You really do need to read L'effroyable Imposture by Thierry Meyssan. (There should be an English translation out any day now). What you mention, among many other points, is brought up in the book as well the following very curious point: The morning of September 11, amateur radio operators in NYC encountered very strong beacon signals emanating from the WTC from about an hour before the attack until the planes hit. Why did they get activated suddenly?
Also, you may wish to view some more images of the alleged plane that hit the Pentagon. Now after reexamining those images, tell me with a straight face that you still believe a 757 full of fuel hit the Pentagon. The actual damage was miniscule compared to the plane that allegedly hit it.
If you don't believe this was a major US government cover-up, read the book. You'll be converted...
Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast.
Is Jack Valenti trying to say that people actually watch movies on television anymore?
If you need any more proof that the man's certifiably insane, there it is.:-)
...because they can't wait to auction off the UHF TV spectrum that DTV is supposed to free up.
Sadly, this puts the RIAA and broadcasters (media providers of all sorts) in a strong position. If they don't get their way on this Firewire port-disabling, broadcast don't-copy-me-flag or whatever nonsense it is this week, they won't release the product. No product, no consumers. (Given the very weak sales of high-priced DTV equipment, it seems that consumers are perfectly happy with the 1954(!)-era NTSC 525-line colour standard.)
I think the industry can basically tell Congress, 'Mandate these features or we won't release media'. Without the media, no manufacturer would dare release hardware. If no one buys the new hardware (due to the lack of media), how could Congress release the old UHF spectrum to auction it off?
It just seems like DTV has been in turmoil from day one. I remember hearing of multiple competing formats in the late 80s and promises of a decision and some technology by the early 90s. Looks like that never happened...
This is so true. Recycled vehicles have performed almost as poorly in the marketplace as hybrid cars.
By 'recycled' vehicle, I don't mean a vehicle that's literally forged from recycled steel from other cars. I was thinking specifically of the fact that it seems like every American must purchase him or herself a new vehicle every two years to be the good little consumer that his or her government wants and to keep up with the neighbours.
Why isn't a used car good enough? Why do Americans' vehicles have to be these brand new, huge, gas-guzzling juggernauts that 80% of the time carry only one person? The US Senate really botched it when they failed to pass the fuel-efficiency standards for SUVs and light trucks, and I predict that in 20-25 years, especially if shit goes down in the Middle East with Palestine and Iraq, there will be another fuel crisis.
No worries though--they'll suck Alaska dry, killing untold species of animal. Fear not, America--your SUVs are safe! Consume away, brothers!
Exactly what America does not need is another throwaway item. Like the wrappers on food, aluminum cans and plastic bottles from the carbonated beverages they consume, these cellphones will just become another disposable tchotche to strain America's already overflowing landfills.
And it's not as if making them recyclable will help. Americans have no taste for recycling or reuse--everything has to be new (just look at the booming sales of new garish SUVs). Even if you could recycle 100% of the new phone, I wouldn't expect to see it in American's blue boxes. It's so much easier to just throw it out and buy another one.
This whole disposable cell phone thing is just symptomatic of an American culture that will overuse whatever resources it can get its hands on--lumber from Canada and its own old-growth forests, fossil fuels like it was going out of style, food, etc. And this thing just makes me shake my head, wonder if Americans will ever learn to respect the environment they are cultured to plunder, and pray for our fragile Earth.
