To some extent, we all "own" Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker, Rick Blaine.
I'd have to disagree. You may "feel" like you own them, but the specific characters are owned by those who created them.
Characters and settings take on a life of their own and, to an extent, pass beyond the control of the creators.
True to an extent. You're free to take any characters you want and write a story about them but just try and sell a story with Captain Kirk or any of the others without permission and see how far you get.
I see fanfic as the reverse of Disneyfication: The Great Banal Mouse likes to take common folktales and appropriate the characters. (Go ahead, just try to make an animated movie about Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin. These were part of the culture long before The Great Banal Mouse seized them.) Disney takes what is common property and fences it off as its own.
Again I disagree. It's the manner in which the story is told that is unique to Disney, not the story itself. I have read that every story ever written can be boiled down to a finite set of "plots". You could easily make an animated Snow White movie. Obviously it couldn't be set in a forest or have a wicked queen etc. etc. but just like West Side Story is an updated Romeo and Juliet, it could be done.
Fanfic does the opposite. It liberates fenced-off IP, moving characters and settings out of the realm of the few and into the hands of the society at large.
Umm, no. Fanfic is written by people who use their imaginations to create stories about characters that someone else has already created. They have found characters that they like and they put them in situations that they would like to see them in. This is much easier than creating your own characters from scratch. The "society at large" has no right to the "fenced-off IP" of "the few". Essentially they are doing the same thing as if I wrote my own lyrics to some song I heard on the radio. I'm certainly able to do that, but I also don't "own" the song. Nor do I own any character from the original if I choose to use them in a new setting.
You are right dead on with the want ads. I'm currently looking for a job and have probably ruled myself out of applying to many because of requirements that after I really look at them are totally insane. One of these days I'm just gonna start calling these people up and call them on it.
Getting an MCSE has nothing to do with writing sample code OR answering algorithm questions. MCSE's are not programmers. You should be asking them how to set up multiple domains, WINS, DHCP, how a client gets authenticated etc etc. If you're looking for sample code from MCSE's you're barking up the wrong tree. Try MCSD's.
Excellent idea. That cert sounds like it was tailor made for me. Although I do have an MCSE I am also learning how to do lots of things fairly well but not well enough to be certified. Or how about one for people who can figure out how to do something quickly even without experience in it. Using only their brains, applying what they do know and making use of the FM (as in RTFM)
The idea behind the post, obviously, was that this particular troll would be ecstatic if he could find a mate who shared his excitement when he pours hot grits down his pants. This goal, combined with his obvious Natalie Portman fetish, is a rather common topic on slashdot.
Unfortunately finding this troll a mate isn't the topic of this article.
Wistfully, he/she posted "I wonder...if Natalie Portman likes pouring hot grits down her pants, too!" Now consider what would happen if this poster, equipped with one of the devices the story references, were to run into Miss Portman, and discovered that she did, indeed, like hot grits down her pants? I think, and I can imagine you all agree, that he would be both on-topic, and scored +5/interesting.
The topic also isn't whether or not Miss Portman likes hot grits poured down her pants. Nor is it related to any specific behaviours enjoyed by users of the pager, it's about the use of the pager in general. Plus Natalie Portman doesn't live in Japan and doesn't have one of the pagers so the point is moot. If he/she had wondered if Sarah Michelle Gellar liked it up the ass or if Cameron Diaz spit or swallowed, would this also be on-topic? Do you see where I'm going with this? Any number of people could post questions whether or not some person or other liked this or that. And they'd all be off-topic and trolling. I do assume you were kidding though, but I just had to let it out.
Re:I bet they are popular...
on
Date Pagers
·
· Score: 1
I think you're missing the fact that "weak-minded pushover type" women would also have to program their pagers to respond to those characteristics. How would they identify "potential victims of rape and abduction"? Like some woman is going to program hers to say "I'm a victim, abuse me, I have no self-esteem. I don't like sex but if you force me I won't fight." Please. Give women some credit.
Normally I ignore people like you, but hell it's early and I'm bored. First of all, exactly why do you think Katz's writing sucks? Be specific, use examples. Is it poor spelling? Poor grammar? Poor article organization? Just what is it you don't like?
Second, the only occurances of the word "rampage" that I found on the page were the three in your post. Perhaps you should rethink your script idea.
Third, this topic is certainly "stuff that matters". Of course you wouldn't know that since you didn't read the article. You saw it was posted by Jon Katz and flamed away.
I tend to agree. At some point they have to stop trying to build their "brand" and start concentrating on making a profit. From what I remember reading somewhere, they're losing money because they are putting so much into building a brand name. According to Tim they are already the place to go to search for books or publishing info etc. So it seems it's about time to start looking at turning a profit. Hell, a company that uses 2-click shopping but turns a profit will kick Amazon's ass if they don't watch it.
