Not that that the product is bad, but few of them really tell anything more than what I can read on the product homepage.
Check out the user forums at www.prismiq.ORG (and click on "forums" on the left side.) There are a lot of PRISMIQ users active on the forums, and you are bound to see a lot of opinions. And you can always post your own questions and have a good chance someone will answer.
For the brave experimentors, there is also some information on controlling the PRISMIQ player from another host and a rather rough (or should I say "early"?) version of the server software that runs on i386 Linux (as opposed to the official Win32 server software).
Isn't it a bit insecure for it to scan the entire hard disk drive of an old Windows machine for media files?
The PRISMIQ software asks you which directory you want to scan and what file extensions to look for. How secure is the communication if one decides to use it in its wireless incarnation?
Someone who could sniff your wireless traffic could probably snarf a copy of the audio and video streams. So if you're paranoid, don't stream your steamy home movies over wireless:-)
If you are interested in seeing a lot of real users discussing the PRISMIQ box, go to www.prismiq.ORG and click on "forums".
Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50?
I would not. (Are you calling for some kind of Slashdot roll call here?)
I will not install WinXP on any of my computers. For now, I use an old copy of NT4 for those (thankfully few) occasions where I have to do Win32 development. I hope that it will do the job for a while to come, but if I am faced with some really bad incompatibility, my "last resort" is to buy a copy of Win2000, hopefully at a closeout price. But I hope things don't come to that. Getting back to the question of WinXP, my answer is "hell no!"
I remember when I would talk to people about the World Wide Web and they would say something like, "oh, you mean Netscape? I've got that on my computer!"
Heh. I used to say (at least to myself), "WWW, that's WAIS, right? Yuck, I hate WAIS. Gopher is so much easier and useful..." Then years later, it was "I can use graphics to get info on the Internet with Mosaic? Cool! It will be a hassle to set up SLIP, though..."
I hate to say it but microsoft are in an extremely strong position to crush Google.
I don't agree. People who are happy with Google probably won't switch to MSN just because there is a new desktop icon. I don't see how these people will be affected much. I can see how MS can influence new users, but how many new users are there compared with the established user base? I think that the market has matured, and while there will always be new users, I don't think they will be the critical factor they were several years ago.
I sure hope that one of the part distributors' factories doesn't suddenly explode out on some tiny unheard of little island in Asia or anything. [ referring to the great memory price spike back in the mid-late 90's ]
I am pretty sure that the Sumitomo Chemical company fire was a complete lie. It's been a while (almost 10 years now?), but I seem to recal claims that this company produced half of the industry's integrated circuit epoxy, and that was the excuse for the dramatic increase in memory prices. This is the same epoxy ("plastic") that was used for all kinds of IC's, and I remember that the pricing on our 74LSxxx chips just about doubled, from maybe 15 cents to 25-30 cents each, due to the sudden price increase on the epoxy. Ouch!
Hmmm. That's interesting. The memory chips didn't use much more epoxy than our plain logic IC's, so you would expect the price to go up, what, maybe 25 to 50 cents each? So why did the memory prices nearly double instead of jumping a couple dollars per module? Hmmm.
I don't think this hard drive issue is large enough to suggest collusion, though. A few thousand drives really don't add up to much in the big picture, and in this case, there are warrantee costs as well. Interesting idea, though.
Were the quotes in context? Not to pick on your words specifically...:-)
Under US law, truth is.. libel. Although I... recall... that... Stallman... knew that. No,... embarassing... someone... is entirely legal.... German law is... SCO's... arm here
Obviously my hack-up job is a ridiculous extreme, just to show how important context is.
First, a brokerage house cannot "borrow" shares from an account holder without that account holder's explicit permission.
Okay. I seem to remember something in my brokerage contract about allowing them to use my shares this way, but maybe this is an unusual thing, or maybe I read it wrong.
Third, stockbrokers are supposed to screen customers before they allow them to engage in riskier trading practices.
Yep, I have heard over and over from the experts that short selling can be an extremely risky business, no question about that.
Thanks for the info!
Re:Can we "short" SCO's stock?
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Suppose some of us believe SCO is lying. What's involved in "shorting" their stock?
