Not flaming/trolling. That out of the way, I can see why this review for a very cool toy/gadget is here. But it kinda bugs me that the description includes "Linux-based". Now, I know Slashdot is Linuxcentric (no, really?), but still I think that was kinda irrelevant to the review. Does it make the device cheaper or more stable? Then say it is cheaper or more stable. It's like that story about Best Buy having a customer arrested, where in the first paragraph it was mentioned that he was an American Indian. Some people took exception to that, and I see the point. Now, I can just see the moderation: -1, Antilinux. Oh, well, it's just Karma:S
He also has plans for a foot, and aparently is working on a hand... You know, this is how that Terminator thing started... it's time to use the slashdot effect for good! Charge!
Dude, the sole fact that you're comparing Star Wars to the Odyssey kinda makes my point... Odysseus WAS some dude on a ship. Things happened to him, and it is a good story. Probably what you mean is "if th Odyssey wasn't one of the classics of literature, would you think it was a good story?". The thing is, that thinking is backwards. The Odyssey is a classic BECAUSE it is that good. You see, Homer (he composed it) didn't have much of a marketing budget, so his works were preserved solely on merit. Now, Star Wars is not rally bad, but it is not as good as they would have you believe. The difference is hype. And if you don't think Star Wars is about hype, well, I don't really know what to say to you, because it is pretty obvious to me...
And it's not a boycott. It's the fact that Episode I sucked big time, and last week I was watching Montecristo (great movie) and saw trailers for Attack of the Clones. And suddenly it hit me. I was planning to watch it, it was pretty much a given. And then, seeing the scenes, I realized I don't really have a wish to see it. I just had a lemming reaction. The hype got to me. I had been brainwashed. That is, I was going to watch it because it was a Star Wars film. But nothing I saw on the trailer, and nothing I saw in the prequel, compelled me to see it. So, ask yourself: If this film wasn't a "Star Wars" movie, would I be compelled to see it? Would I feel it is a good film?. I have decided it's not. And I won't give in to the hype, however alluring it becomes.
PS: For the opinion or David Brin, great science fiction writer who makes George Lucas look like the hack he is, read this.
Just a nitpick: . The more well known you are the easier it is to leverage your identity into money. Serial killers do this all the time by writing books
Actually, in Canada there is a law that forbids you to gain monetary rewards for your crimes. It was passed specifically to prevent people from earning money by selling books/movie rights to their criminal stories. Text of the law here
How could they not be?
on
Web Services
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· Score: 5, Insightful
In today's world, connectivity is key. You pick up a phone and expect to be able to call any other phone on earth (granted, it may be expensive or hard, but it is possible), no matter if it's in another country, company, if it's a celular or a satelite phone. That expectation moves to the Net. If you're going to hire net services, you expect to have a unified system that will allow you to do anything with one interfase, one bill, from anywhere. Now, I can only see two posibilities for that to happen. One is Microsoft, but fortunately I see a trend where less companies are willing to empower the BMFH (Bastard Monopoly From Hell). The other is open standards. And yes, this is a Good Thing (TM).
As far as I understand the case, Blizzard's only stand is the claim that BnetD used source code from Blizzard without permission. If they can prove that, they win; if the don't, they lose. Whether Bnetd makes money or not should be irrelevant. I'm not really impressed with the answers, and I posit the source was someone from Blizzard who doesn't really know what he's talking about. Maybe from accounting, for all I know. I'm not trolling. Read the answers. There's nothing to see here.
If the fee was applied to provide interner service to people who can't afford it, it would make sense. Also, it would (slightly) be an investment. How? Well, there's an old story about how a long time ago, in a small town, there were only two phones: 001 was the Mayor's house, and 002 was the fire department. After a couple of months, the Mayor cancelled his line, since it was idiotic to pay $20 a month to be able to call just the fire department, wheter there was a fire or not. The point being: If you have a phone, the value to you is increased as more people have one, since you have that many more potential people to contact. The same principle would apply to internet. Sorry for the long rant. I'll shut up now.
