It runs on The Force, actually. So does my computer, but it needed an adapter.
What kind of submission is that, anyway? "Hey everyone! Have you geeks, 'leet haxors and script kiddies heard about [INSERT PRESS RELEASE HERE]? I don't know about you 'k001 d00d5', but I'd sure like to get my hands on one of THOSE. In fact, I even heard that you can get a early adopter version from MegaGloboCorp[tm] at this link here [INSERT LINK]. Visa and Mastercard Accepted!"
Rule 2: and furthermore, the judicial system in this country was not designed for prevention or protection, but reaction, making prevention and protection not only immoral because of their indirect results, but immoral because of the impossibility of them ever functioning.
Adult Contemporary Rock...sort of southwest country flavor...Popularity due to this cool thing she did with her lip in her first video...Something of a "pioneer" for other useless singer/songwriters like Jewel. Ultimately, she and Alanna Myles made Faith Hill and last year's heavy chested country singer palatable for the mainstream. If you use Napster (I don't), look for her first album "Tuesday Night Music Club" and the song "All I Wanna Do."
PS if you like the style but miss the substance (80s Bubblegum? I guess maybe not...) try Spinanes, Beth Orton, or Cat Power.
When did CD prices go up again? The cost of living here in Boston is one of the highest in the world, and I shop at a store located in one of the most expensive parts of the city, and I still only pay $11.88 for CDs. WTF is wrong with your local record stores?
It'd have to be some weird sci-fi cyberpunk future Congress. You know, in a country where some sort of visual device had the populace cowed into submission. We sure are lucky modern folks are so vigilant about protecting their rights, aren't we?
Actually, academics pandering to corps is a step backwards. Corporations are the direct descendants of the feudal structures that dominated Europe back then. Given how every century's gone, we've nowhere to go but up...or nowhere. Next up: Time Warner gets into real estate.
Stagnation. Fortunately, We have a habit of getting away with theft if it's fun (see Q. Tarantino's career), so that recycles some things, but it could be a problem in another 20 years, if the trend towards ever more restricive copyright law continues.
On the other hand, simply ignoring stupid little laws is part of our society. I can think of only one 4th of July when the fireworks we used were legal (NH, late 80s), every other year, we set off enough explosives to level a small town, all without a permit. So I say pirating outdated software falls under the "I smoked a joint in college" exception.
I bought mine from a software Etc as part of a Ultima 1 through whatever box set about a year ago. Wizard Works through Interplay, I think? There was one for the old AD&D gold box games, too, but it sold so well they broke it into three parts and charged an arm and a leg for them. Now if only they'd sell the hint books in one big collection, too. I need the one for Pool of Radiance.
Right. The real problem isn't that copyrights and patents are bad, it's that they last too long. Nothing has entered the public domain in decades. Twenty years from time of publication would be fair.
Mr. Poag-
Actually I've been using your work on my desktops since I started using linux a short two years ago. One of the nice grey "Etrade sucks" variants is the wallpaper for my machines under every OS. In fact, I think I was taught the tar command with one of your files as an example. I'm sorry to hear you had such an unpleasant experience with VA. Thanks for the explanation.
I too wish that I hadn't wasted my time with BASIC.
Me too, but at 7 what choice did I have? "Here's a C64, kid, if you do well enough in spelling Monday Wednesday and Friday, you can use the computer lab Tuesday and Thursday." BASIC and LOGO were all we had. The only thing I learned was not to fear the machines. We need a simple C64-type machine that's just C, so kids can learn something that'll grow with them.
I'm aware of the history of democracy, but thanks for the refresher.
Direct democracy, as practiced in ancient Greece, is pretty much limited to Switzerland and to town meetings in some of the United States.
My home town (Spencer, MA) is one of them.
What happened to Rome when the people were no longer concerned with having a say in the government? How long did meaningful representation last during that period? By meaningful, I'm suggesting that at some point their voting became an act, a symbol of power they had lost. Just like ours.
