Okay, this is a totally ridiculous nit-pick. The *accelerator* is NOT FNAL, it's the "tevatron". FNAL operates the accelerator/tevatron. I said it right the first time and stand by what I said.
Because it is naive to believe that he has *accomplished* anything on his own. Research is expensive and extremely resource consuming. If Mr. Potter doesn't think my money isn't good enough for him to build bombs with, then he is most welcome to refuse it. And lets get it straight, it's MY money. Not DoD's, not Dubya's, MINE. Yours too, prolly.
The reason money is *spent* is to get something out of it. DARPA isn't just saying "Here's a big chunk of cash...please make something cool with it". They develop ideas and plans and research tracks.
Now, on top of that, DoE already spends a *SHEDLOAD* of money on pure theoretical science. I believe the particle accelerator in Batavia, IL run by FNAL costs in aggregate some $6,000.00 odd dollars a minute to operate.
Those $450 million planes, by the way, have lead to great strides forward in material science, and may one day lead to the proper materials to build a space elevator.
This, as opposed to bottom-up economics, which would have this nation buried in cigarette butts and McDonalds hamburger wrappers.
I doubt that would be the case. They would certainly be able to determine any DNA left behind by folks involved. Though blood would be the least likely source of contamination. You'd probably find a good deal of hair and dead skin cells from the diggers.
Also, though, details in the book speak of an exhausting cleaning and restoration process that was used to keep Otzi from decomposing once out of the ice. That would likely have removed any contamination from folks digging him out or just handling him.
...you are an archeologist and would like a good cry.
It's a bit boring and slow at times, but overall pretty interesting. The most memorable piece of the book describes hikers and local police/government types hacking at the ice and mud that Otzi was frozen in, irreparably damaging the corpse...breaking the bow (& arrows) in half by snapping it off in the ice when trying to pry it out of the frozen muck. The initial discover of Otzi was nothing less than a tragedy for science.
The book also discusses in detail all the political BS that went along with the discovery...whether he was found in Italy or Austria and who really "owned" Otzi. One big mess, really...
I didn't say patents were evil. I said there are evil people out there that don't give a rats arse about right and wrong. Those types who have access to stupid patents tend to use those patents to do evil. Think of the asshat who has the patent to "electronic commerce" and how he has used it to
threaten and extort money from small businesses.
I am encouraging folks to remind Netflix that we do not like to do business with evil people, and that Netflix ought to be encouraged to sit on this patent indefinitely.
Well, let's see, that's $240 per year. Add me and about several other thousand people that actually care that they're not getting fucked by the companies that they do business with, and then one becomes a serious threat.
Or are you not concerned that if Netflix enforces this patent or whether or not the evil people of the world are allowed to get away with being assholes? If not, then please, don't be surprised when you are no longer able to get back catalog items and when the minimum pricing model costs $35 per month because you, the customer, have no recourse. Walmart and Blockbuster have been forced out of business because the USPTO has decided to give Netflix the patent for an "online video store" and a de-facto monopoly on what is so "patently" obvious it makes me want to vomit at their stupidity.
It's all fine and good for Netflix to have spent money on this patent if the idea is to keep litigation at bay. You don't want Blockbuster doing the same thing to you...a defensive patent, Bezos called it, I believe.
What I am currently doing is writing a nice little email to Netflix...basically saying that if I so much as smell enforcement of this bullshit patent, I will immediately cancel my subscription to their business.
QuesTec is supposed to be an evaluation tool. The idea is that the most accurate umpires are allowed to, or given, the lucrative post-season gigs.
Umpires don't think they're going to lose their jobs. They're just a bunch of overpaid, whiney biatches who want to be viewed as infallible. They don't want any oversight at all. Some of these guys are making upwards of $400,000 per year.
I, personally, am all for it. MLB probably should have worked more closely with the umpire's union on this (their PR is atrocious), but at the end of the day, the umps are employees of MLB and should shut their mouths. There's no proof that QuesTec is inaccurate...if anything, it keeps the umps from calling strikes that are six inches off the plate.
I knew I should have called shenanigans when I first saw this. The worlds largest scale model of the solar system begins in Peoria, IL...awww...f-it...I'm going to repost this story again...
Well, sure, the RIAA's a bunch of jerks, but this story has nothing to do with the RIAA. It's about a group of crackers that are distributing software illegally. And it's not from a law enforcement perspective.