From the article: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, disagreed. The organization opposes Hollings' proposal, saying it would hinder online commerce and would open a plethora of class-action lawsuits. "This proposal is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem," Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the organization, said in a statement.
That was an interesting read, I appreciate it:) I was cured of a pretty hard (potentially lethal) case of allergies by homeopathy, so I'm not exactly sceptic. On the other hand, the chemical counterargument about quantity is pretty solid. That's why I'd like more scientific studies on homeopathy. Incidentally, it appears to be gaining ground, at least from the article you kindly provided: "New survey of primary care physicians who are members of the AMA revealed that an astonishing 49% of them expressed interest in training in homeopathy (British Homeopathic Journal, July, 1997). This survey was conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland. These same researchers also surveyed Maryland family practice doctors and discovered that 69% expressed inter est in homeopathic training (Journal of the American Board of Family Practice, 1995, 8, 361-6). Both of these studies show an impressively high degree of interest in homeopathy".
"Home. I have no home. Hunted, despised, living like an animal. The jungle is my home. For 20 years I have lived in this jungle hell. I was classed as a madman, a charlatan. Outlawed in the world of science, which had previously hailed me as a genius. Now here in this jungle hell, I have proved that I was right. Here, I will create a race of atomic supermen who will conquer the world! Pull the string! Pull the string!" Dr. Eric Vornoff, Bride of the Monster (one of Ed Wood's classics).
Washington, D.C. (AP).- In a surprising turn of events, Americans have elected Bill Gates as President of the United States. After a recount of all votes, Gates received 89 percent of all votes, leaving oponents Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Hanks with 3 and 2 percent each. "It's hardly a surprise", said Steve Ballmer, campaign manager for Gates, "Bill has showed great leadership skills and built the greatest company in American history". Ballmer then made a turnaround in his position about the infamous "Mother's Day documents", and admitted "there might be some truth to them". The documents were published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an underground group that has been described as the political arm of hackers and ciberterrorists, and wer purported to have been obtained from Microsoft's internal servers. Gates and Ballmer denounced them as a fabrication. "I guess we can tell you the truth now", said Ballmer, after Gates' voctory was official, "there might be something there". The documents include a series of emails in which Gates, Ballmer and Microsoft's VP of legal affairs, John Ashcroft, discuss several courses of action in they won the election. Among them were: Change the countrys name to Microsoft States of América, change Gates's title from President to Chief Architect of Everything, and outlaw the use of any software not certified as "secure" by Microsoft Corp. Critics have pointed to the posibility of electoral fraud, but the governmente has refuted the posibility. "It's ridiculous. Preposterous", said a spokesman from the Electronics Elections Office. "We used Windows CE doubleplussecure 2018 for the polls machines, and Microsoft XXP Security-Above-All Server for the counting. These are the most secure systems in the world, and they're incapable of errors". After being questioned on the possibility of a bug in the system, the spokesman refused to answer, pointing out that the recently passed Corporations Antidefamation Act expresely prohibits the discussion of any possible flaws in software products, lest they be used for ciberterrorism purposes.
I'd like to see a scientific, double-blind studio showing the efectivity of homeopatic treatment on a specific disease on animals. Control groups, the whole scientific thing. I'm sure you've seen one, since you are so clear it works, so I'd really appreciate a link, a book title, a researcher's name, anything. Or the same thing with humans. Really. It would do wonders for homeopaty's credibility.
The seven capital pleasures, according to The Rape of the APE , a not really so good, but funny and at times insightful book, are: Eating, Drinking, Peeing, Shitting, Sleeping, Fucking and Playing. That part of the book, at least, made sense to me. Sorry for the obscure reference. And regarding the dimwit with the bone remark, I know you don't "cure" a broken bone. My point is clear anyway, and you either a) weren't able to understand it, or b) chose to disregard it in order to insult me. Either way, you are, as I stated, a dimwit. With all due respect, and all of that.
