Politicans are bought and sold like condoms. Once their usefulness is up, they're thrown away. But before that happens, the corperations who bought said politican nearly always finds a way to impregnate a bill with their agenda. In the end, it's us that have to deal with it. These types of bills and laws are like second hand EULAS, passed down from corp, to legislation to us.
This is the major reason why I don't vote for senators/house representivies. Why bother? At 22 years old i have enough apathy for the government as it is (unless there's a rally for something everyone's bitching about, like DMCA, et al) Then i'll do my part and chip in to the EFF, etc.
Back to the question: why bother? Even if the guy you wanted in won, he's still going to have his ear cocked to his biggest corperate bidder. This is exactly why we need a *REAL* campaign reform that actually cuts out the corperations.
Why is this so hard? Why can't they just take money from private donors and individuals and be done with it. So they won't have millions and millions to spend like they used to. Big deal, If everything was done grassroots, ala Ralph Nader, the elections would be very interesting.
How do we the people, plan to stop this? I'd suggest a site that's set up, and able to fax letters to congress, a site similar to digitalconsumer.org for example. And tell everyone you know, your mother, grandmother, E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E you know to go there, get the info, and do their part. I can get at least 10-15 people off the top of my head who'd be happy to do this. Hell, why not a typed up printed petition and just get signatures from around your area and send it to your congressmen?
There's so many ideas one could try out. One person can't do squat, a few people can turn a congressmen's head, a shitload can put his job on the line in the next election. But it all has to start somewhere.
I think a website along those lines would greatly help in the fight to stop this.
Maybe my history is wrong, or perhaps my presidency knowledge is skewed, but doesn't the term for a US president at it's shortest, last 4 years and at its longest, 8 years?
Perhaps your talking about senators/house member terms. If that's the case, what's the difference if any new president, weither democrat or republican, comes into office? If the house and senate are in abundance of the same party as the president, then i could see your point.
Maybe that was your point, it was just kind of hard to follow.:)
What I meant by how it's simuliar to the Visa case is that here you got a company suing another company over yet another trademark/product name dispute, and their not even in the same market. (Unlike Lindows, but that case is *generally simular, TM violations) I realize brand protection is a must. Otherwise, brands like Intel, AMD, Nike, and Coke wouldn't nearly have the same brand recognition like they do now.
Your GrayStation 2 and FameCube examples are so hidiously obvious, with only a letter difference from another brand name. However if those were consoles then I'd see nothing wrong with bitchslapping a company for ripping your name off.
But if your a credit-card company, and some guy is running a travel, foreign language, and other multilingual applications on his webpage, The simuliarities between the two companies becomes very different and very fast. I could also understand why they chose a name with visa in it. After all, Visas and travel go hand in hand (passports)
Imagine for a moment, evisa makes it big...take that a step further and imagine they advertise their services just as much as Visa does such as in magizines and on TV. Do you'd really think you'd confuse the two? Especially when their marketing is likely to be different anyway. Different slogans, narraritive, um...product.:)
When I think of Visa, i think of a passport. with I think of a passport, i think of paper with identification info on it that you use to travel from country to country.
Microsoft is whacking Lindows for the same thing. (no news here) Which in a way i can see why, but in another way, I think it's just stupid. There should be a law made where if your company name or product is a word that can be found in the dictionary, you shouldn't allow to register it, period.
Why is it that companies think that they can claim a heavily used word as their own? And why is that every company on earth thinks that someone out there may confuse two similar names? When i saw the link www.evisa.com, I thought it was a site relating to passports or something along those lines.
*whips out credit card*...humm what's the site for this company. 1st guess: www.mastercard.com. *whips out another card* 1st guess: www.visa.com, and so on. Now if Visa has a credit card named "E-Visa" or "eVisa" then i could see the point for the lawsuit.
It's not going to carry the Compact Disc Logo. This is all dandy if you actually look for the logo while your CD shopping but it raises an interesting question:
Are these DRM enabled "discs" going to be sold and displayed with regular run-of-the-mill CD's with no DRM on them?
*walks into a CD store and picks up a cd* Now, am i supposed to know weither or not this particular disc i picked up is a "standard" disc or not?
The average six-pack joe isn't going to be looking for any logos or identifiers when purchasing a CD. Their looking for Artist and Album title, they want to find that disc they want, and be on their way.
If the boneheads at various CD retailers mix the DRM and the non-DRM discs together, it's only going to create a massive headache for Joe (or Jane!) when they go home, plop the disc in the high-end audio player or computer.
What they *should* do is seperate the DRM enabled discs from the CDs and put them in their own racks with clear labels. You wouldn't mix DVDs in the racks of CDs now would you? It's the same concept.
Though, of course they aren't going to do this. Why you ask? Because they don't want the average Joe or Jane walking in a store and seeing that clearly labeled rack of DRM music discs sticking out like a sore thumb. No sir. Every geek on the planet would see that DRM rack as a hotbed for cracking the labels' oh so precious "discs".
Not only that, but who in the right mind would WANT TO BUY A CRIPPLED DISC WHEN YOU CAN BUY NON-CRIPPED "CDs"IN THE SAME STORE?? If that happened, Brittney Spears and J-Lo disc sales would pummel and the execs over at the fearsome 5 would be pulling their fingers out of their asses just long enough to point at P2P for all their woes.
Being innovative isn't always easy, but it can be done from time to time. (Some *cough* companies use that word, Innovate like they invented it) And If the labels *really* put their heads together, they could find a balance between consumer happiness and profit margins.
But no, the labels aren't individual music companies, they are a *cartel*, which makes it easy to take the stupid route over the fair one.
And take a look at that pricing! From what it reads it costs $1.64 to obtain a key for *each* track on the disc. Since the average CD holds around 10 songs, that equates to $16.40! when you just nearly plopped that much down for the disc itself, just to be able to transfer from the CD to the hard drive or mobile player. (i'm pretty sure this is how it reads, correct me if necessary)
I'll say this in the labels' defense: They should be allowed to make money too, and not have their goods ripped off. That concept i'm familar with. Some would say: "Well DRM wouldn't be here if people like you wouldn't steal songs via p2p, tough luck" And then some others would say: "I only want to privately copy my CDs as a backup or to transfer them to my portable player. Its *NOT* fair, considering how much i pay for the music."
There's a fine line between those two concepts. Granted, the RIAA's profit margins are dropping, and with it, comsumers' rights to fair use of what they purchased.
But what does Dell do when their profits get eaten by Gateway? What does the RIAA do when their profits lag and free songs can be found on p2p at the cost of only the time to download them?
Lower the price and add more value to your item. Offer incentives, extras to lure the consumer, not to bite their heads off and rob them. If a company did that, they wouldn't survive long. (unless they held a monopoly or catel *sighs*)
People said this before, (I know i did) but I and you know that ain't gonna happen. So what happens now? Pretty much what has been happing. Hackers are gonna keep at hacking the DRM, and people are gonna use p2p, just like they have been.
At some point something's going to break. Someone will blink, which will be the defining moment and bring this topic to a head. Either the RIAA wises up to it's consumers' wants or p2p users will be hunted down and tossed in jail one by one until no one's left to steal music. (Side note: there won't be anyone left to by CDs either heh)
And what about the innocient people cought in the crossfire who don't necessarly agree p2p music sharing but want to still retain the right to privately back up their CDs and play them whenever they want? They're the ones getting screwed over the most. The RIAA already taxes CD-Rs, they gonna tax my next shiny PC because it may not have a DRM-enabled MS palladium OS?