In fact, if these jag-offs that are stealing games didn't do what they do, we wouldn't be having as many problems with the RIAA ruining CD's and such.
There's a turn of phrase for this type of group of people. It's called "organized crime". It should not be glorified or given attention outside of a law-enforcement context.
And to the other dickhead. I'm from Chi-caw-go and I'll type words how I like, fuckball.
Why the hell does this get press from y'all?
on
GameCube ISOs Released?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Excuse me, but isn't posting to a majore news outlet the details of video game piracy a little, well, dumb?
Not dumb in the sense that it is going to get/. in trouble, but none of you all should disagree about this type of activity (pirating GameCube games) being illegal.
It's just stupid that it seems that the/. crowd is pro-piracy when this shit gets posted, and it gets posted at least once a month.
You are associating yourselves with illegal behavior by posting this crap. Leave the warez posts to warez sites.
Fuck it. You're putting words into my mouth. I never said copyright should go away. I said that copyright is the tool that record companies use to enslave artists, and it's true. They write ridiculous contracts, signing the copyright for the music over to the record company with some pittance of a royalty schedule.
The labels profit margins have dropped by 75% because they're a bunch of greedy shites and think they can get me to pay $19 for a back catalog album. They can blow me.
They're laying off thousands of staff because they employ thousands of unnecessary people. The record labels are unnecessary in themselves. They are a middleman for a product that doesn't need a middleman. Certainly not one who takes as big a piece of the pie that they do.
Also, below, the Dood is right. Retailers generally don't make dick off selling CD's. Best Buy uses them as a loss leader...not that they take a loss, but they aren't selling them to make money.
Payola is an enormous problem, and people who are involved in it ought to be in jail getting ass-raped, but that doesn't excuse the record companies from using bad contracts to steal the copyrights from artists.
Again, I never said copyright is to blame, or that it should be removed. Record companies, though, ARE using copyright to steal nearly 100% of the value of any album they produce. That is a crime. I hope they and their slimy selves go bankrupt.
Re:Yes, and prostitutes are in it for the money to
on
Cheap Audio Production
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· Score: 1
I never said copyright was to blame. Copyright is only the tool that record companies use to steal from artists, enslave them, if you will. When an artist gets a return of less than a dollar on a $15 CD, I call it theft.
I seem to recall Love's figures claiming $50K minus tax, which still isn't 7-11 money, but let's not mince words here. $90K, hell, anything less than 20% of $5 million worth of sales is out and out theft. Record companies (and let's be clear that I mean the big 5) do it via creative bookkeeping, mismanagement and by lying to bands.
I'm blaming the record companies for the cost of $15-20 CD's and using the fact that artists get paid shite to show that record companies are a bunch of immoral assholes.
They are middlemen who have extended their posistion, using copyright to do so, beyond what the market requires. They've monopolized distribution channels in order to keep the smaller competitors out of the market. They use their market position to steal the works of artists, their copyrights. They lie, they cheat, they steal. And I'd love to see them subpoena me for libel, because I'd subpoena their books and prove it to you.
It may not all end up in the hands of a few people, but like most of hollywood, record company executives are not good businesspeople, and they waste shedloads of money. Why can BMG afford to lay off 1400 people? Because they probably have thousands of people who just lay around like slugs collecting a salary. They waste money like it's saltwater in the Pacific...they have a monopoly, why bother cutting costs to protect a marketshare that never changes?
Yes, and prostitutes are in it for the money too.
on
Cheap Audio Production
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· Score: 1
Whatever buddy, keep believing that tripe if you want to. You take someone who owns something "potentially" worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that someone who has also never made much more than minimum wage their entire life.
Now promise them the world, toss a few thousand dollars to them in exchance for the copyright to a product worth orders of magnitude more. They'll sign, because they're young and still believe that people are fair, until Universal Music sends them the bill for the tour promotion they did for them, and now they're in the hole, own no copyrights and don't get shite.
Bollocks yourself. If you think that record companies are fair, you are a fool.
No, in the grand scheme of things, it's not.
on
Cheap Audio Production
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The studio and time for engineers is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. A gold record, that sells half a million copies, and generally puts the band into debt, not makes them money, will net $5 million if wholesale prices are $10 bucks a shot.
Your studio didn't cost $5 million to build from the ground up. Nowhere even close.
The record companies are using copyright to enslave musicians and steal their work. Period. They're a bunch of bastard middlemen that drive up the price of everything for their own benefit.
