OK, I have a huge problem with this reference: (FTA)
"Duke's wisecracks made him almost as popular as Bruce Campbell in "Evil Dead." Bruce isn't so popular today, but for whatever reason people haven't forgotten about Duke yet."
I am a big fan of Bruce Campbell, as I am sure many fellow slashdotters are. Since 1996, when the last DK game was release, Bruce has been in (according to IMDB) no fewer than 49 movies, tv shows, or video games. Not so popular? In the 10 years after "Evil Dead" (1981 - 1991) he was only seen 14 times. I think that suggests that his popularity has grown quite a bit since then. Even if you are suggesting his popularity peaked at "Army of Darkness" (1992), you would be mistaken.
Ask your average Joe about Duke Nukem you MIGHT get a "Oh yeah, I remember that. Wants that just rip on Doom?" Your luck to find a copy in a bargain bin today. I would think more people would know who Bruce Campbell. Hell, he's been in 9 video games. That is three times as many as Duke Nukem has.
I once had a very long discussion with a freind on this very subject and we came to the same conclusion: Military doesn't innovate, it invests.
Take an advancement and trace it's roots. It may have gone through the military's hands, but it will invariable have started either as a hobby (like flight) or in scientific academia (teh intarwebs). If a technology looks promising enough, the "military" (or the governing body that controls it) will invest heavily in it and advance it, but hardly, if ever, will it actually produce an inovation.
The "military" does not employ scientist to just muck around in labs and come up with something. There are notible exceptions. During WWII, many counrties did just that, and we got cyanoacrylate.
* Possible election tampering by vote machine manufacturers,which donate primarily to republican candidates, or have been headed by people who become and win elections as republicans in districts that use their e-voting machines * The President signing into law the Military Commissions Act (which effectively destroys Habeus Corpus) * The president signing into law H.R. 5122 (which give the President the authority to use state guard as a Posse Commitatus)
Is the White House preparing for possible civil unrest after fraudulent elections, or are these simply horrible coincedents that could set the stage for further creation of a US police state?
I saw the same thing. Also, if the person in the image is doing something with their face (smiling, open mouth, wide eyes) it tends to match with images of people doing the same thing. Kinda simplistic, more like a trick than a tool.
We can bitch all we want about how wacky them Boston "lib'rals" are, but we'll also wonder why kids are using the same textbooks their parents used. If this isn't already a well known idea, then I want it to be called "Wubby's Axiom": If some one can be sued for something, sooner or later they will be. With a budget only so big if a school district is court ordered to pay out in a lawsuit, then there is only one place they can get it from, and that's everything else they have to pay to give your kids an education.
Is it possible to enumerate at least SOME of the rights that legal ownership of a CD (book, DVD, audio-tape, other work) grants me? What the RIAA "says" is very different from what the law allows. They can say it's not legal, but that doesn't mean it isn't. What IS legal as the owner of a copy of a work?
Lending to a friend? Making mix tapes? Playing it at a party (private or public)? Selling it?
Are any of those currently known to be legal or does every right have to be court-won to be considered legal?
The ONLY reason I watched it to begin with was because it was an hour between SG-1 and BSG I had no plans for. SciFi really needs to figure out what it thinks is good TV and stick with it.
Since BSG probably costs a sh!tload to make (in SciFi's estimation), I give it another season and a half. I doubt they will come up with anything good after that, since all "SciFi Originals" invariably suck: Stargate Atlantis, Invisible Man, ALL the movies. Everythink else was started by someone else. SciFi just buys up the syndication rights.
I have my birthday next month, so I plan on using my xp to level up on "Self Control" (not hitting the kids), "Basic Foraging" (getting take-out), and "Charisma (Carpenter, yum.)"
I will also get a +3 Mortgage of Death, +2 Job of Despair and +5 Flowers of Forgiveness (always handy after a night out).
The word that comes to mind for me is "payola". The only thing you will get for download is software that is sponsored. Pay the "vendor" the right price and they will certainly "certify" your app. And if it's all proprietary, I doubt anyone but the software developer will REALLY know what's in the code. It's an idea that just has too many exploitable flaws to be "A Good Thing(tm)".
Ok, "payola" is not the right word, but it's what comes to mind. A sponsored work that is not presented as such. It would happen. The idea that we can trust a organization whose motive is profit is asinine. It's something that seems to need to be re-learned with every generation.
