No offense, but I've dealt with a ton of ignorante bike riders too. They ignore traffic like they think they own the road. They pretend that traffic laws don't apply to them. News flash: "Car vs bike" ends just like "car vs person", except with more pointy metal bits. When I'm on a bike, I don't assume that I "have every right to be on the road as cars do" because I think that's an arrogant attitude and it just gets people killed. I keep my eyes peeled for traffic... and I stay the hell off the road if I can help it.
Not to be a right-wing nut-job, but I know it's going to sound like it:
1. Clinton presidency - Liberal? If yes, goto 2 2. Clinton era FBI/ATF - Controlled by liberal presidency? If yes, goto 3 3. Ruby Ridge / Waco - Constitutionally protected freedoms abridged by liberal government?
No one is perfect. Saying that your side of the ideological spectrum is perfect and would never do something is fundementally ignorant... there's always someone who screws it up for everyone. Yes, my votes are usually republican (or libertarian if there's an option) but that's because I vote on issues. I hate gun control, I'm pro-choice, I don't care if there's prayer in school, I dislike the idea that the local gov't can't have a christmas display, I don't like seeing innocents harmed/killed (to the point of arguing with a superior officer)... and I'm in the military.
Don't be a hypocrite, open your eyes and realize that the current political landscape is socially sanctioned corruption and it's not not exclusive to one side of the fence.
I completely agree with you. People like this make me wonder what our educational system is doing to them. As a fellow servicemember (sorry, but I'm a squid), I can only apologize for showing up too late to lend supporting fire (though you're probably used to that from the Navy and the Air Force:P)
Yeah, I've seen this first-hand. Girlfriend of mine (hopefully soon to be wife) has some serious issues getting jobs because of this situation. Why?
Four years back, she moved out to college. Roommates were druggies, she ends up getting raped by them while they're high on coke and left in a diabetic coma. Roommate's girlfriend finds her, gets her to the hospital, but she's out for 3 days, doesn't remember anything... no charges can be filed. Girlfriend moves out, spends the next three weeks trying to get taken off the lease, but the appt owner won't budge.
Fast forward 3 years, she gets served papers for non-payment of rent, seems the druggie roommates skipped town a few months later and my girlfriend is the only person on the lease they can find... and she has to pay it all off. Big kick in the credit there.
Let's put this in perspective:
The average soldier could be anyone in your family, including you. They could also be one of your friends as well. That being said, the average soldier is just as human as you are.
At what point does a soldier's life suddenly become worth less than your own? I believe you're missing the point that their lives are just as important as yours; unless, of course, you want to inject another line of logic: They're fighting for your country and you aren't. If your country runs out of soldiers they're in some tough straits, wether they lost them via combat attrition, and/or lack of recruits because people like yourself who can't envision that the use of violence is ever necessary.
Sometimes I wonder if our military's ability to squash/kill/blow up just about anything has a harmful backlash: People who are so sheltered from the reality that the soldier keeps them safe and somehow they see the destruction wreaked on others and think it evil. Perhaps, if a government were corrupt, or otherwise undeserving of loyalty, I could agree... questionable as some decisions have been, I still support my government and would die to defend my home.
Disclaimer: Discharged from the US Navy July 11th after a 6-year stint.
Could a piece of video be considered "pr0n" if it takes more than 15 minutes before you finish enjoying it?;)
Heh, funny I should see this...
on
The Living Dilbert?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm a Network admin getting out of the Navy here in a few weeks and have pretty much the same thoughts... I will say though, that I haven't lost touch with any of my IT friends back home so I'm not to uninformed... as for a few of the comments I saw earlier about the training Air Force / Army techs received... well, I tell you, it's not any better in the Navy. I'm an electronics tech (ET) by training, not a computer tech (IT), and yet I still do IT work, and do it better than the ITs. Granted, I am a geek, and I was doing desktop level IT work before I joined, so I guess i cheated; but dealing with all these Navy ITs for the last 6 years has made me sad. 80% of them are flat out idiots, from E1 to E9. The next 10% are capable, but haven't been trained or trained right. The last 10% are the true geeks that would make it just about anywhere... and this last 10% usually gets out before they make E6 (sometime around end of 1st or 2nd tour) because they know they can make twice as much in the civilian world.
