I caught the end of the Sci-Fi miniseries and I was shocked at how bad it was. The Bene Gesserit came off as a bunch of hysterical Puritan looking frail old women. The Guildsmen were just plain goofy with their Bob Dylan sounding style of speach. The miniseries was like an Indie remake of the original movie.
The decadence and retro sensiblilities of the original film (mentioned in another post), along with an excellent cast of actors made the original a truly great rendition of the book. It also catered to the audience that had read the book instead of trying to placate the masses of soft sci fi fans. I'll never forget the scene in the original movie where the mutated Guildsman threatened the Emperor in the middle of his throne room while holding up that 30's looking translator microphone, his voice slurred and alien, being translated into cold booming tones of authority. The original Baron Harkonnen may have been fat and degenerate, but he was as sharp as a tack and twice as cruel. The new baron was a buffoon, as all the Harkonnens were. I could go on and on. The only thing that the miniseries accomplished for me is that it made me realize how wonderfull the original movie was in spite of a few minor flaws.
If you play games and you are out in the sticks with dialup or satellite as your only option, then you are SOL either way. (Though Everquest seems to run fine on a satellite connection)Like I said, Satellite has it's caveats, but I would take a satellite connection over a dialup any day lacking for a better alternative like my current cable connection. I have a friend who has a satellite dish for internet, and aside from the latency, it is an excellent connection. Most important, dialup is his only other alternative. I'm glad that I'm not in his shoes.
If you live in the USA, Satellite is an option. It's late and I don't remember the name of the company. It's not as fast as a cable modem and the ping latency is on par with a slow dialup, but your browsing and downloading experiences are still respectable.
Have you heard of the WTO? The USA has many trade agreements and treaties with other countries that allow American laws to affect people in other countries and visa versa. Though I think the effect tends to favor American interests and corportations. Remember Johansen and Dcss? Those paranoid conspiracy theorists may be on to something when it comes to our world evolving towards one world government. The only good thing about this is that nation states will probably not see as much erosion of sovereignty that individual states within the USA have gone through since the formation of our country.
What's really strikes me as "ironic" is when a non-American denigrates American English when in fact, properly spoken American English is the least changed and most conservative version of the English language.
Cable or Satellite are my only broadband options right now. Let's see, both are fifty bucks a month, and the ping latency on a satellite rig blows a huge spewing ding-dong. Maybe if I had the additional choices of DSL and powerline solutions, there would be competition and prices might come down to something more reasonable.
If one of Jupiter's moons harbors complex life it would be a great boon to both science and the biotechnology industries. Scientifically, we would be able to compare the new life forms to life on Earth, both chemically and morphologically and maybe develop and refine new theories about the evolution of life. Also, as with life on Earth, many of these organisms would have developed novel bio-chemical interactions that could be duplicated and exploited for their unique properties by manufacturing and medical industries. Whoever it was that posted above that our efforts and focus on Mars is wasted is partly right. Mars in of itself is not a very interesting destination, but as a way station to get to Europa or other potential life bearing moons of Jupiter, it would serve a valuable purpose. Mars is only interesting from a geological standpoint at best.
If there is aluminum exposed on the surface of the cd it should be easy to paint over it with a cheap acrylic paint. this should render the cd highly water and fungus resistant. Storing your cd's in a cool, dry environment is probably the #1 way to assure your collections safety from corrosion and microbes. If a cool and dry environment is unavailable, then dessicants and and a clean place to store them should do the trick. It probably doesn't hurt to have several backup copies of any cd with important or irreplaceable information. Off-site storage of critical information at a facility that specializes in securing and preserving data would be a good alternative as well. When you ask yourself how far to go with your backups, think about how important the information is to you and how much effort it would take to replace it.
Actually, as a soon to be realtor, I can tell you that bundling of services like you describe is a fast growing trend. Current laws are not up to date on the realities of the situation, but the consensus is that they will be changing to facilitate consolidation of services while leaving the buyers and sellers free to unbundle and shop around. Expect lower prices and greater convenience, but don't expect less middlemen.
I have completed the prelicensing courses to be a real estate sales person, so I am familiar with real estate practice and ethics. IANAL by the way...
1.)The broker has a legal and fiduciary obligation to competently market their principals property and present all offers to the principal.
