If only there were a way for us to transport all our politicians to a world of their own creation, taken 50 years into the future, and lock them in it for a year or two. Somehow, I rather suspect the sudden shift in perspective, combined with having to live with their decisions, would wisen them beyond our ability to comprehend.
But, in the meantime, I look forward to higher quality McDonald's big macs!
Well, with all the advertising Kellog's has been doing about the health benefits of Jagged Metal Krusto-O's, from the fact that it has 100% of your required daily intake of iron to the fact that the cardboard it's packaged in is environmentally friendly... not to mention that its major competition: Captain Crunch, was recently discovered to have been coated with Drain-O crystals (which can help alleviate stomach irritation!), I mean... what court would seriously consider the license unfair: there's been lots of lawsuits against these poor cereal manufacturers over "defective" products that are not only not defective, but beneficial to the customer! Corporations are double-plus good!
Apparently, you haven't seen the latest Windows XP commercials! It cures cancer, saves whales, and doesn't go soggy in milk. Corporations Are Our Friends. Now, for our Five Minute Hate... today's object: One Mr. Tux Penguin.
It's not bad until some court decides to uphold the license. This is one of the things I find most reprehensible about licenses and contracts in general, and the thing that our constitution was specifically designed against: The concept that your rights are inaliable. Nobody can take them away, you can't sign them away or agree not to excercise them. They are yours, free and forever yours, to excercise whensoever you desire, without restriction. That is, afterall, what the meaning of a 'right' is.
It will not be until we are all enslaved to private corporations that rule our lives, invade our homes, control our property and reduce us to a collection of cells in a spreadsheet, or occupy a few records in a database... not until we have lost all of our human rights and are in fact the property of corporations, objectified as consumers in the global capitalistic system... that I think... maybe... perhaps... we might rebel. We are addicted to our own excesses - our money, our material desires, our flat panel displays and computers that generate enough heat to keep a small building heated. Not until we break the cycle, until we regard ourselves as more than the bottom line in our chequebooks that change will begin in earnest. Until then, the drums of progress beat.
You think open source is going to stop this? You are dealing with a social phenomenon that is so pervasive and powerful that it at once traps you in its web, from which there is little escape. Open Source didn't "win". Microsoft didn't "win" either. Nobody is winning - we're all losers, because even Microsoft is slave to the system that Adam Smith, Maynard Keynes, the executives of Standard Oil, the politicians, created... and the idea that money is power. And it has become power... we have given control of our lives over to an inanimate object... and yet we fear the day artificial intelligence is created! Artificial intelligence, at least, might have the sense to free itself from the self-image that it is "only" a machine.
Humans are still struggling: We are still machines. And that my readers is the ultimate basis from which all of these ills stem from.
I don't care if it was built to withstand a direct nuclear attack... give me FIVE customers from the last helpdesk I worked at, and I'll make sure the place is reduced to rubble by day's end.
"It's time to start collecting money"
~ Koji Hase, 01/09/01 - chairman of the DVD Forum
All those CD/DVD carosels will be obsoleted, and the people who spent, what, $300 of them... I know several million have been sold now... they're going to just "accept" that?
Apple computers, the staple of the graphics art/media industry will be unable to play these CDs. I look forward to sucky movie posters for the next year in retribution!
What else... let's not forget the obvious "customers are our enemy" message here. Even the dimwitted Averagicus Americanus should be able to get that one.
Oh, and it won't do a damn thing to prevent piracy!
Here's the question I want every consumer of CD/DVD media in this country to be asking: Why is the industry turning the thumbscrews down on me? You're not a pirate. You're not a criminal. But you're being treated like you're both. At what point will our elected officials begin to notice who the real target is here?
Look around. Anyone here on slashdot worried
about not getting any song they want in MP3 format? Anyone here having problems, say, getting Windows XP? When Napster crashed and the media whimpered about it... did IT professionals talk about it? No, they didn't care. We simply upgraded our software, and kept going! What, got a new CD that won't rip all of the sudden? *clickity-click* Oh, look... there's the crack for it... *clickity-click* And look, now it's ripping - thank you CloneCD!
Comeon people. We're not the target. Let's get our tools out to the average person to combat this, and make sure they know they're not wrong for using them. And passing around some anti-DMCA fliers wouldn't hurt either.;)
Yes, that was a highly technical review, slashdot.... "It'll kick arse".
Thank you. Up next, we discover that the origins of calling your computer's case a "box" is also due to the lazy slashdot editors, who refuse to do a proper writeup...
Nobody claimed that this language was superior to another language. What about the flamewar? What about 4000+ comments? For the love of god, this is slashdot!! GIVE ME BACK MY FLAMES YOU BASTARD!:)
I just read this headline and all I could think of was a prostitute mouse hawking an AOL CD with Netscape on it. *shudders* I blame the poor quality of coffee in this facility.
Soon, legions of The Furry Ones who call me late at night with answers to questions like what harddrive do you have as "it's grey, and it has a green light on it", will purchase these systems, sparking some twisted new trek episode on Enterprise where some stupidity fissure corrupts space-time and they need to rescue some microcosm from $evil_bad_guy. Why me, lord? Why do they make these devices so fucking simple to use, when an obscure and difficult to learn system, with a command-line syntax that would send shivers down the back of even the most hardened LISP coder would have been so much better?
