For a long time, governments of modern democracies have been rather afraid of public opinion and the press, and have avoided doing things that would result in protests and opposition.
Then at some point they realized they could bribe the press, and that the public's opinion doesn't really matter, nor does it amount to much or lead to much violence in a society of over-fed TV addicts. Today's protesters are all bark and no bite, and the powers-that-be know it full well. So they do whatever the fuck they want without even trying to be discreet about it.
That's where we're at right now. Welcome to a new form of tyranny, in which dictators are "democrats" who resort on soothing words and the complicity of mass-media to pussify the populace and keep it in check. Violence and outright dictatorship is so yesteryear...
Schiavo was considered an atypically unambiguous case medically (with massive amounts of brain that just weren't present anymore, much less electrically active or not)
I find it absolutely frightening that the citizens of the country that supposedly stands against the tyranny of organizations like the Gestapo and the Stasi not only have not overturned their government over this huge scandal, but in fact mostly agree with the surveillance program.
Any "stuff I believe in" isn't religion, but religion is purely "stuff I believe in" - without proof that is, I should add. One is a subset of the other.
(This aside, I haven't a clue what you're talking about...)
Yes, believe it or not, those who have different points of view deserve tolerance, regardless of whether you agree with them or not.
Crazy communists deserve tolerance, Crazy white supremacists deserve tolerance, Crazy Tea party members deserve tolerance, Crazy gay activists deserve tolerance, Crazy anti-gay activists deserve tolerance.
Besides, OSC's SF books have nothing to do with his views on a totally orthogonal societal issue. Boycotting the former because of the latter is called an ad hominem. Case in point, a lot of people enjoy Disney movies and Ford cars despite Walt Disney and Henry Ford being nasty antisemitic pro-nazi nutjobs.
Erh... if I don't have to wear rain clothes to cycle to work, I don't have to change when I arrive. I can just commute in suit and tie.
As for perspiration, a velomobile will go as fast as a normal bike for half the effort. So yes, most of the time, it does eliminate perspiration.
This is so stupid it's beyond belief
on
Beware the Internet
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
So you want to suppress the internet because of cyber-warfare? How about suppressing cars because there are car accidents? Or suppressing humanity because humans get diseases?
When something new comes to light, new problems appear with it. Intelligent people try to solve the problems. Idiots try to suppress the new thing.
Incidentally, this guy's opinion is published far and wide thanks to the internet. Oh the irony...
How do you find the velomobile compares to a road bike? More useful, less useful, or just different?
It's very useful for one single reason: I never have to worry about the weather, and what to wear when it rains, or having to change when I arrive at work in the morning. Also, I can carry a ton of stuff inside, which is great for getting groceries and for touring. And it's quite a bit faster than a road bike on average too. The only downside is, it climbs like a pig. The time lost on the uphill is recovered when going back down, but I ain't gonna race someone going up.
If you consider each and every ecological impact, no vehicle can ever be considered green.
Me, I use a velomobile to get around. It uses no oil on the face of it, yet it burns people's fat (that's food that needed to be grown and shipped, which is a lot of oil), it's made of non-recyclable fiberglass and aluminum (manufacturing aluminum is a HUGE source of pollution), etc... So even an ultra-efficient bicycle isn't green if you look closely.
How long do you suppose Microsoft can hold out until Windows 9?
More to the point, how long do you suppose WE the users can hold out until Windows 9?
I dread the day my Win 7 machines die because I'll have to replace them with those blasted Win 8 machines. I'd much rather stretch my existing machines' life until Microsoft gets its act together and I can safely skip the Win 8 experience. Exactly the same way I went straight from XP to Win 7 and avoided Vista.
I'm all for police wearing cameras, provided that they cannot disable them. Unfortunately, it sounds like these can be disabled.
Don't think for a minute that the police intend to use the videos to clear suspects of wrongdoing, or to have documented evidence of police abuse that can be used in court.
It's the other way round: the police want video evidence to prove either that someone was rebellious during their arrest, or that the police didn't abuse them. People often try to blame the police in court to get off easy, and the police always has to prove they didn't use undue violence during the arrest. So videos are a good idea.
Unfortunately, it's a rather one-sided protection, as the police would never show videos in which they'd appear to have abused their powers. On the other hand, the lack of video itself would appear extremely suspicious in court I suppose, and would bolster a defendant's claim of police violence.
