Whats sad is there is still people downloading and listening to music from those 3 idiots? Especially MJ who has a thing for little boys and having dozens upon dozens of face surgeries and acid baths to make himself look white.
Well duh! If people start trading Michael Jackson mp3s, they might be able to say 'hey, despite being a freak, some of his music isn't that bad!'
Being able to seperate talent from image would spell death for the record companies, who spend more time and money on promoting the persona of an artist above their actual work.
I'm not saying Jackson is a good artist (though I do enjoy some of his older stuff from time to time), but come on. I can see no logical reasoning for the RIAA's assult against file swappers other then to quell any sort of ability amoung the masses to objectivly evaulate music on its own merits instead of the manufactured images of those creating it.
That's exactly what I want to know. Get a couple cases of beer, call over some of my buddies, pull the old 6 foot dish out from the side of the house and get to work.
A few hours of work on a Sunday, a week or more of the wife not getting to watch HGTV. Sounds like a plan.
So mail servers running on *nix are compleatly uneffected by an increase in mail traffic? Wow, unix and its varients are more magical then I thought. Perhaps when my mail server starts getting bogged down, I can ask all my users to attach a large virus to every one of their emails, so it will run more smoothy.
This is why anyone without a college degree shouldn't be allowed to mod. Or people without college degrees but with a brain.
Good natured jabbing to other local colleges is not only healthy, it's funny. And occasionally, it's educational. For example, I for one didn't know that any school in Utah had electricity, much less robotics programs. Well shucks, I learned something today.
I can only hope to understand the mindset of the average consumer by observing myself, and by doing so, can say that a good deal of what the music industry is doing is wrong (in both the ethical and logical perspectives).
About two weeks ago, I was watching VH1Classic (not a bad station, if you have satellite), and saw a video for a song from an album that I liked. (The group was âThey Might be Giantsâ(TM), the song was Ana Ng, and the album was Lincoln, if I recall correctly). So I was sitting there thinking âhey, I like this album. I used to listen to it in my car all the time back in high school on tape. I have no idea where the tape is, but I might as well get it on CD despite already paying for itâ(TM). So I pulled out a 20 from the ATM and went to the local record store.
Yes, I figured that it would be at least 20 bucks. If not more. Sure, too much money, but when the music bug hits you, and you just have to listen to a particular album at a particular time, what else are you going to do?
I went to the first record store, a Warehouse music. I checked first in the used CD section. Nothing. So I went to the new section. Nothing. Not to give up, I bit my own pride in the rear and went to the local Best Buy. Still no luck.
As I was driving home, defeated, it hit me. Both stores had many, many copies of the latest garbage ready for sale, but nothing that I wanted. I went to Amazon, and discovered I could pick up the album for far less then what I expected the record shop to sell it for, but the bug was in me at that moment, and I didnâ(TM)t want to wait.
So ultimately, they lost a sale. Heck, if Iâ(TM)m going to wait 3-5 days for Amazon to ship it to me, I may as well spend a few evenings downloading each song off the Internet and burn a CD. No, I wouldnâ(TM)t feel bad, because I already purchased the album over 10 years ago, and by all rights I own the right to listen to it.
Thereâ(TM)s a point to all of this. And it has more then just a record shop not stocking old albums. It wouldnâ(TM)t bother me if they were just out of stock. Itâ(TM)s that all this money, time and effort is spent on promotion of albums that I really donâ(TM)t want, nor would ever want. I guess somewhere out there is a few people who get taken in by all this promotion to buy crap, but Iâ(TM)ll be danged if I know who they are. And you have to wonder to yourself, as I did looking over stacks and stacks of CDs filled with the latest recycled crap rock, that perhaps if the record companies didnâ(TM)t spend millions on promoting the bland flavor of the month that there would be room for a few records that are any good.
I remember having a conversation about this some 20 years ago, when I was playing little league. After seeing so many bad calls, I brought up to my coach that someday we would have computers and robots making all of the decisions. He balked, saying it would ruin the game.
