So what? Maxtor gets to use stuff they wouldn't be able to sell, giving people a device that has some advantages over existing hard drives. The tone of your post implied that this is somehow dishonest, or bad...I can't figure out why. Maxtor makes more money, we get more useful products...isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?
Age is not inversely proportional to quality, or fun. Marathon was FAR better than DOOM. I enjoyed it even more than Quake, even though the latter did have superior eye candy. Not until Half Life was there a FUN shooter with a good plot, and Marathon had both in spades in 1993.
*ring ring* clue phone...Marathon was released six years before all the games you mentioned (with the exception of System Shock 1). Since you stay away from Macs, you obviously don't have the vaguest clue what you're talking about. Or what your missing.
Multiplayer Marathon is a thing of beauty. Playing King of the Hill in the big open arena where the hill was a strip down the middle...holy frag fest. That game was AWESOME. I've never had a more immersive 1 player game, or more fun in a LAN game. I can't put my finger on it, but the entire series just flat owned. Bungie was the coolest company EVER (until they started sucking hind teat at Microsoft, for which I'm never going to forgive them...)
No no no, you silly. Insurance is about trying to find a bunch of healthy people, convince them they're sick, get them to buy insurance, get them to go to the doctor. The cool part is that the insurance companies have ALREADY gone to the doctor and said "Hey, the only people who will come see you are people who are in our protection racket, and so you need to sign up with us so you can get paid" and then, once the doctor has rendered services, not pay the doctor. THAT is what insurance is about! Making as much money as possible while creating havoc and heartache and financial ruin for as many people as possible. Otherwise, how would the insurance companies justify the fact that they only pay out 10-20% of their premiums in benefits?
It's a protection racket, operated by fraud, deceit, coercion of the medical community, and co-option of the government. Used to be the Mafia was the only game this smooth.
Nobody who is unable to compile their own app is going to give one teensy tiny little shit about which UNIX shell is included by default. It's amazing to me how much people grouse at Apple's design choices, when their FIRST design choice (Hey, let's use BSD!) made it very easy for anybody with a little initiative to CHANGE the design. In other words, quit whining and set it up the way you want it. Isn't that what all UNIX users like to do anyway? Why (and how) was Apple supposed to read YOUR mind and do it the way YOU want them to?
Not like you're going to buy their hardware anyway...
For every one like you (and me, for that matter), there are three that buy every edition available for their favourite movies. That's why the video industry does as it does.
Farmers don't farm to get strong. They farm to make food. If a tool allows greater output than doing it yourself, and you get paid for output (not for doing it yourself), you're a damn idiot if you continue to do it yourself just because you get stronger that way.
It's simply a question of what you're trying to do: be productive, or be "strong". Seems to me like with all his extra money, the farmer can join the bloody health club...
Think about it this way. Just because I can't come up with a certain fact off the top of my head, doesn't mean that the fact is not available to my subconscious, the device that comes up with that "eureka!" thing. This happens to me on a daily basis...somebody asks me about a movie, I say "Oh yeah the one with...uh...that actor...name was on the tip of my tongue..." only to sit up bolt upright in bed that night thinking "Elijah Wood" (no, I was not in bed with Mr. Wood that night. Nor any night.)(huh huh...I said wood...)
Anyhow, the point is valid, but I think that conscious memory retrieval is very inefficient compared to the unconscious "crawler" we've got running around maintaining our link integrity. : )
Re:The future of PDA's, and a possible cloud.
on
Cheap Linux PDAs
·
· Score: 2
Nonsense. I use my PDA for humanistic goals only. Look at my schedule for tomorrow:
8:30 - Fight The Man
9:45 - Throw wooden shoe in grinding gears of capitalism
11:00 - Sing "We Shall Overcome" on lawn at local IBM installation
12:00 - Lunch with Greenpeace
See? It wouldn't do to forget any of this stuff, so I put it in my Palm. Don't worry...I'll protect you from the big bad technology slavers.
Guess what? It's OK for religious groups and companies to benefit. I bet the disadvantaged person getting the computer wouldn't give a flip one way or the other about who ELSE is better off because of this program.
