I work in television. I am a videographer with ten years of experience shooting on everything short of film, daily. I scrutinize the television images I get daily. I love the HDTV at the lobby of my office. I love the image.
There is no way in hell I am going to buy one.
Simply put, a great looking image over a pretty great looking image is not worth three #$%^ thousand dollars.
My CRT television looks great. It handles television well. It's big, and it cost me a whopping $400 new a long, long time ago, which I almost had a heart attack buying. No way in hell I'm spending anything near a large percentage of my earnings on a television.
Guys, I make TV. I am starting to produce on my own, and I will tell you this: I would rather spend the money on a Canon XL2 or Sony Z1U before I would buy a plasma. Sorry, it's the truth.
Make your own TV. That's the way it is going.
I'm not going to spend the rest of my life going, "Oooohhh. Pretty flowers."
I told them that I was walking off of the job, RIGHT NOW, and that was all there was to it.
One of the bosses got upset with me and said that it was discourteous to do something like that. You should give two weeks notice that it would get back to you later and you might not be able to get a job for a stunt like that.
I then told them that my employment was a contract where you paid me for services, and if you fired me, you would walk me out of the building immediately.
"So, I'm firing you. You're all incompetent, and the system is failing due to that. Consider my vacant position as a sign of things to come."
When I walked it stirred people. That next week they lost three. Two more quit the next week. I was an underground leader of the staff, and when I went, the whole place saw my lead and thought it wasn't worth it.
All in all, it was the most worthy thing I've done in years.
Someday I will be sitting at home trying to make a home movie DVD of my child and as I hit the burn button on my computer, it will say-
*Please wait while an authorized MPAA representative watches a sample of your work for confirmation of any copyright infringement, we regret any inconvenience this may cause you*
Currently I have a AMD 64 bit processor and no way to really use it effectively, and no real effort to do it. Do I really want to re-iso my drive and buy winpro to do it? FUCK NO. Jesus fucking christ MS, these x64 processors have been around for fucking years. YEARS! And now you address it only in PRO? What a bunch of bastards.
If DRM comes around full, and screws everyone, then I will go for the mild screwjob of a Mac, because the price point for a system that actually works will finally happen. Right now, macs are way too fucking expensive for the rig I want.
The only real reason that I am staying on Win right now is gaming. When the next gen consoles come out, Adios baby. I'll be gaming without the PC. Screw it. I want a 'Tendo.
Mac world, I'm coming. I'm saving money to be there. Personally, I am exhausted with all of these forced restarts and buggy issues, so when I can get the new cool game on a home system at the same time as PC? Adios baby./canopy blows and pilot pops out
irst and foremost on that list was full virtualization of texture mapping in graphics hardware. Carmack decried the "fallacy" that "procedural synthesis will be worth a damn," arguing that programmers spending hours creating procedural shaders isn't the best way forward. Instead, he said, tools should unleash artists. He called the current tiled texture analogy a crude form of compression, and argued that true unique texturing in graphics would be a massive leap in visual fidelity over current practices. To that end, Carmack asked for virtual page tables in graphics hardware with 64-bit addressing.
Damn. Could someone give me some Cliff's notes on this?
The REAL problem is that our society does not LIKE smart people, it prefers jocks. It starts in grade school with the teasing of the "smart kid" and progresses through High School where large football players with brains the size of walnuts play whack-a-mole with kids half their size and three times their intellect. When we become adults are we, defined as popular society, more interested in learning about the latest advance in Physics or what Brittney Spears had for breakfest?
This is all too simple to explain, so, everyone, grab your bell distribution curve. Look, some people's minds can only go so far. Also, teachers are subject to this rule, and you're also trained by the average teacher, who is, well, AVERAGE, so you can't expect anything but average skills from that.
It is the bell curve, people. Take a distribution of people, and say, look at all of the slashdotters out there. You're all probably at least 1/400 distribution, with a few 1/2000 out there. You're just not "them." If you look at your average high school, then you get a pretty solid sample. It's all average people. They won't hold you up on high because of your intellect. They will never be there. They live in the "lower towns" of intellect. They repeat a phrase they liked a little too much; synthesize those thoughts a little too slowly if at all. They are a carnival barker's dream. They will always be a little too fascinated with explosions in Michael Bay movies, booty, and cars (things that you can shut out and control via your mind if you really want to). For a lot of them that is about as good as it gets. How could they see beyond that? Do you think most of humanity can see beyond the clouds in their mind's eye?
So why are they anti-intellectuals? Because that makes them take back the power. If you can't controll it? Destroy it. That is dominance 101 from the stones and bones era. It will always be that way. If they recognize that you are smarter than them, you're a liability to their dominance, and should be belittled if not outright attacked. This is as old as it comes. This is just as common with conversations as it is with kalashnikovs.