I learned after the fact that it was a copy-protected CD. To be honest, I wasn't really following the whole copy-protection brouhaha very closely. When my mom called and told me the CD wouldn't play, I diagnosed it from the point of a faulty player software or CD-ROM drive rather than a copy-protected CD. It only struck me a few days later that it might be the CD's fault.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. -- Gwen Mezzrow
I purchased a CD for my mother for Mother's day that was one of the widely-reported copy-protected albums (Celine Dion, BTW). It wouldn't play on my parents' computer, which is the only player they have in the house. Is there any information on whom to contact to become part of the class action? Does one just contact the legal firm suing the record companies and inquire there? Thanks.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. - Gwen Mezzrow
SMALLTOWN, INDIANA (AP) -- In a tragic incident in Smalltown, IN, two Smalltown High students have been arrested after breaking 20 windows in their high school by bouching balls off of them repeatedly until they could no longer withstand the force. Preliminary reports indicates that the kids, who belonged to a group called 'The Bouncy Mafia', were wearing trenchcoats and had in their possessions two copies of 'Battle Pong'. State legislators have rushed to ban the game, calling it a grave threat to our schools and the mental state of today's youth.
...that the OSS always seems to turn out better than commercial software?
I am a software developer for a video driver developer in a team of about 7. I'm disgruntled as hell--the process is overwhelming, the design is far too rigid and thus things take about ten times as long as they would be a smaller team. Yet, when I go home and work on my personal projects, I'm as happy as can be. No code standards, no review processes, no cumbersome integrating of six other peoples' changes into my code, nothing.
If the success of small-team OSS projects is any indication, why do software managers think that throwing more people on a project will increase efficiency? It won't!
Does anyone know where I can find World Cup audio streams on line? fifaworldcup.com is suffering from the beloved/. effect, so I can't even get through. I was hoping someone knew of another source to listen to the play-by-play.
ObSatellite: I bet if I had a satellite dish and a subcarrier audio receiver, I could hear it right now.:-)
...that the numbers given for each release (1.0, 1.3, 1.4, etc.) aren't version numbers. It's actually the average number of kernel panics per minute for this particular release.
But seriously, I've tried the Hurd, and while I can appreciate the work that's being done on it and its goals and aims, it's just not stable enough for everyday use. I'll just stick to 2.2.16 for the time being until I am convinced that there is a more stable kernel or until the Hurd matures a bit more.
As long as the United States is driven by corporations and the Almighty Dollar, I see a continued increase in the leeway and the concessions made to business.
The Supreme Court voting the other way would have changed a fundamental tenet of patent law, possibly invalidating millions of patents. This would have led to upheaval in business (especially technology!) circles and could potentially have prolonged the economic downturn as companies may have begun to cut back on R&D, seeing that their new IP would have been essentially worth much less than they'd hoped.
Don't get me wrong--I don't applaud the decision, since I think patents are wildly abused by corporations and the USPTO needs a good slap upside the head, but I can see why the Supremes made the decision they did, and ultimately, it's probably for the short-term best.
OK, maybe not directly, but when a highly conservative Court rules that outright blockades of abortion and reproductive rights clinics are protected free speech, I'd consider them pretty closely intertwined.
I can't believe that a so-called "strict constructionist" court would allow such a blatant trampling of our rights to free speech.
The strict constructionists on the Supreme Court only interpret those amendements strictly when the subject matter agrees with their hard Christian right views. So, you can't legislate gun control, because the strict constructionists view the Second Amendement as unwavering. But wait! The First Amendment can be interpreted differently when sex, reproductive rights, or any of the thorns in the Christian Rights' sides is involved.
I hope to hell the Senate stays in Democratic hands this November so Bush will have some opposition for his eventual nominees to deal with...
I really think you're on to something, and it's actively promoted by right-wing Christian Rightists here in the US.
The Bible is one of the bloodiest books ever written (the body count is staggering--someone calculated it once, and the number of deaths tops hundreds of thousands), yet the Religious Right wants every US child to study it in school, if you can believe it.
Meanwhile, it's horribly bad for two unmarried adults to do more than hug, because that's against God's law. (I guess there were no mentions of sex in the Bible, eh?)
If the Religious Right gets its way, the entire young male population of the US would be chaste, celibate Soldiers of God, fighting against evil things like Muslims, or anything that is purported to be anti-Christian--you know, things like Islam, rock music and free speech.