And you'll never hear a liberal proposing to help poor people unless there's a way to keep that person dependant on the system.
Don't get me wrong...I think politicians conservative and liberal are all slimy weasels, and they all have ulterior motives...I'm just trying to point out the double standard. It's OK for liberal politicians to advocate helping poor people, but not for conservatives.
Two years ago, Microsoft had a USB speaker system that didn't require the use of a sound card at all. So yes, THAT Microsoft "sound card" WILL get top priority over anything made by Creative.
Or do you think that Microsoft will oh so nicely refrain from exercising this power they create for themselves?
It amuses me that when a "conservative" politician suggests a program to help people, he's a) vilified for being insensitive and impractical and b) accused of having an ulterior motive. If Bill Clinton or Jesse Jackson advocated the same thing, they'd be given the Nobel Peace Prize just for saying it. (Not that they'd ever IMPLEMENT a program...it's a lot easier to SOUND caring than to BE caring).
Then again, they're probably too busy getting blown to actually do good things for people...must be nice.
Government doing anything other than shooting people trying to shoot me is a Bad Thing. (I'm not really THAT libertarian, but it's succinct...)
I'm all for non-profit organizations (yes, Virginia, even *gasp* CHURCHES!) providing services and "welfare" to the community. I think that's the way it should be done.
I appreciate your candor, but I certainly disagree with your conclusion. Any ethical system that does not provide for the survival of its adherents is a faulty system. It's nice to imagine a world where everybody cooperates with one another and lives in peace and harmony, but unfortunately it only takes a very very small number of people (like one) who want to take advantage of that situation to turn it into a totalitarian bloodbath.
In my ethical structure, any person who would not kill to protect themselves, or their family, is making a serious error in judgement. People who say that it's wrong to kill, and send other people to do the killing for them, are ethically bankrupt.
For a microcosm of this situation, I consider my relationship with the orthodox Jewish rabbi next door. From sunset on Friday through sunset on Saturday, adherent Jews are not permitted to do any "work" (which is a formally defined concept in their faith...they may not turn lights on and off, they may not turn on the oven, but they can serve food and travel a certain distance...very complicated stuff). Anyhow, oftentimes he and his family will host a dinner for members of his synagogue (sp?). If for whatever reason dinner is not ready by sundown, he or his wife will often come to our house and ask whatever Gentile opens the door to come help them. I certainly don't mind helping out, but I'm continually troubled by the ethical compunctions of acting as a "cat's paw" for somebody else. If it's wrong to work on the Sabbath, isn't it wrong to get somebody else to work on the Sabbath for you? Why is it OK to preserve yourself from "damnation" (or the equivalent Jewish concept) by "damning" another person?
Discuss. (I think I have a way to let the Rabbi off the hook, but I am interested in other thoughts...)
I see what you're after, but let me reduce your last statement to its logical conclusion.
Tonight, I could be making babies. Lots of 'em. Therefore, every woman I come into contact with and do not impregnate is as much murder as is abortion (of course leaving aside for purposes of this argument whether or not abortion is murder).
Hmm..."I'm sorry. I have to sleep with you or else it'll be like I'm killing our unborn child!" would be an interesting pickup line to employ.
I argue that intention is not relevant. If I "meant" to make a human and instead I made a dead body, that's not murder. To my mind, murder is defined as depriving a sentient being (or proto- or post-sentient being) of its sentience. (that means war is mass murder...not that I necessarily agree that it's always a crime...blah blah getting complicated...).
Hmm. There's a cogent argument in there somewhere.
Ummm...how about tangerines? And dalmatians? And any other domesticated plant or animal you'd care to name? "Simple minded meddling" is what enables us to feed 10x more people than we ever thought possible at the beginning of this century. Selective breeding works. Genetic engineering will also work. Are there concerns? Sure. But just trying to keep the genie in the bottle is a) foolish and b) impossible.
Re:Too much design, too feature laden.
on
Freshmeat II
·
· Score: 1
Damn, Taco is right. If you don't like Freshmeat's free of cost (to you) service, feel free to not use it. They're not responsible to you, they don't have to do what you want them to.
