Either you're the really ignorant one, or that's like a meta- meta- meta- meta- satirical post.;) Funny.
And actually, I already have a patented copyrighted method for pre-empting claims to IP and the impending patent and/or copyright that your invention would generate. So, you can see, that All Your Internet Volume Knobs Are Belong To Me.
Yeah, that's a really smart idea if it wasn't for our lazy, greedy, evil human nature. So when *almost* everyone has something implanted in them to monitor vital signs, doctors will just quit trying to help those without it because "it just takes too long to diagnose and treat their problems". Sorry, but I don't trust humanity THAT much to give them the power to say: "Here, we know you say you're feeling fine, but take this, it will make you feel even better. Your biometer told us so!" - And then the sianide takes affect and out I go because I don't agree with everything The Man says. Your trust in humanity is commendable, but I would suggest finding something better to place all of your trust in.
And people say our economy is in fine shape, just a little off right now?! I think this proves that even the big money guys are over-spending, and not meeting their payment obligations. Let's just hope there's enough people out there with enough common sense to know how to properly budget their money. Maybe the coming recession won't be *that* bad.
Speaking of money, I forgot to pay the rent again!;)
I would add that there I doubt there is much of a correlation to being infertile based on physical traits either (other than the being infertile part). I.E. - a very physically fit person can be infertile just as a lazy obese person can be infertile.
I have no problem with genetic manipulation to breed out certain "bad" traits
Why doesn't that include infertility? If you're argueing from an evolutionary point of view, you would have to admit that what you're trying to say is that the infertile are the less superior of the species. But I'll bet you any amount of money that there are plenty of highly intelligent (genious level) men and women out there that are infertile. There is no correlation between intelligence and fertility to my knowledge. So why do you base your argument on that premise?
I guess the SAT's and ACT's will have to be re-written as they will no longer adequately benchmark the o/c'd babies. Stock up on the tylenol now to keep those o/c'd babies at their normal operating temp of 98.6 degrees!
I thought PC's used to be considered a 'microcomputer' back in the early days when most business computers took up entire rooms and held 32K RAM. So wouldn't you consider these new 'microcomputers' just a new All-In-1 device?
1) lots of options - And not only lots of options, but lots of documentation and explanation of how to use the options to your advantage when setting up your Samba server. Out of all of the Linux meddling I've done so far (which, granted, isn't that much), I think Samba is one of the easiest packages to work with.
2) developer/customer support - Just from all of the posts that I have seen Jeremy post to slashdot, I can see that supporting his software is very important to him and his team. This attitude of serving his 'customers' in a top notch manner has largely been lost in today's 'new' economy. I can't begin to tell you how much I despise 'customer service' as it usually involves sitting on the phone or at the store, not being served. And usually crappy service when you do get it.
I, in fact, do not care if ZDNet or anyone else likes Samba. I'm sold on it merely from the human factor of the people who write it. That alone will keep me coming back for more. My advice to the Samba team - KEEP IT UP!
Ironic how this book about addiction is reviewed on a site with a bunch of geeks who freely admit their addictiveness. I think the 'slashdot effect', 'first post trolls', and your post all prove my point: Geeks don't want to get a life. Geeks are the techaholics of our culture.
The above post, and the one modded up below make two very good points that we should all realize as people with interests in the IT work world.
Unions are necessary, but not to serve those in 'charge' of the union, but the worker. At the same time, people should have a choice to join unions if they so desire. If I know that a particular union is predatory, encourages laziness, and benefits the 'powers that be' instead of me as a worker, I should be allowed to not join that union, charge less for my services, and receives plenty of work contracts from employers because they too will recognize the corruptness of the union. This in turn will keep unions on their toes to make sure they have more productive members.
OR, if I knew a union was a great organization, one that fought for the little guy, and was well respected for the work of its members by employers in general, then I would choose to join that union. I could then benefit from the mass organization of productive workers.
The problem, as stated elsewhere in this thread, is when a union becomes a monopoly and all competition to their work ethic, no matter how good or bad it is, is stifled. That's when it becomes bloated and subservient to the greediness of it's leaders, much like communist or dictatorial regimes become corrupted by greed and general human sinfulness by those in control of the system. I can see the US heading this direction too in recent years, with many judges and elected officials taking campaign contributions from the corp's instead of from the little guys like you and I.