I've always admired Canada's stance on those issues that the United States seems to get its panties all knotted up about. The House of Commons is actively looking into decriminalizing marijuana, television standards are much looser and allow for more innovative and interesting programs to be shown, and there is much less of the Christian religious right bullcrap that goes on here. The Christian right thinks violence is great ('It's in the Bible, the greatest book of our time that everyone should read') but do not want a hint of flesh to be seen anywhere lest people be tempted to have sex (which, I guess, must not be mentioned anywhere in the Bible?)
This country just seems so backwards, yet so many consider it the best nation in the world. I'm a Canadian citizen living in the US with my wife, BTW, and I miss the sanity of the old homeland...
The difference is, Kids is an obvious parody and exaggeration of inner-city youth. There was no way watching it that you would get the sense that any of it was real. It was more a comedy than a documentary, and many of the viewers got the wrong impression and due to this misinterpretation, the movie received something of a bad reputation that it really didn't deserve. There were no graphic scenes of rape or violence that were shoved in viewers' faces. Anybody who takes the Kids with anything but a grain of comedic salt is simply taking the movie far too seriously. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, as did Roger Ebert when he reviewed it nearly seven years ago, and thought it was quite amusing in a 'cinema grotesque' way. There is simply no comparison between it and Platoon and Saving Private Ryan, which bombarded the viewers with horrible, brutal acts of violence.
...that while a movie that shows graphic violence, including decapitations, disembowellings and other acts of torture and sickness that turn viewers' stomachs can still a 'PG-13' or 'R' rating in the US, while just about any sort of hint of sexual acts, both heterosexual and homosexual, will merit at the very least an 'R' or an 'X' rating?
American censors and the film ratings boards seem to believe that it's OK for people to see violence because it won't affect them at all. Hey, the country was founded in a pit of blood during the Revolutionary War. But it's a hell of a lot better to have that on screen than it is to see two people who love each other show it intimately. Better that we have teenagers running into their school brandishing easily-purchased assault rifles than it is to have them falling in love with someone and spending time with them.
I'm just curious when the culture of violence and hate that the United States pushes on its citizens will finally become tiresome or offensive to them. Look at crime rates in Europe, where guns are near impossible to get hold of and where there are no restrictive anti-sex laws on television. Is it any wonder that their crime rates per capita are significantly lower than the US?
Let's keep producing more violent movies and glorifying war, like Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and all the Rambo movies do. That'll make everyone safer...
Now you can see why GWB and his ilk are lobbying to make human cloning illegal. If it were to be legal, Rep. Boucher would be the first one I'd want cloned... about 435 times (one per seat in the U.S. House Of Representatives).
Seriously, this guy has more of a clue than half my coworkers. And I'm a software engineer.
I understand the main characters have been renamed to 'Kernel the Frog' and 'Miss SWIGgy'.;-)
Ugh, such poor puns. But it's Linux, so it's OK.
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes - Gwen Mezzrow
Wrongful detention?
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 5, Informative
At this point, I would call the local friendly legal professional. I bet he or she would be very happy to pursue a wrongful detention civil suit against Best Buy and its manager. Lawyers love this sort of case, especially when it's a little guy clearly in the right versus a big retailer. You get the chance to teach BB a lesson, see the manager get his ass fired, and you could get a nice little chunk of change for your trouble.
And let us know how it goes. BB deserves the smackdown for this one.
'I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes.' - Gwen Mezzrow
But is this really a surprise?
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
Once again, Michael posts bullshit that is totally wrong.
Tell it, brother. Of course, Michael was only following the Slashdot mission statement: 'Post bullshit that is usually totally wrong, and make sure it is done in the most misspelled and grammatically incorrect fashion possible'.
'I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes.' - Gwen Mezzrow
Slashdot Mirror
You really do need to read L'effroyable Imposture by Thierry Meyssan. (There should be an English translation out any day now). What you mention, among many other points, is brought up in the book as well the following very curious point: The morning of September 11, amateur radio operators in NYC encountered very strong beacon signals emanating from the WTC from about an hour before the attack until the planes hit. Why did they get activated suddenly?
