What is the U.S. federal government going to do if terrorists continue to use secure cryptography to relay messages into and/or out of the U.S.? I mean, they're already criminals, right?
I guess that's why the feds want to be able to monitor EVERYBODY - then they can find out who isn't cooperating and arrest them. I guess that means we actually have two anti-privacy agendas coming in to play now: the right to use secure cryptography, and the right to communicate without the information being intercepted and archived by the federal government.
I wonder where the various factions of the federal government draw the lines (if anywhere) protecting those rights, and also where the corporate interests sit on these issues.
You maniacs! You screwed it up! God, damn you all to hell!
And to those who have never seen the REAL PotA, please do yourself a favor and go see it. As soon as I found out that the """remake""" tore the guts out of the original, I decided I wouldn't be seeing it in the theater (and I won't, either!)
The suprise premise/ending is what makes the original PotA one of the BEST MOVIES EVER (no I won't spoil it!). Sure, the costumes look goofy and the movie is older than I am, but that doesn't change the fact that it is one of the BEST MOVIES EVER!
I guess I just have a thing for movies that involve the hidden premise of PotA. I wish I could tell you what it is without spoiling it for you! What a dilemma!
The reason government is giving business such leeway in regards to digital media is that our court judges, congressmen, etc. don't know JACK about such things. As a result, they end up listening to the corporate lawyers/interests, who of course are there to persuade government officials to support their efforts to squash the free trade of information (and even data!)
This, my friends, is the crusade that we Slashdotters should all be taking up and fighting on the front lines for: keeping information free! I don't think any of you want any more than I do to see the Internet turn into a guided-tour of an advertisement-ridden online shopping mall, but I assure you that this is what the corporate interests would like the Internet to be, more than anything else! The Internet, however, was designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: the free exchange of data (and by extension, information, which is useful/meaningful data)
It is possible that such data has effectively an inherent drive to be freely exchanged, but it's better to be on the safe side and actively resist attempts to cut off the flow of information that we currently have.
First, I've got a question: In the TOS episode where Kirk encounters the Romulans, I seem to remember that either A) the Federation had never encountered them before, or B) it had been a long time since the last Federation-Romulan encounter. If (A) is true, then a Romulan appearance in this new series would be inconsistent. If (B) is true, then they have some room, but they'd better still be careful:)
Now, on the ship design I see floating around for the new (old) Enterprise: I've seen that design before, using ST1-7 era ship architecture! It may have been in a TV series episode, a movie, or maybe even a ST techinical manual, but I _HAVE_ seen it before... I think it looks way too streamlined for pre-TOS technology anyways:/
First of all, I'd like to say that I'm not closed to the idea of global warming. What I _am_ is very skeptical. I really don't understand how rational people can be expected to "believe" in global warming. Why? Because:
- The same people predicted an ice-age a couple of decades ago. Even if they now know significantly more about climate than they did then, how can we believe that they won't find new evidence overturning the global warming theory?
- Noone ever mentions anything about water vapor, which is a much more important greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere than CO2.
- Ozone holes appear over the poles, and there is no explanation of how humans could cause them to form in those places instead of over cities.
- Scientists have admitted that they DON'T KNOW if the supposed global warming effect is part of a natural climate cycle.
- Liberal political and social activists are the strongest proponents of the global warming theory. They treat every damn thing like a crisis and run around like chickens with their heads cut off. YOU LIBERALS NEED TO STOP "CRYING WOLF" BECAUSE EVERYONE IS STARTING TO DISBELIEVE YOU ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU SAY. Any real scientist or engineer would tell you that it's moronic to try to change something before you can predict what long-term effects the change might create (not to mention whether or not the condition you're trying to change SHOULD be changed in the first place!)
- The Earth has supposedly gotten along just fine without us for billions of years, surviving large asteroids, separation and collision of continents, large volcanic eruptions (which change the climate much more in the short-term than any CO2 emissions ever could!), ice ages, etc. Why are we so arrogant to believe that we can so easily defeat the ability of the Earth to adapt? Furthermore, why are we so arrogant to believe that we can fix the problem without first understanding it (or at least being able to confirm that it exists and is getting worse)?
