Perhaps the majority of slashdot has never encountered the Redneck computer culture.
But riddle me this, Batman, who buys neon case mods? Why the very same people who buy neon pickup truck mods. There is an entire sub Mason-Dixon youth culture dedicated to building computers, and finding the most badass Winamp pluggins to watch while stoned on cheap weed.
Evidence B: Deerhunter and it's ilk routinely sell in far greater volume than almost all "real" computer games. In fact, I think only the Sims sells better.
So yes, people will buy these wallmart PCs, and install pirated copies of XP on them.
I went to middle school with white, black, and hispanic rednecks. and i'm glad i no longer have to deal with any of them.
"Cracker" or "White Trash" is the slur you're looking for.
however the difference between those and "nigger" is nigger implies nothing about culture or economic standing. it's purely racist. racists might call Colin Powell or Halle Berry niggers, but you wouldn't call a rich promonent white person White Trash or a Redneck.
cultural slurs, while still offensive, bother me less than outright racial slurs.
Yeah, I should read it. I read an older translation for an epic poetry class, and at the time it seemed far inferior to the Iliad and Gilgamesh. But maybe that was based on the fairly flat and unlively english.
OK, I know it's been said a million times before, but we really need micropayments. And $1 paypal donations don't count. It seems like there's a lot of money to be had with micropayments, so why hasn't something started up?
I guess I'm asking an open question. Micropayments have seemed like such a good idea for so long, why hasn't it happened yet?
then Congress should declare war. does anyone else find the new tradition of fighting undeclared wars a bit disturbing?
i mean the Spanish-American war was declared and that was much smaller than Vietnam, Desert Storm or (most likely) whatever mess we're about to get ourselves into.
it's a cluster of computers that wanders off into the mountains, kills an ice monster and then later gets killed by that monster's relatives. i've never known what the big deal about it is, really.
no, i recognize the difference, i'm just saying that joe public isn't about to take a screwdriver to his X-Box for DivX movies. And I still don't see how Timothy sees this taking DivX beyond the cable modem crowd. Where are Dick and Jane Average supposed to get these DivX movies?
It's funny, this story, and the way the editors present it basically confirm that Slashdot is very much pro-piracy. DivX as a file format should be legal, and there are free DivX movies.
However installing an (illegal) mod chip into a device that already plays DVDs to get DivX compatibility is almost certainly an act that will be accompanies by piracy. There might be three people out there who are going to hack their X-Box to make a family movie or one of the other few legal uses, but by and large, this is for people who download the matrix and want to see it on their TV.
Now I'm not trying to preach here, I download movies all the time. But Slashdot is more or less announcing its support for illegal activity, and that should be noted.
My biggest problem with CGI, and the general Lucas school of direction, is not the realism of the animation. (though in 20 years, people are going to look back on the new Star Wars and every other action movie from the past 8 years as being more or less Who Framed Rojer Rabbit, real people acting next to cartoons)
Wath Dooku in the Yoda fight scene. It's painfully obvious that he's standing in a green room, with someone yelling at him "Ok, turn, ok swing your stick ok, good, but look angrier"
Human actors can't act to a bluescreen. So no matter how silly puppet Yoda looked, he made Empire a better movie, because Mark Hamill could actually *act* in the Yoda scenes.
Of course George Lucas doesn't care about this. He'd rather make one big video game cut sequence than actually have a story worth telling.
The thing that really pisses me off about all this is, if someone handed me $600 Million and told me to produce a new Star Wars trillogy, I promise you I could do a better job.
i don't think there are that many people who will be willing to crack open their X-Box just to play pirated movies, especially when VCD enabled DVD players cost about as much as an X-Box.
Saying that an X-Box modchip is going to bring DivX to the masses is like saying the PS1 mod chip brought Japanese-only retail games to the masses. It was cool for a handful of enthusiasts, but it was never a very big thing.
Aside from the hyperbole, this is pretty cool. I'm still happy with my Gamecube, though.
Cancer and heart disease are very very tough problems, it's unlikely that any single miracle drug is going to make a significant dent in the death toll.
wheras a media frenzy over an unsafe, untested new drug could cause all kinds of harm...
no, i'll stick to skepticism and scientific accuracy, thank you.