Sleepiness is your body's way of telling you it needs rest (basically, your brain needs rest). Using drugs to avoid it strikes me as foolish, like using analgesics to ignore the pain of a broken bone (as opposed to curing it). If you're sleepy, you need to sleep. If you're sleepy during the day, well, maybe you need to go to bed earlier. Plus, sleeping is one of the seven capital pleasures of being human. Going to bed when you're sleepy is actually pretty nice. Why give it up?
Re:BINGO! New game idea for "Post-9/11"
on
Byte Wars
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· Score: 2
If I hear "In the wake of September 11th..." one more time, I'm gonna punch a broadcaster in the nose.
I agree. But in a two-three months the noise should be back to normal and peace will return. And then it will be september, and the media will be full of "After one year of the tragedy...". Damn.
I don't like or advocate child pornography. I do advocate tolerance and empathy. People whe enjoy child pornografy, or get turned on by looking at naked children, are not inherently evil. It is merely a matter of taste. And saying all pedophiles (the correct term) are child molester is like saying all homosexuals are boy-scout rapists. The only real motivation to forbid child porn should be the well-being of children. I agree no child, for any reason, should be used for sexual purposes, including photos. Computer generated porn removes that problem. So, if no child is harmed, why forbid it? The bill atempted to punish people, not for hurting others, but merely because of their tastes. And that is inconstitutional, even if you don't like what they like. BTW, computer generated child porn is probably a good tool to prevent real children from being exploited. Because, let's face it, child porn (like piracy, any kind of porn and crappy pop music) will always exist, no matter how hard you fight them. Well, you know what they say about karma. Easy comes, easy goes:S
My first memory of Karateka was actually what great graphics it had. Really, at the time they were amazing. Hated that damn bird. And the first time I ended the game (three of my friends eagerly watching) I had the nastiest surprise... anyone remembers what happened if you approached the princess in combat mode? >;)
****SPOILER******** Yeah, she killed you with a well placed kick. We figured out it might be the fighting stance that motivated her, and I had the dubious honor of playing the game again (no save files) and enter walking, to actually save the princess. But I've never forgotten the shock of getting kicked in the throat by the princess exactly when I was feeling the rapture of conquering Karateka:S
Was accomplished with a hex editor on Jordan Mechner's "Karateka" for the Apple II. We started by changing the starting credits, so "By Jordan Mechner" became "by [insert your name here]". We were 11 at the time, and that was exciting. Then we discovered ehere in the disks were the sprites, and started to change them by trial and error. Not an ounce of artistic ability, too. So, we ended up with even crappier sprites. But "we made them". Ah, the memories...
Music sharing does not hurt music. It hurts the music business. It does not hurt the artist. It hurts the pop star, the producer and the sleazy lawyers (hi, Hillary!), but not the artist. You know, there was a time when artists (and athletes, and scientists and whatnot) did not aspire to earn billions of dollars and live on crack. There was a time (I'm really dating myself here) when they just loved their art (sport, discipline) and considered themselves lucky to just make a living doing it. Not millions of dollars. A living. Greed is the bane of our time.
Moot point. Since there is NO spiderman (really, there isn't one), all events in the movie are fictitious. That makes the New York in the movie a sort of paralel-universe New York, where there may well not exist any Samsung. Or, the movie may be projected at a time in the future when there will be no Samsung. Bottom line: It's Sam Raimi's movie, it's his New York, so he can very much change it as he sees fit.
Yes it will. My brother and brother-in-law are both gynecologists. They say they have to separate the idea of vagina from their wifes, in order to mantain a sex drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Not flaming/trolling. :S
That out of the way, I can see why this review for a very cool toy/gadget is here. But it kinda bugs me that the description includes "Linux-based". Now, I know Slashdot is Linuxcentric (no, really?), but still I think that was kinda irrelevant to the review. Does it make the device cheaper or more stable? Then say it is cheaper or more stable.