What you will all have to learn is that you have been given an invaluable gift, and to not resent your fellow man by living in their world.
YES I SAID IT. You have to face that you're living in their world. You're just an uncommon ofshoot of biodiversity. You could have been an American Gladiators studio audience member too. You just got lucky in one of the dice rolls.
Oh, and screw fucking China. The bell curve hits just as strong there as anywhere else. They're not special. NO ONE IS. BTW, on a societal level, no one is that fucking smart. I don't care if they can use an abacus faster than us. Who gives a shiat?!? Burt Rutan built a spaceship in an airplane hanger with a couple mil and a few engineers. When China starts cranking out the advances that make me gasp in wonder, then I'll worry.
But let's be honest: China has made so many cool advances in absolutely NOTHING, that I am having a tough time holding up this blank NYC phone book of scientific achievements.
"Asians good at math? You don't say? Why, that will surely be the ruination of our societay!"
Look, intelligence just pops up, and it is found usually everywhere, under a bell curve. If China wants to spend all their time making engineers, then go ahead. They'll have a few good engineers based on population, and an absolute load of useless, mediocre, should-never-have-been-an-engineer types.
Then the Chinese can really hunker down and engineer some really excellent NOTHING.
"They might feel bad, but I guess they feel bad about it in the same way that Satan would feel bad about killing children in a freeway pileup. "Whoops! *Chuckle*!""
The same way god felt bad after killing the first born child of every Egyptian? (Exodus 11:1-12:30)
First, Satan is a fictional character I was using as an example. Bugs Bunny would have been better. Second, you really had to go back to the Old Testament for that one. Third, I am really sorry that I smeared the good name of Satan for you there.
So when I use a goofy metaphor to try to describe a group's lack of concern for collateral damage, don't start hitting me back with fictional books, fictional events, fictional characters, and use fictional wrongs against me to counter a slight when I offend your lord, the fictional Satan.
But don't let me get in the way of your seething hatred for Bush (who didn't pass the law, congress did.)
He signed it. So he passed it. Take a class, genius. I work in news. You want DVD or VHS?
Besides, what is the point? You think that I am shocked that members of congress are on the payrolls of Chase and Citigroup?
I have a complete ton of my Republican friends that hated this bill. Most financial counselors hate this bill. And they know more about it than both of us combined.
You seemed to lock in on the bankruptcy law, that you seem to know so much about. Did you know that over 80% of all bankruptcies occur because of major medical problems? That's right! Most bankruptcies cannot be avoided! Now, now you have lifetime debtors because of a major illness. Someone who can never afford children again, can never drive a new car again, or anything like that, and most of them got seriously ill, and there was nothing they could do about it. Don't you feel like an ass now?
"Oh, but medical bills are excluded from the legislation!"
Medical bills are explicitly excluded from this, you say?
Well goody for us. YOU CAN'T WORK WHEN YOU HAVE A DEBILITATING ILLNESS. SO ALL THE OTHER THINGS THAT GO FALLOW WHILE YOU DEAL WITH THIS, LIKE YOUR JOB YOU CAN'T GO TO ARE THE BILLS THAT GET YOU.
Do you have two years living expenses laying around? Do you? NO ONE DOES.
It's the idiots like you that drive me insane. Bankruptcy is a vehicle to avoid lifetime indebtedness. A kind of external debtors prison. If you get catastrophically ill, you cannot work. This pulls the rug out from under people.
What about the other things I said?
The loan sharking? The 150 credit card offers I get a year?
No punitive damages to these data losers?
The new Social Security owned by corporations?
Nah, don't refute me on those. Go after the bankruptcy thing. You're right, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But some people lose money in the real world because of nothing they ever did, and it should not haunt them for the rest of their lives.
I expect this will take a big class action lawsuit, but if I were a company of any size which handled confidential client data, I would be scrambling for a way to reduce my liability.
You think that anyone is going to prosecute big banking? The president just signed a custom built banker's bill to make bankruptcies by private citizens tougher in the event of catastrophic illness. Say what you will about liability, but just getting that bill to the president's desk means it had to get through the House and Senate and finance before it even got to his desk.
Besides, this is all just a warmup. You'll just belly laugh when they slide debtor's prison back on 'ol Franklin's desk, and Citibank's CEO gets the President's pen for it.
Trust me. There will be no Senate inquiry about all of these banks screwing your life up.
Well, that is because credit card companies don't care about you on a cosmic level. Damn right they never cared about your data. Hell, they sold it to every company on the planet already!
Why would they? What are you going to do? "Cancel your card? YOU HAVE A BALANCE! MUAAHHAHAHHHAHA! Fraud you say? Yeah, right! I don't care if you have Cancer, get back to work you deadbeat."
