You'll understand it when you see the tremendous rise in armed criminality in the U.K. and Australia, both of which have banned the ownership and use of the tools of self defense.
Um... when do you think this tremendous rise will happen? AFAIK the laws in UK and Canada (two pick 2 at random) have been in place for many, many years.
Less than 50 gun deaths per year in the UK. Around 100-150 per year in Canada. 11,000+ in the US. What am I missing here?
The gun thing is working out real well for the US so far. 11,000 gun-related deaths per year. Over 1000 times that of the other industrialized nations.
The second amendment - your Homeland Security - was clearly intended to defend against roving marauders and bears, which were more common at the time. We have Police now.
Put another way... do you really think that if the US government suddenly, maliciously turned on it's citizens, an armed citizenry would prevent this? Really?
Sorry for the troll. I just can't understand this attachment to guns.
After all, government ONLY works by removing liberties.
... and it made no sense at all to me, on any level. I was going to retort, but then I saw the sig...
The only good weather is bad weather
... and I realized that you are living in the Bizarro Universe.
Racial profiling is a bad method. Your spam example does not hold up. To run with it a second, the spam filter is supposed to weed out as much 'bad' mail as possible. Police work needs to be 100% accurate, or as close as humanly possible. Exclusionary rules don't help the situation, and Tim McVeigh is a good example. In the case of the recent sniper shootings, the law enforcement people were looking for a young white guy in his 20s with a crew cut right up until the killer(s) pretty much gave himself away.
Civil liberties can impede law enforcement, but only in the same manner that asking for a subject's permission to test drugs on them impedes medical science. It's true, but for good reason.
I do agree that there is often a balancing act between liberty and security, but it's not absolute. You can't just say Ok, we'll go with 70% Liberty and 30% Security. You can have both. Calling it a 'line in the sand' even dilutes the idea... I think of it more as a semi-permeable membrane. Selectivity, flexibility, intelligence... this is what's needed, in conjunction with constantly-reviewed and adjusted policy.
Does anyone else find it strange that this Moz variant, which is browser-only, they named Chimera? One would think that the multi-headed beast would be the browser-email-composer-PIM drek that Netscape usually is. Phoenix is much more appropriate (born again).
Hey, while we're on it, why does everyone call it Chimera except for Chimera itself? The app identifies itself as Navigator, in icon and splash. Strange.
Now that they've laid the groundwork for hiding a whole new legally-protected operating system inside their now-semi-open operating system... in essence they've successfully dodged the remedy.
Also, they won't get hauled into another (massive) court case for at least another 5 years because of this. MS has emerged unscathed. It's open season now.
Call me a troll, I don't fucking care. I'm pissed about this. The US justice system is broken, and the corporations are offically running amok, and it's fucking obvious. It depresses me.
Way, way, way too much time
on
Mac Case Mods
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I have to agree somewhat with the original poster. While some of 'em definitely look like interesting diversions (the radio was an old mac), I don't get the G4 case mod. It looks ridiculous, which is maybe the point, but I very very seldom see a mod that makes the thing look better.
Just to be a designer-wank, I have to ask: what makes these people think they can do better than Apple? Do they not understand that part of the premium they've paid for the computer is that some smart m*therf*ckers sat around a looog time with their Chai Lattes and Industrial Design degrees, and figured out something incredibly spiff?
I mean, if you want to, go for it, cut a hole in your G4. I guess I'm just lamenting the fact that it almost always looks much worse. Every time I see "l33t sexy mod' on Slashdot, I click through and start laughing my ass off. Then I wonder if the poster has maybe lost a heat-tile or two from their Aesthetic Discretion Module (apologies to N.S.)...
In other news, IBM announces a sweeping initative to implement a standardized dress code of Blue Suits for all employees. Each IBM worker will also receive 2 punched cards, a pewter Employee-Number pin, and a Betamax tape about the evils of Communism.
The initiative is expected to cost $1.86e+93 Kabillion dollars.
I personally believe that at some level of income, the tax rate for individuals should become 100%.
I agree, with a slight adjustment: $100 million. Damned if I can find the link, but some bored accounting flak did an article for Newsweek about Billy G a while ago. It concluded that you could take away all but $100 million from his portfolio, and his lifestyle would not change one iota. That's literally the limit of tangible wealth; after that, it's just keeping score against the other fat cats.
