If they are, all you hackers out there better put down your keyboards, because this is a wakeup call. Practically everything written out there in software-land could be used for nefarious purposes -- whether open source, closed source, or you name it. Remember the Marine training program using Doom?
Wicked in the extreme; abominable; iniquitous; atrociously villainous; execrable; detestably vile.
Can someone explain to me why the Marine's using Doom for training could even be closed to being called "nefarious"? Why are so many of the examples on Slashdot when describing the "evil" ways technology can be used usually include only the U.S. government or the U.S. military? What about terrorists? What about evil dictators? What about cults?
Since when is training the armed forces considered a "nefarious" use of software?
I seriously doubt that every cd will be "winable", more likely, they have a limited run of "winable" cd's, followed by a larger run of cd's with limited winnings (like five or ten dollars), which the majority of scratch-off "winnings" are.
Actually, the original poster was correct in the use of "it's". He said "It's the way..." meaning "It is the way...". He was not using the possessive pronoun "its".
By that, I'm guessing you mean the post I replied to, so the answer is yes, I did.
It seems apparent to me that you did not. Go back and re-read it.
Why is that? I did read it. And I even re-read it. It seemed as if you were forgetting that Apple has more costs than what you were assuming. They can't just set the cost at whatever they want because they have to set it at least as much as it will cost them. The cost of licensing the songs will be more than licensing for most of the stuff on eMusic if they want to carry the "big" names in music. That was my point.
But you know what the stupidest part is? This is just a rumour. It's unconfirmed. Here we are, wasting space posturing like any of this nonsense MEANS anything! Over what? AN UNCORROBORATED RUMOUR! What a bunch of pinheads we are.
eMusic manages to get by on their $10/mo for unlimited downloads. I bet Apple could too.
Not if they want a wide selection of songs. You fail to account for the licensing costs that Apple will have to pay the artist/distributor of the song.
Then he shouldn't call Office a "word processor". Just because some people buy more than what they need doesn't make Office any less useful.
There is a ton of extremely useful functionality through the entire Office suite. Just because people don't or don't know how to use it, doesn't mean it's not there. It's not Micrsoft's fault if people make unwise purchasing decisions. They give people the option to only purchase Word.
Hmm, you may want to switch from wherever you purchase software. The full version is only $300 at Buy.om. And if you have a previous version it is only $69.83 for the upgrade version.
I wonder about these people.Are they creationists instead? Do they believe in Adam and Eve? Do they believe that humans came from them? Or are their opinions scientifically-based?
Some are creationists, not all in the "biblical" sense. Some just have no opinion on the origin of life.
But what does that have to do anything? It is quite a stretch for some that the combination of random genetic mutation and natural selection can produce the life we have today. My original point is that we have yet to observe an actual new, useful trait appearing in an organism, and that the example given by the original poster was not necessarily evolution, but simple natural selection.
And, if you actually read and comprehended the article...
You can be as condescending as you'd like, but it won't make you correct. I was responding to someone who was responding to someone who was saying something different than what the article claimed.
Of course, if you actually comprehended the concept of threaded discussion...:-)
Being smart doesn't make you unpopular in school. I knew plenty of popular smart kids in high school. What makes you unpopular is not wearing the in-clothes, looking akward or having no social skills. It's about being obsessed with computers or Star Trek. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
"Nerds" like to make themselves feel better by telling themselves that they are just smarter than everyone else and that's why they can't get a girl or everyone hates them. You know what? Get over yourself.
Of course it matters. Most people I know who don't believe in biological macroevolution don't disagree with natural selection. What they do disagree with is new, useful traits forming from random genetic mutations. To say we have witnessed a new trait evolving is very misleading using this example. If it already existed genetically, and it is just brought out by a change in environmental conditions, I hardly see that as witnessing evolution in action.
Human populations that previously had produced similar functional tools suddenly began to make artefacts that looked very different according to local style, and to create symbolic objects with no practical function at all. That idiosyncratic creativity is generally accepted as the defining quality of the modern human mind.
A quick example are London moths who changed color on their own as the trees they lived on were affected by the increasing smoke/soot from the increased use of coal to power industry.
I definately could be wrong, but I thought that both the dark and light colored moths existed, but before the industrial revolution, the white moths lived in greater numbers than the dark moths. Over time, as the environment changed to a darker colored one, there was a flip in the balance as the dark colored moths now had an advantage.
