The US probably has one of the most fabricated "cultures" in existence, since it's all driven by consumption.
A popular but entirely untrue stereotype. American culture is no more fabricated than the culture of any country in western Europe, which plays by the exact same rules as we do when it comes to big media. In some places it's even worse, e.g., attempting to force the consumption of 'local' culture through government-mandated minimums of specific programming.
This seems to be the ongoing line of thought around here - that after CDs are produced no more because no one can sell them, artists will make their livings through live performances.
It's ironic that the college boys who bitch about the loss of our freedoms at the same time think that no artist should have the freedom to decide what to charge for their product. The advocacy of 'freedom' here on the Slashdot seems to mean (as it does anywhere else) "only the freedoms I personally approve of".
Yet another opinion touted about as some universal truth, simply because the poster can't accept the fact that his taste in music is no more important than anyone elses - including the kids who happen to like Britney, or whoever the pop megastar of the moment is.
You don't get to decide what is "bland" and what isn't for anyone but yourself. Nobody but you and your pals gives two shits what you think on the matter. If you think otherwise, time to wake up, smell the coffee, and realize that you aren't any more important than the guy who picks up your garbage or the 15-year-old boy rocking out to some candy group on his iPod.
If you have breeder reactors, that waste becomes fuel. And as for what's left, burying it in a concrete vault estimated to have a 10,000 year life span is a far sight better than just blowing it into the atmosphere, as current coal plants do.
That's an idiotic notion. In the U.S. I don't have to justify my reasons to ANYONE for building a decentralized network; the U.S. government doesn't get to decide whether or not I can do this thing, or if I can release the results to the public. It's incumbent on *them* to prove that the sole purpose of the software is to aid and abet criminal activity.
I don't know what country you're from, but if the government has that much control over what you can and cannot do I sure as shit do not want to live there, or even visit.
If we keep pirating and make music distribution less profitable, perhaps that bland BS will go away.
In other words, it's stuff you don't like. Newsflash for ya, junior: musical tastes are nothing more than a matter of opinion. Your opinion on what is and is not good music isn't worth more than anyone elses.
People who make 'real music' in my opinion, would be doing it even if they couldn't make a cent.
But you don't get to decide what "real music" is. Nor do you get to decide what musicians are going to do with their music. If they decide to play free in the park or sell CDs of it for $20, either way it's *their* choice - not *yours*. Your only choice in the matter is to buy or not to buy, just as it should be in a supposedly free society.
(b) Anybody who installs XP on FAT deserves to be shot. There's been no good reason to use anything but NTFS in Windows since 1999.
What crack are you smoking? There are a number of older but still quite serviceable pieces of software, not to mention games, that won't function on NTFS. Everything, however, will work with FAT32.
Since there's a teenager involved, it's OK for him to violate their privacy all he wants.
He's not violating anyones privacy. The email addresses are a matter of public record, and were offered to him - assuming he was willing to copy them *by hand*, which he wasn't.
If you don't want your email address to become part of public record, then bloody well don't give it to the government. It's really that simple, and you can't have it both ways.
...the MPAA defines "piracy" along these lines: "you fucking serfs watch what we tell you to watch, and when, and you'll goddamn well like it and ask for more! Anyone who dares to disagree with us, their proper overlords, should be put up against a wall and shot!"
Remember, this is about control, not money. They could easily change their business model and make huge, unprecedented profits, but in order to do that they'd have to cede the control they've had over the viewing public for more than a half-century. And they'll NEVER do that. They'd rather go down in flames (and take you with them) than even consider the notion.
Profits ARE down, and rampant piracy is partially to blame.
Right. Provide a single empirical study, published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal conclusively connecting so-called 'piracy' to declining profits. Go ahead, I dare you to find ONE such study to back up your bullshit claim.
Me, speaking purely on opinion and completely anecdotally, I'd say profits are down because the recent spate of movies have SUCKED. But that's just me...and everyone I know....
Because it *is* my house, and what I say goes. That applies to *everyone* who steps foot on my property. If you don't like the rules you're absolutely free to leave any time you feel like it - and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. In fact, if you can't abide by my rules I'm more than willing to help you off the property any way I can, including picking you up and throwing you off of it if you refuse to leave.
Fair or not, kids don't have a say in the rules enacted in their households, unless their parents grant them some limited rights. You just have to suck it up and deal with it, because I guarantee you that isn't changing any time in the near future. They get to decide for themselves how their lives are run when two things happen: a) they turn 18, and b) they move the fuck out of the house.