I'm aware of the historical context of lobbying and bribes, but what happens when it goes from the occasional backalley deal to a lauded part of the political system? How do senators become "powerful" among their peers, who they have no constitutional power over? They raise money through institutionalized bribe taking. That includes Sen. Thurmond.
Because of a Supreme Court decision back during Reconstruction, corporations have the same rights as citizens, an error in moral reason as well as a misinterpretation of the Constitution. Based on that decision, another decision gave corporations the right to bribe legislators through unlimited donations to their political parties. Consequently, no meaningful campaign finance reform can be passed without an amendment to the constitution passing through the same legislative body that's causing the problem. Thus we voters are left at a disadvantage: Corporations will continue to invest in their long-term interests by buying legislative votes, and their money will continue to muscle the relative power of voters aside.
I've voted in both elections I've been old enough to register for, third party both times, and may do the same again this year. I am also seriously considering not voting at all.
Strom Thurmond is a powerful senator. If he was replaced by the voters, they wouldn't be picking someone to represent them in the issues that confront this country, but deciding who would be their offical bribe-taker. Just like we do in every other state. As far as the dixiecrats go, that was a different political climate, 40-50 years ago, right? The lobbying was a little different then.
No, you suggested votes should be cast for 'Dumbleya' because the Dems wrecked the Constitution. Suggesting that the GOP would be any better in that regard is pure and utter bullshit. They both violate the spirit and the letter of the Constitution on a regular basis, they just choose different parts to piss on.
As far as suggesting people vote, I have to disagree there, too. The current lip service paid to the importance of voting is nothing, really, compared to the greater problems of the undermining of the election process by the outright purchase of legislation and the larger malaise of the populace: democracies don't typically last very long because they're too hard to maintain.
Greed and profit will never go away, so the corps willingness to rule combined with the people's unwillingness will grind us down in the long run. It might not end in our lifetimes, but the real power in this country has slipped out of the hands of the people, so the fact that you go and pull the lever once a year (including local elections) has, truly, little effect on the actual outcome of things. Nothing short of a constitutional amendment and lots of hard work will change the corrupt election process in this country, and do you really see that happening, ever? Me either. So our votes and rights will go away for a little while, then we'll get mad and take them back. How long did that take last time? 2000 years?
I always vote third party. Not because my conscience comes into play, as I haven't one, but because I live in a state where the outcome is predetermined: all Dems all the time. Now I consider this better than all GOP, but I still see it as an opportunity to throw some cash to the Greens: 5%(?) of the vote gets them matching funds in the next election.
Weird isn't it? I used to do this to teachers when they irritated me in grade school. The trick is to try to see an issue from all sides and then write something using only one or two words from each angle. Learned it from some german philosopher. I noticed that part of it resembles/. trolling, and part of it resembles some of the more lucid arguments I've used in old term papers, so I'm developing it as a style for my own amusement.
I agree with the guy, essentially, but I'm wondering (lucidly now) if his essentially accurate but poorly written assessment could be acted on even of somebody wanted to. It's like American politics has spun itself so far from reality that it's no longer possible to discuss things in a reasonable manner.
A perfect example of this is Camaign Finance Reform. Everyone wants it, everyone throws around solutions that they know won't work, but if you really examine the reasons behind the lobbying situation we have now, you'll realize it would take a Constitutional Amendment to fix the problem! That's two thirds of the people we're trying to reign in, voting to bite the hand that feeds them. Can you say hopeless?
That's why it's not legal. The beer and tobacco companies (1 and 2 on the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's donation list) fear both the competition for what used to be 2 big oligarchies over "sin trade" products, and the fact that unlike tobacco, which is hard to grow right, you can literally throw m-j seeds on the ground anywhere in the Continental US and piss on them and have weed in a few months. It's tough to corner the market on a product like that, and it's also why microbrews and home brewing is such a threat to AB and Miller.
And I want them all legalized. See, besides lemmings, we humans are the only herd that thins itself. We have no natural predators but our own stupidity, and what better way to allow that stupidity to flower and then die off than legalizing heroin? Sure, you'd lose a few thousand kids right off the bat, but in the long run, the ones who survived would raise their children to think for themselves, as it's the only real defense against bad decisions, and we'd be tougher and smarter as a country for it.
