was invariably explained using more of the same indecipherable terms from another area.
I built my own Apple ][ with a frickin' soldering iron and I can troubleshoot some pretty complicated problems on a PC, but every time I approach Linux, I end up pissed off and confused.
Linux will be ready for the rest of the human race when somebody finally gets a brain-bing and hires a bloody design consultant who knows how to respect and communicate with the rest of the human race. So far, this at hasn't happened. I would have thought it should be a frickin' obvious course of action, but clearly it is not. Maybe that's why Gates and Jobs are millionaires.
I want to love Linux, but so far it's like being in a relationship with a woman.
-FL
Reminds me of the Russian woman asking what a "Plumber" and "Electrician" were. When these concepts were explained, she said, "Oh, in Russia, we just call that a 'Man'".
To be fair, though, not everybody thinks the same way tech geeks do. There ARE different types of people out there for whom some subjects bore the living piss out of them. I know there are a few subjects like that for me, and so I am more than happy to let somebody else do them for me. If I learn the correct basic terms, it is only to be polite.
While there are some things I just don't care for and consequently know nothing about, (the latest bullshit TV talent and reality shows are examples), there are some subjects of true value which also have this effect on me.
Gardening comes to mind. I can listen while an excited gardener explains her latest endeavor, but my knowledge retention isn't driven by a natural fascination and thus isn't so great. All I know for certain is that the white beans taste good with butter. The trick is to value people for the things they are good at and let them know they are appreciated, --and to learn your own beloved subjects as best you are able while remaining understanding when others value you for your knowledge but otherwise don't care to know the details.
It's a big, wonderful world and there isn't time to learn everything. Best to focus on the things we are most fascinated by.
But I do agree that when I take the time to learn the bare essentials of any given craft, it goes a long, long way toward being a better person. People who make the effort are far more interesting than those who make none whatsoever. (I do, actually, know a fair bit about gardening now, simply because over the years I didn't want to look like a dumb animal while my friend was talking about something she loves. I even grew my own tomato patch one year and I confess, it was quite a lot of fun.)
-FL
You are the reason the fears about free stuff killing the web are largely unfounded. That was smarter and more interesting/entertaining content than provided by the original authors.
Somebody will soon take you out for a free cheeseburger and neither of you will realize exactly why. . .
Cheers!
-FL
Better marketing.
Those Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld ads which cost millions and which everybody thought were monumental failures were part of the vital ground-work for the current wave of marketing success which is Windows 7.
--The two hidden messages in those ads were these. . .
1. "Vista was a failure because Bill went walkabout and left the ship in the care of others who are not awkward geniuses."
2. "See? Bill is an awkward genius who makes us cringe when he's seen on public TV, but that's okay. Investors don't want him to be cool like Seinfeld. Investors want him to be an awkward genius who will make them tons of money when he returns home and kicks that fat 'developers, developers, developers' retard off the MS throne."
There's a reason why public relations firms you've never heard of make and spend billions of dollars every year. I wouldn't be one little bit surprised if that 'developers' video wasn't quite as naturally "viral" as people thought it was. Essentially, if you can think of a clever way to manipulate public perception through the media, then it has probably happened faster, better and smarter than the thirty seconds you took to envision it. Professional PR guys are scary people paid to be scary people 24/7.
And of course, Windows 7 boots and runs fast on my crappy old laptop where Vista crunched it to a halt. PR isn't the only force at work.
-FL
I pay about the same for news now as I did before the internet came along.
Or rather, my parents did. --They had a cable TV and newspaper subscription which, taking inflation into account, costs about the same as a high-speed internet connection.
The "How will it support itself if it's Free?" conundrum is a Living Paradox! --Like the question, "How can I get a credit card without a credit history?" or, "How can I get the required job experience if I can't get a job?", such paradoxes, while logically being impossible on paper in a strictly mathematical sense, are not restricted to a finite set of values and influences in the Real World. The Real World is big and infinite in nature, and there is almost always a Way. Indeed, lots of people have credit cards and jobs. In exactly this manner, there will always be media even if it happens to be 'free'.