Now that Iâ(TM)m older, I tend to agree with him; at least for the major leagues. But I still think this technology could be well used in little league, where itâ(TM)s hard to find someone to be an umpire, even harder to find one thatâ(TM)s any good. Some would show up drunk, would have some bone to pick against a team who had a player with a parent he didnâ(TM)t like, or simply be idiots.
Whatâ(TM)s worse is the way parents react to calls (even good ones) they donâ(TM)t agree with. I can only imagine how it would change the dynamic of the game for kids if these officiating robots could be made cheaply and be available to kidsâ(TM) leagues.
It wouldnâ(TM)t be without precedent: We already allow little leaguers to use aluminum bats, while the big leagues still have wood. Keep the majors pure and traditional, but it would be nice to see a little technology around to help keep the games fair for kids.
I think youâ(TM)re misunderstanding the intent of this. Hey, the right wing zealots are finally in our corner, kids. Letâ(TM)s let them work for us for a change.
This has nothing to do with choice. If you want to choose to look at pornography, want to shop around for penis enlargement treatments, or even investigate refinancing your home, nobody is going to stop you. What these laws are doing is stopping those people from seeking you out (or your kids) when itâ(TM)s not wanted.
Putting an [adv] into the header of all advertisements wonâ(TM)t work, because there is a line between wanted advertisements and unwanted advertisements. (The difference between solicited email and spam). For example, I *want* to receive weekly ads from the airline telling me of last minute travel deals. There are a few companies I know of that cater to my various hobbies that occasionally send out emails announcing new products that I want to receive.
What we need to do is get away of the content of the message in our laws, and focus on the desire to receive that message. If you ask for emails from a company, thatâ(TM)s fine, as long as you make it very clear that you are asking for them. Accepting the terms of a EULA with a spam clause hidden deep inside is not me asking. Default checking a âYes I would like to receive special offersâ(TM) on a webpage isnâ(TM)t me asking. Me asking is going to webpage specifically designed with the intent of sending me email, putting in my email address, then responding to a confirmation email. Of course, credible companies and mailing lists already do this.
So what if some âoeWonâ(TM)t somebody think of the childrenâ group wants to help pass laws to get rid of the crap you yourself say you donâ(TM)t want. If you really want it, if you really want to âchooseâ(TM) to get smut in your mail box, there should be plenty of mailing lists you can sign up for. The only difference is, those of us who donâ(TM)t want to make that choice donâ(TM)t have to deal with them.
Yes, power is very important. But it has to do a little bit more then how many computers are at an outlet. Find out which outlets are feeding off which switches. Typically, a 20amp circuit can power 8 full systems (yes, it can do more, but that is safe).
Make sure that before you start plugging things in, know what outlets are running off which circuits. A good location will have this information for you already. But your average meeting hall will not. Take the time to find this out before hand, and you'll be much happier.
By the time I started explorin' my sexuality my parents were more than aware of it, lol.
Ya! LOL!!! ROTFL u r talkin' about sex lol!!!
(Someday there will be filters on the Intnernet that will simply not send anything of a questionable material to folks who talk like they are 9 year old girls).
The big issue for me has been the recycling of numbers and fax spammers calling them at any time of night.
I used to be in the same boat. Then I was lucky enough to have a land line with the suffix 0015 and a fax line with the same suffic of 0029 (both on the same prefix).
If the land line would ring at an odd hour (as it often would), I'd wait 2-5 minutes. Typically, during that time the fax line would ring too. In which case I'd pick up the fax line, not allow an incoming signal, and hang up. Voilla! No junk faxes.
If the fax line didn't ring, I'd then walk over and check voice mail, as it might actually be a real call.
Of course, in a perfect world, I wouldn't have to do that.
Just out of curiosity, I wonder what would happen if somebody used the RIAA's tricks as a defence. I am not a lawyer (yet), but I've heard that the RIAA puts up fake music on p2p networks in order to frustrate file swappers.
An argument could be made that searching for songs is really just a search for the publically distributed mp3 files the RIAA is releasing to the Internet. (I was looking for the RIAA sanctioned madonna MP3 file with her talking about stealing. It's not my fault I happened to accidently download one of her mp3s).
