I've always looked at this way: my girlfriend is willing to put it in her mouth, so could it possibly be so dirty that handling it makes my hands disease ridden?
And I'm being pretty much serious here - or am I the only person who doesn't shower down before partaking in... carnal delights?:)
I guess you missed the very next paragraph of my little rant:
The only mainsteam comic to not abide by the Code until rather recently was, oddly enough, Spider-Man. Marvel did a 2 issue storyline involving drug use in the 70's
Couldn't remember the issue numbers for the life of me, thanks:)
For once, a semi-decent read from Mr. Katz.. right up to this point:
Elaborate ratings systems and restrictive codes eventually suffocated the comics' angry, biting spirit and made them as bland as network TV -- a cultural loss and free-speech outrage heading soon to a computer near you -- but not before Marvel and other comic creators cranked out some classic yarns, from Spider-Man and Batman to the X-Men and other superheroic tales
For the record, the only real 'restrictive' code that comics have ever had was implemented in the 1950's, known as the Comics' Code Authority. This was a voluntary system, similar to modern movie ratings in the US today. It was brought in for the same reasons - the government was ready, willing, and able to deal with the issue itself, and the industry stepped up to the plate first.
Spider-Man and the X-Men weren't even a glimmer in Lee/Ditko/Kirby's collective eyes when the Code was introduced; what Katz is talking about here is beyond me. The bulk of early Marvel comics, well into the 1980's if not further, were highly sanatized due to the Code. Yes, they had some revolutionary stories, but they were 100% in compliance with the Code (or they wouldn't have gotten any decent distribution).
The only mainsteam comic to not abide by the Code until rather recently was, oddly enough, Spider-Man. Marvel did a 2 issue storyline involving drug use in the 70's - considered quite controversial at the time, and would never have passed the Code's strict standards. Marvel took a risk and released the issues without the Code approval on them. After that, it wasn't until the 80's at least, and moreso the 90's, before we really saw any comics without the Code prominent on their covers.
Now, the Code itself has changed radically over the years, and a lot of things in your average 'tame' comic these days would have been strictly forbidden in the 60's... but regardless, saying that Spider-Man and the X-Men did ANYTHING before the Code is not only false, it does a disservice to the original creators. Marvel in the early 60's managed to put out some amazing ideas, all while toeing the line nicely with the Comics' Code.
Pretty cool, but there's always a but
on
Hacking the Highways
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"It needed to be done," he said from his downtown loft. "It's not like it was something that was intentionally wrong."
While I think what this guy did was very neat, his statement above is exactly the reason WHY there are laws against things like this.
As much as the average 'Joe' would like to think they can make decisions for the rest of the world, sometimes there are some things that experts know more about. And yes, sometimes bureacracy gets in the way - but just imagine if we allowed your average person on the street to dictate how a tcp/ip stack should be implemented, or what have you.
"Not intentionally wrong" is all fine and dandy, but there are still thousands of laws on the books (some rightfully so) that will still get you (negligence laws come to mind). You don't have to MEAN to do harm for harm to be done.
Regardless, pretty cool stunt, and it's good that this sort of thing likely won't be repeated a million times over - I can't count the number of times I've heard "why do they put a stop sign here? there's really no need to stop at all!".
Yes, I did. No shit it's a 1984 reference. And in 1984, the point of it was that the government actually goes and changes history so that it's impossible to prove anything other than their official line.
Show me how the US government is claiming that we've always been at war with Afghanistan, and I'll retract my statements. Hell, when the Soviets were invading in the 80's we were funding the Afghani people, and guess what? The US government openly acknowledges this.
No, we've always been at war with Afghanistan. Wait, I mean Iraq.
Yes, I understand what the poster is saying, but this has to be about the stupidest/. post today. By the logic here, we should still be dropping bombs on Germany, because hey, it's a Bad Thing to ever change who we're fighting against.
Unless I'm missing something; perhaps I didn't see the Pentagon briefing where they stated that 9-11 had nothing to do with the continuing war against Al Queda (sp).
It's a common fallacy to think that 20/20 vision is "perfect", and that anything better is somehow "miraculous". There are many people with better than 20/20 vision. Hell, I used to be one, until I hit puberty and started wearing glasses - really freaked my mom out to be told that I had better than 20/20 vision. Made me feel a bit freakish, truth be told.
Also keep in mind that "seeing something 20 feet away like it's 10 feet away" just means you might see a tiny bit more detail - at 20/20 vision most people can see damn near perfectly out to a LONG distance. Really makes me wonder why someone with 20/20 vision would risk their eyesight just for a marginal improvement.