Sadly enough, the Navy IT system is clogged with the 80% (the type I'm surprised don't strangle themselves in the morning with their shoelaces), and mostly it's because of their IT training program.. they take people who've never touched a computer before, give them 6 weeks of training, and expect them to be MCSE/CCNA/whatever level quality (not paper cert quality, but actual techs) and it doesn't work for a variety of reasons... most of which I've typed up in a multi-page email and sent to my CO once I was on terminal leave (and DD214 in hand)... *shrug* it makes me sad, but every one of the idiots that were in change where I came from, had plenty of warning as to what would happen when I left... 2 years of warning, 2 years of "we need to do this to keep that from happening"... no one listened, and I'm sad to say, I was right... 2 weeks after I left, the poop hit the rotary propeller. *shrug* oh well. Loved the Navy, hated my command. If only stupidity was painful to the stupid person.
Granted, don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance and stupidity... but this seems a bit over the top to me, even for corporate idjits. Maybe it's the old tactic of "Propose something nobody in their right mind would accept" to make their second offer than no one would've accepted in the first place seem much more sane by comparison.
You're thinking about the Navy Firefighter's Thermal Imager AKA NFTI. It's an infrared camera, nothing really special. Just got my Surface pin today, so I could tell you all sorts of useless knowledge about it... runs off 12 AA batteries, can't see through glass, lasts about 90 minutes on a full charge.
-ET3(SW)
So you're saying that, like a cheap pr0n movie, Red Hat is going to get sloppy seconds?... Ick... just thinking of the above comment in that light makes me shudder.
Would read the article if I could, evidentally slashdotted to heck and back...
As a squid who has actually been on board...and whose command was thinking about claiming the ship as our flagship to replace our old one(Gogo Second Fleet!) One interesting fact: The HSV Swift... is not a US ship! In fact, it's leased from the Australian navy. Go figure. Of course, this could be covered in the article but see above disclaimer.
Between that, and the fact that there's essentially no armor or weapons, I'd personally prefer not to serve on that ship, but then again the final designs that the Navy would have built would presumably be able to take some kind of beating and dish a bit back out.
I would have to say the retirement package the Admiral in charge of that decision helped. Nothing quite like approving a project, getting out of the Navy shortly thereafter... and going to work as a exec for the company. Sounded fishy to me.
I played MoO religiously, I loved it. I played MoO2 seriously... I liked it... mixed bag. Improvements here and there, but a lot of micromanagement that just made the game go 'erf'.
I tried playing MoO3 for an hour.
Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Master of Orion 3 -> Remove...
I'm not so upset that it cost me the 50 someodd dollars... I WANT MY HOUR BACK!
I work technical support for Second Fleet in Norfolk, and I can say without a doubt that most of our printer problems are because of the users;) How?
Well, my department is supposed to buy all the equipment for the rest of the command, but someone got lazy and decided to let each department purchase their own equipment. Evidentally it sounded nice to some commander, but in the end they all buy stuff without consulting us first (don't they all?)
Don't get me wrong, when we're in our building instead of the ship, the Phaser 850s and 860s we have are really nice, aside from the 10 - 20 minute wait while it melts the crayons. Heck, even the smell is kinda neat, reminds me of being a kid. But what they don't tell you is that Phasers are not approved for shipboard use... we've had 3 $1500 incidents that I know of because our clueless 'customers' won't turn them off when the ship goes into heavy rolls or when we swap power from ship to shore.
The 4050s that we have, they're pretty nice too, in fact, aside from some initial driver stupidity and the fact that our print switches hate bi-directional comms, they work flawlessly. Oddly enough once I put in charge of procuring drivers and misc software, most of our problems with drivers have ended./shrug:)
Anyways, those are my two recommendations for good printers if you're on shore;)
Knowing my luck, one day my doctor will tell me "I'm sorry, but we just noticed the DNA for your mitochondria is patented. I've been told that the patent holder is filing under the DMCA that you've illegally been copying their intellectual property since conception and you must either cease operations immediately or remove all offending material."
Tell me about it... Since our ship is doing the whole 'gettin outta the shipyard' thing this Christmas I get to work my 8 hour day, but I get 10 extra hours! I'm so lucky! heh. Good thing we give all the civilian contractors doubletime, cuz I definately don't need the money;D... hm.
8 hour day - $320
18 hour holiday - $1200
3 days of disconnecting, packing, loading, unloading, unpacking. reconnecting, and then troubleshooting 500 people's computer gear, and pushing 500-lb safes up ladderwells, etc - Priceless.
ET3 Jason Fuesting, Commander Second Fleet, USN.
