Can we have some sort of/. competition where everyone thinks of the most stupid and anoying idea they can patent and we all chip-in some money and get the winner patented and cause as much hassle to the worlds economy with it as we can?
I agree, he's not a danger to society, punishment isn't fun but 9 years in prision is just insane! People get less then this for assult. If spam is going to be illigal it should carry a fine, something reasonable but prohibitive per person ($20?) that will build up quickly if you've spammed lots of people, alter the price if people start making a business out of it, but seriously, 1 spam message does not cost you $3000 in lost time, and other people spamming you at the same time has nothing to do with the original person.
£500m / 60m people =~ £8 per person (lets round it up for population growth) =~ £1 per year per person. (not taking into consideration people who go private etc). Obviously software doesnt have any cost per person attached to it but Bill didn't get filthy rich with fair prices. I think what we're paying for here is 'peace of mind' (did i just say that??) since Microsoft is a big well-known company they know they better damn well not screw up. For that price I expect nothing less then 99.999% uptime, and zero patients records stolen. If I was running the country, under-the-table deals would work two ways: Fuck with me, and I will ban your business from the country and start a mass scale piracy operation of your products.
Do genetic patents (Monsanto etc) cover evolution? or, considering there's "no such thing" as evolution under the Bush government, do genetic patents cover plants that have been modified by an 'Act of God'? So what happens when a plant/animal or drug thats heavily patented starts appearing naturally?! Well considering the US government thinks it has a right to wipe out entire species of plant, im guessing the patent owner would have the right to take/destroy any plant, animal or drug that they find? So what happens when this ridiculous farce of genetic patenting reaches humans? if you have happen to have naturally mutated an immunity to all common flu's but Monsanto has a product that does that exact same thing, what are they going to do? what if you start selling your sperm/eggs on eBay? advertising it as immune to flu!? More realistically, what if Monsanto (yeah im picking on them, and what? the mother fuckers invented Agent Orange) patented a method of genetic engineering that could allow someone to be cured of cancer or aids, but the price for the procedure was extremely prohibitive? If doctors started offering it to patients without paying the fee what would happen? What if the Red Cross started offering it in 3rd world countries? Obviously no-one is going to take this bullshit for much longer, and I bet you the first major law suit involving someone producing cheap versions of someone else's 'genetic pet' the shit is going to hit the fan.
Also what if you apply evolution to other things such as.. software? What if you produce an evolutionary algorithm that naturally manages to produce something that infringes other patents?
Do we know where those 250k votes are from or are they evenly distributed around the state? Kerry got 67% in Cuyahoga for example, ok so its true Bush took most parts of Ohio, but if by some fluke of luck 250,000 Cuyahoga voters were still to be counted there would still be a chance for Kerry! Ah fuck it, what am I saying, hes lost! But either way its not over until all votes are cast...
With all this new eVoting crap they at least better get the final vote quickly! theres even less point in using these machines if they can't even satisfy my urge for instant data! therefore i think people should demand to know all results cast electronically within 1 minute of them closing or the state should get rid of the machines this week. Ah damnit!! i cant take this anymore! Im supposed to be revising! just give me the damn result ahHHH!!!
If I was God and I was trying to think up the perfect way of creating life I would go for evolution. It just seems to fit the idea of God being some sort of metaphorical thing, instead of a dude, because the latter would just create even more un-answered questions! the one that springs to mind would be who created God? I read an answer to this once it went something like this:
"So who created God?" "Well, have you stopped kicking your cat?" "What?" "Yes or no, have you stopped kicking him?" "But i've never kicked my cat!" "There you go, some questions can't be answered."
Well thats a total cop-out if you're a kid, but on some deep level, some metaphorical level, you could say that its an explination that God is the laws of physics and therefore determines evolution through chaos. Sometimes I think religion is just a way to explain this to people without trying to teach them physics.
If Bush won it would be a bad omen for his last 4 years, if Kerry won it would mean next election would be even more dumbed down - millions of people would be watching the Redskins to see the result, and political journalists and news stations would actually be basing their predictions on it. Then there would be some kind of scandel over who got paid to take a fall. All I can say is GO GREENBAY! DOWN WITH BOOSH W00T!
However, this really doesnt fill me with confidence: "Oh, yeah, he's going to win. It's guaranteed," said Packers safety Darren Sharper, a Kerry supporter. "I don't have to vote now. Don't even have to go to the polls. Saved me a trip."