I wish this would have been settled by now. I guess with any revolution, it takes a good while for any headway to be made, for which ever side you may be rooting for.
Damn, that was best most well thought out post I have ever seen on slashdot. Seriously, this is no joke. I saw bits and pieces of farscape after Stargate SG-1 was over, and it seemed a bit weird to me and I never got into it enough to keep current with the show.
And your right-on about the kind of shows that build up so much back story in their early seasons. Again, Stargate does a shitload of this as well. Which is something I just can't understand since it recently moved to the Sci-Fi channel at the start of its 6th season. (As a side note, Season 7 is also underway)
So perhaps your idea of too-much-backstory-loses viewers-who-watch-later-seasons idea isn't really much of a factor.
Another good point you made is that the sci-fi channel is turning to a paranormal-horror flick channel. I got my overdose of that from watching the x-files and it gets very wornout after a while. (by no means am i knocking the x-files, it's just...well...it really drug out)
It's sad, really sad to see that happen. Remember Sliders?
Granted it never was quite the same after the professor left, when Wade got replaced by a Rambo-babe, and and Quinn dropped out. The only guy left standing is Rembrandt. I really dug that show, but it should have died, considering 3/4's of their orginial cast was gone.
VR-5, Babylon 5, TNG, Viper(hey, i liked it), Earth: Final Conflict, Adromida, (and other great shows that i'm missing) should all be reborn via re-runs and put into a mega-block spot on one channel.
Since i'm going hidiously off-topic with my idealist rants, I may as well add my thoughts on the "network-no-one-thought-could-be-so-good"....
TNN certinally turned my head, airing old TNG episodes at least once a day, and 4 back to back episodes on sunday nights. Did any of you see that HILAROUS (and pretty outragious TNN commercial they'd air during the show?
The one with the klingon woman and the exec asking the other if he'd do her. That one really cought my attention, I can't remember when i laughhed that hard at a commerical. In any case, need to get back on topic:
The level of outcry for Farscape's return is inspring to hear about. Alot of people here on slashdot sneer about it, but hey, they're putting hard-earned fan money towards a show that they loved, and their entitled to doing it. There's a certian respect in that, and I'd be the first one to sign a patition and donate some money if my favorite sci-fi show was dying too.
To my understanding (correct me if i'm wrong) but doesn't the gameboy double as a controller when hooked up to the gamecube?
If so, then why didn't they build that functionality into the system to begin with? The gameboy already has a connection to the system, how hard would it have to have the gamecube access the gamboy game and pipe it through the GC and out to the tv?
Maybe it has something to do with it going over a controller port. In any case it would have been a neat feature to add if they thought about this ahead of time and could get it to work right.
Otherwise this is nothing new. The SNES had a cart/adapter which allowed you to play old gameboy games on your SNES.
Personally i never saw the point, except it's easier on the eyes which doesn't seem to justify the cost of buying one. I couldn't see people buying this adapter and buy gameboy games without a gameboy either. But hey, options options options!
Let me answer your 20GB-mp3-player-is-good-enough-for-me question first:
I have about 130 music CDs, not to mention a couple gigs worth of mp3s that are lying around my LAN. (which are a mix of indie free mp3s and some not so legal. *cough* So i'm a sinner, crucify me)
I've been looking for a effective way of transferring my entire CD collection to mp3. Why mp3? Because it's just so damn popular. That and I will not accept anything less then 320k bitrate mp3s for my cd collection. (mp3s that I get on the 'net, my ears can get away with 192-256k)
So that alone will probably eat up all that space on your 20gig player. Not only that, but what about my multi-gigibyte collection of mp3s I already have? What about future storage for mp3s that I don't have yet? And since i'd be making a big investment on a large storage medium, wouldn't it be nice to use it like a floppy in a sense that I could plop general non-media data on as well?
(side note, why compress my music at all with 87gigs of storage on *one* disc??)
As far as video is concerned, you don't have to be a video editor to have gigs upon gigs of video either. (TV Episodes you just can't get any other way, Replay/maybe Tivo shows that you want to back up permanently, etc) Also, I'm not a Mac user, but i've seen and heard good things about ivideo that makes it look like child's play to create your own video productions.
You could ghost images of windows/linux/beos/etc fully decked out with apps, all on one disk with a generious amount of space left over.
These are all consumer uses of this technology, and i'm sure others could find interesting ways of filling that much space.
In this day and age, asking the question "What will I do with all that space?" isn't the right question to be asking. As time progresses and programs get bigger and more sophisticated, when video editing becomes ever more popular, the question that's getting asked now-a-days is that: "When is a storage technology going to satisfy my demands?"
You also have to take the long-term consideration of this type of medium. The storage space you don't use today, will most likely find it's use tomarrow.
Now the business/corperate applications for this technology I probably don't have to go into detail about. But i'm sure they will find even more uses for it. The nice thing about that is you get all these companies purchasing it, (being early-adopters and all) as with most technology, it drives the prices down so eventually consumers like us can take advantage of the same technology without bankrupting ourselves in the process.
All in all, 87gigs on a disc seems fantastic to me. But will it come to pass? Their still trying to breakout the DVD-R/W medium for mass consumpiton. So if it does, it won't be for a good long while.
Anyway, this post has turned into a rant, and my soap box is getting weak;)
"Once installed, the Magic Lantern creates a record of every time you press a key on the computer. It's all saved in plain text, and during the FBI's next secret visit to your home or office, that information is downloaded as the agents also pick up whatever other records and papers they find of interest."
A good article about it here: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0222/hen toff.ph p
Is it just me, or has privacy gone to hell in a handbasket?
I have an Addtron ADR-E200p. I worry about security, and security holes too. I want to protect myself as much as possible. But has anyone seen addtron's homepage lately?? www.addtron.com
I mean christ, their webpage is falling apart, sure Addtron routers may not be as flashy as Netgear or Linksys brandwise, but damn, it can't be *that* hard or *that* costly to maintain a site well enough to get the firmware updates that people need.
At least there are brand's that try to take care of their customer's concerns. Yeah i know a homebrew linux router would do the trick, but i paid good money for this router and they give me an unusable site for support in return.
Not to disagree with you, because i'm not sure myself about this. But my logic goes like this, for example:
If someone said my company enjoyed "Monopoly Power" and it was true, based on findings of fact, wouldn't I have to be a *MONOPOLY* to be able to enjoy "Monopoly Power"?
Based on your reasoning, it's like saying that I have presidental power, for example. Wouldn't I have to be a president to enjoy those powers?
Unless someone clarifies this for me, it's only fair to assume that in the findings of fact of Microsoft, the court did pretty much say Microsoft is a monopoly.
50,000 Geeks * 99$ OS copy = 4.95 million dollars. How's that for capital gain?
At any rate, there's probably more geeks than that out there willing to spring for a x86 version of OS X and apple will probably charge a bit more. So the milage may very.
It's not just geeks either mind you. Apple has some serious skills when it comes to the GUI department, and could attract A LOT of joe-sixpacks if it'd move to the x86 platform.