Most of America is in a you're-screwed-bonus-round with these jackasses. They give a crap about your data. These are the same generous, kind, and loving souls that sold you out to begin with. Everybody at light-my-fart.com got your name and address from them, why shouldn't they just get the freakin' credit card numbers, too?
Credit card companies are the big banking's little thugs.
Q: What's the difference between a credit card company and a loan shark?
A: Loan sharks tell you up front what they're going to do if you don't pay up.
Look, they never cared. They might feel bad, but I guess they feel bad about it in the same way that Satan would feel bad about killing children in a freeway pileup. "Whoops! *Chuckle*!"
Nothing punitive is ever going to come of this. If you have any doubts, recognize this:
Didn't our wonderful President just sign a bill for you to never be able to declare bankruptcy, even if you get freakin' terminally ill? I wonder who wrote that gem of a law for the people? Hmmmm. The President could give you a NO THANK YOU option on Social Security for the generations that will get nothing. That didn't happen. He wants to FORCE you to put your social security money in a special PRIVATELY OWNED BANK right now, in a way that you can never touch it. Wow. Who put that racket together?!? He's spending every waking moment touring the country supporting that agenda! Golly Gee whiz, I wonder who helped him see the light on that? I for one, trust our corporate masters. They would never screw us over. Never.
Trust me. Nothing will ever come of this. You have been warned.
Gee, I wonder why Nintendo would be so scared about theft?
Could it be that Sony and Microsoft have stolen their best ideas and used them against them? The better question you should be asking yourself is this: What exactly hasn't been stolen by Microsoft and Sony?
Sony and Microsoft are such innovators.
Ask JVC how their VHS sales were. And after that, ask Apple how their icon operating system turned out for them. There is such a high moral ground with them. They never steal someone's idea and run with it.
Nintendo is practically the R&D department for Sony and Microsoft. They should just cut them a check for a percentage of their great ideas. "Hey thanks for the great idea Shiggy!"
Ask yourself this, do you really think that this week's FPS is the best game of all time because it adds some new features, or are you too nearsighted to respect something like Pikmin, which creates a new genre? I don't care about the torque engine to make my blood splatters better. Where are the Xbox and Sony games that bend my mind? Where are they? Where is their strategic vision beyond marketing data that tells them that Madden is popular and people like FPS games? THEY HAVE NO VISION. They don't have a creator mentality. They have Project Snowblind. Whoop de crap. Another FPS? Yeeehaw! Everything, and I do mean everything, that Sony and Microsoft have learned in the video game industry they learned by watching Nintendo.
I bet you're the person that doesn't like to cook because of the hassle, right? Just not into this creativity thing, eh?
But let's not just ask you, let's ask MS and Sony. Just look at who MS and Sony talk smack about. Not each other. That should tell you right off who they respect the most. Certainly isn't each other. They aren't jealous of ricer racing and card battle games.
Anything that slows down the transparency in government, or the free telling of the occurrences in government, is in essence, is censorship.
This just happens to be time censorship.
In America, there would have been cameras in the meetings and conversation all over the country. All this does is not make any public videotape available to those that would like to know, and helps minimize the impact and importance to the public.
Man, every time I screwed up, I would love to make everyone talk about this later so I could have enough time to set up alibis and work out counterarguments. Also, I would like for there to be no cameras, so in a short while, everyone would have nothing to see. Especially when the wanted to see my real face twisting to the lies and bad things I did.
*Poof* "It was all a dream, and happened long ago, and no one cared about it then, so why now?"
I don't think he's on our side... Take a look at this comment:
MC: I have no problem with it at all. If you steal, you are wrong. You should have to deal with the consequences. We have plenty of laws on the book to make sure that happens.
Judging from your comments, I would say that you're not on OUR SIDE. You're only on YOUR SIDE. You're on the side of unfettered theft of other people's hard work and original ideas. You're chillin' with the credit card thieves. The ones that use their knowledge to steal. There is no justification for immoral behavior, digital or analog.
This is exactly what is ruining it for the rest of us.
The true push for computing, the real game that is going on is to make sure that computers and computing can evolve, and that the ideas of programming like P2P don't become outlawed. This is the true manner of what big thinkers like Cuban are trying to prevent the small thinking, greedy minds from doing with the law. Cuban is trying to make sure that it isn't illegal to own a type of computer program, or format, or using a computing style is outlawed. Code is just thoughts and actions expressed in numbers, just like sheet music is just dots that represent sounds and ideas. Let's not let code become thoughtcrime, shall we?