"due process" is a construction over time. you can argue with a lot of aspects about our legal system, but i doubt you seriously want to challenge innocent-until-proven-guilty
and no, i don't trust a government that is desperate to show that the intelligence community can catch evil(TM) terrorists now, really, honest.
on september 11th, when they cleared out a hotel near the world trade center, security thought they found a shortwave radio in the room (which overlooked the towers) of an islamic college student. pretty incriminating, right? so he was held without trial for six months. his lawyer was not given access to evidence, or even any word of who witnesses would be, or who the prosecution was. finally someone called the hotel and asked for their radio back. security had fucked up, it came from the wrong room. the guy had allready been labeled as a terrorist in his hometown and had to transfer schools. i know because i've met his lawyer, and read about it in the papers later. i had a link, but can't seem to find it now.
your assumption that everyone that the US detains is automatically guilty is highly disturbing.
i don't want these guys to have due process because i think criminals deserve light punishment, but because there's an excellent chance that at least one of them has *done nothing wrong* and the law should be strong enough to prosecute the guilty without endangering or disenfranchising the innocent.
they aren't simulating nuclear detonations for a fucking screensaver, they're simulating to design better (i.e. deadlier, more horrible) weapons.
all that computing power, and this is what they do with it. they could be working on protein folding, doing advanced simulation on an alternative fuel engine, heck, they could leave it sitting there idly testing the reimann hypothesis, but they're designing bigger and supposedly better ways of killing off an entire city.
H bombs are big and scary, supposedly the only thing we want them for is deterrant, and aren't they already big enough and scary enough for that purpose? even if you don't think the US would ever use such a weapon (though it's the only nation in history that has) eventually knowledge spreads, and someone somewhere has a bigger bomb thanks to the cool supercomputer.
Sure it's better than turning unspoiled tropical islands into Dresden, but that doesn't make it *good*
Slashdot Mirror
BS.
Perhaps the majority of slashdot has never encountered the Redneck computer culture.
But riddle me this, Batman, who buys neon case mods? Why the very same people who buy neon pickup truck mods. There is an entire sub Mason-Dixon youth culture dedicated to building computers, and finding the most badass Winamp pluggins to watch while stoned on cheap weed.
Evidence B: Deerhunter and it's ilk routinely sell in far greater volume than almost all "real" computer games. In fact, I think only the Sims sells better.
So yes, people will buy these wallmart PCs, and install pirated copies of XP on them.
thank you!
"Redneck" is a race-blind slur.
I went to middle school with white, black, and hispanic rednecks. and i'm glad i no longer have to deal with any of them.
"Cracker" or "White Trash" is the slur you're looking for.
however the difference between those and "nigger" is nigger implies nothing about culture or economic standing. it's purely racist. racists might call Colin Powell or Halle Berry niggers, but you wouldn't call a rich promonent white person White Trash or a Redneck.
cultural slurs, while still offensive, bother me less than outright racial slurs.
he's making fun of rednecks while sporting a Metallica .sig? it's worse than i'd imagined!
with the Walmart demographic, that might be a serious problem.
We should start testing Deerhunter and such on Lindows and Wine!
What's the difference between an internet author and a large pizza?
A large pizza can feed a family of four.
(replace "internet author" with artist, musician, open-source programmer, etc.)
Yeah, I should read it. I read an older translation for an epic poetry class, and at the time it seemed far inferior to the Iliad and Gilgamesh. But maybe that was based on the fairly flat and unlively english.
OK, I know it's been said a million times before, but we really need micropayments. And $1 paypal donations don't count. It seems like there's a lot of money to be had with micropayments, so why hasn't something started up?
I guess I'm asking an open question. Micropayments have seemed like such a good idea for so long, why hasn't it happened yet?
then Congress should declare war. does anyone else find the new tradition of fighting undeclared wars a bit disturbing?
i mean the Spanish-American war was declared and that was much smaller than Vietnam, Desert Storm or (most likely) whatever mess we're about to get ourselves into.
eh, it's been a few years... and it was the old translation, which wasn't nearly as enjoyable (or so i've heard, i haven't read the new one)
yeah, but Jehovah bought me a cool retro computer, so suck on it!
(wooo... karma to burn...)
it's a cluster of computers that wanders off into the mountains, kills an ice monster and then later gets killed by that monster's relatives. i've never known what the big deal about it is, really.
Has our culture really reached the point where we are too lazy to type vowels?
no, i recognize the difference, i'm just saying that joe public isn't about to take a screwdriver to his X-Box for DivX movies. And I still don't see how Timothy sees this taking DivX beyond the cable modem crowd. Where are Dick and Jane Average supposed to get these DivX movies?
It's funny, this story, and the way the editors present it basically confirm that Slashdot is very much pro-piracy. DivX as a file format should be legal, and there are free DivX movies.
