and whats even worse is when they use the same password for lots of accounts. Just one accident with a keystroke recorder or social engineer and they've given someone else access to everything.
Well if your talking about choosing between an XBox or a girlfriend then i want the latter. a kilo of crappy MS'ised electronics that i could put together myself (PC) and in a sexier case anyway just doesnt do it for me. But hanging out in an electronics lab doing things that in many places are illigal, with a nice girl is a real turn-on:)
"My girlfriend and I spent friday night in the lab together"
Oh man:( i wish i had a girlfriend like that. actually... i wish i had a girlfriend lol.
Live with it and then just upgrade to a better OS
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
There must be ways around this (not legal ofcourse) for example, you could set your firewall not to make or accept connections to microsoft's servers, thus blocking new patches that might contain drm code. There can't be anything in Windows that would disable the OS if it did not receive a patch regularly since they would have to account for the fact that some people simply dont have internet/network connections.
Microsoft isnt playing nice. neither am i (i've never paid for a copy of windows) - win2k is the last microsoft OS i will ever use.
Whatever happens, im sure that the tax each state gains or looses from this will soon be dwarfed by the ammound of money spend on meetings and dumb ideas(tm) that are cooked up to fix it.
Doesnt the metal casing on a hard-drive protect it from electro/magnetic inference (or something like that). Replacing it with plastic would remove that surely? Then again, removing the case would not be a great idea anyway...
Has anyone modded their HD and found there are big data integrity problems? (obviously it doesnt count if its an IBM deskstar)... lol
Governments love to make stupid, pointless and irrelevant laws. It gives them a sense of fulfillment. Even though there are more pressing issues they should be looking at, they always have time for a bit of fun. Surely everyone here understands - how many times have you messed around doing something dumb on company time, even though you had major deadlines to meet? im sure you've all made time to look through the bosses computer for pr0n, play a few rounds of Quake on the network, or build some sort of projectile firing weapon:)
This isn't the whole picture though. As you probably know, most politicians are very social people, they are great when it comes to networking at parties, playing golf, and improving their popularity rating, but when it gets down to it, they really haven't a clue. Most are in it for the bribe money (Hollings), and some of them mean well, but end up resorting to their 8-ball for decision making. Those that actually work hard and take the time to understand what's going on are usually like the quiet kids in the class - they get left out at the next vote. These ones are usually pretty low in numbers.
The average citizen couldn't give a crap about most political issues; all they care is that their post arrives in the morning, and that they still have a job. The issue of whether or not they can control and modify the devices they own in their own home, or not be sued for speaking is not a factor. These are the majority of people.(Thats why America has Bush).
Solution to low battery and hover problems
on
Micro Air Vehicles
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Ok, people are talking about these not being suitable for much because they can't hover or, have too large turning circles. Also, i see people are complaining about the cost and the battery life. Heres my idea.
Humming-birds have wings and can hover. They also have the ability to fly for extended periods, and when they get tired they can perch on the nearest ledge. Obvously, technology is not at the stage where this could be easily implemented into a Humming-bird sized package, and cheaply. However, Humming-birds themselves are relatively plentiful. What if, you attached a minature camera and transmitter to.. a Humming-bird? "But you cant control it!!" i hear you say. What if, you attached electrodes in such away that you could control, or atleast influence the flight. The bird would still keep priority control for dodging obsticles and landing when tired, but you would be able to control the basic directional element, and the direction of the camera. If you employed a flock of Humming-birds you could maintain a good deal of coverage for any event. Also, Humming-birds come with AI and basic flight control systems built in reducing the need for on-board electronics witch in turn reduces weight. For example, the bird has a built in gyroscope and can automatically 'right itself and maintain level flight.
The battery life of the camera could also be extended by attaching the power and/or data cables to the bird and having them trail behind, this would also prevent the bird from going out-of-range.
The millitary applications for this are also good - since no-one would look twice at a Humming-bird on a battle feild, they could be fitted with explosive devices to create humming-suicide-bombers (although the payload would be small).