We need a more active accident avoidance system and other systems to reduce the need for driver intervention
Like completely computerized cars and roads, making it illegal to drive anywhere manually. I'd *love* a system like that; then all the folks who're absolutely convinced that they possess driving skills far surpassing the meager talents of everyone else around them would finally be put in their place, just another passenger like the rest of us. And those same folks, who claim they can eat, read, talk on the cell phone, and program their mapping systems without any loss of control or awareness ('cuz, like, they're so superior to the rest of us proles) would no longer be such a fucking road hazard.
Yep, I can't wait for the day when I can kick back and take a nap in my car while it merrily zips to wherever I told it go, a smile on my face thinking about all those seething little gits who're going apeshit over the fact that they no longer have the right to drive manually and endanger everyone on the road. And boy, won't the little college pricks look absolutely stupid rockin' out to some overpriced stereo system in car they can't even drive?
...the ninth choice: Windows 2000 Professional. Still haven't seen a good reason to upgrade my Windows partition to XP, much less Vista. It's not like any software developer other than MS is going to be making critical software that only runs on Vista (they don't do it with XP NOW, Vista isn't going to change anything), so why bother?
I also find it amusing that a number of posters here are claiming that MS is "kind" and "forgiving" for allowing them - just think about that, ALLOWING them - to reactivate their XP license more than three times due to hardware upgrades. Oh yes, Big Brother is so *nice* for granting me the boon of letting me run the software I purchased with my hard-earned money on the machine that I own!
Sheep sucking at the MS tit, and thanking MS for allowing them the privilege of doing so. Good to see that so many so-called geeks - people who pride themselves on their superior intelligence - acting like such brain-dead fanboys...
At least the conspiracies make for interesting Saturday-night entertainment. But 'vigilance' as a course of action in keeping government in check is obviously a complete failure. The government is even trying to hide what they're doing; they're just saying that they can do whatever the fuck they want, and what are you going to do about it?
Obviously, not much. Except be ineffectually 'vigilant'.
That's why I still have a win2000 partition for games and Photoshop. For everything else I do the available Linux apps are at least on par with those I can use with windows; but when it comes to games Linux can't (yet) compete with Windows, and I have no desire whatsoever to spend days mucking about with Wine to get a game 'mostly working'. I purchase games for entertainment, not to annoy myself with technical problems in just getting them to function properly.
As for graphics, Photoshops closest competitor (the GIMP) just doesn't cut it.
but it doesn't give you the freedom to say or print anything you want.
Yes, it does. The whole "fire" in a crowded theater argument isn't about banning speech, it's about punishing the speaker when the speech is specifically calculated to cause harm. No one is telling you you can't scream the word "fire"; they're just saying that if you do so with the object of harming others, or where a reasonable human being could conclude that others would be harmed, you'll be held responsible.
If you think there are no limits to the freedom of expression described in the first amendment, imagine someone telling small children that playing in traffic is fun and harmless. When one of them becomes a hood ornament, it'll be that person going to jail.
Of *course* you can tell small children that. And it's equally true that you'll suffer the consequences of that act. The Constitution says that you have every right in the world to speak whatever you please, but it doesn't protect you from the consequences of your speech should they be directly accountable for harm to another human being.
Yeah, that's real effective. The President can piss all over the Constitution, violating his oath of office in a series of act that by any reasonable measure require impeachment and imprisonment, and what happens? A few folks scream bloody murder, the President and staff respond with a big "fuck you - we'll do what we want", and the whole shebang continues unabated.
My comments are in the context of the earlier loon's post about the CIA being a completely un-accountable, all-powerful, secret-super-duper black government X-files type entity that's doing the bidding of Evil Masters, blah blah blah
The people who spout this sort of nonsense have obviously never worked for government in any capacity. One of the defining characteristics of ANY government agency is profound incompetence tempered by periods of occasional mediocrity. There is no agency of any sort capable of pulling off the high-precision multi-year nearly-precognitive sort of conspiracy favored by the X-Files types. Government can never hope to aspire to this level of excellence in ANYTHING, much less in anything that requires almost superhuman powers amongst dozens or hundreds of conspirators.
When it comes to government, never attribute to skilled, highly organized evil what can otherwise be explained by sheer incompetence and petty, localized viciousness. The first simply doesn't exist.
You can go to jail in Britain for this; a man just did. In America we'd just call him a nutbag and ignore him (or make fun of him), but in certain parts of Europe apparently the expression of certain opinions is so 'dangerous' that the people expressing them have to be put in jail in order to scare anyone else who might have a view divergent from the norm into keeping silent.
