Whoever came up with this idea is a genius. As long as kids stay interested, you have an endless stream of revenue since the whole point of buying your product is to go out and destroy it (and then of course, buy more). The only real danger is that kids will get bored or run out of money, and go back to breaking each other's pencils like they used to do when I rode the bus.
Fine, I just won't spend my American tourist dollars in Brazil. I don't care about being fingerprinted, and I don't see anything wrong with Brazil's government doing that if they want to. But I do object to nine-hour delays. If they're going to do the fingerprinting, they should at least be prepared to do it in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise, it's not really "tit for tat", it's just Brazil making themselves out to be jackasses.
Dude, you must have gotten one heck of an interest rate. I got a good one myself, and the interest portion of my mortgage payment is easily 80% of the payment. Maybe your interest rate is 5%? (which would not mean, of course, that only 5% of your payment goes to the lender as interest)
I'll tell you what is not the correct answer to P2P movie downloads; those freaking red dots that they put right in the middle of the film. I saw them in the past three weeks while watching all three Lord of the Rings films in theatres, and they pissed me off like no other. Here I am trying to enjoy these wonderful, beautiful films-- definitely among my all-time favorites-- but every ten seconds or so, BAM! Five red dots right in the middle of Galadriel's face. Or BAM! Four red dots in the middle of an intense battle scene (noticed because everything on the screen is moving swiftly except the stationary dots).
Has anyone else been noticing these? Once you start seeing them, it's just about impossible to stop. I found myself trying to consciously numb my mind or blur my vision or something just so I would stop seeing these red idiot droppings. It actually sort of worked sometimes, but I don't think I ought to be forced to practice doublethink just to enjoy a movie. Even so, I still felt myself tense up during every scene with bright light, and quite a bit near the ends of scenes (since those were when I most noticed the dots).
The thing that pisses me off most is that this idiocy is not a solution. It's not even a deterrent. It doesn't stop people from downloading illegal copies of movies. It doesn't even slow them down, except making them wait a little longer for the download to complete. All it does is annoy legitimate consumers. Alas, that seems to be the trend these days in both the film and music industries.
What can we do about this? Anything? Who can we write? I'm guessing the movie studio would be the one to write (New Line in this case).
I feel bad for Howard Scott Warshaw every time I hear his name mentioned in connection with the E.T. Atari game. It wasn't really his fault it was so terrible... they told him they had to have it on the shelves in time for the Christmas shopping season, and gave him about a month and a half to work on it. At least, that's what he said in this interview. A way overhyped game for one of the most successful movies of all time, and they give one programmer six weeks to do it? Even in 1982 that was suicide, no matter how brilliant the one programmer might have been.
The law ought not to afford special protection for certain people or groups of people. That's really all hate crime legislation is (well, that and the beginning of prosecution for thoughtcrime, of course:-)
Who's to determine who should get special protection? When they start prosecuting people for hate crimes committed against men, white people, Christians, and heterosexuals, then maybe my attitude toward hate crime legislation will change. But of course, if hate crimes are prosecuted equally when committed against all groups of people, then almost by definition hate crime legislation will be unnecessary.
We don't have to wait 20 years for that... it's here today. You don't even have to say that you personally are offended. Just mention that someone might be offended, and you can probably get just about anyone in big trouble for almost anything they say.
Personally, I am offended by all the hypersensitivity and political correctness (i.e. thought control) we have allowed ourselves to be subjected to. But does anyone care if I, a white American male, am offended by that? Nope.
The parent's logic not flawed, though... the loss of your business and the ensuing negative word-of-mouth is all part of the calculation. Does AT&T (or any other company that pulls this crap) lose more money from people like you who follow up, demand back credits, and finally take their business elsewhere? Or do they make more from people who don't bother to do these things? I have to think that they make more money from people who just pay the bill, and when (if) the equation ever comes out negative for them, then it'll stop happening.
When it comes to money (specifically, other people getting their hands on yours), everything is done on purpose. Everything. People will do anything they need to do, and will fight harder for money than they will for their own lives. Haven't you figured that out by now?
Bill Joy on Linux, Mac OS X, and George W. Bush. Yeesh, I didn't expect so much of it to be a political rant. Then again, it's Bill Joy, maybe I should have.:-)
You might add to the quality of discussion (and boost perception of your sincerity) by responding to posts like xQuarkDS9x's instead of responding in kind to people who call you names.
Parents, once you're past making the huge mistake of actually letting the kids have computers in their rooms, what's a reasonable set of guidlines?
If you admit it's a huge mistake to put computers in their rooms, then why are you asking for help in getting yourself farther down that path? The solution is to back up a bit, and correct your huge mistake by moving the computers from the kids' rooms to a common area. Do it now, because the longer you take to do this, the harder it will be.
