Silver audio cables are just as stupid. How cares about the.000000000003 watt you gain in the decreased resistance in the line!? Silver ain't gonna help against interference.
Sure, maybe not against interference, but how about very tiny vampires traveling through the power lines? Silver power cables stop 'em dead in their tracks right at the wall socket, and silver audio cables are a great last line of defense to keep them from flying out of your speakers and tearing your throat open while you're enjoying a nice Pink Floyd album, thereby ruining the listening experience. Works well against micro-werewolves as well I hear. Sheesh, do you people ever think before you post?
1. It's got to be free. Use product placement in episodes to make your money, networks
Yeah, that'll work pretty universally......
"Starbuck, Apollo, get back to Galactica now and meet me for a couple of Coors Lights in my quarters" "Roger that Galactica Actual, just gotta stop and get my Reeboks first" "Yeah, and I'm really craving some White Castle burgers!"
Product placement works just fine in contemporary settings (as long as it doesn't become too prominent), but stories that are historical, fantasy, or just long long ago in a galaxy far far away doesn't work very well.
Okay, I hate having screaming kids on a plane as much as anyone, but what could this kid possibly have been doing to cause the pilot to declare an emergency and bring the plane down? The story is thin on details, so I'd hope there's more to it than I'm seeing, but I'm having a hard time imagining a kid barely out of diapers being an immediate danger to the plane or flight crew.
"Tower, this is Delta 543, I am declaring an emergency and request landing instructions" "Delta 543, state the nature of the emergency" "Some kid wants juice and his crying is damned irritating." "Delta 543, have you suggested to the air marshal that he shoot the offender?" "Negative tower, marshal has been neutralized by a rather bad headache caused by the screaming" "Delta 543 proceed to runway 14, we'll have you met by airport police, homeland security, and a squad of marines" "Roger that tower, hope they bring some juice"
Then I realized it's a slashdot article, and thus ignores my gender's existence
Ignore it? Hardly. We obsess over the existence of you gender endlessly. Problem is that we obsess over it in much the way we obsess over dragons, Bigfoot, UFOs, The Loch Ness Monster and other mythical creatures.
Oh, I didn't take it personally, it's just that it's all in the presentation. The media has focused on calling it a "rape joke" because "Opie and Anthony Guest Makes Distasteful Sex Comment" just isn't much of a headline. I did hear the show that started all this, and, frankly I'm amazed that anyone even noticed it. It was a roughly 20 second portion of a conversation with a "guest" they found on the street, and the funny part wasn't so much what he was saying as the bravado he was saying it with. Context is everything, and it's just not an easy show to describe at times.
I will not got with AT&T for my cell phone because of the actions they took after Hurricane Katrina. I will not go with Verizon because of them crippling their phones so that you have to buy services from them. I then wrote letters to both companies explaining why I didn't go with them.
Entirely different situations. In neither case were you potentially having a negative impact on a service that other people want/enjoy.
To me blocking isn't enough because I feel that they went too far. Rape just isn't funny but I also don't know if they should be fired for it and didn't ask for that.
There are several issues at play here. One: I doubt you'll find anyone who finds rape funny. They did not lock a woman in the studio and laugh as a homeless man raped her. What they did do was listen to a homeless man describe how he'd like to have sex with certain people who are so far out of his league that it was absurd to begin with. Two: This show is clearly not your thing. It's not what you subscribe for, and that's fine. There are however plenty of people to do subscribe for this, and they shouldn't have to be constrained by your standards any more than you should be subjected to theirs. There's plenty of room on XM for both, and it seems that "live and let live" will give more people what they want than trying to bend them to your will. Your tastes and principles work for you, but there are plenty of opposing views that are just as reasonable to those that hold them.
You have the right to disagree with my opinion as too what is funny and as I said I find rape to not be funny.
That's a cheap shot. As I mentioned above, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks an actual rape is funny. An absurd comment, which has been interpreted to refer to a rape, that can not and will not happen can be a different story entirely. Personally I don't find human dismemberment funny, and yet I laugh every time I see the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail proclaim "It's just a flesh wound".