# rm -r/bin/laden
Actually, assuming I remember right, you get more power from the fuels (O2, etc) than from boiling water per cubic unit... the power needed to get all that water up there to be used would be a waste... which is why you don't see most of this stuff in anything other than a "Hey this would be neat if" setting. on the otherhand, if we could easily get it while we're up there, then things would be different...
What's that supposed to mean? The quantity of CDs is hardly nearly infinite.
I do believe he's referring to MP3s and other digital media where there is an infinite supply.
Says who that CDs are being price fixed?
The US Government, actually. If I remember right, Slashdot ran a story a week or so back where the record groups agreed to drop their "price fixing" minimum price requirements that they had instated because groups like Best Buy were selling CDs at extremely low prices to draw customers.
People gravitate towards the cheapest price for the best quality. Free == cheapest price. People think (know?) they can't get charged for downloading illegal MP3s. Most people are ignorant of economics. It's not "illegal" in economic terms. I merely stated that Napster is like shoplifting, everybody pays.
There's a splash of truth on those statements. The first two are basically true. People always want the best price. Assuming no conscience, if you don't think you'll get caught doing something bad, then you'll do it. Combine these and you'll get people who steal left and right because it's free which is what the industry wants you to think everyone else is. However, the last two are essentially false. As far as I understand it, you have microeconomics and macroeconomics. You use one or the either. They cannot exist together as the priciples they proscribe are more or less diametrically opposed. The gap between the two is generally ignored. There is no "Grand Unifying Theory of Economics" that makes them both work at the same time. If economics professors don't know what they're talking about, how can we expect their students, much less the general public to understand it? Oh sure, people make a living at it every day by applying the two, but that doesn't legitimize either one. Lastly, Napster isn't remotely like shoplifting. If I shoplift, I take something that isn't mine. Oddly enough, napster isn't taking the works; it's copying them. You aren't denying anyone the use of those works as shoplifting would do. The owner can still sell it all he wants. The economic allusion to shoplifting doesn't work. The closest you can get is "Wow, now I have something I didn't have a minute ago and I didn't have to pay for it." If everyone pays, its more likely due to price gouging by the industry for the sake of "safegaurding their profits" from the evil pirates.
Overall, you're told piracy is bad thing. Contrary to the beliefs of industry not all piracy is bad. People invariably fall under one category of pirates:
Out and out pirate - This person pirates everything because they can. They have no intention of buying anything they steal. This is what industry would like you to think everyone is.
Pirate by need - This is someone who copies digital works because they either cannot afford to pay the cost to purchase it legally and would gladly do so if they had the income to support it (i.e. Windows 98SE - $180) or the product is so rare that it's next to impossible to find (i.e. rare music tracks/bands, old games, etc)
Pirate by want - Similar to the 'Pirate by need' this is a person who spends most of his time collecting a little bit of everything. Most of these pirates are harmless by nature. They would grab expensive toys like lightwave, play with it, and delete it because they get bored with it. No revenue is lost by industry because of this kind of pirate since they'd never buy the product in the first place.
Try it out pirate - This is something I've done before. Heard both good and bad reviews about software? Snake a copy of it, try it out, and if ya like it, ya buy it.
People in any industry don't want you to realise that they make profits off the last three categories of pirates just so they can eliminate the first. They fall victim to their own FUD and cut off the easiest form of advertising they can get: free word of mouth.
The MP3 pirates everyone is talking about generally fall into the second and fourth categories. How many people here have spent a lot of time sitting on napster getting files? Personally, I've found a lot of groups through napster that I'd never heard of, like Aphex Twin, Apocalyptica, and -Ziq to name a few (okay, I've had a sheltered life.) I love listening to some of the music these groups put out, but do you know how little luck I've had finding CDs for some of them? The groups that I *DID* find, I've bought a CD or two and have plans to purchase more. And the one glaring shortfall of MP3 and Napster... how many people have gotten files off of napster only to find that a) the file is incomplete, b)due to the bitrate, the sound is all kinds of goofy, c) Whoever mixed it didn't normalize it so the signal is goofed, or D) The DAC they were using was crap and the song quality sucked? Seriously, if I like the song enough off of napster, I'll go out and buy the CD or find someone with it so I can hear it without the warbling treble and decide if I want to buy the CD. Overall, MP3 is great. Heck, I figure Napster is probably selling more CDs than the salesmen on the storefronts do. You can listen to them while you have a data disk in your CD drive. You can do a lot of things while listening to them. The definate leg up MP3 has is you get only the tracks you want. No more buying a CD for 1 track only to find the rest of the CD sounds nothing like it (Blind Melon - No Rain.) But MP3 won't replace CD music completely. There's a lot of things CDs can do that MP3 can't (aside from melt in your car) and business execs are too greedy to try to stimulate and culture the growth of the MP3 craze. If you're an unlucky person stuck on dialup, it's a bit easier to drive out and buy a CD than spend hours downloading 70+ MB of the album.
