Just a thought... If they dominate the market... Most software is Microsoft... Microsoft software is buggy and insecure.... Most software is buggy and insecure! They're right on par for the course!
Very true. We hear almost nothing about the casulties suffered by the Northern Alliance forces(I could rant about media bias and why we ignore their losses, focussing on those of the Taleban but I won't).
The American troops did fight, however, they largely snuck about caves and let the Northern Alliance fight the ground war. Most American forces arrived after the Northern Alliance, with the help of bombing, had fought a successful ground campaign(in the traditional sense) against the Taleban and had captured several major cities. This involved real troops and physical battles, with real live people shooting at each others.
Of course, the Americans kept their involvement to a drone perspective, and to searching caves, so as to minimize American dead. Hence: the false idea that it was a drone war. When all is said: you don't own a piece of land unless you can hire a 17 year old kid to stand over it with a gun and keep everybody else away.
There have always been nerds: computers didn't create them(they were around to invent the slide rule, and around to play with it to boot), athough nerds took to computers like ducks to water. College is futhermore a prime breeding ground for nerds and nerd culture in general. This comment isn't arrogant: it never says that non-nerds don't like LOTR or that they don't have a right to enjoy it as much as nerds do. What it does say is that LOTR fever is contagious among nerd and non-nerd communities alike.
The moviegoing public has a limited patience for 4 hour films.... But never Tolkien fans. I'd gladly vote in favour of 6 films, one for each book, instead of the 3 novel films, if it meant that they included everything that was in the book, and stayed absolutely true to it. And people with no previous knowledge of the book are going to find a 3 hour long film extremely confusing, long and drawn out, anyway, simply because they don't have the backgroung to enjoy and appreciate it. I thought the film sped past(it seemed like 1.5 hours instead of 3), but only because I had read the book...
You're exactly right. But for me it's not so much the absence of Glorfindel as the glory stolen from his horse.;)
My big beef is that they rearranged the basic scene at the ford, when they had real dynamite stuff to work with in the first place... They could have produced some awesome stuff if they had let Arwen walk with Aragorn as Glorfindel ended up doing. They completely leave out the schtick about how fast and wonderful the amazing elf-horse is, and give all it's rightful glory to Arwen's riding skills. This is bad enough to a nitpicker like myself(hey, the horse deserves his due, alright!) but my real gripe is that Frodo never got to face them down. I mean, that was real riveting stuff, and they didn't take advantage of it, to their loss, and unforunately, yours and mine.
I'm afraid not... There's a horrible feeling in my gut right now(always trust the gut) that Jackson has plans for Arwen. If I know anything at all about Hollywood, all the evidence points towards one conclusion for me. Jackson is painting Arwen and Aragorn to be the love interest/romance of the film(Hollywood law dictates any film must have a love interest). Although this did exist in the book, it was far too background for a screenplay, and I suspect Jackson is going to play this up and develop their relationship in a large way... My worst fear is that Arwen is going to replace Eowyn(spelling?) in the Two Towers. Eowyn had a crush on Aragorn anyway, and from a directing point of view, this would get Arwen to Gondor, where she play an active role, be onscreen with Aragorn a good deal(remember the scene where Eowyn begs Aragorn not to take the Paths of the Dead? That could be real romantic dynamite:just replace Eowyn with Arwen...) and this would allow for some major romance. It's a logical step to be taken from a directing point of view. It's also my worst nightmare...(What will Faramir do now?? Will he be forced to remain single??) I hope it's not true, but I'm seriously afraid that Arwen's role will only ever get bigger at the expense of the plot.
Just a little wishful thinking, eh Rob? Still trying to get "Duckpins" and "Hampster Havoc" out to the public? Sorry, you'll have to do better than this....
It's the first rule of predatory hunting: go for the very old, the sick, and the weak....On an interesting note, has anyone sued Slashdot over the Slashdot effect yet? It does, after all, resemble hacker attacks which cause large numbers of machines to attempt access a certain site, crashing it. Or did script kiddies get that idea from the/. effect??