On that note, I wonder who uses p2p networks to swap 'legit'? I suppose when I download an mp3 off the Internet that is already sitting in my CD collection (this happens often), that is 'legit'.
You 'Kids' need to understand that MOST file swapping is illegal, so the legit uses will suffer because of it.
It reminds me of when I was 13 years old, and was at the stereo store waiting to plunk down some of my hard earned paper route money for a duel cassete deck (these things used to be expensive), and the sales person went on a long lecture about how if I used this to make copies of my freinds tapes I'd be ruining it for everyone, and if I did that, someday you wouldn't be able to buy duel tape decks.
Perhaps it has something to do with fark's inability to seperate real news from outragious claims..
Or perhaps it's their terrible use of the news flash. You know it's a sad day when one of the dozens of articles on fark are actually real and newsworthy, and then it's confirmed with slashdot picks it up.
(note, all of the above taken from fark under the guise of 'information')
Yet, the United States Army has plenty of money to spend on Nuclear Weapons and other kinds of weapons of mass destructions. Plus, the US is the only country that regularly uses these kind of weapons against defenseless countries.
Huh? Perhaps I'm compleatly off base here, but when has the US used Nuclear weapons against defensless countries on a regular basis? We've used them twice, against a country we were at war with, over 50 years ago. I would hardly consider that 'regular' useage, and I would hardly consider WWII era Japan 'defenceless'.
And I'd be curious to know when we've used other weapons of mass distruction. Nerve agents in vietnam? I suppose you could argue that that exercise 30 years ago a deployment of WOMD... but it'd be a stretch. Regular? Hardly.
. . . the US is the only country . . . against defenseless countries.
So when all those third world nations used (and continue to use) WOMD against other nations and their own people, they somehow don't count?
Their president is an idiot and a warmonger.
Oh. Now I understand. Because you don't like the president, it's ok to make up things about America. Makes perfect sense.
There are lots of good, sound reasons to criticise Bush and America's forigen policy. Telling bold face lies is not one of them.
Just out of curiosity, does Seti@home tell its users if they picked up any interesting data or patterns?
I've been running this off and on for years, and the only thing they've sent me is congratulations emails for processing a certain number of data sets. So I wonder, if I did find something of interest, would they let me know?
First the backbone goes to a digital packet switched network, with A/D conversion going on when the local telco tries to go outside. Then the local telco goes all digital, with the A/D going on when the copper meets the CO. Next we are going to see A/D happen right at the telephone (already happening with some systems).
The only logical progression is to pull analog out of the loop completely for the last 1/2" between the phone and the user, bypassing the soon to be obsolete analog audio output "mouth". The only technological hurdle for doing this is to figure out how to install the interface into the antiquated standard form-factor "skull" case most end users still lug around with them everywhere they go. Perhaps we should look into a new IEEE standard for that and start adopting it now.
As it stands now, this looks like a bad idea, as expressed multiple times by many of the comments. Besides the technical problems, to me it points to a larger problem that is growing every day: Private businesses trying to provide law enforcement.
Assuming they could get past all the potential technical hurdles regarding security and authentication, we still are basically saying that a private company can alter/damage the contents of a computer legally without any coordination with law enforcement. That scares me.
Basically, this is sort of a computer version of low-jack. Which is cool. But in this version, it would be as if you could call up the low-jack people, have the car disabled, get a report of where the car is and take care of the matter yourself. Of course, as far as I can tell, low-jack doesn't work that way. My roommate can't find my documentation for the low-jack, make a phone call and leave me stranded just to play a joke.
I'd like to see this system in place. I for one sure would be happier to know that if somebody stole one of my laptops there was some method out there to recover it. But that's a job for the police, not some big business. Sure, Phoenix can build tools that I might buy that would assist the police, but I'd want to be dang sure that they can't do anything to one of my machines until the cops tell them it's all right. And the cops can't tell them that until I've filed a police report and asked them to do it.