A beautiful world where a man can text message Natalie Portman for a date is is the dream of all geeks. A better, cleaner, more transparent environment for all people to use the computers that make their lives better. Computers aren't out there so that you can be the petulant IT guy in some cube farm and lord over them with your 1337 MCSE Haxor Skillz. Computers are tools. You should have the heart of a teacher instead of the justifications of a thief, or the arrogance of a petulant child.
It is the promise of fairness and openness, what all of us, computing for all citizens, and the real advances that it makes will advance greatly. Let's make sure that jackass CEOs don't take away the ability to restrict our imagination that turns into code. The benefits are obvious and proven:
Look at Linux... look at all of the good that it has done to keep players in the software game honest. Look at the little villages that can't afford expensive computers, but can now get E-mail and news from the outside world. Look at all of the great advances that a couple of computer geeks have done for the way people communicate and live their daily lives. A lot of great ideas were taken, FOR FREE, from Linux and are used every day. It is getting better, and it is moving faster. Linux wasn't illegal, it wasn't stealing anything. It was a great idea that flourished, and it flourished because the environment was open for change.
Look at our culture, can anyone see that the entire "design culture" that corporations around the world are scrambling to get to is not directly influenced by coding, computers, and IT techs?
What if people said that Linux was illegal because people could use the program to steal credit card numbers? What happens to all of the future advances? I don't ever look forward to a day where the police kick down my door because I am not on a "trusted computing" format and could be doing wrong.
If people like you insist that open and blatant theft is what all of this computing revolution thingee was about, and that not paying people for services is what all of the people who wired their first boards together with a soldering iron was about, then hell, count me out. I got into computing as a hobby because I could do things with it, and the circle of digital friends I got from it I couldn't find in a million years in the big blue sandbox. I get to have great, mind blowing "P2P" conversation with people every night ALL OVER THE WORLD. Yes, I could use it as a tool to put the one over on someone else. But really, is that what it is all about?
You, my friend, are confused, and are not on our side. You're on the side of
I think the most signficant advances of the PSP may be in the increased network connectivity. Depending on how easily software is written for the device, I can imagine users downloading or streaming tv shows, movies, news, or other user-created content over publicly accessible wireless networks, sharing that content with other nearby and remote users, all in a completely portable and fairly straightforward manner.
So you're telling me that something playing Ridge Racer is going to start the new digital revolution that is going to change the world and productivity?
I call bullocks. The darn thing is a freakin' hopped up gameboy. Let's try to curb the otaku enthusiasm, shall we?
Well, that pretty much confirms it's a scam. The game is to file a vague patent application, continue it by incorporating actual technologies brought into use between the two applications, and use the old application to establish priority.
If it was a scam, wouldn't you think that a good set of lawyers would be able to litigate out that point? Wouldn't you say that Sony might have some of the best damn lawyers in the whole world on the payroll?
Face it, if it was a scam, then Sony would have been able to prove it with their unlimited funding for their all-powerful lawyers. They couldn't. So therefore, it wasn't a scam.
All we ever see is giant corporations abusing patents against other corporations. When a smaller business gets infringed by a global, unlimited funds company that is trying to stay ahead of innovation and still make a quarterly report that has enourmous expectations, then you call foul?
A group of people who worship and claim obedience to something that they cannot see and talk with are trying to stop showing movies that show things that are definitely real, definitely there, and definitely have a scientific explanation that can be said.
Once again, the idea of something you cannot see is trumping something that is there and you can see.
I don't think that evangelical Christians, by and large, are afraid of the marketplace of ideas. They are used to being the underdog in an ideological war.
Buddy, you're definitely not from Tennessee.
Where I come from, Christians want to control what you see, hear, and understand in the world.
One thing that I am surprised about, is that not one manufacturer of these devices have come up with the obvious, and made MP3 headphones.
Insanely stupid of them not to.
Possible Nerdcore All-Stars Tour?
on
Ask mc chris
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· Score: 1
I see the independent internet music scene making a real, honest to God run for legitimacy, although it might be some years away, it might not be nerdcore that makes it, but I am optimistic that something from the 'net will hit the mainstream and finally break the music scene wide open.
If that was nerdcore, do you honestly see yourself putting in a tour together with MC Paul Barman, Frontalot, Optimus Rhyme, or a few other good unknowns in the future, or is that so terribly un-nerdcore that the thought of it hurts?
Anyone have any good options to an iPod? I am not a fan of iTunes for some reason, and was wondering if there was anything I could get besides an iPod, CHEAPER, that would make me just as happy.
I don't care what it looks like, unless it is just ugly as hell.
Slashdot Mirror
I work in television. I am a videographer with ten years of experience shooting on everything short of film, daily. I scrutinize the television images I get daily. I love the HDTV at the lobby of my office. I love the image.
There is no way in hell I am going to buy one.