On this note, anyone remember WHY they chose 20/20 as the standard? Was it arbitrary?
Actually was a not half-bad movie, if you can get past Ryan Phillipe (sp?) as a l33t computer geek.
Tim Robbins' portrayal of the evil CEO was spooky - part Bill Gates, and to me part Steve Jobs. Hell, he even LOOKED a lot like a hip Gates.
VERY overboard movie in terms of the paranoia/conspiracy theory angle, but still, a fun watch, and a fair bit of industry jokes aimed squarely at Microsoft.
Many people like to quote that 'all you need to do is run firewall x and anti-virus b' etc. which is fine for the tech savvy, but as we are all painfully aware, the majority is not tech savvy.
You know, it's precisely this attitude which pisses me off the most out of anything in the computer industry currently. For one thing, the above poster is right - the masses are NOT tech savvy. Nor should they have to be.
Hell, I'm tech savvy as far as that goes. But running a whole host of extra software and/or hardware just because we have weak laws/stupid people is NOT an acceptable answer. Think about it - if, instead of laws making it illegal to shoot people, we just said this:
"If you don't want to get shot, well, you shoulda worn a bullet proof vest and helmet when you went out."
I always shake my head when tech-related issues arise; it's as if people suddenly lose all common sense. I can freely walk down the street (for the most part) in the US without fear of being shot, sure it's a remote possibility, but everyone does and very few people get killed proportionally. Why oh WHY can't we use our computers freely also?
Guess what folks? So do an awful lot of things you buy. I can go out and pick up a $30 discman, and the CDs are still $15+. The discman (or printer) is just a delivery mechanism, it's what you put in it that actually matters at the end.
What I found lacking in the article (and all posts so far) is a biggie for me: most printer manufacturers will void your warranty if you use recycled cartridges, and with good reason. Last time I had to maintain several laser printers, every time some dingbat (read: the boss) went and ordered a recycled toner cartridge, the printer(s) died within a few weeks of using it. Recycled toner and ink cartridges tend to be a LOT lower quality than new ones, they leak all over the place, etc. I'm not even going to start with those needle-injection packages you can buy for the home.
Although I don't think printer manufacturers should be able to PREVENT someone else selling ink, they sure as hell shouldn't have to pay (because of damage) for someone else's incompetence. Oh, and for those that bring up the old "Honda doesn't force you to buy their gasoline" argument... go pick up a new car and install a 3rd party stereo system sometime, and see just what your warranty covers now.
Neat stuff. I really like the concept of self-serve grocery checkouts myself. Typical paranoia though:
it will be a huge social issue once people realize that consumer goods will come with tags that allow them to be tracked individually
Maybe I just don't get it. Keeping tabs on 300 million US citizens is well-nigh impossible - noone cares about the individual, and actually logging this much data is pretty much a moot point. Now imagine this extended to several hundred BILLION consumer goods. Do we really have anything approcahing the capability to DO anything with this much data, let alone something bad? I mean, it's sorta fun to think that the government/corporations/whoever really cares about me individually, and is devoting massive amounts of manpower and/or computer resources to tracking my shopping habits, but.. why would they bother?
So I guess virtually every early 80's arcade/console game isn't actually a game? Keep in mind, most of them didn't have any sort of ending at all (short of wrapping the score or hitting level 255 in Pac-Man, at which point the game crashes), you just played them until you died. The only "winning" one could do would be to get a higher score than others, which you could quite rightly say is the whole point of EQ (with "score" being a lot more complex of course).
I think what you meant to say is that you can damn well do as you please with any signal that passes through YOUR body, after all, these are PUBLIC airwaves damnit!
Earth's bacteria and plagues have been evolving for billions of years just to kill Earth organisms.
And the human immune system has been evolving for (at least) millions of years, just to kill foreign (read: non-host) pathogens. Yet we still get sick.
Also, don't forget HIV, which due to a really weird quirk of genetics, has managed to infect and thrive in us by attacking the very immune system we depend on to survive.
Didn't they say a few years ago that probes sent up by NASA and the Russian space agency contained bacteria and other organic matters that could have potentially contaminated Mars? I think I read somewhere (can't confirm right now) that they found fossilzed earth bacteria in an Martian meteorite.
I think you're mixing up 2 stories here. Anything NASA or the USSR has sent to Mars wouldn't be anywhere close to fossilized by now - give it another few hundred thousand years (rough guess, my geology is years out of date now:).