Of course, I'd like to relive my college days with a little legal indo, but I consider this secondary to the real issue: overproliferation of idiots.
Actually, you pretty much get to pick which part of the Constitution gets pissed on this year. Gore will happily allow the 2nd amendment to get trampled, and probably some of the states' rights stuff, too (9th, I think). Bush will happily soil the 1st (establishment of religion), then he'll go after the 9th himself (drug war is a violation of states' rights, don't ya know). My guess is either one will look the other way as the 5th (due process) burns. Worse than that, though, both of them will be after the main document as they allow the corporate buyout of the electoral process to continue. That bit's treasonous, really, but no one seems to mind.
enjoying my "rich inner life," planning on regressing back into my younger self by preparing a 3rd Edition campaign for the fall, and some AC has to go spouting the truth, violently pulling me back into reality. I enjoy the truth as much as the next person, but do you have any idea how dangerous it is if you let it get out of your head?
Next you'll be telling me the US drug war is an immoral and unconstitutional repression of the citizenry to appease the religious right's need for cultural brutality and the essentially feudalist corporations' need for compliant sheep to work 80 hours a week on 40 hours of pay. Or maybe you'll point out that the abortion issue in this country, the one referred to as "old-time family values," was really only an issue with the catholics in Louisiana until it was remanufactured 100 years ago during womens' suffrage and adopted only in the last 50 years by the evangelicals and fundamentalists, who can't grasp the original purpose (medical health of women) and so cloy to the inaccurate idea that abortion is an affront to their nonexistant gods of Brutal Justice and Eternal Guilt.
"Old-time indeed!" you'd say, interrupting my rolling up some NPCs, "next they'll tell us Jesus' entire life story wasn't an aggregation of the ancient Cycle of the Fool and the myths surrounding the openly queer Orphic cults in what is now Turkey!" Then I'd probably tell you to stop worrying about things you can't control, and concentrate on making what little contribution to society you can manage while Nero fiddles. I, on the other hand, will concentrate on this really good idea I have for a city-based campaign.
State law, right? 20g is federal, I'm pretty sure. The baggie thing maybe state, too. MA law, anyone? Of course, they may have changed things since I was using.
never been mugged for coming out of a "wrong" club or feared for your life because of the color of your skin?
No, but since correlation does not prove causation, I'm going to have to ask you to fill in the blank in your implied logic, there. When was the last time a website mugged you (for something other than your e-mail address)? The problem with your logic is one shared by many people, which is this: you assume that external ideas lead directly to action, which they do not. The real process of demagoguery works like this:
See the yes/no, there? That's where the individual determines whether or not he's going to accept the external ideas as his own and then deciding whether or not he's going to act on them. That's why we call it free will, see?
So whoever is worried about being mugged coming out of the Rumper Room or wherever needs to find a way to inject something into the hate-crime type individual's internal discussion.
Here's how things are now, under your prototype violent homophobe's process:
So you need to inject something into this process, because limiting the website is a moral wrong. I've always liked fear, myself, so we'll say you counter with an illusion. Make a bunch of buttons that say "I'm queer and I'm the fucking NRA." Then you have your own website. Ready?
Slashdot Mirror
It runs on The Force, actually. So does my computer, but it needed an adapter.
What kind of submission is that, anyway? "Hey everyone! Have you geeks, 'leet haxors and script kiddies heard about [INSERT PRESS RELEASE HERE]? I don't know about you 'k001 d00d5', but I'd sure like to get my hands on one of THOSE. In fact, I even heard that you can get a early adopter version from MegaGloboCorp[tm] at this link here [INSERT LINK]. Visa and Mastercard Accepted!"
-jpowers
Rule 2: and furthermore, the judicial system in this country was not designed for prevention or protection, but reaction, making prevention and protection not only immoral because of their indirect results, but immoral because of the impossibility of them ever functioning.
