And that's really what bothers me about the whole thing. Apart from some idiot in the NY Times calling him a "genius programmer", what bugs me is that there's is no way he has the CS skills to do this by himself (which would have been impressive). And what do we find: he was able to get a bunch of seed money from wealthy investors and hire some developers and "partner" with an AI company to do the actual backed. I'm sure the fact that his dad is a banker and his mom is a lawyer had nothing to do with any of that!
So, because of his background he gets the money, while some kid in India or China who read Knuth when they were 10 years-old, can't get paid more than $20k per year to do triple what this "genius" did.
"you could offload to the cloud (ha, they aren't going [to do] that,) or rope the GPU into doing clever sim work (that's a research project.)"
You see, if this had been the default behavior of the game and the need for being always connected, I think more people would have been less frustrated. Or if SC5 had some revolutionary AI behavior which would have made waiting to connect worth it.
But what do we get: corner-cutting in terms of the (really weak) AI, unnecessary online-only play for single player mode (due to DRM paranoia) a prettier version of SC4 with the added problem of having to wait a week to actually play the game after EA gets your money, in addition to the fact that once you do connect, you don't even get half of the features they promised. Even prostitutes have better business sense than that.
You'd think in the age of Siri and Watson, SimCity would actually be a real sim.
But I think that if universities (maybe not a real-one in this instance) such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, et al. are brave enough to offer their courses online, why don't they offer degree credits for those people who complete the online courses?
You can take all the MIT openware courses you want, and do quite well, but I suspect "took online courses at MIT site" wouldn't sound too good on a resume, as corporations are credential-obsessed nowadays. This would apply more to people who don't have the time or money to attend an undergraduate institution full-time, but then are penalized in the job market even if they demonstrate an ability to improve their education.
Why don't these universities, in keeping with their academic mission, allow people to get online degrees or credit for free as well?
"The US has never been a democracy, not even ostensibly. It is a constitutional republic, which is different than a democracy."
That statement makes no sense.
It's true that the classical definition of the word "Democracy" means direct rule by the people, or citizens. On the one hand, if you take the original Western democracy--the Athenian city state of 400BCE--as the template of a "Democracy" then the US is not a democracy.
But then Athens was not a "Democracy" by that definition, because not everyone was considered a citizen. Women could not vote, slaves could not vote, foreigners (even if they had been born in Athens) could not vote, nor could the poor.
The only people who could vote in ancient Athens were Athenian men who owned property, a minority of the population. Likewise in the early United States.
Except in the Athenian assembly, citizens represented themselves, in the United states, citizens elected representatives.
The modern definition of democracy--namely suffrage--is what people refer to when they say "democratic" today.
So that yes, the US in 2012 is a democracy.
Constitutional republic merely refers to the structure of the government, with states being organized under a federal government and a national constitution.
"Oh wait, I forgot US law applies across the entire planet, and probably Mars now."
That's basically true. If you commit a crime which affects US interests or citizens, and the US government indicts you on criminal charges, and if you end up on US soil, you can be arrested and tried for those charges, ask any number of Eastern European hackers, or Mexican cartel members.
In fact, with the exception of (Islamic) terrorism, this is pretty much US government policy, and it used to be true of terror suspects, as well.
Before 9/11, Osama bin-Laden was an indicted co-conspirator on a host of terrorism related charges. If the US government had been able to get him, he would have stood trial in the US.
After 9/11, the US decided to deal with terrorism as war-crimes, and terrorists, even if they had only talked-about doing something, are now subject to death-by-drone, without a trial.
So no, Assange would not be sent to Guantanamo, he'd just be another in a long line of foreign nationals sought-after by the US Dept. of Justice, (as opposed to CIA drones).
Sweden cannot make any guarantees that Assange will not be extradited 1) because the US has not (officially) leveled any indictment against Assange. 2) Because they are not going to subvert their own legal processes vis. extradition, because a foreign state says so.