Well, you can't really give socialism all the credit: One could argue that under pure capitalism, we would already have a moon shuttle service underway, several lunar hotels, AND a colony on Mars. It could be said that if the government had not forcibly dominated the space sector, and had left the development of space technology completely to the private sector, the promise of $20 million paying customers would have induced entrepreneurs to invest there. Big profits and growth would have made it a flourishing branch of the economy.
No matter how successful and unsung socialism may be in this day and age, there will always be an excuse to be capitalist.
REAL crimes? Like a violation of the law, perhaps? It's their job to deal with sofware piracy just as much as any other crime, and as much as the taxpayer may complain, there's absolutely no basis to judge them.
The local police are said to be "watching the school with interest"."
Certainly they will be, but if they do so because they fear that from this school illegal activity will result, they are doing it for exactly the wrong reasons.
The simple fact is, cutting edge security training is valuable, whether or not it is taken from a hacker's perspective or that of someone who wants to keep hackers out. A System Administrator could glean a lot of good information by attending Hacker's school: "Know thine enemy" applies here in a very big way. If you learn how to find a security breach in order to hack into a system, you can find the same breach and fix it: if you know how to hack, and understand the techniques involved, it becomes a lot easier to defend against those techniques.
Sorry to display my ignorance this publically, but I can't help wondering...
Given that the most common use I've associated with Linux has been use on a server of some variety, due to its stability and security, I can't help wondering what makes it a good OS for a PDA. Linux hasn't made a big impact on home computers, largely due to the fact that it isn't as user friendly as might be. Isn't the idea of an OS for a PDA that it be very easy to use and very convenient for the uneducated user?
Or does Linux fit in better with PDA's than I'd naturally assume?
It's really hard to underestimate the potential that these CGI stars have... Consider:
Salaries. Now, in order to load a film full of stars and make it a high profile deal, one no longer has to fork out obscene amounts of cash to attract big names to take a role in the film.
Versatility. Whereas there are some people we wish we could change, we can't. Pixels on a screen, however, are amazingly easy to change: Directors will be able to create the exact effect they wish, as long as they have the correct software and capable technicians at their disposal. "One Role" actors are definately going to take a hit: when faced with characters who can act whatever their director wishes, they will invariably get the short end of the deal.
While I am definately going to get a lot of people disagreeing with my optimism(?) I think that these actors, in the hands of a good director and staff, will become a cheap and amazingly powerful tool which will produce far better films. However, we'll still see human actors for a very long time, because there's no mistaking that human effect....
Little known fact: Not only was Albert Einstein the most outstanding scientist of the 20th century, he was also the world champion comet listener.... No wonder he could unlock the secrets of the universe! Man, I wish I had his hair!
I'm afraid you might be right if you didn't have your priorities all mixed up. As it has been for some time, any hi-tech solution is better than any low tech one, and in this case hot lunches, pencils, books, and boilers are just icing on the fundamental cake of life: computers. The effort that it takes to convince people that computers, internet access, etc. etc. are the most important thing their children will ever have to have to be successful is obsecenely minimal. And when it comes to distributing copies of software into school systems where children will grow up using them, well, LET THE PR WARS BEGIN!!!
Don't mind me: I just find it easier to be sarcastic...
It seems to me that not too long ago Slashdot ran an article about GM's Onstar system incorporating advertising into their service. Although this is pure speculation, how long will it be before we see satellite services marketed similar to television, with a reasonable choice of providers and a wide variety of services available (phone, television, GPS, internet) and relying as heavily on advertising as some of the above? My bet is this is where we're going. Any takers?
I'm sure you can ask for the code to be open sourced from now until doomsday with no result. It's like asking God to let you know how to create life. I mean, these people are God, right?
Right?
Seriously, with the amounts of money to be made in tomorrow's genetics industry at stake, corporations are going to protect the research they fund and will do their own debugging, thank you very much.
I hate to be objective when it comes to Microsoft, but I'm afraid that they do not have good or evil motives. They simply want to turn a profit and they will attempt to alter circumstances in whatever ways allow them to produce the maximum profit. On the short term their actions may sometimes seem contradictory to this purpose, however it is their long term goal.