Either you're foreign and/or not a native English speaker, or you make a good case for why Tech Support reps suck. I can just barely understand what you're trying to say in your post! If I had to deal with that kind of communication while trying to solve a technical problem, I'd be just as angry as the next guy.
I hope you have a few examples of someone who actually rants for both extremes as you suggest. I would say most every slashdotter fits somewhere in between where they believe personal freedom is important, but cannot always be protected. You refer to rants from different people being as one, but that's a generalization of an individual based upon the fact that they like to debate things on this website. That does not mean that any one person is a hypocritical fascist.
Perhaps I like to play the devil's advocate at times and debate both ways on a subject because I can. Does that really make me a hypocritical fascist? This is not a religious site, it's a tech/science discussion forum, and as such should not be held to your impossible standards of complete accuracy in doctrine and beliefs from all parties. In fact, without discussion and debate, this would be just another news site, which would be obligated (although not required) to hold to journalistic standards.
While your argument for this being a minor infraction, how do you think we reached something like the DMCA? By baby steps, not one huge leap. So this is another one of those baby steps that while seemingly a little ridiculous and unimportant for us average Joe's, will lead to bigger and 'better' things for all the fat cats out there. So it's good to be up in arms over it I think, because we know where it will eventually lead; stupid laws like the DMCA that really benefit the powerful and wealthy instead of everyone.
If you've ever heard Moby's song: Thousand, that time would be reduced to about half a second in some parts. It's entitled Thousand because it hits one thousand bpm. Obviously made with a drum machine, but those four bars fly by at 1,000 bpm!
Which makes me think, why doesn't someone just invent some software that takes a full MP3, breaks it up into a bunch of little 5 second clips of a song so as not to 'infringe' copyright, and then you can run the clips back through the software and 'paste' the mp3 back together again. That would really stick to The Man!
Did I mention that even though the cable company says it uses dynamic ip's, that my ip has been the same since I first started.
Almost true. My brother/parents have RoadRunner at their house, and the IP changes every 3-4 months (I think, maybe even more infrequently than that). I believe it changes when they have to do some sort of server restart or the network goes down. But, he has been able to run a server off of it using Linux, dyndns.org (to assign a name to his 'dynamic' ip address automatically), and some ingenuity on keeping a firewall and masquerading on all the time so they don't know he's running a server. After using Ameritech DSL and being on my brother's network during LAN parties (which can really hog bandwidth), I'm sold on cable. Ameritech DSL sucks (and yes, they do use crappy USB SpeedStream DSL modems), and I've never noticed a real slowdown that lasted very long (no more than 15 minutes) on RoadRunner.
You're right about the rating inflation, and I guess there's just not a great way to get around it. I usually gripe to the developers and my manager on 4's or 5's until something gets done.
How would you rate bugs like 'Misspelled company name'?
3. Usually the development staff takes the 5 minute tasks (like fixing misspellings) and adds them in before the product ships.
I'm a Software Quality Engineer at my job, and we have similar standards:
1-Critical -- A bug that causes the whole application to crash and/or become unuseable.
2-Major -- Not a fatal bug, but we cannot ship the software with this bug in the code.
3-Average -- Needs fixed before program release, but does not cause error boxes or incorrect operation as designed. (Products have shipped with level 3 bugs before, but usually only if they are found one or two days before release and they cannot be fixed and tested prior to release).
4-Low -- Needs fixed sometime in the future (preferrably by next release), but product can ship regardless of fixing this error.
5-Enhancement -- Nice to have for the next software release. (Almost never gets actually fixed, but at least it's documented).
Having said that, we also have a classification system for how soon a bug needs to be fixed (i.e. - 24hrs, 48hrs, 3 days, etc.) with 5 levels of classification. So who wants to compile this list and provide it to slashdotters so that we can go back to our managers and make our case for why we should all stick with a set standard like other companies out there?
1) 'Cloning' as it currently exists involves basically injecting DNA from one living specimens' cell into an egg and/or sperm of a 'donor' egg and/or sperm that the DNA has been extracted from to make room for the 'cloned' DNA. Then this new 'clone' cell is allowed to grow just like any other cell would in a reproductive method. Which means that this new cell, if human, would basically be akin to an identical twin. I would say I'm opposed to this. And it cannot be considered a true form of cloning as you are not taking base elements and making copies of an original. You're injecting some elements (DNA) into other elements (cells with removed DNA) to create a near copy of the original.