Unless the broker has power of attorney or some written agreement with the principal; the principal retains the right to accept or reject any offer. Besides, if the broker felt that they had an investor connection who was willing to pay a premium for the property, they would be obligated to inform the buyer and pursue that avenue as well as informing the buyer of any potential conflicts of interest. If the broker had a formal arrangement with the investor, they would have to have both parties agree to dual agency and sign a disclosure form. Or alternately the buyer in this circumstance could find another broker to represent them or represent themselves. I do concede your point that it is not always easy to prove when things like this go on, but most brokers or agents I know don't fool around like that. As an agent I will be an independent contractor. If my broker tried to not list a property of one of my clients so they could sell it on the cheap side to a friend or family, I'd be pissed! Likewise my broker would not allow me to cut the buyers or sellers throat either, because he stands to lose money. So there are checks and balances in this situation, both practical and legal that keeps things clean for the most part.
2.)It takes time for a listing to be removed from the MLS. Plus, you can't change a magazine once it has gone to print. Throw in a little beauracracy and honest human error and you have sold listings for view. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on honest mistakes over malice 9 chances out of ten. It may feel like a bait and switch, but it's probably not. Now, if you go to buy a car and you feel like you are being baited and switched, you probably are. I used to sell cars, which was a very sleazy business compared to real estate sales. If car salespersons had to meet the same standard as real estate salespersons for lawfull and ethical practice, most of the current crop would be bankrupt, unemployed or in jail by now. Before the current laws protecting consumers went into effect real estate was just as bad, but it really has been cleaned up. For me, the ability to sell without having to lie to and pressure customers was a major component of my decision to choose real estate as a career.
I don't know how things work in Canada, but here in America, high pressure tactics are considered to be unethical and illegal in the practice or real estate sales. Having just completed 120 hours of pre-licensing courses 30 of which were devoted exclusively to law; I came away with a new respect for the complexities and legal pitfalls of selling real property. The combined course material is over 1600 pages, and is barely an overview of the practice or real estate sales. Selling or buying your own property without expert representation is asking for alot of headaches, both legal and otherwise.
Before you go to sell or buy your own home, ask yourself these questions.
Are you a lawyer?
Can you take off work with little or no notice to show prospective buyers your home?
Do you deal with the loan officers of a dozen banks on a daily basis? Do you have any idea how real estate finance works or which loans or government programs would best suit your needs?
Do you help people buy and sell homes on a daily basis?
Do you know how to how to negotiate an offer and write up a valid contract that protects your interests?
Do you know a good appraiser, or anything about accessing the value of real property?
Do you know of a good title company and how to determine what coverage will best suit your needs?
Are you aware of the different kinds of interests and restrictions that go with different kinds of property ownership?
I could go on all day, but I think I have made my point. After all is said and done you might be able to anwser yes to all of these questions. You might not know, but have the initiative and intelligence to find out on your own. You could probably learn how to be your own architect, make your own soap, build your own computer, write your own compiler etc... But at some point or another, you are going to delicate some task to an expert because it is impossible to be an expert at everything and you only have so much time no matter what you do. Don't get me wrong, I plan on using the internet and automation myself, but I don't believe agents are going to be obsolesced by technology any time in the near future. If anything, technology will make the early adopters immensely more productive than their stuck in the past peers.
Is it just me, or does the concept of pay-per-play and commercials seem like double dipping. That's the kind of greed that has lead to commercials on cable and satelite tv (both expensive services) in the first place. Streaming movies on demand is a good thing, but spoiling a movie that you paid your hard earned money for with a bunch of commercials is just asinine. The same thing goes for DVDs and the fifteen minutes of previews that they wont allow you to skip. (At least that's what I have heard; not owning one and all.) I guess you are not forced to watch them because you can always play the movie fifteen minutes before you plan on watching it. What a convenience. And speaking of convenience, why do advertisers seem to think that they have the right to insinuate themselves into your personal space and every aspect of your life? It seems to me that with this pay for play + commercial business model that the social contract betweeen advertisers and consumers has been broken, and I hope that any pay per play scheme that includes commercials dies a quick death in the marketplace. Though it would be interesting to see if you are given the option to pay a little more for the priviledge of seeing a non-commercial interupted program.
All this is moot to me anyway, as I no longer watch tv unless I am at a friends house.
