The whole JenniCam thing is pretty sick. I can understand if you watch to see if she gets naked, but you might as well just go out and rent a porn tape because the picture quality is much better. The losers who say they don't watch JenniCam for the sex are either liars, or they are those pathetic people who are so lacking in self-esteem that they have to lurk around people to feel some sense of self-worth; you know, potential stalkers.
This is interesting, because I think it gets to the heart of why Jennicam is an interesting idea (I've only been to the site once myself, got bored and didn't stick around.) I mean, this person is upset at the idea that Jennicam might not be about sex.
Jennicam let's us all be Jimmy Stuart in Rear Window, in that movie, the disturbing thing wasn't just the murder, it was Jimmy Stuart in his wheelchair watching all the other people's lives and watching them. Watching the sad parts of their lives and the happy ones with a coldly judgemental voyeurs eyes...
Of course, if you want judgemental voyeurs, looks like Slashdot is the place to get them! ^_^
Actually, in my opinion there is nothing wrong with having backdoors in games software... provided it's running on something like a Nintendo or the "backdoor" is just a cheat/debug code.
I mean, heck, a lot of people think Contra is more fun after you input the Konami code... otherwise it's too hard.
Oh, and it is even more cool when you put the Konami code into a game by a competitor (I forget which one) and it instantly kills you and puts text up on the screen which says, "This is not Konami."
Ok, for those of you who don't know, the FrontPage Server extensions are basically intended to take the place of things which are commonly don't by server scripts.
Fortunately, due to an internal policy change at the company we are no longer using the FrontPage server extensions (something I've advocated throughout my tenure here) but when we started we have to use them. Their operation is of course the typical Micros~1 "mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma" approach to software, but they seem to use <!-- --> style comments as markers in the Web pages that use them.(FrontPage is designed so that you can create Web pages even if you couldn't write a single line of HTML.)
I hate FrontPage, when my boss isn't looking I use emacs or Notetab on Windows boxes.
Ok, back when I was on Ranma MUCK, they solved things by having a proceedure. You'd submit info about your character, and if it was OK, fit in reasonably with the theme and if the name and character weren't already taken, they'd accept you.
There were problems with Ranma MUCK (as I'd be the first to admit) but I thought they handled this well.
Look if EQ thinks a players name is disruptive, that's one thing. They can ban a person who is disruptive or abusive. However, if they are going around forcing people to change their names, I don't think "D&Dish" nicknames is a good criteria. Disruptive vs. non-disruptive would be better.
But you know, know, that there's going to be a huge difference between a for-profit MUCK and a regular MUCK. The wizards are going to have to be careful to keep everything nice and homogenous. They probably aren't using their own judgement, they probably have a book of SonyRules that were dreamed up by some marketroid. This means that unlike wizzes (who ideally are the people actually in charge of the MUCK) they are enforcers for Sony. I think it is a big difference.
As a somewhat related side note, obnoxious GMs are roaming the worlds and forcing people to change their nicks to crappy D&Dish names. Really ticked off friends of mine who spent months building up charachters only to have their identities forcibly stripped from them
Ok, first of all I have to say "Bye-bye karma points, as I am about to majorly knock Sony."
To continue, you know this is the most despicable thing I've heard of on a MUD. The reason why is, "What's a D&D nickname?" D&D is a RPG that steals from multiple sources, and then there are the tons of D&D-like RPGs (computer and others) out there. I'm betting that they don't mean D&D nicknames but "Ye Olde Renaissance Festival Nicknames." I mean would my nickname, Ronfar, be allowed in this new regime? Ronfar comes from the SegaCD RPG Lunar II but who knows if it would be D&D enough. Good God, it's like some kind of virtual orthodoxy test!!!!
Actually, the best thing they can do is rename it to Virtual "the Village" and assign everyone numbers. If someone says, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" they could laugh maniacly at him.
Its official it's now EverAOL...
I've never been on one of these for profit MUCKs, but I've thought about it. Even if I weren't boycotting Sony over their many nefarious deeds, though, I would most certainly boycott them over this forced renaming garbage. I hope Sega cleans their clock when they start Phantasy Star Online provided they don't engage in any of this garbage...