As I said at the beginning of my post, I don't know if global warming is occuring or not, (I do know that we haven't had a good Winter in Washington State in the last 10 years though =) and if it does exist, I don't know if humans are the cause. What I do know is that I'm going to keep an open mind towards both sides of the debate as long as there isn't hard evidence. If you buy into either side completely then you're most likely deluded.
And another thing that pisses me off: SCIENCE (the application of the Scientific Method) CAN *********NOT********* "PROVE" ANYTHING TO BE "TRUE". All it can do is gather evidence to support or discredit theories about the way our universe works. Science is meant to be a tool by which we can use our own senses and reasoning to find out about that universe, and not a tool for activists, politicians, and news media to get money.
Actually, Carlin is probably right. Let's do a thought experiment:
If human-caused CO2 emissions were the cause of a global warming effect, what would happen? Well, it might get so hot that equatorial regions would become uninhabitable deserts, but at the same time higher latitudes would become rainforests (which would moderate the temperature and CO2 levels). At an extreme, the polar ice-caps would melt. This would mean more free water to be evaporated into clouds, which would become rain. The rain would help plants grow, and the plants would again moderate temperature and CO2.
The Earth is very adaptable to change. My buest guess is that any changes humans make in the global climate would only affect humans in the long-run - the Earth would adapt and gradually return to a normal climate cycle.
I came in halfway through the first rerun of the Voyager finale, having forgotten that it was on again (I never watch it on Wednesday nights because West Wing is much better). Man, was I disappointed! In fact, as soon as I heard "check the capacitance of the inductors," I stopped paying real attention.
SPOILER
Having Janeway come from the future was the stupidest, most unoriginal idea I have ever seen - how the @^$# did this make it into the series finale? Some of you may be questioning my claim that it was an unoriginal idea; how many of you knew that they'd kill off the future Janeway? I rest my case. (she did die, right? I can't remember for sure because I wasn't paying attention - but it's safe to assume she did heheh)
And then there's Bellana's baby. When that came up I had to double-check to make sure I wasn't watching X-Files. Plus, I watched some episodes early in the season, and she WASN'T pregnant - so when did that magically pop up?
And THEN, they cheated to get home! WTF is up with that? You spend 7 years making your way home, only to have your captain come from the future (something she wouldn't do anyways) and save the day with her magic fairy powers. To quote Charlton Heston from Planet of the Apes (better than Voyager and any remakes they'll ever do btw): "You did it. You finally, really did it... God... DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"
END SPOILER
Another interesting thing to note is that UPN launched their network with Voyager. Almost no other UPN show took hold for at least the first couple of years. Obviously, this means that Voyager was also controlled by the ratings-mongerers, who undoubtedly share a sizeable portion of the blame for the often-poor quality of the show.
I'm not looking forward to the next ST series if it's going to have any of the same people involved in it that were responsible for the overwhelming number of negative aspects to Voyager.
Also, if any of you are wondering if there is any good sci-fi out there these days, forget shows like Dark Angel and Voyager and check out Andromeda (created by Roddenberry btw - think of the cool/fun aspects of the old ~1980 sci-fi shows, only without almost all of the cheesy aspects) and on the Sci-Fi Channel be sure to watch Farscape (WOW! They're sure as hell not afraid of killing of main characters once in a while!). Invisible Man is pretty good too - kind of like X-Files, only it's well-written and the characters have a sense of humor (in fact, the whole show does). First Wave is awesome, but I can never stay up to watch it (plus they keep moving it around, so it probably won't last long)
That's all I can think of right now... Except that ST:TOS and ST:TNG reruns are better than I remember! Screw CGI space-battles! I want good writing and acting (in that order, please)! MAKE IT SO!
Re:It's not just memories he's buying
on
Tito In Space
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· Score: 2
"Space tourism is going to be a boon to the industry and Tito is going to demonstrate that."
The problem is that it isn't an industry (yet) - it's just the governments of a few countries doing research. What we really need is to allow and even encourage private space ventures (i.e. allow companies and individuals to have their own space programs). Private funding of government programs is also good (like the infamous Pizza Hut logo) because it provides more incentive to push forward into space.