If I were to patent an invention for a time wasting machine that worked by the means of making addictive, colorfull, and loud noise with few redeeming qualities, I'd call it a TV. Huh, I could probably call it a computer too, for that matter. At least a computer makes you think once in a while. END RANT
Well, the high resolution would be fine with me, but seriously, who would try to watch sixteen DVDs at once. Maybe Data from TNG has the intellect to manage something like that, but us mere mortals sure don't.
The bit only indicates copyright status and in of itself isn't a barrier of any kind to copying. It is not illegal to copy copyrighted materials for the purposes of fair use. For example, as an individual creator of content I could conceivably choose to set a bit indicating copyright of my works. So is it now illegal for me to copy my own work with a program that uses the bit as an indication of legality for copying purposes? The way it works now and has pretty much always worked is that copyright is protected by people's willingness to acknowledge it and play by the rules of the copyright holder. Some people do, some don't. This is what the media companies have been trying to change since the invention of the cassette tape. They have had limited success limiting the consumers rights in law, and almost no success in practicality. Though lately they have made frighteningly fast and substantial progress in law (See DMCA, UCITA) and in innovations designed to thwart consumers (See, CPRM, Napster, MP3.com, DVD region codes and encryption, and worst of all "Blessed" software and hardware such as Window's XP and driver level protection.) The only good thing about Roxio's new openly consumer unfriendly copyright protection is that it has always been there from the begining. There are many games and software that it won't copy properly on it due to it's respect for their "copy" protection schemes. Now if the media companies buy out the makers of Nero, Clone CD, and Disk Juggler, then I'll start to worry. This all begs the question, which is stronger; monied corporations and their interests, or consumers and theirs? My heart's with the consumers, but were this a bet I'd side my wager with the money.
The Demon planet follow up episode
on
Voyager Eulogy
·
· Score: 1
By far this was the best episode in the whole series. The writers were really on the ball inspite of the inherent disposability of the crew. By the end of that episode I actually felt sad because the duplicate crew's bravery and sacrifice ended up being in vain, and I really wanted them to make it. Hell, with that quality of writing I would just as soon as had the original crew die and let the duplicates take their place. I could also relate to the shock and sorrow they must have felt when they found out that they weren't who they thought they were. Now that says alot considering that most books or tv shows fail to move me one way or the other. My second favorite would have to be the episode where the crew encounters a telepathic memorial that makes them relive the traumatic events leading up to an alien war time tradgedy. These episodes were thoughtful and added a human touch to what would otherwise be soft speculative fiction. These episodes are a glimse of what could have been had the show not been on such a fan pleasing course.
Voyager had potential, but poor writing, casting (I think that Robert Beltram and Kate Mulgrew would have done well to reverse roles), and execution ruined it from the get go. The signature of TNG was wonder and discovery (Think the Inner Light, or Tin Man), for DS9 it was intricate plots and rich character developement, for Voyager it was hackneyed fan pleasing and an effeminate ship and crew. Oh, and lets not forget the original series which though cheesy, was rich in allegory and fun to watch when I was a child. The new series might have potential as well, but it's not worth it for me to waste 200 hours of my life to catch two good hours of tv. For that matter my tv doesn't work anymore, and I am not in any hurry to change that situation.
Ha ha ha ha! Good one, what makes you assume that it ever began?!
Seriously, I am not an advocate for Windows beyond the fact that it suits my current purposes just fine as a gamer and home user. Now.NET and other pay per-use-ware will probably drive me to Linux eventually. Besides, I think the whole installation/uninstallation situation is pretty much a cross platform problem for which there are not a whole lot of solutions that don't involve tedious and uneccesary work for the end user or administrator. Granted, an admin running a production box is going to have to pay more attention to details than a home user like myself.
I'm one of those crazy people who have better things to do with my time than hunt down every small change a program makes while installing itself. There are programs for Windows like CleanSweep and such that automate this tedious task. As far as I'm concerned every commercial program should come with an uninstaller that comepletely removes any trace of the program and undoes any alterations the installer made. Too bad that not all comercial entities have the consumer's best interests at heart, otherwise there wouldn't be any spyware or a need for utilities like Cleansweep in the first place.