How do you feel about Pop-ups: *I love them *I hate them *I like to be surprised *Stealing my windows focus and _then_ having the nerve to try and sell me something is a dumb idea *I just set my computer to ignore them so fire away *If you could sell ad-busting software, but still make it generate a click on the ad, so the advertising company got false data - then you'd be onto something *I like it when it just pops-up - it makes me feel attractive! *I like it when CowboyNeal pops-up - other things irritate me.
Next thing you know, companies will realise that 'paying money' is something that customers hate the most, so they will stop charging for things and use creative accounting to make money.
Yes, but really, honestly - would you use this?
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Umm.. lets not beat around the bush here people. How many of you will take option A here:
A) Wait for the ROM to become availiable (a long time for a popular game). Then download it legally from this site, play it on their restricted software (you can forget about using it in obscure oparating systems or on your PDA) and then watch it expire.
B) Load up your favourite browser/ROM-site or P2P app and do a search. Download the file, play.
And, if the demand gets high, they will probably need to start charging or using ad-ware - how many of you would still choose option A? What if your favourite game wasnt on their list, and was only availiable with option B? and finally, what happens when your friend offers you a copy of their super-ROM-CD-collection - still option A?
This is only going to work if the big corporations manage to stop all forms of piracy and file sharing, _and_ decide that this new method is legal.
I've always wondered what would happen if someone mounted a magnetron from a microwave onto a tripod and followed someone down the street in the cross-hairs.
What would happen if someone turned up the volume on this thing - could they damage someones ears? what if, a small group of terrorists played tapes of gun-shot sounds and pointed each machine at a secret-service agent who was pretecting the president. They could confuse each agent into thinking shots were coming from different locations, and maybe also disruppt their communications (its hard to listen to an earpeice when theres allot of noise around lol). What if, i became fed-up with people sticking these things on me as i walked down the street so i wore a device that would retransmit it back at 100 times the power? Maybe advertisers will use automatic transmitters that lock onto individual people - will there be a legal difference between doing that, or just setting up a field around the area infront of their shop etc. What if someone points it at someone elses shop pursuading customers that the shop they're about to walk into is going to overcharge them - Will we have major sound wars?
"Or, more simply put, you can't steal something because you can't afford it, even its loss wouldn't affect the owner. Stealing a couple grand from Bill Gates might be totally un-noticable to him, but it's stealing nonetheless."
You didnt make the difference between having no effect and and un-noticable effect. Since i couldn't actually afford to spend thousends on a peice of software i wouldnt buy it. Its as simple as that, there is no way in hell if all the pigs in the world started flying into skyscrapers and the sky turned pink that i would buy the expensive software, its just not going to happen, so, if i couldnt download said software i wouldnt have it. I would just never use it, so there is no way that you can say X software company is loosing a sale.
It makes perfect sense for developers to give their software away for educational purposes, not only because it generates a large base of prospective paying users, but also because its pretty much the only way to police piracy. Theres no way you can track down every single person with an illigal copy, but its not so hard to find the relatively smaller number of companies that are using pirate software.
Someone who wants to learn 3D-Max probably cant afford to pay $2000 for a copy, so they wont buy it - no sale has been lost. A production company will wipe their asses with $2000 no problems, so if their employees all like Max, thats what they'll get.
Although its not really the governments place to decide that software has to be given away for free, Malaysia is not really a capitalist country:)
Yes yes its all another big space race to see who can claim the moon as theirs. America might have got their people there first (or not) but unless they get some guns and defense systems up there quick, those evil Chinese might take it, or, even worse the Europeans!! This is exactly the reason why America wanted to nuke the moon - to make it uninhabitable. Unless NASA gets up there fast, someone is going to claim it and start digging for rocks or all the incredible technology technology thats lying all over it.