But when will they upgrade my 4Mbps down / 256Kbps up DSL connection that I pay through the nose per month for? Cuz really, I keep reading about those marvelous link speeds but in the past 10 years, I haven't seen much of that reach the average Joe Blow internet user like me...
All my life I've learned with "pirated" material: throughout school, my teachers copied all kinds of materials regardless of whether or not it was copyrighted - including my primary school teachers hand-copying entire pages of grammar or math books and giving away dittoed copies, photocopies of of all kinds... whatever was necessary to learn. Learning was considered "fair use" when I was young. Nobody in their right mind thought twice before copying something for education purposes.
Then when I started dabbling in computers, I started "pirating" software all by myself. I knew what I was doing was illegal, yet it didn't feel wrong. I learned C with an illegal copy of Turbo C. I learned CAD with an illegal copy of AutoCAD. I learned everything I know with an illegal copy of something.
Sure I shafted Borland, AutoDesk and all the others, but then I bet they made a whole lot of money afterwards, when I and all the others like me hit the job market and started using their products professionally - on seats paid by the companies I worked for to the tune of many thousands more than a single user seat.
I don't know how I would have gotten an education without pirated material. I don't know how kids today get an education if their teachers should fear jail when they use pirated material. What a sorry state society is in...
This is rather interesting I'd say: considering that BG has vowed to give away 95% of his wealth to charities, and already does give away a shitload of money every year, I find it interesting that his net worth should increase rather than decrease.
Me, when I give money to a charity, I find myself poorer afterward. Not him. That seems like a nerdy enough phenomenon to be worth mentioning.
Slashdot Mirror
For a long time, governments of modern democracies have been rather afraid of public opinion and the press, and have avoided doing things that would result in protests and opposition.
Then at some point they realized they could bribe the press, and that the public's opinion doesn't really matter, nor does it amount to much or lead to much violence in a society of over-fed TV addicts. Today's protesters are all bark and no bite, and the powers-that-be know it full well. So they do whatever the fuck they want without even trying to be discreet about it.
That's where we're at right now. Welcome to a new form of tyranny, in which dictators are "democrats" who resort on soothing words and the complicity of mass-media to pussify the populace and keep it in check. Violence and outright dictatorship is so yesteryear...
Schiavo was considered an atypically unambiguous case medically (with massive amounts of brain that just weren't present anymore, much less electrically active or not)
You mean to say that Terri Schiavo was kind of alive-o?
Yet Another Linux Distro Based On Another Linux Distro.
*yawn*
I find it absolutely frightening that the citizens of the country that supposedly stands against the tyranny of organizations like the Gestapo and the Stasi not only have not overturned their government over this huge scandal, but in fact mostly agree with the surveillance program.
Americans deserve what's coming to them.
Any "stuff I believe in" isn't religion, but religion is purely "stuff I believe in" - without proof that is, I should add. One is a subset of the other.
(This aside, I haven't a clue what you're talking about...)
are applying to form an officially recognized church of Kopimism, which they hope will enable them to challenge the anti-piracy law.
I love it when clever individuals hijack stupid laws to fight other stupid laws.
= no autoplay
Yes, believe it or not, those who have different points of view deserve tolerance, regardless of whether you agree with them or not.
Crazy communists deserve tolerance,
Crazy white supremacists deserve tolerance,
Crazy Tea party members deserve tolerance,
Crazy gay activists deserve tolerance,
Crazy anti-gay activists deserve tolerance.
Besides, OSC's SF books have nothing to do with his views on a totally orthogonal societal issue. Boycotting the former because of the latter is called an ad hominem. Case in point, a lot of people enjoy Disney movies and Ford cars despite Walt Disney and Henry Ford being nasty antisemitic pro-nazi nutjobs.
Some marketdroid had a field day finding that name, sheesh...
I would have added "i" in front of it, personally. Everybody knows i-anything is teh kewl these days.
Erh... if I don't have to wear rain clothes to cycle to work, I don't have to change when I arrive. I can just commute in suit and tie.
As for perspiration, a velomobile will go as fast as a normal bike for half the effort. So yes, most of the time, it does eliminate perspiration.
So you want to suppress the internet because of cyber-warfare? How about suppressing cars because there are car accidents? Or suppressing humanity because humans get diseases?
When something new comes to light, new problems appear with it. Intelligent people try to solve the problems. Idiots try to suppress the new thing.