Yeah, I suppose that I could take the time and go through the hassle and expense to travel to the Library of Congress from Ohio. I don't think they charge an entrance fee, but I have never been there and couldn't tell you for sure. If I don't have the time, money or means to travel, or the issue that I wish to research doesn't justify the expense then that would be a significant barrier to this so called public information. You could put important information inside a canister and blast it up into orbit and call it publicly available. Taxpayers, (Pretty much everyone living in America) have already paid for any information that our government generates. My point before and now is this, any government agency has the responsibility and duty to disseminate information in the most convenient and economical manner to the people. Granted, I am not opposed to a small and REALISTIC filing fee to cover the cost to look up and print a document, but the overall cost of making information available online should be negligible.
In this day and age, yes, public does mean available on the internet. It is only common sense that when information is made public, it should be disseminated in an inexpensive, highly visable, and accessable fashion. The internet fits those bills, the physical facility of the Library of Congress doesn't. Sooner, rather than later, I'd like to see more government and public information on the net. It would greatly lower the cost and effort to make our government accountable and for us to understand the laws that we are expected to obey.
I used to be one of those hard working stupid people who actually felt the need to go out and make things or do something productive. But cost of living inflation along with wage deflation have changed my mind. I'd much rather be one of the capital owning people who produce nothing and suck off the poor than to be one of the poor. In an ideal world everyone could be rich, live well, and be free. Too bad this isn't an ideal world. Not that it couldn't be, but human nature in the form of greed, scarcity mentality, and complacency will ensure that such a utopia will never come to pass. So, I will sell real estate, eventually own real estate, suck my tenents dry like a feudal lord etc... If the order of things is going to suck, it's better for them to suck worse for someone else. Though I suppose owning land and living off rental income isn't as evil as buying diamonds and supporting the rebels/mafia in Seira Leone who cut off young men and womens limbs with machetes to further their ends. How can a person spend and make money without furthering someone else's misery or misfortune and still live a modern and comfortable lifestyle in America. Christ! I can't even buy a decent pair of sneakers that isn't the product of child slave labor. END RANT
"So either join the crowd or get beat down." -- Unknown
I disagree on the implanted chip for tracking purposes. By 2050, obiquitous cameras, AI, highly integrated networks, and advanced biometric recogition software will make it effortless for any large organization or government to track any given individual everywhere they go. As if that isn't enough, we already are trackable with the use of bugs we carry and use such as cell phones, credit cards, pagers, etc... In summary, there are so many easy ways to steal your privacy and track you that the only possible use for a chip would be for biometric information to gauge your thoughts and feelings. Oh, oops, I guess that one could be snuck in as a sort of biometric monitor to "protect" and promote our general well being, or as a weapon in the war against drugs. On further thought, you make a good point, if somewhat incomplete.
Actually, I'll disagree with you on the educational front as well. Dictatorial leaders will not be glorified in America because education in general will be far too dumbed down to include such lessons. Most schooling for the serf class of non wealth, non land owning, non capital holding, unwashed, lower classes etc.. will be involved with teaching just enough to make them into perfect worker drone consumers. Now, the rich and priviledged will receive a highly conformist, laize-faire capitalist, social Darwinist education that will let their collective concience rest easy as they suck the less "worthy" dry of opportunity and life to feed their greedy, bloated, and hedonistic lifestyles.
I think that Douglas Adams wouldn't have wanted the Hitchikers Guide series to be considered his pinacle achievement, he showed sort of a testines towards his fans, then as of late a somewhat grudging acceptance of the popularity of his work. How would his spirit take all the Guide quotes being bandied about today on Slashdot? Would he take them in the spirit of fun and goodwill intended? Or would it be just another reminder to him that he was recognized as more of a one trick pony rather than the diverse writer he wished to be? With the mostly unread and unmentioned Last Chance to See the only other non Guide related book he wrote, the Guide series will stand as his greatest and most popular works whether he wanted them to or not. Had he lived another twenty or thirty years he may very well have broken the mold he had inadvertently cast for himself. Then again he may not have. At forty nine he has left this world too soon with too much undone and he will be missed.
Hmmm, I have never met a Rick I liked. Maybe some of the good Ricks need to come out and represent before the name Rick becomes synonomous with asshole.
