>> [Sen. Hilary Clinton] >>
"Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them..."
> >
Wow. Sounds like those children have some really crappy parents.
Huh? Monica's alive and well, so I'd say Chelsea had a fine upbringing.
It's Gary Condit's kids I'd be worried about. *rimshot*
"One of the most important changes was the early stages, when the Internet started, when ICANN started in 1998. The purpose was to exclude governments (but that didn't work). [... ] If there are any Internet governance structure changes in the future, I think government rules will be more important and more respected."
- United Nations' ITU Director, Houlin Zhao, (source: The Real World)
...for values of "work" approaching "fulfil every member state's government's dreams of achieving absolute mastery over its subjects", mind you. But other than that small detail, pretty good. The goal is to to strike a workable balance between control and freedom. I humbly submit:
It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people.
> "They're tiny, they're toony,
they're all a little loony"
And Sunday afternoony,
We're invading UPN!
Rick Berman's adventures,
Complying with the censors,
With schedule misadventures,
It's Starfleet Academy!
So here's UPN, where crappy bling bling makes for art,
Black sitcoms and reality shows - it's like FOX, but dark!
We're spitting invective, the phasers are defective,
The franchise isn't dead, Jim, but it's lost. it's. heart.
> [Suicide by means of a self-provided bullet to the head s]eems to be a popular method of exit at Canopy. Wonder if the insurance for Cahopy employees covers suicide.
Only if factory loads are used.
If you load your own powder and bullet into the brass before killing yourself, you're infringing on the intellectual property rights of ammunition manufacturers.
Don't even get me started on who gets sued if it takes two bullets.
> Have you ever tried loading a gun w/o using your thumbs?
Yes, because I don't have thumbs. It didn't work out too well, but why would I want to load your gun, be it a semiautomatic or revolver? (Rifles wouldn't fit). Firearms don't work too well underwater anyways, unlike this membrane keyboard I found in your spare parts drawer. A glue gun, can be loaded quite easily without thumbs, and makes an excellent waterproofing tool.
- Your octopus.
> What laws are there to stop people from creating robots that have REAL damage potential, and then fighting them? Why can't we have an "anything goes" competition. Thats what people really want to see. They want to see robots with guns, explosives, acid, rockets, etc. Why don't we have that yet? I guarantee it'd get a helluva lot better ratings than Battle Bots. And if safety is an issue, host it remotely in an arena with no spectators and let everybody view through monitors.
Unfortunately, there are plenty such laws. Sometimes the planets come together, and the fire department cooperates with the landowner, the permits get signed, and the audience gets to show up and sign waivers before being admitted.
There was almost a show in Vegas a couple of years ago, but it fell apart at the last minute. (Pity - Vegas is the perfect venue for it; easy air travel in, lots of nearby desert). There may be a show in San Francisco next month.
SRL can best be summarized by saying that when they did a show in the Balkans a few years ago, the local military showed up... because they thought the war had started up again.
> Seriously, why can't the US government learn to keep their noses out of every aspect in our lives?!
Look at it from the point of view of a US politician (Because, after all, that's who gets to make the decision as to whether or not to continue doing so.)
From that perspective, the moment it ceases to do so, it also ceases to be the US government.
> and the real question everyone wants answered is...
> >does it taste like chicken?
Considering that birds are the distant descendants of dinosaurs, and considering that the article someone else referred to describes traces of proteins from 70M-year-old eggs as bearing "strong similarities to proteins from chicken eggs.", I'd bet good money that the answer is probably "yes".
The dino in the NewScientist article was a herbivore, and T. Rex was either a carnivore or carrion-eater; so maybe it'll taste more like eagle or vulture.
Personally, I've never eaten eagle or vulture. Anyone know wha-yeah, I figured as much. Chicken.
> Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship.
Validated identities are required for anybody in a school in order to protect our children from those who might attempt to infiltrate our schools and victimize them. Content "censorship" is nothing more than ensuring they're not exposed to content that they're not ready for. Hell, I'm an adult who likes b00bies, and I was kinda grossed out by Janet's.
Oh, wait, this is China we're talking about. The totalitarian state. Umm, censorship is bad, mmkay?
> The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.
"miss". So that's how they're spelling "appear" these days. Man, these kids and their SMS/TXT speak.
> I've always thought that writing a book collaboratively is an interesting idea. It's just an extension of the childhood game where you write a word on a piece of paper, fold it over, and pass it along.
However, I always thought about a fictional book.
...said the Slashdotter, as he posted feverishly to the message board upon reading the story about Lessig's Wiki.