Me, I'd rather the nutbags were persistently loud. It makes them easier to identify and ignore. Violently forcing them into silence doesn't make them disappear, or reduce their numbers; it just drives them underground. The European model of suppressing speech the government doesn't approve of is not only completely ineffective, it reeks of a NIMBY approach to views that don't conform to accepted groupthink. And that doesn't even address the idiocy of allowing the government the power to decide what opinions are appropriate and what opinions consitute offenses worthy of imprisonment in the first place.
This is simply not true. For one thing, animal matter in the digestive system is not going to be as apparent thousands of years later as seeds and undigested roots in the digestive system are. That would seem somewhat obvious.
I didn't address any findings in ancient digestive systems because, quite frankly, I can't think of a single instance where an intact prehistoric human digestive tract has been recovered - much less enough such organs across both time and space to allow for a statistical analysis. Corpses rot, usually leaving behind only bones, teeth, and sometimes preserved hair.
The study of the ancient human diet relies on four techniques: a) analysis of bones in places like fire pits, which is inherently flawed because while meat was cooked, fruits, vegetables and roots were not; b) study of coprolites - shit - to see what they consist of; c) wear on teeth, because primary meat eaters, like Neanderthals, have much different wear patterns than humans do; d) and more recently, analysis of the genetic composition of bone and hair, which is making some interesting discoveries. The last technique has already (universally, I might add) confirmed other research in ancient human and neanderthal diets.
Simply put, humans got a vast majority of their calories from plants while Neanderthals did so from large game. Human protein sources tended to be the things I listed before: small game, eggs, insects, and so forth. The whole 'mighty hunter' myth is exactly that: a myth, nothing more. If we had been descended from Neanderthals, the story would be different.
Your statement completely ignore the evidence of firepits, refuse pits etc, containing layers of bone, seeds, roots etc; not to mention tooth wear of skeletons, clothing (skin or hide?) and dozens of other factors that all show that the majority behavior of hunter gatherer societies was to exploit the highest protein resource that had the least cost of aquiring it.
I don't see how you come to that conclusion. The science is pretty clear on the subject. And if you're looking to "exploit the highest protein source that had the least cost of acquiring it", then the sources I listed right in line, e.g., eggs and insects are far less energy-intensive, with a much higher payoff, than, say, running down a deer - especially in prehistoric societies, which had no ranged weapons to speak of.
That more often than not meant hunting like there was no tomorrow (which for many many species of birds turned out true).
This is your opinion only, and it's completely unsupported by a single shred of evidence. Yes, humans did hunt on occasion (I never said anything to the contrary), but the vast majority of their calories came from gathering. When they did hunt they didn't heroically take on large mammals with pointy sticks; they drove entire herds into brush or pits traps, or off cliffs, or used fire to devastate entire local ecosystems.
Neanderthals did the "pointy stick" thing, and did it very, very well. But Neanderthals were specifically designed for this activity; we weren't. No human line today can claim that their prehistoric ancestors were regularly running down large game or successfully engaging in mortal combat with sabertooths, or whatever fantasies people delude themselves with about "cavemen".
Geographic regions that have enough vegetation to feed large groups of people for thousands of years while supplying all their caloric requirements are few and far between.
Your statement here makes no sense. For 99% of our history there were no "large groups of people"; just small bands that ranged over very wide areas in a semi-migratory (nomadic) fashion. Prior to the advent of primitive sustainable agriculture the human population on Earth was tiny, and always in danger of extinction.
In any event, gathering is a far better and more reliable way to provide calories than hunting is. Plants tend to grow in the same places, at the same times every year - and they d
All we have to do is compare the availability of mp3s via p2p as compared to ogg, aac, wma, or any other format you care to name. About 99% of what you'll find will be in mp3 and it doesn't appear that the average downloader is at all interested in moving to another format. Even if he/she were, the time required to reacquire or re-rip your library just isn't worth the effort for most people. Why go to the trouble when a 192 kbs mp3 is of a quality beyond what most people can tell the difference on anyway, or almost certainly beyond the ability of the average computer users speakers to render?
This article is an exercise in living in one's own world. For example, iPod users think that the world will convert to AAC because, well, they're iPod users - they think EVERYONE owns an iPod, despite the fact that it appears the U.S. market has been saturated at around 10% of the population (the other 90% have no interest in purchasing an iPod, something iPod afficionados have a difficult time comprehending). Those folks have their mp3s and absolutely no motivation whatsoever to go to all the effort and trouble of moving to AAC, since they don't own an iPod and never will own an iPod.