Here's a "For Instance". . . I decided to give $50 per year to Amy Goodman and crew over at democracynow.com --Not by opting into a structured donation system, but just one day after being blown away by one of their regular hour-long pod casts. I said, "This is higher-quality signal to noise than anything I've seen on a network news channel in years. I'm going to give them $50 today because I feel like it. I'll do the same next year if it's just as good. Where's their 'donate' button. . ?"
Those who are stressed out about how Free Stuff will Ruin the World are simply locked into a linear mind-set; they need to accept that the nature of their reality is unpredictable and basically really cool. People who are politically Conservative usually have crap imaginations, which means they have trouble grasping complex notions which are not black and white, linear in nature. It is hardly surprising that such people are the most afraid of Free Stuff. --And generally afraid of giving and taking openly. Giving $50 because I felt like it was simply a particle of Pirating with a negative charge. There are ancient philosophies which discuss the nature of giving and receiving and there is a curious rule repeated in all of them which I will paraphrase thusly. . . "Systems of individuals who give openly create more energy than they consume."
There is a good chance you've never heard of the most potent of such philosophies, and there is an equally good chance that you've been inoculated against falling into such systems through the parallel media mind-control tactics which talk about the laws of conservation of energy, or the 'evils of communism' or such with a curious level of hysteria above and beyond that which is actually necessary to transmit those messages. That level of hysteria, when you see it in a subject, is usually a good indicator that somebody somewhere is trying like crazy to program you into some kind of limiting, slave-mentality without your actually looking at the real subject of concern.
There was a Slashdot article a couple of days ago where a writer posed the question, "See? My e-book is being stolen! The top 6 search returns on Google are for illegal copies of my book!"
There were many arguments back and forth, but there was something about that debate which nagged at me for a day or so, and it wasn't until the story had gone cold that I realized what it was. (And since I happened to be a moderator on that discussion, I couldn't have commented anyway.) But now seems to be a good time to bring it up. . .
The fellow's e-book was not the same as any regular bit of media. It was actually a coder's bible of sorts, a book about how to make computers and the internet work. It was being used as course material in classes which taught programming. --It struck me that this fellow's book was less like a movie video or a song using the web as a transmission medium to get its message from point A to multiple point B's, than it was actually much more like a packet of DNA for the internet. Expecting that it should NOT be pulled by the gravitational force of the internet itself seemed wildly wishful. I know when I am
He was just rambling. By contrast, mine was sloppy and obscure (due to my being too lazy at the time of posting to generalize access to the various geek references). You'd have to have a base level understanding of. . .
1. Conspiracy theory specifically with regard to how EM pollution affects human brain cells.
2. Sid Meyer's "Alpha Centauri", (as well as forgive my calling it, 'Brain Staples' rather than 'Mind Staples'.)
3. The ingredient list of a McDonald's milk shake and the urban myth which says it is one molecule shy of being a plastic.
When I post sloppily, it's often because I hit "Submit" by accident before I'm ready. This, however, was not one of those cases. It was genuine laziness. I just know the subject too well and no longer care enough to explain my thinking to others. Let 'em zombie out if they wish. I am resigned to the notion that one day I may devolve into a long-haired old man muttering to himself in a cave. I'd rather not, (it seems cliche and lame), but I'm not sure if there's much choice involved. Maybe it will be slightly less lame if I call it a "grotto," learn French and get myself some paints.
Ugh. Or maybe I just need to do some spring cleaning and get some sunshine.
-FL
I thought Solar Wind was invisible.
-FL
Ha ha.
They need to have WiFi, because Ronald is part of Team Evil. (Dumb down the populace electronically as well as nutritionally; the two play well off each other, after all. --Crap passes through the blood brain barrier when cells are excited by microwave EM. What are those shakes made out of again. . ?) But when your brain staples conflict with your other brain staples due to a simple seating issue, well. . , what a quandary!
They should make a video game where the clown must run around trying to juggle this impossible situation.
-FL