It's time to realize and consciously acknowledge the fact that space exploration affects the entire human race - NOT merely individual countries! Yes, it's true that companies will probably keep more things secret (in regards to space research at least), but there would be a much higher level of competition. In fact, companies keeping things secret from each other would probably result in research progressing along different lines of thought, and thus different approaches to similar problems (something which may prove to be sorely lacking in multi-national goverment-run space ventures)
Yes, having space research performed only by governments gives a sense of altruistic cooperation, but said governments have little incentive to push forward when money gets tight (unless they're in competition with other countries' governments, which is also a bad thing due to the destructive potential of space technology!)
>I think your dad is full of dog shit. You see, when you say he saw it "when it first came out," you imply that he went to the premiere or perhaps the second night.
No, "when it first came out" only implies that he went during the first run of the film (i.e. not to a rerelease).
>How would he and his cronies know to purchase and consume LSD for the purpose of enjoying the "light show" at the end of the movie, if very few people had seen the movie already?
Because it wasn't the first SHOWING, it was the first RUN. By the time my dad went to see it, the LSD-heads had plenty of time to find out about it. Also, I resent your implication that he himself saw it for the "light show". In fact, Arthur C. Clarke is his favorite author (IS IS IS).
>Tell your father to stop talking FUCK and get back to molesting little boys and girls
Now who's "full of dog shit"? You're nothing but an AC Troll (or else you've got a REALLY big stick up your ass).
You hit the nail right on the head. My dad said he saw 2001 in a theater in California when it first came out, and he could tell that most of the people had bought tickets just for the trip they'd get from watching the flashing-color sequence while high.
No endless flashing colors, incomprehensible scenes/dialog, and it's shorter than the average novel-that-has-been-made-into-a-movie. I guess when they made the movie they wanted to tell a story with the visuals as well - which were great, but I always have to watch 2001 in at least two parts because I fall asleep somewhere in the middle!
Hear hear! It's a shame that the slashdot admins would allow their liberal and sometimes socialist political biases to influence their postings so heavily.
Most Republicans are more interested in personal responsibility than they are in whining to the government to control their lives. Democrats, on the other hand...
I think Cliff Stoll (hey whaddya know - I just found his homepage heheh [http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/]) was the first proponent I'd heard of of the idea that most of what we're dealing with these days (specifically on computers and the Internet) is not actually "information", but merely "data" - useless, random bits of garbage that don't serve a purpose until they're organized into useful information =)
Media: "Someone shot people at school because he was being bullied."
Government: "I wonder if violent video games and/or TV had anything to do with it?"
Everyone: "Who knows?"
*time passes*
*school shooting*
Media: "Someone shot people at school because he was being bullied."
Government: "I wonder if violent video games and/or TV had anything to do with it?"
Everyone: "Who knows?"
*time passes*
(repeat ad infinitum)
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Is anyone else getting as sick and tired of this crap as I am? When will people realize that it's the schools and parents themselves that are the problem and not guns, video games, or TV shows? What really pisses me off is the way everyone reacts the same way every time, never learning anything about how to _really_ prevent it from happening the next time.
The media: gives school shootings tons of air-time to get good ratings.
The government: jumps in with a money-intensive bandaid to line their pockets some more while accomplishing nothing important.
The people: run around like chickens with their head cut off, gobbling up every piece of crap thrown to them by the previous two groups mentioned.
This happens with almost every "shocking" occurance these days, and it really ticks me off. I hold all three groups accountable for such shameful, pitiful, STUPID behavior.
The way I see it, here are the problems with the anti-gun philosophy:
1. Making laws only stops honest people. If someone wants to get a gun for use in committing a crime (murder, armed robbery, etc.), then they'll get one regardless of whether it's legal or not. The same is true of any outlawed item or substance (alcohol, drugs, etc.). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that outlawing the possession of items makes them more attractive to many people (especially "rebellious" young people).
That reminds me: why do liberals want to legalize marjiuana for non-medicinal use but make gun ownership illegal? I don't get it!
2. The problem with gun deaths is not guns, but the people that pull the trigger. If someone wants to kill somebody, they're going to do it - regardless of the tool they use to do so (guns, baseball bats, rocks, bare hands).
3. Accidental gun deaths can be prevented by education/information. Legitimate gun owners need to be taught responsible gun ownership (such as keeping them properly stored away from children, and teaching children responsibility and respect in dealing with guns). We already do the same thing with hazardous household chemicals, automobiles, power tools, etc. Why should guns be any different?