The possibility of Earth/Mars cross-contamination has been brought up many times, and has almost certainly happened, but the current thinking is it happens from meteorite strike ejecta - and we certainly haven't had anything hit the Earth any time recently that would be large enough to actually fling pieces of the planet towards Mars.
I think this has been brought up before, but bears repeating:
What he did before the DMCA was law may well have been legal, but the fact of the matter is, under current law distribution of this software is illegal.
Think about it: if you had a massive marijuana plantation in the 1920's (or whenever the first anti-pot laws got passed), and had developed this marvelous strain of weed, do you think you'd legally be able to distribute said weed today?
Ex Post Facto means you can't be charged for PRIOR acts. Continuing to distribute this software is a CURRENT act, and as such, illegal.
Not that this case makes sense to anyone except a slimy software company and its even slimier lawyers...
I don't quite get it, myself. Both Atari and Sega, 2 of the video game giants of the past, released consoles with backwards compatibility.
Both failed miserably (in the case of the Genesis the otherwise cheap add-on failed), and for the most part I remember people not bothering, because at that point, who in their right mind would play the "old" games when you had this new and powerful system in front of you?
Have video gamers really changed that much? If the old games are still that much fun for gamers, why buy the new console in the first place - most new games, especially on a system like the PS2, are just graphical updates of existing genres.
Funny you should mention this. A LOT of otherwise knowledgable people I know completely missed it too - on the recent "clipshow" (Homer Gump or some such title), watch towards the end credits where they start making jokes about future Simpsons episodes.
They quickly show a picture of Homer waterskiing - and he happens to be taking a jump, right overtop a shark.
Heh. This reminds me of the good old days when cable was a luxury, and not everyone had it. Channels would broadcast themselves as "Channel 2, Cable 5" or some such.
My family and a lot of my friends had Cable, so we always wondered if those that didn't had some service called "Channel":)
Slashdot Mirror
Only problem is, your opponent won't have to listen to Celine, thereby conclusively winning the war.
I've always looked at this way: my girlfriend is willing to put it in her mouth, so could it possibly be so dirty that handling it makes my hands disease ridden?
... carnal delights? :)
And I'm being pretty much serious here - or am I the only person who doesn't shower down before partaking in
I guess you missed the very next paragraph of my little rant:
:)
The only mainsteam comic to not abide by the Code until rather recently was, oddly enough, Spider-Man. Marvel did a 2 issue storyline involving drug use in the 70's
Couldn't remember the issue numbers for the life of me, thanks
For once, a semi-decent read from Mr. Katz.. right up to this point:
Elaborate ratings systems and restrictive codes eventually suffocated the comics' angry, biting spirit and made them as bland as network TV -- a cultural loss and free-speech outrage heading soon to a computer near you -- but not before Marvel and other comic creators cranked out some classic yarns, from Spider-Man and Batman to the X-Men and other superheroic tales
For the record, the only real 'restrictive' code that comics have ever had was implemented in the 1950's, known as the Comics' Code Authority. This was a voluntary system, similar to modern movie ratings in the US today. It was brought in for the same reasons - the government was ready, willing, and able to deal with the issue itself, and the industry stepped up to the plate first.
Spider-Man and the X-Men weren't even a glimmer in Lee/Ditko/Kirby's collective eyes when the Code was introduced; what Katz is talking about here is beyond me. The bulk of early Marvel comics, well into the 1980's if not further, were highly sanatized due to the Code. Yes, they had some revolutionary stories, but they were 100% in compliance with the Code (or they wouldn't have gotten any decent distribution).
The only mainsteam comic to not abide by the Code until rather recently was, oddly enough, Spider-Man. Marvel did a 2 issue storyline involving drug use in the 70's - considered quite controversial at the time, and would never have passed the Code's strict standards. Marvel took a risk and released the issues without the Code approval on them. After that, it wasn't until the 80's at least, and moreso the 90's, before we really saw any comics without the Code prominent on their covers.
Now, the Code itself has changed radically over the years, and a lot of things in your average 'tame' comic these days would have been strictly forbidden in the 60's... but regardless, saying that Spider-Man and the X-Men did ANYTHING before the Code is not only false, it does a disservice to the original creators. Marvel in the early 60's managed to put out some amazing ideas, all while toeing the line nicely with the Comics' Code.
"It needed to be done," he said from his downtown loft. "It's not like it was something that was intentionally wrong."
While I think what this guy did was very neat, his statement above is exactly the reason WHY there are laws against things like this.
