At any rate, much as I don't like MS, I dunno if I'd blame MS here, other than for bending over. If the MPAA demands that kind of stupidity, either you comply, or you get to play no HD videos on that computer. So MS likely faced the lose-lose choice of either they implement that idiocy, or they get to tell some hundreds of millions of potential customers that Vista doesn't play HD media at all. You can probably see how the latter is a faster suicide. First off, thank you for your analysis, that was very interresting.
BUT, I do have to disagree on that last point. This was never seen by MS as a lose-lose, this is a win. They want DRM, they want to be THE vendor of DRM. It's not a chore for them, it's a goldmine.
lets think about this for a second. Do you *remember* the story lines these shows used to have? [...] Transformers wasn't so bad. In this day and age, people need realism and all that and they *tried* to do that with Transformers. But, come on, how many plausible ideas can you think of for the creation of a talking semi? A magic cube did it is the lamest explanation yet. In my days the alien robots were remnants of an advanced civilization that abandoned them, and they survived, reproduced, and evolved. It was the Autobots that first learned to transform into other objects, vehicles were the most useful shapes, they could move without revealing their true form. The Decepticons captured Autobots and reversed engineered their technology.
A magic cube did it is not an attempt at a plausible story.
Bah humbug.
Do you know Superman used to be a coherent science fiction? In the 30s his story was that he was from a planet with a denser core such that it's gravity was 10 times that of Earth. Hence Kryptonians on Earth were stronger, faster and tougher than anything that evolved in this far less difficult environment, and were able to leap over the tallest buildings (but not fly) much in the way astronauts leap so far in their heavy suits on the moon. Not to mention that the denser core meant higher periodic numbered elements, and thus the nuclear explosion that destroyed Krypton which Jor El saw coming but the establishment couldn't accept. It's not a new thing for stories to grow dumber as they grow more popular, but don't say they tried to make it plausible when they clearly just went with car chases, babes and explosions a plenty. And get off my lawn.
On the current topic, I always thought it would be very hard to make a good live action Transformers movie. They pulled it off very well. Some would disagree.
This is apparently actually old news; it was announced on a Baiji conservation website in December of last year. I'll do you one better than that, it was apparently reported on fucking Slashdot too.
Seriously, what is wrong with you people? They're the victim of sublime propagandistic obfuscation. On the very next day that the extinction was announced, China flooded the world with this so-called news: "World's tallest man saves Chinese dolphins".
Of course, no one force-fed plastic to those captive Dolphins, that was a totally real and coincidental event that involved a spectacular circus freak, warm-fuzzies for all, and the words "china dolphin" to clog the news tubes. You would have to be some kind of conspiracy nut to think China would look after its image so fiercely when the Olympics are looming close. Obviously, this was nothing but a coincidence involving captive animals and a sideshow freak, nothing more, nothing more. It did not succeed at pushing out real news from the media, and neither did it succeed at pushing out real, depressing news from the collective consciousness. This is another one of those tin-foil hat ideas, don'tyou give it any thought.
Help me out, I can't actually think of any times where you'd want something like this if it only lasts 300 meters. In the time you're strapping that to your legs I'll already have swam most of the way there at a leisurely pace(and as a bonus, I don't have some dolphin fin to remove when I arrive. How far can you swim while holding your breath?
That wooshing sound you heard above you head?
on
SCO Loses
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· Score: 1
and to suggest that Microsoft DEVELOPERS wanted SCO to win is a joke. Somewhere in the upper echelons of Microsoft there is probably an executive whose job it is to ask "okay, so ignoring all rules of etiquette, what are some of the ways we can beat this whole Linux thing?" But I can promise you, of the 75,000 employees at Microsoft, 74,900 of them just want to win by making a better OS... Disagree with us if you like, but that doesn't make us evil. You used that word ironically.
What you should have done when you fist read the ancestor post was to think it literally.
Re:And all of a sudden....
on
SCO Loses
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· Score: 1
J&J have an agreement with ARC that has been in place since 1895. An arrangement that appears to have worked well for both parties. ARC is now undermining this agreement by licensing out the trademark to other for-profits. This is outside of the agreement between J&J and ARC. [rebuttal]
Yes and? That is nothing new, that's ancient history now. That does nothing to change what the ARC is CURRENTLY doing does it? GeckoX (259575) == TROLL;
how is it that J&J is diluting the trademark outside of the accepted uses both parties agreed to in 1895? You have framed the question with a caveat placing the answer outside of the possible replies: Your "both parties agreed to" argument is fallacious, since this is not an agreement, but a legal loophole that ended up favoring profit over mercy.
As specified by the Geneva Conventions, the red cross emblem is to be used only to denote the following:
* facilities for the care of injured and sick armed forces members
* armed forces medical personnel and equipment;
* military chaplains;
* Red Cross groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross; the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, formerly "the League of Red Cross Societies"; and the 185 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.