But my question still stands. I'm an XM subscriber as well. Lets assume for a moment that I don't like or listen to the same channels that you like. Should I take a stance on changing those channels in ways that their listeners don't want, simply because I'm a subscriber to the overall service? Since I don't know which channels you like it's hard to make an example, but lets say I hate the Beatles because I think they make drug references. Should I be writing emails that the '60's on 6 should stop playing their music, even though I don't listen to it? My point is that any channel on the service can be (and probably is) offensive to *someone*. I personally stick to the point of view that if I don't like what I hear on a channel, I just don't listen to that one. If I really hate it, I'll block it. As an aside, blocking a channel is a statement in and of itself. If enough people block a channel, it becomes obvious that the channel is not drawing listeners and it'll probably get replaced by something else that will.
As for the part about non-subscribers complaining, I agree completely. Those folks should stay out of our sandbox and let us (the subscribers) hash these things out with XM ourselves.
Wow. You don't like the show, you don't listen to the show, and yet you want some kind of "standards" placed on the show. Which channels do you like? Perhaps you'd appreciate it if people who don't like them started trying to "improve" them for you.
I really just don't get it. If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
Curious analogy. Perhaps you should consider the possibility that it's more like Chik-fil-a firing the drive-through attendant for swearing at customers over the loudspeaker.
That all depends. I'm pretty sure that Chik-fil-a didn't hire the drive-through attendant to swear at the customers. XM hired these guys to be "shocking and outrageous". I think your analogy works more like this: Chik-fil-a fires the drive-through attendant for selling chicken after the chicken-rights group complains about selling chicken.
I don't know about you, but that's pretty far over the line - even for an "uncensored" show.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but didn't you in one sentence manage to say that to do uncensored programming you need a censor to make it acceptable?
I'm going to leave aside the fact, for the moment, that Opie and Anthony did not say that they would "they would hold her down and punch her in the face".
You just nailed it. I subscribe to XM for the Air America and two channels of decent techno. Opie and Anthony are names I barely recognize and do not care about. XM is a private enterprise, so I totally support their right to fire whoever they choose.
Until of course "Conservative Americans Against Hateful Liberal Radio" mount their campaign to have Air America removed for broadcasting a bit on Randy Rhodes that suggests that President Bush is somehow a bad president. Of course, then you'll be outraged at your content being taken off, but people who like the rap channels won't care. Until, of course, "People for Nice and Clean Music" becomes outraged at all this "disgusting" rap music being played, and on and on and on.
Ultimately, the point here is that XM isn't reacting to legions of angry XM subscribers in suspending this show. They they aren't reacting to "Opie & Anthony" fans abandoning the show in disgust. They seem to be reacting to third parties who thrive on being outraged, and using their [probably feigned] outrage to silence anyone they don't like.
So we're not talking about Africa here, but in Mexico, it can be more profitable to turn the corn into ethanol than into tortillas, and people are going hungry because of it.
Except that's not really what the article is saying. Tortillas are made from white corn, ethanol is made from yellow corn. The article describes a ton of problems from price-fixing to poor planning on exports of corn last year and some economic issues that causes speculators to tie the prices of the two types of corn together, but does not say that ethanol production is directly related.
I am outraged! Not only do I not want Canadians taking pictures of my house, I don't even want them seeing it! I say blindfold 'em at the borders....or better yet, gouge out their eyes! Can't just have people wandering around and looking at buildings that are in full view of a public road, it'll be anarchy!
Of course! And in 20 years when the earth is not a fireball, you'll say the same thing.
Wow, are you saying that the only way you'll believe there's a problem is if nobody fixes it and it comes to pass? Boy am I glad you're not in charge of building maintenance at my place....
Me: Excuse me Mr. Archer, but there are a bunch of shingles missing from the roof....I think it's going to be a real problem if we don't fix it soon.
Mr. Archer: Oh sure, I've heard that one before. Paid a bundle to fix the a roof once, and it was fine....stupid roofer told me that nothing leaked because he fixed it. I'm not falling for that one again.
BTW: what's with the whole earth becoming a fireball thing? I heard a clip of some talk show host saying that also. I don't recall anyone saying anything about the earth actually getting hot enough to explode in climate change presentations.....
From the same pdf: The term 'paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof 'does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public.
Simply if a blog had 500 or more "members" they could of been made to register, which is exactly waht I had said which you said is wrong.
and the reason I said you are wrong is.....you are wrong.