As much as the average 'Joe' would like to think they can make decisions for the rest of the world, sometimes there are some things that experts know more about. And yes, sometimes bureacracy gets in the way - but just imagine if we allowed your average person on the street to dictate how a tcp/ip stack should be implemented, or what have you.
"Not intentionally wrong" is all fine and dandy, but there are still thousands of laws on the books (some rightfully so) that will still get you (negligence laws come to mind). You don't have to MEAN to do harm for harm to be done.
Regardless, pretty cool stunt, and it's good that this sort of thing likely won't be repeated a million times over - I can't count the number of times I've heard "why do they put a stop sign here? there's really no need to stop at all!".
Yes, I understand what the poster is saying
No, you didn't. It's a 1984 refference.
Yes, I did. No shit it's a 1984 reference. And in 1984, the point of it was that the government actually goes and changes history so that it's impossible to prove anything other than their official line.
Show me how the US government is claiming that we've always been at war with Afghanistan, and I'll retract my statements. Hell, when the Soviets were invading in the 80's we were funding the Afghani people, and guess what? The US government openly acknowledges this.
No, we've always been at war with Afghanistan. Wait, I mean Iraq.
/. post today. By the logic here, we should still be dropping bombs on Germany, because hey, it's a Bad Thing to ever change who we're fighting against.
Yes, I understand what the poster is saying, but this has to be about the stupidest
Unless I'm missing something; perhaps I didn't see the Pentagon briefing where they stated that 9-11 had nothing to do with the continuing war against Al Queda (sp).
It's a common fallacy to think that 20/20 vision is "perfect", and that anything better is somehow "miraculous". There are many people with better than 20/20 vision. Hell, I used to be one, until I hit puberty and started wearing glasses - really freaked my mom out to be told that I had better than 20/20 vision. Made me feel a bit freakish, truth be told.
Also keep in mind that "seeing something 20 feet away like it's 10 feet away" just means you might see a tiny bit more detail - at 20/20 vision most people can see damn near perfectly out to a LONG distance. Really makes me wonder why someone with 20/20 vision would risk their eyesight just for a marginal improvement.
On this note, anyone remember WHY they chose 20/20 as the standard? Was it arbitrary?
Actually was a not half-bad movie, if you can get past Ryan Phillipe (sp?) as a l33t computer geek.
Tim Robbins' portrayal of the evil CEO was spooky - part Bill Gates, and to me part Steve Jobs. Hell, he even LOOKED a lot like a hip Gates.
VERY overboard movie in terms of the paranoia/conspiracy theory angle, but still, a fun watch, and a fair bit of industry jokes aimed squarely at Microsoft.
Would you let the children drive a car without proper training, and consequences if they do something wrong?
If not, then why on earth would you allow someone to just wantonly use a computer however they see fit?
Many people like to quote that 'all you need to do is run firewall x and anti-virus b' etc. which is fine for the tech savvy, but as we are all painfully aware, the majority is not tech savvy.
You know, it's precisely this attitude which pisses me off the most out of anything in the computer industry currently. For one thing, the above poster is right - the masses are NOT tech savvy. Nor should they have to be.
Hell, I'm tech savvy as far as that goes. But running a whole host of extra software and/or hardware just because we have weak laws/stupid people is NOT an acceptable answer. Think about it - if, instead of laws making it illegal to shoot people, we just said this:
"If you don't want to get shot, well, you shoulda worn a bullet proof vest and helmet when you went out."
I always shake my head when tech-related issues arise; it's as if people suddenly lose all common sense. I can freely walk down the street (for the most part) in the US without fear of being shot, sure it's a remote possibility, but everyone does and very few people get killed proportionally. Why oh WHY can't we use our computers freely also?
Well, considering how effective viruses and other exploits have been on the Windows platform, I'd think it'd be pronounced "Beeg-lawg-Oh".
Yes, and at 15 you also get to get married. It's like a geek's dream come true :)
"Ink costs half what the printer does"
Guess what folks? So do an awful lot of things you buy. I can go out and pick up a $30 discman, and the CDs are still $15+. The discman (or printer) is just a delivery mechanism, it's what you put in it that actually matters at the end.
What I found lacking in the article (and all posts so far) is a biggie for me: most printer manufacturers will void your warranty if you use recycled cartridges, and with good reason. Last time I had to maintain several laser printers, every time some dingbat (read: the boss) went and ordered a recycled toner cartridge, the printer(s) died within a few weeks of using it. Recycled toner and ink cartridges tend to be a LOT lower quality than new ones, they leak all over the place, etc. I'm not even going to start with those needle-injection packages you can buy for the home.