Also, you may wish to view some more images of the alleged plane that hit the Pentagon. Now after reexamining those images, tell me with a straight face that you still believe a 757 full of fuel hit the Pentagon. The actual damage was miniscule compared to the plane that allegedly hit it.
If you don't believe this was a major US government cover-up, read the book. You'll be converted...
Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast.
:-)
Is Jack Valenti trying to say that people actually watch movies on television anymore?
If you need any more proof that the man's certifiably insane, there it is.
...because they can't wait to auction off the UHF TV spectrum that DTV is supposed to free up.
Sadly, this puts the RIAA and broadcasters (media providers of all sorts) in a strong position. If they don't get their way on this Firewire port-disabling, broadcast don't-copy-me-flag or whatever nonsense it is this week, they won't release the product. No product, no consumers. (Given the very weak sales of high-priced DTV equipment, it seems that consumers are perfectly happy with the 1954(!)-era NTSC 525-line colour standard.)
I think the industry can basically tell Congress, 'Mandate these features or we won't release media'. Without the media, no manufacturer would dare release hardware. If no one buys the new hardware (due to the lack of media), how could Congress release the old UHF spectrum to auction it off?
It just seems like DTV has been in turmoil from day one. I remember hearing of multiple competing formats in the late 80s and promises of a decision and some technology by the early 90s. Looks like that never happened...
I just run Linux, and I'm bug-free. :-)
---
I'm a dancer, not a karma whore.
This is so true. Recycled vehicles have performed almost as poorly in the marketplace as hybrid cars.
By 'recycled' vehicle, I don't mean a vehicle that's literally forged from recycled steel from other cars. I was thinking specifically of the fact that it seems like every American must purchase him or herself a new vehicle every two years to be the good little consumer that his or her government wants and to keep up with the neighbours.
Why isn't a used car good enough? Why do Americans' vehicles have to be these brand new, huge, gas-guzzling juggernauts that 80% of the time carry only one person? The US Senate really botched it when they failed to pass the fuel-efficiency standards for SUVs and light trucks, and I predict that in 20-25 years, especially if shit goes down in the Middle East with Palestine and Iraq, there will be another fuel crisis.
No worries though--they'll suck Alaska dry, killing untold species of animal. Fear not, America--your SUVs are safe! Consume away, brothers!
The parent is exactly right.
Exactly what America does not need is another throwaway item. Like the wrappers on food, aluminum cans and plastic bottles from the carbonated beverages they consume, these cellphones will just become another disposable tchotche to strain America's already overflowing landfills.
And it's not as if making them recyclable will help. Americans have no taste for recycling or reuse--everything has to be new (just look at the booming sales of new garish SUVs). Even if you could recycle 100% of the new phone, I wouldn't expect to see it in American's blue boxes. It's so much easier to just throw it out and buy another one.
This whole disposable cell phone thing is just symptomatic of an American culture that will overuse whatever resources it can get its hands on--lumber from Canada and its own old-growth forests, fossil fuels like it was going out of style, food, etc. And this thing just makes me shake my head, wonder if Americans will ever learn to respect the environment they are cultured to plunder, and pray for our fragile Earth.
Trust and credit card are two words of which I am highly suspicious being in the same sentence.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. -- Gwen Mezzrow
Thou art getting a Dell!
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. -- Gwen Mezzrow
I learned after the fact that it was a copy-protected CD. To be honest, I wasn't really following the whole copy-protection brouhaha very closely. When my mom called and told me the CD wouldn't play, I diagnosed it from the point of a faulty player software or CD-ROM drive rather than a copy-protected CD. It only struck me a few days later that it might be the CD's fault.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. -- Gwen Mezzrow
I purchased a CD for my mother for Mother's day that was one of the widely-reported copy-protected albums (Celine Dion, BTW). It wouldn't play on my parents' computer, which is the only player they have in the house. Is there any information on whom to contact to become part of the class action? Does one just contact the legal firm suing the record companies and inquire there? Thanks.