A certain group of Linux fanboys seem to think that ogg will replace mp3s because a) it's of a mildly higher quality for a smaller amount of space, and b) it's, like, open source, dude! The first reason certainly isn't enough to get people to put out the effort, anymore than the touted superiority of AAC is - it's too much work for little (or no) payoff. The second reason 95% of the public either doesn't know about or doesn't give a shit about.
If there's anyone out there actively promoting wma over aac, ogg, or mp3, you've got to wonder what tiny little portion of never-never land they live in. They certainly aren't making vast libraries of wma-encoded songs available on *any* network, that's for sure.
Mp3s are here to stay. People simply won't invest the time and energy to convert or reacquire or rerip their libraries for what are (correctly) perceived to be tiny differences - insignificant differences, if you own an average sound system - to anyone but sound buffs. And sound buffs don't set the standard for Joe and Jane User when it comes to the music they play on their computer. They already went to the trouble once, they have everything 'just so', and they're perfectly happy with things the way they are. And that's the end of the discussion for 90% of the music-playing public.
but hunting is considered rather instrumental in our evolution as a species.
Analysis of prehistoric living sites (including prehistoric shit, a rather invaluable source of information concerning what an animal eats) pretty much conclusively shows that the average human diet was 85%-90% fruits, vegetables, and roots. Of the other 10%-15%, a large chunk of that protein came from insects. The 'mighty hunter' scenario has been consistently debunked for decades, yet Joe Public is still enamored of the idea that our ancestors ran about the plains, taking on mastodons with fire-hardened sticks.
Fact is, most of our protein - what little of it there was - came from insects, grubs, eggs, lizards and frogs, scavenged kills from other predators, and in coastal areas creatures like turtles, crabs, and occasionally fish. When humans did hunt larger creatures they sure as hell didn't take on large animals with spears; they used brush traps, cliff runs, and uncontrolled large-scale burns to kill *entire herds*. Lacking any sort of proper storage technology and rarely knowing how to smoke/salt meat for long-term use, these occasional whole-sale slaughters generally wasted 99% of the animals they killed.
Contrary to the popular myth which still makes the rounds, humans sucked at hunting. They were, however, premiere gatherers and used their large brains to keep track of what was good to eat, and when, and where it could be found. Their social organization also made it difficult for other, more efficient predators to take them down, since attacking one human generally meant taking on the entire tribe, a dangerous proposition when easier prey was usually abundant. While humans were lousy hunters, a tribe of 20 or 30 armed with pointy sticks was more than sufficient for convincing even a pride of lions that perhaps the herd of deer in the next valley over was a better bet.
The only branch of humanity that was any good at all at hunting was the much-maligned Neanderthal. In complete opposition to our own branch of the species, Neanderthals got 90% of their calories from meat and only 10% from vegetables, fruits or roots. Neanderthals were excellent hunters, although it was a full-time and dangerous occupation as we can see from just how often they were injured (taking a look at an adult Neanderthals bones and the numerous breaks they suffered shows you just how bloody tough they were). But then Neanderthals, unlike h. sapiens, were much better adadpted to hunting; they were far, far stronger than any human being (the average female could easily kill Arnie in his prime with just one well-aimed punch), had much thicker bones, and apparently healed more quickly than our kind did (or does). They could take and shake off punishment that would instantly put any one of us in the grave.
Although it's certainly more heroic to think that cooperative hunting had something to do with our brain development, it's far more likely that it's a combination of ever-more-efficient gathering techniques and cooperative *defense* against real predators that did the trick. Smarter, more social human beings were better at both of these activities than dumber, asocial ones. And in a world full of predators looking for an easy kill, humans - with fragile bodies, the inability to outrun just about anything on four legs, and no natural weapons - were hard-pressed to come up with some other survival strategy to keep from becoming lunch. It turned out that brains and sociability were adequate substitutes.
Slashdot Mirror
The US probably has one of the most fabricated "cultures" in existence, since it's all driven by consumption.
A popular but entirely untrue stereotype. American culture is no more fabricated than the culture of any country in western Europe, which plays by the exact same rules as we do when it comes to big media. In some places it's even worse, e.g., attempting to force the consumption of 'local' culture through government-mandated minimums of specific programming.
Max
This seems to be the ongoing line of thought around here - that after CDs are produced no more because no one can sell them, artists will make their livings through live performances.
