"What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal?"
The 'potentially dangerous' sentence wasn't clearly phrased. They're talking about exotic animals that are potentially dangerous, not exotic animals that are being chipped because they are potentially dangerous.
I imagine the point behind this is that if your pet python goes away and scares the hit out of a bunch of people, they know who's responsible and can fine him. In any event, I'm not sure why you'd even ask this question. There's a big difference between having a cat as a pet and having a snake. Heck, I have a friend with a pet skunk. It's clear to me why there's a difference. My cat, and before that, my dogs were and are my friends. The skunk thought I was a tree or something. It climbed over me not really caring that it's claws f'in hurt. Even bit my ear, thought it might be food. There was no 'love' there. It was incapable of seeing that. It wanted to eat. It doesn't have the sort of mental power to identify me as a 'friend', therefore it could very well one day decide to attack me. Worse, if that skunk got out, everybody would see the stripe on its back and take off. (even though the skunk has been de-scented, how would they know that?)
"What kind of people honestly go out and spend almost 1,000$ USD on a card every year?"
Do they really need people spending that much money every year? There's enough computers out there that are of various ages and specs, couldn't it be more of a staggered approach to sales? Lots of people have a two year life cycle on their computers. Every couple of years or so they dump a ton of money into a big whiz bang new system intended to 'last' a long time. Get enough people with that sort of mentality buying these things at different times, and ATI and NVidia have a decent revenue stream.
"And the tying in of the problem to John Kerry? That added to the discussion HOW?! Answer: it didn't. It just served to piss people off for no good reason in order to push your political agenda."
Heh. Look man, the John Kerry bit was a poke at the 'go with the flow' mentality of Slashdot, not a political agenda. Around here, people hop up and say stuff intended to curry favor with the mods. Sometimes it leads to strong changes in direction. It made me think of that silly anti-Kerry ad where he's on a sailing boat going back and forth. Okay, I didn't sell that one too well in my subject line. I admit that. For the record, though, I'm *not* pro-Bush. I'd go into detail, but that was not the point of my post.
I understand that this statement isn't likely to earn any respect back from you. Okie doke, that's my bad. But I would like you to know that I thought it was rather classy of you to come back and give me some insight into the moderation. That almost never happens and I appreciate that you took the time to. Have a good weekend.
"Yeah, because you don't want someone to be able to hold two opposing thoughts in their head at the same time, I mean that's just crazy talk."
Nah, it's not two opposing thoughts. It's one very clear thought, problem is nobody wants to admit it. They want to hide it under justifications that sometimes conflict with each other.
"Now shut up."
Touch a nerve, did I? Take it easy, I don't have a problem with your views.
"Everybody bitching and complaining about the 320x240 resolution needs to keep in mind that TVs aren't computer monitors. 320x240 doesn't actually look half-bad on a television screen."
That and all our porn vids are at 320 by 240. For some reason, those are adequate enough for... uh... hair growth.
+3 Interesting? Hardly. Portable TVs have terrible reception, poor channel selection, and they still require one to be anchored to the television schedule. I should know, I bought one of these my senior year in high school. I had a downright boring class I wanted to make a little more interesting. Unfortunately, watching Oprah'esque talk shows (because I didn't have a whole lotta extra choice here, no cable.) wasn't much more fun than the art history lessons we were getting. At least those had naked statues. Oh, and I never got tired of the "earn a college degree" commercials they showed during the breaks.
Meanwhile, portable DVD players and... surprisingly.. UMD sales have been decent. Seems there's a difference between watching what the man will let you watch and watching from your own personal library of hand-picked content. Will the iPod Video be a success? I dunno. Does the history of portable televisions prove that it won't? No. You'd think Slashdotters of all people would understand that they shouldn't jump to conclusions, but we all want to be Nostradamus's don't we?
"To broaden your point a bit: do we need more moving pictures? I'm not advocating against the technology, just saying that I see enough images moving about daily as it is."
That's fine for you, but I'm subscribed to a gaming magazine. This would be a neat way to get more pictures of the games reviewed into the mag. Personally, I think that's kinda cool.