Yes, I know that law enforcement has a long way to go to really get a handle on computer based crimes, and at the moment are pretty impotent in catching the bad guys. But what I don't like seeing is big faceless corporations coming in and picking up the slack.
When I first left the theatre, my impression of the movie could be summed up as "Dime store philosophy occasionally interrupted by really cool fight scenes". It wasn't until a few days later that I realized the real value of the film: Figuring it out. The movie differs from a serious work of philosophy on the grounds that it doesn't (and probably can't) show us anything new about our world, the condition of man, the nature of the creator, etc. It's not supposed to. It's a work of fiction.
But it is enjoyable, insofar as it's fun to try to understand the constructs of an imaginary world. It reminds me of late night BS sessions in college when we tried to figure out what David Lynch movies were really about. Sure, largely a masturbatory exercise, but entertaining nonetheless. In the Matrix world, it seems we have a prime example of a new form of entertainment: pop-deconstructionism. A form of interactive entertainment not initially conceived (probably) by its creators where understanding the work outside of the work becomes more fulfilling then the film itself.
But in that context, it's easy to confuse these exercises with real philosophy. By rooting itself (albeit loosely) in various mythologies, religious and philosophical readings of being, many people seem to confuse the Matrix as a new work that is an extension of those initial thought systems because the processes are so similar; both in the real world of religious and philosophical exploration and in this work of fiction, the goal is to figure out the overriding cosmology of the universe. But it's as if some believe that understanding the fictional Matrix will help them understand the world better.
They won't. They are two very different things. The Matrix is a fantasy world that exists in a easily defined universe. It has a known creator (the writers), and will probably have a known conclusion where all is explained. Once all is revealed, we will be no closer to understanding our real world.
I for one will enjoy it. I'll enjoy picking apart clues in the make believe world of the Matrix films to try to understand what's really going on. But in the end, when it's all over and I am proven right or wrong, I won't have any new insights into the nature of man. It's just a movie.
Does anyone really want Spam?
on
I, Spammer
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
To read about this guy's testimony, you would think there are millions of folks out there who want spam. He tries to paint "legitimate" spammers as good, decent folks who have to resort to underhanded tactics to circumvent the evil ISPs who block their spam messages.
Now, personally there are a few things that I'd want to receive that could be considered spam. There are some companies I go to where I want to hear about the latest deals (the weekend specials from the airline, for example). Sometimes these emails have an advertisement attached to it, which is fine. But the difference between what these companies do and what this scumbag testifying before congress does is I actually want to receive their bulk email. I had to go out of my way to be put on their mailing list, and in that process it was made quite clear that I would receive the bulk mailings.
Of course, the emails I want to get aren't really unsolicited. The impression I get is spammers like this guy don't seem to see any difference. A line hidden in an AUP that says when you sign up for a service you will receive "valuable offers from partners" is not the same as going to a specific webpage and asking to be placed on a mailing list.
So the question remains: Is there anyone who wants to receive coupons for $.40 off Lysol, offers to refinance their mortgage, discounted prescription drugs etc. on a regular basis? Does anyone think this is a valuable service? Would anyone be angry at their email provider for blocking those types of messages before they reach their inbox?
To read about this guy, there are millions who do. Personal experience points to something altogether different.
Do you really think that if films came out at the same time on DVD as on the screen that many people would still go to the theater?
I know I would. I also know that people will still go to the theatre for films released a long time ago. If the local indie theatre is showing a rerelease of a classic I happen to like, I'll be there cash in hand, despite owning the work on DVD.
I wasn't particularly interested in seeing the second Matrix movie, but I went because a large group of my friends went. The social and visual experience of going to the theatre will never be truly replicated in the living room.
Slashdot Mirror
He's writing ad copy for a bicycle company in Copenhagen under the name "Steen Heinsen".
Or so it would seem.
Whats sad is there is still people downloading and listening to music from those 3 idiots? Especially MJ who has a thing for little boys and having dozens upon dozens of face surgeries and acid baths to make himself look white.
Well duh! If people start trading Michael Jackson mp3s, they might be able to say 'hey, despite being a freak, some of his music isn't that bad!'
