Not to nitpick, and I completely agree with how powerful the imagery is (and the sentiment you express), but the Japanese might disagree about Chernobyl being "the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever known." Disasters can happen on purpose, too.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that all US bills had a metal strip embedded in them somewhere.
I'd be happy to help check this out. I think the easiest way would be for everyone to send me whatever bills they happen to have. I'll carefully check them out, inspecting them for any metal strips. To ensure that whatever bills I receive are in fact legal tender, I will then proceed to the nearest Best Buy or Fry's to see whether these fine institutions accept them as such.
I know, it sounds like it will be a lot of work, but its the least I can do to furhter the knowledge of teh Slashdot crowd.
Many products have a small strip of magnetized metal in them, which is what sets off the alarms (they put them in books at libraries sometimes - didn't you ever pull them out when you were a kid?). The detectors at store entrances generate a small magnetic field by running a current through some kind of a loop, and if your magnetized metal strip goes through the field it subtly affects the magnetic field and therefore the current travelling through the loop.
A coil of wire, even if not magnetized, could have a small current induced in it by the magnetic field produced by the theft detectors; this current would in turn produce a small magnetic field in the coil, which would again affect the alarm field and the current running through it, setting it off.
Of course, if this is true, it seems like everything with an electric motor in it should be setting off the alarms, so I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Government control of public transport has simply allowed hiding the true cost behind a tax structure - it's great for those that make use of it to not have to bear the full costs - but rather unfair to all those who have no choice in the matter to foot the bill regardless.
As opposed to private transport, where none of the costs are hidden? Pretty much every form of transit, public, private, mass, or individual, suffers from the same problem. You think the cost of mass transit is hidden in the taxes we pay? Have you any idea how incredibly hugely more everybody pays to support the highway system? Cars are the most highly subsidized form of transit in existence outside of space travel. Similarly, all those airports we build cost a hell of a lot of money - most of which usually comes from public bonds. There are very few transport systems that are actually privately funded - practically all are publicly funded in one way or another (I would say oceangoing transit has been kept mostly private, but historically many ships have been partially funded by governments, especially lately, and modern seaport facilities cost huge amounts of money, meaning most of those are largely or partially publicly funded).
So yes, public transit does hide its true cost behind a tax structure to some extent, but so does pretty much every form of private transit (how many sidewalks and bikepaths do you know of that were paid for by private companies?).
Sucks to be you. Where I live, even though every store I go to has their own stupid card, I don't carry any of them. The cashier pretty much always has a card sitting there for people like me - just a swipe of the public card, and I get the same price as if I had my own.
I've been using Yahoo for years as my homepage, it was quick and easy to set up nice news summaries and stock market summaries on things I was interested in. Their search feature always sucked, though, so I have used Google for that purpose. Unless Yahoo Search comes up with much better results than Google, I see no reason to change this. It isn't all that hard to type in "google.com" when I want to search for something.
Origin used to kick ass. Then EA bought them. They pretty much sucked after that (surprise, surprise). Probably better this than EA releasing crappy games under the Origin name.
I have to say though, Origin had about the best tagline of any gaming company...
The thing about HDTV's I have yet to figure out is why the HDTV tuner is so damned expensive. You go and buy an already expensive HDTV-ready tv, the vast majority of which don't have a built-in tuner (WHY????), and then they try to stick you with paying $350-$500 for a tuner. What makes it so expensive (I would think there must be some reason for it, otherwise I would think some company would be out there selling them cheap to undercut the competition)?
In case anyone cares, the reason the Smart car hasn't been available in the U.S. despite its apparent popularity in parts of Europe (I remember seeing a lot of them in Germany back in 2000) is because it failed initial crash tests (not just did badly, it outright failed them - it was deemed unsafe for U.S. roads). IIRC it is covered under a special type of car category with looser crash requirements in many European countries, a category that doesn't exist in the U.S.
Thank god they figured out where to put the speakers. I was afraid I might have to actually get a stereo or something.
Seriously, does anyone find it funny that they still stick speakers in every TV? I'm sorry, but if I can afford a $10,000 television (or even a $1,000 screen) what's the likelihood that I'm actually going to use those crappy built in speakers? Please, just save me a couple bucks and ditch the speakers.
