Yeah, they keep reporting different things. First it was an unmanned airplane, then it was a Northern Alliance helicopter, then it was an "unidentified airplane", now it's back to unmanned airplane. The US isn't going to confirm or deny anything, and it's becoming clear the Taliban can't keep its story straight. It may be a while before we really know anything about what, if anything, happened. (Not that this will keep anyone here from speculating wildly.)
Given how little conventional telephones have changed over the past century, how we still use them by the millions, and how we have so many technological and regulatory problems when adopting new communications technologies, I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for them to become obsolete. No matter what new technologies come down the pike.
Amongst the numerous inflammatory examples used in the editorial was this:
a radio network circulated a list of songs that would be problematic to play
I'm sick of seeing this blown out of proportion over and over again. It's not an infringement of our civil liberties. It's just a radio network making recommendations to its stations on how not to offend the fuck out of their listeners the day after five thousand people were murdered. As far as I can tell that's just good business sense combined with a little sensitivity.
You ain't kidding. I have an instant negative gut-level reaction to it. To me the name immediately conjures up images of multi-level marketing schemes, MAKE MONEY FAST scams, and other seedy to-good-to-be-true business ventures.
At this point it is difficult to imagine.biz being a favorite of anyone but infomercial producers and spamware dealers.
The best software in the world continues to be free. Free as in free speech: free to use, free to copy, free to modify.
Yes, free so long as you don't create any software that might be in violation of the DMCA and you end up in jail. This seems like bit of overly optimistic cheerleading rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Whatever happens to Microsoft, it hardly makes a difference if Hollywood, the RIAA, etc. are working to restrict our freedoms through the legislatures and the courts.
Relax, it was just a cheap opportunity for a joke. Over the past few days I haven't noticed Fox to be noticeably worse than CNN et al. In fact, I rarely notice any difference between Fox and CNN except in that:
Fox keeps telling us ad nauseam that they're not part of the liberal media conspiracy.
Fox never passes up an opportunity to cover a story concerning strippers, prostitutes, bikinis, or breast implants.
No matter what topic is under discussion, Fox can find a busty blonde expert to comment on it.
Other than that, Fox News and CNN are two peas in a pod as far as I'm concerned.
Personally I prefer to watch ABC. Peter Jennings becomes kind of goofy after eight or more hours on the air. He gets this silly sort of half smile while discussing gruesome events. And the night before last he was practically making up conspiracy theories about the government knowing there were still more terrorist cells operating in the US but refusing to tell the media about it.
CNN reports that one of the guys we picked up in St. Louis tonight on a train is telling the FBI a lot about that shit
Yeah, and we'll see if this item of "Breaking News" is true for a change.
we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either.
The reason the Taleban is in power is because there are significant numbers of Afghanis who support it. And even the factions that are opposed to it detest the US just as much. If we go to war against Afghanistan, we have to accept the fact that lots of people who were not involved in terrorist activities are going to be killed. If the government is destroyed, what replaces it might be just as bad. I'm not saying we shouldn't attack if that's what needs to be done, just that we have to be prepared for the consequences.
The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with.
I hope we don't have to deal with all fundamentalist regimes. They're not the only one.
Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.
Iraq does not have a Islamic fundamentalist regime, if that's what you meant to imply.
Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though.
Afghanistan is a particular problem. If you count the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the civil war that ensued after they sent the Soviets home with their tails between their legs, Afghanistan has been at war for 22 consecutive years. There's little there to bomb. The cities are full of rubble, and roads are muddy ruts. There are thousands of experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors. If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.
I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan
I think the reason we haven't heard about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan is that it's just not good military strategy inform the enemy of your battle plans.
Yeah, I keep watching and watching despite the fact that at the end of the day you realize you've really only learned a handful of solid facts.
What's truly disappointing is how much of what they've reported has turned out to be wholly false. Like that story of five fire-fighters being rescued from the rubble. Or the talk of many buried victims using cell phones to call for help. Or the report that several men who had been arrested at New York airports last night had knives and airplane technical manuals in arabic; and one man was falsely claiming to be a pilot. (Last I heard most had been released, none had any link to terrorism, and the guy claiming to be a pilot really was.) Or a tale that Atlanta was another intended target for the terrorists. ("Baloney" said one government offical.) Or the immediate assumption that explosions in Kabul were due to an American attack. (It was just rebels hitting an ammunition dump in Afghanistan's never ending civil war.)
Does anybody check their facts anymore? Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but isn't that something journalists are supposed to do?
Actually, there's an interesting point there. Most television networks have been covering this disaster twenty-four hours a day without commercials. I guess because the commercials would seem rather crass, and the advertisers don't want their products associated with death and disaster.