In my mind, this is the more serious violation. Redirecting packets is annoying and stupid and breaks things. Fine. But intentionally including a backdoor that modifies the router's internal configuration based on events completely outside my control is way over the top. Eric Deming directly confirmed that this is what is happening, in his now famous Usenet post. I'm sure it originated in marketing or whatever, but I don't understand how this kind of idiocy could have made it past all the technical supervisors who had to sign off on it. This is a company that does networking, for crying out loud. And they see nothing wrong with this? Sorry, Belkin, you had your chance, but you'll get no more of my business.
Uhhh... but if you didn't buy tickets within about 10 minutes of them going on sale last month, or if you don't have several hundred dollars to buy them from a scalper on eBay, you might not want to bother showing up.
My wife and I teach kids at church, and a few months ago we invited them all to a party at our house. We have a GameCube, PS2, N64, SNES, and Atari 2600 and had them all set up so we could easily switch game systems for them to play. When they saw the Atari, their eyes got all wide and they said, "What is that???" I said it was the video game system I had when I was a kid. Forget the GameCube and PS2, those kids loved nothing more than to sit and play Space Invaders on the Atari 2600. And Maze Craze, and Asteroids, and Vanguard. It was awesome to watch these kids getting as excited about these 20-year old video games as I was when I first got them. Two of the boys even showed up on our doorstep the next day asking if they could come in and play Space Invaders! Could they tolerate the classic video games? Absolutely, they found them fascinating.
I notice that you refer to other computers as Deep Blue's "brethren". You completely ignore the thousands of chess playing computers that happen to be female.
Although the entire search space of moves obviously hasn't been explored, it's generally considered an advantage to be White (White moves first). With the first move, you automatically get the initiative, and at the highest levels of chess this can be a great advantage. My guess would be that if the entire search space could be enumerated, chess would either be a draw (more likely) or a win for White. I really doubt it would be a win for Black.
What exactly is meant by "by itself"? Computers were invented by humans and are programmed by humans, and as such you can always see everything a computer does as (indirectly, anyway) the product of a human mind. Are you saying that you won't be interested in computer chess until such time as a computer springs into existence without human intervention and then somehow learns on its own how to play chess?
I don't think we're ever going to see that happen, but if you're just interested in computers automatically (without intervention) learning how to play better chess from experience and study, well... those techniques have been around for decades.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoever came up with this idea is a genius. As long as kids stay interested, you have an endless stream of revenue since the whole point of buying your product is to go out and destroy it (and then of course, buy more). The only real danger is that kids will get bored or run out of money, and go back to breaking each other's pencils like they used to do when I rode the bus.
They think they are so wise in the ways of science. Everyone knows that you can prevent earthquakes using sheeps' bladders.
Fine, I just won't spend my American tourist dollars in Brazil. I don't care about being fingerprinted, and I don't see anything wrong with Brazil's government doing that if they want to. But I do object to nine-hour delays. If they're going to do the fingerprinting, they should at least be prepared to do it in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise, it's not really "tit for tat", it's just Brazil making themselves out to be jackasses.
now only 5% of what I pay goes to someone else
Dude, you must have gotten one heck of an interest rate. I got a good one myself, and the interest portion of my mortgage payment is easily 80% of the payment. Maybe your interest rate is 5%? (which would not mean, of course, that only 5% of your payment goes to the lender as interest)
I'll tell you what is not the correct answer to P2P movie downloads; those freaking red dots that they put right in the middle of the film. I saw them in the past three weeks while watching all three Lord of the Rings films in theatres, and they pissed me off like no other. Here I am trying to enjoy these wonderful, beautiful films-- definitely among my all-time favorites-- but every ten seconds or so, BAM! Five red dots right in the middle of Galadriel's face. Or BAM! Four red dots in the middle of an intense battle scene (noticed because everything on the screen is moving swiftly except the stationary dots).
Has anyone else been noticing these? Once you start seeing them, it's just about impossible to stop. I found myself trying to consciously numb my mind or blur my vision or something just so I would stop seeing these red idiot droppings. It actually sort of worked sometimes, but I don't think I ought to be forced to practice doublethink just to enjoy a movie. Even so, I still felt myself tense up during every scene with bright light, and quite a bit near the ends of scenes (since those were when I most noticed the dots).
The thing that pisses me off most is that this idiocy is not a solution. It's not even a deterrent. It doesn't stop people from downloading illegal copies of movies. It doesn't even slow them down, except making them wait a little longer for the download to complete. All it does is annoy legitimate consumers. Alas, that seems to be the trend these days in both the film and music industries.
What can we do about this? Anything? Who can we write? I'm guessing the movie studio would be the one to write (New Line in this case).
I feel bad for Howard Scott Warshaw every time I hear his name mentioned in connection with the E.T. Atari game. It wasn't really his fault it was so terrible... they told him they had to have it on the shelves in time for the Christmas shopping season, and gave him about a month and a half to work on it. At least, that's what he said in this interview. A way overhyped game for one of the most successful movies of all time, and they give one programmer six weeks to do it? Even in 1982 that was suicide, no matter how brilliant the one programmer might have been.