Slashdot Mirror
I caught the end of the Sci-Fi miniseries and I was shocked at how bad it was. The Bene Gesserit came off as a bunch of hysterical Puritan looking frail old women. The Guildsmen were just plain goofy with their Bob Dylan sounding style of speach. The miniseries was like an Indie remake of the original movie.
The decadence and retro sensiblilities of the original film (mentioned in another post), along with an excellent cast of actors made the original a truly great rendition of the book. It also catered to the audience that had read the book instead of trying to placate the masses of soft sci fi fans. I'll never forget the scene in the original movie where the mutated Guildsman threatened the Emperor in the middle of his throne room while holding up that 30's looking translator microphone, his voice slurred and alien, being translated into cold booming tones of authority. The original Baron Harkonnen may have been fat and degenerate, but he was as sharp as a tack and twice as cruel. The new baron was a buffoon, as all the Harkonnens were. I could go on and on. The only thing that the miniseries accomplished for me is that it made me realize how wonderfull the original movie was in spite of a few minor flaws.
Sting may not of been the best actor, but he fit Feyd to a tee. He had that malicious Harkonnen arogance and blood thirsty viciousness down pat.
If you play games and you are out in the sticks with dialup or satellite as your only option, then you are SOL either way. (Though Everquest seems to run fine on a satellite connection)Like I said, Satellite has it's caveats, but I would take a satellite connection over a dialup any day lacking for a better alternative like my current cable connection. I have a friend who has a satellite dish for internet, and aside from the latency, it is an excellent connection. Most important, dialup is his only other alternative. I'm glad that I'm not in his shoes.
If you live in the USA, Satellite is an option. It's late and I don't remember the name of the company. It's not as fast as a cable modem and the ping latency is on par with a slow dialup, but your browsing and downloading experiences are still respectable.
Have you heard of the WTO? The USA has many trade agreements and treaties with other countries that allow American laws to affect people in other countries and visa versa. Though I think the effect tends to favor American interests and corportations. Remember Johansen and Dcss? Those paranoid conspiracy theorists may be on to something when it comes to our world evolving towards one world government. The only good thing about this is that nation states will probably not see as much erosion of sovereignty that individual states within the USA have gone through since the formation of our country.
What's really strikes me as "ironic" is when a non-American denigrates American English when in fact, properly spoken American English is the least changed and most conservative version of the English language.
Cable or Satellite are my only broadband options right now. Let's see, both are fifty bucks a month, and the ping latency on a satellite rig blows a huge spewing ding-dong. Maybe if I had the additional choices of DSL and powerline solutions, there would be competition and prices might come down to something more reasonable.
If one of Jupiter's moons harbors complex life it would be a great boon to both science and the biotechnology industries. Scientifically, we would be able to compare the new life forms to life on Earth, both chemically and morphologically and maybe develop and refine new theories about the evolution of life. Also, as with life on Earth, many of these organisms would have developed novel bio-chemical interactions that could be duplicated and exploited for their unique properties by manufacturing and medical industries. Whoever it was that posted above that our efforts and focus on Mars is wasted is partly right. Mars in of itself is not a very interesting destination, but as a way station to get to Europa or other potential life bearing moons of Jupiter, it would serve a valuable purpose. Mars is only interesting from a geological standpoint at best.
If there is aluminum exposed on the surface of the cd it should be easy to paint over it with a cheap acrylic paint. this should render the cd highly water and fungus resistant. Storing your cd's in a cool, dry environment is probably the #1 way to assure your collections safety from corrosion and microbes. If a cool and dry environment is unavailable, then dessicants and and a clean place to store them should do the trick. It probably doesn't hurt to have several backup copies of any cd with important or irreplaceable information. Off-site storage of critical information at a facility that specializes in securing and preserving data would be a good alternative as well. When you ask yourself how far to go with your backups, think about how important the information is to you and how much effort it would take to replace it.
Actually, as a soon to be realtor, I can tell you that bundling of services like you describe is a fast growing trend. Current laws are not up to date on the realities of the situation, but the consensus is that they will be changing to facilitate consolidation of services while leaving the buyers and sellers free to unbundle and shop around. Expect lower prices and greater convenience, but don't expect less middlemen.
I have completed the prelicensing courses to be a real estate sales person, so I am familiar with real estate practice and ethics. IANAL by the way...