It's like that story about Best Buy having a customer arrested, where in the first paragraph it was mentioned that he was an American Indian. Some people took exception to that, and I see the point.
Now, I can just see the moderation: -1, Antilinux. Oh, well, it's just Karma
He also has plans for a foot, and aparently is working on a hand...
You know, this is how that Terminator thing started... it's time to use the slashdot effect for good! Charge!
Dude, the sole fact that you're comparing Star Wars to the Odyssey kinda makes my point...
Odysseus WAS some dude on a ship. Things happened to him, and it is a good story. Probably what you mean is "if th Odyssey wasn't one of the classics of literature, would you think it was a good story?".
The thing is, that thinking is backwards. The Odyssey is a classic BECAUSE it is that good. You see, Homer (he composed it) didn't have much of a marketing budget, so his works were preserved solely on merit.
Now, Star Wars is not rally bad, but it is not as good as they would have you believe. The difference is hype. And if you don't think Star Wars is about hype, well, I don't really know what to say to you, because it is pretty obvious to me...
And it's not a boycott. It's the fact that Episode I sucked big time, and last week I was watching Montecristo (great movie) and saw trailers for Attack of the Clones.
And suddenly it hit me.
I was planning to watch it, it was pretty much a given. And then, seeing the scenes, I realized I don't really have a wish to see it. I just had a lemming reaction. The hype got to me. I had been brainwashed.
That is, I was going to watch it because it was a Star Wars film. But nothing I saw on the trailer, and nothing I saw in the prequel, compelled me to see it.
So, ask yourself: If this film wasn't a "Star Wars" movie, would I be compelled to see it? Would I feel it is a good film?.
I have decided it's not. And I won't give in to the hype, however alluring it becomes.
PS: For the opinion or David Brin, great science fiction writer who makes George Lucas look like the hack he is, read this.
Just a nitpick:
. The more well known you are the easier it is to leverage your identity into money. Serial killers do this all the time by writing books
Actually, in Canada there is a law that forbids you to gain monetary rewards for your crimes. It was passed specifically to prevent people from earning money by selling books/movie rights to their criminal stories.
Text of the law here
In today's world, connectivity is key. You pick up a phone and expect to be able to call any other phone on earth (granted, it may be expensive or hard, but it is possible), no matter if it's in another country, company, if it's a celular or a satelite phone.
That expectation moves to the Net. If you're going to hire net services, you expect to have a unified system that will allow you to do anything with one interfase, one bill, from anywhere.
Now, I can only see two posibilities for that to happen. One is Microsoft, but fortunately I see a trend where less companies are willing to empower the BMFH (Bastard Monopoly From Hell). The other is open standards.
And yes, this is a Good Thing (TM).
As far as I understand the case, Blizzard's only stand is the claim that BnetD used source code from Blizzard without permission. If they can prove that, they win; if the don't, they lose. Whether Bnetd makes money or not should be irrelevant.
I'm not really impressed with the answers, and I posit the source was someone from Blizzard who doesn't really know what he's talking about. Maybe from accounting, for all I know.
I'm not trolling. Read the answers. There's nothing to see here.
If the fee was applied to provide interner service to people who can't afford it, it would make sense. Also, it would (slightly) be an investment.
How? Well, there's an old story about how a long time ago, in a small town, there were only two phones: 001 was the Mayor's house, and 002 was the fire department. After a couple of months, the Mayor cancelled his line, since it was idiotic to pay $20 a month to be able to call just the fire department, wheter there was a fire or not.
The point being: If you have a phone, the value to you is increased as more people have one, since you have that many more potential people to contact. The same principle would apply to internet.
Sorry for the long rant. I'll shut up now.