However installing an (illegal) mod chip into a device that already plays DVDs to get DivX compatibility is almost certainly an act that will be accompanies by piracy. There might be three people out there who are going to hack their X-Box to make a family movie or one of the other few legal uses, but by and large, this is for people who download the matrix and want to see it on their TV.
Now I'm not trying to preach here, I download movies all the time. But Slashdot is more or less announcing its support for illegal activity, and that should be noted.
perhaps i should say interact, and after the original he wasn't *that* bad, or at least, not as bad as the current Skywalkers.
My biggest problem with CGI, and the general Lucas school of direction, is not the realism of the animation. (though in 20 years, people are going to look back on the new Star Wars and every other action movie from the past 8 years as being more or less Who Framed Rojer Rabbit, real people acting next to cartoons)
Wath Dooku in the Yoda fight scene. It's painfully obvious that he's standing in a green room, with someone yelling at him "Ok, turn, ok swing your stick ok, good, but look angrier"
Human actors can't act to a bluescreen. So no matter how silly puppet Yoda looked, he made Empire a better movie, because Mark Hamill could actually *act* in the Yoda scenes.
Of course George Lucas doesn't care about this. He'd rather make one big video game cut sequence than actually have a story worth telling.
The thing that really pisses me off about all this is, if someone handed me $600 Million and told me to produce a new Star Wars trillogy, I promise you I could do a better job.
unless he's in a nielson family, that won't matter.
somehow i doubt it, Tim.
i don't think there are that many people who will be willing to crack open their X-Box just to play pirated movies, especially when VCD enabled DVD players cost about as much as an X-Box.
Saying that an X-Box modchip is going to bring DivX to the masses is like saying the PS1 mod chip brought Japanese-only retail games to the masses. It was cool for a handful of enthusiasts, but it was never a very big thing.
Aside from the hyperbole, this is pretty cool. I'm still happy with my Gamecube, though.
Cancer and heart disease are very very tough problems, it's unlikely that any single miracle drug is going to make a significant dent in the death toll.
wheras a media frenzy over an unsafe, untested new drug could cause all kinds of harm...
no, i'll stick to skepticism and scientific accuracy, thank you.
that's funny, i've been running 1.0 on a 250 MhZ Celeron, and it works just fine. (64 Megs RAM)
how can you assume that they are guilty?
"due process" is a construction over time. you can argue with a lot of aspects about our legal system, but i doubt you seriously want to challenge innocent-until-proven-guilty
and no, i don't trust a government that is desperate to show that the intelligence community can catch evil(TM) terrorists now, really, honest.
on september 11th, when they cleared out a hotel near the world trade center, security thought they found a shortwave radio in the room (which overlooked the towers) of an islamic college student. pretty incriminating, right? so he was held without trial for six months. his lawyer was not given access to evidence, or even any word of who witnesses would be, or who the prosecution was. finally someone called the hotel and asked for their radio back. security had fucked up, it came from the wrong room. the guy had allready been labeled as a terrorist in his hometown and had to transfer schools. i know because i've met his lawyer, and read about it in the papers later. i had a link, but can't seem to find it now.
your assumption that everyone that the US detains is automatically guilty is highly disturbing.
i don't want these guys to have due process because i think criminals deserve light punishment, but because there's an excellent chance that at least one of them has *done nothing wrong* and the law should be strong enough to prosecute the guilty without endangering or disenfranchising the innocent.
total membership of terrorist organizations worldwide: maybe 100,000, tops.
islamic population: almost 1 billion
making terrorists 1/100th of a percent of islamics.
so can the genocide.
you're missing the point
they aren't simulating nuclear detonations for a fucking screensaver, they're simulating to design better (i.e. deadlier, more horrible) weapons.
all that computing power, and this is what they do with it. they could be working on protein folding, doing advanced simulation on an alternative fuel engine, heck, they could leave it sitting there idly testing the reimann hypothesis, but they're designing bigger and supposedly better ways of killing off an entire city.
H bombs are big and scary, supposedly the only thing we want them for is deterrant, and aren't they already big enough and scary enough for that purpose? even if you don't think the US would ever use such a weapon (though it's the only nation in history that has) eventually knowledge spreads, and someone somewhere has a bigger bomb thanks to the cool supercomputer.
Sure it's better than turning unspoiled tropical islands into Dresden, but that doesn't make it *good*
/ end leftist, out-of-fashion, no-nukes rant.
a senator's vote
1/0
depending on the issue and the senator, it's a few tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. but don't be fooled, they're all for sale.
because it's the 50th bank account / credit card # post in this forum