Try thinking a little deeper. A tax break is not money given to a company, it is a government saying 'OK, if you do this, then we won't demand cash from you'. In this case, this involved moving a small army of workers, technicians and actors there for three years, hiring a pile of local people (all who paid more income taxes), spending who-knows-how-much for local materials, and a host of other economic spinoffs. It's like if a movie company wanted to use your backyard rent-free, but you could sell hotdogs and lemonade to the crew all afternoon. Of course, your wife might nag you for letting all those people trample your yard without paying rent, but she'd be incredibly shortsighted to do so.
IANAL, and it may be different in the US, but in Canada there is very little protection of a person's right to own, use and enjoy property, a fact that our current Liberal government is exploiting to the fullest. Rights cannot be revoked if they are not given in the first place.
You are rational poster #2, kudos (read around your post for incredible nonsense and hostility, mildly entertaining). Um... thanks? Gun legislation is one of those things that has become so incredibly politicized that it's virtually impossible to discuss in polite society. Fortunately, that precludes Slashdot;-)
I know you don't need a driving liscense to own a car, but don't you need to register the thing anyhow? That would depend on local regulations, but where I come from driver licensing is different than car registration. Could be different elsewhere.
it seems obvious that something as dangerous and harmfull as gubs should be regulated Personally, I think legislation that fixates on guns themselves is doomed to fail. They are too easy to hide, smuggle and make. Better to focus on the user and emphasize responsibility. The problem is that gun legislation is drafted to gain political points and to appease vocal lobby groups, not to try to solve a problem.
Possibly provide a sample fired bullet with your permit application, in case they find one just like it in some dead guy later on... The problem is that the ballistics signature of a gun will change as it is used, at least, so I've heard. Also a couple of quick swipes with a round file will change it as well. But I suppose that a ballistics database would be less boneheaded than trying to register serial numbers (many mass-produced guns don't have them).
I therefore think that guns should be regulated in much the same way that we don't allow any idiot to drive around with an 18 wheeler.
I believe that you are entirely correct. The driver licensing system would be a great model to use for licensing gun users. Now remembering that you only need to obtain a driver's license and register your car when you expect that you are going to operate it on a public roadway, the closest would be a concealed carry permit. For guns that are going to be left at home, or transported in an inactive state (unloaded and in a case), no permit should be needed (just like a car). Also no restrictions should be made to restrict features or capacity (just like a car). And just like a car, any potential operator should be tested to ensure a basic level of technical proficiency with the implement.
For the record - I don't hate and fear authority, I detest and despise power-mad bureaucrats whose lifelong mission it is to extend their scope and reach, to keep meddling with ever-more intimite details of my life and keep increasing the claim they supposedly have on the fruits of my labour. Unfortunately, that seems to synonomous with government the last few years.
But when you look at Micheal Moore, you wonder if he could find his own ass in an outhouse with both hands. The 'Stupic White Man' label is ironically appropriate...
"To say that the CRTC and the various grant programs in Canada have ruined it for Canadian artists is such right wing bullshit that it blows my mind." My response to that would be a suggestion to open your mind and think about new ideas rather than labelling them.
You characterize the Canadian consumer as a helpless, mindless victim whose opinion and purchasing decisions are determined soley by marketing campains. Sorry, but I don't know anyone like that. If a certain peice of work sucks, people say so, despite the marketing muscle behind it.
"The local end of the distribution chains bitch and moan that those US product are what the public wants, when in fact, those are the only product they get to see in the first place." This is an outright falsehood. I see Canadian movies on the shelves at my local video store and at the electronic retailers in my area. Know what? They stay there. The stores will stock what sells. Bottom line.
That leads me to my next challenge for you, since you convieniently ignored my last one. If what you say is true, there should be a huge pent-up demand for Canadian movies and music. Open up a video store that only stocks Canadian flicks and CBC specials. Let me know how you do.
"You see that the will of the public dosen't have anything to do with the sales number. I don't think enough people realise that Celine Dion became a star by imitating american marketing strategies" But the will of the public is better gauged through sales numbers than anything else, especially than the opinion of a government beaurocrat. That's why it is tracked so closely. You obviously don't like Celine Dion's music, but I've got about a million people who would disagree with you. They've already expressed their opinion by buying one of her CD's. And you know what? It's music. Their opinion is just as valid as yours. The opinion of all the people who bought Britney and NSync is just as valid as those who bought Rolling Stones and the Beatles. There's no acounting for taste, yours, mine or anyone else's. (specially those Beatles people)
"But if it wasn't for those CRTC Quotas, there wouldn't be a Canadian entertainement industry" You're partially right. If the CRTC was dissolved (I'm getting goosebumps here) the Canadian entertainment industry as we know it would disappear. But it would be quickly replaced with one that existed to serve the will of its' customers. As long as people want entertainment, and other people want to provide entertaiment, there'll be an entertainment industry. Unlike you, I believe that Canadian artists are fully capable of producing quality material that satifies customer demand, without needing outside help. Our current problem is that government money has created a cycle of dependance that is incredibly difficult to break.