I know an even better one. Slightly OT but it was damn funny to me:
This guy I once knew got so many telemarketing calls (on his cell, no less) that he took to answering the phone like a chicken. He'd just pick up the line and start immediately with the clucking noises. His friends all knew he did it, so they'd just say "Rob" and immediately he'd be like "buk buk buk.. Oh hey what's up." If the other person started laughing, or acting puzzled, he'd just step up the chicken noises. Funny and effective.
Yeah, it is MS's fault. If their shitty program can't figure out that the user just wants to add some art, and make the appropriate conversions, then that is bad design.
Not trolling; just saying. I don't think it's unreasonable for the app to attempt to make the user's command feasible. If we're talking something like dropping a 40MB QuickTime onto Outlook, sure, you don't want to re-render to a smaller size... and the app should let you know what has happened.
Ah, yes. CanadianISP is very handy, and I defer to your point, I was hasty. However...
If you go there and do a query for Cable broadband in Ontario, you will get a return of 0 results.
So someone like me, who doesn't want/need a landline, is kind of out of options. Lots of DSL, though. (I have a strong aversion to the VPNs they insist on; I like straight DHCP/Ethernet, thankyouvermuch).
If you'd (wait for it!...) read the article you would have seen the example given in Canada; Sympatico, run by Bell, has recently done this very thing. 5 GB cap. Go over the limit.. and they dock ya.
I personally know a few people who were incensed enough about this to flee to the only other broadband provider in Canada, Rogers... which also has a tiered plan in effect. The difference is that Rogers will pinch the connection after a certain data-rate has been sustained for an unspecified period of time (basically warez kiddies snarking something off LimeWire). But it's not capped. Thus, the lesser of two evils.
It's just too funny to watch Slashdot's nearly complete about-face regarding Apple products. I never thought I'd see such staunch defenders of an Apple laptop on this site. Not that Apple hasn't done an about-face themselves in recent years, but still... anyone get the impression that for Apple to succeed - and indeed, be well-liked - all they need to do is not fuck up their PR to the extent Microsoft has. They are pristine as long as they don't do anything completely ass, like fabricating testimonials, or sending letters from dead people (or insert your fave MS gaffe here).
Getting back to the laptop - Porsche design makes some great stuff. I own a Fuji FinePix 6800 and it's a wonderful design. This, on the other hand, looks like.. a Best Buy design.
Besides being a giant zaibatsu with dozens and dozens of subsidiaries, Sony basically embraces the hydra approach. Many heads, all attacking. Like AOL/TW, they straddle the media divide, so it gets a bit schizophrenic at times.
While there are certainly folks at Sony who are right in there with the whole DRM thing, I think what happens is that the hardware sales have a polarizing effect on these efforts within Sony.
Look at their competition with MS in the game space. Sony knows that, push comes to shove, they sell TVs and Walkmans and Glasstrons, and Microsoft sells the occasional keyboard or router. They will price MS right out of the market on the PS2 (in fact, they are already turning a profit on those things), while selling all the hardware they are known for. Microsoft cannot lean on an alternative revenue stream so heavily... although they do have that ridiculous war-chest in the bank. Investors won't stand for raiding it without a visible means of putting that money back, though.
Sony can do this, and the tech industry is simply that much bigger than the media industry. Hell, Sony co-invented the CD; I think they actually take a tiny bit of profit from every CD-based game sold on the Xbox (someone correct me if I'm wrong about that; I know the PS2 has some CD-based games, some -DVD).
What the hell have they given us in the last few years?
[flameproof suit on... check.]
I think the quality has gone up.
Off the top of my head, in the last 3 years: The Matrix, Toy Story 1 + 2, Lord of the Rings, Spider-man, American Beauty, Being John Malkovich (tell me that would have come out of a studio 5 years ago.. ha!), Fight Club, Traffic, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Requiem For A Dream, Shrek...
Don't forget how completely full of drek the early 90s were. The ratio of good-to-bad in studio films, IMHO, has improved.
I'm with most others; I don't really this idea that DVDs are killing the theatre experience. However I very much concede McCallum's points about movie 'purists' preferring the home theatre experience.
About 3 years ago in Canada we had a projectionists' union strike. It didn't end well. The frequency of fuckups in my moviegoing experience has at least tripled. They are constantly threading the film up - especially first releases - with the wrong lens (i.e. anamorphic vs. standard). Film breaks are more common, and apparently unrepairable now.
