A study of 22 users is hardly representative.
on
Why Phishing Works
·
· Score: 1
I mean, honestly, isn't "Harvard" supposed to mean, like, "smart" or something? The kind of people who could manage an actual decent study? (and don't any of you stat geeks start talking about mean e data thoumond a bloo a bloo bloo, because with enough in-depth thought it's quite possible to completely ignore a raging forest fire in favor of DECREASING TRENDS OF TREES or whatever)
Oh, wait, it's university, and since sometime around the second Clinton term, universities have sacrificed whatever ethics, attention to detail, and the delicate je ne suis quois loosely defined as "giving a shit about what they're supposed to be doing" that they ever had, in favor of teaching how to be as disreputable and sleazy as possible.
Why would somebody leave a big city to move to a small town, since small towns tend to have higher crime rates, worse job opportunities, and worse pollution problems?
Higher crime rates... I'm guessing some sample bias there.
Example - in Gotham City, population 1,000,000,000, 100,000,000 people are the victims of violent crime. Violent crime statistic = 10%!!!1!
Meanwhile, in Buttfuck, Oklahoma, population 100, things were pretty quiet except on that one day when a dark stranger came into town and mugged twenty people. Violent crime statistic = 20%.
Anyway, I didn't RAFAs, so have a grain of salt.
Frankly I'm with David Byrne - "I wouldn't live there if you paid me to". At least if my girlfriend gets gang raped in the big city, there's a small chance of justice - instead of a bunch of religious outrage and shunning her from a happy peaceful Christian small town once she's forced to carry a mixed-race rape baby to term.
I just had an epiphany tonight and realized that I probably got these two totally twisted around. I darted back here to check and make sure, and shoor 'nuff, I got taken back to school. Thx.
Since this is pretty deep, I'll wager a shot, rather than risking letting your post disappear unanswered.
Free beer at parties is free for you to drink, but someone, somewhere had to pay money for that beer. Party goers are usually encouraged to bring a few six packs to add to the pool - especially at many college parties, where some drinkers are too young to buy beer*.
So, extending the analogy, this is usually applied to nagware, uncrippled shareware, etc. In the case of Opera, it's "free", but you get advertisements (which many, including me, find irritating enough to spoil the deal) and you won't get "official" tech support (if you're having troubles with software, especially web browsers, you probably need a computer nanny, not tech support).
Free speech, on the other hand, costs nobody anything (except those on the opposite side). If you want to donate to the ACLU, it's splendid, but nobody's going to go door-to-door to check who's donated.
This applies to many Linux distros, programs such as ICQ, and works of the public domain.
I'm reasonably sure this is reasonably accurate, and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.
*-of course, for those of you browsing from the *.gov and *.edu domains, all of these drinkers turn 21 the night of the party, and have the consent of a parent or legal guardian.
I get the feeling that we got along well enough as a species to triumph over the first hundred or so years, until primitive communication formed. Make that the first thousand years, or until the first inorganic society (ie, not just two tribes seperated by a big river) formed.
You, not just the parent, could also use further thought along the lines of your humanities. Talking to yourself again, disinformation robot?
And, um, the first time you played a FPS, your ass was handed to you time and time again as you screamed "Aimbot" in all caps. I know your type.
My point is that both games (EQ and CS) require time spent levelling up. CS doesn't charge you for your time spent learning (though the same argument could be made of the "first month free! each additional month $9.95-19.95"-priced MMORPGs), nor does it charge you later on to enjoy the benefits of all that time invested in building your reactions, etc.
I'm not an EQ player or fan, and frankly I find the trend of MMORPG blech to be yet another milestone in the complete, unfathomable, "is it brainwashed in or not" stupidity of the American public. "LET'S SPEND $100 TO COMBINE OUR CHATTING AND GAME PLAYING SKILLS AND PICK UP ROPES AND PLANKS AND MAGIC XP!!!" when the same effect can be had on stock-trading sites (not bona fide "day trading" mind you, just pissing around, buying and selling, watching your numbers go omg higher - there were a few webpages circa 1998 that had this), for free. Of course, you have to start flaming and/or trolling other players for the full effect.
