Okay, sure, companies want information.
I think the three-hundred-odd posts here give good credibility to the idea that purchasers of software and development tools don't *want* to give their information. Of course, without the anti-ms glasses on (oh gods--it's so BRIGHT out here!) we can say that some people (like you) are willing to admit that info-gathering is a necessary evil. But personal-or-even-company-information-COLLECTING? Collaborating? Market-statisticking? That's not cool.
Thankfully, there is at least a potential solution.
So, let's have everybody out there who's sick of ms sign up for as many bogus Passport accounts as possible! Do at least thirty! Do them when you're bored; sign up for free email accts (try to use MS or another morally-scruffy company) and use them for Passport account upon Passport account. Tell them you're a black German woman with nine toes (they have a field for toes, don't they?) and you work for the CIA.
Tracking human beings like that is insulting to some of us, like me. Some of you all were probably raised with video-cameras in your day cares and are kinda used to that sort of thing, but I say let's/dare/ Billy Gates to build a database on US!
...With or without the precious connection to movies, which are probably (in bulk) the sloppiest, least-moving (npi) art form ever created.
Paint vs. PhotoPaint? Paintbrush vs. Mouse? Plastic disk vs. electronic palette? Let's not be ridiculous. ALL artists use tools; and most artists use DIFFERENT tools. Used to be we called those using some funky method of making art "visionaries", now it isn't art unless a company is doing it, like DreamWorks? Bah, I say! Art is a human endeavor, first and foremost. I think a human using a computer to make art is TEN times more artistic than a suit using a Hollywood agency to make it is.
If I were a long-term Military God (kinda like in those Sim games) what I would do is, get lots of people hooked on electronic simulation, thereby weakening their ability to really experience human-to-human interaction. See, that takes down the existing structure of morals and norms. It also gets them learning from *you* instead of from each other. Then, once people had forgot how they were *supposed* to act around each other, we could use the same electronic simulations to re-train them. Since they'd gotten more used to listening to video games than to their elders anyway, it'd be a snap...it'd be McBrainwashing.
But of course, we're not living in a Sim game. *lolol* I don't know why it's so hard for me to remember that sometimes...
As we all know, centuries of (not just testimonial) evidence points to Laughter Being The Best Medicine, and Alex here made me laugh until every germ on my body croaked! It's a miracle!! HE'S MAGICK!!
Respectfully (now that I've been Enlightened),
Sara T.
::As citizen movements the world over launch activities to counter aspects of economic globalization, the growing power of private corporations is becoming a central issue.::
::...and replace it with what ? Until these people propose something better instead I think we are going to be better off with what we have now.::
GUESS WHAT?
Some of us don't want to work for Darth Vader. Some of us think "democracy" is a different word than "dollararchy". Some of us think people, the Earth and gods-forbid even communities are more important than the rich 1%'s right to grow ever richer. The proposed answers to these problems may not be addressed in this document, but those with brains still able to question and seek answers can look elsewhere, like adbusters.org, for more thoughts. Provided thinking doesn't hurt you like it so hurts corporations...
::Is this me or seems like Slashdot seems to be completely dominated by leftists and liberals. When was a last time you saw any story presented from conservative point of view?::
It's you. It's all of us.
We hear the "conservative" or "moneymoneymoney" propoganda every time we turn on The Box (all-corporate programming) or listen to The Pundits (speakers for corporate-run government), for starters. Curse these Netizens for caring about PEOPLE! How dare they worship Life and Harmony instead of Riches and Phat Gear for the already ultra-wealthy! Let Nike run it's sweatshops! Let Monsanto force hundreds of thousands of foreign farmers to use their patented genetically-altered seed! Phuck the Populus; they're not imporant anymore!
I hear this argument all the time: The Industries are playing by "the rules", so who are we to tell them they can't?
Well, since the Civil War they've been pretty well having those rules written for them as they go along, for one thing.
