Mafia hitman #1: It's settled, then. The senator's plane will take off but it won't land.
Mafia hitman #2: Good, it's done. Gentlemen, this conversation never took place.
Mafia hitman #3: Who just farted?
FBI agent wearing cloak: (oh shit)
The last time M$ "played nice", they betrayed the Java community.
Rambus "played nice" when they got their dynamic RAM architecture designated the industry standard, but without disclosing their patent which they ultimately used to bully OEMs into royalty fees.
The industry does not forget these deceptive tactics so it is no surprise that the OS industry is apprehensive of M$, who holds a large patent portfolio. M$ is not going to be trusted very easily.
By delaying the amendment to a later date, it effectively removes the executive opposition because the Bush dynasty will be out of office in 2009. The telcos want their immunity while a sympathetic government is in place, but that window expires in 2009.
This is why Verizon has been aggressive about protecting their customers from telemarketers. Imagine the customer revolt if they were charged for 100 unsolicited text message spams a day.
While I despise the text message pricing model and do not text at all, I really like the peace of mind of not being bothered by telemarketing calls.
The price of fuel is $4/gallon and climbing, consumers ditching their gas guzzlers in favor of fuel efficient vehicles, and the best the domestic automakers can offer is wireless internet? This should be a hot seller for sure.
Back in 2004 I started pressuring the Saturn dealer to bring back the 40mpg "S" series they discontinued in 2002. Those cars were excellent vehicles for their fuel efficiency. I told them that customers are going to be demanding fuel efficient vehicles if gas gets too expensive. Every new model they introduced got lower mpg. Now they're touting wireless internet. Looks like the asians are going to be getting a lot of new customers.
The entertainment industry is based on copyright, and LA is dependent on the entertainment industry. It's not really a surprise.
I do find it hypocritical that 100 years ago this very industry set its roots in a state to escape the patents of Thomas Edison, and today they are crying over copyright infringement... boy do they reap what they sow.
Stay away from that cesspool, do not patronize them. That includes throwing your TV out the window.
I was a student in the early 80s at the dawn of video games like PacMan and Donkey Kong.
I got good at those games - but at a price. As other video games were introduced, it became obvious that I was playing against a rigged stack, so I quit playing video games.
I went back to my old vice - pinball machines. I get more enjoyment playing a game in which a law of physics - gravity - is directly involved. Video games can be rigged easily, but you cannot rig the law of physics in pinball machines.
Years after I graduated college, I still make a beeline when I spot a pinball machine.
There were many factors that contributed to the disaster:
- an unusually warm winter that released a massive ice field directly in the Titanic's path. Many ships were stopped in this field, their paths blocked by the ice field. The rescue ship Carpathia barely succeeded in maneuvering through the numerous icebergs.
- as the ship approached the iceberg, the sea was completely calm with zero wind - an extremely rare condition at sea. This reduced reaction time to an iceberg sighting as there would be no breaking water at the base that would have made it easier to sight
- clear sky with no moon light - another condition that made it harder to spot icebergs
- the lookout who first spotted the iceberg survived to report that it had a black face. As an iceberg melts, its center of gravity shifts and the mass rotates through the water. The lookout's report revealed that the berg had recently rotated as it melted and had exposed its wet surface which has a dark appearance. Another condition that made it harder to spot
- there was a re-assignment in officers, forcing the original first officer off the voyage. He neglected to pass along the key to the locker containing the binoculars for the crow's nest. The lookouts in the crow's nest lacked binoculars, which may had made a difference in sighting the iceberg sooner. This key was sold at auction shortly after his recent decease.
- the officer on duty at the time of collision ordered hard a-starboard and reversing the engines. This was a fatal maneuver as the Titanic's turbine-driven center propeller was not reversible and this severly reduced the turning ability of the rudder. The officer unwittenly exposed the impact to the vulnerable broadside, the ship may have survived if it had struck the iceberg head-on.
