WTF? "Uh oh... Achmed over there ordered something weird. He might be a terrorist. Ban him from the plane". This reminds me of an episode of that classic chilrden's cartoon "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home". The main character had a red scare neighbor who was always looknig for "commies" everywhere. He was saying how he'd figured out a way to get all the commies and wanted to tell the CIA about it. His method? "Find all the names in the phonebook that end with 'ski' and you've got 'em"!
I don't EVER remember living in the "homeland" until the Bushista regime seized power. I still like to call this America myself. Former land of the free and brave. Now home of the politically blind and cowardly.
...and in the movie Mars Attacks! the Martians kept telling the U.S. government they weren't going to invade. Hmmm.. Maybe THAT'S where the Bush administration got their inspiration from for the premptive strike. Certainly would explain a lot...
Huh? You didn't read the part about the growing membership of Americans in the National Socialist Movement apparently. Once you do, and once you learn how to pay attention, get back to me.
You make the mistake of thinking of a business as the individuals who work throughout. I don't see it that way. I see the owners and captains of the business as VERY distinct from the employees. The employees are of a completely different order in that they have little to no control over the direction of the business. So even if they wanted to do something as ridiculous as you suggest (dream up new ways to screw people over) they couldn't. However, the people who run the businesses can. Witness Enron. The people at the top fucked up the lives of a LOT of people. Can't blame that on the lower rung employees. A business is VERY distinct from the less powerful employees when it comes to how the business affects others.
As much as you try to paint me as totally anti-business, you will fail. I'm not anti-business. I'm anti-screwing people over. I think business can and in some cases do do good things. It's just become more of a rarity these days than it was in the past. That's because the businesses are more concerned with ever increasing profits to the detriment of their lower rung employees and their customers. This is the imperative above all else. Business isn't inherently evil. It's simply become that way because of the endless push to profit instead of a reasonable expectation of breaking even.
As far as my own financial situation, I don't think of myself as poor and I'm certainly not rich. But, I'd say that I'm a lot closer to falling out of middle class than I was in the past. And that's through no fault of my own. I refuse to play into the mantra of supporting capitalism at all costs. I don't see capitalism as any more evil than communism. In my mind they're merely opposite sides of the same coin (even though one is political and the other economic). They both fail as soon as you have some pigs being more equal than others. Right now there are a powerful handful of equal capitalist pigs. Just as there were equal communist pigs in Soviet Russia.
I'll put it out on the line though because I'm that kind of person. I make about $65,000 a year which I think is a fair low-end middle class salary for someone living in a mid-sized metropolitan area (I hate the country). I'm fortunate in that the cost of living here allows me to live at the bottom of middle class. I pay for everything in cash. I have no credit cards. My only dept at the moment is my mortgage. I don't invest because I can't control the destiny of that money and I don't want my money supporting things I don't believe in. I do believe that everyone should be able to live on cash alone. There should be no need for credit or loans unless you're talking a house, a car or some other huge expense that is necessary to living a normal life. To some, my income would be considered paltry and I'm "poor". To others, I should be happy I'm making as much as I do (and believe me I am). But this amount of income is not enough to support me, my wife and my child while saving up for a move to another country with unsure employment prospects. I'm not an aggressive or competitive person, so I'm not the "world beater" type. Unless I can get to a point where I could move up to maybe $75,000 or $80,000 a year and my wife started working again (the kid's too young and we don't trust dayscare) I don't see much prospect of moving out of the U.S. Canada... maybe. But I'd have to find a good position in IT in a non-profit job to be able to live with myself. Again, does this make it any clearer for you?
It's called a paragraph jackass. If you can't read more than four or five sentences per paragraph you're an idiot. A decent paragraph contains no less than eight to ten sentences.
1. I think businesses do far more evil than good 2. I think that anyone who is in a lesser situation than I am deserves my help and support if they ask me for it 3. I think that anyone in a better situation than mine should help me if asked
It's just the polite thing to do. Sadly most people are greedy and selfish and will take more than they deserve. This cuts through from the wealthiest to the poorest people on the entire planet. Therefore it's not something that people can self-regulate. They need control. Prefereably by a system that doesn't benefit from giving preferential treatment to the rich and powerful. So let's see... that knocks out both business and government.