"If you think that people buy American products more because they are just better, as your post seems to indicate, your an idiot." No, my point is that people buy products they like, no matter where they come from. And nobody - not me, not you, and certainly not the government - has any right to interfere with that process.
You're right. I was talking about 'soft' human factors like choice, opinion, emotions, mood, etc., although I didn't explain that at all. Statistical data like marital status and sex can indeed be used mathematically.
Why? Because last time I checked, theft was both illegal and immoral. Taking money from someone without giving them a choice in the matter is theft, no matter how good of a cause you dress it in. If you don't believe me, I hereby demand that you send me $50, which I will immediately send to an African food relief agency. They need that $50 more that you.
Why people try to defend the subsidy one person's entertainment at the expense of another is beyond my comprehension. If Joni Mitchell and Lynda Lemay want some of my money, they can write music that appleals to me. If I choose not to support them by buying a CD, why should I be compelled, through the threat of force, to subsidise them?
The CRTC, music and movie subsidies have ruined it for Canadian artists. They replace the will of the media-buying public with the opinion of a beaurocrat in Ottawa. If they produced material that people wanted to buy, it would sell, Now instead of creating material for consumers, they have to create material that appleals to the CRTC, the CBC, or whatever Heritage $ Culture board hands out cash.
It boils down to a couple of simple questions: why should I be coerced into supporting entertainment that I don't care for? What gives the CRTC, the government, or YOU the right to decide how to spend MY money?
For the most part, you are right. In fact, I remember doing the same thing when Melissa came out. For a bit of an eye-opener, give this a read: http://www.peterszor.com/zmist.pdf. It's an analysis of the W95/Zmist virus. Zombie (the guy who wrote it) was very creative in coming up with ways to integrate his virus into existing files (creative in a sad and destructive kind of way). I agree that most virus writers lack any real skills or imagination (hence the bag-of-hammers crack in the original posting), but there are a few out there, and Zombie seems to be one of them.
Greer, Pfleeger, Schneier, Metzger and the rest of the contributing authors of CyberInsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly were right. This incident proves it . The most likely source of the infection is an infected laptop being plugged into the protected network. Had the ATM's been running a different operating system - even the ancient OS/2 - they would not have been infected.
It is also very interesting to note that they only found the worm because the infected machines tripped the IDS with excessive network traffic. From this we can infer: 1. A worm that was less aggressive with it's scans would probably not have been detected and could possibly still be operating today. 2. They probably don't have any host-based intrusion detection systems in place. No automated file integrity checking, no authorized process lists.
It's a good thing for us that the worm and virus writers (thus far) have been gifted programmers, but otherwise dumber than a bag of hammers. A well-written subtle worm could probably cripple most of the developed world.
People like you are dangerous. The ability to take complete bullshit and spin it into something appealing is part of the reason we find ourselves in this situation.
*CLUE* In a technical context, terms such as master/slave and male/female have plainly obvious and well-known definitions. That's what they mean AND NOTHING MORE.
The supercomputer thing is cool and useful and everything, but what I really waiting for is someone to bring true 'intelligence' to computers. Despite all progress that has been made in the last 50 (?) years of computing, our present-day machines can only be described as truely gifted idiot savants. They can blaze through a list of instructions faster than ever before, but are helpless in assigning any meaning to those instructions, or learning from them.
For example say you have 2 graphics packages installed on your PC, A and B. Package A is able to export to a certain picture format, say JPEG2000, but package B isn't. Why? The instructions for writing out a JPEG2000 pic exists on the hard drive, the computer is able to follow them (as evidenced by package A). Why can't the computer simply follow the JPEG2000 instructions in package A when package B wants to write out a pic? On a larger scale, imagine a Google that understands context, subjects and objects, not just words. It could distinguish and understand the difference between searching for chinese dishes served at a restaurant and a china dish sitting on a cupoard.