2) CmdrTaco seems to refer more to an advanced form of 'cloning' where we can donate a few cells, then the scientists go to work artificially growing new body parts that can work as replacements for your old, worn out, or damaged parts. Hence, the reference to a new liver. I'm not opposed to this as long as it doesn't harm the existing fetus, person, etc. that is donating the cells to expirement on. But current 'cloning' techniques are not the stuff of distopian future novels where we can grow slaves of soul-less creatures made up of spare body parts, yet. Which is why a temporary moratorium on human cloning is probably a wise move.
...I'm sure people here would be complaining about poor journalism, bias, etc...
This isn't a journalism site, it's a bulletin board system. Jon Katz is the only one who really writes stories of his own, each time. Most of the rest of the stories are just links to other sites. So yes, that's why slashdot evangelizes about Linux 24/7 and bashes Microsoft. Sure, we all realize that NASA didn't just pick Windows to run space shuttle operations just cause it was easy to use. I'm sure plenty of considerations went into how well it would work versus other OS's. But it's still fun to discuss whether they made the best choice possible, which is what slashdot is so popular for. Discussion.
Ok, I admit that every party of government is guilty of such rotteness and corruption. I was just using Clinton as he was the most recent major example of such things. I wasn't trying to push a political agenda, so just SIMMA DOWN!
The rules are always different for government workers in positions of power. In fact, lots of rules don't even apply to them. Like Bill Clinton, for example. He was the Commander in Chief of all of the armed services at the time that he lied about the Monica Lewinski scandal. I know the creed of the Air Force Academy is: "We will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate among us anyone who does." Uhhh, don't you think the 'high commander' would be subject to this rule? Apparently not, because he's got good lawyers and all the power.
So don't think this will set a precedence in your favor of copying digital media. If anything, it will give the government more power to do whatever they want, and you less. Sorry man.
Studies have shown no correlation between violent computer games and violent social behavior. I feel for the parents that lost their son or daughter in the shooting, I do, but don't go blaming everyone else for your loss. It was the fault of the children doing the shooting, and their parents alone. And no amount of money will replace your son or daughter. 'Sticking' it to the game companies won't help either. You'll at best, put a couple of them out of business, which then makes it easier for a couple more to spring up in their place.
And as for your argument about treating women right, I doubt the Muslim countries are doing it out of respect. From everything I've read that wasn't Muslim propoganda, women are viewed as lesser than men, and are not allowed to vote because of thier 'inferior' place in society.
I liked that article. It helped explain why my villages behave so differently in B&W. One village is always begging for food, and can't stop having children, while the other village is the exact opposite. It is so interesting to see the severe divergences in group and individual AI behavior patterns based on only.25% of the CPU's computation time!
Since I've been spending all my time on the 3rd level of B&W lately, I haven't gotten the chance to do much creature training. But just watching how the villagers act on their own, and develop their own 'community' is quite interesting. What will be really interesting is to see all the new offshoots of this game, much like CounterStrike was to Half-Life. And as a previous poster mentioned, gaming always pushes the envelop of what a PC is capable of, so it should be a joy to watch PC AI evolve over the next couple of years.
I see your point more clearly now. That is probably a more realistic expectation for how to get Linux to the masses. I see that while you may be paying a bit of premium to get the box at the department store, you're at the same time encouraging mass market consumerism. Good thinking!
Slashdot Mirror
And actually, I already have a patented copyrighted method for pre-empting claims to IP and the impending patent and/or copyright that your invention would generate. So, you can see, that All Your Internet Volume Knobs Are Belong To Me.
"Hey Bob, did you set me up that bomb yet?"
Yeah, that's a really smart idea if it wasn't for our lazy, greedy, evil human nature. So when *almost* everyone has something implanted in them to monitor vital signs, doctors will just quit trying to help those without it because "it just takes too long to diagnose and treat their problems". Sorry, but I don't trust humanity THAT much to give them the power to say: "Here, we know you say you're feeling fine, but take this, it will make you feel even better. Your biometer told us so!" - And then the sianide takes affect and out I go because I don't agree with everything The Man says. Your trust in humanity is commendable, but I would suggest finding something better to place all of your trust in.
Speaking of money, I forgot to pay the rent again! ;)
I would add that there I doubt there is much of a correlation to being infertile based on physical traits either (other than the being infertile part). I.E. - a very physically fit person can be infertile just as a lazy obese person can be infertile.