---
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes. - Gwen Mezzrow
I can see the story now:
SMALLTOWN, INDIANA (AP) -- In a tragic incident in Smalltown, IN, two Smalltown High students have been arrested after breaking 20 windows in their high school by bouching balls off of them repeatedly until they could no longer withstand the force. Preliminary reports indicates that the kids, who belonged to a group called 'The Bouncy Mafia', were wearing trenchcoats and had in their possessions two copies of 'Battle Pong'. State legislators have rushed to ban the game, calling it a grave threat to our schools and the mental state of today's youth.
</tongue firmly in cheek>
...that the OSS always seems to turn out better than commercial software?
I am a software developer for a video driver developer in a team of about 7. I'm disgruntled as hell--the process is overwhelming, the design is far too rigid and thus things take about ten times as long as they would be a smaller team. Yet, when I go home and work on my personal projects, I'm as happy as can be. No code standards, no review processes, no cumbersome integrating of six other peoples' changes into my code, nothing.
If the success of small-team OSS projects is any indication, why do software managers think that throwing more people on a project will increase efficiency? It won't!
Does anyone know where I can find World Cup audio streams on line? fifaworldcup.com is suffering from the beloved /. effect, so I can't even get through. I was hoping someone knew of another source to listen to the play-by-play.
:-)
ObSatellite: I bet if I had a satellite dish and a subcarrier audio receiver, I could hear it right now.
...that the numbers given for each release (1.0, 1.3, 1.4, etc.) aren't version numbers. It's actually the average number of kernel panics per minute for this particular release.
But seriously, I've tried the Hurd, and while I can appreciate the work that's being done on it and its goals and aims, it's just not stable enough for everyday use. I'll just stick to 2.2.16 for the time being until I am convinced that there is a more stable kernel or until the Hurd matures a bit more.
As long as the United States is driven by corporations and the Almighty Dollar, I see a continued increase in the leeway and the concessions made to business.
The Supreme Court voting the other way would have changed a fundamental tenet of patent law, possibly invalidating millions of patents. This would have led to upheaval in business (especially technology!) circles and could potentially have prolonged the economic downturn as companies may have begun to cut back on R&D, seeing that their new IP would have been essentially worth much less than they'd hoped.
Don't get me wrong--I don't applaud the decision, since I think patents are wildly abused by corporations and the USPTO needs a good slap upside the head, but I can see why the Supremes made the decision they did, and ultimately, it's probably for the short-term best.
OK, maybe not directly, but when a highly conservative Court rules that outright blockades of abortion and reproductive rights clinics are protected free speech, I'd consider them pretty closely intertwined.
I can't believe that a so-called "strict constructionist" court would allow such a blatant trampling of our rights to free speech.
The strict constructionists on the Supreme Court only interpret those amendements strictly when the subject matter agrees with their hard Christian right views. So, you can't legislate gun control, because the strict constructionists view the Second Amendement as unwavering. But wait! The First Amendment can be interpreted differently when sex, reproductive rights, or any of the thorns in the Christian Rights' sides is involved.
I hope to hell the Senate stays in Democratic hands this November so Bush will have some opposition for his eventual nominees to deal with...
I really think you're on to something, and it's actively promoted by right-wing Christian Rightists here in the US.
The Bible is one of the bloodiest books ever written (the body count is staggering--someone calculated it once, and the number of deaths tops hundreds of thousands), yet the Religious Right wants every US child to study it in school, if you can believe it.
Meanwhile, it's horribly bad for two unmarried adults to do more than hug, because that's against God's law. (I guess there were no mentions of sex in the Bible, eh?)