Yes, Lessig. The Lessig would come and save us all. Lessig, the Kwisatch Haderach of Copyright Law. Lessig, who'd written a cool book or two. Lessig, who had a Ph.D. without becoming a total asshat. Lessig, who'd totally gotten his ass handed to him by the vested interests that run the Supreme Cou[ahem, let's just edit that out in the next revision of the Wiki, shall we, but leave the stuff about the Kwisatch Haderach in. I like that bit.]
> Indigo is a new communications system intended to let Windows programs more easily connect to other software.
I've got a great idea. Now that all the DCOM holes have been plugged (either at the OS, or at the firewall, or both), let's pick a new port number that'll be open and listening to the world by default, and on which all the OS components will have to rely.
The goal of Indigo is to simplify the process of building distributed applications, where software components communicate across a network using Web services protocols. For example, the Indigo communications system will allow an application written with Microsoft's.Net tools to share information with a Java application without the need for special code to bridge the two systems.
For bonus points, I'll justify this by saying that it makes something that sounds really cool on paper if you're a CTO, but is actually the first line from the functional spec for "A platform for writing remote exploits" to anybody with even a millineuron of cynicism left in their brain.
> > "First one down a flight of 100 steps *intact* wins." >
> So what do the rules of this competition say about winning? Would that be "to move down the steps fastest", or would they allow "to fall down in the shortest possible time, and built strong enough to survive the impact?"
> I wonder what sort of culture shock we will have when our home telephones are rendered useless because they ring non-stop?
It's already starting.
Ignoring people who have abandoned land-line phones for wireless, most of my friends are in the "phone by appointment only" mode.
If you want to talk to me on a land line, email (or IM) me first and tell me when you'll call. Otherwise, the damn thing stays unplugged, and/or with the ringer off. If I ain't expecting someone's call, it ain't getting answered.
> This follows from the fact that what the media originally aired as abuses were merely allegations of abuse at the time. Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?"
The fact that we're able to ask questions and write articles about the PATRIOT Act indicates that the PATRIOT Act is not being abused. If the PATROIT Act really were being abused, we wouldn't know about it -- because the victims (and anyone foolish enough to write about them) would be disappeared.
Likewise, you'll know that PATRIOT is being abused - if and only if you stop finding evidence that it's being abused, because all the evidence will be private. Except for this evidence, which (because it's public) is evidence that it's not being abused.
The logic sounds complicated, but it's really quite simple:
"What right did they have?" said Capt. Yossarian
"Catch-22." said the old woman.
"What?" Yossarian froze in his tracks with fear and alarm and felt his
whole body begin to tingle. "What did you say?"
"Catch-22," the old woman repeated, rocking her head up and down.
"Catch-22. Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't
stop them from doing."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Capt. Yossarian shouted at
her in bewildered, furious protest.
"Didn't they show it to you?" Yossarian demanded, stamping about in
anger and distress. "Didn't you even make them read it?"
They don't have to show us Catch-22," the old woman answered. "The law
says they don't have to."
> Dear Apple,
>I heard it on Slashdot.org
>There was this guy, I think he was call Anthony Coward or something, and he was telling me all about the fab new stuff....
Oh, no you don't. No fuckin' way. Not again. One fuckin' joint and I'm unemployed, but you go on national TV and become a celebrity. Don't you dare sell me out, Ellen, or it's over like Carly and Capellas!
Yeah. Every freakin' day. Wake up. Kick groupie chicks out of bed. Go to Slashdot. Post something. Sign autographs. Click Reload. Select tonight's groupie chicks from my inbound mail. Recompile kernel. Refuse offer of cocaine snort from nearby pair of rackmounted systems. Touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, reboot. No, I don't have time for your sister. Reload, and post again.
Man, I tell ya, it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll.
> It could come as an option out of the box. Recording conversations in which you're involved is NOT illegal (as far as i know) - and it could actually be very useful in certain situations.
That depends on what state (of the US) you're in.
In some states, both parties have to consent to the call's being recorded, and/or an audible "beep" has to play at specified intervals as a reminder that the call is being recorded.
You could actually do this in firmware; cell phones have locator technologies, and are theoretically capable (over the data stream as a back channel) of exchanging information regarding in which state each party to a call is physically present.
From that, it's a small set of if/then logic to work out whether the "beep" comes on automatically, and/or whether consent is required ("Press 'GO' to consent to monitoring") of more than one party to the call.
There lots of legitimate (banking/finance) commercial applications where users (both clients and brokers, for instance) might want their calls recorded.
Of course, real men don't need recording devices to back up their phone conversations. They just casually mention materials that have high neutron cross sections, mention the curve of binding energy a few times, and NSA records their calls for them.