It's ironic that the college boys who bitch about the loss of our freedoms at the same time think that no artist should have the freedom to decide what to charge for their product. The advocacy of 'freedom' here on the Slashdot seems to mean (as it does anywhere else) "only the freedoms I personally approve of".
Max
This is from the "from the somethign-to-think-about dept". I'd rather it was from the "we actually spell-checked this one dept".
Max
No one cares about your website.
I liked it. I'd suggest you try to remember that the only person you speak for is yourself. Nobody voted you in as Grand Poobah.
Put it in your sig where it belongs.
He can put it wherever he pleases. Go be something less obnoxious, like a grammar nazi.
Max
Yet another opinion touted about as some universal truth, simply because the poster can't accept the fact that his taste in music is no more important than anyone elses - including the kids who happen to like Britney, or whoever the pop megastar of the moment is.
You don't get to decide what is "bland" and what isn't for anyone but yourself. Nobody but you and your pals gives two shits what you think on the matter. If you think otherwise, time to wake up, smell the coffee, and realize that you aren't any more important than the guy who picks up your garbage or the 15-year-old boy rocking out to some candy group on his iPod.
Like I said, suck it up and deal with it.
Max
If you have breeder reactors, that waste becomes fuel. And as for what's left, burying it in a concrete vault estimated to have a 10,000 year life span is a far sight better than just blowing it into the atmosphere, as current coal plants do.
Max
That's an idiotic notion. In the U.S. I don't have to justify my reasons to ANYONE for building a decentralized network; the U.S. government doesn't get to decide whether or not I can do this thing, or if I can release the results to the public. It's incumbent on *them* to prove that the sole purpose of the software is to aid and abet criminal activity.
I don't know what country you're from, but if the government has that much control over what you can and cannot do I sure as shit do not want to live there, or even visit.
Max
Claiming indexing isn't the same as actually sharing
would be technologically and logically correct. But it appears you neither have the knowledge nor the intellectual faculties to appreciate either.
Max
If we keep pirating and make music distribution less profitable, perhaps that bland BS will go away.
In other words, it's stuff you don't like. Newsflash for ya, junior: musical tastes are nothing more than a matter of opinion. Your opinion on what is and is not good music isn't worth more than anyone elses.
People who make 'real music' in my opinion, would be doing it even if they couldn't make a cent.
But you don't get to decide what "real music" is. Nor do you get to decide what musicians are going to do with their music. If they decide to play free in the park or sell CDs of it for $20, either way it's *their* choice - not *yours*. Your only choice in the matter is to buy or not to buy, just as it should be in a supposedly free society.
Suck it up and deal with it.
Max
(b) Anybody who installs XP on FAT deserves to be shot. There's been no good reason to use anything but NTFS in Windows since 1999.
What crack are you smoking? There are a number of older but still quite serviceable pieces of software, not to mention games, that won't function on NTFS. Everything, however, will work with FAT32.
Max
Since there's a teenager involved, it's OK for him to violate their privacy all he wants.
He's not violating anyones privacy. The email addresses are a matter of public record, and were offered to him - assuming he was willing to copy them *by hand*, which he wasn't.
If you don't want your email address to become part of public record, then bloody well don't give it to the government. It's really that simple, and you can't have it both ways.
Max
...the MPAA defines "piracy" along these lines: "you fucking serfs watch what we tell you to watch, and when, and you'll goddamn well like it and ask for more! Anyone who dares to disagree with us, their proper overlords, should be put up against a wall and shot!"
Remember, this is about control, not money. They could easily change their business model and make huge, unprecedented profits, but in order to do that they'd have to cede the control they've had over the viewing public for more than a half-century. And they'll NEVER do that. They'd rather go down in flames (and take you with them) than even consider the notion.
Max
Profits ARE down, and rampant piracy is partially to blame.
Right. Provide a single empirical study, published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal conclusively connecting so-called 'piracy' to declining profits. Go ahead, I dare you to find ONE such study to back up your bullshit claim.
Me, speaking purely on opinion and completely anecdotally, I'd say profits are down because the recent spate of movies have SUCKED. But that's just me...and everyone I know....
Max
it's my house, and what I say goes
Because it *is* my house, and what I say goes. That applies to *everyone* who steps foot on my property. If you don't like the rules you're absolutely free to leave any time you feel like it - and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. In fact, if you can't abide by my rules I'm more than willing to help you off the property any way I can, including picking you up and throwing you off of it if you refuse to leave.