I don't like to compare Apple to Windows, because, well it's like comparing apples to oranges (pun included), but IMHO Apple has just as much intuitiveness and ease of use as windows does, if not more.
Hypothetically speaking, if Apple moved today and pushed OS X on to the x86 and seriously worked on it, If they did their marketing right, i seriously believe Apple would have bitchslap privledges on Microsoft and could widen the playing field.
However, Apple seems to be fixiated on hardware sales, the OS itself it just a "tool" to push hardware. So who knows? It doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon though.
Although i'm a serious newb to linux, i did take the inituitive and download Red Hat 8, and i'm having fun learning the more technical aspects of it.
However I do sometimes long for the OS that is drop dead easy to install and use, stable as a rock, tons of apps and works great. All at the *same* time.
Nothing a decent sized SVGA monitor and VGA box won't fix.
If i want to play games I get the latest console a few games and a VGA box (hell evem the dreamcast had one) Still cheaper each time round them blowing a crapload on a super graphics card and any related upgrades to play the latest generation of killer games.
I used to use IE as my browser of choice, it was there and I used it. However, a friend turned me on to Mozilla just over a month ago and so I downloaded the latest 1.1 and gave it a run on my celly 500 + 192 megs ram.
At first I was leery about running mozilla because I have heard that it would crash often. I think i had it crash twice since I had it installed and it was when i was turning features on and off. - It didn't crash out of the blue for me (yet) anyway. It's a hella more stable then my preconceptions gave it prior to installing.
The first thing that got me hooked was the tabbed browsing, it's the coolest thing i've seen in a long time (as far as broswer features are concerned). Also the popup control feature is very handy when you surf around alot.
I also like how the toolbars at the top are collapsable just by clicking the side tab thing. It doesn't REMOVE it, just minimizes it, and it's always there for you to turn back on easily. - I don't know if netscape had this already but it's pretty neat IMHO.
Gripes - I have no gripes really, But last night i was trying to load up an old aim logfile (if you remember, aim actually had logging as a feature at one point in time)...So i loaded this aim html logfile (12 MEGS OW!!) with mozilla and it liturally took for_ever to show it. Granted, it was a hefty logfile. So i fired up IE to view the logfile and it displayed it very quickly.
I'm not sure exactly why mozila was slower with this, my guess is that moz tries to load it all at once -before- it displays the html. IE on the other hand was very quick showing it to me, so i had a chance to read some of it while it was continuing to load in the background.
Otherwise I'm FULLY satisfied with Mozilla, and it has become my default broswer. I was no OSS fan to begin with, but if i can get hooked on a broswer, i'm sure there are other open source programs out there that can really grab my attention too!
Had I known it was so hard getting hooked up on Adelphia powerlink cable modem service, i'd have second guessed getting it myself, I probably wouldn't have gotten it period.
A grunt came to my house and runs a conditioned cable from my cable splitter to the surfboard modem and checks the lights and says "okay, your hooked up. and leaves.
Well I couldn't use the damn thing. No instructions, nothing. So I called Adalphia and after a 2 hour wait, i finally got a real live person to help me get this modem working on my PC. She asked me if if the modem came with any RJ45 or USB cable...so i run to check the box the modem was in, I had a usb cable, but no RJ45. Like hell i'm using USB for my cable modem so I hung up and ran out and got a rj45 cable.
Came back, called Adelphia, another hour and 45 min wait, then i got another real live person.
So she walked me though hooking it up, and it worked. Only took me the better part of a day to get the cable laid, rj45 cable, tech support waiting, and actually setting it up.
Thay make this shit sound so easy, HA! yeah right.
I also have a personal pc and a laptop alongside the family pc. I orginially hooked up the cable modem to the family pc. I wanted access from all the computers in my house. So being a newbie to broadband i tried plugging the cable modem into each of my computers, and it wouldn't work on any of them, only on the family pc, which i first set it up on.
So I called Adelphia up again. Waited 2 hours and 10 min. then I got a real live person again. I asked how could i share the cable modem to all the pc's in my house. He told me that Adelphia doesn't support sharing to multiple computers. But he asked me if i had a hub. I said yes. (I had a hub for networking at the time) He said some of them allow you to plug the cable modem directly into it. So he said i should give it a try, and we ended the conversation.
I plugged the cable modem in the hub, but no luck. So i did some research on the net with my 56k Since adelphia was no help.
Found out about routers, so i got myself one. Read the instuctions, and hooked all my PC's into it and the cable modem into the WAN side. Nothing, nothing worked.
Another note: For the LIFE of me i couldn't understand why the cable modem only worked on the family PC and not my personal and laptop.
So I called adelphia yet *again* and after waiting for nearly 2 and a half hours I got a real live person again. I told them about my confusion about the cable modem not working on any of my pc's except for the one i hooked it up to. She said:
"Our service is designed to work with any computer." to which i said "if that's the case, then why doesn't it work on my laptop or my other PC?" She didn't have an answer.
She had me running though oddball config files in the windows system directory but nothing worked and i spent well over an hour on that call alone.
At this point it's been days since i had the modem and couldn't use it. Tech support was a freakin JOKE and i'm paying for something i can't use the way i want.
So I called a tech friend, he didn't have broadband but he suggested a very importiant thing. MAC ADDRESS. This made total sense to me, the cable modem latches itself to the mac address of your network card. THATS WHY the modem didn't work on my other PC's when i hooked them up to it.
I checked the router box and sure enough I found a MAC address for the WAN side of the router.
Called up adelphia agian...and waited for 1 hour and 30 min. Then I got a real live person. Told them i got a new network card. (bullshit i know, but they cold-sholdered me about sharing the cable modem) So the guy took the mac address i fed him like a good boy and my router worked!
I can use the cable modem on ALL of my PC's now. My quest was completed in the span of nearly a week after I got the conditioned cable installed.
--
They adervised their cable modem service like it was the easist thing in the world to hook up, you get a "kit" to which you can do it yourself easily. You know what i got? I got a modem and a conditioned cable..._that_was_it_.
Adelphia has the shittist tech support I ever encountered and hidious call-wait times. They didn't follow through on suppling me a driver CD which the modem was supposed to come with (not like i need it but hey i'm paying for it), it didn't come with instructions, nor a RJ-45 cable. And it was _not_ easy for a general non-geek like me to setup like they claimed.
What did i get. Faster webpage load times, and faster software update downloads, occasional web radio and movie trailers. Hardly worth the cost of the cable modem OR the fustration of setting it up.
Broadband providers need to step-up their support and mean what they say in their advertising before they can even think about getting more users.
But in the end, i felt like I *EARNED* it =) So i'm keeping it. Hopefully something decent will come along that will really put the speed to good use.
Point of reference: I consider myself semi-relgious, but my mind is open.
I kind of have a problem destroying a perfectly good embryo for the sake of scientific research. I consider enbryos life to the extent that, hey I was an embryo once, you all were. Taking that enybros chance at life away is like someone taking your chance to live away now. But others beg to differ and that's okay.
It all boils down to how the process is done.
The bill requires clinics that do in-vitro fertilization procedures to inform women they have the option to donate discarded embryos to research. It requires written consent for donating embryos for research and bans the sale of embryos.
So in other words if the fertilization doesn't work right and/or the enbryo hasn't a chance for life, the women who go there now have the option to donate that embryo for research? Am _I_ reading this right?