> to start with good people,
to make something customers actually want,
and to spend as little money as possible.
I suppose that's one way to fill in the "???" that comes between "Obtain venture capital" and "Profit".
All that stuff sounds like way more work than making your money the old-fashioned way, namely the Big Three of "ensure continuous availability of blowjobs to investment analysts responsible for pumping of stock after the IPO", "sell everything the day the IPO lockup expires", and "avoid going into debtor's prison for underpayment of AMT".
I'll never understand this newfangled paradigm-shifting business models, but I'll give the article author this much: his newfangled method may be a lot more work than the traditional dot-com model, but it also sounds like a lot more fun.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you trying to imply? That after yet another crippling bombshell hit the COMDEX community, it's official? That COMDEX is dead?
Who died and made you Netcraft?
(Oh, wait. That'd be COMDEX. Move along...)
It said "Blockbuster will be refunding customers as part of the deal". It didn't say when... :-)
And speaking on behalf of the Senator from Massachusetts, what's wrong with leavin' the bimbo in the car after you go off the bridge?
>> [Sen. Hilary Clinton]
>> "Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them..."
>
> Wow. Sounds like those children have some really crappy parents.
Huh? Monica's alive and well, so I'd say Chelsea had a fine upbringing.
It's Gary Condit's kids I'd be worried about. *rimshot*
Meanwhile...
Ah, much better. See how well compromise works?
they're all a little loony" And Sunday afternoony,
We're invading UPN!
Rick Berman's adventures,
Complying with the censors,
With schedule misadventures,
It's Starfleet Academy!
So here's UPN, where crappy bling bling makes for art,
Black sitcoms and reality shows - it's like FOX, but dark!
We're spitting invective, the phasers are defective,
The franchise isn't dead, Jim, but it's lost. it's. heart.
(Kirk's toupee's from Wal-mart.)
Only if factory loads are used.
If you load your own powder and bullet into the brass before killing yourself, you're infringing on the intellectual property rights of ammunition manufacturers.
Don't even get me started on who gets sued if it takes two bullets.
Yes, because I don't have thumbs. It didn't work out too well, but why would I want to load your gun, be it a semiautomatic or revolver? (Rifles wouldn't fit). Firearms don't work too well underwater anyways, unlike this membrane keyboard I found in your spare parts drawer. A glue gun, can be loaded quite easily without thumbs, and makes an excellent waterproofing tool.
- Your octopus.
Unfortunately, there are plenty such laws. Sometimes the planets come together, and the fire department cooperates with the landowner, the permits get signed, and the audience gets to show up and sign waivers before being admitted.
Three words for ya:
Survival Research Laboratories.
There was almost a show in Vegas a couple of years ago, but it fell apart at the last minute. (Pity - Vegas is the perfect venue for it; easy air travel in, lots of nearby desert). There may be a show in San Francisco next month.
SRL can best be summarized by saying that when they did a show in the Balkans a few years ago, the local military showed up... because they thought the war had started up again.
Look at it from the point of view of a US politician (Because, after all, that's who gets to make the decision as to whether or not to continue doing so.)
From that perspective, the moment it ceases to do so, it also ceases to be the US government.
>
>does it taste like chicken?
Considering that birds are the distant descendants of dinosaurs, and considering that the article someone else referred to describes traces of proteins from 70M-year-old eggs as bearing "strong similarities to proteins from chicken eggs.", I'd bet good money that the answer is probably "yes".
The dino in the NewScientist article was a herbivore, and T. Rex was either a carnivore or carrion-eater; so maybe it'll taste more like eagle or vulture.
Personally, I've never eaten eagle or vulture. Anyone know wha-yeah, I figured as much. Chicken.
Validated identities are required for anybody in a school in order to protect our children from those who might attempt to infiltrate our schools and victimize them. Content "censorship" is nothing more than ensuring they're not exposed to content that they're not ready for. Hell, I'm an adult who likes b00bies, and I was kinda grossed out by Janet's.
Oh, wait, this is China we're talking about. The totalitarian state. Umm, censorship is bad, mmkay?
> The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.
"miss". So that's how they're spelling "appear" these days. Man, these kids and their SMS/TXT speak.
Yes, Lessig. The Lessig would come and save us all. Lessig, the Kwisatch Haderach of Copyright Law. Lessig, who'd written a cool book or two. Lessig, who had a Ph.D. without becoming a total asshat. Lessig, who'd totally gotten his ass handed to him by the vested interests that run the Supreme Cou[ahem, let's just edit that out in the next revision of the Wiki, shall we, but leave the stuff about the Kwisatch Haderach in. I like that bit.]