1.)The broker has a legal and fiduciary obligation to competently market their principals property and present all offers to the principal.
Unless the broker has power of attorney or some written agreement with the principal; the principal retains the right to accept or reject any offer. Besides, if the broker felt that they had an investor connection who was willing to pay a premium for the property, they would be obligated to inform the buyer and pursue that avenue as well as informing the buyer of any potential conflicts of interest. If the broker had a formal arrangement with the investor, they would have to have both parties agree to dual agency and sign a disclosure form. Or alternately the buyer in this circumstance could find another broker to represent them or represent themselves. I do concede your point that it is not always easy to prove when things like this go on, but most brokers or agents I know don't fool around like that. As an agent I will be an independent contractor. If my broker tried to not list a property of one of my clients so they could sell it on the cheap side to a friend or family, I'd be pissed! Likewise my broker would not allow me to cut the buyers or sellers throat either, because he stands to lose money. So there are checks and balances in this situation, both practical and legal that keeps things clean for the most part.
2.)It takes time for a listing to be removed from the MLS. Plus, you can't change a magazine once it has gone to print. Throw in a little beauracracy and honest human error and you have sold listings for view. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on honest mistakes over malice 9 chances out of ten. It may feel like a bait and switch, but it's probably not. Now, if you go to buy a car and you feel like you are being baited and switched, you probably are. I used to sell cars, which was a very sleazy business compared to real estate sales. If car salespersons had to meet the same standard as real estate salespersons for lawfull and ethical practice, most of the current crop would be bankrupt, unemployed or in jail by now. Before the current laws protecting consumers went into effect real estate was just as bad, but it really has been cleaned up. For me, the ability to sell without having to lie to and pressure customers was a major component of my decision to choose real estate as a career.
I don't know how things work in Canada, but here in America, high pressure tactics are considered to be unethical and illegal in the practice or real estate sales. Having just completed 120 hours of pre-licensing courses 30 of which were devoted exclusively to law; I came away with a new respect for the complexities and legal pitfalls of selling real property. The combined course material is over 1600 pages, and is barely an overview of the practice or real estate sales. Selling or buying your own property without expert representation is asking for alot of headaches, both legal and otherwise.
Before you go to sell or buy your own home, ask yourself these questions.
Are you a lawyer?
Can you take off work with little or no notice to show prospective buyers your home?
Do you deal with the loan officers of a dozen banks on a daily basis? Do you have any idea how real estate finance works or which loans or government programs would best suit your needs?
Do you help people buy and sell homes on a daily basis?
Do you know how to how to negotiate an offer and write up a valid contract that protects your interests?
Do you know a good appraiser, or anything about accessing the value of real property?
Do you know of a good title company and how to determine what coverage will best suit your needs?
Are you aware of the different kinds of interests and restrictions that go with different kinds of property ownership?
I could go on all day, but I think I have made my point. After all is said and done you might be able to anwser yes to all of these questions. You might not know, but have the initiative and intelligence to find out on your own. You could probably learn how to be your own architect, make your own soap, build your own computer, write your own compiler etc... But at some point or another, you are going to delicate some task to an expert because it is impossible to be an expert at everything and you only have so much time no matter what you do. Don't get me wrong, I plan on using the internet and automation myself, but I don't believe agents are going to be obsolesced by technology any time in the near future. If anything, technology will make the early adopters immensely more productive than their stuck in the past peers.
Is it just me, or does the concept of pay-per-play and commercials seem like double dipping. That's the kind of greed that has lead to commercials on cable and satelite tv (both expensive services) in the first place. Streaming movies on demand is a good thing, but spoiling a movie that you paid your hard earned money for with a bunch of commercials is just asinine. The same thing goes for DVDs and the fifteen minutes of previews that they wont allow you to skip. (At least that's what I have heard; not owning one and all.) I guess you are not forced to watch them because you can always play the movie fifteen minutes before you plan on watching it. What a convenience. And speaking of convenience, why do advertisers seem to think that they have the right to insinuate themselves into your personal space and every aspect of your life? It seems to me that with this pay for play + commercial business model that the social contract betweeen advertisers and consumers has been broken, and I hope that any pay per play scheme that includes commercials dies a quick death in the marketplace. Though it would be interesting to see if you are given the option to pay a little more for the priviledge of seeing a non-commercial interupted program.