Plots are all the same
on
Fahrenheit
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Max Payne was a pretty boring game with all the gangster/cop/maverick/revenge clichés and dialog that sounded almost like a parody (except it wasn't). I'm not saying it was crap, it had its moments and it was quite fun to play, but it certainly had very little re-playability (except for a bit when you discover the unlimited bullet time cheat:) ). Every month someone releases an 'amazing' new game with 'a plot written by the same person who wrote X movie' and 'multiple story paths that dynamically unfold because of your actions' but in reality it never happens.
The games that are _really_ popular are the ones that don't rely on the plot but on freedom, such as the GTA series or almost any RTS game, or MMORPG, this is where the player creates their own plot instead of being fed one like they're watching a movie. All plots are going to be restrictive if you have to follow them - i.e. if you have to make it to some place to advance the game just so the director can show you their amazing cut scene. It would be nice, say, if in Max Payne you could have seen your wife being murdered, and then decide if you wanted to pursue the gangsters that did it and beat them to the ground, _or_ go to the pub:) I just don't think you can call it fully interactive unless the player has a choice. I don't think plots are very compatible with video games.
Personally my ultimate idea for a game would be a full 3D city/world where you could do anything you wanted - a fully realistic life sim, where you could lead as boring or interesting life as you pleased except without the consequences, and with _lots_ of config settings (basically, the matrix). GTA3 came as close as anything sofar...
Yes, i know, if i dont like plot based games i shouldn't play them, i'll shut up now.
I can see it now - the safest driver in school (who is probably the geek) will get paid by everyone else to house their black boxes in his/her car, all at once, all connected up.
Surely you're joking. Can you imagine the cost in employing someone to check an entire plane for an airline, say, a 747?, several times a year? There must be thousends of systems and parts to check to make sure they havent erroded, cracked, warn out, broken or been tampered with.
Oh and also assessing the security protocals and structures for the airports because that could have back-door.... oh, wait, it does..
May seem logical to you, bud, but I can't see companies wasting money on safety, security or reliability happening.
well yes i can (badly) but you're right i wouldnt bother to check even the smallest program. Which is why i said "companies/organisations that matter" such as a government, who could do this. Since most organisations have safety inspectors to check anything from plane engines to cooking surfaces it would seem logical that they want to check code.
Maybe this is off topic but can anyone actually give me a good example of a use for a macro in an email message - what could this possibly achieve, and even more so, what could allowing it to auto-run achieve? what about allowing it access to the users address book, or modem? is there any valid application that anyone can think of that could not be done another, safer way? The average user doesn't even use macro features in any application (spreadsheet doesnt count) so why are they installed/enabled by default in the first place? The need for a macro feature is even less likely for a WebTV user. Does Microsoft take security seriously? since im not even a programmer and i can see the mistake, im thinking no.
Its a good thing i don't do much programming, because if there was anyway i could possibly exploit a closed source project with a backdoor or Trojan i would.
Every time I download a closed-source program i think about this, im sure im not the only asshole who would do it.
It surprises me that any company/organisation that mattered would _ever_ let software into their systems that had not had its source checked. You wouldn't let just anyone walk in and access your system, but by using closed source software (that includes Windows) you are.
In short im as worried as i would be if the nuclear launch codes were '1234' which is effectivelly what they are if they're being stored on a Windows IIS
For all you know, Bill Gates has implemented any kind of Trojan into his products.
Im sure governments only use internally designed software for things that really matter such as the nuclear launch systems, but in reallity every system is important right down to the cleaning-staff's pay-roll which could be used (as it is in the movies) to get terrorists their id's to get into the building.
(im gonna get modded down as someone whos just written the biggest peice of crap ever)
So blatently the password was stored in his ftp program (he was probably using Windows) and the box showed asterisks '********'. No-one knew that you could download a little utility to reveal the password in the box, so they had to just use his machine and click connect. Once in, they fired up frontpage and made a little replacement notice. They wanted to make it all pretty coloured but the arrested website owner begged them in the name of the Pope not to use yellow text on a light blue background.:)
Well, it looks like Cisco will be getting _allot_ of business in the near future building more national firewalls. And IBM can even supply solutions to administrate exicutions/prision sentences of blasphemous/anti-government individuals and groups like they did in WW2. More money to the corporations yeah!:)
And there was me thinking that the human rights laws here in Europe would give me the rights to free speech.