From the sounds of it, the embryo is just going to be tossed out anyway. Assuming i'm not reading the article wrong, this sounds perfectly fine with me.
If it's about an option to donate eggs to a fertilization clinic to grow an embryo in a test tube to harvest for research, then it's no so clear to me. But i guess since these people are giving up their sperm and eggs, that's their right, they're the owners of them. I wouldn't say it's okay or wrong, I'm just not sure if I'd do it personally. I'm netrual about it.
Why stop with the Wright Brothers? Why not take a bigger step back and design aircraft like birds? They have bendable wings too! Screw animalisitc decals, i'm talking glue and feathers man.
Once this gets into mass production, instead of our enemies looking up and seeing a decked out f-16 with all the trimmings and sophisticated bomb technology, they'll just think it's a overgrown hawk with explosive diarrhea.
So The Tungsten W has no speaker nor microphone. Did I hear that right? no speaker? Come on, every palm has a speaker! How are you supposed to hear all those annoying "beep-bop-bloop" game sounds? It's got a keyboard you say? wow! You get redundancy, on-screen keyboard and a *real* keyboard. That's cost effective.
I mean after all, the Zire looks like an Ipod mp3 player, and it has a speaker. Can't play mp3s, but hey, it's got the "look"...it's got the speaker!
"Well folk rock, punk rock, power pop music
Turned out to be the latest trends
And ther ain't no more progressive music
The business has put it to an end
Ol' "Rolling Stone" has gathered some moss
No they ain't what they used to be
They try to look like "Look" with their political pages And advertising all over T.V.
So na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
I bet you've heard this song before
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
Take your cocaine and hit the door.
- "Cheap Shot" John Mellencamp, 1980.
A penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
agreed, NYT is acting sort of strange about this article, and it makes one wonder why.
Semi-offtopic:
I use a two prong approch to crazy annoying ads and popups. Between mozilla and webwasher, I haven't seen any form of ads in a good while.
I particularly love the thinkgeek banners, so i make sure to turn it off when i'm at/. i realize that alot of websites rely on the revenue to keep afloat, but what's a guy to do when you got 20+ popups at a time and after you close one and anothe r pops in its place? and those fu*king pop unders and little ads that won't DIE, or crash IE if you kill them, advertisers are ruthless.
We heard this all before, and there's nothing new to read. So move along, there's nothing here to see.
After reading some of the comments and after thinking seriously what I would do with a billion dollars, I'm not sure i would do anything different then what i am doing now.
That's not to say that i'm really financially well off or anything. Or that I have The Good LifeTM but the more i focus on the question "what would I do with a billion dollars." the more i sway to the conclusion that money isn't everything.
It would be nice to own a beautiful home, an exotic car, help the world by donating all of it to chairity...the options are endless when money becomes less of a factor.
Sometmes people forget that money isn't worth the paper it's printed on and that some of the best things in life are free. Some things you just can't place a monitary value on, like a loving relationship, a caring family. How could any one of you place a monitary value on your chlid's head, for example? I know I couldn't and I'm only 22 without children.
I was asked a simular question once before: "what would you do with an x amount of dollars", by my guidence counselor back when i was in high school. The question was supposed to get you to focus on what you wanted to do with your life if you didn't have to worry about money.
Could I donate it to help those in need? Sure it would help greatly, but would it have any lasting effect? I think it would only for the short-term.
Could I by one or a lot of products that makes me happy? Sure I could. I could name a few things I'd like to own that would make me feel happy. But how long would that happiness last? Once you get used to the item you bought for a little while, it just eventually becomes a thing you own. Again, short-term.
it's all how you define value and what you consider real happiness to be i guess.
To me, you can be dirt poor or filthy rich and be truely happy. In this context, money really doesn't matter at all.
Yes, i know money pays for food, water, shelter and a lot of people say you need at least these 3 things in order to survive. I agree. my point isn't that I think money means squat, it's that money is grossly overrated and the simple things in life that don't require money, are often times over looked.
*shrugs* There's a meaning in there somewhere.
A penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
I know this topic is getting old - the fact i'm responding to a thread i started that's going to be archived and no one will probably see it..but anyway..hopefully you will!
Thank you for opening my eyes with respect. You are definately in the right about this, I just didn't sit down and think it through during my initial posting.
As far as Open Source and Linux, I strongly feel it's a bit out of my league yet for me to dabble in. Linux has an intimidating effect on people like me - Used windows as long as I can remember.
However, this doesn't mean I won't give it a try in the future agian. Like you said, there are ALOT of people out there working on linux to make it more user-friendly without compromising sercurity or performance. I wish them luck so that people like me can make the plunge:)
On another irellevent note (perhaps not) I heard Mozilla 1.1 was released not long ago. The only reason I didn't get it because i "Heard" it was a bit buggy. (I can't remember exactly where, I believe it was in few of the comments here on/.)
My friend told me about the awsome features of Mozilla and that it *was* stable, never gave him any problems. Since me and him have the same setup (2k, simular machines) I decided to download it.
I MUST say, Mozilla 1.1 is the best thing since sliced bread! The Tabbed Browsing is the most innovative feature I have yet to see in any browser, and the anti-popup features are great. Using Mozilla and Webwasher in conjunction I elininated practically 100% of ads while surfing. (let it be known i do turn it on occasionally for sites that i really love, and make sure to help them out with clickthroughs/purchases)
The fact that Mozilla is open-source as well really makes me feel good in knowing that it'll continue to be developed and free. Like you said, anyone from all walks of life can participate in its advancement. I can't express enough how cool this is.
Again, thanks for your detailed response and respectfulness.
The measure of the love we give is in the hearts that others show
My friend also recieved something simular to the spam email that was linked in the article.
the link is: jesus.doomed.us/spam.html
The spam:
CHIEF PATRICK OLADOKUN EMAIL:patrickoladokun2002@lycos.com FAX: 234-1-7597267
Sir,
URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
First, I must solicit your confidence in this transaction, which is of mutual benefit. This is by virtue of it's nature of being utterly confidential.I am sure and have confidence of your ability, and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude.
We are top Officials of the Federal Government Contract review Panel who are interested in importation of goods into our country with funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria. In order to commence this business,we need your assistance to enable us transfer funds into your account. As members of the Contract Review Panel set up by the Government of Nigeria to review all contracts from 1983 to the present,we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the Central Bank of Nigeria ready for payment.
By virtue of our position as Civil Servants and members of this Panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names, in this regard I have been delegated by my colleagues of the review Panel to look for an overseas partner into whose account we would transfer the sum of US$21,320,000.00 (Twenty -One Million, Three Hundred and Twenty Thousand United States Dollars) hence we take the liberty to write you.
The money will be shared as follows:-
1. 20% for you the account owner
2. 70% for us (The Officials)
3. 10% to be used in settling taxation and all local and foreign expenses.
Please note that this whole process will take between 7 to 10 working days from the date of receipt of the following information by Fax:234-1-7597267,Your individual/Company's signed and stamped letterhead with a transcribed"Text" which we would send to you upon receipt of your reply with a letter of interest. The above information will enable us write letter of claim, and Job description by using your individual/Company name to apply for payment for the above stated amount. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter using the above Fax number.
Detailed information of this pending business transaction will be sent to you as soon as I hear from you.