For another, we're the People, dammit, we're supposedto be writing the rules, for the greatest benefit to all. But we're slacking. We haven't even gotten ticked off enough to revoke a corporate charter in decades. We've let them break or rewrite all the rules we came up with in the beginning--Respect the community. No owning stock in another corporation. No lying in your advertisements. And if you break a law, you're dissolved.
I say, spread this document everywhere. Because the sad fact is, we're not even to the point of DISCUSSING what the new rules should be yet; we're still waking people up to the fact that WHILE YOU WERE BUSY WATCHING TV, THE CORPORATIONS TOOK OVER YOUR GOVERNMENT. NOW THEY ARE RAPING YOUR PLANET AND MESSING WITH CULTURES ALL OVER THE WORLD. At least in my opinion, this is a situation the First World citizens, complacent as they've been made, are uniquely suited to step in on--perhaps they are the only people who might fix it. But as long as they're not hearing ANY voice but the Industries, it's hopeless. I'm thrilled to peices to see Slashdot helping shed some light on this atrocious situation.
Go/.!!
--S. Thustra
Re:The Separation betwen a rock and a hard place
on
Killing Video Games
·
· Score: 1
I would say also that we desperately need a separation between Industry and State, so that the stuff going on that really does undermine the parents' ability to raise their children--like child-targeted marketing, and marketing in schools--can be regulated.
All that corrupt politicians like Harp are accomplishing is a transition from one violation of parent's rights to another, but that's okay as long as no Sacred Dollars get damaged. It is the parents' responsibility to monitor and decide their children's entertainment, but how easy is that when your kids are bombarded by slick commercials everywhere they turn? Industries are allowed to spend billions per year studying child psychology, and they can use every trick in the book against the parents...but parents have very little recourse against the Industry, and which lobbyist do you think your congressman is listening to?
If parents are to take the responsibility, they better have the right, as well. So when will somebody get the balls to tell the Industry to back off our kids?
Sara T.
I refuse to trust a book review...
on
Flatterland
·
· Score: 1
...written by someone who can't spell, use conjunctions, or construct one decent sentence out of three. I mean, what are the chances this guy can *read* well enough to even *think* of a constructive review??
Say what you like about Mr. Stewart's writing; my money says it beats the phuck out of yours.
I don't know you (hey! Get off my screen, asshole!!) but I do know that not very many people work exactly the same. Thus, it is conceivable that somebody out there besides me occasionally gets *GASP* some benefit from their pain. Hey, I don't wanna sound all Marie Laveaux on ya'll, but really, if yer livin' the lifestyle and the lifestyle produces the pain, maybe they go together somehow?
Fast admission: I'm not a coder. I'm a sysadmin and a writer. I have CTS and Tendonitis and neck pain like a mofo. I bought a split keyboard, and I do Tai Chi mostly for the mental-health effects, but it helps my back and shoulders a lot (tendonitis, for you lucky uninitiated, affects more than just your wrists). But I have one pain that, were I to eradicate it just because it hurt, I probably wouldn't ever be able to write again.
There's a million famous stories about artists (and I include coders; anything that requires creativity and spartan gruntwork is artistry) who needed their pain to work. Writers who need to be depressed; painters who need their cancer; not to mention people who need insomnia, addiction, migranes or recurring body pains of some sort to work; you name it, it's out there. The body and the mind hook up in weird ways, ways that are sometimes not obviously beneficial for one or the other. Pain certainly isn't always a good thing, but it really isn't de facto a bad thing, either. I wouldn't want anybody to use advice like mine (or any other holistic-sounding wonk) as an excuse to encourage or ignore something bad going on with their body...but people are more than just bodies. If you're out of shape, should you get in shape? Probably. But ask a few of the non-standard questions too, like, are your pains distracting you from your work, or giving you a reason to focus on it?
All I suggest is this: Take a close, all-encompassing look--having someone who knows you give their opinion helps--before making any changes that might endanger your job/hobby/obsession/art. That's all I'm saying. But for the grace of deafness, Beethoven might not have written the ninth and but for the dubious grace of insanity we might never have seen a Van Gogh. I just wouldn't want a rash of back-pain-fixes to endager the next Open Source projects...