Close.
This is Joss Whedon we're talking about.
"Natalie Portman as lesbian supporting character!"
Now it's perfect.
I've got a great idea. Now that all the DCOM holes have been plugged (either at the OS, or at the firewall, or both), let's pick a new port number that'll be open and listening to the world by default, and on which all the OS components will have to rely.
For bonus points, I'll justify this by saying that it makes something that sounds really cool on paper if you're a CTO, but is actually the first line from the functional spec for "A platform for writing remote exploits" to anybody with even a millineuron of cynicism left in their brain.
>
> So what do the rules of this competition say about winning? Would that be "to move down the steps fastest", or would they allow "to fall down in the shortest possible time, and built strong enough to survive the impact?"
One hundred stairs de-scended!
We are the su-perior being!
We have e-merged victorious!
EX-TERM-I-aaw, FUCK..
(Not my photoshop. Original at bottom of http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=1419. And as my desktop wallpaper.)
You've got windows in your office. I've got Office on my Windows.
But wouldn't you prefer to have Enlightenment? With a light tube, we'd no longer have to live like gnomWHAMWHAMWHAM, OK, I'll stop now.
> 150k member max, and still beating them away with a stick! At least you're not beating them off with a stick.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just don't need a .torrent of it.
It's already starting.
Ignoring people who have abandoned land-line phones for wireless, most of my friends are in the "phone by appointment only" mode.
If you want to talk to me on a land line, email (or IM) me first and tell me when you'll call. Otherwise, the damn thing stays unplugged, and/or with the ringer off. If I ain't expecting someone's call, it ain't getting answered.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
> This follows from the fact that what the media originally aired as abuses were merely allegations of abuse at the time. Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?"
The fact that we're able to ask questions and write articles about the PATRIOT Act indicates that the PATRIOT Act is not being abused. If the PATROIT Act really were being abused, we wouldn't know about it -- because the victims (and anyone foolish enough to write about them) would be disappeared.
Likewise, you'll know that PATRIOT is being abused - if and only if you stop finding evidence that it's being abused, because all the evidence will be private. Except for this evidence, which (because it's public) is evidence that it's not being abused.
The logic sounds complicated, but it's really quite simple:
>I heard it on Slashdot.org
>There was this guy, I think he was call Anthony Coward or something, and he was telling me all about the fab new stuff.
Oh, no you don't. No fuckin' way. Not again. One fuckin' joint and I'm unemployed, but you go on national TV and become a celebrity. Don't you dare sell me out, Ellen, or it's over like Carly and Capellas!
- The Dell Dude.
(And it wasn't even really fab new stuff.)
Yeah. Every freakin' day. Wake up. Kick groupie chicks out of bed. Go to Slashdot. Post something. Sign autographs. Click Reload. Select tonight's groupie chicks from my inbound mail. Recompile kernel. Refuse offer of cocaine snort from nearby pair of rackmounted systems. Touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, reboot. No, I don't have time for your sister. Reload, and post again.
Man, I tell ya, it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll.
Hey, wait a minute. This script... umm... We, uh, we stand by the story, even if the script itself may have been forged.
Courage.
That depends on what state (of the US) you're in.
In some states, both parties have to consent to the call's being recorded, and/or an audible "beep" has to play at specified intervals as a reminder that the call is being recorded.
You could actually do this in firmware; cell phones have locator technologies, and are theoretically capable (over the data stream as a back channel) of exchanging information regarding in which state each party to a call is physically present.
From that, it's a small set of if/then logic to work out whether the "beep" comes on automatically, and/or whether consent is required ("Press 'GO' to consent to monitoring") of more than one party to the call.
There lots of legitimate (banking/finance) commercial applications where users (both clients and brokers, for instance) might want their calls recorded.
Of course, real men don't need recording devices to back up their phone conversations. They just casually mention materials that have high neutron cross sections, mention the curve of binding energy a few times, and NSA records their calls for them.
I suppose that's one way to fill in the "???" that comes between "Obtain venture capital" and "Profit".
All that stuff sounds like way more work than making your money the old-fashioned way, namely the Big Three of "ensure continuous availability of blowjobs to investment analysts responsible for pumping of stock after the IPO", "sell everything the day the IPO lockup expires", and "avoid going into debtor's prison for underpayment of AMT".
I'll never understand this newfangled paradigm-shifting business models, but I'll give the article author this much: his newfangled method may be a lot more work than the traditional dot-com model, but it also sounds like a lot more fun.