SLow but steady, Microsoft rises from the ashes...
on
Hackers, Meet Microsoft
·
· Score: 3, Funny
...like a Phoenix. Slowly, people are catching on. I mean, this HAD to raise some eyebrows.
It's one thing to read about this on the internet - people say all sorts of things on the internet and you learn to tune it out ater a while.
But seeing it in front of your own very eyes, watching the hack attack commence in the blink of an eye, the pulse of a heartbeat, the shiver of a twitch, the essence of a raindrop, the flash of an instant, with the click of flint before it ignites the gunpowder in a Civil War era cannon-- etc-- it's shocking.
And so, ten years later, after learning from the hackers, their once-sworn enemies, the Great Microsoft rose to became Operating System: NWO. And that, my children, is the story of how Herr Syrs Bill Gates and Al Gore created and patented the internet.
I remember seeing this last year... those commercials in the DC area for "wokontheweb.com" were some of the most godawful creepy minutes of commercial, er, cinema, ever.
Course, I still remember them one year down the road... so go figure.
Reading through these comments, it seems like people just like the word "iPod". Anything else would be referred to as a "unit" after the second mention per thread.
Yeah! And after that lamer Wozniak designed the chip, God Jobs gave him $2500 and used the profits to buy hair grease! That was so kewl! Then he brainwashed Wozniak or did something - read this and tell me it doesn't sound like brainwashing - the guy who designed the goddamn chip that got the whole thing started saying, "I'd like to always be an Apple employee--just a real small paycheck and a badge. You know what, Steve Jobs is real nice to me."
Some flakey, fishy things be gwine' down at Appleworks.
You, for example, place a higher value on 'tangible' material accomplishments than on social. That's ok (i.e. I'm not making a value judgement), but it doesn't mean that someone who values friends and relationships is less beneficial to society. Heck, even the root of the word 'society' implies interaction with the greater group of others.
I think his strong wording was just a reactionto the way "mass society" views the geeks - ie, "get a girlfriend". The piece on Conan where the hateful dog is insulting the Star Wars nerds sums it up accurately - no less than five times, possibly more, the "comedian" resorts to lambasting the nerds for their lack of girlfriends - taking the safe route vs. the obvious, "you're standing in line for a terrible movie. Guess NBC/CBS/ABC wouldn't want to break George Lucas's heart.
Does creating that OLED contribute more for society? Or does coaching a little league team and making someone else's childhood a little better ultimately benefit society more?
Well, look at things in perspective. There's no shortage of little league coaches. If he doesn't coach little league, someone else will step in to take his place, and likely do an equally okay job. But that OLED isn't going to create itself.
IMO though (just the Buddhist in me), seeing life as a "zero sum game" where you measure the tally in the 'tangibles' column againt the ever shrinking 'seconds left in the lifetime' is a recipe for stress and unfulfillment.
For some of us, that's the only way of rationalizing the process of doing anything at all. No joke.
I'm no economist, I don't know how much of this really makes sense. But it seems to me that by destroying his old Metallica stuff and not selling it, the original poster could be helping to prevent the development of a robust used-Metallica-stuff aftermarket, thus putting downward pressure on Metallica-stuff prices and helping to deflate new Metallica-stuff revenues.
Yeah, because that sure killed off the baseball card collecting industry. And the coin collectiong industry. Not to mention the ancient Greek text collecting industry.
Hypothetical situation A: Metallica releases 1000 copies of its last album before being destroyed in an Act of God.
In the post-apocalyptic world, 1000 people remain. There are enough Metallica albums to satisfy the needs of everyone on Earth, so prices are quite likely in the neighborhood of ten cigarette butts.
Hypothetical situation B: Metaliica releases 1000 copies of its last album before being destroyed in an Act of God. However, smarty anonymous cowards convince the hot tempered to destroy all but 5 copies.
In the post-apocalyptic world, 1000 people remain. There are only 5 Metallica albums to satisfy the needs of those people. Likely, they will trade for many many cigarette butts, more than you could ever smoke so don't bother starting. Metallica's status is legendary.