In this case I see their attempted settlement as something that is good for PR(what is less loveable than donating computers to be used by kids in schools?), that is less expensive than some other alternatives, and which will cause the least damage to their reputation and ability to turn a profit in the future. If they thought that forking over $9 billion was the only way they could continue to make a profit they would do that. However, they will exhaust all alternatives before resorting to that and hope to find one which is preferable(like donating to schools). It's a simple, logical fact.
It's definately very true that if there were no stupid people these things would not be an issue of controversy. However, society has struggled for a very long time to resolve the question, "Should stupid people be protected from themselves?" There will always be those who( whether they're just technologically inept or for whatever reason) will not act sensibly and not realize they are being foolish. Do they deserve protection as well, even though they don't know how to protect themselves? That's a question which is not quite as easy to answer....
Here we go again, trying to find a way of living with our bad habits by reducing the harm they do to us rather than changing our habits. We see it all the time through weight loss pills, exercise in a bottle, etc. The result in this case is a complex bedroom wallpaper designed to smooth out the wrinkles of sleep difficulties. It ends up costing a lot and doing a questionable amount. My advice if you want to sleep better: skip the wallpaper, go to bed earlier, and DON'T eat the pizza and the ice cream! If we looked at eliminating sources of stress and other causes of poor sleeping habits we could better use our money and our effort: this idea could be the basis for a wicked entertainment system. Perhaps if we used a little less technology and a little more practicality we'd get a lot more accomplished in all areas.
Relax. As as soon as someone manages to design a virus to exploit the hole, McAfee is definately going to find out that shoddy software doesn't pay.(At least McAfee users will.) I guess right now it just leaves most of us wondering, "Why produce virus software designed to let viruses in?" (Which if you're McAfee or the FBI must make perfect sense in a perverted sort of way.)
Even if the tigers do return, what are we going to do with them? Re-introduce them to the wild and then hunt them again? Slowly develop their habitat until they become extinct for the second time? Or simply place them in zoos as an example of the great return of a noble species? I'm sure everyone is duely impressed with the "Jurassic Park" nature of this venture, but when the options are considered, we are left with the inevitable result.
It will be a vain attempt at restoring something we destroyed, in a futile struggle to erase our poor decisions. We will feel good and proud because we have cleared our bad name with mother nature. Tazmania will never again become a suitable place for tigers to live: We want to live there, and it's a proven fact that there isn't room for the both of us! And we will achieve nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling for those willing to believe that something useful has been accomplished.
I'm afraid you're forgetting that the expediture of obscene amounts of wealth is the most crucial criterion of most successful national programs. The same thing can be said of the US and of the USSR, when during the cold war, they pumped bilions of dollars into the space race, and the weapons race, when dollars were severely lacking elsewhere in the nation. They got away with it because there was a cold war on, but it was a huge expenditure just the same. Just because NASA has already sent a man to the moon, you can't deny China the right to waste large amounts of their own monies doing so. It's their perogative, and really, they're not doing anything different than have the US or Russia.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a thought... If they dominate the market... Most software is Microsoft... Microsoft software is buggy and insecure.... Most software is buggy and insecure! They're right on par for the course!
The American troops did fight, however, they largely snuck about caves and let the Northern Alliance fight the ground war. Most American forces arrived after the Northern Alliance, with the help of bombing, had fought a successful ground campaign(in the traditional sense) against the Taleban and had captured several major cities. This involved real troops and physical battles, with real live people shooting at each others.
Of course, the Americans kept their involvement to a drone perspective, and to searching caves, so as to minimize American dead. Hence: the false idea that it was a drone war. When all is said: you don't own a piece of land unless you can hire a 17 year old kid to stand over it with a gun and keep everybody else away.
There have always been nerds: computers didn't create them(they were around to invent the slide rule, and around to play with it to boot), athough nerds took to computers like ducks to water. College is futhermore a prime breeding ground for nerds and nerd culture in general. This comment isn't arrogant: it never says that non-nerds don't like LOTR or that they don't have a right to enjoy it as much as nerds do. What it does say is that LOTR fever is contagious among nerd and non-nerd communities alike.