This is the most insane thing ive read this week, Is this even true? why havnt any big media sources (ie TV) picked it up? how come its not even one of those "and now for a strange story" items where they send a reporter around to do a quick interview? did she have a security camera? Have any other shops been aproached? has the company been contacted by HS? has HS been contacted to actually confirm this? Was it a prank? so many questions and so few answered. I'd really love to believe this and see some more reporting on it because if its true its just insane and scary and makes no sense and would make great news.
I ment the reputation it has as being written in a hardcore language that people associate with machoness hence like a brick, if it was written in BASIC for example...
C++ supports// comments! how can you pass that up? out of interest, what where the various versions of Windows written in? The kernel is pretty hardcore, and as much as C++ is fun and mature i don't see the need to taint that image of proper tried and tested built like a brick *nix reputation, really the kernel should be written in assembly (since its _ment_ to be for the x86) but c isn't too far off.
What if he's bluffing? It would be pretty easy to send out mass emails to all sorts of people (ie spam) and just see who sends you the money, if its a small enough amount some people are going to pay. Its a pretty low form of blackmail, i guess it really comes down to how the general public treat pedophilia, the general feeling at the moment is total witch-burning, so if someone threatens you with that you're more like to want to just make it go away - even if you are totally innocent, if you get charged for child porn people will just think you're guilty anyway.
When people waste money its good for the economy. I don't know about all this genetic engineering and patenting DNA is way over the top, but shit, this company might be in to make a mint and i want in! (they really have to make these things must have items like iPods)
Points for the most pointless geek project of all time? I think next month they should try and overclock it. With all the latest heat-sink technology you could probably get that OSX atleast as usable as the average XP machine with tons of spyware.
I have an OSX notebook, I'd expect something thats supposed to be easy to use (they still have one mouse button) and far more expensive than a PC to come with all this crap for free.
It makes no sense, its confusing as to what application the menu represents if you have more than one on the screen, attaching the menu to the application would make more sense to most people, giving people the option would be better
Thats absolutely rediculous, how would the average user have a hope in hell of doing that? Are you saying apples best solution for there not being built in compression and decompression support (via the gui) is to 'learn to use the command line'?
Kerry might be the lesser of two evils but make no mistake he is just as in bed with the media corporations as anyone else. Hes just covering his ass on that response - he can't say "i'll abolish it" and he doesnt want to loose voters by saying he won't. Unless something is done about the dire state of bribery in America theres no hope of anything but token gestures and theres little hope of showing European governments they can't get away with this either.
I love OSXs interface the problem is its so lacking in basic utilities that you take for granted anywhere else. Just one absolutely stupid example is the QuickTime player that comes with it, it can't play in full screen! thats right, the fucking thing can't actually play in full screen, at first you think its just hidden somewhere and theres no way you could leave out something so basic (well maybe back in the days when video was postage stamp size and 5fps but certainly not in the last 5 years) but then you find out you have to actually upgrade and pay fro QuickTime Pro that has this functionality, totally insane! Another example, StuffIt expander, as far as i can tell, it can't compress (unless you upgrade?) it always bugs you about upgrading and the only way to do anything is to hit the shell and tar/gzip etc.. The last major problem is a usability issue. While i can fully understand the way the menu bar works its totally not obvious to new users, does it really need to be at the top? you can't even choose.
Pretty impressive and disturbing at the same time. I just hope the future of robitics is not biological grown brains in machines with Microsoft BrainGuard making sure they can't kill anyone.
In related news.. 39% of turkish women say its ok for their husbands to beat them for arguing, burning the food, or attempting to trade with a level 40 wizard..
While India might be beating capitalism with capitalism today, don't worry too much! You under-estimate the power of economics and the turtle and hare race: Firstly, prices in India will rise and _eventually_ match US and therefore it won't be worth outsourcing any more. Secondly, India at the moment is the hare - while the US crawls along not changing much, and corporations are happy to fiddle the law to make themselves richer, India is booming - millions of skilled people are quickly taking a market share, but that always changes - when someone does well they get lazy and greedy and eventually India will become as fucked up as the US - the politicians will become corrupt, those great workers will start getting lazy and before you know it they'll be playing Quake instead of working, and they will be bullshitting their way through jobs like everyone else. You think they will prevail? You think their lifestyle and self-control will allow them to stay faithful? It never happens, everyone will succumb eventually.
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Can we have some sort of /. competition where everyone thinks of the most stupid and anoying idea they can patent and we all chip-in some money and get the winner patented and cause as much hassle to the worlds economy with it as we can?