4. If more honest people were to carry guns, people would be less motivated to commit crimes using them, since merely possessing a gun would not give the potential criminal as much of an advantage.
I'm not a radical pro-gun activist or anything (I don't even own a gun or know many people that do), but I do believe that laws are a poor substitue for personal responsibility, as the former can only be used to punish those who have already comitted a crime.
Are you kidding? All they have to do is make 2 or 3 differently-colored pokemon cartridges for it and the things will sell like hotcakes! How do you think the Gameboy still sells today? Other than Pokemon and such, all they're doing is releasing color conversions of old Gameboy games that sold well.
Wohoo! Let's regulate the heck out of HDTV before anyone even sees a reason to buy into it! No way they're gonna make me buy a $1000 TV set to replace my 13" one that turns different colors, or the 18" one that weighs 300 pounds that the neighbor down the street left in his lawn (with "FREE" written on the front of the screen in permanent marker) because you have to hit it to make the picture take up more than half of the screen... Ah, nothing beats a cheap TV.
I agree with you sapphire. I just meant that I would like to see everyone have _access_ to free (no-ad) ISPs, even if their service is poor. That way, people can at least see what it's really like to get on the Internet. Then (as you say), if they're still not happy with the arrangement, they can pay for an account with a quality ISP.
Where I live, there's a new ISP called NoCharge.com that offers free, no-strings-attached unlimited dialup Internet access to anyone (they have numbers in Washington State, Oregon, New York, and Puerto Rico). The only catch is $10 per call to their tech support number (heh). The only problem is, their modem lines are always busy!
Personally, I think this is a brilliant way to compete against both "free" (ad-based) ISPs such as Juno and NetZero and also pay-ISPs (AOL, MSN, local providers, etc.), and I hope it becomes the norm (even if such "truly-free" ISPs offer lower-quality service than pay-ISPs [which, btw, NoCharge doesn't AFAIK])
Some of your arguments seem flawed. When nVIDIA came along, 3dfx was the hands-down, no-holds-barred KING of the 3D-accelerator market (my friend owned a Voodoo2 and a Banshee and my cousin had bought a Voodoo1 the summer before). They forced (well, "strongly pressured") everyone to support (if not use exclusively) their proprietary (in every way) Glide API to interface with their cards (the first mistake that IMHO led to their undoing)
nVIDIA, on the other hand, did everything right (in order of importance from most to least IMO):
- included full support for OpenGL (totally non-proprietary) and Direct3D (Windows-dependent but still not as proprietary as Glide)
- improved an architecture only once before making a new one (i.e. TNT->TNT2, GeForce->Geforce2)
- took a balanced approach to quality vs. performance
- used the same reference drivers for all products from the TNT1 onwards (simplifying upgrades and bringing new features, bug fixes, and optimizations to users of older hardware)
3dfx on the other hand:
- pushed their Glide API until it was clearly evident that they were trying to sell a dead horse (and beat it too), while at the same time sacrificing some compatability with OpenGL and Direct3D (don't tell me that 3dfx cards are slower and bugger with those APIs than with Glide because they ARE)
- made too many "improvements" to existing designs, carrying flaws and limitations into new products (not to mention logarithmic performance increases at exponential price/size/sysreq increases) which could have been avoided by designing new architectures from scratch
- took an all-out performance approach (except when competing with new technological advances), sacrificing quality (both visual and physical) for higher framerates
- updated drivers for newer products sooner and more frequently (a common practice, but one that users of older hardware don't appreciate)
I'm not saying that nVIDIA isn't every bit the monster now that 3dfx was back then, but I am saying that I'm glad I bought a TNT1 instead of a Voodoo Banshee for every reason you might be able to think of. I only think it's ironic that nVIDIA bought out 3dfx because 3dfx was "The King" when nVIDIA came onto the scene, and nVIDIA was the "underdog". The two companies competed for a long time, and nVIDIA proved that they had the superior approach (business-wise at least) to selling video chipsets.
It's really not a geeks vs. suits thing (I'm a geek and I picked a TNT1 over a Banshee way back when because it looked better from the specs). nVIDIA was simply able to see what 3dfx was doing wrong and make better decisions (imagine how hard it must have been to wrestle the market away from 3dfx's dominance, which 3dfx thought was assured because of their proprietary Glide engine, SLI Voodoo2's and 2D+3D Banshee cards)
Slashdot Mirror
What is the U.S. federal government going to do if terrorists continue to use secure cryptography to relay messages into and/or out of the U.S.? I mean, they're already criminals, right?
