They already have it. The agency I work for has several carriers that will write a malpractice (officially called "Professional Liability") policy for computer nerds. The standard one that I've seen provides a million dollars of coverage in the event that you screw up and cause something like data loss or the like. The policy itself is pretty broadly worded and could cover everything from bugs in a program you wrote to a general mistake of stupidity dealing with media. As I recall they start at about $1,200+ a year depending on the type of business and the people involved.
I have such an insurance, 1 million CDN$ liability. It's part of the regular professional insurance package, it costs me about 250$CDN per year for this, along with professional equipment insurance (my computer, laser printer, etc).
Mac OS X is a Unix-based consumer Operating System, and security on it doesn't suck, no one runs as root unless they REALLY know how to do it (It's disabled by default). Running any installer asks for an admin password or otherwise it can't access system areas.
I haven't seen many users mess it up very much so far. And it's been fairly secure with security updates coming in at a regular pace, often fixing widely-publicised open-source packages that are included in the OS within a week or so.
I've put some time myself in learning Sindarin and Quenya. Not to a conversational level, but enough to be able to say simple phrases and understand them. Enough to understand a lot of the dialog in the movies, and to translate most place-names in LotR and the Silmarillion as I (re-)read them.
I can also read and write Tengwar, the Elvish writing system (at a slow pace). There are a number of resources available on the web at the moment for all this.
http://www.ardalambion.com/
is one of the best, with links to other resources on the web.
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/language.htm
is also a good resource.
What's more, every year more of the professor's material on those languages is published, and more knowledge of those tongues is acquired so that the information gets refined. Actual teaching of the language is great, as others said it increases interest in languages in general, which is good.
Before looking seriously at Elvish, I learned English, German, and Latin (my first tongue was French). I can usually figure out written material in Italian and Spanish. So my interest in Elvish was NOT alone but only part of a general interest in languages, and learning the basis of those made-up languages made me aware of certain concepts of language which are not always readily apparent in real-world languages, but yet are useful for a deeper understanding of them.
>what copyright is and what it is for they see it for what it is - a crime. I see it as a crime.
You have it wrong. It's copyright that's the crime. A crime against human culture, against the contributions of great people for the betterment of humanity and civilization.
It's a crime to withhold the public use of information and idea. To withhold ideas, art from being shared and enjoyed by all. To compartiment, corporatize, compartmentalize, and consumerise the great production of our society.
Previous civilizations didn't have or need copyright. Anyone could copy any work and use it.
I'm not advocating stealing works by saying their yours, or profiting from the work of others. I'm only against the hoarding of the produce of artists by soulless mega-corporations who don't give a fuck about civilization and care only about making more cash, and for whom exploiting their customers as well as their employees is a common practice.
I'm against the protection of dying industries through making laws that restrict the flow of information, of knowledge. Because then only those who have enough money to pay for it will be allowed to learn - and we all know where that would lead. our modern civilization and universal democracy stands on many principles, but one of those is the education of the entire populace.
But uneducated people are easier to control, to manipulate. by the governments and the corporations. They can tell us what to think instead of allowing us to realize by ourselves that they're wrong.
Restriction of information and knowledge, through tools like copyrights and patents gives more control by the corporations allows them to restrict the disseminal of information, and allow only that which they want to circulate. The muzzle us, making us nothing but stupid customers, who would react to ads by buying anything they want us to.
Copyright and patents, which were seen at first as tools to protect authors and inventors, have been subdued and taken over by those corporations for their own ends, perverted beyond their original meaning. It's time they are changed.
Otherwise, we are looking at the collapse of western civilization. Not in 2 or 3 years, but within 50 years.
Ridiculous, the levy on iPods and similar portable media players is 20$, there are no more proposed increases for the time being (at least not in 2004).
And note that the money doesn't go to the "Music Industry" but to the actual artists (wow, what a novelty idea).