You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a studio and not come close to putting a major dent in the revenue of a gold record.
Studio costs are not a major factor. It's marketing, payola, promotion, litigation and outright theft (from musicians and consumers) that cause albums to be so highly priced.
Yahoo Games on Demand
on
Games on Demand
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I use the Yahoo Games on Demand service, and honestly, I'm thrilled with it. They have several different payment options, up to $15/month for 10 games. Some games you can only rent for 3 days and that costs $5. Usually the newer stuff.
The selection is pretty good, again, mostly older stuff like Civ III and railroad tycoon, but also some really interesting games like Legion and Tropico. I'd prolly say I buy about 4 computer games a year, spending about $200...probably more. For me, $15/month is a bargain and I get to try many more games.
The technology isn't quite 100%, but it's good enough and getting better. I think everyone should try it out, especially considering you can get started for $5.
Bullshit is right. This is extreme hypochondria and/. should not be treating it like it is a valid news item. These folks need a pshrink.
To the poster above who mentioned Safe, the film with Julianne Moore...ugh...empathize? I was disgusted by that weak, helpless character that could not act upon her own will. That character attempted to drag the rest of the world around her into her own distorted vision.
In other words, she was nutz. Prozac, Paxil, whatever, that's what she needed, not some porcelain egg in which to shut out the world. She needed help, not isolation.
Oh, and Chomsky is a self-righteous, utopian minded idiot.
You all know that the big reason for the bandwidth usage is mp3's, so why is this a big deal? Linux images aren't that big, and if you're all so worried about downloading images, then take a load off your local mirror and burn the damn thing for your buddy instead of making him download it and burn him/herself. I don't even come close to using that much bandwidth unless a new Linux or Oracle or whatever comes out, and if it became and issue, I'd either shell out the cash, or find away around it.
Bandwidth costs money. There is absolutely ZERO reason a University should be sending 100 Terabytes outbound per year unless they've got a particle accelerator running. If the little twits are using bandwidth for mp3's, make them pay. I'd much rather the University be able to afford bandwidth for cancer research or high energy physics data than spending that money so some stupid little dorm rat teeny-bopper can get the lastest Brittney Spears single.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, this is a totally ridiculous nit-pick. The *accelerator* is NOT FNAL, it's the "tevatron". FNAL operates the accelerator/tevatron. I said it right the first time and stand by what I said.
Because it is naive to believe that he has *accomplished* anything on his own. Research is expensive and extremely resource consuming. If Mr. Potter doesn't think my money isn't good enough for him to build bombs with, then he is most welcome to refuse it. And lets get it straight, it's MY money. Not DoD's, not Dubya's, MINE. Yours too, prolly.
Amen brother/sister!
The reason money is *spent* is to get something out of it. DARPA isn't just saying "Here's a big chunk of cash...please make something cool with it". They develop ideas and plans and research tracks.
Now, on top of that, DoE already spends a *SHEDLOAD* of money on pure theoretical science. I believe the particle accelerator in Batavia, IL run by FNAL costs in aggregate some $6,000.00 odd dollars a minute to operate.
Those $450 million planes, by the way, have lead to great strides forward in material science, and may one day lead to the proper materials to build a space elevator.
This, as opposed to bottom-up economics, which would have this nation buried in cigarette butts and McDonalds hamburger wrappers.
I doubt that would be the case. They would certainly be able to determine any DNA left behind by folks involved. Though blood would be the least likely source of contamination. You'd probably find a good deal of hair and dead skin cells from the diggers.
Also, though, details in the book speak of an exhausting cleaning and restoration process that was used to keep Otzi from decomposing once out of the ice. That would likely have removed any contamination from folks digging him out or just handling him.
...you are an archeologist and would like a good cry.
It's a bit boring and slow at times, but overall pretty interesting. The most memorable piece of the book describes hikers and local police/government types hacking at the ice and mud that Otzi was frozen in, irreparably damaging the corpse...breaking the bow (& arrows) in half by snapping it off in the ice when trying to pry it out of the frozen muck. The initial discover of Otzi was nothing less than a tragedy for science.
The book also discusses in detail all the political BS that went along with the discovery...whether he was found in Italy or Austria and who really "owned" Otzi. One big mess, really...
The Federation of American Scientists should have the info you're looking for...it may take some digging...their info-base is huge...