Note to mods: I think this was supposed to be funny. I mean, really, can you imagine how much it would cost them if you faxed the entire contract to them? Thats a lot of fax paper. Those things are long.
and our commercial aerospace industry relegated to Boeing, who seemingly can't compete on a level playing field
What are you talking about? Boeing can't compete on a level playing field? Who are they competing with again? Oh yeah, a multinational corporation that recieves vast amounts of aid from three governments (not that Boeing doesn't receive some aid from the U.S., but nowhere near the same level - especially for commercial aircraft). It would be fun to look at how much Boeing and Airbus make, and how much they are supported by their governments, but oh yeah, Airbus is a special type of company registered in France that doesn't need to make any financial information public. And last I checked, Boeing still sells more planes (though by a rather slim margin these days). Boeing may be having difficulty winning, but it is by no means a level playing field.
I was wondering about this. If one were to write a derivative work of GPL'ed software, could one then release it under the GPL (as required) but still offer the same work under another license, which they can still sell to cmpanies that want to avoid working under the requirements of the GPL? Basically, would the GPL limit the creator of the derivative work to only release the derivative work under the GPL, or could that person meet the GPL obligation by releasing their code and then be free to license it under different terms concurrently?
Whereas your entire premise is based on the fallacy of overprecision.
We all know that it's theft. You simply don't like the word because you can't hide from what it says about what you are doing, so you sanitize it away until you are comfortable.
You suffer from underprecision. Copyright infringement is not theft. This is pure and simple fact. Theft, as someone pointed out earlier, requires that the thief take something, thereby depriving the rightful owner of that thing.
You apparently think that using the English language properly and precisely is a fallacy. I feel the opposite. I would argue that the problem is that you simply don't have the proper emotional response to copyright infringement, so you feel it is necessary to use a word with a different meaning, thief, in order to convey the moral and ethical meaning you want.
The point is, saying that a thief is the same as a copyright infringer is inaccurate. However, you insist that the term "thief" be used because to you this connotes the proper moral and ethical issues, whereas "copyright infringer" apparently does not. To me it does - a "copyright infringer" gains access to something he should not have access to, and thereby harms the copyright holder; this is not the same as stealing, or being a thief. But it still is morally and ethically wrong.
Do you see the point? This is most certainly not a "fallacy of precision", if such a thing even exists. It is simply using language to indicate precisely what is meant; if you misunderstand, if you think that being a "copyright infringer" is not a bad thing, then that is a problem with your understanding, not what is said. Work on attaching the proper emotional baggage to the proper terms; don't use inaccurate words with different meaning just because you think the correct term carries insufficient emotional weight for your purposes. If you want to say "a copyright infringer is just as bad as a thief" then fine; just don't try and say the terms mean the same thing. They don't.
As for myself, I don't think a copyright infringer is as bad as a thief. A thief takes something so the rightful owner no longer has it or any control over it. A copyright infringer also takes something that does not belong to them, and in so doing they deprive the proper owner of certain amount of control over it. However, the original owner still retains use of it, and in fact possession of it. There is no doubt that they suffer harm, but not as much as inflicted by a thief. Infringing behaviour is still bad, but it is not the same as theft.
Umm, I said it was a rant. That pretty much means it was pointless. What was the point of your comment? Did you offer support for your claim that "they could not have done a better job of remaining faithful to the original"? No, so you're comment was even more pointless than mine - you responded to a pointless rant with a pointless comment. Now I'm responding to a pointless comment on a pointless rant, so I win.:-P Unless you respond to this of course, then I will have to concede defeat.
Is it okay if I have a fish with big glowing letters spelling out "Jesus" on either side? There can't possibly be a moral problem with that, so it must be legal, right?
From the list of the first twelve from each platform it looks like I won't be buying any games this holiday season. Not a single one of the console games sound interesting (okay, Rainbow Six might be fun, but FPS games on console suck. IMHO, of course, but I'm not trying to tell other people not to buy them). The only racing game is Midnight Club 2, which isn't a racing game but just another arcade POS with car graphics. Fighting games are boring, so no Soul Caliber.