Fair or not, kids don't have a say in the rules enacted in their households, unless their parents grant them some limited rights. You just have to suck it up and deal with it, because I guarantee you that isn't changing any time in the near future. They get to decide for themselves how their lives are run when two things happen: a) they turn 18, and b) they move the fuck out of the house.
Max
We need a more active accident avoidance system and other systems to reduce the need for driver intervention
Like completely computerized cars and roads, making it illegal to drive anywhere manually. I'd *love* a system like that; then all the folks who're absolutely convinced that they possess driving skills far surpassing the meager talents of everyone else around them would finally be put in their place, just another passenger like the rest of us. And those same folks, who claim they can eat, read, talk on the cell phone, and program their mapping systems without any loss of control or awareness ('cuz, like, they're so superior to the rest of us proles) would no longer be such a fucking road hazard.
Yep, I can't wait for the day when I can kick back and take a nap in my car while it merrily zips to wherever I told it go, a smile on my face thinking about all those seething little gits who're going apeshit over the fact that they no longer have the right to drive manually and endanger everyone on the road. And boy, won't the little college pricks look absolutely stupid rockin' out to some overpriced stereo system in car they can't even drive?
Max
...the ninth choice: Windows 2000 Professional. Still haven't seen a good reason to upgrade my Windows partition to XP, much less Vista. It's not like any software developer other than MS is going to be making critical software that only runs on Vista (they don't do it with XP NOW, Vista isn't going to change anything), so why bother?
I also find it amusing that a number of posters here are claiming that MS is "kind" and "forgiving" for allowing them - just think about that, ALLOWING them - to reactivate their XP license more than three times due to hardware upgrades. Oh yes, Big Brother is so *nice* for granting me the boon of letting me run the software I purchased with my hard-earned money on the machine that I own!
Sheep sucking at the MS tit, and thanking MS for allowing them the privilege of doing so. Good to see that so many so-called geeks - people who pride themselves on their superior intelligence - acting like such brain-dead fanboys...
Max
At least the conspiracies make for interesting Saturday-night entertainment. But 'vigilance' as a course of action in keeping government in check is obviously a complete failure. The government is even trying to hide what they're doing; they're just saying that they can do whatever the fuck they want, and what are you going to do about it?
Obviously, not much. Except be ineffectually 'vigilant'.
Max
Best tool for the job is my attitude
That's why I still have a win2000 partition for games and Photoshop. For everything else I do the available Linux apps are at least on par with those I can use with windows; but when it comes to games Linux can't (yet) compete with Windows, and I have no desire whatsoever to spend days mucking about with Wine to get a game 'mostly working'. I purchase games for entertainment, not to annoy myself with technical problems in just getting them to function properly.
As for graphics, Photoshops closest competitor (the GIMP) just doesn't cut it.
Max
but it doesn't give you the freedom to say or print anything you want.
Yes, it does. The whole "fire" in a crowded theater argument isn't about banning speech, it's about punishing the speaker when the speech is specifically calculated to cause harm. No one is telling you you can't scream the word "fire"; they're just saying that if you do so with the object of harming others, or where a reasonable human being could conclude that others would be harmed, you'll be held responsible.
If you think there are no limits to the freedom of expression described in the first amendment, imagine someone telling small children that playing in traffic is fun and harmless. When one of them becomes a hood ornament, it'll be that person going to jail.
Of *course* you can tell small children that. And it's equally true that you'll suffer the consequences of that act. The Constitution says that you have every right in the world to speak whatever you please, but it doesn't protect you from the consequences of your speech should they be directly accountable for harm to another human being.
Just how hard is this for you to grasp?
Max
and a vigilant watch.
Yeah, that's real effective. The President can piss all over the Constitution, violating his oath of office in a series of act that by any reasonable measure require impeachment and imprisonment, and what happens? A few folks scream bloody murder, the President and staff respond with a big "fuck you - we'll do what we want", and the whole shebang continues unabated.
That whole 'vigilance' thing isn't doing dick.
Max
My comments are in the context of the earlier loon's post about the CIA being a completely un-accountable, all-powerful, secret-super-duper black government X-files type entity that's doing the bidding of Evil Masters, blah blah blah
The people who spout this sort of nonsense have obviously never worked for government in any capacity. One of the defining characteristics of ANY government agency is profound incompetence tempered by periods of occasional mediocrity. There is no agency of any sort capable of pulling off the high-precision multi-year nearly-precognitive sort of conspiracy favored by the X-Files types. Government can never hope to aspire to this level of excellence in ANYTHING, much less in anything that requires almost superhuman powers amongst dozens or hundreds of conspirators.