In order to ensure universal respect for the emblem, the Geneva Conventions obliged their signatories to forbid any other use of the name and emblem in wartime and peacetime.
A notable exception to this is the United States where although the United States ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1882 for 18 years no legislation was passed to enact treaty obligations including the protection of the symbol.
Johnson^2 used the charitable organization's logo with impunity whilst no laws on the book could stop its pillaging, and then successfully lobbied to get the legal right to keep doing so on the logic that it was already doing it so it had established rights.
Haven't been able to tell whether ARC is making a profit or not...but still, if they're licensing it out, SOMEONE is making a profit, and it is certainly diluting their trademark. You should really try harder to see who's diluting who's trademark.
They claim that they don't want people to think that activist medics are representing the Red Cross, but somehow I don't think anyone would confuse those folks in the WP photo for Red Cross employees... Right, 'cause no one in that photo looks like official red cross volunteers.
My first thought when I read the summary was, "Hah, suckers are getting what they deserve!"
My dad had a small red cross in a button, overlaid with text, on his (small) company website that linked to his "First Aid" section. The Canadian Red Cross sent him a cease and desist letter and threatened to have lawyers shut him down... (yes, he's in Canada!) I understand protecting a copyright, but it's not like my dad was using the "red cross" as or in his company logo or something. They should waste less time on that kind of crap and spend more time helping people. Anyways, I changed it to a green cross and they can go suck a fat one. How exactly do they deserve to be sued against their own trademark because your dad was illegally using their logo for his profit?
I can see how adding a minimal color change to their logo you keep using for profit was a minor inconvenience for you, but is that really grounds to cause a charitable organization to waste its resources on a lawsuit?
Deut. 21:23 "Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree"--which is why Israelites stoned people. They stoned people because a village can always kill one of their own that way without getting their hands dirty. No complicated knots and no one has to manhandle the impure.
On a serious note I've heard it argued that the ease of travel is slowing the rate of human evolution (or if you don't believe in it, human natural selection) as the chances of a even an improving mutation/trait being successful over time is much lessened in a greater pool of individuals. What about the increased chances of complementary mutations pairing up?
Anyone who says that fusing long-segregated DNA isn't a good idea needs to take a good long look at the results.
Personally, I'd rather they fix the vulnerabilities that make those strings dangerous in the first place: it's not like IM is the only place a URL can get on your machine.
Do you really think they're diverting resources away from fixing bugs so that they can add "censorship" features to IM? Perhaps this is just one effort among multiple efforts to correct problems AND mitigate their effects?
test.info 12:45 Could not send; a connection error occurred.
They did not correct a problem, they created a new one. How hard would it be to have a message "could not send, content of message is not allowed"? It would cause people to realize there is something wrong, rather than blaming it on the dog, as they choose to do. So they censored that tidbit by censoring our messages, the bastards.
This isn't censorship; it's just a poor firewall. The difference is that the former is for stifling human communication, while the latter is to protect machines from malicious software. Tell it to china. So some of what they arbitrarily block is for asinine security reasons? When hackers come up with the key to a Microsoft owned DRM ploy, wanna bet that string will also be blocked, server side, for security?
Get off my lawn, I'm keeping that frisbee!
on
MSN Censors Your IM
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· Score: 1
I had the same problem.... I picked better friends.
Anyone that I have any relation with knows that I will not contact them via MSN, AIM, My Space, Live Journal or any of their like. You must be ever so much fun at parties!
I suggest that they learn to use IRC or obtain a HAM radio license with a morse code rating, and I will gladly send them an instant message. [...] If they do not find a medium that is commonly available and required for business communications as aceptable, then I really don't want to be associated with them. Bah Humbug!
Make sure they don't waste any of that coal in the chimney, too!
If someone discovers, say, my Halifax PIN, they'll have to steal my Halifax card. But if they catch me on a day when I'm not carrying that one and steal my Lloyds TSB card or my Abbey National card instead, the Halifax PIN is useless to them They don't need the physical card, just the numbers on it to go with the PIN.
Slashdot Mirror
BUT, I do have to disagree on that last point. This was never seen by MS as a lose-lose, this is a win. They want DRM, they want to be THE vendor of DRM. It's not a chore for them, it's a goldmine.
[...]
Transformers wasn't so bad. In this day and age, people need realism and all that and they *tried* to do that with Transformers. But, come on, how many plausible ideas can you think of for the creation of a talking semi? A magic cube did it is the lamest explanation yet.
In my days the alien robots were remnants of an advanced civilization that abandoned them, and they survived, reproduced, and evolved. It was the Autobots that first learned to transform into other objects, vehicles were the most useful shapes, they could move without revealing their true form. The Decepticons captured Autobots and reversed engineered their technology.