Yours faithfully,
CHIEF PATRICK OLADOKUN
--
I never saw this type of spam/scam before until he pointed it out to me a few days ago. But it has been forwarded to uce.gov so hopefully they can catch this idiot.
The measure of the love we give is in the hearts that others show.
Slashdot Mirror
Politicans are bought and sold like condoms. Once their usefulness is up, they're thrown away. But before that happens, the corperations who bought said politican nearly always finds a way to impregnate a bill with their agenda. In the end, it's us that have to deal with it. These types of bills and laws are like second hand EULAS, passed down from corp, to legislation to us.
This is the major reason why I don't vote for senators/house representivies. Why bother? At 22 years old i have enough apathy for the government as it is (unless there's a rally for something everyone's bitching about, like DMCA, et al) Then i'll do my part and chip in to the EFF, etc.
Back to the question: why bother? Even if the guy you wanted in won, he's still going to have his ear cocked to his biggest corperate bidder. This is exactly why we need a *REAL* campaign reform that actually cuts out the corperations.
Why is this so hard? Why can't they just take money from private donors and individuals and be done with it. So they won't have millions and millions to spend like they used to. Big deal, If everything was done grassroots, ala Ralph Nader, the elections would be very interesting.
How do we the people, plan to stop this? I'd suggest a site that's set up, and able to fax letters to congress, a site similar to digitalconsumer.org for example. And tell everyone you know, your mother, grandmother, E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E you know to go there, get the info, and do their part. I can get at least 10-15 people off the top of my head who'd be happy to do this. Hell, why not a typed up printed petition and just get signatures from around your area and send it to your congressmen?
There's so many ideas one could try out. One person can't do squat, a few people can turn a congressmen's head, a shitload can put his job on the line in the next election. But it all has to start somewhere.
I think a website along those lines would greatly help in the fight to stop this.
This is soapbox 1, signing off.
Maybe my history is wrong, or perhaps my presidency knowledge is skewed, but doesn't the term for a US president at it's shortest, last 4 years and at its longest, 8 years?
:)
Perhaps your talking about senators/house member terms. If that's the case, what's the difference if any new president, weither democrat or republican, comes into office? If the house and senate are in abundance of the same party as the president, then i could see your point.
Maybe that was your point, it was just kind of hard to follow.
What I meant by how it's simuliar to the Visa case is that here you got a company suing another company over yet another trademark/product name dispute, and their not even in the same market. (Unlike Lindows, but that case is *generally simular, TM violations) I realize brand protection is a must. Otherwise, brands like Intel, AMD, Nike, and Coke wouldn't nearly have the same brand recognition like they do now.
:)
Your GrayStation 2 and FameCube examples are so hidiously obvious, with only a letter difference from another brand name. However if those were consoles then I'd see nothing wrong with bitchslapping a company for ripping your name off.
But if your a credit-card company, and some guy is running a travel, foreign language, and other multilingual applications on his webpage, The simuliarities between the two companies becomes very different and very fast. I could also understand why they chose a name with visa in it. After all, Visas and travel go hand in hand (passports)
Imagine for a moment, evisa makes it big...take that a step further and imagine they advertise their services just as much as Visa does such as in magizines and on TV. Do you'd really think you'd confuse the two? Especially when their marketing is likely to be different anyway. Different slogans, narraritive, um...product.
When I think of Visa, i think of a passport. with I think of a passport, i think of paper with identification info on it that you use to travel from country to country.
Microsoft is whacking Lindows for the same thing. (no news here) Which in a way i can see why, but in another way, I think it's just stupid. There should be a law made where if your company name or product is a word that can be found in the dictionary, you shouldn't allow to register it, period.
Why is it that companies think that they can claim a heavily used word as their own? And why is that every company on earth thinks that someone out there may confuse two similar names?
When i saw the link www.evisa.com, I thought it was a site relating to passports or something along those lines.
*whips out credit card*...humm what's the site for this company. 1st guess: www.mastercard.com. *whips out another card* 1st guess: www.visa.com, and so on. Now if Visa has a credit card named "E-Visa" or "eVisa" then i could see the point for the lawsuit.
It's not going to carry the Compact Disc Logo. This is all dandy if you actually look for the logo while your CD shopping but it raises an interesting question:
Are these DRM enabled "discs" going to be sold and displayed with regular run-of-the-mill CD's with no DRM on them?
*walks into a CD store and picks up a cd* Now, am i supposed to know weither or not this particular disc i picked up is a "standard" disc or not?
The average six-pack joe isn't going to be looking for any logos or identifiers when purchasing a CD. Their looking for Artist and Album title, they want to find that disc they want, and be on their way.
If the boneheads at various CD retailers mix the DRM and the non-DRM discs together, it's only going to create a massive headache for Joe (or Jane!) when they go home, plop the disc in the high-end audio player or computer.
What they *should* do is seperate the DRM enabled discs from the CDs and put them in their own racks with clear labels. You wouldn't mix DVDs in the racks of CDs now would you? It's the same concept.
Though, of course they aren't going to do this. Why you ask? Because they don't want the average Joe or Jane walking in a store and seeing that clearly labeled rack of DRM music discs sticking out like a sore thumb. No sir. Every geek on the planet would see that DRM rack as a hotbed for cracking the labels' oh so precious "discs".
Not only that, but who in the right mind would WANT TO BUY A CRIPPLED DISC WHEN YOU CAN BUY NON-CRIPPED "CDs"IN THE SAME STORE?? If that happened, Brittney Spears and J-Lo disc sales would pummel and the execs over at the fearsome 5 would be pulling their fingers out of their asses just long enough to point at P2P for all their woes.
Being innovative isn't always easy, but it can be done from time to time. (Some *cough* companies use that word, Innovate like they invented it) And If the labels *really* put their heads together, they could find a balance between consumer happiness and profit margins.
But no, the labels aren't individual music companies, they are a *cartel*, which makes it easy to take the stupid route over the fair one.
And take a look at that pricing! From what it reads it costs $1.64 to obtain a key for *each* track on the disc. Since the average CD holds around 10 songs, that equates to $16.40! when you just nearly plopped that much down for the disc itself, just to be able to transfer from the CD to the hard drive or mobile player. (i'm pretty sure this is how it reads, correct me if necessary)
I'll say this in the labels' defense: They should be allowed to make money too, and not have their goods ripped off. That concept i'm familar with. Some would say: "Well DRM wouldn't be here if people like you wouldn't steal songs via p2p, tough luck" And then some others would say: "I only want to privately copy my CDs as a backup or to transfer them to my portable player. Its *NOT* fair, considering how much i pay for the music."
There's a fine line between those two concepts.
Granted, the RIAA's profit margins are dropping, and with it, comsumers' rights to fair use of what they purchased.
But what does Dell do when their profits get eaten by Gateway? What does the RIAA do when their profits lag and free songs can be found on p2p at the cost of only the time to download them?
Lower the price and add more value to your item. Offer incentives, extras to lure the consumer, not to bite their heads off and rob them. If a company did that, they wouldn't survive long. (unless they held a monopoly or catel *sighs*)
People said this before, (I know i did) but I and you know that ain't gonna happen. So what happens now? Pretty much what has been happing. Hackers are gonna keep at hacking the DRM, and people are gonna use p2p, just like they have been.