Umm... ok. And your cartoonesque view of villainy is... well I can't think of a flattering way of putting it.
"If Samsung made more than $300M, then (from their perspective) the gambit worked, and they should do it again."
Problem 1: A 300 million dollar loss is a 300 million dollar loss whether it was ill gained or not. What's the point in making that 300 million dollars if you need to hold onto it just in case the gov't decides they might want to investigate?
Problem 2: How can they be sure that their profit will exceed the fine? Not only do they have to make the profit, but they also have to have an idea of what the gov't considers the fee to be.
Problem 3: These aren't the sorts of problems that make stockholders happy.
I know it's fun to picture these companies as being run by Yosemite Sam, but the reality is that shenanigans like that don't work well in the long run. Of course, given Slashdot's notorious impressions of how evil corporations are, I fully expect a lot of pointless rebuttals to what I said. Oh well.
" IE which businesses have actually mended their ways because of anti-trust judgements?"
I can't answer that. I can say that there isn't a company on Earth that would shrug and say "whatever" at a 300 million dollar expenditure. A 3rd of a billion dollars is a lot of money, even to Microsoft.
"Venturing further off-topic, I once had a dream where I was being chased by the Predator. I decided to barracade myself in a room by piling shit infront of the door. To my horror the door opened in a Star Trek style and swooshed up into the door frame.
The predator killed my sorry ass.
A lesson was learned."
Was it: "Enough of the Star Trek crap, it's too early in the mornin!
To be fair: They weren't trying to say it couldn't be done, they were trying to prove whether or not it could have been built with the tools available at the time. That's why it was a 'poor approximation of a parabolic mirror'.
"Ok, good point, but do we have to define hurt as "physically hurt"? If my business goes down because of an e-mail virus that spreads due to a bug in Windows, and I lose, $100,000 per day for 3 days until I get it back up, and that forces me to lay off someone, then isn't there some 'hurt' involved too?"
Problem 1: An email virus was written by a malicious author. He's the guy that should be punished, not the developer of the software that was affected.
Problem 2: It is not the developer's fault that your business was set up to lose money that way. You could end up losing that $100,000 a day anyway due to hardware failure or some other fun murphy's law magnet.
Problem 3: How exactly does one go about fairly assessing fault? What is criminally negligent and what is an honest mistake? Considering how creative people are in being exploitive, it's a dangerous can of worms to open.
Problem 4: What's to prevent a simple EULA from obsolving a software devloper of responsibility?
Problem 5: Since PCs are laughably unstandardized, how can anybody guarantee their work anyway?
Needless to say, I'm not for developer liability with regards to software bugs. Besides the fact that nobody in their right mind would contribute to OSS code in that situation, there's no way to guarantee 'bug free code'. It's like a car manufacturer trying to guarantee that a driver going down a Los Angeles highway at 120mph under any driving and traffic conditions will survive a crash.
"If screenshots are all you have seen then it is no wonder they make you ill... I suggest watching a demonstration of it some time and it actually makes perfect sense."
Good advice, but since this is Slashdot, you can expect 9 out of the 10 people who see a demonstration will ignore the obvious benefits and cook up other petty reasons to not like the software. "I don't see why they're bothering with this, it won't work if the computer isn't on! (Score 5, Insightful)"
Just once I'd like to hear "Oh... well yeah I see why Microsoft did that. I'm not sure it'll work, but let's wait and see what happens when I've had a chance to actually try it."
Slashdot Mirror
"What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal?"
The 'potentially dangerous' sentence wasn't clearly phrased. They're talking about exotic animals that are potentially dangerous, not exotic animals that are being chipped because they are potentially dangerous.