I didn't say patents were evil. I said there are evil people out there that don't give a rats arse about right and wrong. Those types who have access to stupid patents tend to use those patents to do evil. Think of the asshat who has the patent to "electronic commerce" and how he has used it to threaten and extort money from small businesses.
I am encouraging folks to remind Netflix that we do not like to do business with evil people, and that Netflix ought to be encouraged to sit on this patent indefinitely.
Well, let's see, that's $240 per year. Add me and about several other thousand people that actually care that they're not getting fucked by the companies that they do business with, and then one becomes a serious threat.
Or are you not concerned that if Netflix enforces this patent or whether or not the evil people of the world are allowed to get away with being assholes? If not, then please, don't be surprised when you are no longer able to get back catalog items and when the minimum pricing model costs $35 per month because you, the customer, have no recourse. Walmart and Blockbuster have been forced out of business because the USPTO has decided to give Netflix the patent for an "online video store" and a de-facto monopoly on what is so "patently" obvious it makes me want to vomit at their stupidity.
It's all fine and good for Netflix to have spent money on this patent if the idea is to keep litigation at bay. You don't want Blockbuster doing the same thing to you...a defensive patent, Bezos called it, I believe.
What I am currently doing is writing a nice little email to Netflix...basically saying that if I so much as smell enforcement of this bullshit patent, I will immediately cancel my subscription to their business.
QuesTec is supposed to be an evaluation tool. The idea is that the most accurate umpires are allowed to, or given, the lucrative post-season gigs.
Umpires don't think they're going to lose their jobs. They're just a bunch of overpaid, whiney biatches who want to be viewed as infallible. They don't want any oversight at all. Some of these guys are making upwards of $400,000 per year.
I, personally, am all for it. MLB probably should have worked more closely with the umpire's union on this (their PR is atrocious), but at the end of the day, the umps are employees of MLB and should shut their mouths. There's no proof that QuesTec is inaccurate...if anything, it keeps the umps from calling strikes that are six inches off the plate.
About bloody time if you ask me.
No, I think that's going to be an "actual size" dust cloud. ;-)
I knew I should have called shenanigans when I first saw this. The worlds largest scale model of the solar system begins in Peoria, IL...awww...f-it...I'm going to repost this story again...
Well, sure, the RIAA's a bunch of jerks, but this story has nothing to do with the RIAA. It's about a group of crackers that are distributing software illegally. And it's not from a law enforcement perspective.
In fact, if these jag-offs that are stealing games didn't do what they do, we wouldn't be having as many problems with the RIAA ruining CD's and such.
There's a turn of phrase for this type of group of people. It's called "organized crime". It should not be glorified or given attention outside of a law-enforcement context.
And to the other dickhead. I'm from Chi-caw-go and I'll type words how I like, fuckball.
Excuse me, but isn't posting to a majore news outlet the details of video game piracy a little, well, dumb?
/. in trouble, but none of you all should disagree about this type of activity (pirating GameCube games) being illegal.
/. crowd is pro-piracy when this shit gets posted, and it gets posted at least once a month.
Not dumb in the sense that it is going to get
It's just stupid that it seems that the
You are associating yourselves with illegal behavior by posting this crap. Leave the warez posts to warez sites.
Fuck it. You're putting words into my mouth. I never said copyright should go away. I said that copyright is the tool that record companies use to enslave artists, and it's true. They write ridiculous contracts, signing the copyright for the music over to the record company with some pittance of a royalty schedule.
The labels profit margins have dropped by 75% because they're a bunch of greedy shites and think they can get me to pay $19 for a back catalog album. They can blow me.
They're laying off thousands of staff because they employ thousands of unnecessary people. The record labels are unnecessary in themselves. They are a middleman for a product that doesn't need a middleman. Certainly not one who takes as big a piece of the pie that they do.
Also, below, the Dood is right. Retailers generally don't make dick off selling CD's. Best Buy uses them as a loss leader...not that they take a loss, but they aren't selling them to make money.
Payola is an enormous problem, and people who are involved in it ought to be in jail getting ass-raped, but that doesn't excuse the record companies from using bad contracts to steal the copyrights from artists.
Again, I never said copyright is to blame, or that it should be removed. Record companies, though, ARE using copyright to steal nearly 100% of the value of any album they produce. That is a crime. I hope they and their slimy selves go bankrupt.