From the article:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, disagreed. The organization opposes Hollings' proposal, saying it would hinder online commerce and would open a plethora of class-action lawsuits.
"This proposal is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem," Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the organization, said in a statement.
Someone please spam this guy.
That was an interesting read, I appreciate it :)
:)
I was cured of a pretty hard (potentially lethal) case of allergies by homeopathy, so I'm not exactly sceptic. On the other hand, the chemical counterargument about quantity is pretty solid. That's why I'd like more scientific studies on homeopathy.
Incidentally, it appears to be gaining ground, at least from the article you kindly provided: "New survey of primary care physicians who are members of the AMA revealed that an astonishing 49% of them expressed interest in training in homeopathy (British Homeopathic Journal, July, 1997). This survey was conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland. These same researchers also surveyed Maryland family practice doctors and discovered that 69% expressed inter est in homeopathic training (Journal of the American Board of Family Practice, 1995, 8, 361-6). Both of these studies show an impressively high degree of interest in homeopathy".
Food for tought
"Home. I have no home. Hunted, despised, living like an animal. The jungle is my home. For 20 years I have lived in this jungle hell. I was classed as a madman, a charlatan. Outlawed in the world of science, which had previously hailed me as a genius. Now here in this jungle hell, I have proved that I was right. Here, I will create a race of atomic supermen who will conquer the world!
:)
Pull the string! Pull the string!"
Dr. Eric Vornoff, Bride of the Monster (one of Ed Wood's classics).
Just seemed, I don't know, relevant
Washington, D.C. (AP).- In a surprising turn of events, Americans have elected Bill Gates as President of the United States.
After a recount of all votes, Gates received 89 percent of all votes, leaving oponents Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Hanks with 3 and 2 percent each.
"It's hardly a surprise", said Steve Ballmer, campaign manager for Gates, "Bill has showed great leadership skills and built the greatest company in American history".
Ballmer then made a turnaround in his position about the infamous "Mother's Day documents", and admitted "there might be some truth to them".
The documents were published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an underground group that has been described as the political arm of hackers and ciberterrorists, and wer purported to have been obtained from Microsoft's internal servers. Gates and Ballmer denounced them as a fabrication.
"I guess we can tell you the truth now", said Ballmer, after Gates' voctory was official, "there might be something there".
The documents include a series of emails in which Gates, Ballmer and Microsoft's VP of legal affairs, John Ashcroft, discuss several courses of action in they won the election. Among them were: Change the countrys name to Microsoft States of América, change Gates's title from President to Chief Architect of Everything, and outlaw the use of any software not certified as "secure" by Microsoft Corp.
Critics have pointed to the posibility of electoral fraud, but the governmente has refuted the posibility.
"It's ridiculous. Preposterous", said a spokesman from the Electronics Elections Office. "We used Windows CE doubleplussecure 2018 for the polls machines, and Microsoft XXP Security-Above-All Server for the counting. These are the most secure systems in the world, and they're incapable of errors".
After being questioned on the possibility of a bug in the system, the spokesman refused to answer, pointing out that the recently passed Corporations Antidefamation Act expresely prohibits the discussion of any possible flaws in software products, lest they be used for ciberterrorism purposes.
I'd like to see a scientific, double-blind studio showing the efectivity of homeopatic treatment on a specific disease on animals. Control groups, the whole scientific thing. I'm sure you've seen one, since you are so clear it works, so I'd really appreciate a link, a book title, a researcher's name, anything.
Or the same thing with humans. Really. It would do wonders for homeopaty's credibility.
The seven capital pleasures, according to The Rape of the APE , a not really so good, but funny and at times insightful book, are: Eating, Drinking, Peeing, Shitting, Sleeping, Fucking and Playing. That part of the book, at least, made sense to me.
Sorry for the obscure reference.
And regarding the dimwit with the bone remark, I know you don't "cure" a broken bone. My point is clear anyway, and you either a) weren't able to understand it, or b) chose to disregard it in order to insult me. Either way, you are, as I stated, a dimwit. With all due respect, and all of that.