They run innumerable ads before movies now. When I hear the voice say 'and now a word from our sponsor...' I feel like standing up and spouting off for 10 minutes because I am their goddam sponsor.
The popcorn prices are laughable. The soda/pop prices are fucking astronomical.
Mobile phones. Laser pointers. Hell, GameBoys.
The waits have gotten longer.
First-run movies often get cycled 24-7 so the prints fall apart faster. Which means you need to see it earlier (see previous point).
I liked the theatre experience before; there's a certain crowd-vibe that is really enjoyable, sometimes even saving you from a bad film (the complete derision shown in the last Godzilla remake was spectacular. I've never seen a whole movie openly, loudly mocked by the entire audience before. And it was fun.)
These days though... being able to control the lighting and sound perfectly, being able to pause to go to the can, eating my own sensibly-priced junk food... like most, I make a judgement call when a movie comes out. If I'm dying to see it, I'll go. Those movies are rare these days.
I'm actually fairly new to the whole slashdot scene, but I implore you to keep posting.
You can change more with your voice, however modded-down that voice may be, than with your silence.
I've enjoyed your posts, I think you're right, and I think you're getting modded not for content but for delivery. You only get away with major vitriol on Slashdot if you're really going with the popular opinion, I've noticed. Otherwise people basically label you a spaz.
I don't know if it'll change, but I'd rather some of the dissenters like you didn't fuck off for all time. It keeps things interesting in here.
As a one-time Amiga zealot myself (okay, when I was 14), I can tell you that the Amigoids are definitely more hardcore than most Mac-heads. The Amiga is an undead computer platform. But I digress.
You know what it is about Mac users? People who 'discover' the Mac (or Linux/*nix for that matter) and like it more than Windows feel like they've made this major leap. They know 90% of the planet isn't aware of any other OSes because they used to be one of those people, not too long ago.... so it's hard not to feel smug.
Look at the reaction of any newly converted users. They are flabbergasted at the difference. Again, goes for both Linux and Mac... really, it's not hard to see why. Not for the people in here.
This actually goes with my larger theory that only 90% of the planet even cares, or can objectively see the difference between a good UI and a bad one. Hence, Apple remains at 5~10% (don't give me the 4% figure, I've never believed that).
I would be interested to know just what happens when a user is merely aware that this system is running.
The described system seems to base it's rules on learned user habits; obviously, this strikes one as being incredibly fallible. Assuming their 94% figure is correct for the sake of argument, how do you think *your* behaviour would change knowing full-well that you are being watched?
There are laws in certain places that say a user (in a corporate environment) must be notofied that they are being monitored at that very second. Some software places a pair of eyeballs - how creepy is that - in the toolbar when this occurs.
If the thing's purpose is to sniff out 'suspicious' behavious, I can't see how it could work properly. I mean, how can it sniff out 'motive'?
Slashdot Mirror
Um... when do you think this tremendous rise will happen? AFAIK the laws in UK and Canada (two pick 2 at random) have been in place for many, many years. Less than 50 gun deaths per year in the UK. Around 100-150 per year in Canada. 11,000+ in the US. What am I missing here?
The second amendment - your Homeland Security - was clearly intended to defend against roving marauders and bears, which were more common at the time. We have Police now.
Put another way... do you really think that if the US government suddenly, maliciously turned on it's citizens, an armed citizenry would prevent this? Really?
Sorry for the troll. I just can't understand this attachment to guns.
After all, government ONLY works by removing liberties.
The only good weather is bad weather
Racial profiling is a bad method. Your spam example does not hold up. To run with it a second, the spam filter is supposed to weed out as much 'bad' mail as possible. Police work needs to be 100% accurate, or as close as humanly possible. Exclusionary rules don't help the situation, and Tim McVeigh is a good example. In the case of the recent sniper shootings, the law enforcement people were looking for a young white guy in his 20s with a crew cut right up until the killer(s) pretty much gave himself away.
Civil liberties can impede law enforcement, but only in the same manner that asking for a subject's permission to test drugs on them impedes medical science. It's true, but for good reason.
I do agree that there is often a balancing act between liberty and security, but it's not absolute. You can't just say Ok, we'll go with 70% Liberty and 30% Security. You can have both. Calling it a 'line in the sand' even dilutes the idea... I think of it more as a semi-permeable membrane. Selectivity, flexibility, intelligence... this is what's needed, in conjunction with constantly-reviewed and adjusted policy.