If the Religious Right gets its way, the entire young male population of the US would be chaste, celibate Soldiers of God, fighting against evil things like Muslims, or anything that is purported to be anti-Christian--you know, things like Islam, rock music and free speech.
I've always admired Canada's stance on those issues that the United States seems to get its panties all knotted up about. The House of Commons is actively looking into decriminalizing marijuana, television standards are much looser and allow for more innovative and interesting programs to be shown, and there is much less of the Christian religious right bullcrap that goes on here. The Christian right thinks violence is great ('It's in the Bible, the greatest book of our time that everyone should read') but do not want a hint of flesh to be seen anywhere lest people be tempted to have sex (which, I guess, must not be mentioned anywhere in the Bible?)
This country just seems so backwards, yet so many consider it the best nation in the world. I'm a Canadian citizen living in the US with my wife, BTW, and I miss the sanity of the old homeland...
The difference is, Kids is an obvious parody and exaggeration of inner-city youth. There was no way watching it that you would get the sense that any of it was real. It was more a comedy than a documentary, and many of the viewers got the wrong impression and due to this misinterpretation, the movie received something of a bad reputation that it really didn't deserve. There were no graphic scenes of rape or violence that were shoved in viewers' faces. Anybody who takes the Kids with anything but a grain of comedic salt is simply taking the movie far too seriously. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, as did Roger Ebert when he reviewed it nearly seven years ago, and thought it was quite amusing in a 'cinema grotesque' way. There is simply no comparison between it and Platoon and Saving Private Ryan, which bombarded the viewers with horrible, brutal acts of violence.
...that while a movie that shows graphic violence, including decapitations, disembowellings and other acts of torture and sickness that turn viewers' stomachs can still a 'PG-13' or 'R' rating in the US, while just about any sort of hint of sexual acts, both heterosexual and homosexual, will merit at the very least an 'R' or an 'X' rating?
American censors and the film ratings boards seem to believe that it's OK for people to see violence because it won't affect them at all. Hey, the country was founded in a pit of blood during the Revolutionary War. But it's a hell of a lot better to have that on screen than it is to see two people who love each other show it intimately. Better that we have teenagers running into their school brandishing easily-purchased assault rifles than it is to have them falling in love with someone and spending time with them.
I'm just curious when the culture of violence and hate that the United States pushes on its citizens will finally become tiresome or offensive to them. Look at crime rates in Europe, where guns are near impossible to get hold of and where there are no restrictive anti-sex laws on television. Is it any wonder that their crime rates per capita are significantly lower than the US?
Let's keep producing more violent movies and glorifying war, like Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and all the Rambo movies do. That'll make everyone safer...
Now you can see why GWB and his ilk are lobbying to make human cloning illegal. If it were to be legal, Rep. Boucher would be the first one I'd want cloned... about 435 times (one per seat in the U.S. House Of Representatives).
Seriously, this guy has more of a clue than half my coworkers. And I'm a software engineer.
I understand the main characters have been renamed to 'Kernel the Frog' and 'Miss SWIGgy'. ;-)
Ugh, such poor puns. But it's Linux, so it's OK.
I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes - Gwen Mezzrow
At this point, I would call the local friendly legal professional. I bet he or she would be very happy to pursue a wrongful detention civil suit against Best Buy and its manager. Lawyers love this sort of case, especially when it's a little guy clearly in the right versus a big retailer. You get the chance to teach BB a lesson, see the manager get his ass fired, and you could get a nice little chunk of change for your trouble.
And let us know how it goes. BB deserves the smackdown for this one.
'I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes.' - Gwen Mezzrow
Once again, Michael posts bullshit that is totally wrong.
Tell it, brother. Of course, Michael was only following the Slashdot mission statement: 'Post bullshit that is usually totally wrong, and make sure it is done in the most misspelled and grammatically incorrect fashion possible'.
'I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes.' - Gwen Mezzrow