Let's cut the crap about how well qualified he is. He was picked the same way they picked the ambassador to Switzerland- Floyd E. Kvamme, and his wife Jean, gave $217,000 to Republican candidates and organizations in the year 2000. (The Swiss ambassador paid a bargain $456,000.)
Has anyone else noticed that in addition to Adams, Jim Henson, Carl Sagan and Stanely Kubrick have all died suddenly early in production of Disney movies?
WTF is going on.
"You ARE Douglas Adams?"
"Yeah," said Adams, "but don't shout it out or they'll all want one."
"THE Douglas Adams?"
"No, just A Douglas Adams, didn't you hear I come in six packs?"
"But sir," it squealed, "I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead..."
"Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet."
While this will certainly prove embarassing and marginally costly to Dell, it's important tot keep in mind that this disaster is mostly not Dell's fault, because Dell definitely outsources its power supply production out to some company in some third world country, which produced the faulty batteries though assuring Dell a certain quality level. The cut-throat competetion between these overseas component manufacturers to bring price down no matter what is what leads to these problems.
The same thing happened to Apple with its explosive notebook battery problem, and again the true culprit was its outsourced manufacturer. At the time everyone thought it was just another sign that Apple was doomed, but they are still around, and so will Dell. As for the component manufacturer, I'm sure Dell will sue them well into bankrupcy to pay for costs incurred in this debacle.
Jeezz.. if they ever got a clue, *maybe* I could upgrade a Mac with a good gaming video card, cheap RAM, cheap IDE hard drives, use my regular PC monitor, use a cheap USB scanner, speakers and networking gear.. much less there's no way to install Windows or Linux on their computers
Though I read this comment on another machine, just to spite you I am replying from a Mac running Linux (Yellow Dog, admittedly a bastard distro). I could be using Windows emulator if I really felt like it (not that I would ever want to-- emulate that is). Moreover this machine has both an IDE and an ATA drive internal; has a standard VGA monitor connector to which I have hooked up an old PC monitor.
And what is this nonsense about not being able to use cheap speakers? and "networking gear"?
Please.
In 200 years, president George Bush XVIII is gonna be like, "aww WTF why couldn't George Bush II just finish the job the first time around now i have to deal with this crap"
The answer to both questions is that of course it won't work, if 100% of the time or at all, and it doesn't really matter either way, they just need it to appear to work to convince judges, justices and maybe even certain unnamed evil information cartels to let them stay in business for just a little while longer.
Seriously, they have no rational incentive to actually make it work all of the time or police it on any scale if people figure out how to hack it. Right now, Napster's sole priority is just to stay in business in the short term, and they are willing to use whatever half-assed excuse they can to do so.
Oh, you'd be surprised how ridiculously irrational people are, especially on religion. Weak arguments may not cut it for you or me, but any evidence, no matter how weak, is good enough if you start looking for it after you have already decided on your conclusion.
To this effect, check out the insanely hilarious christian cartoonist Jack Chick. Hours and hours of entertainment, you'll laugh until you cry and then it suddenly becomes depressing when you realize that there are people who actually beleive this stuff.
Re:Why the preoccupation with "intelligent" animal
on
Uplifting Dolphins
·
· Score: 3
It's been said before, but it needs repeating: what about the tuna? Why worry about killing all those dolphins when we're so intent on killing the damn tuna? If you cut tuna, do they not bleed?
As a matter of fact, if you cut a tuna, it will not bleed. This is because tuna do not have blood.
Dolphins, on the other hand, will bleed if cut. Dolphins evolved from land-based mammals, which needed blood to emulate the salt water of the fish from which they evolved.
In other words, fish are barely plants in terms of their evolutionary development, and if you need some deeper, "more essential" quality to babble over in your pot-soaked hippie philosophical non-discussions then try thinking about how likely some creature with so little sensory perception available to it and so little processing power to back it up could possibly have a consciousness connected to it.
If you want to whine about how killing dolphins might be no worse than killing tuna then you might argue that cutting the grass when you mow your lawn is a horrible atrocity. And, you could continue that cutting grass is like killing people. Grass doesn't bleed when you cut it, either.
Slashdot Mirror
I love open secrets
Has anyone else noticed that in addition to Adams, Jim Henson, Carl Sagan and Stanely Kubrick have all died suddenly early in production of Disney movies?
WTF is going on.
"You ARE Douglas Adams?"
"Yeah," said Adams, "but don't shout it out or they'll all want one."
"THE Douglas Adams?"
"No, just A Douglas Adams, didn't you hear I come in six packs?"
"But sir," it squealed, "I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead..."
"Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet."
While this will certainly prove embarassing and marginally costly to Dell, it's important tot keep in mind that this disaster is mostly not Dell's fault, because Dell definitely outsources its power supply production out to some company in some third world country, which produced the faulty batteries though assuring Dell a certain quality level. The cut-throat competetion between these overseas component manufacturers to bring price down no matter what is what leads to these problems.
The same thing happened to Apple with its explosive notebook battery problem, and again the true culprit was its outsourced manufacturer. At the time everyone thought it was just another sign that Apple was doomed, but they are still around, and so will Dell. As for the component manufacturer, I'm sure Dell will sue them well into bankrupcy to pay for costs incurred in this debacle.
Though I read this comment on another machine, just to spite you I am replying from a Mac running Linux (Yellow Dog, admittedly a bastard distro). I could be using Windows emulator if I really felt like it (not that I would ever want to-- emulate that is). Moreover this machine has both an IDE and an ATA drive internal; has a standard VGA monitor connector to which I have hooked up an old PC monitor. And what is this nonsense about not being able to use cheap speakers? and "networking gear"? Please.
oh wait, DS9 did totally suck ass. It was a goddamn soap opera. I'm with you on this one.
In 200 years, president George Bush XVIII is gonna be like, "aww WTF why couldn't George Bush II just finish the job the first time around now i have to deal with this crap"
if (person->class == RECORD_EXEC) {
person->side = "evil";
}
// note: record company executives are always on the side of evil.
The answer to both questions is that of course it won't work, if 100% of the time or at all, and it doesn't really matter either way, they just need it to appear to work to convince judges, justices and maybe even certain unnamed evil information cartels to let them stay in business for just a little while longer.
Seriously, they have no rational incentive to actually make it work all of the time or police it on any scale if people figure out how to hack it. Right now, Napster's sole priority is just to stay in business in the short term, and they are willing to use whatever half-assed excuse they can to do so.
Oh, you'd be surprised how ridiculously irrational people are, especially on religion. Weak arguments may not cut it for you or me, but any evidence, no matter how weak, is good enough if you start looking for it after you have already decided on your conclusion.
To this effect, check out the insanely hilarious christian cartoonist Jack Chick. Hours and hours of entertainment, you'll laugh until you cry and then it suddenly becomes depressing when you realize that there are people who actually beleive this stuff.
or to save bandwidth, better yet
Dolphins, on the other hand, will bleed if cut. Dolphins evolved from land-based mammals, which needed blood to emulate the salt water of the fish from which they evolved.
In other words, fish are barely plants in terms of their evolutionary development, and if you need some deeper, "more essential" quality to babble over in your pot-soaked hippie philosophical non-discussions then try thinking about how likely some creature with so little sensory perception available to it and so little processing power to back it up could possibly have a consciousness connected to it.
If you want to whine about how killing dolphins might be no worse than killing tuna then you might argue that cutting the grass when you mow your lawn is a horrible atrocity. And, you could continue that cutting grass is like killing people. Grass doesn't bleed when you cut it, either.