Regarding the reasons I can't currently afford to leave the U.S. I like how you assume that I can't do it because I'm somehow unskilled or stupid. That's the implication in your words. However, you are wrong. I can't because I prefer to work for something I consider to be a civic responsibility. I work in IT at a major metropolitan library system. We are non-profit. This means I make less than I would in the private sector for the same work. But I also know that the level of IT support I provide and the systems I work on (server end mostly) give less priveleged people access to tons of resources they wouldn't otherwise have access to. We have bearly 30 branches in the inner city that serve poor black communities. This is the RIGHT thing to do. I don't care that I'm making less than I would in the corporate world because at least I know I'm doing good for people in lesser positions than mine. I couldn't live with myself working for a big business that I know is doing things to hurt the poor. That is what most businesses do. Any clearer now?
It's for your own good!!! Just like Newt "mastah" Grinch was saying that we really need to reconsider freedom of speech in today's post 9/11 world lest the terrorists use it to convert farmboys into jihadist anti-Americans. I swear, America is SO fucked up right now and I put that all at the foot of the Bush administration. Racism is soaring to new levels (not that it ever went away but it was previously socially unacceptable in more enlightened times) and membership in the National Socialist Movement (ie. American Nazis) is rapidly growing due to the flag waving idiot contingent railing on about illegal immigrants. The economy sucks. Don't let the idiots fool you. If you aren't involved in investing or tied in with big American business in some way, your economic situation is in the dumper. And don't let me scare you lily-livered liberals, but don't be too happy about the recent elections. Come 2008, if there is any question about why there is a sudden massive swing to the right in poll results thanks to Diebold, you're going to have a hard time questioning it because you DIDN'T complain in the 2006 elections when things went your way. I'm not saying it's a certainty, but if it does happen it's your own damn fault that you didn't question why the Dems took so many seats this time around. I don't think they won fair and square and I'm a liberal. I think it was a set up for something more important to the right wing. So this new failure of the anti-pretexting bill just adds more weaponry to the already very powerful 5% of the wealthiest. Let me ask you this question. WHY should the top 5% have more power than the 95% of us? What's the good reasoning for that? In fact, don't you think it makes MORE sense for people with less money and clout to be granted more powers by society in a way that scales to keep things balanced? Shouldn't the middle class (what's left of it) be able to counter the actions of the powerful and wealthy through legal governmental means? Shouldn't the poor be able to have more control over what happens to them in our society rather than being relegated to the rubbish heap? And shouldn't the wealthy be fairly powerless to affect many people beneath them with an inverse proportion of wealth vs. control over others? If only I could make enough money to leave this stinking shithole. I'd head off to the U.K. or Australia. At least there, they've managed to retain some semblence of socialism in a way that works within a capitalist system. Here it's all gone downhill since Reagan.
Is he fucking high?! Oddly enough I was complaining about Microsoft's poor decision to change over to those "user friendly" (in reality EVERYONE HOSTILE) messages just yesterday. Mainly because I had a branch computer tech call and tell me that the branch's WiFi was "down". Since I don't deal directly with helpdesk issues anymore I made the cardinal mistake of taking her word for it. I spent about 20 minutes looking at the Cisco APs via their web admin interfaces and they showed the right number of clients connected and the proper VLANs. After all that it finally occurred to me that I should ask her EXACTLY what is or isn't happening. Her answer? "The internet is down because the WiFi is down". Seriously, that was her answer. Digging back to my heldesk days I knew this meant something more specific was going on. I asked her, "did they log into Windows OK"? She said, "Yeah. Windows if fine. It's the internet that's not working anymore. So that means the WiFi must not be working. I rebooted the network but they still don't work". So I asked her, "How do you know the internet is down"? She said, "Because the program said it is". I asked her, "What program"? She said, "Umm... Microsoft word. No. Um.. The blue E program. You know! The internet"! At this point I kept from flipping out and said, "What does it tell you that indicates the internet is down"? She said, "It shows that screen that says to contact the administrator. It said something about the home page not being there I think". I then asked her if she had tried to go to any sites other than the default "home page". She said, "Um... no. Should I go try that". Me: "Yes". She took off and then came back to the phone and said, "Oh. It looks like out home page isn't working. I guess I'll need to call the people who host it"? I said, "Sounds like it".
