You'd better bet that I'm going to vote in the upcoming Federal election. But I'm not voting for Bush. Or Gore. Or Dukkakis, North, Quayle, or anyone like that. I'm Canadian!
Know what that means? Choice! That's right... I can't just flip a coin, because there are SOOO many choices to make! Yessir... I can vote Liberal, and keep our international code-of-conduct FUBARing Frenchman Jean Chretien. Or, maybe I'll go for the new kid on the block, Stockwell Day and his Canadian Alliance just to piss both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives off. Oh yeah... I could vote PC... but that'd be sort of like picking the slow nerdy kid with asthma for your soccer team - you'd do it just to make him feel good. I could shore up the New Democratic Party, who are rumoured to possibly cease to exist as a federal party after this election, but Lord knows I didn't care for Bob Rae. I can't even keep him straight with Preston Manning.
So yes, as a Proud Canadian with an upcoming election, I Have Choice! Too bad... finding the lesser of 2 evils is a lot easier than finding the lesser of 5. I wonder if the Natural Law Party will be running again. I still have to see a flying yogi.
Yes, newspapers have editorials. But the rest of the newspaper is just "news".
All I'm saying is that the good Commander might present us with headlines that are a bit more newslike, and less opinionated. A newspaper than ran an article about the presidential debates that entitled it "Bush Blows Spanish Donkeys" would not last long. CmdrTaco could have just as easily entitled this "New Vaio, New Look", which frankly would have been a lot more informative to boot.
Is it just me, or do those answers not really change anything? I think the proof will be "in the pudding", so to speak, when the actual report is published. Until then, it's all just words.
Traditionally, it's my understanding that "news" (even news for nerds) is pretty much unbiased. Of course, there's state-run media, or corporate media which is biased, but generally when Joe Schmoe reporter tells the world about something, it's pretty much on the level.
So, how 'bout it Taco? Care to leave the opinions to the posters instead? I personally *like* the new look... it's dramatic. Cheesy? Sure - but *I* for one like it.
The article claims that the boycott was rendered pretty much worthless, but is this in fact the case?
The contest stipulated that you had to divulge HOW you cracked their security to get your share of the $10000. If someone cracked them all, submitted them for analysis, but didn't tell anyone what they did or how they did it, I'd say that action is still inline with the boycott. After all, the RIAA knows nothing more than they're up shit creek now.
In fact, this might have been the most humane way to do this. Crack it before the contest deadline, that way:
SDMI doesn't get implemented (yet)
"secure" music seems all the more unlikely
hardware manufacturers aren't screwed by having to produce SDMI-compatible hardware (at significant cost) just to have the whole thing blow up in their faces
We need a more intelligent, better-educated populace!
You'd think so, wouldn't you? My wife is a nanny for 3 boys between ages 2 and 10. Both of their parents are Ph.D.s and are tenured university professors. I think they qualify as "intelligent" and "well-educated".
However, these people are about the worst parents I've ever heard of. The mother has no clue about nutrition (gives her kids cookies or even a bowl of bacon bits for breakfast - I kid you not). The father will leave the kids alone in the house while he goes out for coffee. Both of them let the youngest stay up until nearly midnight. Discipline is non-existent, and each child knows how to push the parent's buttons just so. To wit, the 3 year-old was getting HARD CANDIES for BREAKFAST when he was less than 2. Stupid, AND dangerous.
So, a clarification: We need intelligent people who are well-educated about being parents. Frankly, intelligence and higher learning do not a good parent make.
Re:You WILL love this... you WILL love this...
on
DoCoMos Finger Phone
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· Score: 1
No, I don't recall that. But you know what? It doesn't matter - the whole thing just grates on me. As an engineer, if something doesn't work in one of the aspects its supposed to (oh, say, appealing to consumers) then I have to go back to the drawing board. I don't spin the world around me until it does what I want it to.