- Sea trials revealed that the Titanic took a long distance to come to a complete stop and could not turn on a dime. With the cumulative conditions of the sea, the iceberg, the weather, and the compromised position of the crow's nest it was impossible to evade the iceberg or come to a complete stop
- in addition to the compromised rivets, the hull plates were also compromised. Steel scavenged from the wreck indicated that it had a high content of sulfur that made the steel brittle when exposed to freezing water. Metallurgical science of steel was not advanced enough at the time, steel with that high sulfur content would never leave the forgeries today. Modern steel would simply flex and bend when exposed to the impact of an iceberg in freezing water; Titanic's steel shattered under the same conditions
- lax regulations on wireless morse systems (long range radio did not exist), few ships staffed 24/7 wireless operators. The Californian - ten miles from the sinking - had a sole wireless operator who had shut down his set for the night, twenty minutes before the iceberg collision.
- the Titanic wireless operators neglected to pass a critical ice warning to the bridge. This message warned of icebergs at the precise location where the ship met her doom.
- aggressive competition among wireless companies, with little interchanging and blatant arrogance between operators of competing companies.
- hopelessly outdated UK lifeboat requirements. Lifeboat requirements were based on gross tonnage and the Titanic met those requirements, albiet only enough lifeboats for half the occupants.
- the complacency of the era was so bad that the passengers refused to believe that the ship would sink and would not board the lifeboats. This attitude also combined with the slow gradual list as the ship sank at the head. The ship was simply so big that any serious trouble was not evident. By the time it was obvious that something was seriously wrong the lifeboats were gone, most not even filled to capacity. Had the crew been more assertive in filling lifeboats, the loss of life would not had been so tragic.
"Too many people had the suss,
Too many people support us,
An unlimited amount,
Too many outlets in and out,
Who?
E.M.I.! E.M.I.! E.M.I.!"
-- "E.M.I.", The Sex Pistols, 1977.
Slickers steal my money since I was seventeen,
if it ain't no pencil pusher then it got to be a honky tonk queen.
But I signed my contract, baby, and I want you people to know
that every penny I make, I gotta see where my money goes.
We would still have horse buggies if we subsidized outdated businesses.
And unlike the banking and manufacturing industries, the entertainment industry is not imperative to the national economy. I will not shed a tear if they disappear.
The MPAA can make all the long stretches of reasonings they want, but I consider this subsidy a poor waste of my tax dollars.
The media cartel in Canada introduced Captain Copyright to educate the youth about respecting copyright, but the program violated the Wikipedia GNU license because the propoganda contains references from Wikipedia. The program was ultimately dismantled as authorities questioned the deceptive educational value of a program designed to benefit a commercial enterprise.
They pointed a finger at Canada, but there are three more pointing back to them.
Restore our once grand rail passenger system that our country had before 1960.
Amtrak doesn't have enough destinations. Expand it and the airport security bottlenecks will decrease.
Yes there is bus transportation, but once you travel by rail you will find it is much more pleasant than being packed like sardines in air travel coach class. Leave air travel to the time-challenged travelers.
I do not p2p so the industry cannot easily blame piracy.
I stopped buying CDs because I refuse to patronize a greedy industry that was convicted of selling overpriced media, that maintains an iron grip on their distribution channels and seeks to eliminate any threat to that control, that uses "Hollywood accounting" to defer royalty payments to their artists, that litigates against their customers using shoddy legal practices and bypasses required steps in the legal process, that uses endentured slavery contracts to strip profits from their artists and enslaves them to provide content, that exploits their political connections to force alternate distribution channels (IE internet radio) out of business through retroactive copyright fees, and lastly fails to provide decent value for our dollar due to poor content ratio - one good song, the other nineteen disposable.
When the RIAA cartel collapses, then the distribution channels may finally open to better music from better talent.
When I noticed that the print news had more story detail than the broadcast news, that's when I quit watching TV. TV simply cannot devote enough time to most stories due to advertising demands and they omit details that are important. So the story from broadcast news is not 100% accurate.
Notwithstanding the blatant sensationalism, overwhelming and intrusive advertising, advertisements disquised as "stories" (TV shows, movies, etc), stupid teasers to the next story which turned out to be unimportant, non-event paris/nicole/spears news, and corporate bias and control of content.
I actually fell asleep during Dan Rather's broadcast. It is the only time I ever fell asleep in front of the TV.
Slashdot Mirror
Mafia hitman #1: It's settled, then. The senator's plane will take off but it won't land.
Mafia hitman #2: Good, it's done. Gentlemen, this conversation never took place.
Mafia hitman #3: Who just farted?