IBM (and others) are doing great work in making computers bigger, better and faster, but I'm still waiting for some true computer intelligence. If it takes bigger, better and faster computers to make it happen, I'm all for it. I think true, usable, accessible machine intelligence would be a huge leap forward, and would change our world more than the Internet did.
but how many to go? This is a good step, but the legal system is too slow and too regional to deal effectively with Internet-age criminals. The solution to spammers and domain name squatters is going to have to come from the Internet community itself.
Microsoft forgets to put out this week's recycling bin Microsoft misses the rinse cycle Microsoft forgets to buy lottery ticket this week Microsoft misses the ice cream truck
Judging from the initial sales of the N-gage, you may want to re-evaluate your position. Besides, leap-frog competition will ensure that computational resources will even out. Once that happens, the biggest (hardware) factor that will affect the user's gameplay experience will be screen size. Playing games on a 1-inch square screen just sucks. Any device that incorporates a big screen will look more like a PDA than a cell phone. Admittedly, when this happens, the line between PDA and cell phone will be very blurry indeed.
Another thing - we're been playing multiplayer games on the PC for about ten years now, and single-player gaming is better than ever (Hitman 1&2, Max Payne 1&2). Ten years from now, I think people will still want to play solitare, tetris, snood (or Hitman and Max Payne) on their mobile devices while waiting in line, or whenever they're physically occupied and mentally idling.
Novell has a history of jumping on every bandwagon at it's peak, then abandoning it when something else comes along. Consider their past:
1. Buying the AT&T source, then announcing plans to merge NetWare and UNIX into a hybrid called "SuperNOS"
2. Buying Wordperfect, Quattro Pro and creating WordPerfect Office.
3. Java-on-NetWare. Anyone remember "the world's fastest Java execution environment"?
Every one of these failed, and was quietly abandoned. Now it's Linux. Hopefully they actually stick with this initiative long enough for it to bear some fruit.
Slashdot Mirror
Try thinking a little deeper. A tax break is not money given to a company, it is a government saying 'OK, if you do this, then we won't demand cash from you'. In this case, this involved moving a small army of workers, technicians and actors there for three years, hiring a pile of local people (all who paid more income taxes), spending who-knows-how-much for local materials, and a host of other economic spinoffs. It's like if a movie company wanted to use your backyard rent-free, but you could sell hotdogs and lemonade to the crew all afternoon. Of course, your wife might nag you for letting all those people trample your yard without paying rent, but she'd be incredibly shortsighted to do so.
IANAL, and it may be different in the US, but in Canada there is very little protection of a person's right to own, use and enjoy property, a fact that our current Liberal government is exploiting to the fullest. Rights cannot be revoked if they are not given in the first place.
You are rational poster #2, kudos (read around your post for incredible nonsense and hostility, mildly entertaining). ... thanks? Gun legislation is one of those things that has become so incredibly politicized that it's virtually impossible to discuss in polite society. Fortunately, that precludes Slashdot ;-)
Um
I know you don't need a driving liscense to own a car, but don't you need to register the thing anyhow?
That would depend on local regulations, but where I come from driver licensing is different than car registration. Could be different elsewhere.
it seems obvious that something as dangerous and harmfull as gubs should be regulated
Personally, I think legislation that fixates on guns themselves is doomed to fail. They are too easy to hide, smuggle and make. Better to focus on the user and emphasize responsibility. The problem is that gun legislation is drafted to gain political points and to appease vocal lobby groups, not to try to solve a problem.
Possibly provide a sample fired bullet with your permit application, in case they find one just like it in some dead guy later on...
The problem is that the ballistics signature of a gun will change as it is used, at least, so I've heard. Also a couple of quick swipes with a round file will change it as well. But I suppose that a ballistics database would be less boneheaded than trying to register serial numbers (many mass-produced guns don't have them).
I believe that you are entirely correct. The driver licensing system would be a great model to use for licensing gun users. Now remembering that you only need to obtain a driver's license and register your car when you expect that you are going to operate it on a public roadway, the closest would be a concealed carry permit. For guns that are going to be left at home, or transported in an inactive state (unloaded and in a case), no permit should be needed (just like a car). Also no restrictions should be made to restrict features or capacity (just like a car). And just like a car, any potential operator should be tested to ensure a basic level of technical proficiency with the implement.
For the record - I don't hate and fear authority, I detest and despise power-mad bureaucrats whose lifelong mission it is to extend their scope and reach, to keep meddling with ever-more intimite details of my life and keep increasing the claim they supposedly have on the fruits of my labour. Unfortunately, that seems to synonomous with government the last few years.
Do any of you guys making smart-ass comments on the version number realize that you are proving point number 4?
Irony - look it up.
But when you look at Micheal Moore, you wonder if he could find his own ass in an outhouse with both hands. The 'Stupic White Man' label is ironically appropriate ...