While this is a bit far fetched and the numbers do require a bit of fudging (this assumes 5% of all people alive on earth are Metallica fans who really really really want lots of Metallica stuff, a standard / equal distribution of survivors, and the loss of all CD burners along the way), it holds up. Baseball card collectors treat Honus Wagner as a special meme, the way the media treats Barry Bonds. Yes, he's a hall of famer - along with more others than I can count. He's no Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, or even Christy "huh?" Matthewson. But because his card in the T-206 set sells for Wayne Gretzky prices, he still has his token honorfame.
I'm no economist either, I just think more than you;)
Comment: "Ha ha ha hope the alchemist wasn't running without SP2!" Reply: "Ha ha ha wonder if this will be GPL'd?" Reply: "Ha ha ha... not to interrupt the joke but I'm sure you meant copylefted... hahaha" [twenty post tangent-thread about the pros and cons of each]
Headline: "Apple invents new, sub $1000 Macintosh" Comment: "Let's see, the PCs have been sub-$1000 since, what, 2002?" Reply: "Dumbass, you mean 2003. And anyway Apple has far more repubility" [ twenty posts of the usual]
Anything else, either the joke is "hahahaha RIAA", "hahahahaha MPAA", "hahahahahaha George Akbar Lucas", or, rarely, "hahahahahaha Cowboy Neal".
And no, I'm not a M$ supporter. Just the first two topics that came into my fatigued brain at this hour.
Headline: "M$ turns iron into gold"
Comment: "Ha ha ha hope the alchemist wasn't running without SP2!"
Reply: "Ha ha ha wonder if this will be GPL'd?"
Reply: "Ha ha ha... not to interrupt the joke but I'm sure you meant copylefted... hahaha"
[twenty post tangent-thread about the pros and cons of each]
Headline: "Apple invents new, sub $1000 Macintosh"
Comment: "Let's see, the PCs have been sub-$1000 since, what, 2002?"
Reply: "Dumbass, you mean 2003. And anyway Apple has far more repubility"
[twenty posts of the usual]
Anything else, either the joke is "hahahaha RIAA", "hahahahaha MPAA", "hahahahahaha George Akbar Lucas", or, rarely, "hahahahahaha Cowboy Neal".
Why don't you belt the bitch across the face next time she gets annoyed? That'll shut her up and teach her to be on her rag all the time. Might fix her obseletion problem as well.
Shut the fuck up! Apple users are NOT morons! We happen to be supporters of the creative, alternative, underground, rebel vibe! Haven't you SEEN an iPod? First off the way how they capitalize the second letter? Not the first? That goes against the Man! It's a call to rebel against our literate so-called "superiors" of the Establishment! Secondly, that dial? It's not just cute, it actually works! It beefs up your videogame skillz when you're driving and trying to listen to Elliot Smith and keep getting the Smiths by mistake! It is your fault if you can't work it! We're supporting new technology! We're with Steve Jobs against Bill Gates and HIS-- I mean, excuse me, his-- army of robot winblowz underling (l)userz!! We'll mod you down! You're redundant! Or worse yet OVERRATED! We Mac users understand how to rip a system!
</sarcasm>
(I can't believe I just used "we" in relation to Apple users. Even if it was within a sarcastic attempt at +1 funny, and thusly spoken in character, I still feel filthy. Is this anything like Ingmar Bergman felt when he was directing those soap commercials?)
It's sheep like you that make life in corporate America such a wasteland.
"SHIT FUCKING JESUS GOD ARMAGEDDON!! Who fucking cares if Joseph Hazlewood scraped some reefs and made all the shoreline in Alaska gooey and black? Those wildlife advocates and the wildlife using the shoreline are pissy advocates and pissy users, respectively! Five billion dollars!? Sounds like overzealous lawyers once again! I've been driving for ten years, yesterday I made a wide left and accidently scraped the curb. Yeah I had a scotch and a brandy and some cognag to wash it down, who fucking CARES? Overzealous curb if you ask me!
Speaking of which, this has nothing to do with the satirical statement I just uttered, but last week I was horrifically scarred when the Firestone tires I had on my Ford Pinto reacted with the liquid hydrogen that some schmucky +1 underrated gas station genius spilled all over my cigarette lighter during my last car wash! How I made it out of that fireball alive beats me. I still believe it was my fault for not yielding right of way along I-80 when the Presidential Motorcade needed to suddenly swerve 90 degrees to the right for Secret Presidential Reason!