Being a big fan of Adbusters and their clan, I have to say that seeing this story on Slashdot makes me feel a trillion times better than reading its likeness in Adbusters. Adbusters, besides being a whup-ass, well-put-together mag, is a full-steam-ahead revolutionary organization. They already have the numbers, they're already convinced, and they're already fighting. All of that is nice, but to see them talking openly about issues like this is (duh) commonplace. It's when those issues pop up in widely-circulated, not-primarily-revolutionary media like Slashdot that there seems to be a little hope, and the little revolutionaries like me get the warm-fuzzies. Whatever anybody thinks of Jon Katz, he gets my solemn kudos for tackling an issue that a) means something and b)needs tackling. Go Jon!
As far as (c)BigMedia(tm) goes, you won't believe me if I try to just tell you their track record for refusing to allow Adbusters, and others, to publish anything resembling a non-corporate point of view (including a lot of surprising issues). Just take your most sickening estimate and triple it. Suffice to say, you won't see this story on ABC or in Time magazine, nor would you, I bet, if Madonna'd co-written it with the Dalai Lama (no offence to Jon).
Hit their site for the whole gruesome shebang, or if you don't like good graphics (*snerk*) take my Reality Test, and see if They've Affected Your Brain Yet!
--Industry makes bazillions selling blood-and-guts soaked games.
--Industry spends bazillions on advertrocities to market said games to kids.
--Parents complain to government, wading through bazillions of Industry lobbyists to get there.
--Government hears complaints from parents and receives a share of the Industry's bazillions for their trouble.
--Government cleverly proposes taking away parent's rights to decide on their children's entertainment altogether.
--Lobbyists toss in a few more bazillions to stop ban. Govt. officials take a break to vacation somewhere sunny.
--Industry continues paying bazillions marketing guts and killing to kids.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, sure, companies want information. I think the three-hundred-odd posts here give good credibility to the idea that purchasers of software and development tools don't *want* to give their information. Of course, without the anti-ms glasses on (oh gods--it's so BRIGHT out here!) we can say that some people (like you) are willing to admit that info-gathering is a necessary evil. But personal-or-even-company-information-COLLECTING? Collaborating? Market-statisticking? That's not cool.
/dare/ Billy Gates to build a database on US!
Thankfully, there is at least a potential solution.
So, let's have everybody out there who's sick of ms sign up for as many bogus Passport accounts as possible! Do at least thirty! Do them when you're bored; sign up for free email accts (try to use MS or another morally-scruffy company) and use them for Passport account upon Passport account. Tell them you're a black German woman with nine toes (they have a field for toes, don't they?) and you work for the CIA.
Tracking human beings like that is insulting to some of us, like me. Some of you all were probably raised with video-cameras in your day cares and are kinda used to that sort of thing, but I say let's
Erm...Very Minor Hack The Planet!
-ST
...With or without the precious connection to movies, which are probably (in bulk) the sloppiest, least-moving (npi) art form ever created.
Paint vs. PhotoPaint? Paintbrush vs. Mouse? Plastic disk vs. electronic palette? Let's not be ridiculous. ALL artists use tools; and most artists use DIFFERENT tools. Used to be we called those using some funky method of making art "visionaries", now it isn't art unless a company is doing it, like DreamWorks? Bah, I say! Art is a human endeavor, first and foremost. I think a human using a computer to make art is TEN times more artistic than a suit using a Hollywood agency to make it is.
ST
If I were a long-term Military God (kinda like in those Sim games) what I would do is, get lots of people hooked on electronic simulation, thereby weakening their ability to really experience human-to-human interaction. See, that takes down the existing structure of morals and norms. It also gets them learning from *you* instead of from each other. Then, once people had forgot how they were *supposed* to act around each other, we could use the same electronic simulations to re-train them. Since they'd gotten more used to listening to video games than to their elders anyway, it'd be a snap...it'd be McBrainwashing.