If you are paid to attempt to influence less than 500 people, you are exempt. If you are paid to influence more than 500 people, you are not exempt. If you are not paid, you don't have to register as a paid lobbyist because you are not a paid lobbyist.
I see now that the problem isn't that you didn't read it, it's that you just don't understand it.
If you had read the original bill you would have seen how a blogger with less than 500 members did not have to register, but it also said nothing about one who had 500 or more. So if a person had 500 people who read the blog it could of been considered as being paid.
And if you had read the original bill, you would know that this is completely wrong. The 500 readership mention is in reference to an exemption.
From the bill: "IN GENERAL.--The term 'paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such 1 officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders."
Saying that somehow simply having more than 500 readers constitutes "payment" is pure FUD.
Now how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
...you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They're of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance. [Footnote: Although it's not what you and I would call dancing. Not good dancing anyway. A demon moves like a white band on "Soul Train."]
When the documents about the Apple Bananaphone and the Apple ipod/condom become public, people will start taking these rumours with a bigger pinch of salt.
Tell me: how easy is it to place a phone call from an iPod?
About as easy as it will be to store 2 full seasons of Battlestar Galactica on an iPhone. You snipped out the part where I said I don't think the iPod will take much of a hit from people waiting to buy iPhones.
From the moment the iPod was announced it seems that a commentary on Apple isn't complete without some suggestion that the iPod is in terrible danger. Eventually, maybe it'll get supplanted by some other cool little gizmo, but for now it ain't in danger guys. If he's referring to the idea that people will stop buying iPods waiting for the iPhone, I doubt that would be all that big of a sales hit....the iPhone will, for a while at least, be more far more expensive than an iPod, for far less capacity. I won't be trading in my 30GB iPod any time soon.....unless it's for an 80GB.
But claiming Bush is personally responsible for 3,000 soldier deaths is like saying Mayor Bloomberg is personally responsible for any NYPD officer who dies in the line of duty while fighting crime.
I'm pretty sure that analogy only works if Bloomberg sends those NYPD officers across the Hudson to arrest the mayor of Jersey City for being a potential threat to N.Y.C., based on faulty information provided by dodgy Philidelphians.
Lets see - you can't use nukes, because we're too close, and you'd end up getting the fallout... not to mention what it would do to supplies you import from us (oil, electricity, etc).
You can't invade, because we can turn off the electricity, and a third of your electrical grid would immediately collapse, and much of it would stay down...
You can't use a trade embargo, because we supply you with more petroleum products than any other country in the world... and the shortages would be immediate (pipelines - within hours), unlike tankers (lead times of months)... think of a permanent "Hurricane Katrina" shortfall...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all well and good for those of you in the "reality based" community, but when you generate your own reality as you go along, trifling details like the ones you mentioned cease to be important. I'm sure we'd be greeted with flowers, or candies, or snow or whatever you Canadasians greet welcome guests/liberators with...
Threatening us is more like putting a gun to your own head and saying "Stop or I'll shoot!"
Well, it worked for Sheriff Bart in "Blazing Saddles"......
This is why Ophra opened a leadership school in Aouth Africa and not in the US.
She said in an interview (writting from memory): "whenever I went to South Central-like places, I'd ask to poor kids 'what is what you want?' and they would answer things like 'a pair of Nikes', 'an Xbox','a flat-screen TV'. On South Africa, when you ask poor kids what they want, they say 'a uniform so I can go to school', 'books for school','a pair os sandals to go to school'. This is why I built the school in Sout Africa".
So, in short, Oprah is annoyed because these kids want to be Oprah. They see people like her, or Michael Jordan, or a host of others living "the good life", and they want it too. Shame on them for not having the same priorities as children in South Africa. Maybe next we can find a quote from Paris Hilton deploring the materialistic nature of today's youth.
Slashdot Mirror
Silver audio cables are just as stupid. How cares about the .000000000003 watt you gain in the decreased resistance in the line!? Silver ain't gonna help against interference.
Sure, maybe not against interference, but how about very tiny vampires traveling through the power lines? Silver power cables stop 'em dead in their tracks right at the wall socket, and silver audio cables are a great last line of defense to keep them from flying out of your speakers and tearing your throat open while you're enjoying a nice Pink Floyd album, thereby ruining the listening experience. Works well against micro-werewolves as well I hear. Sheesh, do you people ever think before you post?