The law ought not to afford special protection for certain people or groups of people. That's really all hate crime legislation is (well, that and the beginning of prosecution for thoughtcrime, of course :-)
Who's to determine who should get special protection? When they start prosecuting people for hate crimes committed against men, white people, Christians, and heterosexuals, then maybe my attitude toward hate crime legislation will change. But of course, if hate crimes are prosecuted equally when committed against all groups of people, then almost by definition hate crime legislation will be unnecessary.
We don't have to wait 20 years for that... it's here today. You don't even have to say that you personally are offended. Just mention that someone might be offended, and you can probably get just about anyone in big trouble for almost anything they say.
Personally, I am offended by all the hypersensitivity and political correctness (i.e. thought control) we have allowed ourselves to be subjected to. But does anyone care if I, a white American male, am offended by that? Nope.
The parent's logic not flawed, though... the loss of your business and the ensuing negative word-of-mouth is all part of the calculation. Does AT&T (or any other company that pulls this crap) lose more money from people like you who follow up, demand back credits, and finally take their business elsewhere? Or do they make more from people who don't bother to do these things? I have to think that they make more money from people who just pay the bill, and when (if) the equation ever comes out negative for them, then it'll stop happening.
When it comes to money (specifically, other people getting their hands on yours), everything is done on purpose. Everything. People will do anything they need to do, and will fight harder for money than they will for their own lives. Haven't you figured that out by now?
Bill Joy on Linux, Mac OS X, and George W. Bush. Yeesh, I didn't expect so much of it to be a political rant. Then again, it's Bill Joy, maybe I should have. :-)
You might add to the quality of discussion (and boost perception of your sincerity) by responding to posts like xQuarkDS9x's instead of responding in kind to people who call you names.
What a politically incorrect premise:
;-)
Woman Suffers Brain Injury, Now Speaks With British Accent
But who are we to argue with science?
Parents, once you're past making the huge mistake of actually letting the kids have computers in their rooms, what's a reasonable set of guidlines?
If you admit it's a huge mistake to put computers in their rooms, then why are you asking for help in getting yourself farther down that path? The solution is to back up a bit, and correct your huge mistake by moving the computers from the kids' rooms to a common area. Do it now, because the longer you take to do this, the harder it will be.
Probably the best quote from the whole article: "I thought he was far more credible than I thought."
In my mind, this is the more serious violation. Redirecting packets is annoying and stupid and breaks things. Fine. But intentionally including a backdoor that modifies the router's internal configuration based on events completely outside my control is way over the top. Eric Deming directly confirmed that this is what is happening, in his now famous Usenet post. I'm sure it originated in marketing or whatever, but I don't understand how this kind of idiocy could have made it past all the technical supervisors who had to sign off on it. This is a company that does networking, for crying out loud. And they see nothing wrong with this? Sorry, Belkin, you had your chance, but you'll get no more of my business.
Uhhh... but if you didn't buy tickets within about 10 minutes of them going on sale last month, or if you don't have several hundred dollars to buy them from a scalper on eBay, you might not want to bother showing up.
Well, he explains exactly where all the numbers came from, so whether they are biased or not the results should at least be reproducible.
My wife and I teach kids at church, and a few months ago we invited them all to a party at our house. We have a GameCube, PS2, N64, SNES, and Atari 2600 and had them all set up so we could easily switch game systems for them to play. When they saw the Atari, their eyes got all wide and they said, "What is that???" I said it was the video game system I had when I was a kid. Forget the GameCube and PS2, those kids loved nothing more than to sit and play Space Invaders on the Atari 2600. And Maze Craze, and Asteroids, and Vanguard. It was awesome to watch these kids getting as excited about these 20-year old video games as I was when I first got them. Two of the boys even showed up on our doorstep the next day asking if they could come in and play Space Invaders! Could they tolerate the classic video games? Absolutely, they found them fascinating.
Looks like the next logical step for Nokia is to sue IBM.
I think originally on the NES [Zelda] Ganon's name was spelled with two N's
Technically, it was " GANNON " which is spelled with three Ns, not two.
(-1, Unfunny)
I notice that you refer to other computers as Deep Blue's "brethren". You completely ignore the thousands of chess playing computers that happen to be female.
Although the entire search space of moves obviously hasn't been explored, it's generally considered an advantage to be White (White moves first). With the first move, you automatically get the initiative, and at the highest levels of chess this can be a great advantage. My guess would be that if the entire search space could be enumerated, chess would either be a draw (more likely) or a win for White. I really doubt it would be a win for Black.
What exactly is meant by "by itself"? Computers were invented by humans and are programmed by humans, and as such you can always see everything a computer does as (indirectly, anyway) the product of a human mind. Are you saying that you won't be interested in computer chess until such time as a computer springs into existence without human intervention and then somehow learns on its own how to play chess?
I don't think we're ever going to see that happen, but if you're just interested in computers automatically (without intervention) learning how to play better chess from experience and study, well... those techniques have been around for decades.
That's funny because it's true. (sigh)