I'm damn proud to be a PATRIOT!"
Equipment wears out. But does it HAVE to wear out? Cars need constant refueling. But do they HAVE to? The power I need to run my computer and keep my food cold comes from nonrenewable energy sources - but does it (hyperlink to informative webpage on solar energy) HAVE (/hyperlink) to?
Fact is, these greedy corporations are making money off of schmucks like you, and as long as schmucks like you continue to side with them in their moments of inhuman, fat, bloated walrus-like greed, they'll continue to be greedy and fat walruses. Just because Johnny did all his homework last night doesn't give him the right to set fire to Granny's hair. Just because Ronald Reagan didn't lie about being an actor didn't justify his hostile takeover of the Air Traffic Controller's Union. Just because Osama Bin Laden didn't play any active part in the Holocaust doesn't give him the right to organize the September 11th attacks. And it doesn't mean that when Granny's bald and scarred and the Air Traffic Controllers are denied their right to strike and thousands of people lie dead and mangled that any of these things are okay, or justifiable.
Wishful thinking. You're dealing with a group that thinks nothing of "renewing" their cable-TV operating system every month, of buying a new car every year or so, of purchasing "use-once-and-destroy" goods, of spending around $1,000 to ensure each of their children gets the best out of their "free" education. To say nothing of "low monthly payments" on the Home Shopping Network.
Soon "updating Windows" will come to mean "putting in your credit card info every three months for the latest $29.95 payment". Remember the Derek Smart / Battlecruiser 2.0 debacle? It could happen.
Whether or not it does happen relies mostly on Bill Gates not getting sick and tired of the latest "autism scare" and/or deciding to be the nicest guy a man of his position is afforded.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, honestly, isn't "Harvard" supposed to mean, like, "smart" or something? The kind of people who could manage an actual decent study? (and don't any of you stat geeks start talking about mean e data thoumond a bloo a bloo bloo, because with enough in-depth thought it's quite possible to completely ignore a raging forest fire in favor of DECREASING TRENDS OF TREES or whatever)
Oh, wait, it's university, and since sometime around the second Clinton term, universities have sacrificed whatever ethics, attention to detail, and the delicate je ne suis quois loosely defined as "giving a shit about what they're supposed to be doing" that they ever had, in favor of teaching how to be as disreputable and sleazy as possible.
Simply outrageous.
Why would somebody leave a big city to move to a small town, since small towns tend to have higher crime rates, worse job opportunities, and worse pollution problems?
Higher crime rates... I'm guessing some sample bias there.
Example - in Gotham City, population 1,000,000,000, 100,000,000 people are the victims of violent crime. Violent crime statistic = 10%!!!1!
Meanwhile, in Buttfuck, Oklahoma, population 100, things were pretty quiet except on that one day when a dark stranger came into town and mugged twenty people. Violent crime statistic = 20%.
Anyway, I didn't RAFAs, so have a grain of salt.
Frankly I'm with David Byrne - "I wouldn't live there if you paid me to". At least if my girlfriend gets gang raped in the big city, there's a small chance of justice - instead of a bunch of religious outrage and shunning her from a happy peaceful Christian small town once she's forced to carry a mixed-race rape baby to term.
Your wife is Matt Groening?
I just had an epiphany tonight and realized that I probably got these two totally twisted around. I darted back here to check and make sure, and shoor 'nuff, I got taken back to school. Thx.
Since this is pretty deep, I'll wager a shot, rather than risking letting your post disappear unanswered.
Free beer at parties is free for you to drink, but someone, somewhere had to pay money for that beer. Party goers are usually encouraged to bring a few six packs to add to the pool - especially at many college parties, where some drinkers are too young to buy beer*.
So, extending the analogy, this is usually applied to nagware, uncrippled shareware, etc. In the case of Opera, it's "free", but you get advertisements (which many, including me, find irritating enough to spoil the deal) and you won't get "official" tech support (if you're having troubles with software, especially web browsers, you probably need a computer nanny, not tech support).
Free speech, on the other hand, costs nobody anything (except those on the opposite side). If you want to donate to the ACLU, it's splendid, but nobody's going to go door-to-door to check who's donated.