1. It's got to be free. Use product placement in episodes to make your money, networks
Yeah, that'll work pretty universally......
"Starbuck, Apollo, get back to Galactica now and meet me for a couple of Coors Lights in my quarters"
"Roger that Galactica Actual, just gotta stop and get my Reeboks first"
"Yeah, and I'm really craving some White Castle burgers!"
Product placement works just fine in contemporary settings (as long as it doesn't become too prominent), but stories that are historical, fantasy, or just long long ago in a galaxy far far away doesn't work very well.
Okay, I hate having screaming kids on a plane as much as anyone, but what could this kid possibly have been doing to cause the pilot to declare an emergency and bring the plane down? The story is thin on details, so I'd hope there's more to it than I'm seeing, but I'm having a hard time imagining a kid barely out of diapers being an immediate danger to the plane or flight crew.
"Tower, this is Delta 543, I am declaring an emergency and request landing instructions"
"Delta 543, state the nature of the emergency"
"Some kid wants juice and his crying is damned irritating."
"Delta 543, have you suggested to the air marshal that he shoot the offender?"
"Negative tower, marshal has been neutralized by a rather bad headache caused by the screaming"
"Delta 543 proceed to runway 14, we'll have you met by airport police, homeland security, and a squad of marines"
"Roger that tower, hope they bring some juice"
Ignore it? Hardly. We obsess over the existence of you gender endlessly. Problem is that we obsess over it in much the way we obsess over dragons, Bigfoot, UFOs, The Loch Ness Monster and other mythical creatures.
Oh, I didn't take it personally, it's just that it's all in the presentation. The media has focused on calling it a "rape joke" because "Opie and Anthony Guest Makes Distasteful Sex Comment" just isn't much of a headline. I did hear the show that started all this, and, frankly I'm amazed that anyone even noticed it. It was a roughly 20 second portion of a conversation with a "guest" they found on the street, and the funny part wasn't so much what he was saying as the bravado he was saying it with. Context is everything, and it's just not an easy show to describe at times.
Entirely different situations. In neither case were you potentially having a negative impact on a service that other people want/enjoy.
There are several issues at play here. One: I doubt you'll find anyone who finds rape funny. They did not lock a woman in the studio and laugh as a homeless man raped her. What they did do was listen to a homeless man describe how he'd like to have sex with certain people who are so far out of his league that it was absurd to begin with. Two: This show is clearly not your thing. It's not what you subscribe for, and that's fine. There are however plenty of people to do subscribe for this, and they shouldn't have to be constrained by your standards any more than you should be subjected to theirs. There's plenty of room on XM for both, and it seems that "live and let live" will give more people what they want than trying to bend them to your will. Your tastes and principles work for you, but there are plenty of opposing views that are just as reasonable to those that hold them.
That's a cheap shot. As I mentioned above, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks an actual rape is funny. An absurd comment, which has been interpreted to refer to a rape, that can not and will not happen can be a different story entirely. Personally I don't find human dismemberment funny, and yet I laugh every time I see the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail proclaim "It's just a flesh wound".
But my question still stands. I'm an XM subscriber as well. Lets assume for a moment that I don't like or listen to the same channels that you like. Should I take a stance on changing those channels in ways that their listeners don't want, simply because I'm a subscriber to the overall service? Since I don't know which channels you like it's hard to make an example, but lets say I hate the Beatles because I think they make drug references. Should I be writing emails that the '60's on 6 should stop playing their music, even though I don't listen to it? My point is that any channel on the service can be (and probably is) offensive to *someone*. I personally stick to the point of view that if I don't like what I hear on a channel, I just don't listen to that one. If I really hate it, I'll block it. As an aside, blocking a channel is a statement in and of itself. If enough people block a channel, it becomes obvious that the channel is not drawing listeners and it'll probably get replaced by something else that will.
As for the part about non-subscribers complaining, I agree completely. Those folks should stay out of our sandbox and let us (the subscribers) hash these things out with XM ourselves.
Wow. You don't like the show, you don't listen to the show, and yet you want some kind of "standards" placed on the show. Which channels do you like? Perhaps you'd appreciate it if people who don't like them started trying to "improve" them for you.