I think that they provide a fantastic service, at no cost to me. If they can do that, and make a buck or two in the bargain, more power to them. If you don't like it, build your own. They give you the bloody source code...
No. You shouldn't be treated like a thief...thieves should get thrown in jail. You should lose your patent. You may still manufacture and sell your widget (unless you're REALLY stupid/irresponsible and are trying to sell something that somebody else has patented...) you simply lose the government granted monopoly on that particular widget.
The problem here is that the system is being abused by corporations. They DON'T do a reasonable search, because if they had, they'd find prior art. They go forward without fear of reprisal regardless of what they find in their "patent search". They don't CARE, since they can use influence/money/political pressure to move their patents through despite the "law". Remember..."law" is what you enforce on other people. When you're in power, you don't have to worry about such petty matters.
(or so they wish us to think...)
Re:In a Corporatocracy, we're all just targets.
on
Clever Girl Bess
·
· Score: 2
He sure did! Then there was this guy named Stalin who came to power and mouthed the platitudes of The People and started killing them on an industrial scale. Things went south from there.
I have to be very skeptical of any philosophy of human interaction that tries to model people as being motivated by cooperation, rather than being motivated by (hopefully enlightened) self interest. If you think that the people in power are not going to be selfish, and you don't design your system of government with that in mind, you wind up with the Khmer Rouge. And that's bad.
Re:In a Corporatocracy, we're all just targets.
on
Clever Girl Bess
·
· Score: 1
Was his name Hari Seldon? I hate it when sci fi goes wrong. : )
How much research should an inventor do? Enough research. And if he/she doesn't find prior art, and somebody else does, well, tough luck. You don't get to have a patent on something somebody else has already invented. Sorry. (Yes, I know that's not the ways the corps do it, but that's the way it's supposed to work, dammit!)
Right now, inventors can only make money (like being able to live comfortably money) by selling their inventions to companies who will produce them. What's NOT right is corporations who hold patents on stupidly basic concepts and use them to beat one another about the head.
Slashdot Mirror
So what? Maxtor gets to use stuff they wouldn't be able to sell, giving people a device that has some advantages over existing hard drives. The tone of your post implied that this is somehow dishonest, or bad...I can't figure out why. Maxtor makes more money, we get more useful products...isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?
IMHO, ANY system that can play Marathon is a good game system. The game just flat rocks. Sorry if you disagree or haven't played it.
Age is not inversely proportional to quality, or fun. Marathon was FAR better than DOOM. I enjoyed it even more than Quake, even though the latter did have superior eye candy. Not until Half Life was there a FUN shooter with a good plot, and Marathon had both in spades in 1993.
*ring ring* clue phone...Marathon was released six years before all the games you mentioned (with the exception of System Shock 1). Since you stay away from Macs, you obviously don't have the vaguest clue what you're talking about. Or what your missing.
Multiplayer Marathon is a thing of beauty. Playing King of the Hill in the big open arena where the hill was a strip down the middle...holy frag fest. That game was AWESOME. I've never had a more immersive 1 player game, or more fun in a LAN game. I can't put my finger on it, but the entire series just flat owned. Bungie was the coolest company EVER (until they started sucking hind teat at Microsoft, for which I'm never going to forgive them...)
No no no, you silly. Insurance is about trying to find a bunch of healthy people, convince them they're sick, get them to buy insurance, get them to go to the doctor. The cool part is that the insurance companies have ALREADY gone to the doctor and said "Hey, the only people who will come see you are people who are in our protection racket, and so you need to sign up with us so you can get paid" and then, once the doctor has rendered services, not pay the doctor. THAT is what insurance is about! Making as much money as possible while creating havoc and heartache and financial ruin for as many people as possible. Otherwise, how would the insurance companies justify the fact that they only pay out 10-20% of their premiums in benefits?
It's a protection racket, operated by fraud, deceit, coercion of the medical community, and co-option of the government. Used to be the Mafia was the only game this smooth.