I'm a poor college student, so I have to download them...
Lets say you go without the music, as you suggested. You dont buy it, the shop makes no sale. No money is transferred, no physical goods are moved.
Lets say you download it. You dont buy it, the shop makes no sale. No money is transferred, no physical goods are moved. Nothing has changed. The shop/record company dont magically 'loose' a sale, because you never intended to buy it anyway. No-one has lost anything the situation is the same as before, except you are listening to the song, you are being brainwashed by its cheap teeny-pop/rap/techno melodies to buy stuff, thats all it is, they want you to fall in love with the band and follow them around like sheep, the music is saying "hey, we are a great band, give us your money" you may argue with this, but even if its not true, the first bit remains the same - nothing has changed... hmmm ok, so i went a bit off-topic there.
I dont think trust has anything to do with it. I already filled in forms on the internet truthfully years ago when i was young and stupid, lots of sites have my details - they're gonna get them one way or another - maybe another company will sell them my information illigally, or maybe i'll fill in a form, it makes no difference.
The reason i dont fill in forms truthfully is because it takes too long. I cant be bothered to read questions, i see a drop-down box of countries i quickly click afganistan, then i click on the post/zip code box and hit my keyboard to fill it with crap, moving on, click, tick, select whatever gets me through as quick as possable. I _really_ have no time to keep filling in these forms i just want to get on the site so i can post a question, read an article or whatever (btw the random ny times generater was excellent:). Then there are other sites that i just dont feel deserve my details. Im fed up of junk mail so my email address usually ends up being webmaster@[the-web-site].com etc.. (give them a taste of their own medicene). I think there are very few people who actually go around filling in false data just to sabotage the statistics. All people want is a _By-Pass_ button that will just get them in - it really is for the web-sites' own good if they want to maintain a reasonably accurate database, because otherwise they will just get my useless random fist-hitting-keyboard data.
Slashdot Mirror
+1
and whats even worse is when they use the same password for lots of accounts. Just one accident with a keystroke recorder or social engineer and they've given someone else access to everything.
Well if your talking about choosing between an XBox or a girlfriend then i want the latter. a kilo of crappy MS'ised electronics that i could put together myself (PC) and in a sexier case anyway just doesnt do it for me. But hanging out in an electronics lab doing things that in many places are illigal, with a nice girl is a real turn-on :)
"My girlfriend and I spent friday night in the lab together"
:( i wish i had a girlfriend like that. actually... i wish i had a girlfriend lol.
Oh man
There must be ways around this (not legal ofcourse) for example, you could set your firewall not to make or accept connections to microsoft's servers, thus blocking new patches that might contain drm code. There can't be anything in Windows that would disable the OS if it did not receive a patch regularly since they would have to account for the fact that some people simply dont have internet/network connections.
Microsoft isnt playing nice. neither am i (i've never paid for a copy of windows) - win2k is the last microsoft OS i will ever use.
Whatever happens, im sure that the tax each state gains or looses from this will soon be dwarfed by the ammound of money spend on meetings and dumb ideas(tm) that are cooked up to fix it.
Wars have been fought over less...
Doesnt the metal casing on a hard-drive protect it from electro/magnetic inference (or something like that). Replacing it with plastic would remove that surely? Then again, removing the case would not be a great idea anyway...
Has anyone modded their HD and found there are big data integrity problems? (obviously it doesnt count if its an IBM deskstar)... lol
Governments love to make stupid, pointless and irrelevant laws. It gives them a sense of fulfillment. Even though there are more pressing issues they should be looking at, they always have time for a bit of fun. Surely everyone here understands - how many times have you messed around doing something dumb on company time, even though you had major deadlines to meet? im sure you've all made time to look through the bosses computer for pr0n, play a few rounds of Quake on the network, or build some sort of projectile firing weapon :)
This isn't the whole picture though. As you probably know, most politicians are very social people, they are great when it comes to networking at parties, playing golf, and improving their popularity rating, but when it gets down to it, they really haven't a clue. Most are in it for the bribe money (Hollings), and some of them mean well, but end up resorting to their 8-ball for decision making. Those that actually work hard and take the time to understand what's going on are usually like the quiet kids in the class - they get left out at the next vote. These ones are usually pretty low in numbers.