Why doesn't that include infertility? If you're argueing from an evolutionary point of view, you would have to admit that what you're trying to say is that the infertile are the less superior of the species. But I'll bet you any amount of money that there are plenty of highly intelligent (genious level) men and women out there that are infertile. There is no correlation between intelligence and fertility to my knowledge. So why do you base your argument on that premise?
I guess the SAT's and ACT's will have to be re-written as they will no longer adequately benchmark the o/c'd babies. Stock up on the tylenol now to keep those o/c'd babies at their normal operating temp of 98.6 degrees!
I thought PC's used to be considered a 'microcomputer' back in the early days when most business computers took up entire rooms and held 32K RAM. So wouldn't you consider these new 'microcomputers' just a new All-In-1 device?
1) lots of options - And not only lots of options, but lots of documentation and explanation of how to use the options to your advantage when setting up your Samba server. Out of all of the Linux meddling I've done so far (which, granted, isn't that much), I think Samba is one of the easiest packages to work with.
2) developer/customer support - Just from all of the posts that I have seen Jeremy post to slashdot, I can see that supporting his software is very important to him and his team. This attitude of serving his 'customers' in a top notch manner has largely been lost in today's 'new' economy. I can't begin to tell you how much I despise 'customer service' as it usually involves sitting on the phone or at the store, not being served. And usually crappy service when you do get it.
I, in fact, do not care if ZDNet or anyone else likes Samba. I'm sold on it merely from the human factor of the people who write it. That alone will keep me coming back for more. My advice to the Samba team - KEEP IT UP!
Ironic how this book about addiction is reviewed on a site with a bunch of geeks who freely admit their addictiveness. I think the 'slashdot effect', 'first post trolls', and your post all prove my point: Geeks don't want to get a life. Geeks are the techaholics of our culture.
Unions are necessary, but not to serve those in 'charge' of the union, but the worker. At the same time, people should have a choice to join unions if they so desire. If I know that a particular union is predatory, encourages laziness, and benefits the 'powers that be' instead of me as a worker, I should be allowed to not join that union, charge less for my services, and receives plenty of work contracts from employers because they too will recognize the corruptness of the union. This in turn will keep unions on their toes to make sure they have more productive members.
OR, if I knew a union was a great organization, one that fought for the little guy, and was well respected for the work of its members by employers in general, then I would choose to join that union. I could then benefit from the mass organization of productive workers.
The problem, as stated elsewhere in this thread, is when a union becomes a monopoly and all competition to their work ethic, no matter how good or bad it is, is stifled. That's when it becomes bloated and subservient to the greediness of it's leaders, much like communist or dictatorial regimes become corrupted by greed and general human sinfulness by those in control of the system. I can see the US heading this direction too in recent years, with many judges and elected officials taking campaign contributions from the corp's instead of from the little guys like you and I.
Either you're foreign and/or not a native English speaker, or you make a good case for why Tech Support reps suck. I can just barely understand what you're trying to say in your post! If I had to deal with that kind of communication while trying to solve a technical problem, I'd be just as angry as the next guy.
Perhaps I like to play the devil's advocate at times and debate both ways on a subject because I can. Does that really make me a hypocritical fascist? This is not a religious site, it's a tech/science discussion forum, and as such should not be held to your impossible standards of complete accuracy in doctrine and beliefs from all parties. In fact, without discussion and debate, this would be just another news site, which would be obligated (although not required) to hold to journalistic standards.
While your argument for this being a minor infraction, how do you think we reached something like the DMCA? By baby steps, not one huge leap. So this is another one of those baby steps that while seemingly a little ridiculous and unimportant for us average Joe's, will lead to bigger and 'better' things for all the fat cats out there. So it's good to be up in arms over it I think, because we know where it will eventually lead; stupid laws like the DMCA that really benefit the powerful and wealthy instead of everyone.
Which makes me think, why doesn't someone just invent some software that takes a full MP3, breaks it up into a bunch of little 5 second clips of a song so as not to 'infringe' copyright, and then you can run the clips back through the software and 'paste' the mp3 back together again. That would really stick to The Man!