All this is moot to me anyway, as I no longer watch tv unless I am at a friends house.
If I were to patent an invention for a time wasting machine that worked by the means of making addictive, colorfull, and loud noise with few redeeming qualities, I'd call it a TV. Huh, I could probably call it a computer too, for that matter. At least a computer makes you think once in a while. END RANT
Well, the high resolution would be fine with me, but seriously, who would try to watch sixteen DVDs at once. Maybe Data from TNG has the intellect to manage something like that, but us mere mortals sure don't.
Thanks if you do.
The bit only indicates copyright status and in of itself isn't a barrier of any kind to copying. It is not illegal to copy copyrighted materials for the purposes of fair use. For example, as an individual creator of content I could conceivably choose to set a bit indicating copyright of my works. So is it now illegal for me to copy my own work with a program that uses the bit as an indication of legality for copying purposes? The way it works now and has pretty much always worked is that copyright is protected by people's willingness to acknowledge it and play by the rules of the copyright holder. Some people do, some don't. This is what the media companies have been trying to change since the invention of the cassette tape. They have had limited success limiting the consumers rights in law, and almost no success in practicality. Though lately they have made frighteningly fast and substantial progress in law (See DMCA, UCITA) and in innovations designed to thwart consumers (See, CPRM, Napster, MP3.com, DVD region codes and encryption, and worst of all "Blessed" software and hardware such as Window's XP and driver level protection.) The only good thing about Roxio's new openly consumer unfriendly copyright protection is that it has always been there from the begining. There are many games and software that it won't copy properly on it due to it's respect for their "copy" protection schemes. Now if the media companies buy out the makers of Nero, Clone CD, and Disk Juggler, then I'll start to worry. This all begs the question, which is stronger; monied corporations and their interests, or consumers and theirs? My heart's with the consumers, but were this a bet I'd side my wager with the money.
By far this was the best episode in the whole series. The writers were really on the ball inspite of the inherent disposability of the crew. By the end of that episode I actually felt sad because the duplicate crew's bravery and sacrifice ended up being in vain, and I really wanted them to make it. Hell, with that quality of writing I would just as soon as had the original crew die and let the duplicates take their place. I could also relate to the shock and sorrow they must have felt when they found out that they weren't who they thought they were. Now that says alot considering that most books or tv shows fail to move me one way or the other. My second favorite would have to be the episode where the crew encounters a telepathic memorial that makes them relive the traumatic events leading up to an alien war time tradgedy. These episodes were thoughtful and added a human touch to what would otherwise be soft speculative fiction. These episodes are a glimse of what could have been had the show not been on such a fan pleasing course.
Voyager had potential, but poor writing, casting (I think that Robert Beltram and Kate Mulgrew would have done well to reverse roles), and execution ruined it from the get go. The signature of TNG was wonder and discovery (Think the Inner Light, or Tin Man), for DS9 it was intricate plots and rich character developement, for Voyager it was hackneyed fan pleasing and an effeminate ship and crew. Oh, and lets not forget the original series which though cheesy, was rich in allegory and fun to watch when I was a child. The new series might have potential as well, but it's not worth it for me to waste 200 hours of my life to catch two good hours of tv. For that matter my tv doesn't work anymore, and I am not in any hurry to change that situation.
"Where does the spending end?"
.NET and other pay per-use-ware will probably drive me to Linux eventually. Besides, I think the whole installation/uninstallation situation is pretty much a cross platform problem for which there are not a whole lot of solutions that don't involve tedious and uneccesary work for the end user or administrator. Granted, an admin running a production box is going to have to pay more attention to details than a home user like myself.
Ha ha ha ha! Good one, what makes you assume that it ever began?!
Seriously, I am not an advocate for Windows beyond the fact that it suits my current purposes just fine as a gamer and home user. Now
I'm one of those crazy people who have better things to do with my time than hunt down every small change a program makes while installing itself. There are programs for Windows like CleanSweep and such that automate this tedious task. As far as I'm concerned every commercial program should come with an uninstaller that comepletely removes any trace of the program and undoes any alterations the installer made. Too bad that not all comercial entities have the consumer's best interests at heart, otherwise there wouldn't be any spyware or a need for utilities like Cleansweep in the first place.