The average citizen couldn't give a crap about most political issues; all they care is that their post arrives in the morning, and that they still have a job. The issue of whether or not they can control and modify the devices they own in their own home, or not be sued for speaking is not a factor. These are the majority of people.(Thats why America has Bush).
Ok, people are talking about these not being suitable for much because they can't hover or, have too large turning circles. Also, i see people are complaining about the cost and the battery life. Heres my idea.
Humming-birds have wings and can hover. They also have the ability to fly for extended periods, and when they get tired they can perch on the nearest ledge. Obvously, technology is not at the stage where this could be easily implemented into a Humming-bird sized package, and cheaply. However, Humming-birds themselves are relatively plentiful. What if, you attached a minature camera and transmitter to.. a Humming-bird? "But you cant control it!!" i hear you say. What if, you attached electrodes in such away that you could control, or atleast influence the flight. The bird would still keep priority control for dodging obsticles and landing when tired, but you would be able to control the basic directional element, and the direction of the camera. If you employed a flock of Humming-birds you could maintain a good deal of coverage for any event. Also, Humming-birds come with AI and basic flight control systems built in reducing the need for on-board electronics witch in turn reduces weight. For example, the bird has a built in gyroscope and can automatically 'right itself and maintain level flight.
The battery life of the camera could also be extended by attaching the power and/or data cables to the bird and having them trail behind, this would also prevent the bird from going out-of-range.
The millitary applications for this are also good - since no-one would look twice at a Humming-bird on a battle feild, they could be fitted with explosive devices to create humming-suicide-bombers (although the payload would be small).
How do you feel about Pop-ups:
*I love them
*I hate them
*I like to be surprised
*Stealing my windows focus and _then_ having the nerve to try and sell me something is a dumb idea
*I just set my computer to ignore them so fire away
*If you could sell ad-busting software, but still make it generate a click on the ad, so the advertising company got false data - then you'd be onto something
*I like it when it just pops-up - it makes me feel attractive!
*I like it when CowboyNeal pops-up - other things irritate me.
Next thing you know, companies will realise that 'paying money' is something that customers hate the most, so they will stop charging for things and use creative accounting to make money.
Umm.. lets not beat around the bush here people. How many of you will take option A here:
A) Wait for the ROM to become availiable (a long time for a popular game). Then download it legally from this site, play it on their restricted software (you can forget about using it in obscure oparating systems or on your PDA) and then watch it expire.
B) Load up your favourite browser/ROM-site or P2P app and do a search. Download the file, play.
And, if the demand gets high, they will probably need to start charging or using ad-ware - how many of you would still choose option A? What if your favourite game wasnt on their list, and was only availiable with option B? and finally, what happens when your friend offers you a copy of their super-ROM-CD-collection - still option A?
This is only going to work if the big corporations manage to stop all forms of piracy and file sharing, _and_ decide that this new method is legal.
I've always wondered what would happen if someone mounted a magnetron from a microwave onto a tripod and followed someone down the street in the cross-hairs.
What would happen if someone turned up the volume on this thing - could they damage someones ears? what if, a small group of terrorists played tapes of gun-shot sounds and pointed each machine at a secret-service agent who was pretecting the president. They could confuse each agent into thinking shots were coming from different locations, and maybe also disruppt their communications (its hard to listen to an earpeice when theres allot of noise around lol). What if, i became fed-up with people sticking these things on me as i walked down the street so i wore a device that would retransmit it back at 100 times the power? Maybe advertisers will use automatic transmitters that lock onto individual people - will there be a legal difference between doing that, or just setting up a field around the area infront of their shop etc. What if someone points it at someone elses shop pursuading customers that the shop they're about to walk into is going to overcharge them - Will we have major sound wars?