Some of the PC titles look good though. Homeworld 2 might be fun, though I was never very attached to the first one (I found it incredibly bland - it was 3D, but it just didn't matter). Another C&C - that could be fun, I haven't picked one up since Red Alert. Too bad there are no more TA games coming out. Flight Sim 2004 sounds good, but I just got IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, so I've got my flightsim fix for a while (it is an excellent game, for anyone looking for a good flightsim). Deus Ex 2; I wish I was excited about it, I loved the first one, but this new one sounds like complete crap now that it is out. BF: Secret Weapons: BF is awesome, but hell, I hardly even play Road to Rome anymore - the original levels were much better, and I don't think the latest expansion has changed that. Counterstrike? What, they're selling that now? I never really got into it, I preferred Tactical Ops on the UT engine. What is it with all the cool mods being turned into crappy commercial products (ahem, Tactical Ops. *cough* Desert Combat *cough*. Get over it; they are cool cause they are free, as soon as the people try to sell them they turn into crap).
What have they done to my Prince of Persia???? Turned it into another lame console game. Gone are the simplicity of the first two, the incredibly fluid, lifelike animation that set them appart from any other game; now it is just another 3D adventure game with lame unrealistic character movement that doesn't interst me in the least. It's rather sad when you consider that Prince of Persia, which came out what, ten years ago or something, had more liflelike, more fluid movement than pretty much any of the games out today. Granted, it was "only" 2D, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun - and it looked awesome.
For me, I've already got my game for christmas: Mario Kart Double Dash, along with a brand new gamecube and four wavebirds. Now that is a fun game, though I still haven't decided if it lives up to the legacy of Mario Kart 64. Too bad you can't play Super Bomberman on gamecube; there was another great 4 player game (which if they did release they would probably destroy with annoying 3D graphics and pointless complications).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, she got screwed out of the iPod, so that's sorta like negative profit...
Not to nitpick, and I completely agree with how powerful the imagery is (and the sentiment you express), but the Japanese might disagree about Chernobyl being "the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever known."
Disasters can happen on purpose, too.
Hey, at least they didn't use frames (though by the looks of it it was more due to lack of knowledge than a choice not to).
I'd be happy to help check this out. I think the easiest way would be for everyone to send me whatever bills they happen to have. I'll carefully check them out, inspecting them for any metal strips. To ensure that whatever bills I receive are in fact legal tender, I will then proceed to the nearest Best Buy or Fry's to see whether these fine institutions accept them as such.
I know, it sounds like it will be a lot of work, but its the least I can do to furhter the knowledge of teh Slashdot crowd.
I don't think they print $2 bills any more. The only place I've ever actually gotten one was at Monticello (Jefferson's house).
Many products have a small strip of magnetized metal in them, which is what sets off the alarms (they put them in books at libraries sometimes - didn't you ever pull them out when you were a kid?). The detectors at store entrances generate a small magnetic field by running a current through some kind of a loop, and if your magnetized metal strip goes through the field it subtly affects the magnetic field and therefore the current travelling through the loop.
A coil of wire, even if not magnetized, could have a small current induced in it by the magnetic field produced by the theft detectors; this current would in turn produce a small magnetic field in the coil, which would again affect the alarm field and the current running through it, setting it off.
Of course, if this is true, it seems like everything with an electric motor in it should be setting off the alarms, so I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Willow kicks ass.
Goddamn iron butterflies; can't fly, can't spread 'em on toast, what the hell's the point?
As opposed to private transport, where none of the costs are hidden? Pretty much every form of transit, public, private, mass, or individual, suffers from the same problem. You think the cost of mass transit is hidden in the taxes we pay? Have you any idea how incredibly hugely more everybody pays to support the highway system? Cars are the most highly subsidized form of transit in existence outside of space travel. Similarly, all those airports we build cost a hell of a lot of money - most of which usually comes from public bonds. There are very few transport systems that are actually privately funded - practically all are publicly funded in one way or another (I would say oceangoing transit has been kept mostly private, but historically many ships have been partially funded by governments, especially lately, and modern seaport facilities cost huge amounts of money, meaning most of those are largely or partially publicly funded).