Simply put, a great looking image over a pretty great looking image is not worth three #$%^ thousand dollars.
My CRT television looks great. It handles television well. It's big, and it cost me a whopping $400 new a long, long time ago, which I almost had a heart attack buying. No way in hell I'm spending anything near a large percentage of my earnings on a television.
Guys, I make TV. I am starting to produce on my own, and I will tell you this: I would rather spend the money on a Canon XL2 or Sony Z1U before I would buy a plasma. Sorry, it's the truth.
Make your own TV. That's the way it is going.
I'm not going to spend the rest of my life going, "Oooohhh. Pretty flowers."
I told them that I was walking off of the job, RIGHT NOW, and that was all there was to it.
One of the bosses got upset with me and said that it was discourteous to do something like that. You should give two weeks notice that it would get back to you later and you might not be able to get a job for a stunt like that.
I then told them that my employment was a contract where you paid me for services, and if you fired me, you would walk me out of the building immediately.
"So, I'm firing you. You're all incompetent, and the system is failing due to that. Consider my vacant position as a sign of things to come."
When I walked it stirred people. That next week they lost three. Two more quit the next week. I was an underground leader of the staff, and when I went, the whole place saw my lead and thought it wasn't worth it.
All in all, it was the most worthy thing I've done in years.
I would highly suggest renting Gattaca.
Someday I will be sitting at home trying to make a home movie DVD of my child and as I hit the burn button on my computer, it will say-
*Please wait while an authorized MPAA representative watches a sample of your work for confirmation of any copyright infringement, we regret any inconvenience this may cause you*
You think I'm joking. I'm not. They're not.
Windows gives me absolute shit for support.
Currently I have a AMD 64 bit processor and no way to really use it effectively, and no real effort to do it. Do I really want to re-iso my drive and buy winpro to do it? FUCK NO. Jesus fucking christ MS, these x64 processors have been around for fucking years. YEARS! And now you address it only in PRO? What a bunch of bastards.
If DRM comes around full, and screws everyone, then I will go for the mild screwjob of a Mac, because the price point for a system that actually works will finally happen. Right now, macs are way too fucking expensive for the rig I want.
The only real reason that I am staying on Win right now is gaming. When the next gen consoles come out, Adios baby. I'll be gaming without the PC. Screw it. I want a 'Tendo.
Mac world, I'm coming. I'm saving money to be there. Personally, I am exhausted with all of these forced restarts and buggy issues, so when I can get the new cool game on a home system at the same time as PC? Adios baby.
irst and foremost on that list was full virtualization of texture mapping in graphics hardware. Carmack decried the "fallacy" that "procedural synthesis will be worth a damn," arguing that programmers spending hours creating procedural shaders isn't the best way forward. Instead, he said, tools should unleash artists. He called the current tiled texture analogy a crude form of compression, and argued that true unique texturing in graphics would be a massive leap in visual fidelity over current practices. To that end, Carmack asked for virtual page tables in graphics hardware with 64-bit addressing.
Damn. Could someone give me some Cliff's notes on this?
'Ol Corky here just can't handle it.
The REAL problem is that our society does not LIKE smart people, it prefers jocks.
It starts in grade school with the teasing of the "smart kid" and progresses through High School where large football players with brains the size of walnuts play whack-a-mole with kids half their size and three times their intellect.
When we become adults are we, defined as popular society, more interested in learning about the latest advance in Physics or what Brittney Spears had for breakfest?
This is all too simple to explain, so, everyone, grab your bell distribution curve. Look, some people's minds can only go so far. Also, teachers are subject to this rule, and you're also trained by the average teacher, who is, well, AVERAGE, so you can't expect anything but average skills from that.
It is the bell curve, people. Take a distribution of people, and say, look at all of the slashdotters out there. You're all probably at least 1/400 distribution, with a few 1/2000 out there. You're just not "them." If you look at your average high school, then you get a pretty solid sample. It's all average people. They won't hold you up on high because of your intellect. They will never be there. They live in the "lower towns" of intellect. They repeat a phrase they liked a little too much; synthesize those thoughts a little too slowly if at all. They are a carnival barker's dream. They will always be a little too fascinated with explosions in Michael Bay movies, booty, and cars (things that you can shut out and control via your mind if you really want to). For a lot of them that is about as good as it gets. How could they see beyond that? Do you think most of humanity can see beyond the clouds in their mind's eye?
So why are they anti-intellectuals? Because that makes them take back the power. If you can't controll it? Destroy it. That is dominance 101 from the stones and bones era. It will always be that way. If they recognize that you are smarter than them, you're a liability to their dominance, and should be belittled if not outright attacked. This is as old as it comes. This is just as common with conversations as it is with kalashnikovs.