When it comes to government, never attribute to skilled, highly organized evil what can otherwise be explained by sheer incompetence and petty, localized viciousness. The first simply doesn't exist.
Max
You can go to jail in Britain for this; a man just did. In America we'd just call him a nutbag and ignore him (or make fun of him), but in certain parts of Europe apparently the expression of certain opinions is so 'dangerous' that the people expressing them have to be put in jail in order to scare anyone else who might have a view divergent from the norm into keeping silent.
Me, I'd rather the nutbags were persistently loud. It makes them easier to identify and ignore. Violently forcing them into silence doesn't make them disappear, or reduce their numbers; it just drives them underground. The European model of suppressing speech the government doesn't approve of is not only completely ineffective, it reeks of a NIMBY approach to views that don't conform to accepted groupthink. And that doesn't even address the idiocy of allowing the government the power to decide what opinions are appropriate and what opinions consitute offenses worthy of imprisonment in the first place.
Max
This is simply not true. For one thing, animal matter in the digestive system is not going to be as apparent thousands of years later as seeds and undigested roots in the digestive system are. That would seem somewhat obvious.
I didn't address any findings in ancient digestive systems because, quite frankly, I can't think of a single instance where an intact prehistoric human digestive tract has been recovered - much less enough such organs across both time and space to allow for a statistical analysis. Corpses rot, usually leaving behind only bones, teeth, and sometimes preserved hair.
The study of the ancient human diet relies on four techniques: a) analysis of bones in places like fire pits, which is inherently flawed because while meat was cooked, fruits, vegetables and roots were not; b) study of coprolites - shit - to see what they consist of; c) wear on teeth, because primary meat eaters, like Neanderthals, have much different wear patterns than humans do; d) and more recently, analysis of the genetic composition of bone and hair, which is making some interesting discoveries. The last technique has already (universally, I might add) confirmed other research in ancient human and neanderthal diets.
Simply put, humans got a vast majority of their calories from plants while Neanderthals did so from large game. Human protein sources tended to be the things I listed before: small game, eggs, insects, and so forth. The whole 'mighty hunter' myth is exactly that: a myth, nothing more. If we had been descended from Neanderthals, the story would be different.
Your statement completely ignore the evidence of firepits, refuse pits etc, containing layers of bone, seeds, roots etc; not to mention tooth wear of skeletons, clothing (skin or hide?) and dozens of other factors that all show that the majority behavior of hunter gatherer societies was to exploit the highest protein resource that had the least cost of aquiring it.
I don't see how you come to that conclusion. The science is pretty clear on the subject. And if you're looking to "exploit the highest protein source that had the least cost of acquiring it", then the sources I listed right in line, e.g., eggs and insects are far less energy-intensive, with a much higher payoff, than, say, running down a deer - especially in prehistoric societies, which had no ranged weapons to speak of.
That more often than not meant hunting like there was no tomorrow (which for many many species of birds turned out true).
This is your opinion only, and it's completely unsupported by a single shred of evidence. Yes, humans did hunt on occasion (I never said anything to the contrary), but the vast majority of their calories came from gathering. When they did hunt they didn't heroically take on large mammals with pointy sticks; they drove entire herds into brush or pits traps, or off cliffs, or used fire to devastate entire local ecosystems.
Neanderthals did the "pointy stick" thing, and did it very, very well. But Neanderthals were specifically designed for this activity; we weren't. No human line today can claim that their prehistoric ancestors were regularly running down large game or successfully engaging in mortal combat with sabertooths, or whatever fantasies people delude themselves with about "cavemen".
Geographic regions that have enough vegetation to feed large groups of people for thousands of years while supplying all their caloric requirements are few and far between.
Your statement here makes no sense. For 99% of our history there were no "large groups of people"; just small bands that ranged over very wide areas in a semi-migratory (nomadic) fashion. Prior to the advent of primitive sustainable agriculture the human population on Earth was tiny, and always in danger of extinction.
In any event, gathering is a far better and more reliable way to provide calories than hunting is. Plants tend to grow in the same places, at the same times every year - and they d
All we have to do is compare the availability of mp3s via p2p as compared to ogg, aac, wma, or any other format you care to name. About 99% of what you'll find will be in mp3 and it doesn't appear that the average downloader is at all interested in moving to another format. Even if he/she were, the time required to reacquire or re-rip your library just isn't worth the effort for most people. Why go to the trouble when a 192 kbs mp3 is of a quality beyond what most people can tell the difference on anyway, or almost certainly beyond the ability of the average computer users speakers to render?