Nobody who is unable to compile their own app is going to give one teensy tiny little shit about which UNIX shell is included by default. It's amazing to me how much people grouse at Apple's design choices, when their FIRST design choice (Hey, let's use BSD!) made it very easy for anybody with a little initiative to CHANGE the design. In other words, quit whining and set it up the way you want it. Isn't that what all UNIX users like to do anyway? Why (and how) was Apple supposed to read YOUR mind and do it the way YOU want them to?
Not like you're going to buy their hardware anyway...
For every one like you (and me, for that matter), there are three that buy every edition available for their favourite movies. That's why the video industry does as it does.
Farmers don't farm to get strong. They farm to make food. If a tool allows greater output than doing it yourself, and you get paid for output (not for doing it yourself), you're a damn idiot if you continue to do it yourself just because you get stronger that way.
It's simply a question of what you're trying to do: be productive, or be "strong". Seems to me like with all his extra money, the farmer can join the bloody health club...
Let me ask you one thing. How do you study the classics without studying their art? What else is left?
That's DYSLEXIC agnostic insomniacs, silly monkey.
Think about it this way. Just because I can't come up with a certain fact off the top of my head, doesn't mean that the fact is not available to my subconscious, the device that comes up with that "eureka!" thing. This happens to me on a daily basis...somebody asks me about a movie, I say "Oh yeah the one with...uh...that actor...name was on the tip of my tongue..." only to sit up bolt upright in bed that night thinking "Elijah Wood" (no, I was not in bed with Mr. Wood that night. Nor any night.)(huh huh...I said wood...)
Anyhow, the point is valid, but I think that conscious memory retrieval is very inefficient compared to the unconscious "crawler" we've got running around maintaining our link integrity. : )
Nonsense. I use my PDA for humanistic goals only. Look at my schedule for tomorrow:
8:30 - Fight The Man
9:45 - Throw wooden shoe in grinding gears of capitalism
11:00 - Sing "We Shall Overcome" on lawn at local IBM installation
12:00 - Lunch with Greenpeace
See? It wouldn't do to forget any of this stuff, so I put it in my Palm. Don't worry...I'll protect you from the big bad technology slavers.
(\sarcasm)
Guess what? It's OK for religious groups and companies to benefit. I bet the disadvantaged person getting the computer wouldn't give a flip one way or the other about who ELSE is better off because of this program.
And you'll never hear a liberal proposing to help poor people unless there's a way to keep that person dependant on the system.
Don't get me wrong...I think politicians conservative and liberal are all slimy weasels, and they all have ulterior motives...I'm just trying to point out the double standard. It's OK for liberal politicians to advocate helping poor people, but not for conservatives.
Two years ago, Microsoft had a USB speaker system that didn't require the use of a sound card at all. So yes, THAT Microsoft "sound card" WILL get top priority over anything made by Creative.
Or do you think that Microsoft will oh so nicely refrain from exercising this power they create for themselves?
It amuses me that when a "conservative" politician suggests a program to help people, he's a) vilified for being insensitive and impractical and b) accused of having an ulterior motive. If Bill Clinton or Jesse Jackson advocated the same thing, they'd be given the Nobel Peace Prize just for saying it. (Not that they'd ever IMPLEMENT a program...it's a lot easier to SOUND caring than to BE caring).
Then again, they're probably too busy getting blown to actually do good things for people...must be nice.
Government doing anything other than shooting people trying to shoot me is a Bad Thing. (I'm not really THAT libertarian, but it's succinct...)
I'm all for non-profit organizations (yes, Virginia, even *gasp* CHURCHES!) providing services and "welfare" to the community. I think that's the way it should be done.
I appreciate your candor, but I certainly disagree with your conclusion. Any ethical system that does not provide for the survival of its adherents is a faulty system. It's nice to imagine a world where everybody cooperates with one another and lives in peace and harmony, but unfortunately it only takes a very very small number of people (like one) who want to take advantage of that situation to turn it into a totalitarian bloodbath.
In my ethical structure, any person who would not kill to protect themselves, or their family, is making a serious error in judgement. People who say that it's wrong to kill, and send other people to do the killing for them, are ethically bankrupt.