"Or, more simply put, you can't steal something because you can't afford it, even its loss wouldn't affect the owner. Stealing a couple grand from Bill Gates might be totally un-noticable to him, but it's stealing nonetheless."
You didnt make the difference between having no effect and and un-noticable effect. Since i couldn't actually afford to spend thousends on a peice of software i wouldnt buy it. Its as simple as that, there is no way in hell if all the pigs in the world started flying into skyscrapers and the sky turned pink that i would buy the expensive software, its just not going to happen, so, if i couldnt download said software i wouldnt have it. I would just never use it, so there is no way that you can say X software company is loosing a sale.
It makes perfect sense for developers to give their software away for educational purposes, not only because it generates a large base of prospective paying users, but also because its pretty much the only way to police piracy. Theres no way you can track down every single person with an illigal copy, but its not so hard to find the relatively smaller number of companies that are using pirate software.
:)
Someone who wants to learn 3D-Max probably cant afford to pay $2000 for a copy, so they wont buy it - no sale has been lost. A production company will wipe their asses with $2000 no problems, so if their employees all like Max, thats what they'll get.
Although its not really the governments place to decide that software has to be given away for free, Malaysia is not really a capitalist country
Yes yes its all another big space race to see who can claim the moon as theirs. America might have got their people there first (or not) but unless they get some guns and defense systems up there quick, those evil Chinese might take it, or, even worse the Europeans!! This is exactly the reason why America wanted to nuke the moon - to make it uninhabitable. Unless NASA gets up there fast, someone is going to claim it and start digging for rocks or all the incredible technology technology thats lying all over it.
Max Payne was a pretty boring game with all the gangster/cop/maverick/revenge clichés and dialog that sounded almost like a parody (except it wasn't). I'm not saying it was crap, it had its moments and it was quite fun to play, but it certainly had very little re-playability (except for a bit when you discover the unlimited bullet time cheat :) ). Every month someone releases an 'amazing' new game with 'a plot written by the same person who wrote X movie' and 'multiple story paths that dynamically unfold because of your actions' but in reality it never happens.
:) I just don't think you can call it fully interactive unless the player has a choice. I don't think plots are very compatible with video games.
The games that are _really_ popular are the ones that don't rely on the plot but on freedom, such as the GTA series or almost any RTS game, or MMORPG, this is where the player creates their own plot instead of being fed one like they're watching a movie. All plots are going to be restrictive if you have to follow them - i.e. if you have to make it to some place to advance the game just so the director can show you their amazing cut scene. It would be nice, say, if in Max Payne you could have seen your wife being murdered, and then decide if you wanted to pursue the gangsters that did it and beat them to the ground, _or_ go to the pub
Personally my ultimate idea for a game would be a full 3D city/world where you could do anything you wanted - a fully realistic life sim, where you could lead as boring or interesting life as you pleased except without the consequences, and with _lots_ of config settings (basically, the matrix). GTA3 came as close as anything sofar...
Yes, i know, if i dont like plot based games i shouldn't play them, i'll shut up now.
This is for the US military, dont expect your tax dollars to give you better phone calls personally.
I can see it now - the safest driver in school (who is probably the geek) will get paid by everyone else to house their black boxes in his/her car, all at once, all connected up.
Surely you're joking. Can you imagine the cost in employing someone to check an entire plane for an airline, say, a 747?, several times a year? There must be thousends of systems and parts to check to make sure they havent erroded, cracked, warn out, broken or been tampered with.
Oh and also assessing the security protocals and structures for the airports because that could have back-door.... oh, wait, it does..
May seem logical to you, bud, but I can't see companies wasting money on safety, security or reliability happening.
well yes i can (badly) but you're right i wouldnt bother to check even the smallest program. Which is why i said "companies/organisations that matter" such as a government, who could do this. Since most organisations have safety inspectors to check anything from plane engines to cooking surfaces it would seem logical that they want to check code.