This article is an exercise in living in one's own world. For example, iPod users think that the world will convert to AAC because, well, they're iPod users - they think EVERYONE owns an iPod, despite the fact that it appears the U.S. market has been saturated at around 10% of the population (the other 90% have no interest in purchasing an iPod, something iPod afficionados have a difficult time comprehending). Those folks have their mp3s and absolutely no motivation whatsoever to go to all the effort and trouble of moving to AAC, since they don't own an iPod and never will own an iPod.
A certain group of Linux fanboys seem to think that ogg will replace mp3s because a) it's of a mildly higher quality for a smaller amount of space, and b) it's, like, open source, dude! The first reason certainly isn't enough to get people to put out the effort, anymore than the touted superiority of AAC is - it's too much work for little (or no) payoff. The second reason 95% of the public either doesn't know about or doesn't give a shit about.
If there's anyone out there actively promoting wma over aac, ogg, or mp3, you've got to wonder what tiny little portion of never-never land they live in. They certainly aren't making vast libraries of wma-encoded songs available on *any* network, that's for sure.
Mp3s are here to stay. People simply won't invest the time and energy to convert or reacquire or rerip their libraries for what are (correctly) perceived to be tiny differences - insignificant differences, if you own an average sound system - to anyone but sound buffs. And sound buffs don't set the standard for Joe and Jane User when it comes to the music they play on their computer. They already went to the trouble once, they have everything 'just so', and they're perfectly happy with things the way they are. And that's the end of the discussion for 90% of the music-playing public.
Max
but hunting is considered rather instrumental in our evolution as a species.
Analysis of prehistoric living sites (including prehistoric shit, a rather invaluable source of information concerning what an animal eats) pretty much conclusively shows that the average human diet was 85%-90% fruits, vegetables, and roots. Of the other 10%-15%, a large chunk of that protein came from insects. The 'mighty hunter' scenario has been consistently debunked for decades, yet Joe Public is still enamored of the idea that our ancestors ran about the plains, taking on mastodons with fire-hardened sticks.
Fact is, most of our protein - what little of it there was - came from insects, grubs, eggs, lizards and frogs, scavenged kills from other predators, and in coastal areas creatures like turtles, crabs, and occasionally fish. When humans did hunt larger creatures they sure as hell didn't take on large animals with spears; they used brush traps, cliff runs, and uncontrolled large-scale burns to kill *entire herds*. Lacking any sort of proper storage technology and rarely knowing how to smoke/salt meat for long-term use, these occasional whole-sale slaughters generally wasted 99% of the animals they killed.
Contrary to the popular myth which still makes the rounds, humans sucked at hunting. They were, however, premiere gatherers and used their large brains to keep track of what was good to eat, and when, and where it could be found. Their social organization also made it difficult for other, more efficient predators to take them down, since attacking one human generally meant taking on the entire tribe, a dangerous proposition when easier prey was usually abundant. While humans were lousy hunters, a tribe of 20 or 30 armed with pointy sticks was more than sufficient for convincing even a pride of lions that perhaps the herd of deer in the next valley over was a better bet.
The only branch of humanity that was any good at all at hunting was the much-maligned Neanderthal. In complete opposition to our own branch of the species, Neanderthals got 90% of their calories from meat and only 10% from vegetables, fruits or roots. Neanderthals were excellent hunters, although it was a full-time and dangerous occupation as we can see from just how often they were injured (taking a look at an adult Neanderthals bones and the numerous breaks they suffered shows you just how bloody tough they were). But then Neanderthals, unlike h. sapiens, were much better adadpted to hunting; they were far, far stronger than any human being (the average female could easily kill Arnie in his prime with just one well-aimed punch), had much thicker bones, and apparently healed more quickly than our kind did (or does). They could take and shake off punishment that would instantly put any one of us in the grave.
Although it's certainly more heroic to think that cooperative hunting had something to do with our brain development, it's far more likely that it's a combination of ever-more-efficient gathering techniques and cooperative *defense* against real predators that did the trick. Smarter, more social human beings were better at both of these activities than dumber, asocial ones. And in a world full of predators looking for an easy kill, humans - with fragile bodies, the inability to outrun just about anything on four legs, and no natural weapons - were hard-pressed to come up with some other survival strategy to keep from becoming lunch. It turned out that brains and sociability were adequate substitutes.
Max