"To say that the CRTC and the various grant programs in Canada have ruined it for Canadian artists is such right wing bullshit that it blows my mind."
My response to that would be a suggestion to open your mind and think about new ideas rather than labelling them.
You characterize the Canadian consumer as a helpless, mindless victim whose opinion and purchasing decisions are determined soley by marketing campains. Sorry, but I don't know anyone like that. If a certain peice of work sucks, people say so, despite the marketing muscle behind it.
"The local end of the distribution chains bitch and moan that those US product are what the public wants, when in fact, those are the only product they get to see in the first place."
This is an outright falsehood. I see Canadian movies on the shelves at my local video store and at the electronic retailers in my area. Know what? They stay there. The stores will stock what sells. Bottom line.
That leads me to my next challenge for you, since you convieniently ignored my last one. If what you say is true, there should be a huge pent-up demand for Canadian movies and music. Open up a video store that only stocks Canadian flicks and CBC specials. Let me know how you do.
"You see that the will of the public dosen't have anything to do with the sales number. I don't think enough people realise that Celine Dion became a star by imitating american marketing strategies"
But the will of the public is better gauged through sales numbers than anything else, especially than the opinion of a government beaurocrat. That's why it is tracked so closely. You obviously don't like Celine Dion's music, but I've got about a million people who would disagree with you. They've already expressed their opinion by buying one of her CD's. And you know what? It's music. Their opinion is just as valid as yours. The opinion of all the people who bought Britney and NSync is just as valid as those who bought Rolling Stones and the Beatles. There's no acounting for taste, yours, mine or anyone else's. (specially those Beatles people)
"But if it wasn't for those CRTC Quotas, there wouldn't be a Canadian entertainement industry"
You're partially right. If the CRTC was dissolved (I'm getting goosebumps here) the Canadian entertainment industry as we know it would disappear. But it would be quickly replaced with one that existed to serve the will of its' customers. As long as people want entertainment, and other people want to provide entertaiment, there'll be an entertainment industry. Unlike you, I believe that Canadian artists are fully capable of producing quality material that satifies customer demand, without needing outside help. Our current problem is that government money has created a cycle of dependance that is incredibly difficult to break.
"If you think that people buy American products more because they are just better, as your post seems to indicate, your an idiot."
No, my point is that people buy products they like, no matter where they come from. And nobody - not me, not you, and certainly not the government - has any right to interfere with that process.
You're right. I was talking about 'soft' human factors like choice, opinion, emotions, mood, etc., although I didn't explain that at all. Statistical data like marital status and sex can indeed be used mathematically.
Human factors cannot be reduced to mathematical equations.
(Sit down Hari Seldon)
Attempting to do so only results in making you look stupid (like this guy)
Why? Because last time I checked, theft was both illegal and immoral. Taking money from someone without giving them a choice in the matter is theft, no matter how good of a cause you dress it in. If you don't believe me, I hereby demand that you send me $50, which I will immediately send to an African food relief agency. They need that $50 more that you.
Why people try to defend the subsidy one person's entertainment at the expense of another is beyond my comprehension. If Joni Mitchell and Lynda Lemay want some of my money, they can write music that appleals to me. If I choose not to support them by buying a CD, why should I be compelled, through the threat of force, to subsidise them?
The CRTC, music and movie subsidies have ruined it for Canadian artists. They replace the will of the media-buying public with the opinion of a beaurocrat in Ottawa. If they produced material that people wanted to buy, it would sell, Now instead of creating material for consumers, they have to create material that appleals to the CRTC, the CBC, or whatever Heritage $ Culture board hands out cash.
It boils down to a couple of simple questions: why should I be coerced into supporting entertainment that I don't care for? What gives the CRTC, the government, or YOU the right to decide how to spend MY money?
Nickelback
... give me a minute ...
Headstones (now defunct)
um
Bif Naked (previously mentioned I know, but I'm getting desperate here)
For the most part, you are right. In fact, I remember doing the same thing when Melissa came out. For a bit of an eye-opener, give this a read: http://www.peterszor.com/zmist.pdf. It's an analysis of the W95/Zmist virus. Zombie (the guy who wrote it) was very creative in coming up with ways to integrate his virus into existing files (creative in a sad and destructive kind of way). I agree that most virus writers lack any real skills or imagination (hence the bag-of-hammers crack in the original posting), but there are a few out there, and Zombie seems to be one of them.