But of course, we're not living in a Sim game. *lolol* I don't know why it's so hard for me to remember that sometimes...
--ST.
I'm CURED!!
As we all know, centuries of (not just testimonial) evidence points to Laughter Being The Best Medicine, and Alex here made me laugh until every germ on my body croaked! It's a miracle!! HE'S MAGICK!!
Respectfully (now that I've been Enlightened),
Sara T.
::As citizen movements the world over launch activities to counter aspects of economic globalization, the growing power of private corporations is becoming a central issue. ::
::...and replace it with what ? Until these people propose something better instead I think we are going to be better off with what we have now.::
::Is this me or seems like Slashdot seems to be completely dominated by leftists and liberals. When was a last time you saw any story presented from conservative point of view?::
/.!!
GUESS WHAT?
Some of us don't want to work for Darth Vader.
Some of us think "democracy" is a different word than "dollararchy".
Some of us think people, the Earth and gods-forbid even communities are more important than the rich 1%'s right to grow ever richer.
The proposed answers to these problems may not be addressed in this document, but those with brains still able to question and seek answers can look elsewhere, like adbusters.org, for more thoughts. Provided thinking doesn't hurt you like it so hurts corporations...
It's you. It's all of us.
We hear the "conservative" or "moneymoneymoney" propoganda every time we turn on The Box (all-corporate programming) or listen to The Pundits (speakers for corporate-run government), for starters.
Curse these Netizens for caring about PEOPLE! How dare they worship Life and Harmony instead of Riches and Phat Gear for the already ultra-wealthy! Let Nike run it's sweatshops! Let Monsanto force hundreds of thousands of foreign farmers to use their patented genetically-altered seed! Phuck the Populus; they're not imporant anymore!
I hear this argument all the time: The Industries are playing by "the rules", so who are we to tell them they can't?
Well, since the Civil War they've been pretty well having those rules written for them as they go along, for one thing.
For another, we're the People, dammit, we're supposedto be writing the rules , for the greatest benefit to all. But we're slacking. We haven't even gotten ticked off enough to revoke a corporate charter in decades. We've let them break or rewrite all the rules we came up with in the beginning--Respect the community. No owning stock in another corporation. No lying in your advertisements. And if you break a law, you're dissolved.
I say, spread this document everywhere. Because the sad fact is, we're not even to the point of DISCUSSING what the new rules should be yet; we're still waking people up to the fact that WHILE YOU WERE BUSY WATCHING TV, THE CORPORATIONS TOOK OVER YOUR GOVERNMENT. NOW THEY ARE RAPING YOUR PLANET AND MESSING WITH CULTURES ALL OVER THE WORLD. At least in my opinion, this is a situation the First World citizens, complacent as they've been made, are uniquely suited to step in on--perhaps they are the only people who might fix it. But as long as they're not hearing ANY voice but the Industries, it's hopeless. I'm thrilled to peices to see Slashdot helping shed some light on this atrocious situation.
Go
--S. Thustra
I would say also that we desperately need a separation between Industry and State, so that the stuff going on that really does undermine the parents' ability to raise their children--like child-targeted marketing, and marketing in schools--can be regulated.
All that corrupt politicians like Harp are accomplishing is a transition from one violation of parent's rights to another, but that's okay as long as no Sacred Dollars get damaged. It is the parents' responsibility to monitor and decide their children's entertainment, but how easy is that when your kids are bombarded by slick commercials everywhere they turn? Industries are allowed to spend billions per year studying child psychology, and they can use every trick in the book against the parents...but parents have very little recourse against the Industry, and which lobbyist do you think your congressman is listening to?
If parents are to take the responsibility, they better have the right, as well. So when will somebody get the balls to tell the Industry to back off our kids?
Sara T.
...written by someone who can't spell, use conjunctions, or construct one decent sentence out of three. I mean, what are the chances this guy can *read* well enough to even *think* of a constructive review??
Say what you like about Mr. Stewart's writing; my money says it beats the phuck out of yours.