I agree, he's not a danger to society, punishment isn't fun but 9 years in prision is just insane! People get less then this for assult. If spam is going to be illigal it should carry a fine, something reasonable but prohibitive per person ($20?) that will build up quickly if you've spammed lots of people, alter the price if people start making a business out of it, but seriously, 1 spam message does not cost you $3000 in lost time, and other people spamming you at the same time has nothing to do with the original person.
£500m / 60m people =~ £8 per person (lets round it up for population growth) =~ £1 per year per person. (not taking into consideration people who go private etc). Obviously software doesnt have any cost per person attached to it but Bill didn't get filthy rich with fair prices. I think what we're paying for here is 'peace of mind' (did i just say that??) since Microsoft is a big well-known company they know they better damn well not screw up. For that price I expect nothing less then 99.999% uptime, and zero patients records stolen. If I was running the country, under-the-table deals would work two ways: Fuck with me, and I will ban your business from the country and start a mass scale piracy operation of your products.
Do genetic patents (Monsanto etc) cover evolution? or, considering there's "no such thing" as evolution under the Bush government, do genetic patents cover plants that have been modified by an 'Act of God'? So what happens when a plant/animal or drug thats heavily patented starts appearing naturally?! Well considering the US government thinks it has a right to wipe out entire species of plant, im guessing the patent owner would have the right to take/destroy any plant, animal or drug that they find? So what happens when this ridiculous farce of genetic patenting reaches humans? if you have happen to have naturally mutated an immunity to all common flu's but Monsanto has a product that does that exact same thing, what are they going to do? what if you start selling your sperm/eggs on eBay? advertising it as immune to flu!? More realistically, what if Monsanto (yeah im picking on them, and what? the mother fuckers invented Agent Orange) patented a method of genetic engineering that could allow someone to be cured of cancer or aids, but the price for the procedure was extremely prohibitive? If doctors started offering it to patients without paying the fee what would happen? What if the Red Cross started offering it in 3rd world countries? Obviously no-one is going to take this bullshit for much longer, and I bet you the first major law suit involving someone producing cheap versions of someone else's 'genetic pet' the shit is going to hit the fan.
Also what if you apply evolution to other things such as.. software? What if you produce an evolutionary algorithm that naturally manages to produce something that infringes other patents?
Do we know where those 250k votes are from or are they evenly distributed around the state? Kerry got 67% in Cuyahoga for example, ok so its true Bush took most parts of Ohio, but if by some fluke of luck 250,000 Cuyahoga voters were still to be counted there would still be a chance for Kerry! Ah fuck it, what am I saying, hes lost! But either way its not over until all votes are cast...
With all this new eVoting crap they at least better get the final vote quickly! theres even less point in using these machines if they can't even satisfy my urge for instant data! therefore i think people should demand to know all results cast electronically within 1 minute of them closing or the state should get rid of the machines this week. Ah damnit!! i cant take this anymore! Im supposed to be revising! just give me the damn result ahHHH!!!
If I was God and I was trying to think up the perfect way of creating life I would go for evolution. It just seems to fit the idea of God being some sort of metaphorical thing, instead of a dude, because the latter would just create even more un-answered questions! the one that springs to mind would be who created God? I read an answer to this once it went something like this:
"So who created God?"
"Well, have you stopped kicking your cat?"
"What?"
"Yes or no, have you stopped kicking him?"
"But i've never kicked my cat!"
"There you go, some questions can't be answered."
Well thats a total cop-out if you're a kid, but on some deep level, some metaphorical level, you could say that its an explination that God is the laws of physics and therefore determines evolution through chaos. Sometimes I think religion is just a way to explain this to people without trying to teach them physics.
A real nerd doesn't care about politics, since its run by all the popular rich guys that made fun of us all through school.
John Major?
If Bush won it would be a bad omen for his last 4 years, if Kerry won it would mean next election would be even more dumbed down - millions of people would be watching the Redskins to see the result, and political journalists and news stations would actually be basing their predictions on it. Then there would be some kind of scandel over who got paid to take a fall. All I can say is GO GREENBAY! DOWN WITH BOOSH W00T!
However, this really doesnt fill me with confidence:
"Oh, yeah, he's going to win. It's guaranteed," said Packers safety Darren Sharper, a Kerry supporter. "I don't have to vote now. Don't even have to go to the polls. Saved me a trip."