I guess that's why the feds want to be able to monitor EVERYBODY - then they can find out who isn't cooperating and arrest them. I guess that means we actually have two anti-privacy agendas coming in to play now: the right to use secure cryptography, and the right to communicate without the information being intercepted and archived by the federal government.
I wonder where the various factions of the federal government draw the lines (if anywhere) protecting those rights, and also where the corporate interests sit on these issues.
You maniacs! You screwed it up! God, damn you all to hell!
And to those who have never seen the REAL PotA, please do yourself a favor and go see it. As soon as I found out that the """remake""" tore the guts out of the original, I decided I wouldn't be seeing it in the theater (and I won't, either!)
The suprise premise/ending is what makes the original PotA one of the BEST MOVIES EVER (no I won't spoil it!). Sure, the costumes look goofy and the movie is older than I am, but that doesn't change the fact that it is one of the BEST MOVIES EVER!
I guess I just have a thing for movies that involve the hidden premise of PotA. I wish I could tell you what it is without spoiling it for you! What a dilemma!
--=( HunterZ )=--
The reason government is giving business such leeway in regards to digital media is that our court judges, congressmen, etc. don't know JACK about such things. As a result, they end up listening to the corporate lawyers/interests, who of course are there to persuade government officials to support their efforts to squash the free trade of information (and even data!)
This, my friends, is the crusade that we Slashdotters should all be taking up and fighting on the front lines for: keeping information free! I don't think any of you want any more than I do to see the Internet turn into a guided-tour of an advertisement-ridden online shopping mall, but I assure you that this is what the corporate interests would like the Internet to be, more than anything else! The Internet, however, was designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: the free exchange of data (and by extension, information, which is useful/meaningful data)
It is possible that such data has effectively an inherent drive to be freely exchanged, but it's better to be on the safe side and actively resist attempts to cut off the flow of information that we currently have.
First, I've got a question: In the TOS episode where Kirk encounters the Romulans, I seem to remember that either A) the Federation had never encountered them before, or B) it had been a long time since the last Federation-Romulan encounter. If (A) is true, then a Romulan appearance in this new series would be inconsistent. If (B) is true, then they have some room, but they'd better still be careful :)
:/
Now, on the ship design I see floating around for the new (old) Enterprise: I've seen that design before, using ST1-7 era ship architecture! It may have been in a TV series episode, a movie, or maybe even a ST techinical manual, but I _HAVE_ seen it before... I think it looks way too streamlined for pre-TOS technology anyways
First of all, I'd like to say that I'm not closed to the idea of global warming. What I _am_ is very skeptical. I really don't understand how rational people can be expected to "believe" in global warming. Why? Because:
- The same people predicted an ice-age a couple of decades ago. Even if they now know significantly more about climate than they did then, how can we believe that they won't find new evidence overturning the global warming theory?
- Noone ever mentions anything about water vapor, which is a much more important greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere than CO2.
- Ozone holes appear over the poles, and there is no explanation of how humans could cause them to form in those places instead of over cities.
- Scientists have admitted that they DON'T KNOW if the supposed global warming effect is part of a natural climate cycle.
- Liberal political and social activists are the strongest proponents of the global warming theory. They treat every damn thing like a crisis and run around like chickens with their heads cut off. YOU LIBERALS NEED TO STOP "CRYING WOLF" BECAUSE EVERYONE IS STARTING TO DISBELIEVE YOU ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU SAY. Any real scientist or engineer would tell you that it's moronic to try to change something before you can predict what long-term effects the change might create (not to mention whether or not the condition you're trying to change SHOULD be changed in the first place!)
- The Earth has supposedly gotten along just fine without us for billions of years, surviving large asteroids, separation and collision of continents, large volcanic eruptions (which change the climate much more in the short-term than any CO2 emissions ever could!), ice ages, etc. Why are we so arrogant to believe that we can so easily defeat the ability of the Earth to adapt? Furthermore, why are we so arrogant to believe that we can fix the problem without first understanding it (or at least being able to confirm that it exists and is getting worse)?