That's an interesting legal question. If you create a work with someone elses stolen property, who owns the work. If you steal my camera (and film) and take a picture, do you get to keep the pictures, or are they also mine when/if I get the camera back.
To extend that out, does a music recording made with a stolen guitar become the players, or the owners?
In this case, though, since the photos are uploaded as part of a service (T-Mobile) and that service belongs to the legal owner, I would think the EULA and TOS of T-Mobile would apply. I wonder if those would shed a better light on it.
Or it may be even easier to answer. The service copies the works to anywhere the legal user of the service wants, so in effect, the one who took the pictures has given copy rights to that legal owner, I would think. Even if they didn't know the TOS, i don't think they can claim exception to it by another crime (their theft). Just as you can be help responsible to crimes you commit while under the influence of a drug.
"Happily" might be a relitive term here, but I would agree that many lived contently enough not to upset the balance, or were too afraid to do anything about it. But I also would say that most had a measure of autonomy to their lives, due to either the generosity of the rulers or distance between them and the ruled. The ruled living hundreds of miles from the seat of rule could live their daily lives without much inerferance. Maybe instant communication will make it easier to rule as a tyrant.
Either way, I hope you're wrong and that democracy is an evolutionary step up from such servitude. Democracy certainly does require more work on the part of the people, and we all know, people can become lazy and complacent. It may be that it's something that we most rediscover throughout history.
With the recent ruling against whistleblowers, the SCOTUS made sure that the government had the right to keep those who discover illegal acts intimidated into silence.
The message: Don't watch the watchers!
We are peasants who need to be ruled, not citizens who govern.
Writing pamphlets that critisized the government was once a crime. Writing articles that pointed out the unfair practices of the government was once a crime. That goverment sought to seek out the writers and punish them.
The American Revolution and Constitution that was created thereafter ensure that a people could freely discuss and inform itself about the activities of it's government. Keeping people in power honest requires the scrutiny of the people. Remove that process and they WILL become corrupt.
How many leaders throughout history have asked it's people to "Just trust us" then went on to commit evils against them? How many said "Its for you good/security/health/jobs"? How many then insisted that thier activites required secrecy?
The leaks we are discussing are not revealing the names of secret operatives, or the design of weapons, or the plans of Army campaigns. They are revealing the crimes our leaders are committing against the spirit of the American ideals and against us. Many patriots went to prisons and the gallows exposing the same thing over 200 years ago.
Which is a worse crime: Leaking a document that was classified just to cover-up an illegal act, or breaking your oath to uphold the constitution by letting the crime stay hidden?
And why is it that Intelligent Design isn't tought in schools? It's a big conspiracy, I tell ya. Look at the eye, man! We're talking like scientist, so we should be accepted like scientists, right?
While I didn't exactly like all the things that J. Ayers was saying, he was right about most of it.
I was in the room for his talk (which all of about 20 people showed up for). When he said that the big companies will leave Linux out of the picture for future media, he knew what he was talking about. He wasn't just talking about Real. This is how Sony and Disney, RIAA, MPAA all feel. If those companies are unable to control what you do with their content, they won't let you do anything.
Now, myself and a few other like-minded people made it clearly known that we as consumers and avid computer users didn't like that idea, to which J. Ayers sounded sympathetic, his points still stood. Media companies are pushing DRM from the medium (cd, dvd, hd) to the output (video, audio). The major point he was making was that the control was over quality. If you don't have top to bottem DRM, you could still get the content, only it would be degraded. That degradation would have to be respected in the HARDWARE and SOFTWARE.
That means (which someone pointed out to him) that user don't control their system anymore. DRM took the control and gave it to the media. Users only have priviledges, not rights. If you update your kernel, or use an OSS video driver, you are not allowed to get the full content.
This assumes we trust the media company not to shutoff your whole system when it detects that you are not in total DRM compliance. There would be NOTHING to stop them from doing THAT.
As a nerd, I wondered what your sig meant, so I figured I'd convert it to meters per second, or miles per hour. I still have no idea. What does it mean?
I would think that the games provide a good excuse for these kids to interact with the authority figures in a social way, rather than the way they normally do, adversarially. It's not so much the games that lower their chances of commiting further crime, but the way they now know and feel about the police.