Parmenides kicks ass.
-jpowers
Adult Contemporary Rock...sort of southwest country flavor...Popularity due to this cool thing she did with her lip in her first video...Something of a "pioneer" for other useless singer/songwriters like Jewel. Ultimately, she and Alanna Myles made Faith Hill and last year's heavy chested country singer palatable for the mainstream. If you use Napster (I don't), look for her first album "Tuesday Night Music Club" and the song "All I Wanna Do."
PS if you like the style but miss the substance (80s Bubblegum? I guess maybe not...) try Spinanes, Beth Orton, or Cat Power.
-jpowers
quotes from USA Today
I think that says it all right there. Nothing in USA Today is worth reading.
-jpowers
When did CD prices go up again? The cost of living here in Boston is one of the highest in the world, and I shop at a store located in one of the most expensive parts of the city, and I still only pay $11.88 for CDs. WTF is wrong with your local record stores?
-jpowers
It'd have to be some weird sci-fi cyberpunk future Congress. You know, in a country where some sort of visual device had the populace cowed into submission. We sure are lucky modern folks are so vigilant about protecting their rights, aren't we?
-jpowers
Actually, academics pandering to corps is a step backwards. Corporations are the direct descendants of the feudal structures that dominated Europe back then. Given how every century's gone, we've nowhere to go but up...or nowhere. Next up: Time Warner gets into real estate.
-jpowers
Stagnation. Fortunately, We have a habit of getting away with theft if it's fun (see Q. Tarantino's career), so that recycles some things, but it could be a problem in another 20 years, if the trend towards ever more restricive copyright law continues.
On the other hand, simply ignoring stupid little laws is part of our society. I can think of only one 4th of July when the fireworks we used were legal (NH, late 80s), every other year, we set off enough explosives to level a small town, all without a permit. So I say pirating outdated software falls under the "I smoked a joint in college" exception.
-jpowers
I bought mine from a software Etc as part of a Ultima 1 through whatever box set about a year ago. Wizard Works through Interplay, I think? There was one for the old AD&D gold box games, too, but it sold so well they broke it into three parts and charged an arm and a leg for them. Now if only they'd sell the hint books in one big collection, too. I need the one for Pool of Radiance.
-jpowers
Right. The real problem isn't that copyrights and patents are bad, it's that they last too long. Nothing has entered the public domain in decades. Twenty years from time of publication would be fair.
-jpowers
Mr. Poag- Actually I've been using your work on my desktops since I started using linux a short two years ago. One of the nice grey "Etrade sucks" variants is the wallpaper for my machines under every OS. In fact, I think I was taught the tar command with one of your files as an example. I'm sorry to hear you had such an unpleasant experience with VA. Thanks for the explanation.
-jpowers
Seriously-
What's the story behind this sentiment? Did you have a bad experience with them or something?
-jpowers
I too wish that I hadn't wasted my time with BASIC.
Me too, but at 7 what choice did I have? "Here's a C64, kid, if you do well enough in spelling Monday Wednesday and Friday, you can use the computer lab Tuesday and Thursday." BASIC and LOGO were all we had. The only thing I learned was not to fear the machines. We need a simple C64-type machine that's just C, so kids can learn something that'll grow with them.
-jpowers
I'm aware of the history of democracy, but thanks for the refresher.
Direct democracy, as practiced in ancient Greece, is pretty much limited to Switzerland and to town meetings in some of the United States.
My home town (Spencer, MA) is one of them.
What happened to Rome when the people were no longer concerned with having a say in the government? How long did meaningful representation last during that period? By meaningful, I'm suggesting that at some point their voting became an act, a symbol of power they had lost. Just like ours.
I'm aware of the historical context of lobbying and bribes, but what happens when it goes from the occasional backalley deal to a lauded part of the political system? How do senators become "powerful" among their peers, who they have no constitutional power over? They raise money through institutionalized bribe taking. That includes Sen. Thurmond.