Shut the fuck up. Which lame ass moderator labeled this as funny? It isn't. It's bullshit, it's redundant (not to this topic but Slashdot in general) and it's offtopic.
And if I understand it right the software company has no obligation to guarantee that their product will work. So if it doesn't work, or somehow screws up your system and you don't pay because their software doesn't perform the way they said it would, you're still screwed. The way I understand this "law" is that all the burden is on the consumer and none on the software company. And as a consumer you have absolutely no avenue to pursue if software is shitty or doesn't work or crashes or has bugs or....whatever. Plain and simple this law sucks.
I was with Earthlink and that was the only type of basic DSL service they offered, using PacBell's DSL lines and equipment of course. So I switched to PacBell to get a static IP. Earthlink was using some kind of "dial-up" DSL service and I didn't like that. I was lucky in that I got a static IP for the "basic" rate. If I am forced to switch when my year's contract expires then I will also be looking for another ISP and DSL option.
She walked by with her kid and saw the kids looking at porn.
And so? Are these kids now scarred for life? Are they now destined for mental institutions? Will they be unable to do algebra in 8th grade? An earlier poster mentioned he had written asking for information as to what harm happens when children are exposed to porn. I would like to know as well. Certainly 99.9% of people would agree that children shouldn't be looking at porn, and I'd have to agree, but what, other than everyone agrees it's bad, is the reason? I'm not advocating that children look at porn, but I would like something besides "it's bad, everyone knows it's bad, and that's why it's bad because everyone knows it is" It seems like people think the reason is so self-evident that it doesn't need to be explained but I'm hard pressed to figure out how an 8yr old seeing a woman's breasts is going to harm him for life.
yeah right. I'm assuming your trolling. My college statistics teacher was an asian woman. Phd, the whole works. I got a D. I'm a male and I can't do math to save my life. but I don't care cause I hate it. Remember Winnie from "The Wonder Years"? She majored in math. Wrote a paper that solved some equation or some shit that hadn't been solved before. Girls can do math. Some guys can't do math. Has nothing to do with what sex you are.
For the most part I agree with you. Until the last sentence. I think the occasional self-congratulation is appropriate as long as it doesn't cause the community to rest on their laurels, which is what your point was as I see it. Linux has come a long way and it doesn't hurt to see someone from the "suits" category learning to use it and do productive work with it. Hopefully stories like this will just make the developers that much more committed to improving the software. I think it is imperative to stop and take a look at what you've accomplished once in a while.
Personally I hope AOL gets screwed on this deal. If I encounter a question asking if a program should be the "default" program and I answer "yes" I expect that program to be the first one to handle a given situation. I do not however expect that application to disable all other programs that "could" handle it. Nor do I expect it to mess with my system settings beyond changing the registry to make itself the program that by default handles certain filetypes and functions. And I consider myself computer literate. What chance does your average user have in understanding what the ramifications of answering "yes" are? Even if they did read the "About AOL 5.0" documents and the Installation guide, or God forbid the license agreement. Ideally AOL would add a section to the dialogue box stating that by choosing "yes" all other internet connections will be disabled and AOL will take over all functions and connections related to the internet. Of course they won't do that because they don't want you to know that. Once again I hope they get burned and bad.
They do in fact have different levels of support including the number of support incident calls etc. Also, the "free" knowledge base isn't all there is. Most bug fixes are free only if it solves your problem, but you have to call them, they email it to you with a password to unzip it, and then they call back to see if it fixed your problem. If it didn't then they charge you for additional support. See this link http://support.microsoft.com/directory/factsheets/ premmcsp.doc for the premium support of which I speak.
Obviously I did and that's what I normally used. Unfortunately that's not all the information. See http://support.microsoft.com/directory/factsheets/ premmcsp.doc and check out the features, then check towards the bottom. Notice the pricing options. The point is, there is more information that MS has that they don't give you unless you pay.
Change the demographics, and the advertising will change to follow suit.
But how do you change the demographics? That's the question. And going one step further, should it be changed? Are the violence oriented games covered by the mags something most females would like if only they were approached in the right way? If you think yes, do you create different ads or do you hope by some miracle the demographics change and then you advertise to them? As I see it the whole point of advertising is to create demand. Some ads are targeted to your "most likely to buy" sector and some are targeted to increasing your market share or expanding into previously untapped markets. Ads targeted to women may get them to take a look, but will they stay? You'll have to ask some women for that answer.
Slashdot Mirror
If you read real close, CT liked Gladiator.
To some extent, we all "own" Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker, Rick Blaine.
I'd have to disagree. You may "feel" like you own them, but the specific characters are owned by those who created them.