I imagine the point behind this is that if your pet python goes away and scares the hit out of a bunch of people, they know who's responsible and can fine him. In any event, I'm not sure why you'd even ask this question. There's a big difference between having a cat as a pet and having a snake. Heck, I have a friend with a pet skunk. It's clear to me why there's a difference. My cat, and before that, my dogs were and are my friends. The skunk thought I was a tree or something. It climbed over me not really caring that it's claws f'in hurt. Even bit my ear, thought it might be food. There was no 'love' there. It was incapable of seeing that. It wanted to eat. It doesn't have the sort of mental power to identify me as a 'friend', therefore it could very well one day decide to attack me. Worse, if that skunk got out, everybody would see the stripe on its back and take off. (even though the skunk has been de-scented, how would they know that?)
"Please...don't breed."
/.TNG.
The good news is, since he's posting on Slashdot, statistics are in your favor. The bad news is there'll never be a
Wait... who's got better TV than us? Don't you dare say Mexico.
"What kind of people honestly go out and spend almost 1,000$ USD on a card every year?"
Do they really need people spending that much money every year? There's enough computers out there that are of various ages and specs, couldn't it be more of a staggered approach to sales? Lots of people have a two year life cycle on their computers. Every couple of years or so they dump a ton of money into a big whiz bang new system intended to 'last' a long time. Get enough people with that sort of mentality buying these things at different times, and ATI and NVidia have a decent revenue stream.
"And the tying in of the problem to John Kerry? That added to the discussion HOW?! Answer: it didn't. It just served to piss people off for no good reason in order to push your political agenda."
Heh. Look man, the John Kerry bit was a poke at the 'go with the flow' mentality of Slashdot, not a political agenda. Around here, people hop up and say stuff intended to curry favor with the mods. Sometimes it leads to strong changes in direction. It made me think of that silly anti-Kerry ad where he's on a sailing boat going back and forth. Okay, I didn't sell that one too well in my subject line. I admit that. For the record, though, I'm *not* pro-Bush. I'd go into detail, but that was not the point of my post.
I understand that this statement isn't likely to earn any respect back from you. Okie doke, that's my bad. But I would like you to know that I thought it was rather classy of you to come back and give me some insight into the moderation. That almost never happens and I appreciate that you took the time to. Have a good weekend.
"Yeah, because you don't want someone to be able to hold two opposing thoughts in their head at the same time, I mean that's just crazy talk."
Nah, it's not two opposing thoughts. It's one very clear thought, problem is nobody wants to admit it. They want to hide it under justifications that sometimes conflict with each other.
"Now shut up."
Touch a nerve, did I? Take it easy, I don't have a problem with your views.
"... or nano scale features."
;)
I don't think you guys wanna compare to your features to mine.
"Microsoft made Windows insecure! Ready pitchforks!"
"Microsoft is making anti-virus software! Ready the tar and feathers!"
"Everybody bitching and complaining about the 320x240 resolution needs to keep in mind that TVs aren't computer monitors. 320x240 doesn't actually look half-bad on a television screen."
That and all our porn vids are at 320 by 240. For some reason, those are adequate enough for... uh... hair growth.
"Portable TV never worked and never will"
... surprisingly.. UMD sales have been decent. Seems there's a difference between watching what the man will let you watch and watching from your own personal library of hand-picked content. Will the iPod Video be a success? I dunno. Does the history of portable televisions prove that it won't? No. You'd think Slashdotters of all people would understand that they shouldn't jump to conclusions, but we all want to be Nostradamus's don't we?
"let history be the judge"
+3 Interesting? Hardly. Portable TVs have terrible reception, poor channel selection, and they still require one to be anchored to the television schedule. I should know, I bought one of these my senior year in high school. I had a downright boring class I wanted to make a little more interesting. Unfortunately, watching Oprah'esque talk shows (because I didn't have a whole lotta extra choice here, no cable.) wasn't much more fun than the art history lessons we were getting. At least those had naked statues. Oh, and I never got tired of the "earn a college degree" commercials they showed during the breaks.
Meanwhile, portable DVD players and
"To broaden your point a bit: do we need more moving pictures? I'm not advocating against the technology, just saying that I see enough images moving about daily as it is."
That's fine for you, but I'm subscribed to a gaming magazine. This would be a neat way to get more pictures of the games reviewed into the mag. Personally, I think that's kinda cool.