This is the most insane thing ive read this week, Is this even true? why havnt any big media sources (ie TV) picked it up? how come its not even one of those "and now for a strange story" items where they send a reporter around to do a quick interview? did she have a security camera? Have any other shops been aproached? has the company been contacted by HS? has HS been contacted to actually confirm this? Was it a prank? so many questions and so few answered. I'd really love to believe this and see some more reporting on it because if its true its just insane and scary and makes no sense and would make great news.
Translated that means we wouldnt be able to have sexy looking Linux PDAs..
I ment the reputation it has as being written in a hardcore language that people associate with machoness hence like a brick, if it was written in BASIC for example...
WTF!? Blunkett starts doing good things (kinda)!? the only other time was when he told Bush's Secret Service to go fuck themselves!
C++ supports // comments! how can you pass that up? out of interest, what where the various versions of Windows written in? The kernel is pretty hardcore, and as much as C++ is fun and mature i don't see the need to taint that image of proper tried and tested built like a brick *nix reputation, really the kernel should be written in assembly (since its _ment_ to be for the x86) but c isn't too far off.
What if he's bluffing? It would be pretty easy to send out mass emails to all sorts of people (ie spam) and just see who sends you the money, if its a small enough amount some people are going to pay. Its a pretty low form of blackmail, i guess it really comes down to how the general public treat pedophilia, the general feeling at the moment is total witch-burning, so if someone threatens you with that you're more like to want to just make it go away - even if you are totally innocent, if you get charged for child porn people will just think you're guilty anyway.
When people waste money its good for the economy. I don't know about all this genetic engineering and patenting DNA is way over the top, but shit, this company might be in to make a mint and i want in! (they really have to make these things must have items like iPods)
Points for the most pointless geek project of all time? I think next month they should try and overclock it. With all the latest heat-sink technology you could probably get that OSX atleast as usable as the average XP machine with tons of spyware.
I have an OSX notebook, I'd expect something thats supposed to be easy to use (they still have one mouse button) and far more expensive than a PC to come with all this crap for free.
It makes no sense, its confusing as to what application the menu represents if you have more than one on the screen, attaching the menu to the application would make more sense to most people, giving people the option would be better
Thats absolutely rediculous, how would the average user have a hope in hell of doing that? Are you saying apples best solution for there not being built in compression and decompression support (via the gui) is to 'learn to use the command line'?
Kerry might be the lesser of two evils but make no mistake he is just as in bed with the media corporations as anyone else. Hes just covering his ass on that response - he can't say "i'll abolish it" and he doesnt want to loose voters by saying he won't. Unless something is done about the dire state of bribery in America theres no hope of anything but token gestures and theres little hope of showing European governments they can't get away with this either.
I love OSXs interface the problem is its so lacking in basic utilities that you take for granted anywhere else. Just one absolutely stupid example is the QuickTime player that comes with it, it can't play in full screen! thats right, the fucking thing can't actually play in full screen, at first you think its just hidden somewhere and theres no way you could leave out something so basic (well maybe back in the days when video was postage stamp size and 5fps but certainly not in the last 5 years) but then you find out you have to actually upgrade and pay fro QuickTime Pro that has this functionality, totally insane! Another example, StuffIt expander, as far as i can tell, it can't compress (unless you upgrade?) it always bugs you about upgrading and the only way to do anything is to hit the shell and tar/gzip etc.. The last major problem is a usability issue. While i can fully understand the way the menu bar works its totally not obvious to new users, does it really need to be at the top? you can't even choose.
Pretty impressive and disturbing at the same time. I just hope the future of robitics is not biological grown brains in machines with Microsoft BrainGuard making sure they can't kill anyone.
In related news.. 39% of turkish women say its ok for their husbands to beat them for arguing, burning the food, or attempting to trade with a level 40 wizard..
While India might be beating capitalism with capitalism today, don't worry too much! You under-estimate the power of economics and the turtle and hare race: Firstly, prices in India will rise and _eventually_ match US and therefore it won't be worth outsourcing any more. Secondly, India at the moment is the hare - while the US crawls along not changing much, and corporations are happy to fiddle the law to make themselves richer, India is booming - millions of skilled people are quickly taking a market share, but that always changes - when someone does well they get lazy and greedy and eventually India will become as fucked up as the US - the politicians will become corrupt, those great workers will start getting lazy and before you know it they'll be playing Quake instead of working, and they will be bullshitting their way through jobs like everyone else. You think they will prevail? You think their lifestyle and self-control will allow them to stay faithful? It never happens, everyone will succumb eventually.