"The senior legal adviser said that under extradition law, the concept of "specialty" ensures an individual can only be extradited to one country â" in the case of Assange, Sweden. Once legal proceedings in that country have been completed, the individual is given a 45-day leave, during which they are free to go where they want.
Assange should, therefore, be free to travel to any other state â" including the UK, Ecuador or Australia â" once legal proceedings against him are completed in Sweden.
However, specialty can be waived by the country granting the initial extradition request â" in this case the UK â" thereby allowing an individual to be extradited to a third country.
The senior legal adviser to the Ecuadoreans said that the home secretary, Theresa May, would need to waive specialty under section 58 of the Extradition Act 2003, before Assange could be extradited from Sweden to the US.
Despite repeated requests from Ecuador, the Foreign Office has not said whether or not May intends to exercise her powers to allow for any potential future extradition to the US.
"The concerns that Ecuador has in relation to that whole process is that some states â" not least of which the US â" have been known to hold back on their extradition requests, to a timely moment, when they can serve the process with greatest impact," the senior legal adviser said. "And so the concern would be that the US has in mind a request for extradition on the basis of WikiLeaks charges." _____
As it stands now, he is facing a serious sex-crimes investigation in Sweden, which he did to himself, by-the-way.
Rule #1 of being wanted by state security services, don't fuck groupies.
"...the federal government is touted as the answer to all our other problems. Bad economy? Spend a shitload of tax money to 'stimulate' the economy (ignore the shell game aspect of taxing the same economy you're trying to stimulate). Problems with health care? Why, the government can fix this (ignore the death panels / health care rationing please)! Drugs a problem? No problem, the 'war on drugs' is surely going to fix everything! Some people are making more money than you? Why, that's not fair! We'll tax the rich buggers and spread the wealth around."
I'm not sure if you're serious, or just trolling on a high-level. But, given the liquidity trap the economy is in, where no matter how low the Fed sets interest rates, banks still won't lend, the only feasible way out of the economic slump is government spending. After all, GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports).
As you may or may not know, the first and second parts of GDP are way down. People are not spending money, and businesses are not investing. Moreover, businesses are sitting on trillions of dollars in cash. In such an instance more tax cuts or deregulation (which, incidentally, is what put us in this mess) will not spur the economy. So that, yes, let's tax the rich buggers and spread the wealth around.
Furthermore, we already have government run healthcare: the VA and Medicare--for vets and old people. Not only are these services popular, their more efficiently run than private insurance companies, with less administrative costs. Which lead to the absurd statement: "get your government hands off my medicare."
Excuse me when I say that I think you've been brain-washed by Fox News.
"Very soon the 1% will be able to afford robotically defended fortresses"
Eh, they can afford them now! But they don't implement them for various reasons 1) it's illegal to have booby-traps and machine guns in your home, no matter how rich you are 2) if you're in the 1%, the coercive instruments of the state are already in your possession, so you don't need machine-gun turrets.
First off, rich people live in exclusive communities where anyone who "doesn't belong" gets stopped by the police fairly soon. Secondly, they have leverage with local law-enforcement to have their wishes acted upon. (see Wall Street donations to the NYPD, for instance).
But really, and most importantly, the rich can simply afford more politicians that everyone else. They have laws specifically meant to protect their financial interests, tax-loopholes, watered-down regulations, etc.
It's ironic, then, that the most collectivist institution in America is the for-profit corporation. It's ruled by a small elite to whom all of the benefits accrue, while keeping the much larger mass of employees as indentured servants.
So the profit motive is "evil", according to you. Or are you not aware that the whole point of a private--that is, for-profit corporation--is to make money. In other words, the whole point of free-market capitalism is exactly to "line their pockets as much as possible with no regard to the consequences as they apply to others."
That is not evil, it's the nature of the system. Somehow, you think, that a free-market laissez-faire system is "good" but that there are greedy people are "evil" and thus corrupt this system. When in fact the whole point of the system is to allow greedy people to have their way.