Because of a Supreme Court decision back during Reconstruction, corporations have the same rights as citizens, an error in moral reason as well as a misinterpretation of the Constitution. Based on that decision, another decision gave corporations the right to bribe legislators through unlimited donations to their political parties. Consequently, no meaningful campaign finance reform can be passed without an amendment to the constitution passing through the same legislative body that's causing the problem. Thus we voters are left at a disadvantage: Corporations will continue to invest in their long-term interests by buying legislative votes, and their money will continue to muscle the relative power of voters aside.
I've voted in both elections I've been old enough to register for, third party both times, and may do the same again this year. I am also seriously considering not voting at all.
-jpowers
Strom Thurmond is a powerful senator. If he was replaced by the voters, they wouldn't be picking someone to represent them in the issues that confront this country, but deciding who would be their offical bribe-taker. Just like we do in every other state. As far as the dixiecrats go, that was a different political climate, 40-50 years ago, right? The lobbying was a little different then.
-jpowers
No, you suggested votes should be cast for 'Dumbleya' because the Dems wrecked the Constitution. Suggesting that the GOP would be any better in that regard is pure and utter bullshit. They both violate the spirit and the letter of the Constitution on a regular basis, they just choose different parts to piss on.
As far as suggesting people vote, I have to disagree there, too. The current lip service paid to the importance of voting is nothing, really, compared to the greater problems of the undermining of the election process by the outright purchase of legislation and the larger malaise of the populace: democracies don't typically last very long because they're too hard to maintain.
Greed and profit will never go away, so the corps willingness to rule combined with the people's unwillingness will grind us down in the long run. It might not end in our lifetimes, but the real power in this country has slipped out of the hands of the people, so the fact that you go and pull the lever once a year (including local elections) has, truly, little effect on the actual outcome of things. Nothing short of a constitutional amendment and lots of hard work will change the corrupt election process in this country, and do you really see that happening, ever? Me either. So our votes and rights will go away for a little while, then we'll get mad and take them back. How long did that take last time? 2000 years?
-jpowers
I always vote third party. Not because my conscience comes into play, as I haven't one, but because I live in a state where the outcome is predetermined: all Dems all the time. Now I consider this better than all GOP, but I still see it as an opportunity to throw some cash to the Greens: 5%(?) of the vote gets them matching funds in the next election.
-jpowers
Okay, but how can we convince the Christians this is a good idea if the wages of sin really aren't death?
-jpowers
Weird isn't it? I used to do this to teachers when they irritated me in grade school. The trick is to try to see an issue from all sides and then write something using only one or two words from each angle. Learned it from some german philosopher. I noticed that part of it resembles /. trolling, and part of it resembles some of the more lucid arguments I've used in old term papers, so I'm developing it as a style for my own amusement.
I agree with the guy, essentially, but I'm wondering (lucidly now) if his essentially accurate but poorly written assessment could be acted on even of somebody wanted to. It's like American politics has spun itself so far from reality that it's no longer possible to discuss things in a reasonable manner.
A perfect example of this is Camaign Finance Reform. Everyone wants it, everyone throws around solutions that they know won't work, but if you really examine the reasons behind the lobbying situation we have now, you'll realize it would take a Constitutional Amendment to fix the problem! That's two thirds of the people we're trying to reign in, voting to bite the hand that feeds them. Can you say hopeless?
-jpowers
That's why it's not legal. The beer and tobacco companies (1 and 2 on the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's donation list) fear both the competition for what used to be 2 big oligarchies over "sin trade" products, and the fact that unlike tobacco, which is hard to grow right, you can literally throw m-j seeds on the ground anywhere in the Continental US and piss on them and have weed in a few months. It's tough to corner the market on a product like that, and it's also why microbrews and home brewing is such a threat to AB and Miller.
-jpowers
And I want them all legalized. See, besides lemmings, we humans are the only herd that thins itself. We have no natural predators but our own stupidity, and what better way to allow that stupidity to flower and then die off than legalizing heroin? Sure, you'd lose a few thousand kids right off the bat, but in the long run, the ones who survived would raise their children to think for themselves, as it's the only real defense against bad decisions, and we'd be tougher and smarter as a country for it.