Yeah, I suppose that I could take the time and go through the hassle and expense to travel to the Library of Congress from Ohio. I don't think they charge an entrance fee, but I have never been there and couldn't tell you for sure. If I don't have the time, money or means to travel, or the issue that I wish to research doesn't justify the expense then that would be a significant barrier to this so called public information. You could put important information inside a canister and blast it up into orbit and call it publicly available. Taxpayers, (Pretty much everyone living in America) have already paid for any information that our government generates. My point before and now is this, any government agency has the responsibility and duty to disseminate information in the most convenient and economical manner to the people. Granted, I am not opposed to a small and REALISTIC filing fee to cover the cost to look up and print a document, but the overall cost of making information available online should be negligible.
In this day and age, yes, public does mean available on the internet. It is only common sense that when information is made public, it should be disseminated in an inexpensive, highly visable, and accessable fashion. The internet fits those bills, the physical facility of the Library of Congress doesn't. Sooner, rather than later, I'd like to see more government and public information on the net. It would greatly lower the cost and effort to make our government accountable and for us to understand the laws that we are expected to obey.
I used to be one of those hard working stupid people who actually felt the need to go out and make things or do something productive. But cost of living inflation along with wage deflation have changed my mind. I'd much rather be one of the capital owning people who produce nothing and suck off the poor than to be one of the poor. In an ideal world everyone could be rich, live well, and be free. Too bad this isn't an ideal world. Not that it couldn't be, but human nature in the form of greed, scarcity mentality, and complacency will ensure that such a utopia will never come to pass. So, I will sell real estate, eventually own real estate, suck my tenents dry like a feudal lord etc... If the order of things is going to suck, it's better for them to suck worse for someone else. Though I suppose owning land and living off rental income isn't as evil as buying diamonds and supporting the rebels/mafia in Seira Leone who cut off young men and womens limbs with machetes to further their ends. How can a person spend and make money without furthering someone else's misery or misfortune and still live a modern and comfortable lifestyle in America. Christ! I can't even buy a decent pair of sneakers that isn't the product of child slave labor. END RANT
"So either join the crowd or get beat down." -- Unknown
I disagree on the implanted chip for tracking purposes. By 2050, obiquitous cameras, AI, highly integrated networks, and advanced biometric recogition software will make it effortless for any large organization or government to track any given individual everywhere they go. As if that isn't enough, we already are trackable with the use of bugs we carry and use such as cell phones, credit cards, pagers, etc... In summary, there are so many easy ways to steal your privacy and track you that the only possible use for a chip would be for biometric information to gauge your thoughts and feelings. Oh, oops, I guess that one could be snuck in as a sort of biometric monitor to "protect" and promote our general well being, or as a weapon in the war against drugs. On further thought, you make a good point, if somewhat incomplete.
Actually, I'll disagree with you on the educational front as well. Dictatorial leaders will not be glorified in America because education in general will be far too dumbed down to include such lessons. Most schooling for the serf class of non wealth, non land owning, non capital holding, unwashed, lower classes etc.. will be involved with teaching just enough to make them into perfect worker drone consumers. Now, the rich and priviledged will receive a highly conformist, laize-faire capitalist, social Darwinist education that will let their collective concience rest easy as they suck the less "worthy" dry of opportunity and life to feed their greedy, bloated, and hedonistic lifestyles.
I think that Douglas Adams wouldn't have wanted the Hitchikers Guide series to be considered his pinacle achievement, he showed sort of a testines towards his fans, then as of late a somewhat grudging acceptance of the popularity of his work. How would his spirit take all the Guide quotes being bandied about today on Slashdot? Would he take them in the spirit of fun and goodwill intended? Or would it be just another reminder to him that he was recognized as more of a one trick pony rather than the diverse writer he wished to be? With the mostly unread and unmentioned Last Chance to See the only other non Guide related book he wrote, the Guide series will stand as his greatest and most popular works whether he wanted them to or not. Had he lived another twenty or thirty years he may very well have broken the mold he had inadvertently cast for himself. Then again he may not have. At forty nine he has left this world too soon with too much undone and he will be missed.
Hmmm, I have never met a Rick I liked. Maybe some of the good Ricks need to come out and represent before the name Rick becomes synonomous with asshole.