Almost true. My brother/parents have RoadRunner at their house, and the IP changes every 3-4 months (I think, maybe even more infrequently than that). I believe it changes when they have to do some sort of server restart or the network goes down. But, he has been able to run a server off of it using Linux, dyndns.org (to assign a name to his 'dynamic' ip address automatically), and some ingenuity on keeping a firewall and masquerading on all the time so they don't know he's running a server. After using Ameritech DSL and being on my brother's network during LAN parties (which can really hog bandwidth), I'm sold on cable. Ameritech DSL sucks (and yes, they do use crappy USB SpeedStream DSL modems), and I've never noticed a real slowdown that lasted very long (no more than 15 minutes) on RoadRunner.
How would you rate bugs like 'Misspelled company name'?
3. Usually the development staff takes the 5 minute tasks (like fixing misspellings) and adds them in before the product ships.
1-Critical -- A bug that causes the whole application to crash and/or become unuseable.
2-Major -- Not a fatal bug, but we cannot ship the software with this bug in the code.
3-Average -- Needs fixed before program release, but does not cause error boxes or incorrect operation as designed. (Products have shipped with level 3 bugs before, but usually only if they are found one or two days before release and they cannot be fixed and tested prior to release).
4-Low -- Needs fixed sometime in the future (preferrably by next release), but product can ship regardless of fixing this error.
5-Enhancement -- Nice to have for the next software release. (Almost never gets actually fixed, but at least it's documented).
Having said that, we also have a classification system for how soon a bug needs to be fixed (i.e. - 24hrs, 48hrs, 3 days, etc.) with 5 levels of classification. So who wants to compile this list and provide it to slashdotters so that we can go back to our managers and make our case for why we should all stick with a set standard like other companies out there?
1) 'Cloning' as it currently exists involves basically injecting DNA from one living specimens' cell into an egg and/or sperm of a 'donor' egg and/or sperm that the DNA has been extracted from to make room for the 'cloned' DNA. Then this new 'clone' cell is allowed to grow just like any other cell would in a reproductive method. Which means that this new cell, if human, would basically be akin to an identical twin. I would say I'm opposed to this. And it cannot be considered a true form of cloning as you are not taking base elements and making copies of an original. You're injecting some elements (DNA) into other elements (cells with removed DNA) to create a near copy of the original.
2) CmdrTaco seems to refer more to an advanced form of 'cloning' where we can donate a few cells, then the scientists go to work artificially growing new body parts that can work as replacements for your old, worn out, or damaged parts. Hence, the reference to a new liver. I'm not opposed to this as long as it doesn't harm the existing fetus, person, etc. that is donating the cells to expirement on. But current 'cloning' techniques are not the stuff of distopian future novels where we can grow slaves of soul-less creatures made up of spare body parts, yet. Which is why a temporary moratorium on human cloning is probably a wise move.
This isn't a journalism site, it's a bulletin board system. Jon Katz is the only one who really writes stories of his own, each time. Most of the rest of the stories are just links to other sites. So yes, that's why slashdot evangelizes about Linux 24/7 and bashes Microsoft. Sure, we all realize that NASA didn't just pick Windows to run space shuttle operations just cause it was easy to use. I'm sure plenty of considerations went into how well it would work versus other OS's. But it's still fun to discuss whether they made the best choice possible, which is what slashdot is so popular for. Discussion.
Ok, I admit that every party of government is guilty of such rotteness and corruption. I was just using Clinton as he was the most recent major example of such things. I wasn't trying to push a political agenda, so just SIMMA DOWN!
So don't think this will set a precedence in your favor of copying digital media. If anything, it will give the government more power to do whatever they want, and you less. Sorry man.
I should know, I am one. :)
And as for your argument about treating women right, I doubt the Muslim countries are doing it out of respect. From everything I've read that wasn't Muslim propoganda, women are viewed as lesser than men, and are not allowed to vote because of thier 'inferior' place in society.
Since I've been spending all my time on the 3rd level of B&W lately, I haven't gotten the chance to do much creature training. But just watching how the villagers act on their own, and develop their own 'community' is quite interesting. What will be really interesting is to see all the new offshoots of this game, much like CounterStrike was to Half-Life. And as a previous poster mentioned, gaming always pushes the envelop of what a PC is capable of, so it should be a joy to watch PC AI evolve over the next couple of years.
I see your point more clearly now. That is probably a more realistic expectation for how to get Linux to the masses. I see that while you may be paying a bit of premium to get the box at the department store, you're at the same time encouraging mass market consumerism. Good thinking!