With it's interest in MPAA, RIAA, Playstation and MMRPGs, it seems that Sony really is trying to take Micros~1's crown!
I think the carpal tunnel syndrome thing is a real issue, or maybe I've just read to many of SoreHands' posts. The other thing I'm worried about is the way the phrase "computer labor shortage" is used a lot. For example, I think the real reason why we hear business leaders talking shortage is because they want to increase the amount of computer technology labor to the point where they are more in control. They seriously hate having a labor shortage (if that's really what there is, I'm not convinced there is a real shortage. I think labor is just not as cheap as they want it to be.) and are working hard to get a labor surplus. I mean, I have close friends who will benefit if more H-1B visas are granted, but there was also a manager at my company who wanted to hire non-citizens because she felt she could pay them less and basically exploit them more (a plus to this is that that manager no longer works at my company... but she landed on her feet and is managing somewhere else).
Of course, I think being a worker in the computer field isn't percieved as a blue collar job right now because of the potential to make big money. However, it is a blue collar, working class type of job (it is just skilled labor as opposed to unskilled) and will eventually be treated as such by company owners. Organizing now would be creating a union from a position of strength, as opposed to waiting until we are forced into it. I should note that working on forming strong, close bonds with my co-workers outside of work has helped all of us benefit at the place I currently work. Of course, we are a very small group (at the company), and new people are being added all the time. I'd really love to organize a union... I just don't want to use that word in front of management.
I remember hearing people say that an expensive SDK was actually a good thing for an operating system, as it kept out the unwashed masses of amateurs and shareware programmers.
It's interesting the way elitism works, isn't it? The "unwashed masses of amateurs and shareware programmers," are technilogically elite compared to the "we don't know anything and don't want to know andything about computers" crowd that Micros~1 traditionally targets.
I wanted to try OS/2 but never had the guts to shell out
Although it is counterintuitive to say that this is about more than money, I think it is. I think it is also about power, and about the people who have it keeping it from the people who don't. People have pointed out that a Sony Playstation emulator would help Sony gain profits, but Sony won't make one or let anyone else do so if they can help it. At some point you have to think that these people are building themselves up by thinking, "Hey! I'm the head of mulitnational_x, I can spit on my consumers and they have to pretend they like it... heh-heh-heh"
Convince Pinkerton to keep all the money, and do very little with it. I mean, they have the statistics that violence is going down, school officials don't seems to believe it so why not keep living in a fantasy world?
It's sort of like the "bear patrol" on the Simpsons, you know, "You don't see any bears around, do you?" The bear patrol bought all kinds of fancy expensive equipment and didn't do anything to solve the non-existent bear problem.
Pinkerton, you've decided to make money by pandering to the delusions of a school board: Take it to the next level, after all, by the time the Emperor finds he has no clothes he'll be too embarrassed to admit he was wrong....
On a related note, I think the ritalin companies should start replacing their pills with placebo's. The school districts will never know the difference, and look at all the money they'll save!
I had Populous for my Genesis, because unlike my cousin (whose family bought him his own Amiga... grumble, curse) my Dad bought himself a horrible 8088XT that would crash whenever I tried to play Pool of Radience and anything else with graphics (I mean Bureacracy and Trinity worked just fine on it... but sometimes I wanted a new mindless, graphical game, you know? Not that I ever got tired of Spy vs. Spy for my Atari 800... or Ultima III) I know, you'll say "you should've bought your own computer," well I was a freshman college student and had as much of my own money as your average 12 year old.
Actually, the personal computer crash with it's FUD (you must buy an IBM clone, running MS-DOS! the Amiga and new Atari 520ST will never suceed... Resistance is Futile, decent graphics are for kids...) and the fact that my Dad bought into that FUD, really hurt my development as far as computers were concerned... I just didn't like that Vendex Headstart... even though I did try to create text adventures using AGT for it when I could use it... or play with my Atari 800, which was a better computer than that thing... pity they stopped making software for it...