Irrespective of the bifurcation of people into 'good' and 'evil', how is advocating that a government, which is nominally accountable to voters, be in charge of security, mean that it should run everything? Furthermore, the profit-motive and the unaccountability of corporations would make them less, not more, desirable to run such a service.
But wouldn't an advanced species have overcome their "Earthly" desires?
The fact that we seek instant gratification through food, games and porn is that our brains still more closely resemble those of our ancestors who lived in caves than those of a technologically advanced civilization.
Just the other day I was thinking that even 50 years desktop computers had not been invented so we still have these animal brains meant to deal with threats from snakes and lions trying to do VBS Excel calculations, while writing an email, and it just doesn't work out so well. More specifically I was thinking about the level of concentration and critical thinking skills necessary to be a Star Fleet Officer, and how many people can't text and drive at the same time let alone calculate the approach angle of a photon torpedo while maximizing shields, for example.
Furthermore I believe that the author falls into a logical contradiction in that he assumes that in the future we will be like ourselves only moreso. If we have video-game addicts today then tomorrow's society will be all video-games all the time, instead of thinking that maybe we will develop tools and social norms to deal with that behavior which will allow us to divert our reasoning and creativity into more productive endeavors.
There were dozens of MP3 players on the market before the iPod came out in 2001. In fact the first mass-produced MP3 player came out in 1998--a full 3 years before the iPod. The iPod was the only when that people had to have to be "cool" and so that's why you think it was the first one.
Anyone remember when total strangers would exchange their iPods when they were walking down the street or whatever, to hear what the other was listening to? That was a weird and awkward fad. Funny, now that everyone and his mom has an iPod people don't do that anymore.
Because, of course, what I want is the Internet Police, and having to get a license to use a PC. Ridiculous!
No, a computer is indeed an appliance, for 90% of users, no different than a microwave.
except a microwave can't (yet) hack into your bank account or steal your CC info.
What is glaringly obvious is that Microsoft does not seem to understand that computers
are appliances and that it should be impossible to hack into your back account with the
default settings of an Out of the Box copy of Windows.
And yet Windows, to use the car analogy, would be like buying a car with no brakes and no locks on the doors, and then blaming the owner if the car got stolen.
I mean seriously people, we have safety standards for cars, and even handguns. Why can't we have safety standards for OSs, and networking devices? I mean, GM would get sued if one of their models exploded every time it went on the interstate, so why not Microsoft?
You employ an unreasoned argument. In no state or city would someone whose house was burglarized be liable, even if they left the door wide open. There is such a thing as a reasonable expectation of private property.
But more importantly, your analogy is way off. Think of an airplane that crashes. Are the passengers liable for not doing a thorough inspection of the airplane and the airline before they get on the plane? No! Because they have a reasonable expectation of warrantability and merchantability. Meaning that if they are able to purchase a ticket, it's because the airline is safe to fly.
If on the other hand a PC box came with a huge warning that said: Use of this product may result in the loss of your bank account, you might have a better argument. But at a minimum people purchase computers with the expectation that this will not happen.
It would be the equivalent of saying that through the daily use of a calculator, you were liable to have your car stolen.
Which is preposterous on its face.
And if anyone is liable, it's the OS manufacturer, yet I see no discussion of this. It's as if a car company sold a car with no brakes, and blamed the driver that crashes for not having them installed. I think we can agree that brakes are an important part of a vehicle. Yet if someone crashes a car because their brakes were cut, we wouldn't blame them would we?
In all the articles and talk about trojans I never see any mention of the fact that %99.9 of infected, spam producing and botted PC's are running some version of MS windows. If every luser who ran bittorrent and keygen's on their windows PC's switched to ubuntu tomorrow, the botnet problem would disappear overnight.
MS makes the barrier to entry for virus and trojan writers so low, that a 12 year-old could have his own botnet with a couple of hours of internet time.