Good question. I'm a tech, not an Apple employee. This measure may have been related to something else entirely, but I doubt it.
But you'd be naive if you believed what Apple was saying last month or before, or what ANY company says publicly.
I believe they knew about the issue, that the plastic holder is related to it, but that they believed at that point that it was not so common, and indeed back then it was not that common. Until October, we had maybe 10 iBooks with that issue, which is very few compared to all that we've sold and repaired; it all started falling apart this fall when a bunch of units started failing.
We've had many of those iBooks come in. One customer who had bought about 40 of them had 12 of them with the issue - about a 33% repair rate, which is definitely abnormal. We know at that point that there was an issue.
But we've had almost no repeat repairs for this issue. We had maybe one or two which came back for slightly different problems (one was overheating, the other had a keyboard issue) for which we had to replace the logic board but was unrelated to the original issue.
Apple, a few months ago, issued a program to add to those iBooks a small plastic holder around the video chip on the backside of the logic boards. Most boards coming in for replacement already have those, and we've been instructed to install them as a preventative measure on any unit we open and on any new logic board which doesn't have them yet. I suspect (although Apple have not confirmed) that this measure is related to the logic board issue, as most symptoms are related to video. So far all iBooks which have shown the video issue did NOT have this little plastic parts installed.
So I can confidently affirm that repeat failures should not occur if the technician follows the Apple procedures.
>but the Silmarillion was, and guess what? It sucked.
Wrong again, as Tolkien started writing the material that went into the Silmarillion way before anything else. He started it during WW1, in 1917 or so. The very first thing he wrote, IIRC, was "Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin". He just never managed to finish and edit it. Every time I read it, I weep for all the good material he could have written to expand on many of the stories. A lot of the stuff he started, and can be found in the HoME series, like better versions of the Turin and Tuor stories, but which were never finished. Hopefully when it enters public domain some good writer (and linguist!) will show up and finish it.
Ship out an initial crew of 4-5, specialists who can evaluate the terrain, make measurements, etc. Then a few years after, send up 10-20 people, more varied, with a lot more equipment, to set up a bigger site, and ready for the next wave: within 5-10 years after initial launch, send 100-200 people of all kinds, who are going to start colonizing, and expand from there, gradually. Don't expect to get any of them back, they're going to stay, but expect it to grow over time as we send more and more people with more resources, and do all we can to make it more self-sufficient.
Why does this remind me of Dune? You know, with Duncan Idaho going berserk and having to be replaced every time he finds out there have been many others like him and that Leto actually killed most of them?
Merry actually helps Eowyn kill the Witch-King. He strikes him at the leg, and then Eowyn gives him the killing blow, driving her sword straight on.
It's Pippin who kills a troll during the fight in front of the Black Gate.
And I've read that the Houses of Healing part where Eowyn ends up with Faramir was cut from the movie, but it's more than likely that it's going to be in the Extended Edition.
Whereas Elrond and his household are Noldor, wise (literally, Noldor means "wise") elves who lived with the Valar in the west under the light of the trees, as is Galadriel, leader of Lorien, Thranduil is a Sindar, who although of the Eldar (those who undertook the journey to Aman) he never went into the west, and his people are silvan elves, who are less wise than even the Sindar. Note that Celeborn and him are cousin, but Tolkien never really put down clearly wether Celeborn was Teleri or Sindar.
Thranduil built his kingdom because of his memory of Menegroth, Thingol's underground marvel, out of a certain envy of the wealth of the Noldor, and his greed is not that unexplainable.
IOW, there are Elves and there are Elves, do not believe they're all the same.
Not as a movie. If the Silmarillion is ever done, it would need to be a mini-series or something.
The problem is that there are some excellent dramatic stories in the Silmarillion:
- Feanor and the revolt of the Elves, from about his birth to the time the elves establish themselves in Beleriand. It's got grreat pacing, mostly follows one character's development and history, and then after his death there's some resolution with his sons.