The problem illustrated above is that Microsoft's thinking that providing a "friendly" error is useful is untrue. They SHOULD have added a button to click on called "Technical Detail" or some such that would reveal the real error as presented by the web server itself. This has been one of my gripes about IE ever since they went that route. Fortunately my desktop isn't polluted with MS crap. It's a Linux box and I use Firefox. So when there is a problem (like there was yesterday) with a web site, I CAN see the REAL error message as presented by the server. I know you can configure the IE browser to NOT use the friendly messages, but to be honest it should be a default that the friendly message displays WITH the option to see the real message.
Innovation my ass. As a second example of their failings in terms of being up on technology that is important, it took them until Windows XP to have proper MIDI support. And I'm not talking the crap MIDI that's on your soundblaster card. Having been a professional composer in a past life (1990s) I was faced with the decision of getting a Mac (which had proper MIDI support since 1987) or getting a PC. I couldn't afford the Mac, so I was stuck with getting a DOS/Win3.1 PC. To say the MIDI support was lacking is an understatement. There wasn't much hardware for professional outboard gear on the Windows side, and what little there was was REALLY backwards. But this was mainly due to MS not really giving a crap about a very important piece of musical technology at that time. The reason? Windows was a business OS at the time. It wasn't an OS for creative people. And Microsoft didn't really truly start paying attention to the creative people until Windows XP. Windows XP finally had a real 32-bit MIDI driver and supported 256 MIDI ports vs. 16 in the previous 16-bit driver that lived on through Windows 98. This was one of the main reasons I abandoned Windows as soon as I could. And here's the thing that REALLY burns me up. Back in the late 80s I was doing TONS of MIDI and audio work on an Atari ST that was pro level stuff. People were using Macs in the same way. MS didn't give a shit. Back then we were called musicians and it w
Well I think the same can be said of something like the VW Beetle. When the new Beetle debuted in the late 90s, it was being pushed as the trendy hip-mobile for young urbanites. But when you actually looked at who owned and drove these things, it was the 45-55 crowd. Hell my own mom (in her 60s) wanted one because it reminded her of her 20s when she wanted the original VW Beetle. I think this is laregly planned on the part of these companies. Just like the Mustang is all the rage now with the 45-55 male set. It reminds them of when they were 18 and they used to lust after the original Mustangs.
Damn homey! Dat's FUCKED up! You just put me in my place now didn't you! (So how often do you track my posts looking for opportunities to respond again?);P
Exactamundo chucky! THat's teh exactly what I was trying to say. A spider might be a aminal but it's not a "small aminal". It's a nearly microscopic aminal. I know this for a fact because I've seen the web page on teh internets where they compare the size of a spider against the size of the penii of various Republican politicians.
Come on. A spider ISN'T an aminal. When I read "small aminal" the first thing I think of is Benji the Dog for example. Call me when you can levitate Benji. Otherwise, shut the hell up.
If a large and wealthy corporation wanted to create it's own private military to wage a real war in the name of keeping their profits up, they would do it. And to get to that point, they'd place people in government to change the laws to make it legal for them to wage war. It's all about power chumpboys. Always has been. Always will be. That desire for power will continually impede social progress through technology. Welcome to the dark ages.
...that before I noticed the humor icon and before I saw it was a bbspot link, I thought this was probably a real story. It certainly seems very pro-business in the way that a lot of other things are (think of the way commercial software licenses are getting more and more restrictive).
That I CAN agree on. I suppose it was a knee-jerk reaction to all the people I run into who make it seem like watching TV is a horrible thing to do to your brain.