I really just don't get it. If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
That all depends. I'm pretty sure that Chik-fil-a didn't hire the drive-through attendant to swear at the customers. XM hired these guys to be "shocking and outrageous". I think your analogy works more like this: Chik-fil-a fires the drive-through attendant for selling chicken after the chicken-rights group complains about selling chicken.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but didn't you in one sentence manage to say that to do uncensored programming you need a censor to make it acceptable?
I'm going to leave aside the fact, for the moment, that Opie and Anthony did not say that they would "they would hold her down and punch her in the face".
Until of course "Conservative Americans Against Hateful Liberal Radio" mount their campaign to have Air America removed for broadcasting a bit on Randy Rhodes that suggests that President Bush is somehow a bad president. Of course, then you'll be outraged at your content being taken off, but people who like the rap channels won't care. Until, of course, "People for Nice and Clean Music" becomes outraged at all this "disgusting" rap music being played, and on and on and on.
Ultimately, the point here is that XM isn't reacting to legions of angry XM subscribers in suspending this show. They they aren't reacting to "Opie & Anthony" fans abandoning the show in disgust. They seem to be reacting to third parties who thrive on being outraged, and using their [probably feigned] outrage to silence anyone they don't like.
Except that's not really what the article is saying. Tortillas are made from white corn, ethanol is made from yellow corn. The article describes a ton of problems from price-fixing to poor planning on exports of corn last year and some economic issues that causes speculators to tie the prices of the two types of corn together, but does not say that ethanol production is directly related.
Until you get into your car on a bright sunny day and it's "Look ma, no tint"........
Me: Excuse me Mr. Archer, but there are a bunch of shingles missing from the roof....I think it's going to be a real problem if we don't fix it soon.
Mr. Archer: Oh sure, I've heard that one before. Paid a bundle to fix the a roof once, and it was fine....stupid roofer told me that nothing leaked because he fixed it. I'm not falling for that one again.
BTW: what's with the whole earth becoming a fireball thing? I heard a clip of some talk show host saying that also. I don't recall anyone saying anything about the earth actually getting hot enough to explode in climate change presentations.....
You appear to have not read the article, the summary, or most of the comments in this thread.....this may be an all new Slashdot personal best.
The provision didn't silence anyone, it makes you admit that you're a paid professional lobbyist pretending to be some grassroots guy.
Insightful? More like clueless.
and the reason I said you are wrong is.....you are wrong.
If you are paid to attempt to influence less than 500 people, you are exempt. If you are paid to influence more than 500 people, you are not exempt. If you are not paid, you don't have to register as a paid lobbyist because you are not a paid lobbyist.
I see now that the problem isn't that you didn't read it, it's that you just don't understand it.
And if you had read the original bill, you would know that this is completely wrong. The 500 readership mention is in reference to an exemption.
From the bill:
"IN GENERAL.--The term 'paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such 1 officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders."
Saying that somehow simply having more than 500 readers constitutes "payment" is pure FUD.
-- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
Funny, I thought they were both Apples
From the moment the iPod was announced it seems that a commentary on Apple isn't complete without some suggestion that the iPod is in terrible danger. Eventually, maybe it'll get supplanted by some other cool little gizmo, but for now it ain't in danger guys. If he's referring to the idea that people will stop buying iPods waiting for the iPhone, I doubt that would be all that big of a sales hit....the iPhone will, for a while at least, be more far more expensive than an iPod, for far less capacity. I won't be trading in my 30GB iPod any time soon.....unless it's for an 80GB.
I'm pretty sure that analogy only works if Bloomberg sends those NYPD officers across the Hudson to arrest the mayor of Jersey City for being a potential threat to N.Y.C., based on faulty information provided by dodgy Philidelphians.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all well and good for those of you in the "reality based" community, but when you generate your own reality as you go along, trifling details like the ones you mentioned cease to be important. I'm sure we'd be greeted with flowers, or candies, or snow or whatever you Canadasians greet welcome guests/liberators with...
Well, it worked for Sheriff Bart in "Blazing Saddles"......
So, in short, Oprah is annoyed because these kids want to be Oprah. They see people like her, or Michael Jordan, or a host of others living "the good life", and they want it too. Shame on them for not having the same priorities as children in South Africa. Maybe next we can find a quote from Paris Hilton deploring the materialistic nature of today's youth.