Note also the Pinkerton's are planning to work for the school system, a government body.
The most frightening thing going on right now is the joining together of big evil corporations and big, evil government.
You know, blind, unswerving obedience to the United States government no matter what it does didn't used to be a left wing thing.... I think it is a relatively new development. To many anti-government leftists got co-opted by the Man, I guess I'd have to say.
Ok, as a Libertarian (which is to say a dues paying, card carrying, voting party member) I found the authors article to be both biased and patronizing. One of the biases, and this one shows up over and over again, is that Libertarians believe in unfettered, uncontrolled, rampant and evil capitalism. No Libertarian would ever support a corporation that took away an individuals right to life, liberty or property. Some Libertarians (unfortunately, in my view) make the error of thinking that corporations can't be responsible for violating a persons constitutional rights... I disagree with this notion which is why I consider myself Left-Libertarian as opposed to Right-Libertarian. This bias shows up on the Democratic Party (Socialist outside the US) agenda again and again. Basically, the socialists believe that strong government controls on business and private property are the only things that can improve life for everyone. I say that without strong, legally enforcable individual rights you just trade the tyranny of the corporation for the tyranny of government. For example, government owned businesses are much more likely to get away with environmental pollution then privately owned ones.
He sees the librarians as "good government." The librarians sure did deserve that award, but that's because as a class they were helpful in resisting bad, intrusive government! If this were a "big government is better award" then the award should go to the AFA! They were the ones who wanted to use the government to "protect the children," the librarians wanted to stop them! (Oh... and since my Mom is a library clerk, I don't particularly care for the patronizing attitude toward librarians as "All those invisible, dedicated civil servants." Ah! The little people, what would the elite do with out them, he seems to say.)
The article was patronizing because it says, "ah! at last the Libertarian geeks are growing up and becoming democrats." I don't blindly follow my Salon appointed leaders, thank you very much. While I think some of the things these people have been saying lately are unfortunate, I haven't read of a big endorsement for CDA, the V-chip, the Clipper chip, or all the bad, government imposed technology that make geeks tend toward libertarianism. Also, collective barganing, is not part of big government! I believe strongly in unions, and I know that unions do not become popular with government-types until after they get power on their own.
On the whole, I thought it was a lousy article. I do how ever agree that computer technology workers should start unionizing, now. Because right now we're scarce and we have the power of a scarce, skilled trade. Eventually, though, this may change, and we'll find ourselves working the same long hours... but for considerably decreased pay and benefits.
Micros~1 doesn't want friends with Libertarian leanings, they've decided to play the percentages and the future is looking decidedly Republican (if you are a short term thinker).
The Supreme Court, the thing Bill Gates is most concerned about is Republican, and at least one justice owes his seat directly to the influence of the Christian Coalition (I refer to Clarence Thomas, whose hotly contested appointment was pushed through by his friends and supporters in the Christian Coalition.)
Both houses of congress are Republican.
A significant amount of governors are Republican, and some states are running anti-trust suits of their own against M$.
If you believe polls, there is a 50/50 chance of a Republican president.
Bill Gates did the math, and brought in a Republican heavy hitter to lobby for him. If things were the other way, he'd have hired a big democratic lobbyist.
It would be wishful thinking on the part of people who are anti-Republican to think that hiring a Republican in the current national climate was a bad thing.
Things may turn around completely in the next election cycle, of course (except for the Supreme Court, which will remain Republican for years) and Bill Gates may wish he had hired a Democrat.
Hah! Bet they wouldn't have written about her if they'd known she reads Slashdot!!!
She started out charging $4,500 a day, with a two-day minimum, but the response was so good that she has since given herself a raise to $5,800 a day, still with a two-day minimum.
There sure are a lot of desperate rich guys out there....
Will there be Romulans? It seems to me that in the old Star Trek people knew about the Romulans but never saw any. Therefore, I don't see how they can even plausably have the Star Trek equivalent of Drow in the new series.... if they intend to maintain continuity (highly unlikely).