I never said copyright was to blame. Copyright is only the tool that record companies use to steal from artists, enslave them, if you will. When an artist gets a return of less than a dollar on a $15 CD, I call it theft.
I seem to recall Love's figures claiming $50K minus tax, which still isn't 7-11 money, but let's not mince words here. $90K, hell, anything less than 20% of $5 million worth of sales is out and out theft. Record companies (and let's be clear that I mean the big 5) do it via creative bookkeeping, mismanagement and by lying to bands.
I'm blaming the record companies for the cost of $15-20 CD's and using the fact that artists get paid shite to show that record companies are a bunch of immoral assholes.
They are middlemen who have extended their posistion, using copyright to do so, beyond what the market requires. They've monopolized distribution channels in order to keep the smaller competitors out of the market. They use their market position to steal the works of artists, their copyrights. They lie, they cheat, they steal. And I'd love to see them subpoena me for libel, because I'd subpoena their books and prove it to you.
It may not all end up in the hands of a few people, but like most of hollywood, record company executives are not good businesspeople, and they waste shedloads of money. Why can BMG afford to lay off 1400 people? Because they probably have thousands of people who just lay around like slugs collecting a salary. They waste money like it's saltwater in the Pacific...they have a monopoly, why bother cutting costs to protect a marketshare that never changes?
Whatever buddy, keep believing that tripe if you want to. You take someone who owns something "potentially" worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that someone who has also never made much more than minimum wage their entire life.
Now promise them the world, toss a few thousand dollars to them in exchance for the copyright to a product worth orders of magnitude more. They'll sign, because they're young and still believe that people are fair, until Universal Music sends them the bill for the tour promotion they did for them, and now they're in the hole, own no copyrights and don't get shite.
Bollocks yourself. If you think that record companies are fair, you are a fool.
The studio and time for engineers is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. A gold record, that sells half a million copies, and generally puts the band into debt, not makes them money, will net $5 million if wholesale prices are $10 bucks a shot.
Your studio didn't cost $5 million to build from the ground up. Nowhere even close.
The record companies are using copyright to enslave musicians and steal their work. Period. They're a bunch of bastard middlemen that drive up the price of everything for their own benefit.
You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a studio and not come close to putting a major dent in the revenue of a gold record.
Studio costs are not a major factor. It's marketing, payola, promotion, litigation and outright theft (from musicians and consumers) that cause albums to be so highly priced.
I use the Yahoo Games on Demand service, and honestly, I'm thrilled with it. They have several different payment options, up to $15/month for 10 games. Some games you can only rent for 3 days and that costs $5. Usually the newer stuff.
The selection is pretty good, again, mostly older stuff like Civ III and railroad tycoon, but also some really interesting games like Legion and Tropico. I'd prolly say I buy about 4 computer games a year, spending about $200...probably more. For me, $15/month is a bargain and I get to try many more games.
The technology isn't quite 100%, but it's good enough and getting better. I think everyone should try it out, especially considering you can get started for $5.
Two words: Mental Illness
/. should not be treating it like it is a valid news item. These folks need a pshrink.
Bullshit is right. This is extreme hypochondria and
To the poster above who mentioned Safe, the film with Julianne Moore...ugh...empathize? I was disgusted by that weak, helpless character that could not act upon her own will. That character attempted to drag the rest of the world around her into her own distorted vision.
In other words, she was nutz. Prozac, Paxil, whatever, that's what she needed, not some porcelain egg in which to shut out the world. She needed help, not isolation.
Oh, and Chomsky is a self-righteous, utopian minded idiot.
You all know that the big reason for the bandwidth usage is mp3's, so why is this a big deal? Linux images aren't that big, and if you're all so worried about downloading images, then take a load off your local mirror and burn the damn thing for your buddy instead of making him download it and burn him/herself. I don't even come close to using that much bandwidth unless a new Linux or Oracle or whatever comes out, and if it became and issue, I'd either shell out the cash, or find away around it.
Bandwidth costs money. There is absolutely ZERO reason a University should be sending 100 Terabytes outbound per year unless they've got a particle accelerator running. If the little twits are using bandwidth for mp3's, make them pay. I'd much rather the University be able to afford bandwidth for cancer research or high energy physics data than spending that money so some stupid little dorm rat teeny-bopper can get the lastest Brittney Spears single.
Whoa....if it's in the Chicago Sun Times then it must be true!
No, that review/preview was for shit and you know it. That hast to be just about the worst game review I've ever read....