Sadly enough, big business is shooting itself in the foot. Instead they try to direct everyone to closed "Pay-per-View" standards (DIVX, etc) that rape you for even more money. They lobby to get legislation passed so they can rape you for even more money for longer periods of time and then throw you in jail when you refuse to pay. In an attempt to make the argument bigger, the companies are crying that it's the artists they care about. In a round-about way, they do, but only as a dollar sign. To this end, one would have to look at it from an artist's point of view. Why did the artist get involved? Because he loved music, or because he loved money? Most small groups don't get lucky enough to be the flavor of the day and be foisted on the masses. Instead of having their tracks played until people are burnt on them, these artists aren't heard at all. These are the artists who stand to benefit the most from entities like Napster. Oddly enough, the band with the biggest fan following in the world, the Grateful Dead, encouraged people to copy. Rather, as the industry wants you to think of it, they incouraged you to steal their works and deny them the money their righteous works should've given them. Did you see Jerry Garcia living on the streets? Did you see any of the band being penniless? That right there should refute most of the general FUD the recording industry has put out, yet most people don't stop to think about that. They insist that piracy is theft and that pirates are somehow evil people. One last interesting point on the music aspect of piracy. Did anyone stop to think about radio stations? Sure, most stations are more or less pawns of the recording industry now adays, but they don't have to pay royalties due to a Supreme Court decision that said since they were generating business for the industry they were exempt from the royalty scheme. As previously stated, MP3s help generate a lot of business for the industry from the "Try-n-buy" aspect, yet the industry keeps pushing out bogus information based on flawed studies they paid for in the first place. To make things worse, some radio stations sought to broadcast their signal over the 'net... and what did the RIAA do? They filed suit saying it was a copyright violation. Since when did the distinction of the listening quality of a direct copy become a determining factor in wether it was a violation or not? Piracy was always a problem, yet the people in charge are just now treating it like a new thing that sprung up overnight. The laws are out of whack, the suits are greedy, the politicians vote as they're paid.
In the end, however, the solution will have to come from you. I wouldn't trust anyone else to tell me what theft is; why should you? You'll have to make up your mind if copying digital works is really theft regardless of the situation as many people who have vested interests in the field would like you to believe. But when you think about which side to take, remember that the companies only motive is their bottom line. The politician's only motive is their re-election. Both will turn on you in an instant if they think they can get away with it.
Hm. I read over the document... what I think is funny is their listed trademarks... like:
"Come get some"
"Hail to the king"
Not only do I seem to remember lines like this from movies long before Duke (Say, like, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead, etc)... but they're common everyday phrases! Or better yet check out this image. How can they possibly claim that as a trademark? It's an international symbol... geez. Corporations seem to get a bit dumber every day. Makes you wonder who (if anyone) is doing the thinking nowadays.
Well, that's really odd, considering everything I've heard and read in the last few days say the suspect was female and that it was a pain to get her arrested because she was "a moving target." Well, I guess if you can't trust the cops to tell what gender their suspect is, you can't expect them to arrest the right person either... so I guess it's probably a setup... *shrug*
Heh, I'm sorry, but if they were to make the PS2 into a missile guidance system, they'd have to disassemble the unit to do so... somehow I think that whoever would be that desperate to get their hands on processors would find a cheaper or easier alternative. Besides which, how would I'd be pretty pissed if my new missiles didn't work because I didn't have a black CD in the drive and was too cheap to get a mod chip;)
From what I've seen, over the last few years every argument against Evolution other than the "It just can't happen" argument has been dropped. When asked why, most of the people say "Well, life's too complex to evolve!!!" *sigh* Now we get another arguement stating the same thing only on a quantum level. What I'd like to know is how is life too complex? It's not like we evolved our noses first, then worked on every body part and biological system concurrently after that. Evolution as I understand it works on everything at once... that's why it takes so darn long. Life isn't too complex to make itself better, but saying that our individual cells get to choose their next mutation sounds a bit on the laughable side, not the respectable, but heck, I could be wrong. heh, the next time I get to choose my next perk, I'll let you guys know. However, this isn't Fallout, so I doubt I'll get to choose. *shrug*
Slashdot Mirror
No offense, but I've dealt with a ton of ignorante bike riders too. They ignore traffic like they think they own the road. They pretend that traffic laws don't apply to them. News flash: "Car vs bike" ends just like "car vs person", except with more pointy metal bits. When I'm on a bike, I don't assume that I "have every right to be on the road as cars do" because I think that's an arrogant attitude and it just gets people killed. I keep my eyes peeled for traffic... and I stay the hell off the road if I can help it.