This applies to many Linux distros, programs such as ICQ, and works of the public domain.
I'm reasonably sure this is reasonably accurate, and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.
*-of course, for those of you browsing from the *.gov and *.edu domains, all of these drinkers turn 21 the night of the party, and have the consent of a parent or legal guardian.
I get the feeling that we got along well enough as a species to triumph over the first hundred or so years, until primitive communication formed. Make that the first thousand years, or until the first inorganic society (ie, not just two tribes seperated by a big river) formed.
You, not just the parent, could also use further thought along the lines of your humanities. Talking to yourself again, disinformation robot?
And, um, the first time you played a FPS, your ass was handed to you time and time again as you screamed "Aimbot" in all caps. I know your type.
My point is that both games (EQ and CS) require time spent levelling up. CS doesn't charge you for your time spent learning (though the same argument could be made of the "first month free! each additional month $9.95-19.95"-priced MMORPGs), nor does it charge you later on to enjoy the benefits of all that time invested in building your reactions, etc.
I'm not an EQ player or fan, and frankly I find the trend of MMORPG blech to be yet another milestone in the complete, unfathomable, "is it brainwashed in or not" stupidity of the American public. "LET'S SPEND $100 TO COMBINE OUR CHATTING AND GAME PLAYING SKILLS AND PICK UP ROPES AND PLANKS AND MAGIC XP!!!" when the same effect can be had on stock-trading sites (not bona fide "day trading" mind you, just pissing around, buying and selling, watching your numbers go omg higher - there were a few webpages circa 1998 that had this), for free. Of course, you have to start flaming and/or trolling other players for the full effect.
...like a Phoenix. Slowly, people are catching on. I mean, this HAD to raise some eyebrows.
It's one thing to read about this on the internet - people say all sorts of things on the internet and you learn to tune it out ater a while.
But seeing it in front of your own very eyes, watching the hack attack commence in the blink of an eye, the pulse of a heartbeat, the shiver of a twitch, the essence of a raindrop, the flash of an instant, with the click of flint before it ignites the gunpowder in a Civil War era cannon-- etc-- it's shocking.
And so, ten years later, after learning from the hackers, their once-sworn enemies, the Great Microsoft rose to became Operating System: NWO. And that, my children, is the story of how Herr Syrs Bill Gates and Al Gore created and patented the internet.
I remember seeing this last year... those commercials in the DC area for "wokontheweb.com" were some of the most godawful creepy minutes of commercial, er, cinema, ever.
Course, I still remember them one year down the road... so go figure.
Reading through these comments, it seems like people just like the word "iPod". Anything else would be referred to as a "unit" after the second mention per thread.
Way to support brand saturation, mindless geeks.
Read carefully - there's only one product mentioned in the original parent's post. You even quoted it.
And the product in question is the iPod
Yeah! And after that lamer Wozniak designed the chip, God Jobs gave him $2500 and used the profits to buy hair grease! That was so kewl! Then he brainwashed Wozniak or did something - read this and tell me it doesn't sound like brainwashing - the guy who designed the goddamn chip that got the whole thing started saying, "I'd like to always be an Apple employee--just a real small paycheck and a badge. You know what, Steve Jobs is real nice to me."
Some flakey, fishy things be gwine' down at Appleworks.
You moron! It's not just "news for nerds"! It's also "stuff that matters!"
You, for example, place a higher value on 'tangible' material accomplishments than on social. That's ok (i.e. I'm not making a value judgement), but it doesn't mean that someone who values friends and relationships is less beneficial to society. Heck, even the root of the word 'society' implies interaction with the greater group of others.
I think his strong wording was just a reactionto the way "mass society" views the geeks - ie, "get a girlfriend". The piece on Conan where the hateful dog is insulting the Star Wars nerds sums it up accurately - no less than five times, possibly more, the "comedian" resorts to lambasting the nerds for their lack of girlfriends - taking the safe route vs. the obvious, "you're standing in line for a terrible movie. Guess NBC/CBS/ABC wouldn't want to break George Lucas's heart.
Does creating that OLED contribute more for society? Or does coaching a little league team and making someone else's childhood a little better ultimately benefit society more?