Yet I never see any talk of this.
Imagine a bank with the same security as MS windows. A bank robber could walk right in to the safe wearing a mask of the bank manager's face, and the safe would open by pressing a button which said 'Do not press if ur a bankrobber'.
Yet I see no talk of holding MS accountable for the security of its shitty software. Maybe if they were made to pay the real cost of running windows, the #1 AV maker would be MS.
They're trying to create a high-end design for the aesthetically conscious, but stamp what has to be the most uninspired corporate logo of the last 50 years on their product, in stainless steel no less. I'd rather by a netbook from maytag, if they made one.
How narcissistic do you have to be? You're going to name the company after yourself and the logo is your last name, but the 'E' is rotated a few degrees.
In good 'ole 'Merica we have what's called 'impeaching the witness' where an attorney will try to catch a witness on a lie, or if their testimony is different than their deposition.
Slashdot Mirror
And that's really what bothers me about the whole thing. Apart from some idiot in the NY Times calling him a "genius programmer", what bugs me is that there's is no way he has the CS skills to do this by himself (which would have been impressive). And what do we find: he was able to get a bunch of seed money from wealthy investors and hire some developers and "partner" with an AI company to do the actual backed. I'm sure the fact that his dad is a banker and his mom is a lawyer had nothing to do with any of that!
So, because of his background he gets the money, while some kid in India or China who read Knuth when they were 10 years-old, can't get paid more than $20k per year to do triple what this "genius" did.
"you could offload to the cloud (ha, they aren't going [to do] that,) or rope the GPU into doing clever sim work (that's a research project.)"
You see, if this had been the default behavior of the game and the need for being always connected, I think more people would have been
less frustrated. Or if SC5 had some revolutionary AI behavior which would have made waiting to connect worth it.
But what do we get: corner-cutting in terms of the (really weak) AI, unnecessary online-only play for single player mode (due to DRM paranoia) a prettier version of SC4
with the added problem of having to wait a week to actually play the game after EA gets your money, in addition to the fact that once you do connect, you don't even get half of the features they promised. Even prostitutes have better business sense than that.
You'd think in the age of Siri and Watson, SimCity would actually be a real sim.
Or, you could, you know..."tilt" the screen so that it's roughly 45Â and lower it to chest height.
Hey! Now it's a touch draft table screen! Genius!
But I think that if universities (maybe not a real-one in this instance) such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, et al. are brave enough to offer their courses online, why don't they offer degree credits for those people who complete the online courses?
You can take all the MIT openware courses you want, and do quite well, but I suspect "took online courses at MIT site" wouldn't sound too good on a resume, as corporations are credential-obsessed nowadays. This would apply more to people who don't have the time or money to attend an undergraduate institution full-time, but then are penalized in the job market even if they demonstrate an ability to improve their education.
Why don't these universities, in keeping with their academic mission, allow people to get online degrees or credit for free as well?
"The US has never been a democracy, not even ostensibly. It is a constitutional republic, which is different than a democracy."
That statement makes no sense.
It's true that the classical definition of the word "Democracy" means direct rule by the people, or citizens. On the one hand, if you take the original Western democracy--the Athenian city state of 400BCE--as the template of a "Democracy" then the US is not a democracy.
But then Athens was not a "Democracy" by that definition, because not everyone was considered a citizen. Women could not vote, slaves could not vote, foreigners (even if they had been born in Athens) could not vote, nor could the poor.
The only people who could vote in ancient Athens were Athenian men who owned property, a minority of the population. Likewise in the early United States.
Except in the Athenian assembly, citizens represented themselves, in the United states, citizens elected representatives.
The modern definition of democracy--namely suffrage--is what people refer to when they say "democratic" today.
So that yes, the US in 2012 is a democracy.
Constitutional republic merely refers to the structure of the government, with states being organized under a federal government and a national constitution.