Not to be a right-wing nut-job, but I know it's going to sound like it:
... and I'm in the military.
1. Clinton presidency - Liberal? If yes, goto 2
2. Clinton era FBI/ATF - Controlled by liberal presidency? If yes, goto 3
3. Ruby Ridge / Waco - Constitutionally protected freedoms abridged by liberal government?
No one is perfect. Saying that your side of the ideological spectrum is perfect and would never do something is fundementally ignorant... there's always someone who screws it up for everyone. Yes, my votes are usually republican (or libertarian if there's an option) but that's because I vote on issues. I hate gun control, I'm pro-choice, I don't care if there's prayer in school, I dislike the idea that the local gov't can't have a christmas display, I don't like seeing innocents harmed/killed (to the point of arguing with a superior officer)
Don't be a hypocrite, open your eyes and realize that the current political landscape is socially sanctioned corruption and it's not not exclusive to one side of the fence.
I completely agree with you. People like this make me wonder what our educational system is doing to them. As a fellow servicemember (sorry, but I'm a squid), I can only apologize for showing up too late to lend supporting fire (though you're probably used to that from the Navy and the Air Force :P)
Yeah, I've seen this first-hand. Girlfriend of mine (hopefully soon to be wife) has some serious issues getting jobs because of this situation. Why?
Four years back, she moved out to college. Roommates were druggies, she ends up getting raped by them while they're high on coke and left in a diabetic coma. Roommate's girlfriend finds her, gets her to the hospital, but she's out for 3 days, doesn't remember anything... no charges can be filed. Girlfriend moves out, spends the next three weeks trying to get taken off the lease, but the appt owner won't budge.
Fast forward 3 years, she gets served papers for non-payment of rent, seems the druggie roommates skipped town a few months later and my girlfriend is the only person on the lease they can find... and she has to pay it all off. Big kick in the credit there.
Let's put this in perspective:
The average soldier could be anyone in your family, including you. They could also be one of your friends as well. That being said, the average soldier is just as human as you are.
At what point does a soldier's life suddenly become worth less than your own? I believe you're missing the point that their lives are just as important as yours; unless, of course, you want to inject another line of logic: They're fighting for your country and you aren't. If your country runs out of soldiers they're in some tough straits, wether they lost them via combat attrition, and/or lack of recruits because people like yourself who can't envision that the use of violence is ever necessary.
Sometimes I wonder if our military's ability to squash/kill/blow up just about anything has a harmful backlash: People who are so sheltered from the reality that the soldier keeps them safe and somehow they see the destruction wreaked on others and think it evil. Perhaps, if a government were corrupt, or otherwise undeserving of loyalty, I could agree... questionable as some decisions have been, I still support my government and would die to defend my home.
Disclaimer: Discharged from the US Navy July 11th after a 6-year stint.
Shooting my karma to heck, but I'll bite...
;)
Could a piece of video be considered "pr0n" if it takes more than 15 minutes before you finish enjoying it?
I'm a Network admin getting out of the Navy here in a few weeks and have pretty much the same thoughts... I will say though, that I haven't lost touch with any of my IT friends back home so I'm not to uninformed... as for a few of the comments I saw earlier about the training Air Force / Army techs received... well, I tell you, it's not any better in the Navy. I'm an electronics tech (ET) by training, not a computer tech (IT), and yet I still do IT work, and do it better than the ITs. Granted, I am a geek, and I was doing desktop level IT work before I joined, so I guess i cheated; but dealing with all these Navy ITs for the last 6 years has made me sad. 80% of them are flat out idiots, from E1 to E9. The next 10% are capable, but haven't been trained or trained right. The last 10% are the true geeks that would make it just about anywhere... and this last 10% usually gets out before they make E6 (sometime around end of 1st or 2nd tour) because they know they can make twice as much in the civilian world. ... *shrug* it makes me sad, but every one of the idiots that were in change where I came from, had plenty of warning as to what would happen when I left... 2 years of warning, 2 years of "we need to do this to keep that from happening" ... no one listened, and I'm sad to say, I was right... 2 weeks after I left, the poop hit the rotary propeller. *shrug* oh well. Loved the Navy, hated my command. If only stupidity was painful to the stupid person.