If that is the case, that is not a case of observed evolution because no new traits were actually formed. I could be completely wrong about the details surrounding this story though. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I heard another story about this web site that was supposed to be a discussion board featuring intelligent discussions on the subject of science and technology and instead turned into Slashdot.
We used TaxCut last year and this year. Last year it worked flawlessly. This year, it's been missing mistakes in our return. We were entering only partial information, and it never told us to go back to check when we ran a "check" on our return. Very odd.
The study on how males attract females and the "revenge of the nerds" effect reminded me of a journal entry I made a week ago about a show called High School Reunion. It's interested to see how the "nerd" in High School seems to be one of the more attractive guys to the females now.
Of course, some football players go on to be pretty successful too.
So, again, let those electronic publishers keep their "rights"--they have a right not to have their work appropriated by the government. But they have no right to have their market protected. The government should invest the money to scan and publish all case law for free on the Internet, just like we do for patents. Technology has made that really cheap now.
An extremely well-reasoned and thought out post. Thank you. I completely agree with your two main points: 1) This type of information should be made available electronically by the government, regardless of what business is threatened by it and 2) Businesses do not have an absolute right to make money from some failed business model or a business model that becomes obsolete.
However, I disagree about the general entitlement and whine-fest attitude I was speaking of. I don't believe most around here actually are basing their thoughts on what we are speaking about. They simply believe that they are entitled to the products they want, for the price they want to pay for them (or for many products: free). They don't think it's "fair" that some products may be out of their financial means or that some companies charge X amount for a certain product. Yes, the free market system in the U.S. has been quite tained by certain rules and regulations that seem to prop up certain businesses or segments so that competition becomes meaningless. But these same people all for government regulation or for restrictions on campaigning or lobbying activities forget that the problem is not money, but the power the government holds. The only reason that businesses lobby the government is because their power to regulate has increased over the last century. I know I'm getting off track now, but the real solution is not to try to now regulate lobbying and campaign activity, but to make the tax code fair and equitable and to cut back the power of government to regulate business. I don't believe in zero regulation, but I do believe the main job of any government in a free market economy is really only to guard competition.
One could argue that this leaves room for competitors and new competition. True. But I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
So who gets to set the "fair" price? If they are making unGodly profits off of their service, which I doubt (how much work do you think it is to keep up with all current case law AND most every major and even minor publication in the U.S., at least in the case of Lexis/Nexis), then that would just invite competition.
Quite honestly, it doesn't really matter if you "have a problem" with the price or marketing of products. What do you think would happen if the government came in and started mandating how much they could charge?
Slashdot Mirror
According to Dictionary.com the definition for nefarious reads:
Wicked in the extreme; abominable; iniquitous; atrociously villainous; execrable; detestably vile.
Can someone explain to me why the Marine's using Doom for training could even be closed to being called "nefarious"? Why are so many of the examples on Slashdot when describing the "evil" ways technology can be used usually include only the U.S. government or the U.S. military? What about terrorists? What about evil dictators? What about cults?
Since when is training the armed forces considered a "nefarious" use of software?
I salute you sir for reminding me of Dr. Sbaitso.
Oh, you mean like the article says?
Actually, the original poster was correct in the use of "it's". He said "It's the way..." meaning "It is the way...". He was not using the possessive pronoun "its".
By that, I'm guessing you mean the post I replied to, so the answer is yes, I did.
Why is that? I did read it. And I even re-read it. It seemed as if you were forgetting that Apple has more costs than what you were assuming. They can't just set the cost at whatever they want because they have to set it at least as much as it will cost them. The cost of licensing the songs will be more than licensing for most of the stuff on eMusic if they want to carry the "big" names in music. That was my point.
Speak for yourself. ;-)
Not if they want a wide selection of songs. You fail to account for the licensing costs that Apple will have to pay the artist/distributor of the song.
Yeah, as if we want to hear about Taco's Mobo. I think I might skip lunch today.
Or Free as in Iraq. :-)
Free as in death?
Then he shouldn't call Office a "word processor". Just because some people buy more than what they need doesn't make Office any less useful.
There is a ton of extremely useful functionality through the entire Office suite. Just because people don't or don't know how to use it, doesn't mean it's not there. It's not Micrsoft's fault if people make unwise purchasing decisions. They give people the option to only purchase Word.