S.T.
...People who know you.
I don't know you (hey! Get off my screen, asshole!!) but I do know that not very many people work exactly the same. Thus, it is conceivable that somebody out there besides me occasionally gets *GASP* some benefit from their pain. Hey, I don't wanna sound all Marie Laveaux on ya'll, but really, if yer livin' the lifestyle and the lifestyle produces the pain, maybe they go together somehow?
Fast admission: I'm not a coder. I'm a sysadmin and a writer. I have CTS and Tendonitis and neck pain like a mofo. I bought a split keyboard, and I do Tai Chi mostly for the mental-health effects, but it helps my back and shoulders a lot (tendonitis, for you lucky uninitiated, affects more than just your wrists). But I have one pain that, were I to eradicate it just because it hurt, I probably wouldn't ever be able to write again.
There's a million famous stories about artists (and I include coders; anything that requires creativity and spartan gruntwork is artistry) who needed their pain to work. Writers who need to be depressed; painters who need their cancer; not to mention people who need insomnia, addiction, migranes or recurring body pains of some sort to work; you name it, it's out there. The body and the mind hook up in weird ways, ways that are sometimes not obviously beneficial for one or the other. Pain certainly isn't always a good thing, but it really isn't de facto a bad thing, either. I wouldn't want anybody to use advice like mine (or any other holistic-sounding wonk) as an excuse to encourage or ignore something bad going on with their body...but people are more than just bodies. If you're out of shape, should you get in shape? Probably. But ask a few of the non-standard questions too, like, are your pains distracting you from your work, or giving you a reason to focus on it?
All I suggest is this: Take a close, all-encompassing look--having someone who knows you give their opinion helps--before making any changes that might endanger your job/hobby/obsession/art. That's all I'm saying. But for the grace of deafness, Beethoven might not have written the ninth and but for the dubious grace of insanity we might never have seen a Van Gogh. I just wouldn't want a rash of back-pain-fixes to endager the next Open Source projects...
Peace,
S.T.
Being a big fan of Adbusters and their clan, I have to say that seeing this story on Slashdot makes me feel a trillion times better than reading its likeness in Adbusters. Adbusters, besides being a whup-ass, well-put-together mag, is a full-steam-ahead revolutionary organization. They already have the numbers, they're already convinced, and they're already fighting. All of that is nice, but to see them talking openly about issues like this is (duh) commonplace. It's when those issues pop up in widely-circulated, not-primarily-revolutionary media like Slashdot that there seems to be a little hope, and the little revolutionaries like me get the warm-fuzzies. Whatever anybody thinks of Jon Katz, he gets my solemn kudos for tackling an issue that a) means something and b)needs tackling. Go Jon!
As far as (c)BigMedia(tm) goes, you won't believe me if I try to just tell you their track record for refusing to allow Adbusters, and others, to publish anything resembling a non-corporate point of view (including a lot of surprising issues). Just take your most sickening estimate and triple it. Suffice to say, you won't see this story on ABC or in Time magazine, nor would you, I bet, if Madonna'd co-written it with the Dalai Lama (no offence to Jon).
Hit their site for the whole gruesome shebang, or if you don't like good graphics (*snerk*) take my Reality Test, and see if They've Affected Your Brain Yet!
(No) Peace (Without Justice),
S.T.
--Industry makes bazillions selling blood-and-guts soaked games.
--Industry spends bazillions on advertrocities to market said games to kids.
--Parents complain to government, wading through bazillions of Industry lobbyists to get there.
--Government hears complaints from parents and receives a share of the Industry's bazillions for their trouble.
--Government cleverly proposes taking away parent's rights to decide on their children's entertainment altogether.
--Lobbyists toss in a few more bazillions to stop ban. Govt. officials take a break to vacation somewhere sunny.
--Industry continues paying bazillions marketing guts and killing to kids.
--Industry makes bazillions.
Q: When is a message hidden in a picture relevant to steganography but not an example of it??
A: When it's this one.
S.T.