Hey, while we're on it, why does everyone call it Chimera except for Chimera itself? The app identifies itself as Navigator, in icon and splash. Strange.
This is exactly what I'm fearing about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy adaptation.
How do you film something that's described like, "The Vogon ship hung low in the sky in exactly the way that bricks don't."
...?
Now that they've laid the groundwork for hiding a whole new legally-protected operating system inside their now-semi-open operating system... in essence they've successfully dodged the remedy.
Also, they won't get hauled into another (massive) court case for at least another 5 years because of this. MS has emerged unscathed. It's open season now.
Call me a troll, I don't fucking care. I'm pissed about this. The US justice system is broken, and the corporations are offically running amok, and it's fucking obvious. It depresses me.
Just to be a designer-wank, I have to ask: what makes these people think they can do better than Apple? Do they not understand that part of the premium they've paid for the computer is that some smart m*therf*ckers sat around a looog time with their Chai Lattes and Industrial Design degrees, and figured out something incredibly spiff?
I mean, if you want to, go for it, cut a hole in your G4. I guess I'm just lamenting the fact that it almost always looks much worse. Every time I see "l33t sexy mod' on Slashdot, I click through and start laughing my ass off. Then I wonder if the poster has maybe lost a heat-tile or two from their Aesthetic Discretion Module (apologies to N.S.)...
The initiative is expected to cost $1.86e+93 Kabillion dollars.
I agree, with a slight adjustment: $100 million. Damned if I can find the link, but some bored accounting flak did an article for Newsweek about Billy G a while ago. It concluded that you could take away all but $100 million from his portfolio, and his lifestyle would not change one iota. That's literally the limit of tangible wealth; after that, it's just keeping score against the other fat cats.
"$100 million should be enough for anybody."
This guy I once knew got so many telemarketing calls (on his cell, no less) that he took to answering the phone like a chicken. He'd just pick up the line and start immediately with the clucking noises. His friends all knew he did it, so they'd just say "Rob" and immediately he'd be like "buk buk buk.. Oh hey what's up." If the other person started laughing, or acting puzzled, he'd just step up the chicken noises. Funny and effective.
Yeah, it is MS's fault. If their shitty program can't figure out that the user just wants to add some art, and make the appropriate conversions, then that is bad design.
Not trolling; just saying. I don't think it's unreasonable for the app to attempt to make the user's command feasible. If we're talking something like dropping a 40MB QuickTime onto Outlook, sure, you don't want to re-render to a smaller size... and the app should let you know what has happened.
Anyone else see that as 'Nanotech Pants for Military' the first time?
One question: my computer is the purple kind. Will that change anything?
sorry, couldn't resist.
If you go there and do a query for Cable broadband in Ontario, you will get a return of 0 results.
So someone like me, who doesn't want/need a landline, is kind of out of options. Lots of DSL, though. (I have a strong aversion to the VPNs they insist on; I like straight DHCP/Ethernet, thankyouvermuch).
If you'd (wait for it!...) read the article you would have seen the example given in Canada; Sympatico, run by Bell, has recently done this very thing. 5 GB cap. Go over the limit.. and they dock ya.
I personally know a few people who were incensed enough about this to flee to the only other broadband provider in Canada, Rogers... which also has a tiered plan in effect. The difference is that Rogers will pinch the connection after a certain data-rate has been sustained for an unspecified period of time (basically warez kiddies snarking something off LimeWire). But it's not capped. Thus, the lesser of two evils.
But yeah, it's real today.
It's just too funny to watch Slashdot's nearly complete about-face regarding Apple products. I never thought I'd see such staunch defenders of an Apple laptop on this site. Not that Apple hasn't done an about-face themselves in recent years, but still... anyone get the impression that for Apple to succeed - and indeed, be well-liked - all they need to do is not fuck up their PR to the extent Microsoft has. They are pristine as long as they don't do anything completely ass, like fabricating testimonials, or sending letters from dead people (or insert your fave MS gaffe here).
Getting back to the laptop - Porsche design makes some great stuff. I own a Fuji FinePix 6800 and it's a wonderful design. This, on the other hand, looks like.. a Best Buy design.
We are SlashBorg. Humour is futile.