FBI agent wearing cloak: (oh shit)
Rambus "played nice" when they got their dynamic RAM architecture designated the industry standard, but without disclosing their patent which they ultimately used to bully OEMs into royalty fees.
The industry does not forget these deceptive tactics so it is no surprise that the OS industry is apprehensive of M$, who holds a large patent portfolio. M$ is not going to be trusted very easily.
By delaying the amendment to a later date, it effectively removes the executive opposition because the Bush dynasty will be out of office in 2009. The telcos want their immunity while a sympathetic government is in place, but that window expires in 2009.
It is perfectly legal to download the anarchist cookbook, but they want to criminalize downloading copyrighted music and movies...?
While I despise the text message pricing model and do not text at all, I really like the peace of mind of not being bothered by telemarketing calls.
Back in 2004 I started pressuring the Saturn dealer to bring back the 40mpg "S" series they discontinued in 2002. Those cars were excellent vehicles for their fuel efficiency. I told them that customers are going to be demanding fuel efficient vehicles if gas gets too expensive. Every new model they introduced got lower mpg. Now they're touting wireless internet. Looks like the asians are going to be getting a lot of new customers.
M$ "reached out" to JAVA developers way back when, look how well that turned out.
Norton? Bah, I have Chuck Norris. If a rootkit tried to to invade my system, Chuck Norris would roundhouse kick it into that great digital black hole.
I do find it hypocritical that 100 years ago this very industry set its roots in a state to escape the patents of Thomas Edison, and today they are crying over copyright infringement... boy do they reap what they sow.
Stay away from that cesspool, do not patronize them. That includes throwing your TV out the window.
Only then will they understand.
I got good at those games - but at a price. As other video games were introduced, it became obvious that I was playing against a rigged stack, so I quit playing video games.
I went back to my old vice - pinball machines. I get more enjoyment playing a game in which a law of physics - gravity - is directly involved. Video games can be rigged easily, but you cannot rig the law of physics in pinball machines.
Years after I graduated college, I still make a beeline when I spot a pinball machine.
Now there is GPL and open license, and M$ complains of competing with free software.
Hurts to wear the shoe on the other foot, doesn't it?
Slickers steal my money since I was seventeen,
if it ain't no pencil pusher then it got to be a honky tonk queen.
But I signed my contract, baby, and I want you people to know
that every penny I make, I gotta see where my money goes.
-- "Working For MCA" Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974
"Nice ISP you have there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it."
Wuss. My abacus works during power blackouts and I don't need ISPs for sending smoke signals.
(Robocop fires a round of bullets precisely at copyright infringer's hard drive in his tower unit)
"Your move. Creep."
And unlike the banking and manufacturing industries, the entertainment industry is not imperative to the national economy. I will not shed a tear if they disappear.
The MPAA can make all the long stretches of reasonings they want, but I consider this subsidy a poor waste of my tax dollars.
They pointed a finger at Canada, but there are three more pointing back to them.
Wait... You're on slashdot and you have one of those females?
Whoa... what's that like?
You work at AOL, don't you?
Amtrak doesn't have enough destinations. Expand it and the airport security bottlenecks will decrease.
Yes there is bus transportation, but once you travel by rail you will find it is much more pleasant than being packed like sardines in air travel coach class. Leave air travel to the time-challenged travelers.
I stopped buying CDs because I refuse to patronize a greedy industry that was convicted of selling overpriced media, that maintains an iron grip on their distribution channels and seeks to eliminate any threat to that control, that uses "Hollywood accounting" to defer royalty payments to their artists, that litigates against their customers using shoddy legal practices and bypasses required steps in the legal process, that uses endentured slavery contracts to strip profits from their artists and enslaves them to provide content, that exploits their political connections to force alternate distribution channels (IE internet radio) out of business through retroactive copyright fees, and lastly fails to provide decent value for our dollar due to poor content ratio - one good song, the other nineteen disposable.
When the RIAA cartel collapses, then the distribution channels may finally open to better music from better talent.
Notwithstanding the blatant sensationalism, overwhelming and intrusive advertising, advertisements disquised as "stories" (TV shows, movies, etc), stupid teasers to the next story which turned out to be unimportant, non-event paris/nicole/spears news, and corporate bias and control of content.
I actually fell asleep during Dan Rather's broadcast. It is the only time I ever fell asleep in front of the TV.