What you will all have to learn is that you have been given an invaluable gift, and to not resent your fellow man by living in their world.
YES I SAID IT. You have to face that you're living in their world. You're just an uncommon ofshoot of biodiversity. You could have been an American Gladiators studio audience member too. You just got lucky in one of the dice rolls.
Oh, and screw fucking China. The bell curve hits just as strong there as anywhere else. They're not special. NO ONE IS. BTW, on a societal level, no one is that fucking smart. I don't care if they can use an abacus faster than us. Who gives a shiat?!? Burt Rutan built a spaceship in an airplane hanger with a couple mil and a few engineers. When China starts cranking out the advances that make me gasp in wonder, then I'll worry.
But let's be honest:
China has made so many cool advances in absolutely NOTHING, that I am having a tough time holding up this blank NYC phone book of scientific achievements.
"Asians good at math? You don't say? Why, that will surely be the ruination of our societay!"
Look, intelligence just pops up, and it is found usually everywhere, under a bell curve. If China wants to spend all their time making engineers, then go ahead. They'll have a few good engineers based on population, and an absolute load of useless, mediocre, should-never-have-been-an-engineer types.
Then the Chinese can really hunker down and engineer some really excellent NOTHING.
Six hundred bucks for a video card is outrageous given the sorry state of PC games today.
Apparently someone isn't playing the Battlefield 2 demo.
"They might feel bad, but I guess they feel bad about it in the same way that Satan would feel bad about killing children in a freeway pileup. "Whoops! *Chuckle*!""
The same way god felt bad after killing the first born child of every Egyptian? (Exodus 11:1-12:30)
First, Satan is a fictional character I was using as an example. Bugs Bunny would have been better. Second, you really had to go back to the Old Testament for that one. Third, I am really sorry that I smeared the good name of Satan for you there.
So when I use a goofy metaphor to try to describe a group's lack of concern for collateral damage, don't start hitting me back with fictional books, fictional events, fictional characters, and use fictional wrongs against me to counter a slight when I offend your lord, the fictional Satan.
But don't let me get in the way of your seething hatred for Bush (who didn't pass the law, congress did.)
He signed it. So he passed it. Take a class, genius. I work in news. You want DVD or VHS?
Besides, what is the point? You think that I am shocked that members of congress are on the payrolls of Chase and Citigroup?
I have a complete ton of my Republican friends that hated this bill. Most financial counselors hate this bill. And they know more about it than both of us combined.
Alright then, what about my other points?
You seemed to lock in on the bankruptcy law, that you seem to know so much about. Did you know that over 80% of all bankruptcies occur because of major medical problems? That's right! Most bankruptcies cannot be avoided! Now, now you have lifetime debtors because of a major illness. Someone who can never afford children again, can never drive a new car again, or anything like that, and most of them got seriously ill, and there was nothing they could do about it. Don't you feel like an ass now?
"Oh, but medical bills are excluded from the legislation!"
Medical bills are explicitly excluded from this, you say?
Well goody for us. YOU CAN'T WORK WHEN YOU HAVE A DEBILITATING ILLNESS. SO ALL THE OTHER THINGS THAT GO FALLOW WHILE YOU DEAL WITH THIS, LIKE YOUR JOB YOU CAN'T GO TO ARE THE BILLS THAT GET YOU.
Do you have two years living expenses laying around? Do you? NO ONE DOES.
It's the idiots like you that drive me insane. Bankruptcy is a vehicle to avoid lifetime indebtedness. A kind of external debtors prison. If you get catastrophically ill, you cannot work. This pulls the rug out from under people.
What about the other things I said?
The loan sharking? The 150 credit card offers I get a year?
No punitive damages to these data losers?
The new Social Security owned by corporations?
Nah, don't refute me on those. Go after the bankruptcy thing. You're right, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But some people lose money in the real world because of nothing they ever did, and it should not haunt them for the rest of their lives.
I expect this will take a big class action lawsuit, but if I were a company of any size which handled confidential client data, I would be scrambling for a way to reduce my liability.
You think that anyone is going to prosecute big banking? The president just signed a custom built banker's bill to make bankruptcies by private citizens tougher in the event of catastrophic illness. Say what you will about liability, but just getting that bill to the president's desk means it had to get through the House and Senate and finance before it even got to his desk.
Besides, this is all just a warmup. You'll just belly laugh when they slide debtor's prison back on 'ol Franklin's desk, and Citibank's CEO gets the President's pen for it.
Trust me. There will be no Senate inquiry about all of these banks screwing your life up.
Well, that is because credit card companies don't care about you on a cosmic level. Damn right they never cared about your data. Hell, they sold it to every company on the planet already!