Oh dear... another one from the "I don't own a TV" brigade. TV ISN'T bad. It's the programming that sucks unless you can find a good source. And that's what digital liberates. Yes, Youtube is OK in that you can find some rare stuff there that you may have been looking for for decades but the quality is ass. You're better off hanging out with connesseurs who know where to get rare stuff and then digitizing it. Sure, I hate reality TV and pretty much all the other tripe out there. But that's no reason to go to the tired old mantra of "I don't watch TV". That's just plain lame. I happen to think American TV is a great tool that's been co-opted by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. That's why the BBC seems to be a bit better. At least there is some control over the programming that allows for a higher level of quality when it comes to their own productions.
...since I've watched "normal" television. Ever since I started digitally recording TV shows on my computers, I haven't been at the mercy of ANY of the limitations of standard television. The VCR didn't even do a good job of that as you didn't have random access to your recordings. If you were watching something and fell asleep, you have to spend a good deal of time rewinding/fast forwarding to find the place where you nodded off. This was enough of a time sink that in many cases you either wound up watching from someplace close to where you left off, or just decided to skip it altogether. Especially if you didn't have much blank tape and needed to record something that very day or even minute. Too much time reqinding and fast forwarding or trying to keep track of where the "blank spots" were on your tape in terms of shows you could safely erase. But, in digital form, you just flip back and forth to any point on the timeline and you can easily resume any show in seconds. DVDs were a slight improvement but they didn't help out with recording shows until recently. I suspect this is why books still rule. They are EASIER to use than the technology that is trying to replace them. That same is true of MP3/Ogg Vorbis files for music vs. CD, Vinyl and tape. Also for MPEG, AVI files vs. video tape and DVDs. If there is a way that someone can make something easier to use than a book for reading text, they will have the key to sublimating the book.
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Feh. Terraforming is easy. If the Bush administration did it shortly after 9/11 with little effort, ANYONE can do it. Oh... not THAT "terra". ;P
Operagost. It's called a joke.
Naw. Sex and chewing gum are better. The sex to kill the time and the chewing gum to prevent ear popping.
WTF? "Uh oh... Achmed over there ordered something weird. He might be a terrorist. Ban him from the plane". This reminds me of an episode of that classic chilrden's cartoon "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home". The main character had a red scare neighbor who was always looknig for "commies" everywhere. He was saying how he'd figured out a way to get all the commies and wanted to tell the CIA about it. His method? "Find all the names in the phonebook that end with 'ski' and you've got 'em"!
...the work of John Romero. Apparently he was going to call it the MakeYouMyBitch() function. ;P
I don't EVER remember living in the "homeland" until the Bushista regime seized power. I still like to call this America myself. Former land of the free and brave. Now home of the politically blind and cowardly.
...and in the movie Mars Attacks! the Martians kept telling the U.S. government they weren't going to invade. Hmmm.. Maybe THAT'S where the Bush administration got their inspiration from for the premptive strike. Certainly would explain a lot...
Huh? You didn't read the part about the growing membership of Americans in the National Socialist Movement apparently. Once you do, and once you learn how to pay attention, get back to me.
You make the mistake of thinking of a business as the individuals who work throughout. I don't see it that way. I see the owners and captains of the business as VERY distinct from the employees. The employees are of a completely different order in that they have little to no control over the direction of the business. So even if they wanted to do something as ridiculous as you suggest (dream up new ways to screw people over) they couldn't. However, the people who run the businesses can. Witness Enron. The people at the top fucked up the lives of a LOT of people. Can't blame that on the lower rung employees. A business is VERY distinct from the less powerful employees when it comes to how the business affects others.
As much as you try to paint me as totally anti-business, you will fail. I'm not anti-business. I'm anti-screwing people over. I think business can and in some cases do do good things. It's just become more of a rarity these days than it was in the past. That's because the businesses are more concerned with ever increasing profits to the detriment of their lower rung employees and their customers. This is the imperative above all else. Business isn't inherently evil. It's simply become that way because of the endless push to profit instead of a reasonable expectation of breaking even.