"Oh wait, I forgot US law applies across the entire planet, and probably Mars now."
That's basically true. If you commit a crime which affects US interests or citizens, and the US government indicts you on criminal charges, and if you end up on US soil, you can be arrested and tried for those charges, ask any number of Eastern European hackers, or Mexican cartel members.
In fact, with the exception of (Islamic) terrorism, this is pretty much US government policy, and it used to be true of terror suspects, as well.
Before 9/11, Osama bin-Laden was an indicted co-conspirator on a host of terrorism related charges. If the US government had been able to get him, he would have stood trial in the US.
After 9/11, the US decided to deal with terrorism as war-crimes, and terrorists, even if they had only talked-about doing something, are now subject to death-by-drone, without a trial.
So no, Assange would not be sent to Guantanamo, he'd just be another in a long line of foreign nationals sought-after by the US Dept. of Justice, (as opposed to CIA drones).
Sweden cannot make any guarantees that Assange will not be extradited 1) because the US has not (officially) leveled any indictment against Assange. 2) Because they are not going to subvert their own legal processes vis. extradition, because a foreign state says so.
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/26/ecuador-julian-assange-extradition-us?newsfeed=true
"The senior legal adviser said that under extradition law, the concept of "specialty" ensures an individual can only be extradited to one country â" in the case of Assange, Sweden. Once legal proceedings in that country have been completed, the individual is given a 45-day leave, during which they are free to go where they want.
Assange should, therefore, be free to travel to any other state â" including the UK, Ecuador or Australia â" once legal proceedings against him are completed in Sweden.
However, specialty can be waived by the country granting the initial extradition request â" in this case the UK â" thereby allowing an individual to be extradited to a third country.
The senior legal adviser to the Ecuadoreans said that the home secretary, Theresa May, would need to waive specialty under section 58 of the Extradition Act 2003, before Assange could be extradited from Sweden to the US.
Despite repeated requests from Ecuador, the Foreign Office has not said whether or not May intends to exercise her powers to allow for any potential future extradition to the US.
"The concerns that Ecuador has in relation to that whole process is that some states â" not least of which the US â" have been known to hold back on their extradition requests, to a timely moment, when they can serve the process with greatest impact," the senior legal adviser said. "And so the concern would be that the US has in mind a request for extradition on the basis of WikiLeaks charges."
_____
As it stands now, he is facing a serious sex-crimes investigation in Sweden, which he did to himself, by-the-way.
Rule #1 of being wanted by state security services, don't fuck groupies.
Lisa, I want to buy that rock!
"...the federal government is touted as the answer to all our other problems. Bad economy? Spend a shitload of tax money to 'stimulate' the economy (ignore the shell game aspect of taxing the same economy you're trying to stimulate). Problems with health care? Why, the government can fix this (ignore the death panels / health care rationing please)! Drugs a problem? No problem, the 'war on drugs' is surely going to fix everything! Some people are making more money than you? Why, that's not fair! We'll tax the rich buggers and spread the wealth around."
I'm not sure if you're serious, or just trolling on a high-level. But, given the liquidity trap the economy is in, where no matter how low the Fed sets interest rates, banks still won't lend, the only feasible way out of the economic slump is government spending. After all, GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports).
As you may or may not know, the first and second parts of GDP are way down. People are not spending money, and businesses are not investing. Moreover, businesses are sitting on trillions of dollars in cash. In such an instance more tax cuts or deregulation (which, incidentally, is what put us in this mess) will not spur the economy. So that, yes, let's tax the rich buggers and spread the wealth around.
Furthermore, we already have government run healthcare: the VA and Medicare--for vets and old people. Not only are these services popular, their more efficiently run than private insurance companies, with less administrative costs. Which lead to the absurd statement: "get your government hands off my medicare."
Excuse me when I say that I think you've been brain-washed by Fox News.