BTW, whoever kindly donated the "flamebait"; that's really how I feel - I'm quite incensed at that whole attitude. The attitude may be nothing new, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
This is novel, but it doesn't surprise me. I probably would have predicted Palm sewing first, but it's still not a shock. My mother owns a sewing machine that is more computer than machine right now, and it's a few years old. In fact, she bought a computer as an accessory to her machine!
Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of sewi... **BLAM!** thud
You WILL love this... you WILL love this...
on
DoCoMos Finger Phone
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· Score: 1
"We just have to establish a culture that registers an idea with people that wearing a device is a cool thing."
Am I the only one creeped out by that statement?? Making a cool little device that operates uniquely is one thing (a good thing, even), but to turn around and decide that they're going to re-engineer cultural values so their product is accepted?!? Back up the fucking bus, Masaaki!
I'm not living in a hole in the ground - I know that culture is affected everyday by various influences, good, bad, and otherwise. But holy mother of Excrement, what audacity this guy has to figure he can rearrange our values to accept this idea. Doesn't it normally work the OTHER way?? We decide, "Hey Masaaki, your device is cool but I'd never use it" so HE has to go back to the drawing board and either change it so we DO want it, or apply the technology elsewhere. Wouldn't this technology work really well for hearing aids maybe? How about an FM stereo set of sunglasses?
Innovation is good. Cool ideas too. But you have to fucking well admit when your idea isn't viable, and go back to the drawing board. Don't believe that you can make me want what I don't.
I don't think OSX is Sgt. Pepper. More like the Phantom Menace
(technically amazing and very pretty, but will it have a plot, or just suck?).
Like it or not, Phantom Menace was designed to do something and do it very, very well. It raked money in hand over fist and milked every last nostalgic microgram out of every fan. (Anyone seen enough of Jar Jar yet??) OS X doesn't need a plot... it's going to do what it's designed to do very well. Some may not like it, others may masturbate with it (not for me to judge), but it'll do what it's supposed to. So the comparision is valid.
I reserve the right to feed Steve to a snowblower if I see any Mac OS X lunchboxes, however.
Sunday I just finished reading
Macrolife ; by George Zebrowski, which directly pertains to this. In the book, a man-made disaster forces the evacuation of the planet. The only humans that remain are living on Mars, Ganymede, more out in the Jovian system, and a large colony living inside a hollowed-out asteroid called Asterome. Not to give the story away, but Asterome heads out of the solar system and starts living its own life as a mobile human colony.
Although we don't currently have gravitic or superluminal propulsion, space colonies are IMHO the best solution to where to live next. Mars would be OK... but there's no atmosphere that we can use (plus it's too thin otherwise). The moon is good, but it's even more limited than the Earth. If we could harvest a few large rocks from the asteroid belt, we could put up some sizeable colonies in either Earth or Sun orbit.
Of course, if we fuck those up like we did Earth then there's really no point...:(
Under US$300: A GPS so I can go Geocaching. Stand-alone, or a Rand-McNally Palm GPS - I'm not that picky.:)
Over US$300, under US$1500: Gigabit ethernet system for my house, plus some hardware upgrades (video, sound) and some software (Unreal Tournament, Quake XXVI, whatever). Can you say "LAN party at Mr. Ska's"?
Unlimited: MIR, outfitted with the latest data servers. I'd have to rename it to "Data Heaven", however...
Management makes decisions (so I hear) so it MUST be their fault, right? Everything else is, why not that too?
News? How about "Reminder of what's available"
on
3D Printers
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· Score: 3
News, indeed.
For many years people or companies with the desire and money (and we're not talking million$ either) could go and buy a rapid prototyping machine. You can get really expensive (thermoset polymers) all the way down to really cheap (layered wax deposition) and anywhere in between (glued layers of paper) and get what you want. Heck, someone I did a job for wanted me to model a new alarm fob case for him because his old one broke, and he was going to run it on the company machine.
Just to be sure, it's "No news is good news", not "Old news is good news", right? Hello?
I think what Jon was trying to say (and all those big, scary, impressive words got in the way) is that the original Luddites were fighting for what they preceived as a direct threat to their way of life. Not just who they hung out with and banal stuff like that, but the fact that they were hardworking people who enjoyed some amount of freedom. They were fighting to retain that, and not get roped into a new-fangled noisy, dangerous slave operation making Persian rugs.