At some point something's going to break. Someone will blink, which will be the defining moment and bring this topic to a head. Either the RIAA wises up to it's consumers' wants or p2p users will be hunted down and tossed in jail one by one until no one's left to steal music. (Side note: there won't be anyone left to by CDs either heh)
And what about the innocient people cought in the crossfire who don't necessarly agree p2p music sharing but want to still retain the right to privately back up their CDs and play them whenever they want? They're the ones getting screwed over the most. The RIAA already taxes CD-Rs, they gonna tax my next shiny PC because it may not have a DRM-enabled MS palladium OS?
I wish this would have been settled by now. I guess with any revolution, it takes a good while for any headway to be made, for which ever side you may be rooting for.
Wait and see.
Damn, that was best most well thought out post I have ever seen on slashdot. Seriously, this is no joke. I saw bits and pieces of farscape after Stargate SG-1 was over, and it seemed a bit weird to me and I never got into it enough to keep current with the show.
And your right-on about the kind of shows that build up so much back story in their early seasons. Again, Stargate does a shitload of this as well. Which is something I just can't understand since it recently moved to the Sci-Fi channel at the start of its 6th season. (As a side note, Season 7 is also underway)
So perhaps your idea of too-much-backstory-loses viewers-who-watch-later-seasons idea isn't really much of a factor.
Another good point you made is that the sci-fi channel is turning to a paranormal-horror flick channel. I got my overdose of that from watching the x-files and it gets very wornout after a while. (by no means am i knocking the x-files, it's just...well...it really drug out)
It's sad, really sad to see that happen. Remember Sliders?
Granted it never was quite the same after the professor left, when Wade got replaced by a Rambo-babe, and and Quinn dropped out. The only guy left standing is Rembrandt. I really dug that show, but it should have died, considering 3/4's of their orginial cast was gone.
VR-5, Babylon 5, TNG, Viper(hey, i liked it), Earth: Final Conflict, Adromida, (and other great shows that i'm missing) should all be reborn via re-runs and put into a mega-block spot on one channel.
Since i'm going hidiously off-topic with my idealist rants, I may as well add my thoughts on the "network-no-one-thought-could-be-so-good"....
TNN certinally turned my head, airing old TNG episodes at least once a day, and 4 back to back episodes on sunday nights. Did any of you see that HILAROUS (and pretty outragious TNN commercial they'd air during the show?
The one with the klingon woman and the exec asking the other if he'd do her. That one really cought my attention, I can't remember when i laughhed that hard at a commerical. In any case, need to get back on topic:
The level of outcry for Farscape's return is inspring to hear about. Alot of people here on slashdot sneer about it, but hey, they're putting hard-earned fan money towards a show that they loved, and their entitled to doing it. There's a certian respect in that, and I'd be the first one to sign a patition and donate some money if my favorite sci-fi show was dying too.
To my understanding (correct me if i'm wrong) but doesn't the gameboy double as a controller when hooked up to the gamecube?
If so, then why didn't they build that functionality into the system to begin with? The gameboy already has a connection to the system, how hard would it have to have the gamecube access the gamboy game and pipe it through the GC and out to the tv?
Maybe it has something to do with it going over a controller port. In any case it would have been a neat feature to add if they thought about this ahead of time and could get it to work right.
Otherwise this is nothing new. The SNES had a cart/adapter which allowed you to play old gameboy games on your SNES.
Personally i never saw the point, except it's easier on the eyes which doesn't seem to justify the cost of buying one. I couldn't see people buying this adapter and buy gameboy games without a gameboy either. But hey, options options options!
Let me answer your 20GB-mp3-player-is-good-enough-for-me question first:
;)
I have about 130 music CDs, not to mention a couple gigs worth of mp3s that are lying around my LAN. (which are a mix of indie free mp3s and some not so legal. *cough* So i'm a sinner, crucify me)
I've been looking for a effective way of transferring my entire CD collection to mp3. Why mp3? Because it's just so damn popular. That and I will not accept anything less then 320k bitrate mp3s for my cd collection. (mp3s that I get on the 'net, my ears can get away with 192-256k)
So that alone will probably eat up all that space on your 20gig player. Not only that, but what about my multi-gigibyte collection of mp3s I already have? What about future storage for mp3s that I don't have yet? And since i'd be making a big investment on a large storage medium, wouldn't it be nice to use it like a floppy in a sense that I could plop general non-media data on as well?
(side note, why compress my music at all with 87gigs of storage on *one* disc??)
As far as video is concerned, you don't have to be a video editor to have gigs upon gigs of video either. (TV Episodes you just can't get any other way, Replay/maybe Tivo shows that you want to back up permanently, etc) Also, I'm not a Mac user, but i've seen and heard good things about ivideo that makes it look like child's play to create your own video productions.
You could ghost images of windows/linux/beos/etc
fully decked out with apps, all on one disk with a generious amount of space left over.
These are all consumer uses of this technology, and i'm sure others could find interesting ways of filling that much space.
In this day and age, asking the question "What will I do with all that space?" isn't the right question to be asking. As time progresses and programs get bigger and more sophisticated, when video editing becomes ever more popular, the question that's getting asked now-a-days is that:
"When is a storage technology going to satisfy my demands?"
You also have to take the long-term consideration of this type of medium. The storage space you don't use today, will most likely find it's use tomarrow.
Now the business/corperate applications for this technology I probably don't have to go into detail about. But i'm sure they will find even more uses for it. The nice thing about that is you get all these companies purchasing it, (being early-adopters and all) as with most technology, it drives the prices down so eventually consumers like us can take advantage of the same technology without bankrupting ourselves in the process.
All in all, 87gigs on a disc seems fantastic to me. But will it come to pass? Their still trying to breakout the DVD-R/W medium for mass consumpiton. So if it does, it won't be for a good long while.
Anyway, this post has turned into a rant, and my soap box is getting weak
Don't forget about "Magic Lantern":
n toff.ph p
"Once installed, the Magic Lantern creates a record of every time you press a key on the computer. It's all saved in plain text, and during the FBI's next secret visit to your home or office, that information is downloaded as the agents also pick up whatever other records and papers they find of interest."
A good article about it here:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0222/he
Is it just me, or has privacy gone to hell in a handbasket?
I mean christ, their webpage is falling apart, sure Addtron routers may not be as flashy as Netgear or Linksys brandwise, but damn, it can't be *that* hard or *that* costly to maintain a site well enough to get the firmware updates that people need.
At least there are brand's that try to take care of their customer's concerns. Yeah i know a homebrew linux router would do the trick, but i paid good money for this router and they give me an unusable site for support in return.
Not to disagree with you, because i'm not sure myself about this. But my logic goes like this, for example:
If someone said my company enjoyed "Monopoly Power" and it was true, based on findings of fact, wouldn't I have to be a *MONOPOLY* to be able to enjoy "Monopoly Power"?
Based on your reasoning, it's like saying that I have presidental power, for example. Wouldn't I have to be a president to enjoy those powers?
Unless someone clarifies this for me, it's only fair to assume that in the findings of fact of Microsoft, the court did pretty much say Microsoft is a monopoly.
50,000 Geeks * 99$ OS copy = 4.95 million dollars. How's that for capital gain?
At any rate, there's probably more geeks than that out there willing to spring for a x86 version of OS X and apple will probably charge a bit more. So the milage may very.