"Very soon the 1% will be able to afford robotically defended fortresses"
Eh, they can afford them now! But they don't implement them for various reasons 1) it's illegal to have booby-traps and machine guns in your home, no matter how rich you are 2) if you're in the 1%, the coercive instruments of the state are already in your possession, so you don't need machine-gun turrets.
First off, rich people live in exclusive communities where anyone who "doesn't belong" gets stopped by the police fairly soon. Secondly, they have leverage with local law-enforcement to have their wishes acted upon. (see Wall Street donations to the NYPD, for instance).
But really, and most importantly, the rich can simply afford more politicians that everyone else. They have laws specifically meant to protect their financial interests, tax-loopholes, watered-down regulations, etc.
It's ironic, then, that the most collectivist institution in America is the for-profit corporation. It's ruled by a small elite to whom all of the benefits accrue, while keeping the much larger mass of employees as indentured servants.
So the profit motive is "evil", according to you. Or are you not aware that the whole point of a private--that is, for-profit corporation--is to make money. In other words, the whole point of free-market capitalism is exactly to "line their pockets as much as possible with no regard to the consequences as they apply to others."
That is not evil, it's the nature of the system. Somehow, you think, that a free-market laissez-faire system is "good" but that there are greedy people are "evil" and thus corrupt this system. When in fact the whole point of the system is to allow greedy people to have their way.
Irrespective of the bifurcation of people into 'good' and 'evil', how is advocating that a government, which is nominally accountable to voters, be in charge of security, mean that it should run everything? Furthermore, the profit-motive and the unaccountability of corporations would make them less, not more, desirable to run such a service.
But wouldn't an advanced species have overcome their "Earthly" desires?
The fact that we seek instant gratification through food, games and porn is that our
brains still more closely resemble those of our ancestors who lived in caves
than those of a technologically advanced civilization.
Just the other day I was thinking that even 50 years desktop computers had not been invented
so we still have these animal brains meant to deal with threats from snakes and lions trying
to do VBS Excel calculations, while writing an email, and it just doesn't work out so well.
More specifically I was thinking about the level of concentration and critical thinking skills
necessary to be a Star Fleet Officer, and how many people can't text and drive at the same time
let alone calculate the approach angle of a photon torpedo while maximizing shields, for example.
Furthermore I believe that the author falls into a logical contradiction in that he assumes
that in the future we will be like ourselves only moreso. If we have video-game addicts today
then tomorrow's society will be all video-games all the time, instead of thinking that
maybe we will develop tools and social norms to deal with that behavior which will allow us
to divert our reasoning and creativity into more productive endeavors.
OK Apple enthusiasts, explain this to me: for $850 I can purchase the Acer Aspire AS7740G-6364
It too has a 17" screen, albeit at lower res (1600x800), but a killer
offboard graphics card ATI 5650HD with 1GB of dedicated ram.
Sure the processor is only 2.26 Ghz but it also has 4GB of ram, and of course
the case is not aluminum.
But still, WHY would I pay $1,450 more for the MacBook Pro?
OS X is not worth $1,000!
that Luke uses 'The Force' and turns off the computer.
Was Lucas trying to say something with that, I wonder...
Facebook is not your Personal Army!
Bzzzzzz!!! Wrong!!
There were dozens of MP3 players on the market before the iPod came out in 2001.
In fact the first mass-produced MP3 player came out in 1998--a full 3 years before
the iPod. The iPod was the only when that people had to have to be "cool" and so that's
why you think it was the first one.
Anyone remember when total strangers would exchange their iPods when they were
walking down the street or whatever, to hear what the other was listening to?
That was a weird and awkward fad. Funny, now that everyone and his mom has an iPod
people don't do that anymore.
Yeah! take that Sony. They not only have blue ray, they have blue, yellow and green ray.
It's a color laser light-show smackdown!.
Boo-Yeah!!!
Because, of course, what I want is the Internet Police, and having to get a license to use a PC. Ridiculous!