Of course, I'd like to relive my college days with a little legal indo, but I consider this secondary to the real issue: overproliferation of idiots.
-jpowers
Actually, you pretty much get to pick which part of the Constitution gets pissed on this year. Gore will happily allow the 2nd amendment to get trampled, and probably some of the states' rights stuff, too (9th, I think). Bush will happily soil the 1st (establishment of religion), then he'll go after the 9th himself (drug war is a violation of states' rights, don't ya know). My guess is either one will look the other way as the 5th (due process) burns. Worse than that, though, both of them will be after the main document as they allow the corporate buyout of the electoral process to continue. That bit's treasonous, really, but no one seems to mind.
-jpowers
enjoying my "rich inner life," planning on regressing back into my younger self by preparing a 3rd Edition campaign for the fall, and some AC has to go spouting the truth, violently pulling me back into reality. I enjoy the truth as much as the next person, but do you have any idea how dangerous it is if you let it get out of your head?
Next you'll be telling me the US drug war is an immoral and unconstitutional repression of the citizenry to appease the religious right's need for cultural brutality and the essentially feudalist corporations' need for compliant sheep to work 80 hours a week on 40 hours of pay. Or maybe you'll point out that the abortion issue in this country, the one referred to as "old-time family values," was really only an issue with the catholics in Louisiana until it was remanufactured 100 years ago during womens' suffrage and adopted only in the last 50 years by the evangelicals and fundamentalists, who can't grasp the original purpose (medical health of women) and so cloy to the inaccurate idea that abortion is an affront to their nonexistant gods of Brutal Justice and Eternal Guilt.
"Old-time indeed!" you'd say, interrupting my rolling up some NPCs, "next they'll tell us Jesus' entire life story wasn't an aggregation of the ancient Cycle of the Fool and the myths surrounding the openly queer Orphic cults in what is now Turkey!" Then I'd probably tell you to stop worrying about things you can't control, and concentrate on making what little contribution to society you can manage while Nero fiddles. I, on the other hand, will concentrate on this really good idea I have for a city-based campaign.
-jpowers
State law, right? 20g is federal, I'm pretty sure. The baggie thing maybe state, too. MA law, anyone? Of course, they may have changed things since I was using.
-jpowers
you're a white heterosexual man, right?
Yes. That's OK with you, right?
never been mugged for coming out of a "wrong" club or feared for your life because of the color of your skin?
No, but since correlation does not prove causation, I'm going to have to ask you to fill in the blank in your implied logic, there. When was the last time a website mugged you (for something other than your e-mail address)? The problem with your logic is one shared by many people, which is this: you assume that external ideas lead directly to action, which they do not. The real process of demagoguery works like this:
External Ideas--[Y/N]->Internal Reason--[Y/N]->Externalized Action
See the yes/no, there? That's where the individual determines whether or not he's going to accept the external ideas as his own and then deciding whether or not he's going to act on them. That's why we call it free will, see?
So whoever is worried about being mugged coming out of the Rumper Room or wherever needs to find a way to inject something into the hate-crime type individual's internal discussion.
Here's how things are now, under your prototype violent homophobe's process:
http://allqueersmustdie.com---> [Accept?Y/N=Y]---> Drinkbeerkillqueers---> [Act?Y/N=Y]---> Brutality commences.
So you need to inject something into this process, because limiting the website is a moral wrong. I've always liked fear, myself, so we'll say you counter with an illusion. Make a bunch of buttons that say "I'm queer and I'm the fucking NRA." Then you have your own website. Ready?
{http://allqueersmustdie.com + http://queerNRA.org---> [Accept?Y/N=Y]---> Drinkbeerkillqueersbuttheyhaveguns---> [Act?Y/N=N]--->Brutality deterred.
You can do that without buying a gun or censoring anyone. Of course, I'm not much for thinking outside the box, though, so don't go by me.
-jpowers