The moviegoing public has a limited patience for 4 hour films.... But never Tolkien fans. I'd gladly vote in favour of 6 films, one for each book, instead of the 3 novel films, if it meant that they included everything that was in the book, and stayed absolutely true to it. And people with no previous knowledge of the book are going to find a 3 hour long film extremely confusing, long and drawn out, anyway, simply because they don't have the backgroung to enjoy and appreciate it. I thought the film sped past(it seemed like 1.5 hours instead of 3), but only because I had read the book...
My big beef is that they rearranged the basic scene at the ford, when they had real dynamite stuff to work with in the first place... They could have produced some awesome stuff if they had let Arwen walk with Aragorn as Glorfindel ended up doing. They completely leave out the schtick about how fast and wonderful the amazing elf-horse is, and give all it's rightful glory to Arwen's riding skills. This is bad enough to a nitpicker like myself(hey, the horse deserves his due, alright!) but my real gripe is that Frodo never got to face them down. I mean, that was real riveting stuff, and they didn't take advantage of it, to their loss, and unforunately, yours and mine.
I'm afraid not... There's a horrible feeling in my gut right now(always trust the gut) that Jackson has plans for Arwen. If I know anything at all about Hollywood, all the evidence points towards one conclusion for me. Jackson is painting Arwen and Aragorn to be the love interest/romance of the film(Hollywood law dictates any film must have a love interest). Although this did exist in the book, it was far too background for a screenplay, and I suspect Jackson is going to play this up and develop their relationship in a large way... My worst fear is that Arwen is going to replace Eowyn(spelling?) in the Two Towers. Eowyn had a crush on Aragorn anyway, and from a directing point of view, this would get Arwen to Gondor, where she play an active role, be onscreen with Aragorn a good deal(remember the scene where Eowyn begs Aragorn not to take the Paths of the Dead? That could be real romantic dynamite:just replace Eowyn with Arwen...) and this would allow for some major romance. It's a logical step to be taken from a directing point of view. It's also my worst nightmare...(What will Faramir do now?? Will he be forced to remain single??) I hope it's not true, but I'm seriously afraid that Arwen's role will only ever get bigger at the expense of the plot.
Just a little wishful thinking, eh Rob? Still trying to get "Duckpins" and "Hampster Havoc" out to the public? Sorry, you'll have to do better than this....
It's the first rule of predatory hunting: go for the very old, the sick, and the weak....On an interesting note, has anyone sued Slashdot over the Slashdot effect yet? It does, after all, resemble hacker attacks which cause large numbers of machines to attempt access a certain site, crashing it. Or did script kiddies get that idea from the /. effect??
No matter how successful and unsung socialism may be in this day and age, there will always be an excuse to be capitalist.
Does anyone else notice that this story has been posted before, many times, with only slight variations each time?
REAL crimes? Like a violation of the law, perhaps? It's their job to deal with sofware piracy just as much as any other crime, and as much as the taxpayer may complain, there's absolutely no basis to judge them.
The simple fact is, cutting edge security training is valuable, whether or not it is taken from a hacker's perspective or that of someone who wants to keep hackers out. A System Administrator could glean a lot of good information by attending Hacker's school: "Know thine enemy" applies here in a very big way. If you learn how to find a security breach in order to hack into a system, you can find the same breach and fix it: if you know how to hack, and understand the techniques involved, it becomes a lot easier to defend against those techniques.
Given that the most common use I've associated with Linux has been use on a server of some variety, due to its stability and security, I can't help wondering what makes it a good OS for a PDA. Linux hasn't made a big impact on home computers, largely due to the fact that it isn't as user friendly as might be. Isn't the idea of an OS for a PDA that it be very easy to use and very convenient for the uneducated user?
Or does Linux fit in better with PDA's than I'd naturally assume?
Salaries. Now, in order to load a film full of stars and make it a high profile deal, one no longer has to fork out obscene amounts of cash to attract big names to take a role in the film.