Well, look at things in perspective. There's no shortage of little league coaches. If he doesn't coach little league, someone else will step in to take his place, and likely do an equally okay job. But that OLED isn't going to create itself.
IMO though (just the Buddhist in me), seeing life as a "zero sum game" where you measure the tally in the 'tangibles' column againt the ever shrinking 'seconds left in the lifetime' is a recipe for stress and unfulfillment.
For some of us, that's the only way of rationalizing the process of doing anything at all. No joke.
I'm no economist, I don't know how much of this really makes sense. But it seems to me that by destroying his old Metallica stuff and not selling it, the original poster could be helping to prevent the development of a robust used-Metallica-stuff aftermarket, thus putting downward pressure on Metallica-stuff prices and helping to deflate new Metallica-stuff revenues.
;)
Yeah, because that sure killed off the baseball card collecting industry. And the coin collectiong industry. Not to mention the ancient Greek text collecting industry.
Hypothetical situation A: Metallica releases 1000 copies of its last album before being destroyed in an Act of God.
In the post-apocalyptic world, 1000 people remain. There are enough Metallica albums to satisfy the needs of everyone on Earth, so prices are quite likely in the neighborhood of ten cigarette butts.
Hypothetical situation B: Metaliica releases 1000 copies of its last album before being destroyed in an Act of God. However, smarty anonymous cowards convince the hot tempered to destroy all but 5 copies.
In the post-apocalyptic world, 1000 people remain. There are only 5 Metallica albums to satisfy the needs of those people. Likely, they will trade for many many cigarette butts, more than you could ever smoke so don't bother starting. Metallica's status is legendary.
While this is a bit far fetched and the numbers do require a bit of fudging (this assumes 5% of all people alive on earth are Metallica fans who really really really want lots of Metallica stuff, a standard / equal distribution of survivors, and the loss of all CD burners along the way), it holds up. Baseball card collectors treat Honus Wagner as a special meme, the way the media treats Barry Bonds. Yes, he's a hall of famer - along with more others than I can count. He's no Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, or even Christy "huh?" Matthewson. But because his card in the T-206 set sells for Wayne Gretzky prices, he still has his token honorfame.
I'm no economist either, I just think more than you
[goddamn default options]
Headline: "M$ turns iron into gold"
Comment: "Ha ha ha hope the alchemist wasn't running without SP2!"
Reply: "Ha ha ha wonder if this will be GPL'd?"
Reply: "Ha ha ha... not to interrupt the joke but I'm sure you meant copylefted... hahaha" [twenty post tangent-thread about the pros and cons of each]
Headline: "Apple invents new, sub $1000 Macintosh"
Comment: "Let's see, the PCs have been sub-$1000 since, what, 2002?"
Reply: "Dumbass, you mean 2003. And anyway Apple has far more repubility" [
twenty posts of the usual]
Anything else, either the joke is "hahahaha RIAA", "hahahahaha MPAA", "hahahahahaha George Akbar Lucas", or, rarely, "hahahahahaha Cowboy Neal".
And no, I'm not a M$ supporter. Just the first two topics that came into my fatigued brain at this hour.
Headline: "M$ turns iron into gold" Comment: "Ha ha ha hope the alchemist wasn't running without SP2!" Reply: "Ha ha ha wonder if this will be GPL'd?" Reply: "Ha ha ha... not to interrupt the joke but I'm sure you meant copylefted... hahaha" [twenty post tangent-thread about the pros and cons of each] Headline: "Apple invents new, sub $1000 Macintosh" Comment: "Let's see, the PCs have been sub-$1000 since, what, 2002?" Reply: "Dumbass, you mean 2003. And anyway Apple has far more repubility" [twenty posts of the usual] Anything else, either the joke is "hahahaha RIAA", "hahahahaha MPAA", "hahahahahaha George Akbar Lucas", or, rarely, "hahahahahaha Cowboy Neal".
I'm on a PC and I didn't click the link either, so the numbers are balanced.
Why not just, you know, stick your console and TV next to your computer?
You know, after you pull them out of your dry, bitter asshole.
So, anyone feel like digging through a pile of 1950s dinosaur movies to see just how many legendary T. Rex predators were, in fact, female?