However, some web sites with disaster related stories are still displaying ads. This seems to be one instance in which the so-called "old media" still has more savvy than the "new".
It's about how such an important piece of code passed dec. 31 1999 without beeing tested against Y2k
Absolutely. I'm glad to see this getting attention here. It is often the case that the need for quality in software takes a back seat to concerns for meeting deadlines and keeping expenses down. But here we see that with computers being used for so many important purposes, small bugs can have a profound effect on people's lives. This is something all of us in IT need to keep in mind.
I think this story is going to find its way in to my boss's inbox (anonymously). It's something to think about when you feel the need to pressure coders to get the job done now, rather than get the job done right.
Why? Because many years ago Adam Smith described the perfect lameness filter. It's called the Invisible Hand, and it's about to come down on Slashdot hard.
It's not about ideology with him, it's about how the law was written.
I'm sure that you are sincere in what you say, but I think that your statement contradicts itself. When you believe that you can take some vague writings from long ago (like the constitution), and discern from those writings with some degree of certainty (or at least objectivity) what their authors intended, then you have most certainly subscribed to an ideology.
Good that they did this, but it's disheartening that the vote was so close.
The very institution of the Supreme Court is disheartening. The constitution is nothing more than whatever five of nine old men in Washington think it is at the given moment. I know saying things like that makes some people uncomfortable, but I don't know how people can accept this institution as legitimate in the first place. We like to think of the United States as a democracy, or at least a representative republic, but it is neither. It is an oligarchy, where ulitmately the whims of nine old men and women (unelected, unaccountable, and appointed for life) decide what should be legal and what should be illegal -- and some would say, perhaps, who should be president.
The strange thing is that we Americans accept this dictatorship. And that furthermore we accept the decisions of the Supreme Court as if they were some sort of wisdom handed down from on high, rather than the personal political musings of nine geriatric mini-tyrants. Many of us seem to imagine that their writings embody eternal truths. But there is nothing eternal or objective about them. The real truth is that if Antonin Scalia's Lincoln Continental was hit a by Mac truck while he was boffing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the back seat, this decision (and quite a few others) could be reversed 180 degrees before their bodies were cold.
The purpose of humanity, if we can be said to have a purpose, is to disperse life throughout the galaxy.
That is a religious statement if I have ever seen one. Hence I must ask: are we allowed to question why you think the purpose of humanity is to disperse life throughout the galaxy? Or would that be offensive to you, and would you prefer it if we simply accepted that statement as true merely because you said so?
I wonder what the first human on Mars will say, and whether it will be as memorable as Neil Armstrong's famous words...
I'm sure the public realtions people at NASA are already working on a script.
We took a community survey as to what the community wanted us to do. We made a lot of decisions based on that.
Whether that is true or not, what has that got to do with anything I said? Nothing.
Now hold on a minute, are you one of these people that flame companies for listening to the community
I'm not familiar with such people. In any case, that's cheap attempt to mischaracterize what I said. You know, there are still some people around here who recognize logical fallacies when they see them. If you want to argue with me, then argue with what I actually said.
Let's review. You said:
If this goes ahead and cuts out 50% of my business, then Im the one going out of business because I stuck to the Linux market and tried to support the cause.
And I said that you are confusing stupidity and nobility. Do you really want me to explain how making your business dependent on a single small company whose actions are completely beyond your control is a bad idea? I would have assumed I'd be insulting your intelligence.
In any case, it's your business, and if you want to take those risks you're welcome to do so. But just don't expect us all to take you seriously when you blame your problems on your selfless dedication to "the cause" rather than unsound business practices.
If this goes ahead and cuts out 50% of my business, then Im the one going out of business because I stuck to the Linux market and tried to support the cause.
You wouldn't be going out of business because you "tried to support the cause." You would be going out of business because you foolishly made your company hopelessly dependent on a third party whose actions are entirely beyond your control. You are mistaking stupidity for nobility.
Umm, please explain how you are any less anonymous than he or she is
From so many of the "we want cheap games" comments on the various threads coming off this story, it is apparent that some people just aren't thinking it through.
Of course customers whould want cheap games. Why should they care whether a middleman has had the opportunity to profit from it? That doesn't benefit them one bit.
The people who make the games need to make a decent living -- or they will leave and go on to somewhere/something else.
And if the people who make the games decide that the best way to make a living is to sell at a discount to LUGS, that is their business. Presumably Loki was not created soley to prop up the bottom line of Tuxgames.
I know this is a bit late but what the hell do bestiality pictures have to do with sexual harrassment?
Geez, you didn't even understand what I said and yet you still couldn't help taking the bait? I'll try to troll more on your level next time.