- Beren and Luthien. It's got romance, adventure, action, a few daring rescues, a talking dog, Sauron as a big werewolf, a beautiful elf-girl dancing to make Morgoth sleep, it's very sad and beautiful, and ends well but still somewhat bitter.
- Turin Turambar is maybe a bit too tragic a character for modern movies, but his story reminds me of some tragedic Shakespearian characters, and it would make a good tale (some may object to the incest stuff though).
- Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin would be awesome. Imagine Helm's Deep but with dozens of Balrogs attacking the city, along with betrayal and a good ending with their departure.
- Finally, Earendil and Elwing, and the War of Wrath, and the founding of Numenor.
Forget about trying to tell it as a single story, or trying to impart all the details and backstories to everything the way they are in the book. Concentrate on the parts that care about a character or two, and then add the backstories in those that tell what happened between the big stories. You can certainly tell stuff like the big battles in flashbacks of certain characters.
And what happens when some little genius who reads Slashdot think sof writing a worm which, as a little routine, is designed to do something to ATMs, like record PINs and card numbers, or transfer cash to his bank account?
No. He paid for said music in the first place. He created a utility to manipulate something he PAID FOR. Jon didn't pirate anything. Same thing with DeCSS, whose main purpose was to listen to a DVD you bought, that you paid for.
I have the right to create what I want, be it music, art, or software, and so is Jon, and so are you. I don't care if the law in the US says differently, the law is wrong. I'm willing to stand up for those rights, for my freedom. Those who aren't willing to pay in money or with their lives for their freedom and those of others can live as slaves to the corporations who want nothing else than to dictate how they should think and live. I intend to save them despite themselves if I can and, so it seems, does Jon.
What you may not understand is that some people are ready to live through all that because it's right to stand up to those who would silence us forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X is a Unix-based consumer Operating System, and security on it doesn't suck, no one runs as root unless they REALLY know how to do it (It's disabled by default). Running any installer asks for an admin password or otherwise it can't access system areas.
I haven't seen many users mess it up very much so far. And it's been fairly secure with security updates coming in at a regular pace, often fixing widely-publicised open-source packages that are included in the OS within a week or so.
I've put some time myself in learning Sindarin and Quenya. Not to a conversational level, but enough to be able to say simple phrases and understand them. Enough to understand a lot of the dialog in the movies, and to translate most place-names in LotR and the Silmarillion as I (re-)read them.
I can also read and write Tengwar, the Elvish writing system (at a slow pace). There are a number of resources available on the web at the moment for all this.
http://www.ardalambion.com/
is one of the best, with links to other resources on the web.
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/language.htm
is also a good resource.
What's more, every year more of the professor's material on those languages is published, and more knowledge of those tongues is acquired so that the information gets refined. Actual teaching of the language is great, as others said it increases interest in languages in general, which is good.
Before looking seriously at Elvish, I learned English, German, and Latin (my first tongue was French). I can usually figure out written material in Italian and Spanish. So my interest in Elvish was NOT alone but only part of a general interest in languages, and learning the basis of those made-up languages made me aware of certain concepts of language which are not always readily apparent in real-world languages, but yet are useful for a deeper understanding of them.
>what copyright is and what it is for they see it for what it is - a crime. I see it as a crime.
You have it wrong. It's copyright that's the crime. A crime against human culture, against the contributions of great people for the betterment of humanity and civilization.
It's a crime to withhold the public use of information and idea. To withhold ideas, art from being shared and enjoyed by all. To compartiment, corporatize, compartmentalize, and consumerise the great production of our society.
Previous civilizations didn't have or need copyright. Anyone could copy any work and use it.
I'm not advocating stealing works by saying their yours, or profiting from the work of others. I'm only against the hoarding of the produce of artists by soulless mega-corporations who don't give a fuck about civilization and care only about making more cash, and for whom exploiting their customers as well as their employees is a common practice.