It's not just geeks either mind you. Apple has some serious skills when it comes to the GUI department, and could attract A LOT of joe-sixpacks if it'd move to the x86 platform.
I don't like to compare Apple to Windows, because, well it's like comparing apples to oranges (pun included), but IMHO Apple has just as much intuitiveness and ease of use as windows does, if not more.
Hypothetically speaking, if Apple moved today and pushed OS X on to the x86 and seriously worked on it, If they did their marketing right, i seriously believe Apple would have bitchslap privledges on Microsoft and could widen the playing field.
However, Apple seems to be fixiated on hardware sales, the OS itself it just a "tool" to push hardware. So who knows? It doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon though.
Although i'm a serious newb to linux, i did take the inituitive and download Red Hat 8, and i'm having fun learning the more technical aspects of it.
However I do sometimes long for the OS that is drop dead easy to install and use, stable as a rock, tons of apps and works great. All at the *same* time.
Everyone knows Angelina Jolie *is* Lara Croft! =)
If i want to play games I get the latest console a few games and a VGA box (hell evem the dreamcast had one) Still cheaper each time round them blowing a crapload on a super graphics card and any related upgrades to play the latest generation of killer games.
I used to use IE as my browser of choice, it was there and I used it. However, a friend turned me on to Mozilla just over a month ago and so I downloaded the latest 1.1 and gave it a run on my celly 500 + 192 megs ram.
At first I was leery about running mozilla because I have heard that it would crash often. I think i had it crash twice since I had it installed and it was when i was turning features on and off. - It didn't crash out of the blue for me (yet) anyway. It's a hella more stable then my preconceptions gave it prior to installing.
The first thing that got me hooked was the tabbed browsing, it's the coolest thing i've seen in a long time (as far as broswer features are concerned). Also the popup control feature is very handy when you surf around alot.
I also like how the toolbars at the top are collapsable just by clicking the side tab thing. It doesn't REMOVE it, just minimizes it, and it's always there for you to turn back on easily. - I don't know if netscape had this already but it's pretty neat IMHO.
Gripes - I have no gripes really, But last night i was trying to load up an old aim logfile (if you remember, aim actually had logging as a feature at one point in time)...So i loaded this aim html logfile (12 MEGS OW!!) with mozilla and it liturally took for_ever to show it. Granted, it was a hefty logfile. So i fired up IE to view the logfile and it displayed it very quickly.
I'm not sure exactly why mozila was slower with this, my guess is that moz tries to load it all at once -before- it displays the html. IE on the other hand was very quick showing it to me, so i had a chance to read some of it while it was continuing to load in the background.
Otherwise I'm FULLY satisfied with Mozilla, and it has become my default broswer. I was no OSS fan to begin with, but if i can get hooked on a broswer, i'm sure there are other open source programs out there that can really grab my attention too!
- One happy convert.
Had I known it was so hard getting hooked up on Adelphia powerlink cable modem service, i'd have second guessed getting it myself, I probably wouldn't have gotten it period.
A grunt came to my house and runs a conditioned cable from my cable splitter to the surfboard modem and checks the lights and says "okay, your hooked up. and leaves.
Well I couldn't use the damn thing. No instructions, nothing. So I called Adalphia and after a 2 hour wait, i finally got a real live person to help me get this modem working on my PC.
She asked me if if the modem came with any RJ45 or USB cable...so i run to check the box the modem was in, I had a usb cable, but no RJ45. Like hell i'm using USB for my cable modem so I hung up and ran out and got a rj45 cable.
Came back, called Adelphia, another hour and 45 min wait, then i got another real live person.
So she walked me though hooking it up, and it worked. Only took me the better part of a day to get the cable laid, rj45 cable, tech support waiting, and actually setting it up.
Thay make this shit sound so easy, HA! yeah right.
I also have a personal pc and a laptop alongside the family pc. I orginially hooked up the cable modem to the family pc. I wanted access from all the computers in my house. So being a newbie to broadband i tried plugging the cable modem into each of my computers, and it wouldn't work on any of them, only on the family pc, which i first set it up on.
So I called Adelphia up again. Waited 2 hours and 10 min. then I got a real live person again. I asked how could i share the cable modem to all the pc's in my house. He told me that Adelphia doesn't support sharing to multiple computers. But he asked me if i had a hub. I said yes. (I had a hub for networking at the time) He said some of them allow you to plug the cable modem directly into it. So he said i should give it a try, and we ended the conversation.
I plugged the cable modem in the hub, but no luck. So i did some research on the net with my 56k Since adelphia was no help.
Found out about routers, so i got myself one. Read the instuctions, and hooked all my PC's into it and the cable modem into the WAN side. Nothing, nothing worked.
Another note: For the LIFE of me i couldn't understand why the cable modem only worked on the family PC and not my personal and laptop.
So I called adelphia yet *again* and after waiting for nearly 2 and a half hours I got a real live person again. I told them about my confusion about the cable modem not working on any of my pc's except for the one i hooked it up to. She said:
"Our service is designed to work with any computer." to which i said "if that's the case, then why doesn't it work on my laptop or my other PC?" She didn't have an answer.
She had me running though oddball config files in the windows system directory but nothing worked and i spent well over an hour on that call alone.
At this point it's been days since i had the modem and couldn't use it. Tech support was a freakin JOKE and i'm paying for something i can't use the way i want.
So I called a tech friend, he didn't have broadband but he suggested a very importiant thing. MAC ADDRESS. This made total sense to me, the cable modem latches itself to the mac address of your network card. THATS WHY the modem didn't work on my other PC's when i hooked them up to it.
I checked the router box and sure enough I found a MAC address for the WAN side of the router.
Called up adelphia agian...and waited for 1 hour and 30 min. Then I got a real live person. Told them i got a new network card. (bullshit i know, but they cold-sholdered me about sharing the cable modem) So the guy took the mac address i fed him like a good boy and my router worked!
I can use the cable modem on ALL of my PC's now. My quest was completed in the span of nearly a week after I got the conditioned cable installed.
--
They adervised their cable modem service like it was the easist thing in the world to hook up, you get a "kit" to which you can do it yourself easily.
You know what i got? I got a modem and a conditioned cable..._that_was_it_.
Adelphia has the shittist tech support I ever encountered and hidious call-wait times. They didn't follow through on suppling me a driver CD which the modem was supposed to come with (not like i need it but hey i'm paying for it), it didn't come with instructions, nor a RJ-45 cable. And it was _not_ easy for a general non-geek like me to setup like they claimed.
What did i get. Faster webpage load times, and faster software update downloads, occasional web radio and movie trailers. Hardly worth the cost of the cable modem OR the fustration of setting it up.
Broadband providers need to step-up their support and mean what they say in their advertising before they can even think about getting more users.
But in the end, i felt like I *EARNED* it =) So i'm keeping it. Hopefully something decent will come along that will really put the speed to good use.
I kind of have a problem destroying a perfectly good embryo for the sake of scientific research.
I consider enbryos life to the extent that, hey I was an embryo once, you all were. Taking that enybros chance at life away is like someone taking your chance to live away now. But others beg to differ and that's okay.
It all boils down to how the process is done.
The bill requires clinics that do in-vitro fertilization procedures to inform women they have the option to donate discarded embryos to research. It requires written consent for donating embryos for research and bans the sale of embryos.