Being able to seperate talent from image would spell death for the record companies, who spend more time and money on promoting the persona of an artist above their actual work.
I'm not saying Jackson is a good artist (though I do enjoy some of his older stuff from time to time), but come on. I can see no logical reasoning for the RIAA's assult against file swappers other then to quell any sort of ability amoung the masses to objectivly evaulate music on its own merits instead of the manufactured images of those creating it.
That's exactly what I want to know. Get a couple cases of beer, call over some of my buddies, pull the old 6 foot dish out from the side of the house and get to work.
A few hours of work on a Sunday, a week or more of the wife not getting to watch HGTV. Sounds like a plan.
It only affects Microsoft systems
So mail servers running on *nix are compleatly uneffected by an increase in mail traffic? Wow, unix and its varients are more magical then I thought. Perhaps when my mail server starts getting bogged down, I can ask all my users to attach a large virus to every one of their emails, so it will run more smoothy.
Boy, am I out of it. I would've expected deep thought to not even register. I gotta start checking the horsepower of shell machines these days.
(yes, I know what they meant, but for a minute I was scratching my head).
You do understand, it's hard to take seriously a state who has a basketball team named the 'jazz'. As far as I know, jazz is illegal in Utah.
Go Suns (hey, they've got lots of sun in Arizona!)
Parent modded down as a "troll"?
This is why anyone without a college degree shouldn't be allowed to mod. Or people without college degrees but with a brain.
Good natured jabbing to other local colleges is not only healthy, it's funny. And occasionally, it's educational. For example, I for one didn't know that any school in Utah had electricity, much less robotics programs. Well shucks, I learned something today.
I can only hope to understand the mindset of the average consumer by observing myself, and by doing so, can say that a good deal of what the music industry is doing is wrong (in both the ethical and logical perspectives).
About two weeks ago, I was watching VH1Classic (not a bad station, if you have satellite), and saw a video for a song from an album that I liked. (The group was âThey Might be Giantsâ(TM), the song was Ana Ng, and the album was Lincoln, if I recall correctly). So I was sitting there thinking âhey, I like this album. I used to listen to it in my car all the time back in high school on tape. I have no idea where the tape is, but I might as well get it on CD despite already paying for itâ(TM). So I pulled out a 20 from the ATM and went to the local record store.
Yes, I figured that it would be at least 20 bucks. If not more. Sure, too much money, but when the music bug hits you, and you just have to listen to a particular album at a particular time, what else are you going to do?
I went to the first record store, a Warehouse music. I checked first in the used CD section. Nothing. So I went to the new section. Nothing. Not to give up, I bit my own pride in the rear and went to the local Best Buy. Still no luck.
As I was driving home, defeated, it hit me. Both stores had many, many copies of the latest garbage ready for sale, but nothing that I wanted. I went to Amazon, and discovered I could pick up the album for far less then what I expected the record shop to sell it for, but the bug was in me at that moment, and I didnâ(TM)t want to wait.
So ultimately, they lost a sale. Heck, if Iâ(TM)m going to wait 3-5 days for Amazon to ship it to me, I may as well spend a few evenings downloading each song off the Internet and burn a CD. No, I wouldnâ(TM)t feel bad, because I already purchased the album over 10 years ago, and by all rights I own the right to listen to it.
Thereâ(TM)s a point to all of this. And it has more then just a record shop not stocking old albums. It wouldnâ(TM)t bother me if they were just out of stock. Itâ(TM)s that all this money, time and effort is spent on promotion of albums that I really donâ(TM)t want, nor would ever want. I guess somewhere out there is a few people who get taken in by all this promotion to buy crap, but Iâ(TM)ll be danged if I know who they are. And you have to wonder to yourself, as I did looking over stacks and stacks of CDs filled with the latest recycled crap rock, that perhaps if the record companies didnâ(TM)t spend millions on promoting the bland flavor of the month that there would be room for a few records that are any good.
I remember having a conversation about this some 20 years ago, when I was playing little league. After seeing so many bad calls, I brought up to my coach that someday we would have computers and robots making all of the decisions. He balked, saying it would ruin the game.