As I said at the beginning of my post, I don't know if global warming is occuring or not, (I do know that we haven't had a good Winter in Washington State in the last 10 years though =) and if it does exist, I don't know if humans are the cause. What I do know is that I'm going to keep an open mind towards both sides of the debate as long as there isn't hard evidence. If you buy into either side completely then you're most likely deluded.
And another thing that pisses me off: SCIENCE (the application of the Scientific Method) CAN *********NOT********* "PROVE" ANYTHING TO BE "TRUE". All it can do is gather evidence to support or discredit theories about the way our universe works. Science is meant to be a tool by which we can use our own senses and reasoning to find out about that universe, and not a tool for activists, politicians, and news media to get money.
Actually, Carlin is probably right. Let's do a thought experiment:
If human-caused CO2 emissions were the cause of a global warming effect, what would happen? Well, it might get so hot that equatorial regions would become uninhabitable deserts, but at the same time higher latitudes would become rainforests (which would moderate the temperature and CO2 levels). At an extreme, the polar ice-caps would melt. This would mean more free water to be evaporated into clouds, which would become rain. The rain would help plants grow, and the plants would again moderate temperature and CO2.
The Earth is very adaptable to change. My buest guess is that any changes humans make in the global climate would only affect humans in the long-run - the Earth would adapt and gradually return to a normal climate cycle.
SPOILER Having Janeway come from the future was the stupidest, most unoriginal idea I have ever seen - how the @^$# did this make it into the series finale? Some of you may be questioning my claim that it was an unoriginal idea; how many of you knew that they'd kill off the future Janeway? I rest my case. (she did die, right? I can't remember for sure because I wasn't paying attention - but it's safe to assume she did heheh)
And then there's Bellana's baby. When that came up I had to double-check to make sure I wasn't watching X-Files. Plus, I watched some episodes early in the season, and she WASN'T pregnant - so when did that magically pop up?
And THEN, they cheated to get home! WTF is up with that? You spend 7 years making your way home, only to have your captain come from the future (something she wouldn't do anyways) and save the day with her magic fairy powers. To quote Charlton Heston from Planet of the Apes (better than Voyager and any remakes they'll ever do btw): "You did it. You finally, really did it... God... DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" END SPOILER
Another interesting thing to note is that UPN launched their network with Voyager. Almost no other UPN show took hold for at least the first couple of years. Obviously, this means that Voyager was also controlled by the ratings-mongerers, who undoubtedly share a sizeable portion of the blame for the often-poor quality of the show.
I'm not looking forward to the next ST series if it's going to have any of the same people involved in it that were responsible for the overwhelming number of negative aspects to Voyager.
Also, if any of you are wondering if there is any good sci-fi out there these days, forget shows like Dark Angel and Voyager and check out Andromeda (created by Roddenberry btw - think of the cool/fun aspects of the old ~1980 sci-fi shows, only without almost all of the cheesy aspects) and on the Sci-Fi Channel be sure to watch Farscape (WOW! They're sure as hell not afraid of killing of main characters once in a while!). Invisible Man is pretty good too - kind of like X-Files, only it's well-written and the characters have a sense of humor (in fact, the whole show does). First Wave is awesome, but I can never stay up to watch it (plus they keep moving it around, so it probably won't last long)
That's all I can think of right now... Except that ST:TOS and ST:TNG reruns are better than I remember! Screw CGI space-battles! I want good writing and acting (in that order, please)! MAKE IT SO!
...would be a traceroute of the packets!
"Space tourism is going to be a boon to the industry and Tito is going to demonstrate that."
The problem is that it isn't an industry (yet) - it's just the governments of a few countries doing research. What we really need is to allow and even encourage private space ventures (i.e. allow companies and individuals to have their own space programs). Private funding of government programs is also good (like the infamous Pizza Hut logo) because it provides more incentive to push forward into space.
It's time to realize and consciously acknowledge the fact that space exploration affects the entire human race - NOT merely individual countries! Yes, it's true that companies will probably keep more things secret (in regards to space research at least), but there would be a much higher level of competition. In fact, companies keeping things secret from each other would probably result in research progressing along different lines of thought, and thus different approaches to similar problems (something which may prove to be sorely lacking in multi-national goverment-run space ventures)
Yes, having space research performed only by governments gives a sense of altruistic cooperation, but said governments have little incentive to push forward when money gets tight (unless they're in competition with other countries' governments, which is also a bad thing due to the destructive potential of space technology!)