Although I don't think printer manufacturers should be able to PREVENT someone else selling ink, they sure as hell shouldn't have to pay (because of damage) for someone else's incompetence. Oh, and for those that bring up the old "Honda doesn't force you to buy their gasoline" argument... go pick up a new car and install a 3rd party stereo system sometime, and see just what your warranty covers now.
Neat stuff. I really like the concept of self-serve grocery checkouts myself. Typical paranoia though:
it will be a huge social issue once people realize that consumer goods will come with tags that allow them to be tracked individually
Maybe I just don't get it. Keeping tabs on 300 million US citizens is well-nigh impossible - noone cares about the individual, and actually logging this much data is pretty much a moot point. Now imagine this extended to several hundred BILLION consumer goods. Do we really have anything approcahing the capability to DO anything with this much data, let alone something bad? I mean, it's sorta fun to think that the government/corporations/whoever really cares about me individually, and is devoting massive amounts of manpower and/or computer resources to tracking my shopping habits, but.. why would they bother?
Okay, the guy that wrote this couldn't possibly have anything more than a grade 8 writing level.
:)
Nah, just needs an MBA for that.
in a game there is a winner and a loser
So I guess virtually every early 80's arcade/console game isn't actually a game? Keep in mind, most of them didn't have any sort of ending at all (short of wrapping the score or hitting level 255 in Pac-Man, at which point the game crashes), you just played them until you died. The only "winning" one could do would be to get a higher score than others, which you could quite rightly say is the whole point of EQ (with "score" being a lot more complex of course).
I think what you meant to say is that you can damn well do as you please with any signal that passes through YOUR body, after all, these are PUBLIC airwaves damnit!
Earth's bacteria and plagues have been evolving for billions of years just to kill Earth organisms.
And the human immune system has been evolving for (at least) millions of years, just to kill foreign (read: non-host) pathogens. Yet we still get sick.
Also, don't forget HIV, which due to a really weird quirk of genetics, has managed to infect and thrive in us by attacking the very immune system we depend on to survive.
Didn't they say a few years ago that probes sent up by NASA and the Russian space agency contained bacteria and other organic matters that could have potentially contaminated Mars? I think I read somewhere (can't confirm right now) that they found fossilzed earth bacteria in an Martian meteorite.
:).
I think you're mixing up 2 stories here. Anything NASA or the USSR has sent to Mars wouldn't be anywhere close to fossilized by now - give it another few hundred thousand years (rough guess, my geology is years out of date now
The possibility of Earth/Mars cross-contamination has been brought up many times, and has almost certainly happened, but the current thinking is it happens from meteorite strike ejecta - and we certainly haven't had anything hit the Earth any time recently that would be large enough to actually fling pieces of the planet towards Mars.
Shouldn't we be more worried about the other way around first - the contamination of Mars by some Earthly micro-organism?
Depends on what you consider more worth saving - what's at best some form of alien microbial life, or 6 (7?) billion of your fellow human beings.
I think this has been brought up before, but bears repeating:
What he did before the DMCA was law may well have been legal, but the fact of the matter is, under current law distribution of this software is illegal.
Think about it: if you had a massive marijuana plantation in the 1920's (or whenever the first anti-pot laws got passed), and had developed this marvelous strain of weed, do you think you'd legally be able to distribute said weed today?
Ex Post Facto means you can't be charged for PRIOR acts. Continuing to distribute this software is a CURRENT act, and as such, illegal.
Not that this case makes sense to anyone except a slimy software company and its even slimier lawyers...
I don't quite get it, myself. Both Atari and Sega, 2 of the video game giants of the past, released consoles with backwards compatibility.
Both failed miserably (in the case of the Genesis the otherwise cheap add-on failed), and for the most part I remember people not bothering, because at that point, who in their right mind would play the "old" games when you had this new and powerful system in front of you?
Have video gamers really changed that much? If the old games are still that much fun for gamers, why buy the new console in the first place - most new games, especially on a system like the PS2, are just graphical updates of existing genres.
Funny you should mention this. A LOT of otherwise knowledgable people I know completely missed it too - on the recent "clipshow" (Homer Gump or some such title), watch towards the end credits where they start making jokes about future Simpsons episodes.
They quickly show a picture of Homer waterskiing - and he happens to be taking a jump, right overtop a shark.
I think milk came out of my nose when I saw that.
Heh. This reminds me of the good old days when cable was a luxury, and not everyone had it. Channels would broadcast themselves as "Channel 2, Cable 5" or some such.
:)
My family and a lot of my friends had Cable, so we always wondered if those that didn't had some service called "Channel"