Sadly enough, the Navy IT system is clogged with the 80% (the type I'm surprised don't strangle themselves in the morning with their shoelaces), and mostly it's because of their IT training program.. they take people who've never touched a computer before, give them 6 weeks of training, and expect them to be MCSE/CCNA/whatever level quality (not paper cert quality, but actual techs) and it doesn't work for a variety of reasons... most of which I've typed up in a multi-page email and sent to my CO once I was on terminal leave (and DD214 in hand)
Granted, don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance and stupidity... but this seems a bit over the top to me, even for corporate idjits. Maybe it's the old tactic of "Propose something nobody in their right mind would accept" to make their second offer than no one would've accepted in the first place seem much more sane by comparison.
You're thinking about the Navy Firefighter's Thermal Imager AKA NFTI. It's an infrared camera, nothing really special. Just got my Surface pin today, so I could tell you all sorts of useless knowledge about it... runs off 12 AA batteries, can't see through glass, lasts about 90 minutes on a full charge.
-ET3(SW)
So you're saying that, like a cheap pr0n movie, Red Hat is going to get sloppy seconds? ... Ick... just thinking of the above comment in that light makes me shudder.
Would read the article if I could, evidentally slashdotted to heck and back...
... is not a US ship! In fact, it's leased from the Australian navy. Go figure. Of course, this could be covered in the article but see above disclaimer.
As a squid who has actually been on board...and whose command was thinking about claiming the ship as our flagship to replace our old one(Gogo Second Fleet!) One interesting fact: The HSV Swift
Between that, and the fact that there's essentially no armor or weapons, I'd personally prefer not to serve on that ship, but then again the final designs that the Navy would have built would presumably be able to take some kind of beating and dish a bit back out.
I would have to say the retirement package the Admiral in charge of that decision helped. Nothing quite like approving a project, getting out of the Navy shortly thereafter ... and going to work as a exec for the company. Sounded fishy to me.
I played MoO religiously, I loved it.
...
I played MoO2 seriously... I liked it... mixed bag. Improvements here and there, but a lot of micromanagement that just made the game go 'erf'.
I tried playing MoO3 for an hour.
Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Master of Orion 3 -> Remove
I'm not so upset that it cost me the 50 someodd dollars... I WANT MY HOUR BACK!
I work technical support for Second Fleet in Norfolk, and I can say without a doubt that most of our printer problems are because of the users ;) How? /shrug :)
;)
Well, my department is supposed to buy all the equipment for the rest of the command, but someone got lazy and decided to let each department purchase their own equipment. Evidentally it sounded nice to some commander, but in the end they all buy stuff without consulting us first (don't they all?)
Don't get me wrong, when we're in our building instead of the ship, the Phaser 850s and 860s we have are really nice, aside from the 10 - 20 minute wait while it melts the crayons. Heck, even the smell is kinda neat, reminds me of being a kid. But what they don't tell you is that Phasers are not approved for shipboard use... we've had 3 $1500 incidents that I know of because our clueless 'customers' won't turn them off when the ship goes into heavy rolls or when we swap power from ship to shore.
The 4050s that we have, they're pretty nice too, in fact, aside from some initial driver stupidity and the fact that our print switches hate bi-directional comms, they work flawlessly. Oddly enough once I put in charge of procuring drivers and misc software, most of our problems with drivers have ended.
Anyways, those are my two recommendations for good printers if you're on shore
ET3 Fuesting
Commander Second Fleet
Norfolk VA
As I read this, a single thought popped into my head... but why, in the name of god, was it "Gotta catch'em all!" ????
AHHH!!!
Knowing my luck, one day my doctor will tell me "I'm sorry, but we just noticed the DNA for your mitochondria is patented. I've been told that the patent holder is filing under the DMCA that you've illegally been copying their intellectual property since conception and you must either cease operations immediately or remove all offending material."
*sigh*
Tell me about it... Since our ship is doing the whole 'gettin outta the shipyard' thing this Christmas I get to work my 8 hour day, but I get 10 extra hours! I'm so lucky! heh. Good thing we give all the civilian contractors doubletime, cuz I definately don't need the money ;D ... hm.
/bin/laden
8 hour day - $320
18 hour holiday - $1200
3 days of disconnecting, packing, loading, unloading, unpacking. reconnecting, and then troubleshooting 500 people's computer gear, and pushing 500-lb safes up ladderwells, etc - Priceless.
ET3 Jason Fuesting, Commander Second Fleet, USN.