Characters and settings take on a life of their own and, to an extent, pass beyond the control of the creators.
True to an extent. You're free to take any characters you want and write a story about them but just try and sell a story with Captain Kirk or any of the others without permission and see how far you get.
I see fanfic as the reverse of Disneyfication: The Great Banal Mouse likes to take common folktales and appropriate the characters. (Go ahead, just try to make an animated movie about Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin. These were part of the culture long before The Great Banal Mouse seized them.) Disney takes what is common property and fences it off as its own.
Again I disagree. It's the manner in which the story is told that is unique to Disney, not the story itself. I have read that every story ever written can be boiled down to a finite set of "plots". You could easily make an animated Snow White movie. Obviously it couldn't be set in a forest or have a wicked queen etc. etc. but just like West Side Story is an updated Romeo and Juliet, it could be done.
Fanfic does the opposite. It liberates fenced-off IP, moving characters and settings out of the realm of the few and into the hands of the society at large.
Umm, no. Fanfic is written by people who use their imaginations to create stories about characters that someone else has already created. They have found characters that they like and they put them in situations that they would like to see them in. This is much easier than creating your own characters from scratch. The "society at large" has no right to the "fenced-off IP" of "the few". Essentially they are doing the same thing as if I wrote my own lyrics to some song I heard on the radio. I'm certainly able to do that, but I also don't "own" the song. Nor do I own any character from the original if I choose to use them in a new setting.
No wonder geeks had such a bad name for so long. You people are waaaay too serious.
There was an article (and corresponding story on Slashdot) yesterday that addresses artist's reactions to mp3's. Specifically Napster.
You are right dead on with the want ads. I'm currently looking for a job and have probably ruled myself out of applying to many because of requirements that after I really look at them are totally insane. One of these days I'm just gonna start calling these people up and call them on it.
Getting an MCSE has nothing to do with writing sample code OR answering algorithm questions. MCSE's are not programmers. You should be asking them how to set up multiple domains, WINS, DHCP, how a client gets authenticated etc etc. If you're looking for sample code from MCSE's you're barking up the wrong tree. Try MCSD's.
Excellent idea. That cert sounds like it was tailor made for me. Although I do have an MCSE I am also learning how to do lots of things fairly well but not well enough to be certified.
Or how about one for people who can figure out how to do something quickly even without experience in it. Using only their brains, applying what they do know and making use of the FM (as in RTFM)
The idea behind the post, obviously, was that this particular troll would be ecstatic if he could find a mate who shared his excitement when he pours hot grits down his pants. This goal, combined with his obvious Natalie Portman fetish, is a rather common topic on slashdot.
Unfortunately finding this troll a mate isn't the topic of this article.
Wistfully, he/she posted "I wonder...if Natalie Portman likes pouring hot grits down her pants, too!" Now consider what would happen if this poster, equipped with one of the devices the story references, were to run into Miss Portman, and discovered that she did, indeed, like hot grits down her pants? I think, and I can imagine you all agree, that he would be both on-topic, and scored +5/interesting.
The topic also isn't whether or not Miss Portman likes hot grits poured down her pants. Nor is it related to any specific behaviours enjoyed by users of the pager, it's about the use of the pager in general. Plus Natalie Portman doesn't live in Japan and doesn't have one of the pagers so the point is moot. If he/she had wondered if Sarah Michelle Gellar liked it up the ass or if Cameron Diaz spit or swallowed, would this also be on-topic? Do you see where I'm going with this? Any number of people could post questions whether or not some person or other liked this or that. And they'd all be off-topic and trolling. I do assume you were kidding though, but I just had to let it out.
I think you're missing the fact that "weak-minded pushover type" women would also have to program their pagers to respond to those characteristics.
How would they identify "potential victims of rape and abduction"? Like some woman is going to program hers to say "I'm a victim, abuse me, I have no self-esteem. I don't like sex but if you force me I won't fight." Please. Give women some credit.
Normally I ignore people like you, but hell it's early and I'm bored.
First of all, exactly why do you think Katz's writing sucks? Be specific, use examples. Is it poor spelling? Poor grammar? Poor article organization? Just what is it you don't like?
Second, the only occurances of the word "rampage" that I found on the page were the three in your post. Perhaps you should rethink your script idea.
Third, this topic is certainly "stuff that matters". Of course you wouldn't know that since you didn't read the article. You saw it was posted by Jon Katz and flamed away.
I tend to agree. At some point they have to stop trying to build their "brand" and start concentrating on making a profit. From what I remember reading somewhere, they're losing money because they are putting so much into building a brand name. According to Tim they are already the place to go to search for books or publishing info etc. So it seems it's about time to start looking at turning a profit.
Hell, a company that uses 2-click shopping but turns a profit will kick Amazon's ass if they don't watch it.