They likely get to know them on a personal basis. When faced with a choice to commit a crime and disappointing that "cool cop I fragged with last week" or walking away and doing something else, they choose the latter. It could likely work with any activity that could be interesting to a kids: building rockets, playing sports, working on cars.
Isn't this what any monopolistic company want to do? We can call it double billing, they can call it "generating new revenue streams". The idea is that they can't get any more money from customers of their service, so that start claiming they have other services and charging people for them, even if nothing has changed. They're tring to get more money without any more work.
And since many Bell companies are monopolies in their regions, like the cable companies, they have no competition that would naturally regulate this sort of behavior.
Imagine the owner of a railroad requiring payment for not just the shipper, but the receiver, the stations, and the loaders of a container. If any don't pay they slow down the shipment or halt it all together.
I like that you are getting more involved. I like the way it makes Slashdot seem like there are people behind it and not just "Google News for geeks".
I don't know if I agree about your assesment about it being merely blogish, though. While that may be what it was in the beginning, it think today it isn't. Like it or not, it's gained a bit of that journalistic veneer. Not because you or the other editors set out to do so, but because the way you have behaved has led people to feel that way.
You're not the NYtimes or the WashPost. More like a local newspaper. Lots of reprints from the big boys, but also some helpful content that applies to us on the "fringe".
Complaining may give people a feeling of control over something they admire, but can hardly participate in. The "low hanging fruit" of bad grammar and spelling, dupes and "unworthy" strories are things we would all do, but I suspect many of us would have far more that slashdot, who have been at it lot longer.
OMFG, is it really THAT slow at Slashdot? We have seen these article over and over again, on everything from "20/20" to "The Weekly World News"! Come on!
It may be a "Hardware" article, but it doe NOT deserve front page status!
Great! Now I've just wasted twice as much time complaining about an article I wasted too much time looking at!
Slashdot Mirror
OK, I have a huge problem with this reference:
(FTA)
"Duke's wisecracks made him almost as popular as Bruce Campbell in "Evil Dead." Bruce isn't so popular today, but for whatever reason people haven't forgotten about Duke yet."
I am a big fan of Bruce Campbell, as I am sure many fellow slashdotters are. Since 1996, when the last DK game was release, Bruce has been in (according to IMDB) no fewer than 49 movies, tv shows, or video games. Not so popular? In the 10 years after "Evil Dead" (1981 - 1991) he was only seen 14 times. I think that suggests that his popularity has grown quite a bit since then. Even if you are suggesting his popularity peaked at "Army of Darkness" (1992), you would be mistaken.
Ask your average Joe about Duke Nukem you MIGHT get a "Oh yeah, I remember that. Wants that just rip on Doom?" Your luck to find a copy in a bargain bin today. I would think more people would know who Bruce Campbell. Hell, he's been in 9 video games. That is three times as many as Duke Nukem has.
Don't fuck with the Bruce!
I once had a very long discussion with a freind on this very subject and we came to the same conclusion: Military doesn't innovate, it invests.
Take an advancement and trace it's roots. It may have gone through the military's hands, but it will invariable have started either as a hobby (like flight) or in scientific academia (teh intarwebs). If a technology looks promising enough, the "military" (or the governing body that controls it) will invest heavily in it and advance it, but hardly, if ever, will it actually produce an inovation.
The "military" does not employ scientist to just muck around in labs and come up with something. There are notible exceptions. During WWII, many counrties did just that, and we got cyanoacrylate.
Do you see any connection between:
,which donate primarily to republican candidates, or have been headed by people who become and win elections as republicans in districts that use their e-voting machines
* Possible election tampering by vote machine manufacturers
* The President signing into law the Military Commissions Act (which effectively destroys Habeus Corpus)
* The president signing into law H.R. 5122 (which give the President the authority to use state guard as a Posse Commitatus)
Is the White House preparing for possible civil unrest after fraudulent elections, or are these simply horrible coincedents that could set the stage for further creation of a US police state?
I saw the same thing. Also, if the person in the image is doing something with their face (smiling, open mouth, wide eyes) it tends to match with images of people doing the same thing. Kinda simplistic, more like a trick than a tool.
We can bitch all we want about how wacky them Boston "lib'rals" are, but we'll also wonder why kids are using the same textbooks their parents used. If this isn't already a well known idea, then I want it to be called "Wubby's Axiom": If some one can be sued for something, sooner or later they will be. With a budget only so big if a school district is court ordered to pay out in a lawsuit, then there is only one place they can get it from, and that's everything else they have to pay to give your kids an education.