So yes, public transit does hide its true cost behind a tax structure to some extent, but so does pretty much every form of private transit (how many sidewalks and bikepaths do you know of that were paid for by private companies?).
That would be quite a BSoD.
Sucks to be you. Where I live, even though every store I go to has their own stupid card, I don't carry any of them. The cashier pretty much always has a card sitting there for people like me - just a swipe of the public card, and I get the same price as if I had my own.
I've been using Yahoo for years as my homepage, it was quick and easy to set up nice news summaries and stock market summaries on things I was interested in. Their search feature always sucked, though, so I have used Google for that purpose. Unless Yahoo Search comes up with much better results than Google, I see no reason to change this. It isn't all that hard to type in "google.com" when I want to search for something.
Origin used to kick ass. Then EA bought them. They pretty much sucked after that (surprise, surprise). Probably better this than EA releasing crappy games under the Origin name.
I have to say though, Origin had about the best tagline of any gaming company...
Origin - We Create Worlds.
Not anymore, I guess.
The thing about HDTV's I have yet to figure out is why the HDTV tuner is so damned expensive. You go and buy an already expensive HDTV-ready tv, the vast majority of which don't have a built-in tuner (WHY????), and then they try to stick you with paying $350-$500 for a tuner. What makes it so expensive (I would think there must be some reason for it, otherwise I would think some company would be out there selling them cheap to undercut the competition)?
He said that the company was a couple quarters away from running out of money.
In case anyone cares, the reason the Smart car hasn't been available in the U.S. despite its apparent popularity in parts of Europe (I remember seeing a lot of them in Germany back in 2000) is because it failed initial crash tests (not just did badly, it outright failed them - it was deemed unsafe for U.S. roads). IIRC it is covered under a special type of car category with looser crash requirements in many European countries, a category that doesn't exist in the U.S.
I don't know, I saw a PT Cruiser with fake (I hope) wood panels the other day...
Thank god they figured out where to put the speakers. I was afraid I might have to actually get a stereo or something.
Seriously, does anyone find it funny that they still stick speakers in every TV? I'm sorry, but if I can afford a $10,000 television (or even a $1,000 screen) what's the likelihood that I'm actually going to use those crappy built in speakers? Please, just save me a couple bucks and ditch the speakers.
Note to mods: I think this was supposed to be funny. I mean, really, can you imagine how much it would cost them if you faxed the entire contract to them? Thats a lot of fax paper. Those things are long.
What are you talking about? Boeing can't compete on a level playing field? Who are they competing with again? Oh yeah, a multinational corporation that recieves vast amounts of aid from three governments (not that Boeing doesn't receive some aid from the U.S., but nowhere near the same level - especially for commercial aircraft). It would be fun to look at how much Boeing and Airbus make, and how much they are supported by their governments, but oh yeah, Airbus is a special type of company registered in France that doesn't need to make any financial information public. And last I checked, Boeing still sells more planes (though by a rather slim margin these days). Boeing may be having difficulty winning, but it is by no means a level playing field.
I was wondering about this. If one were to write a derivative work of GPL'ed software, could one then release it under the GPL (as required) but still offer the same work under another license, which they can still sell to cmpanies that want to avoid working under the requirements of the GPL? Basically, would the GPL limit the creator of the derivative work to only release the derivative work under the GPL, or could that person meet the GPL obligation by releasing their code and then be free to license it under different terms concurrently?
Does that make sense?
We all know that it's theft. You simply don't like the word because you can't hide from what it says about what you are doing, so you sanitize it away until you are comfortable.
You suffer from underprecision. Copyright infringement is not theft. This is pure and simple fact. Theft, as someone pointed out earlier, requires that the thief take something, thereby depriving the rightful owner of that thing.
You apparently think that using the English language properly and precisely is a fallacy. I feel the opposite. I would argue that the problem is that you simply don't have the proper emotional response to copyright infringement, so you feel it is necessary to use a word with a different meaning, thief, in order to convey the moral and ethical meaning you want.