I'm against the protection of dying industries through making laws that restrict the flow of information, of knowledge. Because then only those who have enough money to pay for it will be allowed to learn - and we all know where that would lead. our modern civilization and universal democracy stands on many principles, but one of those is the education of the entire populace.
But uneducated people are easier to control, to manipulate. by the governments and the corporations. They can tell us what to think instead of allowing us to realize by ourselves that they're wrong.
Restriction of information and knowledge, through tools like copyrights and patents gives more control by the corporations allows them to restrict the disseminal of information, and allow only that which they want to circulate. The muzzle us, making us nothing but stupid customers, who would react to ads by buying anything they want us to.
Copyright and patents, which were seen at first as tools to protect authors and inventors, have been subdued and taken over by those corporations for their own ends, perverted beyond their original meaning. It's time they are changed.
Otherwise, we are looking at the collapse of western civilization. Not in 2 or 3 years, but within 50 years.
Ridiculous, the levy on iPods and similar portable media players is 20$, there are no more proposed increases for the time being (at least not in 2004).
And note that the money doesn't go to the "Music Industry" but to the actual artists (wow, what a novelty idea).
Don't I remember some company lending a multi-processor system to Alan Cox a few years back so that he could work on scaling SMP code?
Ah yes, I think it was a company called "Caldera" who did that (http://www.linux.org.uk/SMP/title.html). You know, they're called "SCO" now...
Good question. I'm a tech, not an Apple employee. This measure may have been related to something else entirely, but I doubt it.
But you'd be naive if you believed what Apple was saying last month or before, or what ANY company says publicly.
I believe they knew about the issue, that the plastic holder is related to it, but that they believed at that point that it was not so common, and indeed back then it was not that common. Until October, we had maybe 10 iBooks with that issue, which is very few compared to all that we've sold and repaired; it all started falling apart this fall when a bunch of units started failing.
I work as an Apple Tech in a Mac shop.
We've had many of those iBooks come in. One customer who had bought about 40 of them had 12 of them with the issue - about a 33% repair rate, which is definitely abnormal. We know at that point that there was an issue.
But we've had almost no repeat repairs for this issue. We had maybe one or two which came back for slightly different problems (one was overheating, the other had a keyboard issue) for which we had to replace the logic board but was unrelated to the original issue.
Apple, a few months ago, issued a program to add to those iBooks a small plastic holder around the video chip on the backside of the logic boards. Most boards coming in for replacement already have those, and we've been instructed to install them as a preventative measure on any unit we open and on any new logic board which doesn't have them yet. I suspect (although Apple have not confirmed) that this measure is related to the logic board issue, as most symptoms are related to video. So far all iBooks which have shown the video issue did NOT have this little plastic parts installed.
So I can confidently affirm that repeat failures should not occur if the technician follows the Apple procedures.
We have about 50 users, we got around 200 viruses in the first 18 hours.
IANAP (I am not a psychologist) but that sounds like a schizophrenic.
>but the Silmarillion was, and guess what? It sucked.
Wrong again, as Tolkien started writing the material that went into the Silmarillion way before anything else. He started it during WW1, in 1917 or so. The very first thing he wrote, IIRC, was "Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin". He just never managed to finish and edit it. Every time I read it, I weep for all the good material he could have written to expand on many of the stories. A lot of the stuff he started, and can be found in the HoME series, like better versions of the Turin and Tuor stories, but which were never finished. Hopefully when it enters public domain some good writer (and linguist!) will show up and finish it.
Ship out an initial crew of 4-5, specialists who can evaluate the terrain, make measurements, etc. Then a few years after, send up 10-20 people, more varied, with a lot more equipment, to set up a bigger site, and ready for the next wave: within 5-10 years after initial launch, send 100-200 people of all kinds, who are going to start colonizing, and expand from there, gradually. Don't expect to get any of them back, they're going to stay, but expect it to grow over time as we send more and more people with more resources, and do all we can to make it more self-sufficient.