As far as my own financial situation, I don't think of myself as poor and I'm certainly not rich. But, I'd say that I'm a lot closer to falling out of middle class than I was in the past. And that's through no fault of my own. I refuse to play into the mantra of supporting capitalism at all costs. I don't see capitalism as any more evil than communism. In my mind they're merely opposite sides of the same coin (even though one is political and the other economic). They both fail as soon as you have some pigs being more equal than others. Right now there are a powerful handful of equal capitalist pigs. Just as there were equal communist pigs in Soviet Russia.
I'll put it out on the line though because I'm that kind of person. I make about $65,000 a year which I think is a fair low-end middle class salary for someone living in a mid-sized metropolitan area (I hate the country). I'm fortunate in that the cost of living here allows me to live at the bottom of middle class. I pay for everything in cash. I have no credit cards. My only dept at the moment is my mortgage. I don't invest because I can't control the destiny of that money and I don't want my money supporting things I don't believe in. I do believe that everyone should be able to live on cash alone. There should be no need for credit or loans unless you're talking a house, a car or some other huge expense that is necessary to living a normal life. To some, my income would be considered paltry and I'm "poor". To others, I should be happy I'm making as much as I do (and believe me I am). But this amount of income is not enough to support me, my wife and my child while saving up for a move to another country with unsure employment prospects. I'm not an aggressive or competitive person, so I'm not the "world beater" type. Unless I can get to a point where I could move up to maybe $75,000 or $80,000 a year and my wife started working again (the kid's too young and we don't trust dayscare) I don't see much prospect of moving out of the U.S. Canada... maybe. But I'd have to find a good position in IT in a non-profit job to be able to live with myself. Again, does this make it any clearer for you?
It's called a paragraph jackass. If you can't read more than four or five sentences per paragraph you're an idiot. A decent paragraph contains no less than eight to ten sentences.
1. I think businesses do far more evil than good
2. I think that anyone who is in a lesser situation than I am deserves my help and support if they ask me for it
3. I think that anyone in a better situation than mine should help me if asked
It's just the polite thing to do. Sadly most people are greedy and selfish and will take more than they deserve. This cuts through from the wealthiest to the poorest people on the entire planet. Therefore it's not something that people can self-regulate. They need control. Prefereably by a system that doesn't benefit from giving preferential treatment to the rich and powerful. So let's see... that knocks out both business and government.
Regarding the reasons I can't currently afford to leave the U.S. I like how you assume that I can't do it because I'm somehow unskilled or stupid. That's the implication in your words. However, you are wrong. I can't because I prefer to work for something I consider to be a civic responsibility. I work in IT at a major metropolitan library system. We are non-profit. This means I make less than I would in the private sector for the same work. But I also know that the level of IT support I provide and the systems I work on (server end mostly) give less priveleged people access to tons of resources they wouldn't otherwise have access to. We have bearly 30 branches in the inner city that serve poor black communities. This is the RIGHT thing to do. I don't care that I'm making less than I would in the corporate world because at least I know I'm doing good for people in lesser positions than mine. I couldn't live with myself working for a big business that I know is doing things to hurt the poor. That is what most businesses do. Any clearer now?