Will there be Borg? There shouldn't be Borg... but again that doesn't mean they won't show up... (The only legitimate way to have Borg is a history altering time paradox deal.)
Ah.. but the best part was where they ended up stranded on some planet and Neelix (puffed up with power after his promotion) said, "Ensign, pick up those bones! Waste not want not I always say."
Of course, the critter responsible for the pile of bones et the ensign, but no one seemed to care...
It's a big difference. Micros~1 is on the ropes, but they might still make a comeback. However, they and the financial community know that they have serious troubles. I mean, heck have you seen poor, sad Bill Gates' commercials trying to rebuild M$'s (and his own) image? Despite everything, having a judge rule against you in a very public, potentially very damaging case is a big public relations loss.
AOL, though, has done a lot of shady things, and yet their image is hunky-dory in the public eye. Some shady things AOL has done:
And, well, the list goes on. The only thing we should worry about AOL competing with M$ in is shady business practices. I don't care if they continue to produce their crummy Internet service as long as they do so honestly and ethically. Their past track record, however, does not give me much confidence of this.
Of course, I never underestimate Bill Gates, he might make a comeback and beat all his enemies, sort of like Francis Urquhart in that BBC series...
But why does it have to be a competition between AOL and Micros~1, can't I hate both companies?;_;
(And despite his many infamous deeds, I still prefer Bill Gates to the Soap Salesman. I can at least picture Bill reading Heinlein or Asimov.... I don't even want to imagine what the Soap Salesman reads... probably stuff about synergy and marketing brochures.)
I really don't think most people are qualified to talk about mental or emotional illness unless they have it themselves, or at least have a degree.
Actually, people who have a mental illness themselves but don't accept it are the least qualified to talk about it. It is much the same as the people who are most threatened and hostile when a guy decides to join AA are the guys own drinking buddies. Why? Because it makes them question their own self-destructive behaviour.
It is sort of like the idea behind mainstreaming as opposed to special schools, is it better to put mentally handicapped people in a group where you can tend their needs or try to fit them into the general school population so they won't consider themselves abnormal? I think both have their problems.
Ok, the people who are saying "get over it" are most likely mentally ill, themselves. In fact, they are far more likely to be mentally ill then the people who are "self-diagnosing" themselves as being pseudo-bipolar or whatever they think is wrong with them.
These people are of course the most likely to end up in wacko fringe political and/or religious movements... which means they won't approve of suicide until the Leader says, "Jehovah-1 themightyandterrible is calling us home, everyone drink your Koolaid and cover yourself with the purple cloth as you leave your shell behind."
Of course, this is why this story is attracting so many really vicious flamebait comments of the "get over it" variety (oh, and also the natural selection people, who are white supremecists of the fanatic variety. I don't have to tell you that those are people whose minds are suffering from the human equivalent of a Blue Screen of Death or a segmentation fault.) These people are seriously mentally ill, and don't want to face it. If they accepted that there was help for them out there and that they didn't have to descend into dementia and self-destructive behaviour it would destroy their constant mantra of "I'm normal, I'm normal, I'M NORMAL" that they repeat to keep out the voices in their heads.
I'm serious here, one of the things you see if you've ever been unfortunate to spend time with anyone who was really, seriously mentally ill (as opposed to relatively healthy, slightly neurotic people who are really in pretty good shape) is the ugliness, and deformity that exists in their own minds. Honestly, we had a girl like this at one of the colleges I worked at, she'd latch onto memebers of the staff and just drone on and on about her demented view of the world. You had to be harsh with her or she'd start following you around, thinking you were her friend... or worse if you were male @.@ (I really think she needed to be institutionalized).
I pity a lot of the negative posters on this thread... since they are obviously the people who need help most desperately.
Slashdot Mirror
Jennicam let's us all be Jimmy Stuart in Rear Window, in that movie, the disturbing thing wasn't just the murder, it was Jimmy Stuart in his wheelchair watching all the other people's lives and watching them. Watching the sad parts of their lives and the happy ones with a coldly judgemental voyeurs eyes...