Today, however, the "Luddites" are merely (I say "merely" in comparision to fighting for what you preceive to be your freedom) fighting for things that do not necessarily threaten anyone's way of life, but do affect the fabric of society. Is the Internet going to enslave us all and make us fall into a global slave trade? No. But it does give kids access to porn, and bored individuals access to exciting things like how to make a really big bomb.
To understand what Jon's saying, just take the gist of what he's saying and mod it down -2 Overblown.:)
Not that I should grace you with an answer, but I'm going to tell you why my next computer is going to be a Mac.
I bought my current Wintel box 3 years ago this October. For that purchase, I had decided to pay good money (lots of it) for near top-of-the-line hardware so that I would still have a viable upgrade path in the future. So I plunked down my hard-earned cash and bought a 233 MHz PII with 64 MB RAM, a 3 GB HDD, and a few expansion slots filled with various things.
Less than 6 months later, my computer was not upgradable. Why? Changed the bus speed - all my RAM is garbage now. Changed the socket for the CPU - I was now constrained to a max of 333 MHz, which I probably couldn't find to save my life. So my "upgradable" computer needs a new motherboard if I want to improve the speed at all.
Third party Mac hardware makers at least try to give you something worthy to upgrade to - new CPU daughterboards and the like - unlike the Wintel mafia which just fscks you up the cornhole and tells you to smile.
Yes, that's right. You take them to small claims court suing them for breach of contract. You paid them, you can prove you've paid them, and yet they cancelled your service. That is a breach of contract. So, you sue them in small claims court (where you don't need a lawyer, and they can't have one) for some amount, say the total cost of the service for the time that it's been cancelled, and watch them sit up and take notice.
If this doesn't work, you can try something my mother did many years ago. She had started a small stock portfolio for my brother and I when we were kids, and our dividends were supposed to get re-invested into the stock (a program offered by the company). But we kept getting cheques for $1.52 or $0.34 and other ridiculous amounts. So she finally send them a letter that started, "Dear Computer," and went on to say that the humans using you are obviously confused, and could you please correct this matter. Not derogatory, just different.
There's already a corporate-sponsored geek house in Waterloo (if memory serves). A few years ago a company bought a rather nice house on Albert (just north of Bridgeport) with the following offer: geeks could live there for free and use all the goodies the house had been stocked with (computers, high-speed access, etc.), as long as they signed over the rights to ANYTHING computer-related that they created (not sure of the exact legal wording) during their residence at said house. Pretty sweet deal for all involved, I'd say.
If you're interested, look for the red brick house on the west side of the street, just s few houses north of Bridgeport. It's got a nameplate above the front door.
Other than that, I'm sure you could find a few systems design or computer or electrical engineering geeks who would LOVE to take over a house and wire it to the nines... just put a post up in the UW campus center.
If you like Hawking, and are a proponent of digital music, you owe it to yourself to check out the 3 MP3's that are currently available at MC Hawking:
While there are
dozens of other sites on the web devoted
to Stephen Hawking's scientific
achievements, I am unaware of a single
site (aside from this one) devoted to his
career as a lyrical terrorist.
Slashdot Mirror
Know what that means? Choice! That's right... I can't just flip a coin, because there are SOOO many choices to make! Yessir... I can vote Liberal, and keep our international code-of-conduct FUBARing Frenchman Jean Chretien. Or, maybe I'll go for the new kid on the block, Stockwell Day and his Canadian Alliance just to piss both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives off. Oh yeah... I could vote PC... but that'd be sort of like picking the slow nerdy kid with asthma for your soccer team - you'd do it just to make him feel good. I could shore up the New Democratic Party, who are rumoured to possibly cease to exist as a federal party after this election, but Lord knows I didn't care for Bob Rae. I can't even keep him straight with Preston Manning.