# rm -r
Actually, assuming I remember right, you get more power from the fuels (O2, etc) than from boiling water per cubic unit... the power needed to get all that water up there to be used would be a waste... which is why you don't see most of this stuff in anything other than a "Hey this would be neat if" setting.
on the otherhand, if we could easily get it while we're up there, then things would be different...
What's that supposed to mean? The quantity of CDs is hardly nearly infinite.
I do believe he's referring to MP3s and other digital media where there is an infinite supply.
Says who that CDs are being price fixed?
The US Government, actually. If I remember right, Slashdot ran a story a week or so back where the record groups agreed to drop their "price fixing" minimum price requirements that they had instated because groups like Best Buy were selling CDs at extremely low prices to draw customers.
People gravitate towards the cheapest price for the best quality. Free == cheapest price.
People think (know?) they can't get charged for downloading illegal MP3s.
Most people are ignorant of economics.
It's not "illegal" in economic terms. I merely stated that Napster is like shoplifting, everybody pays.
There's a splash of truth on those statements. The first two are basically true. People always want the best price. Assuming no conscience, if you don't think you'll get caught doing something bad, then you'll do it. Combine these and you'll get people who steal left and right because it's free which is what the industry wants you to think everyone else is.
However, the last two are essentially false. As far as I understand it, you have microeconomics and macroeconomics. You use one or the either. They cannot exist together as the priciples they proscribe are more or less diametrically opposed. The gap between the two is generally ignored. There is no "Grand Unifying Theory of Economics" that makes them both work at the same time. If economics professors don't know what they're talking about, how can we expect their students, much less the general public to understand it? Oh sure, people make a living at it every day by applying the two, but that doesn't legitimize either one.
Lastly, Napster isn't remotely like shoplifting. If I shoplift, I take something that isn't mine. Oddly enough, napster isn't taking the works; it's copying them. You aren't denying anyone the use of those works as shoplifting would do. The owner can still sell it all he wants. The economic allusion to shoplifting doesn't work. The closest you can get is "Wow, now I have something I didn't have a minute ago and I didn't have to pay for it." If everyone pays, its more likely due to price gouging by the industry for the sake of "safegaurding their profits" from the evil pirates.
Overall, you're told piracy is bad thing. Contrary to the beliefs of industry not all piracy is bad. People invariably fall under one category of pirates:
- Out and out pirate - This person pirates everything because they can. They have no intention of buying anything they steal. This is what industry would like you to think everyone is.
- Pirate by need - This is someone who copies digital works because they either cannot afford to pay the cost to purchase it legally and would gladly do so if they had the income to support it (i.e. Windows 98SE - $180) or the product is so rare that it's next to impossible to find (i.e. rare music tracks/bands, old games, etc)
- Pirate by want - Similar to the 'Pirate by need' this is a person who spends most of his time collecting a little bit of everything. Most of these pirates are harmless by nature. They would grab expensive toys like lightwave, play with it, and delete it because they get bored with it. No revenue is lost by industry because of this kind of pirate since they'd never buy the product in the first place.
- Try it out pirate - This is something I've done before. Heard both good and bad reviews about software? Snake a copy of it, try it out, and if ya like it, ya buy it.
People in any industry don't want you to realise that they make profits off the last three categories of pirates just so they can eliminate the first. They fall victim to their own FUD and cut off the easiest form of advertising they can get: free word of mouth.The MP3 pirates everyone is talking about generally fall into the second and fourth categories. How many people here have spent a lot of time sitting on napster getting files? Personally, I've found a lot of groups through napster that I'd never heard of, like Aphex Twin, Apocalyptica, and -Ziq to name a few (okay, I've had a sheltered life.) I love listening to some of the music these groups put out, but do you know how little luck I've had finding CDs for some of them? The groups that I *DID* find, I've bought a CD or two and have plans to purchase more.
And the one glaring shortfall of MP3 and Napster... how many people have gotten files off of napster only to find that a) the file is incomplete, b)due to the bitrate, the sound is all kinds of goofy, c) Whoever mixed it didn't normalize it so the signal is goofed, or D) The DAC they were using was crap and the song quality sucked? Seriously, if I like the song enough off of napster, I'll go out and buy the CD or find someone with it so I can hear it without the warbling treble and decide if I want to buy the CD. Overall, MP3 is great. Heck, I figure Napster is probably selling more CDs than the salesmen on the storefronts do. You can listen to them while you have a data disk in your CD drive. You can do a lot of things while listening to them. The definate leg up MP3 has is you get only the tracks you want. No more buying a CD for 1 track only to find the rest of the CD sounds nothing like it (Blind Melon - No Rain.) But MP3 won't replace CD music completely. There's a lot of things CDs can do that MP3 can't (aside from melt in your car) and business execs are too greedy to try to stimulate and culture the growth of the MP3 craze. If you're an unlucky person stuck on dialup, it's a bit easier to drive out and buy a CD than spend hours downloading 70+ MB of the album.