This is definately related: Potato Powder Stops Bleeding, May Help Surgery
Who needs "nanogel"? I got a POTATO! Or maybe it's for people one Atkins: proteins over carbs.
Is it possible to enumerate at least SOME of the rights that legal ownership of a CD (book, DVD, audio-tape, other work) grants me? What the RIAA "says" is very different from what the law allows. They can say it's not legal, but that doesn't mean it isn't. What IS legal as the owner of a copy of a work?
Lending to a friend?
Making mix tapes?
Playing it at a party (private or public)?
Selling it?
Are any of those currently known to be legal or does every right have to be court-won to be considered legal?
The ONLY reason I watched it to begin with was because it was an hour between SG-1 and BSG I had no plans for. SciFi really needs to figure out what it thinks is good TV and stick with it.
Since BSG probably costs a sh!tload to make (in SciFi's estimation), I give it another season and a half. I doubt they will come up with anything good after that, since all "SciFi Originals" invariably suck: Stargate Atlantis, Invisible Man, ALL the movies. Everythink else was started by someone else. SciFi just buys up the syndication rights.
I have my birthday next month, so I plan on using my xp to level up on "Self Control" (not hitting the kids), "Basic Foraging" (getting take-out), and "Charisma (Carpenter, yum.)"
I will also get a +3 Mortgage of Death, +2 Job of Despair and +5 Flowers of Forgiveness (always handy after a night out).
The word that comes to mind for me is "payola". The only thing you will get for download is software that is sponsored. Pay the "vendor" the right price and they will certainly "certify" your app. And if it's all proprietary, I doubt anyone but the software developer will REALLY know what's in the code. It's an idea that just has too many exploitable flaws to be "A Good Thing(tm)".
Ok, "payola" is not the right word, but it's what comes to mind. A sponsored work that is not presented as such. It would happen. The idea that we can trust a organization whose motive is profit is asinine. It's something that seems to need to be re-learned with every generation.
I read that headline too quick and was expecting an indepth discussion of GI Joe's arch nemesis. Man, I need to stop drinking in morning!
That's an interesting legal question. If you create a work with someone elses stolen property, who owns the work. If you steal my camera (and film) and take a picture, do you get to keep the pictures, or are they also mine when/if I get the camera back.
To extend that out, does a music recording made with a stolen guitar become the players, or the owners?
In this case, though, since the photos are uploaded as part of a service (T-Mobile) and that service belongs to the legal owner, I would think the EULA and TOS of T-Mobile would apply. I wonder if those would shed a better light on it.
Or it may be even easier to answer. The service copies the works to anywhere the legal user of the service wants, so in effect, the one who took the pictures has given copy rights to that legal owner, I would think. Even if they didn't know the TOS, i don't think they can claim exception to it by another crime (their theft). Just as you can be help responsible to crimes you commit while under the influence of a drug.
Does that make any sense?
"Happily" might be a relitive term here, but I would agree that many lived contently enough not to upset the balance, or were too afraid to do anything about it. But I also would say that most had a measure of autonomy to their lives, due to either the generosity of the rulers or distance between them and the ruled. The ruled living hundreds of miles from the seat of rule could live their daily lives without much inerferance. Maybe instant communication will make it easier to rule as a tyrant.
Either way, I hope you're wrong and that democracy is an evolutionary step up from such servitude. Democracy certainly does require more work on the part of the people, and we all know, people can become lazy and complacent. It may be that it's something that we most rediscover throughout history.
With the recent ruling against whistleblowers, the SCOTUS made sure that the government had the right to keep those who discover illegal acts intimidated into silence.
The message: Don't watch the watchers!
We are peasants who need to be ruled, not citizens who govern.
Writing pamphlets that critisized the government was once a crime. Writing articles that pointed out the unfair practices of the government was once a crime. That goverment sought to seek out the writers and punish them.
The American Revolution and Constitution that was created thereafter ensure that a people could freely discuss and inform itself about the activities of it's government. Keeping people in power honest requires the scrutiny of the people. Remove that process and they WILL become corrupt.
How many leaders throughout history have asked it's people to "Just trust us" then went on to commit evils against them? How many said "Its for you good/security/health/jobs"? How many then insisted that thier activites required secrecy?