So yes, as a Proud Canadian with an upcoming election, I Have Choice! Too bad... finding the lesser of 2 evils is a lot easier than finding the lesser of 5. I wonder if the Natural Law Party will be running again. I still have to see a flying yogi.
- Kingdom
- Phylum
- Class
- Order
- Family
- Genus
- Species
I just looked that up.. I was pretty close, but forgot Class. So you're correct in that phylum!=family. Big time.All I'm saying is that the good Commander might present us with headlines that are a bit more newslike, and less opinionated. A newspaper than ran an article about the presidential debates that entitled it "Bush Blows Spanish Donkeys" would not last long. CmdrTaco could have just as easily entitled this "New Vaio, New Look", which frankly would have been a lot more informative to boot.
Is it just me, or do those answers not really change anything? I think the proof will be "in the pudding", so to speak, when the actual report is published. Until then, it's all just words.
So, how 'bout it Taco? Care to leave the opinions to the posters instead? I personally *like* the new look... it's dramatic. Cheesy? Sure - but *I* for one like it.
NOW - how's about we get a Beowul**BLAM!** thud
The contest stipulated that you had to divulge HOW you cracked their security to get your share of the $10000. If someone cracked them all, submitted them for analysis, but didn't tell anyone what they did or how they did it, I'd say that action is still inline with the boycott. After all, the RIAA knows nothing more than they're up shit creek now.
In fact, this might have been the most humane way to do this. Crack it before the contest deadline, that way:
- SDMI doesn't get implemented (yet)
- "secure" music seems all the more unlikely
- hardware manufacturers aren't screwed by having to produce SDMI-compatible hardware (at significant cost) just to have the whole thing blow up in their faces
In any case, not much we can do about it now.You'd think so, wouldn't you? My wife is a nanny for 3 boys between ages 2 and 10. Both of their parents are Ph.D.s and are tenured university professors. I think they qualify as "intelligent" and "well-educated".
However, these people are about the worst parents I've ever heard of. The mother has no clue about nutrition (gives her kids cookies or even a bowl of bacon bits for breakfast - I kid you not). The father will leave the kids alone in the house while he goes out for coffee. Both of them let the youngest stay up until nearly midnight. Discipline is non-existent, and each child knows how to push the parent's buttons just so. To wit, the 3 year-old was getting HARD CANDIES for BREAKFAST when he was less than 2. Stupid, AND dangerous.
So, a clarification: We need intelligent people who are well-educated about being parents. Frankly, intelligence and higher learning do not a good parent make.
BTW, whoever kindly donated the "flamebait"; that's really how I feel - I'm quite incensed at that whole attitude. The attitude may be nothing new, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of sewi... **BLAM!** thud
Am I the only one creeped out by that statement?? Making a cool little device that operates uniquely is one thing (a good thing, even), but to turn around and decide that they're going to re-engineer cultural values so their product is accepted?!? Back up the fucking bus, Masaaki!
I'm not living in a hole in the ground - I know that culture is affected everyday by various influences, good, bad, and otherwise. But holy mother of Excrement, what audacity this guy has to figure he can rearrange our values to accept this idea. Doesn't it normally work the OTHER way?? We decide, "Hey Masaaki, your device is cool but I'd never use it" so HE has to go back to the drawing board and either change it so we DO want it, or apply the technology elsewhere. Wouldn't this technology work really well for hearing aids maybe? How about an FM stereo set of sunglasses?
Innovation is good. Cool ideas too. But you have to fucking well admit when your idea isn't viable, and go back to the drawing board. Don't believe that you can make me want what I don't.
Like it or not, Phantom Menace was designed to do something and do it very, very well. It raked money in hand over fist and milked every last nostalgic microgram out of every fan. (Anyone seen enough of Jar Jar yet??) OS X doesn't need a plot... it's going to do what it's designed to do very well. Some may not like it, others may masturbate with it (not for me to judge), but it'll do what it's supposed to. So the comparision is valid.
I reserve the right to feed Steve to a snowblower if I see any Mac OS X lunchboxes, however.