The point is, saying that a thief is the same as a copyright infringer is inaccurate. However, you insist that the term "thief" be used because to you this connotes the proper moral and ethical issues, whereas "copyright infringer" apparently does not. To me it does - a "copyright infringer" gains access to something he should not have access to, and thereby harms the copyright holder; this is not the same as stealing, or being a thief. But it still is morally and ethically wrong.
Do you see the point? This is most certainly not a "fallacy of precision", if such a thing even exists. It is simply using language to indicate precisely what is meant; if you misunderstand, if you think that being a "copyright infringer" is not a bad thing, then that is a problem with your understanding, not what is said. Work on attaching the proper emotional baggage to the proper terms; don't use inaccurate words with different meaning just because you think the correct term carries insufficient emotional weight for your purposes. If you want to say "a copyright infringer is just as bad as a thief" then fine; just don't try and say the terms mean the same thing. They don't.
As for myself, I don't think a copyright infringer is as bad as a thief. A thief takes something so the rightful owner no longer has it or any control over it. A copyright infringer also takes something that does not belong to them, and in so doing they deprive the proper owner of certain amount of control over it. However, the original owner still retains use of it, and in fact possession of it. There is no doubt that they suffer harm, but not as much as inflicted by a thief. Infringing behaviour is still bad, but it is not the same as theft.
Umm, I said it was a rant. That pretty much means it was pointless. What was the point of your comment? Did you offer support for your claim that "they could not have done a better job of remaining faithful to the original"? No, so you're comment was even more pointless than mine - you responded to a pointless rant with a pointless comment. Now I'm responding to a pointless comment on a pointless rant, so I win. :-P Unless you respond to this of course, then I will have to concede defeat.
Is it okay if I have a fish with big glowing letters spelling out "Jesus" on either side? There can't possibly be a moral problem with that, so it must be legal, right?
From the list of the first twelve from each platform it looks like I won't be buying any games this holiday season. Not a single one of the console games sound interesting (okay, Rainbow Six might be fun, but FPS games on console suck. IMHO, of course, but I'm not trying to tell other people not to buy them). The only racing game is Midnight Club 2, which isn't a racing game but just another arcade POS with car graphics. Fighting games are boring, so no Soul Caliber.
Some of the PC titles look good though. Homeworld 2 might be fun, though I was never very attached to the first one (I found it incredibly bland - it was 3D, but it just didn't matter). Another C&C - that could be fun, I haven't picked one up since Red Alert. Too bad there are no more TA games coming out. Flight Sim 2004 sounds good, but I just got IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, so I've got my flightsim fix for a while (it is an excellent game, for anyone looking for a good flightsim). Deus Ex 2; I wish I was excited about it, I loved the first one, but this new one sounds like complete crap now that it is out. BF: Secret Weapons: BF is awesome, but hell, I hardly even play Road to Rome anymore - the original levels were much better, and I don't think the latest expansion has changed that. Counterstrike? What, they're selling that now? I never really got into it, I preferred Tactical Ops on the UT engine. What is it with all the cool mods being turned into crappy commercial products (ahem, Tactical Ops. *cough* Desert Combat *cough*. Get over it; they are cool cause they are free, as soon as the people try to sell them they turn into crap).
What have they done to my Prince of Persia???? Turned it into another lame console game. Gone are the simplicity of the first two, the incredibly fluid, lifelike animation that set them appart from any other game; now it is just another 3D adventure game with lame unrealistic character movement that doesn't interst me in the least. It's rather sad when you consider that Prince of Persia, which came out what, ten years ago or something, had more liflelike, more fluid movement than pretty much any of the games out today. Granted, it was "only" 2D, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun - and it looked awesome.
For me, I've already got my game for christmas: Mario Kart Double Dash, along with a brand new gamecube and four wavebirds. Now that is a fun game, though I still haven't decided if it lives up to the legacy of Mario Kart 64. Too bad you can't play Super Bomberman on gamecube; there was another great 4 player game (which if they did release they would probably destroy with annoying 3D graphics and pointless complications).
Well, that's enough ranting for today.