While there are certainly folks at Sony who are right in there with the whole DRM thing, I think what happens is that the hardware sales have a polarizing effect on these efforts within Sony.
Look at their competition with MS in the game space. Sony knows that, push comes to shove, they sell TVs and Walkmans and Glasstrons, and Microsoft sells the occasional keyboard or router. They will price MS right out of the market on the PS2 (in fact, they are already turning a profit on those things), while selling all the hardware they are known for. Microsoft cannot lean on an alternative revenue stream so heavily... although they do have that ridiculous war-chest in the bank. Investors won't stand for raiding it without a visible means of putting that money back, though.
Sony can do this, and the tech industry is simply that much bigger than the media industry. Hell, Sony co-invented the CD; I think they actually take a tiny bit of profit from every CD-based game sold on the Xbox (someone correct me if I'm wrong about that; I know the PS2 has some CD-based games, some -DVD).
[flameproof suit on... check.]
I think the quality has gone up.
Off the top of my head, in the last 3 years: The Matrix, Toy Story 1 + 2, Lord of the Rings, Spider-man, American Beauty, Being John Malkovich (tell me that would have come out of a studio 5 years ago.. ha!), Fight Club, Traffic, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Requiem For A Dream, Shrek...
Don't forget how completely full of drek the early 90s were. The ratio of good-to-bad in studio films, IMHO, has improved.
About 3 years ago in Canada we had a projectionists' union strike. It didn't end well. The frequency of fuckups in my moviegoing experience has at least tripled. They are constantly threading the film up - especially first releases - with the wrong lens (i.e. anamorphic vs. standard). Film breaks are more common, and apparently unrepairable now.
They run innumerable ads before movies now. When I hear the voice say 'and now a word from our sponsor...' I feel like standing up and spouting off for 10 minutes because I am their goddam sponsor.
The popcorn prices are laughable. The soda/pop prices are fucking astronomical.
Mobile phones. Laser pointers. Hell, GameBoys.
The waits have gotten longer.
First-run movies often get cycled 24-7 so the prints fall apart faster. Which means you need to see it earlier (see previous point).
I liked the theatre experience before; there's a certain crowd-vibe that is really enjoyable, sometimes even saving you from a bad film (the complete derision shown in the last Godzilla remake was spectacular. I've never seen a whole movie openly, loudly mocked by the entire audience before. And it was fun.)
These days though... being able to control the lighting and sound perfectly, being able to pause to go to the can, eating my own sensibly-priced junk food... like most, I make a judgement call when a movie comes out. If I'm dying to see it, I'll go. Those movies are rare these days.
I'm actually fairly new to the whole slashdot scene, but I implore you to keep posting.
You can change more with your voice, however modded-down that voice may be, than with your silence.
I've enjoyed your posts, I think you're right, and I think you're getting modded not for content but for delivery. You only get away with major vitriol on Slashdot if you're really going with the popular opinion, I've noticed. Otherwise people basically label you a spaz.
I don't know if it'll change, but I'd rather some of the dissenters like you didn't fuck off for all time. It keeps things interesting in here.
Who mod'ed this fuckwit up?
You know what it is about Mac users? People who 'discover' the Mac (or Linux/*nix for that matter) and like it more than Windows feel like they've made this major leap. They know 90% of the planet isn't aware of any other OSes because they used to be one of those people, not too long ago.... so it's hard not to feel smug.
Look at the reaction of any newly converted users. They are flabbergasted at the difference. Again, goes for both Linux and Mac... really, it's not hard to see why. Not for the people in here.
This actually goes with my larger theory that only 90% of the planet even cares, or can objectively see the difference between a good UI and a bad one. Hence, Apple remains at 5~10% (don't give me the 4% figure, I've never believed that).
That last bit about the dog caused me to do one of the first bona fide spit-takes onto my keyboard in years.
The described system seems to base it's rules on learned user habits; obviously, this strikes one as being incredibly fallible. Assuming their 94% figure is correct for the sake of argument, how do you think *your* behaviour would change knowing full-well that you are being watched?
There are laws in certain places that say a user (in a corporate environment) must be notofied that they are being monitored at that very second. Some software places a pair of eyeballs - how creepy is that - in the toolbar when this occurs.
If the thing's purpose is to sniff out 'suspicious' behavious, I can't see how it could work properly. I mean, how can it sniff out 'motive'?