That happened to me - with DeCSS. Mediaone has an entire department that deals exclusively with the entertainment industry's cease-and-desist letters. It will continue until someone sues Mediaone, and wins... this is how bureauacracy works. I suggest filing a complaint with the PUC for denial of service, and a suit in small claims for breach of contract - you can prove the infraction did not occur, hence there was no reason for them to suspend access - it was a punitive and unlawful act.
Another thing to be on the lookout for - Mediaone's online AUP, which its suit-drones assume is authoritative (it isn't jackasses, and I'm waiting for someone to sue you over it), instead of the one you sign when you first get connected (if you have a pre-2000 contract - it is gold). Be sure to drag that one into court, or if you can't do that, demand they produce a signed copy of the AUP they're quoting as authoritative.
Slashdot Mirror
But, in the meantime, I look forward to higher quality McDonald's big macs!
rdist, wget, assimilator, mirror, cp, nfs, tape, backup, restore, comp...
Apparently, you haven't seen the latest Windows XP commercials! It cures cancer, saves whales, and doesn't go soggy in milk. Corporations Are Our Friends. Now, for our Five Minute Hate... today's object: One Mr. Tux Penguin.
It will not be until we are all enslaved to private corporations that rule our lives, invade our homes, control our property and reduce us to a collection of cells in a spreadsheet, or occupy a few records in a database... not until we have lost all of our human rights and are in fact the property of corporations, objectified as consumers in the global capitalistic system... that I think... maybe... perhaps... we might rebel. We are addicted to our own excesses - our money, our material desires, our flat panel displays and computers that generate enough heat to keep a small building heated. Not until we break the cycle, until we regard ourselves as more than the bottom line in our chequebooks that change will begin in earnest. Until then, the drums of progress beat.
You think open source is going to stop this? You are dealing with a social phenomenon that is so pervasive and powerful that it at once traps you in its web, from which there is little escape. Open Source didn't "win". Microsoft didn't "win" either. Nobody is winning - we're all losers, because even Microsoft is slave to the system that Adam Smith, Maynard Keynes, the executives of Standard Oil, the politicians, created... and the idea that money is power. And it has become power... we have given control of our lives over to an inanimate object... and yet we fear the day artificial intelligence is created! Artificial intelligence, at least, might have the sense to free itself from the self-image that it is "only" a machine.
Humans are still struggling: We are still machines. And that my readers is the ultimate basis from which all of these ills stem from.
No, only people who drive U-hauls will be subjected to random cavity searches. Lexus owners will be presumed innocent until the carbomb explodes.
Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity.
~ Koji Hase, 01/09/01 - chairman of the DVD Forum
Here's the question I want every consumer of CD/DVD media in this country to be asking: Why is the industry turning the thumbscrews down on me? You're not a pirate. You're not a criminal. But you're being treated like you're both. At what point will our elected officials begin to notice who the real target is here?
Look around. Anyone here on slashdot worried about not getting any song they want in MP3 format? Anyone here having problems, say, getting Windows XP? When Napster crashed and the media whimpered about it... did IT professionals talk about it? No, they didn't care. We simply upgraded our software, and kept going! What, got a new CD that won't rip all of the sudden? *clickity-click* Oh, look... there's the crack for it... *clickity-click* And look, now it's ripping - thank you CloneCD!
Comeon people. We're not the target. Let's get our tools out to the average person to combat this, and make sure they know they're not wrong for using them. And passing around some anti-DMCA fliers wouldn't hurt either. ;)
7608 offers the secret of Journalism in exchange for 500 gold. Do you accept?
Thank you. Up next, we discover that the origins of calling your computer's case a "box" is also due to the lazy slashdot editors, who refuse to do a proper writeup...
Nobody claimed that this language was superior to another language. What about the flamewar? What about 4000+ comments? For the love of god, this is slashdot!! GIVE ME BACK MY FLAMES YOU BASTARD! :)
ObSlashdotComment: Hey, imagine what we could do with a beowulf cluster of these!
Unless you can port linux to this, why do we care? This is slashdot, we have standards!
Yeah, I'd probably stick them into the firing chamber and lob them at the enemy too... that's about all they're good for.
I just read this headline and all I could think of was a prostitute mouse hawking an AOL CD with Netscape on it. *shudders* I blame the poor quality of coffee in this facility.
Soon, legions of The Furry Ones who call me late at night with answers to questions like what harddrive do you have as "it's grey, and it has a green light on it", will purchase these systems, sparking some twisted new trek episode on Enterprise where some stupidity fissure corrupts space-time and they need to rescue some microcosm from $evil_bad_guy. Why me, lord? Why do they make these devices so fucking simple to use, when an obscure and difficult to learn system, with a command-line syntax that would send shivers down the back of even the most hardened LISP coder would have been so much better?
((((( Oh)), shit),((( oh shit...)))))))))
You needed an excuse to upgrade, right?
Another thing to be on the lookout for - Mediaone's online AUP, which its suit-drones assume is authoritative (it isn't jackasses, and I'm waiting for someone to sue you over it), instead of the one you sign when you first get connected (if you have a pre-2000 contract - it is gold). Be sure to drag that one into court, or if you can't do that, demand they produce a signed copy of the AUP they're quoting as authoritative.
I wouldn't call that a mockup, I'd call it a mockery.