Sleepiness is your body's way of telling you it needs rest (basically, your brain needs rest). Using drugs to avoid it strikes me as foolish, like using analgesics to ignore the pain of a broken bone (as opposed to curing it).
If you're sleepy, you need to sleep. If you're sleepy during the day, well, maybe you need to go to bed earlier.
Plus, sleeping is one of the seven capital pleasures of being human. Going to bed when you're sleepy is actually pretty nice. Why give it up?
If I hear "In the wake of September 11th..." one more time, I'm gonna punch a broadcaster in the nose.
I agree. But in a two-three months the noise should be back to normal and peace will return.
And then it will be september, and the media will be full of "After one year of the tragedy...".
Damn.
Yeah, evil is the right word :) ;)
tough it did add to reply value
I don't like or advocate child pornography. I do advocate tolerance and empathy. :S
People whe enjoy child pornografy, or get turned on by looking at naked children, are not inherently evil. It is merely a matter of taste. And saying all pedophiles (the correct term) are child molester is like saying all homosexuals are boy-scout rapists.
The only real motivation to forbid child porn should be the well-being of children. I agree no child, for any reason, should be used for sexual purposes, including photos. Computer generated porn removes that problem. So, if no child is harmed, why forbid it?
The bill atempted to punish people, not for hurting others, but merely because of their tastes. And that is inconstitutional, even if you don't like what they like.
BTW, computer generated child porn is probably a good tool to prevent real children from being exploited. Because, let's face it, child porn (like piracy, any kind of porn and crappy pop music) will always exist, no matter how hard you fight them.
Well, you know what they say about karma. Easy comes, easy goes
My first memory of Karateka was actually what great graphics it had. Really, at the time they were amazing.
:S
Hated that damn bird. And the first time I ended the game (three of my friends eagerly watching) I had the nastiest surprise... anyone remembers what happened if you approached the princess in combat mode? >;)
****SPOILER********
Yeah, she killed you with a well placed kick. We figured out it might be the fighting stance that motivated her, and I had the dubious honor of playing the game again (no save files) and enter walking, to actually save the princess.
But I've never forgotten the shock of getting kicked in the throat by the princess exactly when I was feeling the rapture of conquering Karateka
Was accomplished with a hex editor on Jordan Mechner's "Karateka" for the Apple II. We started by changing the starting credits, so "By Jordan Mechner" became "by [insert your name here]". We were 11 at the time, and that was exciting.
Then we discovered ehere in the disks were the sprites, and started to change them by trial and error. Not an ounce of artistic ability, too. So, we ended up with even crappier sprites. But "we made them".
Ah, the memories...
Music sharing does not hurt music. It hurts the music business.
It does not hurt the artist. It hurts the pop star, the producer and the sleazy lawyers (hi, Hillary!), but not the artist.
You know, there was a time when artists (and athletes, and scientists and whatnot) did not aspire to earn billions of dollars and live on crack. There was a time (I'm really dating myself here) when they just loved their art (sport, discipline) and considered themselves lucky to just make a living doing it. Not millions of dollars. A living.
Greed is the bane of our time.
Moot point.
Since there is NO spiderman (really, there isn't one), all events in the movie are fictitious. That makes the New York in the movie a sort of paralel-universe New York, where there may well not exist any Samsung. Or, the movie may be projected at a time in the future when there will be no Samsung.
Bottom line: It's Sam Raimi's movie, it's his New York, so he can very much change it as he sees fit.
for the obligatory jokes about how this would put Microsoft out of business.
I mean, Windows IS a virus, right?
And if you want to read it (I did, very eye-opening and amusing as hell) the text is fully available on line. Here.
Yes it will. My brother and brother-in-law are both gynecologists. They say they have to separate the idea of vagina from their wifes, in order to mantain a sex drive.