No, a computer is indeed an appliance, for 90% of users, no different than a microwave.
except a microwave can't (yet) hack into your bank account or steal your CC info.
What is glaringly obvious is that Microsoft does not seem to understand that computers
are appliances and that it should be impossible to hack into your back account with the
default settings of an Out of the Box copy of Windows.
And yet Windows, to use the car analogy, would be like buying a car with no brakes
and no locks on the doors, and then blaming the owner if the car got stolen.
I mean seriously people, we have safety standards for cars, and even handguns.
Why can't we have safety standards for OSs, and networking devices?
I mean, GM would get sued if one of their models exploded every time it went
on the interstate, so why not Microsoft?
Blaming "Joe Sixpack" is like blaming the victim.
You employ an unreasoned argument. In no state or city would someone whose house was burglarized be liable,
even if they left the door wide open. There is such a thing as a reasonable expectation of private property.
But more importantly, your analogy is way off. Think of an airplane that crashes.
Are the passengers liable for not doing a thorough inspection
of the airplane and the airline before they get on the plane? No!
Because they have a reasonable expectation of warrantability and merchantability.
Meaning that if they are able to purchase a ticket, it's because the airline is safe to
fly.
If on the other hand a PC box came with a huge warning that said: Use of this product
may result in the loss of your bank account, you might have a better argument.
But at a minimum people purchase computers with the expectation that this will not happen.
It would be the equivalent of saying that through the daily use of a calculator,
you were liable to have your car stolen.
Which is preposterous on its face.
And if anyone is liable, it's the OS manufacturer, yet I see no discussion of this.
It's as if a car company sold a car with no brakes, and blamed the driver that crashes
for not having them installed. I think we can agree that brakes are an important part of a vehicle.
Yet if someone crashes a car because their brakes were cut, we wouldn't blame them would we?
In all the articles and talk about trojans I never see any mention of the fact
that %99.9 of infected, spam producing and botted PC's are running some version
of MS windows. If every luser who ran bittorrent and keygen's on their windows
PC's switched to ubuntu tomorrow, the botnet problem would disappear overnight.
MS makes the barrier to entry for virus and trojan writers so low, that a 12 year-old
could have his own botnet with a couple of hours of internet time.
Yet I never see any talk of this.
Imagine a bank with the same security as MS windows. A bank robber could walk right
in to the safe wearing a mask of the bank manager's face, and the safe would open
by pressing a button which said 'Do not press if ur a bankrobber'.
Yet I see no talk of holding MS accountable for the security of its shitty software.
Maybe if they were made to pay the real cost of running windows, the #1 AV maker
would be MS.
They're trying to create a high-end design for the aesthetically conscious, but stamp what
has to be the most uninspired corporate logo of the last 50 years on their product, in
stainless steel no less. I'd rather by a netbook from maytag, if they made one.
How narcissistic do you have to be? You're going to name the company after yourself
and the logo is your last name, but the 'E' is rotated a few degrees.
What graphic design genius came up with that?
And it runs Vista!
In good 'ole 'Merica we have what's called 'impeaching the witness' where an attorney will try to catch a witness on a lie, or if their testimony is different than their deposition.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_impeachment
Maybe they can do a show where the protagonist is a kooky, yet at times fearsome lord of time,
who's a pacifist, and has a female sidekick,
and the biggest threat to the universe is a salt shaker with a plunger sticking out of it.
But you'd have to be crazy to even possibly begin to comprehend the undertaking of such a show.
If only there existed such a person.
Rather, Kate Mulgrew entering a restaurant near Times Square a couple of months back.
I heard the voice then I did a double take, and sure enough it was her.
She looked old.
I was tempted to go in and say hi, but I'm not that much of a geek.
From her statement it's obvious that she was very offended. Whether or not she admits to herself she has a weight problem is no one else's business.
The nurse was probably trying to give her a hard time, anyway.
How would you feel if someone told you to go to the zoo for a procedure?