Greer, Pfleeger, Schneier, Metzger and the rest of the contributing authors of CyberInsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly were right. This incident proves it . The most likely source of the infection is an infected laptop being plugged into the protected network. Had the ATM's been running a different operating system - even the ancient OS/2 - they would not have been infected.
It is also very interesting to note that they only found the worm because the infected machines tripped the IDS with excessive network traffic. From this we can infer:
1. A worm that was less aggressive with it's scans would probably not have been detected and could possibly still be operating today.
2. They probably don't have any host-based intrusion detection systems in place. No automated file integrity checking, no authorized process lists.
It's a good thing for us that the worm and virus writers (thus far) have been gifted programmers, but otherwise dumber than a bag of hammers. A well-written subtle worm could probably cripple most of the developed world.
People like you are dangerous. The ability to take complete bullshit and spin it into something appealing is part of the reason we find ourselves in this situation.
*CLUE* In a technical context, terms such as master/slave and male/female have plainly obvious and well-known definitions. That's what they mean AND NOTHING MORE.
"books, papers, Lego, and more"
Well, my kids have a toy box that was made for them by their grandfather.
It's shaped like a truck and everything. They just need to take their Bionicles apart before they put them away.
The supercomputer thing is cool and useful and everything, but what I really waiting for is someone to bring true 'intelligence' to computers. Despite all progress that has been made in the last 50 (?) years of computing, our present-day machines can only be described as truely gifted idiot savants. They can blaze through a list of instructions faster than ever before, but are helpless in assigning any meaning to those instructions, or learning from them.
For example say you have 2 graphics packages installed on your PC, A and B. Package A is able to export to a certain picture format, say JPEG2000, but package B isn't. Why? The instructions for writing out a JPEG2000 pic exists on the hard drive, the computer is able to follow them (as evidenced by package A). Why can't the computer simply follow the JPEG2000 instructions in package A when package B wants to write out a pic? On a larger scale, imagine a Google that understands context, subjects and objects, not just words. It could distinguish and understand the difference between searching for chinese dishes served at a restaurant and a china dish sitting on a cupoard.
IBM (and others) are doing great work in making computers bigger, better and faster, but I'm still waiting for some true computer intelligence. If it takes bigger, better and faster computers to make it happen, I'm all for it. I think true, usable, accessible machine intelligence would be a huge leap forward, and would change our world more than the Internet did.
OK - you can start with the Skynet comments now.
"The perpetual rain, the near-deserted apartment blocks, the desperation to get away to the off-world colonies"
Oohh - that's Vancouver.
So - did anyone else out there see 'nanowire' and think that this might be one step toward the development of shigawire?
but how many to go? This is a good step, but the legal system is too slow and too regional to deal effectively with Internet-age criminals. The solution to spammers and domain name squatters is going to have to come from the Internet community itself.
Microsoft forgets to put out this week's recycling bin
Microsoft misses the rinse cycle
Microsoft forgets to buy lottery ticket this week
Microsoft misses the ice cream truck
anything else?
Judging from the initial sales of the N-gage, you may want to re-evaluate your position. Besides, leap-frog competition will ensure that computational resources will even out. Once that happens, the biggest (hardware) factor that will affect the user's gameplay experience will be screen size. Playing games on a 1-inch square screen just sucks. Any device that incorporates a big screen will look more like a PDA than a cell phone. Admittedly, when this happens, the line between PDA and cell phone will be very blurry indeed.
Another thing - we're been playing multiplayer games on the PC for about ten years now, and single-player gaming is better than ever (Hitman 1&2, Max Payne 1&2). Ten years from now, I think people will still want to play solitare, tetris, snood (or Hitman and Max Payne) on their mobile devices while waiting in line, or whenever they're physically occupied and mentally idling.
Novell has a history of jumping on every bandwagon at it's peak, then abandoning it when something else comes along. Consider their past:
1. Buying the AT&T source, then announcing plans to merge NetWare and UNIX into a hybrid called "SuperNOS"
2. Buying Wordperfect, Quattro Pro and creating WordPerfect Office.
3. Java-on-NetWare. Anyone remember "the world's fastest Java execution environment"?
Every one of these failed, and was quietly abandoned. Now it's Linux. Hopefully they actually stick with this initiative long enough for it to bear some fruit.
Face it SUV-owners: most of you are fad following losers with no imagination or individuality.
Wow. It must have taken an incredible amount of bravery to actually post that on Slashdot.
I salute your couragous individuality, sir. Please - keep on showing us such great imaginagion.
Irony. Such delicious irony.
Your post, when combined with your sig, provide incredible irony.
Legitimate customers? What legitimate customers? Don't you actually have to finish the game before that happens?