Incidentally, this guy's opinion is published far and wide thanks to the internet. Oh the irony...
How do you find the velomobile compares to a road bike? More useful, less useful, or just different?
It's very useful for one single reason: I never have to worry about the weather, and what to wear when it rains, or having to change when I arrive at work in the morning. Also, I can carry a ton of stuff inside, which is great for getting groceries and for touring. And it's quite a bit faster than a road bike on average too. The only downside is, it climbs like a pig. The time lost on the uphill is recovered when going back down, but I ain't gonna race someone going up.
If you consider each and every ecological impact, no vehicle can ever be considered green.
Me, I use a velomobile to get around. It uses no oil on the face of it, yet it burns people's fat (that's food that needed to be grown and shipped, which is a lot of oil), it's made of non-recyclable fiberglass and aluminum (manufacturing aluminum is a HUGE source of pollution), etc... So even an ultra-efficient bicycle isn't green if you look closely.
How long do you suppose Microsoft can hold out until Windows 9?
More to the point, how long do you suppose WE the users can hold out until Windows 9?
I dread the day my Win 7 machines die because I'll have to replace them with those blasted Win 8 machines. I'd much rather stretch my existing machines' life until Microsoft gets its act together and I can safely skip the Win 8 experience. Exactly the same way I went straight from XP to Win 7 and avoided Vista.
- Scan/OCR book
- Google translate into German
- Google translate back into English
- Print book
Voila! No more watermark. You can share with confidence.
The queues are there for a reason: To create the impression of safety.
That, and to give a shitload of people jobs selling useless so-called "duty-free" stuff and selling overpriced food while you're forced to wait.
I'm all for police wearing cameras, provided that they cannot disable them. Unfortunately, it sounds like these can be disabled.
Don't think for a minute that the police intend to use the videos to clear suspects of wrongdoing, or to have documented evidence of police abuse that can be used in court.
It's the other way round: the police want video evidence to prove either that someone was rebellious during their arrest, or that the police didn't abuse them. People often try to blame the police in court to get off easy, and the police always has to prove they didn't use undue violence during the arrest. So videos are a good idea.
Unfortunately, it's a rather one-sided protection, as the police would never show videos in which they'd appear to have abused their powers. On the other hand, the lack of video itself would appear extremely suspicious in court I suppose, and would bolster a defendant's claim of police violence.
It'll destroy humanity. I learned it in Star Trek 4.
Can I get $30k *and* the job?
But when will they upgrade my 4Mbps down / 256Kbps up DSL connection that I pay through the nose per month for? Cuz really, I keep reading about those marvelous link speeds but in the past 10 years, I haven't seen much of that reach the average Joe Blow internet user like me...
All my life I've learned with "pirated" material: throughout school, my teachers copied all kinds of materials regardless of whether or not it was copyrighted - including my primary school teachers hand-copying entire pages of grammar or math books and giving away dittoed copies, photocopies of of all kinds... whatever was necessary to learn. Learning was considered "fair use" when I was young. Nobody in their right mind thought twice before copying something for education purposes.
Then when I started dabbling in computers, I started "pirating" software all by myself. I knew what I was doing was illegal, yet it didn't feel wrong. I learned C with an illegal copy of Turbo C. I learned CAD with an illegal copy of AutoCAD. I learned everything I know with an illegal copy of something.
Sure I shafted Borland, AutoDesk and all the others, but then I bet they made a whole lot of money afterwards, when I and all the others like me hit the job market and started using their products professionally - on seats paid by the companies I worked for to the tune of many thousands more than a single user seat.
I don't know how I would have gotten an education without pirated material. I don't know how kids today get an education if their teachers should fear jail when they use pirated material. What a sorry state society is in...
This is rather interesting I'd say: considering that BG has vowed to give away 95% of his wealth to charities, and already does give away a shitload of money every year, I find it interesting that his net worth should increase rather than decrease.
Me, when I give money to a charity, I find myself poorer afterward. Not him. That seems like a nerdy enough phenomenon to be worth mentioning.
stdio functions often lead to stack overflows. News at ten...
What next? Null pointers are bad, m'kay...?
From just one bit of traffic snippet, I can predict that the machine has networking capabilities. Beat that!
You already can make assassination weapons from schematics from Internet - if you have skills and good understanding of physics involved.
This is why 3D printed guns are a game changer: the average Joe Blow can get himself a gun without needing any sort of gunsmithing skills.