>I think your dad is full of dog shit. You see, when you say he saw it "when it first came out," you imply that he went to the premiere or perhaps the second night.
No, "when it first came out" only implies that he went during the first run of the film (i.e. not to a rerelease).
>How would he and his cronies know to purchase and consume LSD for the purpose of enjoying the "light show" at the end of the movie, if very few people had seen the movie already?
Because it wasn't the first SHOWING, it was the first RUN. By the time my dad went to see it, the LSD-heads had plenty of time to find out about it. Also, I resent your implication that he himself saw it for the "light show". In fact, Arthur C. Clarke is his favorite author (IS IS IS).
>Tell your father to stop talking FUCK and get back to molesting little boys and girls
Now who's "full of dog shit"? You're nothing but an AC Troll (or else you've got a REALLY big stick up your ass).
You hit the nail right on the head. My dad said he saw 2001 in a theater in California when it first came out, and he could tell that most of the people had bought tickets just for the trip they'd get from watching the flashing-color sequence while high.
No endless flashing colors, incomprehensible scenes/dialog, and it's shorter than the average novel-that-has-been-made-into-a-movie. I guess when they made the movie they wanted to tell a story with the visuals as well - which were great, but I always have to watch 2001 in at least two parts because I fall asleep somewhere in the middle!
Does that mean that everyone signed up will have to explicitly agree to the new TOS once it's enacted? Or does it automatically come into effect?
Hear hear! It's a shame that the slashdot admins would allow their liberal and sometimes socialist political biases to influence their postings so heavily.
Most Republicans are more interested in personal responsibility than they are in whining to the government to control their lives. Democrats, on the other hand...
I think Cliff Stoll (hey whaddya know - I just found his homepage heheh [http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/]) was the first proponent I'd heard of of the idea that most of what we're dealing with these days (specifically on computers and the Internet) is not actually "information", but merely "data" - useless, random bits of garbage that don't serve a purpose until they're organized into useful information =)
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*school shooting*
Media: "Someone shot people at school because he was being bullied."
Government: "I wonder if violent video games and/or TV had anything to do with it?"
Everyone: "Who knows?"
*time passes*
*school shooting*
Media: "Someone shot people at school because he was being bullied."
Government: "I wonder if violent video games and/or TV had anything to do with it?"
Everyone: "Who knows?"
*time passes*
(repeat ad infinitum)
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Is anyone else getting as sick and tired of this crap as I am? When will people realize that it's the schools and parents themselves that are the problem and not guns, video games, or TV shows? What really pisses me off is the way everyone reacts the same way every time, never learning anything about how to _really_ prevent it from happening the next time.
The media: gives school shootings tons of air-time to get good ratings.
The government: jumps in with a money-intensive bandaid to line their pockets some more while accomplishing nothing important.
The people: run around like chickens with their head cut off, gobbling up every piece of crap thrown to them by the previous two groups mentioned.
This happens with almost every "shocking" occurance these days, and it really ticks me off. I hold all three groups accountable for such shameful, pitiful, STUPID behavior.
"Guns don't kill people - I do." - UHF
The way I see it, here are the problems with the anti-gun philosophy:
1. Making laws only stops honest people. If someone wants to get a gun for use in committing a crime (murder, armed robbery, etc.), then they'll get one regardless of whether it's legal or not. The same is true of any outlawed item or substance (alcohol, drugs, etc.). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that outlawing the possession of items makes them more attractive to many people (especially "rebellious" young people).
That reminds me: why do liberals want to legalize marjiuana for non-medicinal use but make gun ownership illegal? I don't get it!
2. The problem with gun deaths is not guns, but the people that pull the trigger. If someone wants to kill somebody, they're going to do it - regardless of the tool they use to do so (guns, baseball bats, rocks, bare hands).
3. Accidental gun deaths can be prevented by education/information. Legitimate gun owners need to be taught responsible gun ownership (such as keeping them properly stored away from children, and teaching children responsibility and respect in dealing with guns). We already do the same thing with hazardous household chemicals, automobiles, power tools, etc. Why should guns be any different?