A magic cube did it is not an attempt at a plausible story.
Bah humbug.
Do you know Superman used to be a coherent science fiction? In the 30s his story was that he was from a planet with a denser core such that it's gravity was 10 times that of Earth. Hence Kryptonians on Earth were stronger, faster and tougher than anything that evolved in this far less difficult environment, and were able to leap over the tallest buildings (but not fly) much in the way astronauts leap so far in their heavy suits on the moon. Not to mention that the denser core meant higher periodic numbered elements, and thus the nuclear explosion that destroyed Krypton which Jor El saw coming but the establishment couldn't accept.
It's not a new thing for stories to grow dumber as they grow more popular, but don't say they tried to make it plausible when they clearly just went with car chases, babes and explosions a plenty.
And get off my lawn.
Seriously, what is wrong with you people? They're the victim of sublime propagandistic obfuscation. On the very next day that the extinction was announced, China flooded the world with this so-called news: "World's tallest man saves Chinese dolphins".
Of course, no one force-fed plastic to those captive Dolphins, that was a totally real and coincidental event that involved a spectacular circus freak, warm-fuzzies for all, and the words "china dolphin" to clog the news tubes. You would have to be some kind of conspiracy nut to think China would look after its image so fiercely when the Olympics are looming close. Obviously, this was nothing but a coincidence involving captive animals and a sideshow freak, nothing more, nothing more. It did not succeed at pushing out real news from the media, and neither did it succeed at pushing out real, depressing news from the collective consciousness. This is another one of those tin-foil hat ideas, don'tyou give it any thought.
Disagree with us if you like, but that doesn't make us evil. You used that word ironically.
What you should have done when you fist read the ancestor post was to think it literally.
That does nothing to change what the ARC is CURRENTLY doing does it? GeckoX (259575) == TROLL;
As specified by the Geneva Conventions, the red cross emblem is to be used only to denote the following:
* facilities for the care of injured and sick armed forces members
* armed forces medical personnel and equipment;
* military chaplains;
* Red Cross groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross; the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, formerly "the League of Red Cross Societies"; and the 185 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.
In order to ensure universal respect for the emblem, the Geneva Conventions obliged their signatories to forbid any other use of the name and emblem in wartime and peacetime.
A notable exception to this is the United States where although the United States ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1882 for 18 years no legislation was passed to enact treaty obligations including the protection of the symbol.
Johnson^2 used the charitable organization's logo with impunity whilst no laws on the book could stop its pillaging, and then successfully lobbied to get the legal right to keep doing so on the logic that it was already doing it so it had established rights.
My dad had a small red cross in a button, overlaid with text, on his (small) company website that linked to his "First Aid" section. The Canadian Red Cross sent him a cease and desist letter and threatened to have lawyers shut him down... (yes, he's in Canada!)
I understand protecting a copyright, but it's not like my dad was using the "red cross" as or in his company logo or something. They should waste less time on that kind of crap and spend more time helping people.
Anyways, I changed it to a green cross and they can go suck a fat one. How exactly do they deserve to be sued against their own trademark because your dad was illegally using their logo for his profit?
I can see how adding a minimal color change to their logo you keep using for profit was a minor inconvenience for you, but is that really grounds to cause a charitable organization to waste its resources on a lawsuit?
No complicated knots and no one has to manhandle the impure.
Anyone who says that fusing long-segregated DNA isn't a good idea needs to take a good long look at the results.
Do you have all of the facts here that would qualify you to make that decision?
Lets not pretend this was a decision of facts when we all know it was a decision of PR.Do you really think they're diverting resources away from fixing bugs so that they can add "censorship" features to IM? Perhaps this is just one effort among multiple efforts to correct problems AND mitigate their effects?
test.info12:45
Could not send; a connection error occurred.
They did not correct a problem, they created a new one.
How hard would it be to have a message "could not send, content of message is not allowed"?
It would cause people to realize there is something wrong, rather than blaming it on the dog, as they choose to do. So they censored that tidbit by censoring our messages, the bastards.
So some of what they arbitrarily block is for asinine security reasons? When hackers come up with the key to a Microsoft owned DRM ploy, wanna bet that string will also be blocked, server side, for security?
Anyone that I have any relation with knows that I will not contact them via MSN, AIM, My Space, Live Journal or any of their like. You must be ever so much fun at parties! I suggest that they learn to use IRC or obtain a HAM radio license with a morse code rating, and I will gladly send them an instant message. [...] If they do not find a medium that is commonly available and required for business communications as aceptable, then I really don't want to be associated with them. Bah Humbug!
Make sure they don't waste any of that coal in the chimney, too!