Now, where do I sign up?
But Sokal didnt start a whole new branch of physics.
Why does this remind me of Dune? You know, with Duncan Idaho going berserk and having to be replaced every time he finds out there have been many others like him and that Leto actually killed most of them?
You're assuming such things are totally random, which they're most likely not.
Merry actually helps Eowyn kill the Witch-King. He strikes him at the leg, and then Eowyn gives him the killing blow, driving her sword straight on.
It's Pippin who kills a troll during the fight in front of the Black Gate.
And I've read that the Houses of Healing part where Eowyn ends up with Faramir was cut from the movie, but it's more than likely that it's going to be in the Extended Edition.
The confrontation scene was cut out, but will be on the EE DVD.
Pippin still gets the Palantir and a look into it. The scene where he looks in is in the recently released TV short.
Whereas Elrond and his household are Noldor, wise (literally, Noldor means "wise") elves who lived with the Valar in the west under the light of the trees, as is Galadriel, leader of Lorien, Thranduil is a Sindar, who although of the Eldar (those who undertook the journey to Aman) he never went into the west, and his people are silvan elves, who are less wise than even the Sindar. Note that Celeborn and him are cousin, but Tolkien never really put down clearly wether Celeborn was Teleri or Sindar.
Thranduil built his kingdom because of his memory of Menegroth, Thingol's underground marvel, out of a certain envy of the wealth of the Noldor, and his greed is not that unexplainable.
IOW, there are Elves and there are Elves, do not believe they're all the same.
Not as a movie. If the Silmarillion is ever done, it would need to be a mini-series or something.
The problem is that there are some excellent dramatic stories in the Silmarillion:
- Feanor and the revolt of the Elves, from about his birth to the time the elves establish themselves in Beleriand. It's got grreat pacing, mostly follows one character's development and history, and then after his death there's some resolution with his sons.
- Beren and Luthien. It's got romance, adventure, action, a few daring rescues, a talking dog, Sauron as a big werewolf, a beautiful elf-girl dancing to make Morgoth sleep, it's very sad and beautiful, and ends well but still somewhat bitter.
- Turin Turambar is maybe a bit too tragic a character for modern movies, but his story reminds me of some tragedic Shakespearian characters, and it would make a good tale (some may object to the incest stuff though).
- Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin would be awesome. Imagine Helm's Deep but with dozens of Balrogs attacking the city, along with betrayal and a good ending with their departure.
- Finally, Earendil and Elwing, and the War of Wrath, and the founding of Numenor.
Forget about trying to tell it as a single story, or trying to impart all the details and backstories to everything the way they are in the book. Concentrate on the parts that care about a character or two, and then add the backstories in those that tell what happened between the big stories. You can certainly tell stuff like the big battles in flashbacks of certain characters.
You know you play too much War3 when...
You complain about Stormbolt being overpowered on Slashdot.
My latest halfling thief has a "disgusting habit" as a flaw: after eating, he regurgitates all of it and eats it again.
And what happens when some little genius who reads Slashdot think sof writing a worm which, as a little routine, is designed to do something to ATMs, like record PINs and card numbers, or transfer cash to his bank account?
No. He paid for said music in the first place. He created a utility to manipulate something he PAID FOR. Jon didn't pirate anything. Same thing with DeCSS, whose main purpose was to listen to a DVD you bought, that you paid for.
I have the right to create what I want, be it music, art, or software, and so is Jon, and so are you. I don't care if the law in the US says differently, the law is wrong. I'm willing to stand up for those rights, for my freedom. Those who aren't willing to pay in money or with their lives for their freedom and those of others can live as slaves to the corporations who want nothing else than to dictate how they should think and live. I intend to save them despite themselves if I can and, so it seems, does Jon.
What you may not understand is that some people are ready to live through all that because it's right to stand up to those who would silence us forever.
or Slashdot? I must have hit the wrong button somewhere. Where can I give a trolling moderation to the posting?