Whoah! Easy tiger!
Easy yourself. You must think that everyone who disagrees with you is a fucking idiot, otherwise it would have been obvious that the ridiculous tripe I posted was a troll.
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @06:27PM EDT (#128) Please eat a bullet. The worldwide average IQ would probably rise 5 points if you were dead.
I wouldn't be so quick to make remarks about other people's IQs. After all, you're the only one who bit on this lamest of trolls.
Slashdot Mirror
What, you've never seen one of those hats with two beer can holders and a straw attached?
Yeah, they keep reporting different things. First it was an unmanned airplane, then it was a Northern Alliance helicopter, then it was an "unidentified airplane", now it's back to unmanned airplane. The US isn't going to confirm or deny anything, and it's becoming clear the Taliban can't keep its story straight. It may be a while before we really know anything about what, if anything, happened. (Not that this will keep anyone here from speculating wildly.)
Given how little conventional telephones have changed over the past century, how we still use them by the millions, and how we have so many technological and regulatory problems when adopting new communications technologies, I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for them to become obsolete. No matter what new technologies come down the pike.
I'm sick of seeing this blown out of proportion over and over again. It's not an infringement of our civil liberties. It's just a radio network making recommendations to its stations on how not to offend the fuck out of their listeners the day after five thousand people were murdered. As far as I can tell that's just good business sense combined with a little sensitivity.
You ain't kidding. I have an instant negative gut-level reaction to it. To me the name immediately conjures up images of multi-level marketing schemes, MAKE MONEY FAST scams, and other seedy to-good-to-be-true business ventures.
At this point it is difficult to imagine .biz being a favorite of anyone but infomercial producers and spamware dealers.
The best software in the world continues to be free. Free as in free speech: free to use, free to copy, free to modify.
Yes, free so long as you don't create any software that might be in violation of the DMCA and you end up in jail. This seems like bit of overly optimistic cheerleading rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. Whatever happens to Microsoft, it hardly makes a difference if Hollywood, the RIAA, etc. are working to restrict our freedoms through the legislatures and the courts.
Other than that, Fox News and CNN are two peas in a pod as far as I'm concerned.
Personally I prefer to watch ABC. Peter Jennings becomes kind of goofy after eight or more hours on the air. He gets this silly sort of half smile while discussing gruesome events. And the night before last he was practically making up conspiracy theories about the government knowing there were still more terrorist cells operating in the US but refusing to tell the media about it.
Yeah, and we'll see if this item of "Breaking News" is true for a change.
we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either.
The reason the Taleban is in power is because there are significant numbers of Afghanis who support it. And even the factions that are opposed to it detest the US just as much. If we go to war against Afghanistan, we have to accept the fact that lots of people who were not involved in terrorist activities are going to be killed. If the government is destroyed, what replaces it might be just as bad. I'm not saying we shouldn't attack if that's what needs to be done, just that we have to be prepared for the consequences.
The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with.
I hope we don't have to deal with all fundamentalist regimes. They're not the only one.
Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.
Iraq does not have a Islamic fundamentalist regime, if that's what you meant to imply.
Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though.
Afghanistan is a particular problem. If you count the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the civil war that ensued after they sent the Soviets home with their tails between their legs, Afghanistan has been at war for 22 consecutive years. There's little there to bomb. The cities are full of rubble, and roads are muddy ruts. There are thousands of experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors. If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.
I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan
I think the reason we haven't heard about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan is that it's just not good military strategy inform the enemy of your battle plans.
You misspelled "Fox News Channel".
What's truly disappointing is how much of what they've reported has turned out to be wholly false. Like that story of five fire-fighters being rescued from the rubble. Or the talk of many buried victims using cell phones to call for help. Or the report that several men who had been arrested at New York airports last night had knives and airplane technical manuals in arabic; and one man was falsely claiming to be a pilot. (Last I heard most had been released, none had any link to terrorism, and the guy claiming to be a pilot really was.) Or a tale that Atlanta was another intended target for the terrorists. ("Baloney" said one government offical.) Or the immediate assumption that explosions in Kabul were due to an American attack. (It was just rebels hitting an ammunition dump in Afghanistan's never ending civil war.)
Does anybody check their facts anymore? Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but isn't that something journalists are supposed to do?
However, some web sites with disaster related stories are still displaying ads. This seems to be one instance in which the so-called "old media" still has more savvy than the "new".
Absolutely. I'm glad to see this getting attention here. It is often the case that the need for quality in software takes a back seat to concerns for meeting deadlines and keeping expenses down. But here we see that with computers being used for so many important purposes, small bugs can have a profound effect on people's lives. This is something all of us in IT need to keep in mind.