Shut the fuck up. Which lame ass moderator labeled this as funny? It isn't. It's bullshit, it's redundant (not to this topic but Slashdot in general) and it's offtopic.
And if I understand it right the software company has no obligation to guarantee that their product will work. So if it doesn't work, or somehow screws up your system and you don't pay because their software doesn't perform the way they said it would, you're still screwed.
The way I understand this "law" is that all the burden is on the consumer and none on the software company. And as a consumer you have absolutely no avenue to pursue if software is shitty or doesn't work or crashes or has bugs or....whatever.
Plain and simple this law sucks.
For crying out loud, can't someone stop this shit?
I was with Earthlink and that was the only type of basic DSL service they offered, using PacBell's DSL lines and equipment of course. So I switched to PacBell to get a static IP. Earthlink was using some kind of "dial-up" DSL service and I didn't like that. I was lucky in that I got a static IP for the "basic" rate. If I am forced to switch when my year's contract expires then I will also be looking for another ISP and DSL option.
She walked by with her kid and saw the kids looking at porn.
And so? Are these kids now scarred for life? Are they now destined for mental institutions? Will they be unable to do algebra in 8th grade?
An earlier poster mentioned he had written asking for information as to what harm happens when children are exposed to porn. I would like to know as well. Certainly 99.9% of people would agree that children shouldn't be looking at porn, and I'd have to agree, but what, other than everyone agrees it's bad, is the reason?
I'm not advocating that children look at porn, but I would like something besides "it's bad, everyone knows it's bad, and that's why it's bad because everyone knows it is" It seems like people think the reason is so self-evident that it doesn't need to be explained but I'm hard pressed to figure out how an 8yr old seeing a woman's breasts is going to harm him for life.
swap the latex for thin cotton and you're golden!
You'll win every time.
yeah right. I'm assuming your trolling. My college statistics teacher was an asian woman. Phd, the whole works. I got a D.
I'm a male and I can't do math to save my life. but I don't care cause I hate it.
Remember Winnie from "The Wonder Years"? She majored in math. Wrote a paper that solved some equation or some shit that hadn't been solved before. Girls can do math. Some guys can't do math. Has nothing to do with what sex you are.
For the most part I agree with you. Until the last sentence. I think the occasional self-congratulation is appropriate as long as it doesn't cause the community to rest on their laurels, which is what your point was as I see it. Linux has come a long way and it doesn't hurt to see someone from the "suits" category learning to use it and do productive work with it. Hopefully stories like this will just make the developers that much more committed to improving the software.
I think it is imperative to stop and take a look at what you've accomplished once in a while.
Personally I hope AOL gets screwed on this deal. If I encounter a question asking if a program should be the "default" program and I answer "yes" I expect that program to be the first one to handle a given situation. I do not however expect that application to disable all other programs that "could" handle it. Nor do I expect it to mess with my system settings beyond changing the registry to make itself the program that by default handles certain filetypes and functions.
And I consider myself computer literate. What chance does your average user have in understanding what the ramifications of answering "yes" are? Even if they did read the "About AOL 5.0" documents and the Installation guide, or God forbid the license agreement.
Ideally AOL would add a section to the dialogue box stating that by choosing "yes" all other internet connections will be disabled and AOL will take over all functions and connections related to the internet. Of course they won't do that because they don't want you to know that.
Once again I hope they get burned and bad.
By definition the first post can't possibly be redundant.
As a moderator on this one, I appreciate your concern. Oops I replied, guess I can't moderate on this one! Gosh darn it! Heh, heh heh
They do in fact have different levels of support including the number of support incident calls etc. Also, the "free" knowledge base isn't all there is. Most bug fixes are free only if it solves your problem, but you have to call them, they email it to you with a password to unzip it, and then they call back to see if it fixed your problem. If it didn't then they charge you for additional support./ premmcsp.doc for the premium support of which I speak.
See this link http://support.microsoft.com/directory/factsheets
Obviously I did and that's what I normally used. Unfortunately that's not all the information./ premmcsp.doc and check out the features, then check towards the bottom. Notice the pricing options. The point is, there is more information that MS has that they don't give you unless you pay.
See http://support.microsoft.com/directory/factsheets
But how do you change the demographics? That's the question. And going one step further, should it be changed? Are the violence oriented games covered by the mags something most females would like if only they were approached in the right way? If you think yes, do you create different ads or do you hope by some miracle the demographics change and then you advertise to them? As I see it the whole point of advertising is to create demand. Some ads are targeted to your "most likely to buy" sector and some are targeted to increasing your market share or expanding into previously untapped markets. Ads targeted to women may get them to take a look, but will they stay? You'll have to ask some women for that answer.