4. If more honest people were to carry guns, people would be less motivated to commit crimes using them, since merely possessing a gun would not give the potential criminal as much of an advantage.
I'm not a radical pro-gun activist or anything (I don't even own a gun or know many people that do), but I do believe that laws are a poor substitue for personal responsibility, as the former can only be used to punish those who have already comitted a crime.
Are you kidding? All they have to do is make 2 or 3 differently-colored pokemon cartridges for it and the things will sell like hotcakes! How do you think the Gameboy still sells today? Other than Pokemon and such, all they're doing is releasing color conversions of old Gameboy games that sold well.
Even if it wasn't a "complete" collection, it'd still be awesome to have an "arcade" of home systems to pay admission to play on.
I'm sure lots of people would come for tournaments too.
If the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming, then we have nothing to worry about!
Wohoo! Let's regulate the heck out of HDTV before anyone even sees a reason to buy into it! No way they're gonna make me buy a $1000 TV set to replace my 13" one that turns different colors, or the 18" one that weighs 300 pounds that the neighbor down the street left in his lawn (with "FREE" written on the front of the screen in permanent marker) because you have to hit it to make the picture take up more than half of the screen... Ah, nothing beats a cheap TV.
I agree with you sapphire. I just meant that I would like to see everyone have _access_ to free (no-ad) ISPs, even if their service is poor. That way, people can at least see what it's really like to get on the Internet. Then (as you say), if they're still not happy with the arrangement, they can pay for an account with a quality ISP.
Personally, I think this is a brilliant way to compete against both "free" (ad-based) ISPs such as Juno and NetZero and also pay-ISPs (AOL, MSN, local providers, etc.), and I hope it becomes the norm (even if such "truly-free" ISPs offer lower-quality service than pay-ISPs [which, btw, NoCharge doesn't AFAIK])
Some of your arguments seem flawed. When nVIDIA came along, 3dfx was the hands-down, no-holds-barred KING of the 3D-accelerator market (my friend owned a Voodoo2 and a Banshee and my cousin had bought a Voodoo1 the summer before). They forced (well, "strongly pressured") everyone to support (if not use exclusively) their proprietary (in every way) Glide API to interface with their cards (the first mistake that IMHO led to their undoing)
nVIDIA, on the other hand, did everything right (in order of importance from most to least IMO):
- included full support for OpenGL (totally non-proprietary) and Direct3D (Windows-dependent but still not as proprietary as Glide)
- improved an architecture only once before making a new one (i.e. TNT->TNT2, GeForce->Geforce2)
- took a balanced approach to quality vs. performance
- used the same reference drivers for all products from the TNT1 onwards (simplifying upgrades and bringing new features, bug fixes, and optimizations to users of older hardware)
3dfx on the other hand:
- pushed their Glide API until it was clearly evident that they were trying to sell a dead horse (and beat it too), while at the same time sacrificing some compatability with OpenGL and Direct3D (don't tell me that 3dfx cards are slower and bugger with those APIs than with Glide because they ARE)
- made too many "improvements" to existing designs, carrying flaws and limitations into new products (not to mention logarithmic performance increases at exponential price/size/sysreq increases) which could have been avoided by designing new architectures from scratch
- took an all-out performance approach (except when competing with new technological advances), sacrificing quality (both visual and physical) for higher framerates
- updated drivers for newer products sooner and more frequently (a common practice, but one that users of older hardware don't appreciate)
I'm not saying that nVIDIA isn't every bit the monster now that 3dfx was back then, but I am saying that I'm glad I bought a TNT1 instead of a Voodoo Banshee for every reason you might be able to think of. I only think it's ironic that nVIDIA bought out 3dfx because 3dfx was "The King" when nVIDIA came onto the scene, and nVIDIA was the "underdog". The two companies competed for a long time, and nVIDIA proved that they had the superior approach (business-wise at least) to selling video chipsets.
It's really not a geeks vs. suits thing (I'm a geek and I picked a TNT1 over a Banshee way back when because it looked better from the specs). nVIDIA was simply able to see what 3dfx was doing wrong and make better decisions (imagine how hard it must have been to wrestle the market away from 3dfx's dominance, which 3dfx thought was assured because of their proprietary Glide engine, SLI Voodoo2's and 2D+3D Banshee cards)