It's for your own good!!! Just like Newt "mastah" Grinch was saying that we really need to reconsider freedom of speech in today's post 9/11 world lest the terrorists use it to convert farmboys into jihadist anti-Americans. I swear, America is SO fucked up right now and I put that all at the foot of the Bush administration. Racism is soaring to new levels (not that it ever went away but it was previously socially unacceptable in more enlightened times) and membership in the National Socialist Movement (ie. American Nazis) is rapidly growing due to the flag waving idiot contingent railing on about illegal immigrants. The economy sucks. Don't let the idiots fool you. If you aren't involved in investing or tied in with big American business in some way, your economic situation is in the dumper. And don't let me scare you lily-livered liberals, but don't be too happy about the recent elections. Come 2008, if there is any question about why there is a sudden massive swing to the right in poll results thanks to Diebold, you're going to have a hard time questioning it because you DIDN'T complain in the 2006 elections when things went your way. I'm not saying it's a certainty, but if it does happen it's your own damn fault that you didn't question why the Dems took so many seats this time around. I don't think they won fair and square and I'm a liberal. I think it was a set up for something more important to the right wing. So this new failure of the anti-pretexting bill just adds more weaponry to the already very powerful 5% of the wealthiest. Let me ask you this question. WHY should the top 5% have more power than the 95% of us? What's the good reasoning for that? In fact, don't you think it makes MORE sense for people with less money and clout to be granted more powers by society in a way that scales to keep things balanced? Shouldn't the middle class (what's left of it) be able to counter the actions of the powerful and wealthy through legal governmental means? Shouldn't the poor be able to have more control over what happens to them in our society rather than being relegated to the rubbish heap? And shouldn't the wealthy be fairly powerless to affect many people beneath them with an inverse proportion of wealth vs. control over others? If only I could make enough money to leave this stinking shithole. I'd head off to the U.K. or Australia. At least there, they've managed to retain some semblence of socialism in a way that works within a capitalist system. Here it's all gone downhill since Reagan.
Is he fucking high?! Oddly enough I was complaining about Microsoft's poor decision to change over to those "user friendly" (in reality EVERYONE HOSTILE) messages just yesterday. Mainly because I had a branch computer tech call and tell me that the branch's WiFi was "down". Since I don't deal directly with helpdesk issues anymore I made the cardinal mistake of taking her word for it. I spent about 20 minutes looking at the Cisco APs via their web admin interfaces and they showed the right number of clients connected and the proper VLANs. After all that it finally occurred to me that I should ask her EXACTLY what is or isn't happening. Her answer? "The internet is down because the WiFi is down". Seriously, that was her answer. Digging back to my heldesk days I knew this meant something more specific was going on. I asked her, "did they log into Windows OK"? She said, "Yeah. Windows if fine. It's the internet that's not working anymore. So that means the WiFi must not be working. I rebooted the network but they still don't work". So I asked her, "How do you know the internet is down"? She said, "Because the program said it is". I asked her, "What program"? She said, "Umm... Microsoft word. No. Um.. The blue E program. You know! The internet"! At this point I kept from flipping out and said, "What does it tell you that indicates the internet is down"? She said, "It shows that screen that says to contact the administrator. It said something about the home page not being there I think". I then asked her if she had tried to go to any sites other than the default "home page". She said, "Um... no. Should I go try that". Me: "Yes". She took off and then came back to the phone and said, "Oh. It looks like out home page isn't working. I guess I'll need to call the people who host it"? I said, "Sounds like it".
The problem illustrated above is that Microsoft's thinking that providing a "friendly" error is useful is untrue. They SHOULD have added a button to click on called "Technical Detail" or some such that would reveal the real error as presented by the web server itself. This has been one of my gripes about IE ever since they went that route. Fortunately my desktop isn't polluted with MS crap. It's a Linux box and I use Firefox. So when there is a problem (like there was yesterday) with a web site, I CAN see the REAL error message as presented by the server. I know you can configure the IE browser to NOT use the friendly messages, but to be honest it should be a default that the friendly message displays WITH the option to see the real message.
Innovation my ass. As a second example of their failings in terms of being up on technology that is important, it took them until Windows XP to have proper MIDI support. And I'm not talking the crap MIDI that's on your soundblaster card. Having been a professional composer in a past life (1990s) I was faced with the decision of getting a Mac (which had proper MIDI support since 1987) or getting a PC. I couldn't afford the Mac, so I was stuck with getting a DOS/Win3.1 PC. To say the MIDI support was lacking is an understatement. There wasn't much hardware for professional outboard gear on the Windows side, and what little there was was REALLY backwards. But this was mainly due to MS not really giving a crap about a very important piece of musical technology at that time. The reason? Windows was a business OS at the time. It wasn't an OS for creative people. And Microsoft didn't really truly start paying attention to the creative people until Windows XP. Windows XP finally had a real 32-bit MIDI driver and supported 256 MIDI ports vs. 16 in the previous 16-bit driver that lived on through Windows 98. This was one of the main reasons I abandoned Windows as soon as I could. And here's the thing that REALLY burns me up. Back in the late 80s I was doing TONS of MIDI and audio work on an Atari ST that was pro level stuff. People were using Macs in the same way. MS didn't give a shit. Back then we were called musicians and it w
Well I think the same can be said of something like the VW Beetle. When the new Beetle debuted in the late 90s, it was being pushed as the trendy hip-mobile for young urbanites. But when you actually looked at who owned and drove these things, it was the 45-55 crowd. Hell my own mom (in her 60s) wanted one because it reminded her of her 20s when she wanted the original VW Beetle. I think this is laregly planned on the part of these companies. Just like the Mustang is all the rage now with the 45-55 male set. It reminds them of when they were 18 and they used to lust after the original Mustangs.