Hmm, you may want to switch from wherever you purchase software. The full version is only $300 at Buy.om. And if you have a previous version it is only $69.83 for the upgrade version.
I didn't know Word XP can do non-consecutive text selections. I have been wanting that for years. Now I have a reason to upgrade...
Some are creationists, not all in the "biblical" sense. Some just have no opinion on the origin of life.
But what does that have to do anything? It is quite a stretch for some that the combination of random genetic mutation and natural selection can produce the life we have today. My original point is that we have yet to observe an actual new, useful trait appearing in an organism, and that the example given by the original poster was not necessarily evolution, but simple natural selection.
You can be as condescending as you'd like, but it won't make you correct. I was responding to someone who was responding to someone who was saying something different than what the article claimed.
Of course, if you actually comprehended the concept of threaded discussion... :-)
...please MOD this parent up.
Being smart doesn't make you unpopular in school. I knew plenty of popular smart kids in high school. What makes you unpopular is not wearing the in-clothes, looking akward or having no social skills. It's about being obsessed with computers or Star Trek. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
"Nerds" like to make themselves feel better by telling themselves that they are just smarter than everyone else and that's why they can't get a girl or everyone hates them. You know what? Get over yourself.
Not everything is about DRM. Move along.
Of course it matters. Most people I know who don't believe in biological macroevolution don't disagree with natural selection. What they do disagree with is new, useful traits forming from random genetic mutations. To say we have witnessed a new trait evolving is very misleading using this example. If it already existed genetically, and it is just brought out by a change in environmental conditions, I hardly see that as witnessing evolution in action.
You are human because you create crap.
I definately could be wrong, but I thought that both the dark and light colored moths existed, but before the industrial revolution, the white moths lived in greater numbers than the dark moths. Over time, as the environment changed to a darker colored one, there was a flip in the balance as the dark colored moths now had an advantage.
If that is the case, that is not a case of observed evolution because no new traits were actually formed. I could be completely wrong about the details surrounding this story though. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I heard another story about this web site that was supposed to be a discussion board featuring intelligent discussions on the subject of science and technology and instead turned into Slashdot.
Ok, mod me down now.
Eating various mushrooms will either give you the ability to grow tall or shoot fireballs.
We used TaxCut last year and this year. Last year it worked flawlessly. This year, it's been missing mistakes in our return. We were entering only partial information, and it never told us to go back to check when we ran a "check" on our return. Very odd.
The study on how males attract females and the "revenge of the nerds" effect reminded me of a journal entry I made a week ago about a show called High School Reunion. It's interested to see how the "nerd" in High School seems to be one of the more attractive guys to the females now.
Of course, some football players go on to be pretty successful too.
An extremely well-reasoned and thought out post. Thank you. I completely agree with your two main points: 1) This type of information should be made available electronically by the government, regardless of what business is threatened by it and 2) Businesses do not have an absolute right to make money from some failed business model or a business model that becomes obsolete.
However, I disagree about the general entitlement and whine-fest attitude I was speaking of. I don't believe most around here actually are basing their thoughts on what we are speaking about. They simply believe that they are entitled to the products they want, for the price they want to pay for them (or for many products: free). They don't think it's "fair" that some products may be out of their financial means or that some companies charge X amount for a certain product. Yes, the free market system in the U.S. has been quite tained by certain rules and regulations that seem to prop up certain businesses or segments so that competition becomes meaningless. But these same people all for government regulation or for restrictions on campaigning or lobbying activities forget that the problem is not money, but the power the government holds. The only reason that businesses lobby the government is because their power to regulate has increased over the last century. I know I'm getting off track now, but the real solution is not to try to now regulate lobbying and campaign activity, but to make the tax code fair and equitable and to cut back the power of government to regulate business. I don't believe in zero regulation, but I do believe the main job of any government in a free market economy is really only to guard competition.
Wow, way off topic now...
So who gets to set the "fair" price? If they are making unGodly profits off of their service, which I doubt (how much work do you think it is to keep up with all current case law AND most every major and even minor publication in the U.S., at least in the case of Lexis/Nexis), then that would just invite competition.
Quite honestly, it doesn't really matter if you "have a problem" with the price or marketing of products. What do you think would happen if the government came in and started mandating how much they could charge?