Now that Iâ(TM)m older, I tend to agree with him; at least for the major leagues. But I still think this technology could be well used in little league, where itâ(TM)s hard to find someone to be an umpire, even harder to find one thatâ(TM)s any good. Some would show up drunk, would have some bone to pick against a team who had a player with a parent he didnâ(TM)t like, or simply be idiots.
Whatâ(TM)s worse is the way parents react to calls (even good ones) they donâ(TM)t agree with. I can only imagine how it would change the dynamic of the game for kids if these officiating robots could be made cheaply and be available to kidsâ(TM) leagues.
It wouldnâ(TM)t be without precedent: We already allow little leaguers to use aluminum bats, while the big leagues still have wood. Keep the majors pure and traditional, but it would be nice to see a little technology around to help keep the games fair for kids.
You've just inspired me. I'm going to start up an Internet business using direct spam marketing to sell tin foil hats.
Not only have you demonstrated there is a market for them, but that the target consumers are afraid of any laws to stop the messages.
I think youâ(TM)re misunderstanding the intent of this. Hey, the right wing zealots are finally in our corner, kids. Letâ(TM)s let them work for us for a change.
This has nothing to do with choice. If you want to choose to look at pornography, want to shop around for penis enlargement treatments, or even investigate refinancing your home, nobody is going to stop you. What these laws are doing is stopping those people from seeking you out (or your kids) when itâ(TM)s not wanted.
Putting an [adv] into the header of all advertisements wonâ(TM)t work, because there is a line between wanted advertisements and unwanted advertisements. (The difference between solicited email and spam). For example, I *want* to receive weekly ads from the airline telling me of last minute travel deals. There are a few companies I know of that cater to my various hobbies that occasionally send out emails announcing new products that I want to receive.
What we need to do is get away of the content of the message in our laws, and focus on the desire to receive that message. If you ask for emails from a company, thatâ(TM)s fine, as long as you make it very clear that you are asking for them. Accepting the terms of a EULA with a spam clause hidden deep inside is not me asking. Default checking a âYes I would like to receive special offersâ(TM) on a webpage isnâ(TM)t me asking. Me asking is going to webpage specifically designed with the intent of sending me email, putting in my email address, then responding to a confirmation email. Of course, credible companies and mailing lists already do this.
So what if some âoeWonâ(TM)t somebody think of the childrenâ group wants to help pass laws to get rid of the crap you yourself say you donâ(TM)t want. If you really want it, if you really want to âchooseâ(TM) to get smut in your mail box, there should be plenty of mailing lists you can sign up for. The only difference is, those of us who donâ(TM)t want to make that choice donâ(TM)t have to deal with them.
Yes, power is very important. But it has to do a little bit more then how many computers are at an outlet. Find out which outlets are feeding off which switches. Typically, a 20amp circuit can power 8 full systems (yes, it can do more, but that is safe).
Make sure that before you start plugging things in, know what outlets are running off which circuits. A good location will have this information for you already. But your average meeting hall will not. Take the time to find this out before hand, and you'll be much happier.
By the time I started explorin' my sexuality my parents were more than aware of it, lol.
Ya! LOL!!! ROTFL u r talkin' about sex lol!!!
(Someday there will be filters on the Intnernet that will simply not send anything of a questionable material to folks who talk like they are 9 year old girls).
The big issue for me has been the recycling of numbers and fax spammers calling them at any time of night.
I used to be in the same boat. Then I was lucky enough to have a land line with the suffix 0015 and a fax line with the same suffic of 0029 (both on the same prefix).
If the land line would ring at an odd hour (as it often would), I'd wait 2-5 minutes. Typically, during that time the fax line would ring too. In which case I'd pick up the fax line, not allow an incoming signal, and hang up. Voilla! No junk faxes.
If the fax line didn't ring, I'd then walk over and check voice mail, as it might actually be a real call.
Of course, in a perfect world, I wouldn't have to do that.