Versatility. Whereas there are some people we wish we could change, we can't. Pixels on a screen, however, are amazingly easy to change: Directors will be able to create the exact effect they wish, as long as they have the correct software and capable technicians at their disposal. "One Role" actors are definately going to take a hit: when faced with characters who can act whatever their director wishes, they will invariably get the short end of the deal.
While I am definately going to get a lot of people disagreeing with my optimism(?) I think that these actors, in the hands of a good director and staff, will become a cheap and amazingly powerful tool which will produce far better films. However, we'll still see human actors for a very long time, because there's no mistaking that human effect....
Little known fact: Not only was Albert Einstein the most outstanding scientist of the 20th century, he was also the world champion comet listener.... No wonder he could unlock the secrets of the universe! Man, I wish I had his hair!
Don't mind me: I just find it easier to be sarcastic...
It seems to me that not too long ago Slashdot ran an article about GM's Onstar system incorporating advertising into their service. Although this is pure speculation, how long will it be before we see satellite services marketed similar to television, with a reasonable choice of providers and a wide variety of services available (phone, television, GPS, internet) and relying as heavily on advertising as some of the above? My bet is this is where we're going. Any takers?
Right?
Seriously, with the amounts of money to be made in tomorrow's genetics industry at stake, corporations are going to protect the research they fund and will do their own debugging, thank you very much.
In this case I see their attempted settlement as something that is good for PR(what is less loveable than donating computers to be used by kids in schools?), that is less expensive than some other alternatives, and which will cause the least damage to their reputation and ability to turn a profit in the future. If they thought that forking over $9 billion was the only way they could continue to make a profit they would do that. However, they will exhaust all alternatives before resorting to that and hope to find one which is preferable(like donating to schools). It's a simple, logical fact.
It's definately very true that if there were no stupid people these things would not be an issue of controversy. However, society has struggled for a very long time to resolve the question, "Should stupid people be protected from themselves?" There will always be those who( whether they're just technologically inept or for whatever reason) will not act sensibly and not realize they are being foolish. Do they deserve protection as well, even though they don't know how to protect themselves? That's a question which is not quite as easy to answer....
Here we go again, trying to find a way of living with our bad habits by reducing the harm they do to us rather than changing our habits. We see it all the time through weight loss pills, exercise in a bottle, etc. The result in this case is a complex bedroom wallpaper designed to smooth out the wrinkles of sleep difficulties. It ends up costing a lot and doing a questionable amount. My advice if you want to sleep better: skip the wallpaper, go to bed earlier, and DON'T eat the pizza and the ice cream! If we looked at eliminating sources of stress and other causes of poor sleeping habits we could better use our money and our effort: this idea could be the basis for a wicked entertainment system. Perhaps if we used a little less technology and a little more practicality we'd get a lot more accomplished in all areas.
Relax. As as soon as someone manages to design a virus to exploit the hole, McAfee is definately going to find out that shoddy software doesn't pay.(At least McAfee users will.) I guess right now it just leaves most of us wondering, "Why produce virus software designed to let viruses in?" (Which if you're McAfee or the FBI must make perfect sense in a perverted sort of way.)
Does this sound familiar: another virus attacking Microsoft software? Like I've never heard anything of that sort before.....
It will be a vain attempt at restoring something we destroyed, in a futile struggle to erase our poor decisions. We will feel good and proud because we have cleared our bad name with mother nature. Tazmania will never again become a suitable place for tigers to live: We want to live there, and it's a proven fact that there isn't room for the both of us! And we will achieve nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling for those willing to believe that something useful has been accomplished.
I'm afraid you're forgetting that the expediture of obscene amounts of wealth is the most crucial criterion of most successful national programs. The same thing can be said of the US and of the USSR, when during the cold war, they pumped bilions of dollars into the space race, and the weapons race, when dollars were severely lacking elsewhere in the nation. They got away with it because there was a cold war on, but it was a huge expenditure just the same. Just because NASA has already sent a man to the moon, you can't deny China the right to waste large amounts of their own monies doing so. It's their perogative, and really, they're not doing anything different than have the US or Russia.