Maybe this is off topic but can anyone actually give me a good example of a use for a macro in an email message - what could this possibly achieve, and even more so, what could allowing it to auto-run achieve? what about allowing it access to the users address book, or modem? is there any valid application that anyone can think of that could not be done another, safer way? The average user doesn't even use macro features in any application (spreadsheet doesnt count) so why are they installed/enabled by default in the first place? The need for a macro feature is even less likely for a WebTV user. Does Microsoft take security seriously? since im not even a programmer and i can see the mistake, im thinking no.
Its a good thing i don't do much programming, because if there was anyway i could possibly exploit a closed source project with a backdoor or Trojan i would.
Every time I download a closed-source program i think about this, im sure im not the only asshole who would do it.
It surprises me that any company/organisation that mattered would _ever_ let software into their systems that had not had its source checked. You wouldn't let just anyone walk in and access your system, but by using closed source software (that includes Windows) you are.
In short im as worried as i would be if the nuclear launch codes were '1234' which is effectivelly what they are if they're being stored on a Windows IIS
For all you know, Bill Gates has implemented any kind of Trojan into his products.
Im sure governments only use internally designed software for things that really matter such as the nuclear launch systems, but in reallity every system is important right down to the cleaning-staff's pay-roll which could be used (as it is in the movies) to get terrorists their id's to get into the building.
(im gonna get modded down as someone whos just written the biggest peice of crap ever)
So blatently the password was stored in his ftp program (he was probably using Windows) and the box showed asterisks '********'. No-one knew that you could download a little utility to reveal the password in the box, so they had to just use his machine and click connect. Once in, they fired up frontpage and made a little replacement notice. They wanted to make it all pretty coloured but the arrested website owner begged them in the name of the Pope not to use yellow text on a light blue background. :)
Well, it looks like Cisco will be getting _allot_ of business in the near future building more national firewalls. And IBM can even supply solutions to administrate exicutions/prision sentences of blasphemous/anti-government individuals and groups like they did in WW2. More money to the corporations yeah! :)
And there was me thinking that the human rights laws here in Europe would give me the rights to free speech.
I'm a poor college student, so I have to download them...
Lets say you go without the music, as you suggested. You dont buy it, the shop makes no sale. No money is transferred, no physical goods are moved.
Lets say you download it. You dont buy it, the shop makes no sale. No money is transferred, no physical goods are moved. Nothing has changed. The shop/record company dont magically 'loose' a sale, because you never intended to buy it anyway. No-one has lost anything the situation is the same as before, except you are listening to the song, you are being brainwashed by its cheap teeny-pop/rap/techno melodies to buy stuff, thats all it is, they want you to fall in love with the band and follow them around like sheep, the music is saying "hey, we are a great band, give us your money" you may argue with this, but even if its not true, the first bit remains the same - nothing has changed... hmmm ok, so i went a bit off-topic there.
I dont think trust has anything to do with it. I already filled in forms on the internet truthfully years ago when i was young and stupid, lots of sites have my details - they're gonna get them one way or another - maybe another company will sell them my information illigally, or maybe i'll fill in a form, it makes no difference.
:). Then there are other sites that i just dont feel deserve my details. Im fed up of junk mail so my email address usually ends up being webmaster@[the-web-site].com etc.. (give them a taste of their own medicene). I think there are very few people who actually go around filling in false data just to sabotage the statistics. All people want is a _By-Pass_ button that will just get them in - it really is for the web-sites' own good if they want to maintain a reasonably accurate database, because otherwise they will just get my useless random fist-hitting-keyboard data.
The reason i dont fill in forms truthfully is because it takes too long. I cant be bothered to read questions, i see a drop-down box of countries i quickly click afganistan, then i click on the post/zip code box and hit my keyboard to fill it with crap, moving on, click, tick, select whatever gets me through as quick as possable. I _really_ have no time to keep filling in these forms i just want to get on the site so i can post a question, read an article or whatever (btw the random ny times generater was excellent