Are "errors" like this even gossip-worthy anymore? Damn bloody female empowerment movement.
Something has to be done.
Why don't you belt the bitch across the face next time she gets annoyed? That'll shut her up and teach her to be on her rag all the time. Might fix her obseletion problem as well.
Why are we keeping ourselves in the dark with regards to this mental disorder?
Seems like this would help a lot, if not outright cure it.
Shut the fuck up! Apple users are NOT morons! We happen to be supporters of the creative, alternative, underground, rebel vibe! Haven't you SEEN an iPod? First off the way how they capitalize the second letter? Not the first? That goes against the Man! It's a call to rebel against our literate so-called "superiors" of the Establishment! Secondly, that dial? It's not just cute, it actually works! It beefs up your videogame skillz when you're driving and trying to listen to Elliot Smith and keep getting the Smiths by mistake! It is your fault if you can't work it! We're supporting new technology! We're with Steve Jobs against Bill Gates and HIS-- I mean, excuse me, his-- army of robot winblowz underling (l)userz!! We'll mod you down! You're redundant! Or worse yet OVERRATED! We Mac users understand how to rip a system!
</sarcasm>
(I can't believe I just used "we" in relation to Apple users. Even if it was within a sarcastic attempt at +1 funny, and thusly spoken in character, I still feel filthy. Is this anything like Ingmar Bergman felt when he was directing those soap commercials?)
It's sheep like you that make life in corporate America such a wasteland.
"SHIT FUCKING JESUS GOD ARMAGEDDON!! Who fucking cares if Joseph Hazlewood scraped some reefs and made all the shoreline in Alaska gooey and black? Those wildlife advocates and the wildlife using the shoreline are pissy advocates and pissy users, respectively! Five billion dollars!? Sounds like overzealous lawyers once again! I've been driving for ten years, yesterday I made a wide left and accidently scraped the curb. Yeah I had a scotch and a brandy and some cognag to wash it down, who fucking CARES? Overzealous curb if you ask me!
Speaking of which, this has nothing to do with the satirical statement I just uttered, but last week I was horrifically scarred when the Firestone tires I had on my Ford Pinto reacted with the liquid hydrogen that some schmucky +1 underrated gas station genius spilled all over my cigarette lighter during my last car wash! How I made it out of that fireball alive beats me. I still believe it was my fault for not yielding right of way along I-80 when the Presidential Motorcade needed to suddenly swerve 90 degrees to the right for Secret Presidential Reason!
I'm damn proud to be a PATRIOT!"
Equipment wears out. But does it HAVE to wear out? Cars need constant refueling. But do they HAVE to? The power I need to run my computer and keep my food cold comes from nonrenewable energy sources - but does it (hyperlink to informative webpage on solar energy) HAVE (/hyperlink) to?
Fact is, these greedy corporations are making money off of schmucks like you, and as long as schmucks like you continue to side with them in their moments of inhuman, fat, bloated walrus-like greed, they'll continue to be greedy and fat walruses. Just because Johnny did all his homework last night doesn't give him the right to set fire to Granny's hair. Just because Ronald Reagan didn't lie about being an actor didn't justify his hostile takeover of the Air Traffic Controller's Union. Just because Osama Bin Laden didn't play any active part in the Holocaust doesn't give him the right to organize the September 11th attacks. And it doesn't mean that when Granny's bald and scarred and the Air Traffic Controllers are denied their right to strike and thousands of people lie dead and mangled that any of these things are okay, or justifiable.
Wishful thinking. You're dealing with a group that thinks nothing of "renewing" their cable-TV operating system every month, of buying a new car every year or so, of purchasing "use-once-and-destroy" goods, of spending around $1,000 to ensure each of their children gets the best out of their "free" education. To say nothing of "low monthly payments" on the Home Shopping Network.
Soon "updating Windows" will come to mean "putting in your credit card info every three months for the latest $29.95 payment". Remember the Derek Smart / Battlecruiser 2.0 debacle? It could happen.
Whether or not it does happen relies mostly on Bill Gates not getting sick and tired of the latest "autism scare" and/or deciding to be the nicest guy a man of his position is afforded.