"Your optimism is so darn CUTE!"
... well I can't think of a flattering way of putting it.
Umm... ok. And your cartoonesque view of villainy is
"If Samsung made more than $300M, then (from their perspective) the gambit worked, and they should do it again."
Problem 1: A 300 million dollar loss is a 300 million dollar loss whether it was ill gained or not. What's the point in making that 300 million dollars if you need to hold onto it just in case the gov't decides they might want to investigate?
Problem 2: How can they be sure that their profit will exceed the fine? Not only do they have to make the profit, but they also have to have an idea of what the gov't considers the fee to be.
Problem 3: These aren't the sorts of problems that make stockholders happy.
I know it's fun to picture these companies as being run by Yosemite Sam, but the reality is that shenanigans like that don't work well in the long run. Of course, given Slashdot's notorious impressions of how evil corporations are, I fully expect a lot of pointless rebuttals to what I said. Oh well.
" IE which businesses have actually mended their ways because of anti-trust judgements?"
I can't answer that. I can say that there isn't a company on Earth that would shrug and say "whatever" at a 300 million dollar expenditure. A 3rd of a billion dollars is a lot of money, even to Microsoft.
"This may enrich the justice department, computer companies, and/or their shareholders, but how does it help me?"
Samsung isn't going to be too eager to engage in price fixing again. That's how it benefits you.
"Come on, it's all pun 'n Gaims."
That was only 2/3rds of a pun. P and U.
"Our loss is their gaim."
IM sick of people msn around with these stupid puns. If anybody here is actually funny, I seek you.
Was it: "Enough of the Star Trek crap, it's too early in the mornin!
To be fair: They weren't trying to say it couldn't be done, they were trying to prove whether or not it could have been built with the tools available at the time. That's why it was a 'poor approximation of a parabolic mirror'.
"Ok, good point, but do we have to define hurt as "physically hurt"? If my business goes down because of an e-mail virus that spreads due to a bug in Windows, and I lose, $100,000 per day for 3 days until I get it back up, and that forces me to lay off someone, then isn't there some 'hurt' involved too?"
Problem 1: An email virus was written by a malicious author. He's the guy that should be punished, not the developer of the software that was affected.
Problem 2: It is not the developer's fault that your business was set up to lose money that way. You could end up losing that $100,000 a day anyway due to hardware failure or some other fun murphy's law magnet.
Problem 3: How exactly does one go about fairly assessing fault? What is criminally negligent and what is an honest mistake? Considering how creative people are in being exploitive, it's a dangerous can of worms to open.
Problem 4: What's to prevent a simple EULA from obsolving a software devloper of responsibility?
Problem 5: Since PCs are laughably unstandardized, how can anybody guarantee their work anyway?
Needless to say, I'm not for developer liability with regards to software bugs. Besides the fact that nobody in their right mind would contribute to OSS code in that situation, there's no way to guarantee 'bug free code'. It's like a car manufacturer trying to guarantee that a driver going down a Los Angeles highway at 120mph under any driving and traffic conditions will survive a crash.
Troll? Right. Go back up and look at the reply below mine and tell me what I said was a troll again.
"If screenshots are all you have seen then it is no wonder they make you ill... I suggest watching a demonstration of it some time and it actually makes perfect sense."
Good advice, but since this is Slashdot, you can expect 9 out of the 10 people who see a demonstration will ignore the obvious benefits and cook up other petty reasons to not like the software. "I don't see why they're bothering with this, it won't work if the computer isn't on! (Score 5, Insightful)"
Just once I'd like to hear "Oh... well yeah I see why Microsoft did that. I'm not sure it'll work, but let's wait and see what happens when I've had a chance to actually try it."
"byte me :)"
Man I'm sick of all the 2-bit funnies.
"Might this only result in the Linux desktop becoming more like Windows?"
/Mr. Bill Voice.
That's a bad thing? Worst case scenario is that Linux would attract users away from Windows. Oh no!
"Oh, and also, a Microsoft coder bit my sister once..."
Look on the bright side, at least she'll live forever!