The leaks we are discussing are not revealing the names of secret operatives, or the design of weapons, or the plans of Army campaigns. They are revealing the crimes our leaders are committing against the spirit of the American ideals and against us. Many patriots went to prisons and the gallows exposing the same thing over 200 years ago.
Which is a worse crime: Leaking a document that was classified just to cover-up an illegal act, or breaking your oath to uphold the constitution by letting the crime stay hidden?
And why is it that Intelligent Design isn't tought in schools? It's a big conspiracy, I tell ya. Look at the eye, man! We're talking like scientist, so we should be accepted like scientists, right?
While I didn't exactly like all the things that J. Ayers was saying, he was right about most of it.
I was in the room for his talk (which all of about 20 people showed up for). When he said that the big companies will leave Linux out of the picture for future media, he knew what he was talking about. He wasn't just talking about Real. This is how Sony and Disney, RIAA, MPAA all feel. If those companies are unable to control what you do with their content, they won't let you do anything.
Now, myself and a few other like-minded people made it clearly known that we as consumers and avid computer users didn't like that idea, to which J. Ayers sounded sympathetic, his points still stood. Media companies are pushing DRM from the medium (cd, dvd, hd) to the output (video, audio). The major point he was making was that the control was over quality. If you don't have top to bottem DRM, you could still get the content, only it would be degraded. That degradation would have to be respected in the HARDWARE and SOFTWARE.
That means (which someone pointed out to him) that user don't control their system anymore. DRM took the control and gave it to the media. Users only have priviledges, not rights. If you update your kernel, or use an OSS video driver, you are not allowed to get the full content.
This assumes we trust the media company not to shutoff your whole system when it detects that you are not in total DRM compliance. There would be NOTHING to stop them from doing THAT.
Water is believed by scientists to be wet... Film at eleven!
ok, I guess my math was REALLY wrong, then...
Thanks...
1.8026175 × 10^12 furlongs per fortnight
As a nerd, I wondered what your sig meant, so I figured I'd convert it to meters per second, or miles per hour. I still have no idea. What does it mean?
Defensive much? It means atheists who happen to be well educated. The implication was not obvious, you just wanted to see it that way.
Although your point about spelling does belie the "well educated" part.
I would think that the games provide a good excuse for these kids to interact with the authority figures in a social way, rather than the way they normally do, adversarially. It's not so much the games that lower their chances of commiting further crime, but the way they now know and feel about the police.
They likely get to know them on a personal basis. When faced with a choice to commit a crime and disappointing that "cool cop I fragged with last week" or walking away and doing something else, they choose the latter. It could likely work with any activity that could be interesting to a kids: building rockets, playing sports, working on cars.
Isn't this what any monopolistic company want to do? We can call it double billing, they can call it "generating new revenue streams". The idea is that they can't get any more money from customers of their service, so that start claiming they have other services and charging people for them, even if nothing has changed. They're tring to get more money without any more work.
And since many Bell companies are monopolies in their regions, like the cable companies, they have no competition that would naturally regulate this sort of behavior.
Imagine the owner of a railroad requiring payment for not just the shipper, but the receiver, the stations, and the loaders of a container. If any don't pay they slow down the shipment or halt it all together.
I like that you are getting more involved. I like the way it makes Slashdot seem like there are people behind it and not just "Google News for geeks".
I don't know if I agree about your assesment about it being merely blogish, though. While that may be what it was in the beginning, it think today it isn't. Like it or not, it's gained a bit of that journalistic veneer. Not because you or the other editors set out to do so, but because the way you have behaved has led people to feel that way.
You're not the NYtimes or the WashPost. More like a local newspaper. Lots of reprints from the big boys, but also some helpful content that applies to us on the "fringe".
Complaining may give people a feeling of control over something they admire, but can hardly participate in. The "low hanging fruit" of bad grammar and spelling, dupes and "unworthy" strories are things we would all do, but I suspect many of us would have far more that slashdot, who have been at it lot longer.
OMFG, is it really THAT slow at Slashdot? We have seen these article over and over again, on everything from "20/20" to "The Weekly World News"! Come on!
It may be a "Hardware" article, but it doe NOT deserve front page status!
Great! Now I've just wasted twice as much time complaining about an article I wasted too much time looking at!
</whine>