I think this story is going to find its way in to my boss's inbox (anonymously). It's something to think about when you feel the need to pressure coders to get the job done now, rather than get the job done right.
Why is this news?
Why? Because many years ago Adam Smith described the perfect lameness filter. It's called the Invisible Hand, and it's about to come down on Slashdot hard.
It's not about ideology with him, it's about how the law was written.
I'm sure that you are sincere in what you say, but I think that your statement contradicts itself. When you believe that you can take some vague writings from long ago (like the constitution), and discern from those writings with some degree of certainty (or at least objectivity) what their authors intended, then you have most certainly subscribed to an ideology.
Good that they did this, but it's disheartening that the vote was so close.
The very institution of the Supreme Court is disheartening. The constitution is nothing more than whatever five of nine old men in Washington think it is at the given moment. I know saying things like that makes some people uncomfortable, but I don't know how people can accept this institution as legitimate in the first place. We like to think of the United States as a democracy, or at least a representative republic, but it is neither. It is an oligarchy, where ulitmately the whims of nine old men and women (unelected, unaccountable, and appointed for life) decide what should be legal and what should be illegal -- and some would say, perhaps, who should be president.
The strange thing is that we Americans accept this dictatorship. And that furthermore we accept the decisions of the Supreme Court as if they were some sort of wisdom handed down from on high, rather than the personal political musings of nine geriatric mini-tyrants. Many of us seem to imagine that their writings embody eternal truths. But there is nothing eternal or objective about them. The real truth is that if Antonin Scalia's Lincoln Continental was hit a by Mac truck while he was boffing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the back seat, this decision (and quite a few others) could be reversed 180 degrees before their bodies were cold.
The purpose of humanity, if we can be said to have a purpose, is to disperse life throughout the galaxy.
That is a religious statement if I have ever seen one. Hence I must ask: are we allowed to question why you think the purpose of humanity is to disperse life throughout the galaxy? Or would that be offensive to you, and would you prefer it if we simply accepted that statement as true merely because you said so?
I wonder what the first human on Mars will say, and whether it will be as memorable as Neil Armstrong's famous words...
I'm sure the public realtions people at NASA are already working on a script.
Whether that is true or not, what has that got to do with anything I said? Nothing.
I'm not familiar with such people. In any case, that's cheap attempt to mischaracterize what I said. You know, there are still some people around here who recognize logical fallacies when they see them. If you want to argue with me, then argue with what I actually said.
Let's review. You said:
And I said that you are confusing stupidity and nobility. Do you really want me to explain how making your business dependent on a single small company whose actions are completely beyond your control is a bad idea? I would have assumed I'd be insulting your intelligence.
In any case, it's your business, and if you want to take those risks you're welcome to do so. But just don't expect us all to take you seriously when you blame your problems on your selfless dedication to "the cause" rather than unsound business practices.
You wouldn't be going out of business because you "tried to support the cause." You would be going out of business because you foolishly made your company hopelessly dependent on a third party whose actions are entirely beyond your control. You are mistaking stupidity for nobility.
Umm, please explain how you are any less anonymous than he or she is
Of course customers whould want cheap games. Why should they care whether a middleman has had the opportunity to profit from it? That doesn't benefit them one bit.
And if the people who make the games decide that the best way to make a living is to sell at a discount to LUGS, that is their business. Presumably Loki was not created soley to prop up the bottom line of Tuxgames.
First thing I did was fire off an email to Loki, to try and find out what was going on. Im sure they will reply
Jesus Christ, wouldn't it be nice if you had waited for clarification from Loki before you started trashing them on Slashdot?
Very professional.
I know this is a bit late but what the hell do bestiality pictures have to do with sexual harrassment?
Geez, you didn't even understand what I said and yet you still couldn't help taking the bait? I'll try to troll more on your level next time.
Whoah! Easy tiger!
Easy yourself. You must think that everyone who disagrees with you is a fucking idiot, otherwise it would have been obvious that the ridiculous tripe I posted was a troll.
I do. It's what allows me to post blatant trolls like that above.
I remember a documentary by John Stossel
Now there's a troll if I ever saw one.
Phew!! No organized crime in Vegas. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03, @01:26AM EDT (#189)
Good point. Thank God there's legalized gambling in Las Vegas. Othewise there might be mob influence!!
Some moderators thought they got the best of me by being sarcastic, when in fact they were being trolled.
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01, @06:27PM EDT (#128)
Please eat a bullet. The worldwide average IQ would probably rise 5 points if you were dead.
I wouldn't be so quick to make remarks about other people's IQs. After all, you're the only one who bit on this lamest of trolls.