Of course, if you want judgemental voyeurs, looks like Slashdot is the place to get them! ^_^
I mean, heck, a lot of people think Contra is more fun after you input the Konami code... otherwise it's too hard.
Oh, and it is even more cool when you put the Konami code into a game by a competitor (I forget which one) and it instantly kills you and puts text up on the screen which says, "This is not Konami."
Remember how Mr. Burns goes to the master switch and says, "From Hell's Heart, I stab at thee, Springfield," and shuts off alll the power?
Maybe this was intended to be Mr. Gates master switch, in case things went really bad for him after all his appeals...
Ok, for those of you who don't know, the FrontPage Server extensions are basically intended to take the place of things which are commonly don't by server scripts.
Fortunately, due to an internal policy change at the company we are no longer using the FrontPage server extensions (something I've advocated throughout my tenure here) but when we started we have to use them. Their operation is of course the typical Micros~1 "mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma" approach to software, but they seem to use <!-- --> style comments as markers in the Web pages that use them.(FrontPage is designed so that you can create Web pages even if you couldn't write a single line of HTML.)
I hate FrontPage, when my boss isn't looking I use emacs or Notetab on Windows boxes.
There were problems with Ranma MUCK (as I'd be the first to admit) but I thought they handled this well.
Look if EQ thinks a players name is disruptive, that's one thing. They can ban a person who is disruptive or abusive. However, if they are going around forcing people to change their names, I don't think "D&Dish" nicknames is a good criteria. Disruptive vs. non-disruptive would be better.
But you know, know, that there's going to be a huge difference between a for-profit MUCK and a regular MUCK. The wizards are going to have to be careful to keep everything nice and homogenous. They probably aren't using their own judgement, they probably have a book of SonyRules that were dreamed up by some marketroid. This means that unlike wizzes (who ideally are the people actually in charge of the MUCK) they are enforcers for Sony. I think it is a big difference.
To continue, you know this is the most despicable thing I've heard of on a MUD. The reason why is, "What's a D&D nickname?" D&D is a RPG that steals from multiple sources, and then there are the tons of D&D-like RPGs (computer and others) out there. I'm betting that they don't mean D&D nicknames but "Ye Olde Renaissance Festival Nicknames." I mean would my nickname, Ronfar, be allowed in this new regime? Ronfar comes from the SegaCD RPG Lunar II but who knows if it would be D&D enough. Good God, it's like some kind of virtual orthodoxy test!!!!
Actually, the best thing they can do is rename it to Virtual "the Village" and assign everyone numbers. If someone says, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" they could laugh maniacly at him.
Its official it's now EverAOL...
I've never been on one of these for profit MUCKs, but I've thought about it. Even if I weren't boycotting Sony over their many nefarious deeds, though, I would most certainly boycott them over this forced renaming garbage. I hope Sega cleans their clock when they start Phantasy Star Online provided they don't engage in any of this garbage...
With it's interest in MPAA, RIAA, Playstation and MMRPGs, it seems that Sony really is trying to take Micros~1's crown!
Well... that's the end of my post... mod away!
Of course, I think being a worker in the computer field isn't percieved as a blue collar job right now because of the potential to make big money. However, it is a blue collar, working class type of job (it is just skilled labor as opposed to unskilled) and will eventually be treated as such by company owners. Organizing now would be creating a union from a position of strength, as opposed to waiting until we are forced into it. I should note that working on forming strong, close bonds with my co-workers outside of work has helped all of us benefit at the place I currently work. Of course, we are a very small group (at the company), and new people are being added all the time. I'd really love to organize a union... I just don't want to use that word in front of management.
I wanted to try OS/2 but never had the guts to shell out
Honda Not Fond of Honda.net
Although it is counterintuitive to say that this is about more than money, I think it is. I think it is also about power, and about the people who have it keeping it from the people who don't. People have pointed out that a Sony Playstation emulator would help Sony gain profits, but Sony won't make one or let anyone else do so if they can help it. At some point you have to think that these people are building themselves up by thinking, "Hey! I'm the head of mulitnational_x, I can spit on my consumers and they have to pretend they like it... heh-heh-heh"
At least, that's the way I look at them...