Why would they? What are you going to do? "Cancel your card? YOU HAVE A BALANCE! MUAAHHAHAHHHAHA! Fraud you say? Yeah, right! I don't care if you have Cancer, get back to work you deadbeat."
Most of America is in a you're-screwed-bonus-round with these jackasses. They give a crap about your data. These are the same generous, kind, and loving souls that sold you out to begin with. Everybody at light-my-fart.com got your name and address from them, why shouldn't they just get the freakin' credit card numbers, too?
Credit card companies are the big banking's little thugs.
Q: What's the difference between a credit card company and a loan shark?
A: Loan sharks tell you up front what they're going to do if you don't pay up.
Look, they never cared. They might feel bad, but I guess they feel bad about it in the same way that Satan would feel bad about killing children in a freeway pileup. "Whoops! *Chuckle*!"
Nothing punitive is ever going to come of this. If you have any doubts, recognize this:
Didn't our wonderful President just sign a bill for you to never be able to declare bankruptcy, even if you get freakin' terminally ill? I wonder who wrote that gem of a law for the people? Hmmmm. The President could give you a NO THANK YOU option on Social Security for the generations that will get nothing. That didn't happen. He wants to FORCE you to put your social security money in a special PRIVATELY OWNED BANK right now, in a way that you can never touch it. Wow. Who put that racket together?!? He's spending every waking moment touring the country supporting that agenda! Golly Gee whiz, I wonder who helped him see the light on that? I for one, trust our corporate masters. They would never screw us over. Never.
Trust me. Nothing will ever come of this. You have been warned.
But my pen and tiny notepad go a lot further in life than any of this digital crap that everyone talks about.
The "stealing our ideas" is just PR bullshit.
Gee, I wonder why Nintendo would be so scared about theft?
Could it be that Sony and Microsoft have stolen their best ideas and used them against them? The better question you should be asking yourself is this: What exactly hasn't been stolen by Microsoft and Sony?
Sony and Microsoft are such innovators.
Ask JVC how their VHS sales were. And after that, ask Apple how their icon operating system turned out for them. There is such a high moral ground with them. They never steal someone's idea and run with it.
Nintendo is practically the R&D department for Sony and Microsoft. They should just cut them a check for a percentage of their great ideas. "Hey thanks for the great idea Shiggy!"
Ask yourself this, do you really think that this week's FPS is the best game of all time because it adds some new features, or are you too nearsighted to respect something like Pikmin, which creates a new genre? I don't care about the torque engine to make my blood splatters better. Where are the Xbox and Sony games that bend my mind? Where are they? Where is their strategic vision beyond marketing data that tells them that Madden is popular and people like FPS games? THEY HAVE NO VISION. They don't have a creator mentality. They have Project Snowblind. Whoop de crap. Another FPS? Yeeehaw! Everything, and I do mean everything, that Sony and Microsoft have learned in the video game industry they learned by watching Nintendo.
I bet you're the person that doesn't like to cook because of the hassle, right? Just not into this creativity thing, eh?
But let's not just ask you, let's ask MS and Sony. Just look at who MS and Sony talk smack about. Not each other. That should tell you right off who they respect the most. Certainly isn't each other. They aren't jealous of ricer racing and card battle games.
Anything that slows down the transparency in government, or the free telling of the occurrences in government, is in essence, is censorship.
This just happens to be time censorship.
In America, there would have been cameras in the meetings and conversation all over the country. All this does is not make any public videotape available to those that would like to know, and helps minimize the impact and importance to the public.
Man, every time I screwed up, I would love to make everyone talk about this later so I could have enough time to set up alibis and work out counterarguments. Also, I would like for there to be no cameras, so in a short while, everyone would have nothing to see. Especially when the wanted to see my real face twisting to the lies and bad things I did.
*Poof* "It was all a dream, and happened long ago, and no one cared about it then, so why now?"
That may be true, but there are enough people out there that really do think like that to justify my statements.
I don't think he's on our side... Take a look at this comment:
MC: I have no problem with it at all. If you steal, you are wrong. You should have to deal with the consequences. We have plenty of laws on the book to make sure that happens.
Judging from your comments, I would say that you're not on OUR SIDE. You're only on YOUR SIDE. You're on the side of unfettered theft of other people's hard work and original ideas. You're chillin' with the credit card thieves. The ones that use their knowledge to steal. There is no justification for immoral behavior, digital or analog.
This is exactly what is ruining it for the rest of us.
The true push for computing, the real game that is going on is to make sure that computers and computing can evolve, and that the ideas of programming like P2P don't become outlawed. This is the true manner of what big thinkers like Cuban are trying to prevent the small thinking, greedy minds from doing with the law. Cuban is trying to make sure that it isn't illegal to own a type of computer program, or format, or using a computing style is outlawed. Code is just thoughts and actions expressed in numbers, just like sheet music is just dots that represent sounds and ideas. Let's not let code become thoughtcrime, shall we?