Sadly enough, big business is shooting itself in the foot. Instead they try to direct everyone to closed "Pay-per-View" standards (DIVX, etc) that rape you for even more money. They lobby to get legislation passed so they can rape you for even more money for longer periods of time and then throw you in jail when you refuse to pay. In an attempt to make the argument bigger, the companies are crying that it's the artists they care about. In a round-about way, they do, but only as a dollar sign.
To this end, one would have to look at it from an artist's point of view. Why did the artist get involved? Because he loved music, or because he loved money? Most small groups don't get lucky enough to be the flavor of the day and be foisted on the masses. Instead of having their tracks played until people are burnt on them, these artists aren't heard at all. These are the artists who stand to benefit the most from entities like Napster. Oddly enough, the band with the biggest fan following in the world, the Grateful Dead, encouraged people to copy. Rather, as the industry wants you to think of it, they incouraged you to steal their works and deny them the money their righteous works should've given them. Did you see Jerry Garcia living on the streets? Did you see any of the band being penniless? That right there should refute most of the general FUD the recording industry has put out, yet most people don't stop to think about that. They insist that piracy is theft and that pirates are somehow evil people.
One last interesting point on the music aspect of piracy. Did anyone stop to think about radio stations? Sure, most stations are more or less pawns of the recording industry now adays, but they don't have to pay royalties due to a Supreme Court decision that said since they were generating business for the industry they were exempt from the royalty scheme. As previously stated, MP3s help generate a lot of business for the industry from the "Try-n-buy" aspect, yet the industry keeps pushing out bogus information based on flawed studies they paid for in the first place. To make things worse, some radio stations sought to broadcast their signal over the 'net... and what did the RIAA do? They filed suit saying it was a copyright violation. Since when did the distinction of the listening quality of a direct copy become a determining factor in wether it was a violation or not? Piracy was always a problem, yet the people in charge are just now treating it like a new thing that sprung up overnight. The laws are out of whack, the suits are greedy, the politicians vote as they're paid.
In the end, however, the solution will have to come from you. I wouldn't trust anyone else to tell me what theft is; why should you? You'll have to make up your mind if copying digital works is really theft regardless of the situation as many people who have vested interests in the field would like you to believe. But when you think about which side to take, remember that the companies only motive is their bottom line. The politician's only motive is their re-election. Both will turn on you in an instant if they think they can get away with it.
- "Come get some"
- "Hail to the king"
Not only do I seem to remember lines like this from movies long before Duke (Say, like, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead, etc)How can they possibly claim that as a trademark? It's an international symbol... geez. Corporations seem to get a bit dumber every day. Makes you wonder who (if anyone) is doing the thinking nowadays.
Well, that's really odd, considering everything I've heard and read in the last few days say the suspect was female and that it was a pain to get her arrested because she was "a moving target." Well, I guess if you can't trust the cops to tell what gender their suspect is, you can't expect them to arrest the right person either... so I guess it's probably a setup... *shrug*
Heh, I'm sorry, but if they were to make the PS2 into a missile guidance system, they'd have to disassemble the unit to do so... somehow I think that whoever would be that desperate to get their hands on processors would find a cheaper or easier alternative. ;)
Besides which, how would I'd be pretty pissed if my new missiles didn't work because I didn't have a black CD in the drive and was too cheap to get a mod chip
From what I've seen, over the last few years every argument against Evolution other than the "It just can't happen" argument has been dropped. When asked why, most of the people say "Well, life's too complex to evolve!!!" *sigh* Now we get another arguement stating the same thing only on a quantum level.
What I'd like to know is how is life too complex? It's not like we evolved our noses first, then worked on every body part and biological system concurrently after that. Evolution as I understand it works on everything at once... that's why it takes so darn long. Life isn't too complex to make itself better, but saying that our individual cells get to choose their next mutation sounds a bit on the laughable side, not the respectable, but heck, I could be wrong. heh, the next time I get to choose my next perk, I'll let you guys know. However, this isn't Fallout, so I doubt I'll get to choose.
*shrug*