Convince Pinkerton to keep all the money, and do very little with it. I mean, they have the statistics that violence is going down, school officials don't seems to believe it so why not keep living in a fantasy world?
It's sort of like the "bear patrol" on the Simpsons, you know, "You don't see any bears around, do you?" The bear patrol bought all kinds of fancy expensive equipment and didn't do anything to solve the non-existent bear problem.
Pinkerton, you've decided to make money by pandering to the delusions of a school board: Take it to the next level, after all, by the time the Emperor finds he has no clothes he'll be too embarrassed to admit he was wrong....
On a related note, I think the ritalin companies should start replacing their pills with placebo's. The school districts will never know the difference, and look at all the money they'll save!
I had Populous for my Genesis, because unlike my cousin (whose family bought him his own Amiga... grumble, curse) my Dad bought himself a horrible 8088XT that would crash whenever I tried to play Pool of Radience and anything else with graphics (I mean Bureacracy and Trinity worked just fine on it... but sometimes I wanted a new mindless, graphical game, you know? Not that I ever got tired of Spy vs. Spy for my Atari 800... or Ultima III) I know, you'll say "you should've bought your own computer," well I was a freshman college student and had as much of my own money as your average 12 year old.
Actually, the personal computer crash with it's FUD (you must buy an IBM clone, running MS-DOS! the Amiga and new Atari 520ST will never suceed... Resistance is Futile, decent graphics are for kids...) and the fact that my Dad bought into that FUD, really hurt my development as far as computers were concerned... I just didn't like that Vendex Headstart... even though I did try to create text adventures using AGT for it when I could use it... or play with my Atari 800, which was a better computer than that thing... pity they stopped making software for it...
The most frightening thing going on right now is the joining together of big evil corporations and big, evil government.
You know, blind, unswerving obedience to the United States government no matter what it does didn't used to be a left wing thing.... I think it is a relatively new development. To many anti-government leftists got co-opted by the Man, I guess I'd have to say.
He sees the librarians as "good government." The librarians sure did deserve that award, but that's because as a class they were helpful in resisting bad, intrusive government! If this were a "big government is better award" then the award should go to the AFA! They were the ones who wanted to use the government to "protect the children," the librarians wanted to stop them! (Oh... and since my Mom is a library clerk, I don't particularly care for the patronizing attitude toward librarians as "All those invisible, dedicated civil servants." Ah! The little people, what would the elite do with out them, he seems to say.)
The article was patronizing because it says, "ah! at last the Libertarian geeks are growing up and becoming democrats." I don't blindly follow my Salon appointed leaders, thank you very much. While I think some of the things these people have been saying lately are unfortunate, I haven't read of a big endorsement for CDA, the V-chip, the Clipper chip, or all the bad, government imposed technology that make geeks tend toward libertarianism. Also, collective barganing, is not part of big government! I believe strongly in unions, and I know that unions do not become popular with government-types until after they get power on their own.
On the whole, I thought it was a lousy article. I do how ever agree that computer technology workers should start unionizing, now. Because right now we're scarce and we have the power of a scarce, skilled trade. Eventually, though, this may change, and we'll find ourselves working the same long hours... but for considerably decreased pay and benefits.
We meet again Ogg Vorbis, but this time the advantage is mine!
This format must catch on, it has a far cooler name than MP3....
I mean after all, we don't know if their first call was to Reed or not, maybe he's just the first one who agreed to do the work.
The Supreme Court, the thing Bill Gates is most concerned about is Republican, and at least one justice owes his seat directly to the influence of the Christian Coalition (I refer to Clarence Thomas, whose hotly contested appointment was pushed through by his friends and supporters in the Christian Coalition.)
Both houses of congress are Republican.
A significant amount of governors are Republican, and some states are running anti-trust suits of their own against M$.
If you believe polls, there is a 50/50 chance of a Republican president.