Damn homey! Dat's FUCKED up! You just put me in my place now didn't you! (So how often do you track my posts looking for opportunities to respond again?) ;P
...I could be a penetration tester. On Jenna Jameson. ;P
Exactamundo chucky! THat's teh exactly what I was trying to say. A spider might be a aminal but it's not a "small aminal". It's a nearly microscopic aminal. I know this for a fact because I've seen the web page on teh internets where they compare the size of a spider against the size of the penii of various Republican politicians.
Since I SAY so. That's what time it is chump! A spider is an insect, not a aminal.
Come on. A spider ISN'T an aminal. When I read "small aminal" the first thing I think of is Benji the Dog for example. Call me when you can levitate Benji. Otherwise, shut the hell up.
If a large and wealthy corporation wanted to create it's own private military to wage a real war in the name of keeping their profits up, they would do it. And to get to that point, they'd place people in government to change the laws to make it legal for them to wage war. It's all about power chumpboys. Always has been. Always will be. That desire for power will continually impede social progress through technology. Welcome to the dark ages.
Dig that crazy frood! Meditation? I'm hep to that! What's up cat?
...that before I noticed the humor icon and before I saw it was a bbspot link, I thought this was probably a real story. It certainly seems very pro-business in the way that a lot of other things are (think of the way commercial software licenses are getting more and more restrictive).
That I CAN agree on. I suppose it was a knee-jerk reaction to all the people I run into who make it seem like watching TV is a horrible thing to do to your brain.
Oh dear... another one from the "I don't own a TV" brigade. TV ISN'T bad. It's the programming that sucks unless you can find a good source. And that's what digital liberates. Yes, Youtube is OK in that you can find some rare stuff there that you may have been looking for for decades but the quality is ass. You're better off hanging out with connesseurs who know where to get rare stuff and then digitizing it. Sure, I hate reality TV and pretty much all the other tripe out there. But that's no reason to go to the tired old mantra of "I don't watch TV". That's just plain lame. I happen to think American TV is a great tool that's been co-opted by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. That's why the BBC seems to be a bit better. At least there is some control over the programming that allows for a higher level of quality when it comes to their own productions.
...since I've watched "normal" television. Ever since I started digitally recording TV shows on my computers, I haven't been at the mercy of ANY of the limitations of standard television. The VCR didn't even do a good job of that as you didn't have random access to your recordings. If you were watching something and fell asleep, you have to spend a good deal of time rewinding/fast forwarding to find the place where you nodded off. This was enough of a time sink that in many cases you either wound up watching from someplace close to where you left off, or just decided to skip it altogether. Especially if you didn't have much blank tape and needed to record something that very day or even minute. Too much time reqinding and fast forwarding or trying to keep track of where the "blank spots" were on your tape in terms of shows you could safely erase. But, in digital form, you just flip back and forth to any point on the timeline and you can easily resume any show in seconds. DVDs were a slight improvement but they didn't help out with recording shows until recently. I suspect this is why books still rule. They are EASIER to use than the technology that is trying to replace them. That same is true of MP3/Ogg Vorbis files for music vs. CD, Vinyl and tape. Also for MPEG, AVI files vs. video tape and DVDs. If there is a way that someone can make something easier to use than a book for reading text, they will have the key to sublimating the book.