Although we don't currently have gravitic or superluminal propulsion, space colonies are IMHO the best solution to where to live next. Mars would be OK... but there's no atmosphere that we can use (plus it's too thin otherwise). The moon is good, but it's even more limited than the Earth. If we could harvest a few large rocks from the asteroid belt, we could put up some sizeable colonies in either Earth or Sun orbit.
Of course, if we fuck those up like we did Earth then there's really no point... :(
Over US$300, under US$1500: Gigabit ethernet system for my house, plus some hardware upgrades (video, sound) and some software (Unreal Tournament, Quake XXVI, whatever). Can you say "LAN party at Mr. Ska's"?
Unlimited: MIR, outfitted with the latest data servers. I'd have to rename it to "Data Heaven", however...
Management makes decisions (so I hear) so it MUST be their fault, right? Everything else is, why not that too?
For many years people or companies with the desire and money (and we're not talking million$ either) could go and buy a rapid prototyping machine. You can get really expensive (thermoset polymers) all the way down to really cheap (layered wax deposition) and anywhere in between (glued layers of paper) and get what you want. Heck, someone I did a job for wanted me to model a new alarm fob case for him because his old one broke, and he was going to run it on the company machine.
Just to be sure, it's "No news is good news", not "Old news is good news", right? Hello?
Today, however, the "Luddites" are merely (I say "merely" in comparision to fighting for what you preceive to be your freedom) fighting for things that do not necessarily threaten anyone's way of life, but do affect the fabric of society. Is the Internet going to enslave us all and make us fall into a global slave trade? No. But it does give kids access to porn, and bored individuals access to exciting things like how to make a really big bomb.
To understand what Jon's saying, just take the gist of what he's saying and mod it down -2 Overblown. :)
I bought my current Wintel box 3 years ago this October. For that purchase, I had decided to pay good money (lots of it) for near top-of-the-line hardware so that I would still have a viable upgrade path in the future. So I plunked down my hard-earned cash and bought a 233 MHz PII with 64 MB RAM, a 3 GB HDD, and a few expansion slots filled with various things.
Less than 6 months later, my computer was not upgradable. Why? Changed the bus speed - all my RAM is garbage now. Changed the socket for the CPU - I was now constrained to a max of 333 MHz, which I probably couldn't find to save my life. So my "upgradable" computer needs a new motherboard if I want to improve the speed at all.
Third party Mac hardware makers at least try to give you something worthy to upgrade to - new CPU daughterboards and the like - unlike the Wintel mafia which just fscks you up the cornhole and tells you to smile.
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
Yes, I agree that I agree that that sentence is your licence.
Apple: has some home operating system market.
M$: monopolizes with its bosom buddy Intel. Boring hardware.
Apple: can't monopolize to save its life. Funky, powerful hardware.
M$: spams their users.
Apple: sues anyone trying to tell their users about new Apple stuff.
Sigh. It's stuff like this that makes me want to load up QNX and just hide in my basement...
If this doesn't work, you can try something my mother did many years ago. She had started a small stock portfolio for my brother and I when we were kids, and our dividends were supposed to get re-invested into the stock (a program offered by the company). But we kept getting cheques for $1.52 or $0.34 and other ridiculous amounts. So she finally send them a letter that started, "Dear Computer," and went on to say that the humans using you are obviously confused, and could you please correct this matter. Not derogatory, just different.
Either way, good luck!
If you're interested, look for the red brick house on the west side of the street, just s few houses north of Bridgeport. It's got a nameplate above the front door.
Other than that, I'm sure you could find a few systems design or computer or electrical engineering geeks who would LOVE to take over a house and wire it to the nines... just put a post up in the UW campus center.
While there are dozens of other sites on the web devoted
to Stephen Hawking's scientific achievements, I am unaware of a single
site (aside from this one) devoted to his career as a lyrical terrorist.
Sorry, no. You'll have to run Windows 98SE for that pleasure. Linux is unnecessarily stable for such a task.
Do you live in a cold climate, or do you have a secret method of avoiding grey hair with fuel cells? :)