Bill Gates did the math, and brought in a Republican heavy hitter to lobby for him. If things were the other way, he'd have hired a big democratic lobbyist.
It would be wishful thinking on the part of people who are anti-Republican to think that hiring a Republican in the current national climate was a bad thing.
Things may turn around completely in the next election cycle, of course (except for the Supreme Court, which will remain Republican for years) and Bill Gates may wish he had hired a Democrat.
Hookers.com
Hah! Bet they wouldn't have written about her if they'd known she reads Slashdot!!!
There sure are a lot of desperate rich guys out there....Will there be Romulans? It seems to me that in the old Star Trek people knew about the Romulans but never saw any. Therefore, I don't see how they can even plausably have the Star Trek equivalent of Drow in the new series.... if they intend to maintain continuity (highly unlikely).
Will there be Borg? There shouldn't be Borg... but again that doesn't mean they won't show up... (The only legitimate way to have Borg is a history altering time paradox deal.)
Of course, the critter responsible for the pile of bones et the ensign, but no one seemed to care...
4. Attempts to suppress a Linux distribution
When you add the Soap Salesman's newest aquisition, Time/Warner to the mix....
It's a big difference. Micros~1 is on the ropes, but they might still make a comeback. However, they and the financial community know that they have serious troubles. I mean, heck have you seen poor, sad Bill Gates' commercials trying to rebuild M$'s (and his own) image? Despite everything, having a judge rule against you in a very public, potentially very damaging case is a big public relations loss.
AOL, though, has done a lot of shady things, and yet their image is hunky-dory in the public eye. Some shady things AOL has done:
1. Exploited High School students by having them work as AOL volunteers.
2. Practiced Trojan Horse Marketing.
3. Disclosed confidential information about its members.
And, well, the list goes on. The only thing we should worry about AOL competing with M$ in is shady business practices. I don't care if they continue to produce their crummy Internet service as long as they do so honestly and ethically. Their past track record, however, does not give me much confidence of this.
Of course, I never underestimate Bill Gates, he might make a comeback and beat all his enemies, sort of like Francis Urquhart in that BBC series...
But why does it have to be a competition between AOL and Micros~1, can't I hate both companies? ;_;
(And despite his many infamous deeds, I still prefer Bill Gates to the Soap Salesman. I can at least picture Bill reading Heinlein or Asimov.... I don't even want to imagine what the Soap Salesman reads... probably stuff about synergy and marketing brochures.)
It is sort of like the idea behind mainstreaming as opposed to special schools, is it better to put mentally handicapped people in a group where you can tend their needs or try to fit them into the general school population so they won't consider themselves abnormal? I think both have their problems.
These people are of course the most likely to end up in wacko fringe political and/or religious movements... which means they won't approve of suicide until the Leader says, "Jehovah-1 themightyandterrible is calling us home, everyone drink your Koolaid and cover yourself with the purple cloth as you leave your shell behind."
Of course, this is why this story is attracting so many really vicious flamebait comments of the "get over it" variety (oh, and also the natural selection people, who are white supremecists of the fanatic variety. I don't have to tell you that those are people whose minds are suffering from the human equivalent of a Blue Screen of Death or a segmentation fault.) These people are seriously mentally ill, and don't want to face it. If they accepted that there was help for them out there and that they didn't have to descend into dementia and self-destructive behaviour it would destroy their constant mantra of "I'm normal, I'm normal, I'M NORMAL" that they repeat to keep out the voices in their heads.
I'm serious here, one of the things you see if you've ever been unfortunate to spend time with anyone who was really, seriously mentally ill (as opposed to relatively healthy, slightly neurotic people who are really in pretty good shape) is the ugliness, and deformity that exists in their own minds. Honestly, we had a girl like this at one of the colleges I worked at, she'd latch onto memebers of the staff and just drone on and on about her demented view of the world. You had to be harsh with her or she'd start following you around, thinking you were her friend... or worse if you were male @.@ (I really think she needed to be institutionalized).
I pity a lot of the negative posters on this thread... since they are obviously the people who need help most desperately.