So in other words if the fertilization doesn't work right and/or the enbryo hasn't a chance for life, the women who go there now have the option to donate that embryo for research? Am _I_ reading this right?
From the sounds of it, the embryo is just going to be tossed out anyway. Assuming i'm not reading the article wrong, this sounds perfectly fine with me.
If it's about an option to donate eggs to a fertilization clinic to grow an embryo in a test tube to harvest for research, then it's no so clear to me. But i guess since these people are giving up their sperm and eggs, that's their right, they're the owners of them. I wouldn't say it's okay or wrong, I'm just not sure if I'd do it personally. I'm netrual about it.
Once this gets into mass production, instead of our enemies looking up and seeing a decked out f-16 with all the trimmings and sophisticated bomb technology, they'll just think it's a overgrown hawk with explosive diarrhea.
How's that for covert!
I mean after all, the Zire looks like an Ipod mp3 player, and it has a speaker. Can't play mp3s, but hey, it's got the "look"...it's got the speaker!
yes yes, i agree, a Palm with an Arm just makes total sense to me. =)
Turned out to be the latest trends
And ther ain't no more progressive music
The business has put it to an end
Ol' "Rolling Stone" has gathered some moss
No they ain't what they used to be
They try to look like "Look" with their political pages
And advertising all over T.V.
So na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
I bet you've heard this song before
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na
Take your cocaine and hit the door.
- "Cheap Shot" John Mellencamp, 1980.
A penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
agreed, NYT is acting sort of strange about this article, and it makes one wonder why.
/. i realize that alot of websites rely on the revenue to keep afloat, but what's a guy to do when you got 20+ popups at a time and after you close one and anothe r pops in its place? and those fu*king pop unders and little ads that won't DIE, or crash IE if you kill them, advertisers are ruthless.
Semi-offtopic:
I use a two prong approch to crazy annoying ads and popups. Between mozilla and webwasher, I haven't seen any form of ads in a good while.
I particularly love the thinkgeek banners, so i make sure to turn it off when i'm at
We heard this all before, and there's nothing new to read. So move along, there's nothing here to see.
After reading some of the comments and after thinking seriously what I would do with a billion dollars, I'm not sure i would do anything different then what i am doing now.
That's not to say that i'm really financially well off or anything. Or that I have The Good LifeTM but the more i focus on the question "what would I do with a billion dollars." the more i sway to the conclusion that money isn't everything.
It would be nice to own a beautiful home, an exotic car, help the world by donating all of it to chairity...the options are endless when money becomes less of a factor.
Sometmes people forget that money isn't worth the paper it's printed on and that some of the best things in life are free. Some things you just can't place a monitary value on, like a loving relationship, a caring family. How could any one of you place a monitary value on your chlid's head, for example? I know I couldn't and I'm only 22 without children.
I was asked a simular question once before: "what would you do with an x amount of dollars", by my guidence counselor back when i was in high school. The question was supposed to get you to focus on what you wanted to do with your life if you didn't have to worry about money.
Could I donate it to help those in need? Sure it would help greatly, but would it have any lasting effect? I think it would only for the short-term.
Could I by one or a lot of products that makes me happy? Sure I could. I could name a few things I'd like to own that would make me feel happy. But how long would that happiness last? Once you get used to the item you bought for a little while, it just eventually becomes a thing you own. Again, short-term.
it's all how you define value and what you consider real happiness to be i guess.
To me, you can be dirt poor or filthy rich and be truely happy. In this context, money really doesn't matter at all.
Yes, i know money pays for food, water, shelter and a lot of people say you need at least these 3 things in order to survive. I agree. my point isn't that I think money means squat, it's that money is grossly overrated and the simple things in life that don't require money, are often times over looked.
*shrugs* There's a meaning in there somewhere.
A penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
I know this topic is getting old - the fact i'm responding to a thread i started that's going to be archived and no one will probably see it..but anyway..hopefully you will!
:)
/.)
Thank you for opening my eyes with respect. You are definately in the right about this, I just didn't sit down and think it through during my initial posting.
As far as Open Source and Linux, I strongly feel it's a bit out of my league yet for me to dabble in. Linux has an intimidating effect on people like me - Used windows as long as I can remember.
However, this doesn't mean I won't give it a try in the future agian. Like you said, there are ALOT of people out there working on linux to make it more user-friendly without compromising sercurity or performance. I wish them luck so that people like me can make the plunge
On another irellevent note (perhaps not) I heard Mozilla 1.1 was released not long ago. The only reason I didn't get it because i "Heard" it was a bit buggy. (I can't remember exactly where, I believe it was in few of the comments here on
My friend told me about the awsome features of Mozilla and that it *was* stable, never gave him any problems. Since me and him have the same setup (2k, simular machines) I decided to download it.
I MUST say, Mozilla 1.1 is the best thing since sliced bread! The Tabbed Browsing is the most innovative feature I have yet to see in any browser, and the anti-popup features are great. Using Mozilla and Webwasher in conjunction I elininated practically 100% of ads while surfing. (let it be known i do turn it on occasionally for sites that i really love, and make sure to help them out with clickthroughs/purchases)
The fact that Mozilla is open-source as well really makes me feel good in knowing that it'll continue to be developed and free. Like you said, anyone from all walks of life can participate in its advancement. I can't express enough how cool this is.
Again, thanks for your detailed response and respectfulness.
The measure of the love we give is in the hearts that others show
My friend also recieved something simular to the spam email that was linked in the article.
:234-1-7597267,Your individual/Company's
the link is: jesus.doomed.us/spam.html
The spam:
CHIEF PATRICK OLADOKUN
EMAIL:patrickoladokun2002@lycos.com
FAX: 234-1-7597267
Sir,
URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
First, I must solicit your confidence in this transaction, which is of mutual benefit. This is by virtue of it's nature of being utterly confidential.I am sure and have confidence of your ability, and reliability to prosecute a transaction
of this great magnitude.
We are top Officials of the Federal Government Contract review Panel who are interested in importation of goods into our country with funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria. In order to commence this business,we need your assistance to enable us transfer funds into your account. As members of the Contract Review Panel set up by
the Government of Nigeria to review all contracts from 1983 to the present,we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the Central Bank of Nigeria ready for payment.
By virtue of our position as Civil Servants and members of this Panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names, in this regard I have been delegated by my colleagues of the review Panel to look for an overseas partner into whose account we would transfer the sum of US$21,320,000.00
(Twenty -One Million, Three Hundred and Twenty Thousand United States Dollars) hence we take the liberty to write you.
The money will be shared as follows:-
1. 20% for you the account owner
2. 70% for us (The Officials)
3. 10% to be used in settling taxation and all local and foreign expenses.
Please note that this whole process will take between 7 to 10 working days from the date of receipt of the following information by Fax
signed and stamped letterhead with a transcribed"Text" which we would send to you upon receipt of your reply with a letter of interest. The above information will enable us write letter of claim, and Job description by using your
individual/Company name to apply for payment for the above stated amount. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter using the above Fax number.
Detailed information of this pending business transaction will be sent to you as soon as I hear from you.
Yours faithfully,
CHIEF PATRICK OLADOKUN
--
I never saw this type of spam/scam before until he pointed it out to me a few days ago. But it has been forwarded to uce.gov so hopefully they can catch this idiot.
The measure of the love we give is in the hearts that others show.