A beautiful world where a man can text message Natalie Portman for a date is is the dream of all geeks. A better, cleaner, more transparent environment for all people to use the computers that make their lives better. Computers aren't out there so that you can be the petulant IT guy in some cube farm and lord over them with your 1337 MCSE Haxor Skillz. Computers are tools. You should have the heart of a teacher instead of the justifications of a thief, or the arrogance of a petulant child.
It is the promise of fairness and openness, what all of us, computing for all citizens, and the real advances that it makes will advance greatly. Let's make sure that jackass CEOs don't take away the ability to restrict our imagination that turns into code. The benefits are obvious and proven:
Look at Linux... look at all of the good that it has done to keep players in the software game honest. Look at the little villages that can't afford expensive computers, but can now get E-mail and news from the outside world. Look at all of the great advances that a couple of computer geeks have done for the way people communicate and live their daily lives. A lot of great ideas were taken, FOR FREE, from Linux and are used every day. It is getting better, and it is moving faster. Linux wasn't illegal, it wasn't stealing anything. It was a great idea that flourished, and it flourished because the environment was open for change.
Look at our culture, can anyone see that the entire "design culture" that corporations around the world are scrambling to get to is not directly influenced by coding, computers, and IT techs?
What if people said that Linux was illegal because people could use the program to steal credit card numbers? What happens to all of the future advances? I don't ever look forward to a day where the police kick down my door because I am not on a "trusted computing" format and could be doing wrong.
If people like you insist that open and blatant theft is what all of this computing revolution thingee was about, and that not paying people for services is what all of the people who wired their first boards together with a soldering iron was about, then hell, count me out. I got into computing as a hobby because I could do things with it, and the circle of digital friends I got from it I couldn't find in a million years in the big blue sandbox. I get to have great, mind blowing "P2P" conversation with people every night ALL OVER THE WORLD. Yes, I could use it as a tool to put the one over on someone else. But really, is that what it is all about?
You, my friend, are confused, and are not on our side. You're on the side of
I think the most signficant advances of the PSP may be in the increased network connectivity. Depending on how easily software is written for the device, I can imagine users downloading or streaming tv shows, movies, news, or other user-created content over publicly accessible wireless networks, sharing that content with other nearby and remote users, all in a completely portable and fairly straightforward manner.
So you're telling me that something playing Ridge Racer is going to start the new digital revolution that is going to change the world and productivity?
I call bullocks. The darn thing is a freakin' hopped up gameboy. Let's try to curb the otaku enthusiasm, shall we?
Well, that pretty much confirms it's a scam. The game is to file a vague patent application, continue it by incorporating actual technologies brought into use between the two applications, and use the old application to establish priority.
If it was a scam, wouldn't you think that a good set of lawyers would be able to litigate out that point? Wouldn't you say that Sony might have some of the best damn lawyers in the whole world on the payroll?
Face it, if it was a scam, then Sony would have been able to prove it with their unlimited funding for their all-powerful lawyers. They couldn't. So therefore, it wasn't a scam.
All we ever see is giant corporations abusing patents against other corporations. When a smaller business gets infringed by a global, unlimited funds company that is trying to stay ahead of innovation and still make a quarterly report that has enourmous expectations, then you call foul?
Not the best call there my friend.
I for one, don't call bullocks on this one.
A group of people who worship and claim obedience to something that they cannot see and talk with are trying to stop showing movies that show things that are definitely real, definitely there, and definitely have a scientific explanation that can be said.
Once again, the idea of something you cannot see is trumping something that is there and you can see.
HILARIOUS!
I don't think that evangelical Christians, by and large, are afraid of the marketplace of ideas. They are used to being the underdog in an ideological war.
Buddy, you're definitely not from Tennessee.
Where I come from, Christians want to control what you see, hear, and understand in the world.
One thing that I am surprised about, is that not one manufacturer of these devices have come up with the obvious, and made MP3 headphones.
Insanely stupid of them not to.
I see the independent internet music scene making a real, honest to God run for legitimacy, although it might be some years away, it might not be nerdcore that makes it, but I am optimistic that something from the 'net will hit the mainstream and finally break the music scene wide open.
If that was nerdcore, do you honestly see yourself putting in a tour together with MC Paul Barman, Frontalot, Optimus Rhyme, or a few other good unknowns in the future, or is that so terribly un-nerdcore that the thought of it hurts?
Anyone have any good options to an iPod? I am not a fan of iTunes for some reason, and was wondering if there was anything I could get besides an iPod, CHEAPER, that would make me just as happy.
I don't care what it looks like, unless it is just ugly as hell.