Just out of curiosity, I wonder what would happen if somebody used the RIAA's tricks as a defence. I am not a lawyer (yet), but I've heard that the RIAA puts up fake music on p2p networks in order to frustrate file swappers.
An argument could be made that searching for songs is really just a search for the publically distributed mp3 files the RIAA is releasing to the Internet. (I was looking for the RIAA sanctioned madonna MP3 file with her talking about stealing. It's not my fault I happened to accidently download one of her mp3s).
On that note, I wonder who uses p2p networks to swap 'legit'? I suppose when I download an mp3 off the Internet that is already sitting in my CD collection (this happens often), that is 'legit'.
You 'Kids' need to understand that MOST file swapping is illegal, so the legit uses will suffer because of it.
It reminds me of when I was 13 years old, and was at the stereo store waiting to plunk down some of my hard earned paper route money for a duel cassete deck (these things used to be expensive), and the sales person went on a long lecture about how if I used this to make copies of my freinds tapes I'd be ruining it for everyone, and if I did that, someday you wouldn't be able to buy duel tape decks.
Yeah.
Perhaps it has something to do with fark's inability to seperate real news from outragious claims..
Or perhaps it's their terrible use of the news flash. You know it's a sad day when one of the dozens of articles on fark are actually real and newsworthy, and then it's confirmed with slashdot picks it up.
(note, all of the above taken from fark under the guise of 'information')
Yet, the United States Army has plenty of money to spend on Nuclear Weapons and other kinds of weapons of mass destructions. Plus, the US is the only country that regularly uses these kind of weapons against defenseless countries.
Huh? Perhaps I'm compleatly off base here, but when has the US used Nuclear weapons against defensless countries on a regular basis? We've used them twice, against a country we were at war with, over 50 years ago. I would hardly consider that 'regular' useage, and I would hardly consider WWII era Japan 'defenceless'.
And I'd be curious to know when we've used other weapons of mass distruction. Nerve agents in vietnam? I suppose you could argue that that exercise 30 years ago a deployment of WOMD... but it'd be a stretch. Regular? Hardly.
. . . the US is the only country . . . against defenseless countries.
So when all those third world nations used (and continue to use) WOMD against other nations and their own people, they somehow don't count?
Their president is an idiot and a warmonger.
Oh. Now I understand. Because you don't like the president, it's ok to make up things about America. Makes perfect sense.
There are lots of good, sound reasons to criticise Bush and America's forigen policy. Telling bold face lies is not one of them.
Just out of curiosity, does Seti@home tell its users if they picked up any interesting data or patterns?
I've been running this off and on for years, and the only thing they've sent me is congratulations emails for processing a certain number of data sets. So I wonder, if I did find something of interest, would they let me know?
First the backbone goes to a digital packet switched network, with A/D conversion going on when the local telco tries to go outside. Then the local telco goes all digital, with the A/D going on when the copper meets the CO. Next we are going to see A/D happen right at the telephone (already happening with some systems).
The only logical progression is to pull analog out of the loop completely for the last 1/2" between the phone and the user, bypassing the soon to be obsolete analog audio output "mouth". The only technological hurdle for doing this is to figure out how to install the interface into the antiquated standard form-factor "skull" case most end users still lug around with them everywhere they go. Perhaps we should look into a new IEEE standard for that and start adopting it now.
all "land lines" will be just for net access
Naw. In 15 years all net access will be wireless over 802.11r. Though service will be sketchy since no vendor will be able to agree on a set standard.
As it stands now, this looks like a bad idea, as expressed multiple times by many of the comments. Besides the technical problems, to me it points to a larger problem that is growing every day: Private businesses trying to provide law enforcement.
Assuming they could get past all the potential technical hurdles regarding security and authentication, we still are basically saying that a private company can alter/damage the contents of a computer legally without any coordination with law enforcement. That scares me.
Basically, this is sort of a computer version of low-jack. Which is cool. But in this version, it would be as if you could call up the low-jack people, have the car disabled, get a report of where the car is and take care of the matter yourself. Of course, as far as I can tell, low-jack doesn't work that way. My roommate can't find my documentation for the low-jack, make a phone call and leave me stranded just to play a joke.