For a microcosm of this situation, I consider my relationship with the orthodox Jewish rabbi next door. From sunset on Friday through sunset on Saturday, adherent Jews are not permitted to do any "work" (which is a formally defined concept in their faith...they may not turn lights on and off, they may not turn on the oven, but they can serve food and travel a certain distance...very complicated stuff). Anyhow, oftentimes he and his family will host a dinner for members of his synagogue (sp?). If for whatever reason dinner is not ready by sundown, he or his wife will often come to our house and ask whatever Gentile opens the door to come help them. I certainly don't mind helping out, but I'm continually troubled by the ethical compunctions of acting as a "cat's paw" for somebody else. If it's wrong to work on the Sabbath, isn't it wrong to get somebody else to work on the Sabbath for you? Why is it OK to preserve yourself from "damnation" (or the equivalent Jewish concept) by "damning" another person?
Discuss. (I think I have a way to let the Rabbi off the hook, but I am interested in other thoughts...)
If I piss everyone off and nobody wants to hang out with me, why the hell would I want to hang out with myself?
: )
I see what you're after, but let me reduce your last statement to its logical conclusion.
Tonight, I could be making babies. Lots of 'em. Therefore, every woman I come into contact with and do not impregnate is as much murder as is abortion (of course leaving aside for purposes of this argument whether or not abortion is murder).
Hmm..."I'm sorry. I have to sleep with you or else it'll be like I'm killing our unborn child!" would be an interesting pickup line to employ.
I argue that intention is not relevant. If I "meant" to make a human and instead I made a dead body, that's not murder. To my mind, murder is defined as depriving a sentient being (or proto- or post-sentient being) of its sentience. (that means war is mass murder...not that I necessarily agree that it's always a crime...blah blah getting complicated...).
Hmm. There's a cogent argument in there somewhere.
Ummm...how about tangerines? And dalmatians? And any other domesticated plant or animal you'd care to name? "Simple minded meddling" is what enables us to feed 10x more people than we ever thought possible at the beginning of this century. Selective breeding works. Genetic engineering will also work. Are there concerns? Sure. But just trying to keep the genie in the bottle is a) foolish and b) impossible.
Damn, Taco is right. If you don't like Freshmeat's free of cost (to you) service, feel free to not use it. They're not responsible to you, they don't have to do what you want them to.
I think that they provide a fantastic service, at no cost to me. If they can do that, and make a buck or two in the bargain, more power to them. If you don't like it, build your own. They give you the bloody source code...
No. You shouldn't be treated like a thief...thieves should get thrown in jail. You should lose your patent. You may still manufacture and sell your widget (unless you're REALLY stupid/irresponsible and are trying to sell something that somebody else has patented...) you simply lose the government granted monopoly on that particular widget.
The problem here is that the system is being abused by corporations. They DON'T do a reasonable search, because if they had, they'd find prior art. They go forward without fear of reprisal regardless of what they find in their "patent search". They don't CARE, since they can use influence/money/political pressure to move their patents through despite the "law". Remember..."law" is what you enforce on other people. When you're in power, you don't have to worry about such petty matters.
(or so they wish us to think...)
He sure did! Then there was this guy named Stalin who came to power and mouthed the platitudes of The People and started killing them on an industrial scale. Things went south from there.
I have to be very skeptical of any philosophy of human interaction that tries to model people as being motivated by cooperation, rather than being motivated by (hopefully enlightened) self interest. If you think that the people in power are not going to be selfish, and you don't design your system of government with that in mind, you wind up with the Khmer Rouge. And that's bad.
Was his name Hari Seldon? I hate it when sci fi goes wrong. : )
How much research should an inventor do? Enough research. And if he/she doesn't find prior art, and somebody else does, well, tough luck. You don't get to have a patent on something somebody else has already invented. Sorry. (Yes, I know that's not the ways the corps do it, but that's the way it's supposed to work, dammit!)
Right now, inventors can only make money (like being able to live comfortably money) by selling their inventions to companies who will produce them. What's NOT right is corporations who hold patents on stupidly basic concepts and use them to beat one another about the head.