I'd like to see this system in place. I for one sure would be happier to know that if somebody stole one of my laptops there was some method out there to recover it. But that's a job for the police, not some big business. Sure, Phoenix can build tools that I might buy that would assist the police, but I'd want to be dang sure that they can't do anything to one of my machines until the cops tell them it's all right. And the cops can't tell them that until I've filed a police report and asked them to do it.
Yes, I know that law enforcement has a long way to go to really get a handle on computer based crimes, and at the moment are pretty impotent in catching the bad guys. But what I don't like seeing is big faceless corporations coming in and picking up the slack.
When I first left the theatre, my impression of the movie could be summed up as "Dime store philosophy occasionally interrupted by really cool fight scenes". It wasn't until a few days later that I realized the real value of the film: Figuring it out. The movie differs from a serious work of philosophy on the grounds that it doesn't (and probably can't) show us anything new about our world, the condition of man, the nature of the creator, etc. It's not supposed to. It's a work of fiction.
But it is enjoyable, insofar as it's fun to try to understand the constructs of an imaginary world. It reminds me of late night BS sessions in college when we tried to figure out what David Lynch movies were really about. Sure, largely a masturbatory exercise, but entertaining nonetheless. In the Matrix world, it seems we have a prime example of a new form of entertainment: pop-deconstructionism. A form of interactive entertainment not initially conceived (probably) by its creators where understanding the work outside of the work becomes more fulfilling then the film itself.
But in that context, it's easy to confuse these exercises with real philosophy. By rooting itself (albeit loosely) in various mythologies, religious and philosophical readings of being, many people seem to confuse the Matrix as a new work that is an extension of those initial thought systems because the processes are so similar; both in the real world of religious and philosophical exploration and in this work of fiction, the goal is to figure out the overriding cosmology of the universe. But it's as if some believe that understanding the fictional Matrix will help them understand the world better.
They won't. They are two very different things. The Matrix is a fantasy world that exists in a easily defined universe. It has a known creator (the writers), and will probably have a known conclusion where all is explained. Once all is revealed, we will be no closer to understanding our real world.
I for one will enjoy it. I'll enjoy picking apart clues in the make believe world of the Matrix films to try to understand what's really going on. But in the end, when it's all over and I am proven right or wrong, I won't have any new insights into the nature of man. It's just a movie.
So clouds are patriotic protectors of liberty?
To read about this guy's testimony, you would think there are millions of folks out there who want spam. He tries to paint "legitimate" spammers as good, decent folks who have to resort to underhanded tactics to circumvent the evil ISPs who block their spam messages.
Now, personally there are a few things that I'd want to receive that could be considered spam. There are some companies I go to where I want to hear about the latest deals (the weekend specials from the airline, for example). Sometimes these emails have an advertisement attached to it, which is fine. But the difference between what these companies do and what this scumbag testifying before congress does is I actually want to receive their bulk email. I had to go out of my way to be put on their mailing list, and in that process it was made quite clear that I would receive the bulk mailings.
Of course, the emails I want to get aren't really unsolicited. The impression I get is spammers like this guy don't seem to see any difference. A line hidden in an AUP that says when you sign up for a service you will receive "valuable offers from partners" is not the same as going to a specific webpage and asking to be placed on a mailing list.
So the question remains: Is there anyone who wants to receive coupons for $.40 off Lysol, offers to refinance their mortgage, discounted prescription drugs etc. on a regular basis? Does anyone think this is a valuable service? Would anyone be angry at their email provider for blocking those types of messages before they reach their inbox?
To read about this guy, there are millions who do. Personal experience points to something altogether different.
Do you really think that if films came out at the same time on DVD as on the screen that many people would still go to the theater?
I know I would. I also know that people will still go to the theatre for films released a long time ago. If the local indie theatre is showing a rerelease of a classic I happen to like, I'll be there cash in hand, despite owning the work on DVD.
I wasn't particularly interested in seeing the second Matrix movie, but I went because a large group of my friends went. The social and visual experience of going to the theatre will never be truly replicated in the living room.