SEC rules probably make this more complicated, but I think this is a pretty good simplification. Shorting stock is basically selling stock you don't have, with the intention of buying it back later (at a lower price). So you borrow stock from someone else and sell the stock. So how do you borrow stock? (Stockbrokers, please correct this as necessary...) When you do a "short", your stockbroker borrows shares from one of his other customers that has that stock. That stockholder probably does not even notice that his stock has been borrowed, and if the occasion comes up that the stock is needed, then your stockbroker will have to buy the stock immediately so that the stock "lender" is covered. This is one of the dangers of selling short, since a volatile stock may need to be re-bought any time the actual stock owner wants to do something with it, which may be RIGHT NOW. Or it might be some time that is really invonvenient for you, since the price is not where you want it to be. Tough luck. If you sell short, and the price goes up, you could be liable for many, many times your investment. Your stockbroker will probably hold the cash proceeds from your sale as insurance against this sort of thing. Compre this with simple investing, where you buy a stock and the worst case scenario is losing all of your investment. But if you sell short, it can get much worse if things go badly for you.
In fact, one of the best cheats for an FPS is "wallhacking". You install a modified graphics driver that negates the Z value of drawn objects.
That way, distant things appear in front of nearby ones, instead of the reverse. So you can prepare to fire at an enemy before he's even in view.
Here is a possible partial solution: have the server issue multiple randomly moving false images behind the "opaque" area. Normal people would never see them, but the cheaters would have to deal with many fake targes, making the illicit information less useful. Going a little farther, the server might even be able to move a fake image into the cheater's view (but somehow still invisible to normal players) and ban the cheater when he tries to shoot at it.
Could droping in its source tree the new version ffmpeg in lieu of the one that comes with it make Mplayer support native Sorenson 3 too?
Yep, if your code uses the libavcodec call av_register_all(), then when you use av_find_stream_info(), it will "just work". I tried yesterday's libavcodec out of CVS on the Quicktime Animatrix movie, and the video quality was pretty good. Pity about not having the QDesign audio codec, though...
The "what the fuck" clip has already even been remixed.
Heh, I was just about to ask that:-)
Now here is a question for all the armchair lawyers. Since Madonna apparently recorded (and uploaded) this "song" for the express purpose of being shared on P2P, has she legally given blanket permission to the public to copy this file? Through her acts, has she surrendered her mechanical rights to the public? If so, then downloading and sharing this particular song would then NOT be a copyright violation, right? And this would make an interesting case where those "pirates" could at least make the (feeble) claim that they thought they were downloading Madonna's "what the fuck" song...:-)
I saw a teenage girl leafing through a 3-ring binder full of CD-R's with band/album names drawn on the CD-R with a black marker.
And that means what exactly? Could it be that she is smart enough to leave her originals at home where they are safe? That's what I do. If my car CD-R's get damaged by sun or careless handling, I just burn a new one from my original. I'm sure a lot of people do this for exactly the same reason.
Old Lady #1: When my ex-husband passed away, the insurance company said his policy didn't cover him. Old Lady #2: They didn't have enough money for the funeral. Old Lady #3: It's so hard nowadays, with all the gangs and rap music.. Old Lady #1: What about the robots? Old Lady #4: Oh, they're everywhere! Old Lady #1: I don't even know why the scientists make them. Old Lady #2: Darren and I have a policy with Old Glory Insurance, in case we're attacked by robots. Old Lady #1: An insurance policy with a robot plan? Certainly, I'm too old. Old Lady #2: Old Glory covers anyone over the age of 50 against robot attack, regardless of current health. [ cut to Sam Waterston, Compensated Endorser ] Sam Waterson: I'm Sam Waterston, of the popular TV series "Law & Order". As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. [ SUPER: Limitied Benefits First Two Years ] You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time. [ show pie chart reading "Cause of Death in Persons Over 50 Years of Age": Heart Disease, 42% - Robots, 58% ] And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of grime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice. [ SUPER: "WARNING: Persons denying the existence of Robots may be Robots themselves. ] Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
You can download a RedHat iso legally because RadHat says you can.
Of course. Duh. That was my point, that there are too many people thinking that downloading ANY copyrighted file is necessarily illegal. By their reasoning, it is illegal for me to transfer MY OWN documents and other works, since they are also copyrighted. Never mind that I am the copyright holder. Get my drift?
[What I don't understand] Is how they're going to sort out whom has a legal copy of a song, and whom has an illegal copy of a song....
Maybe they will watermark the downloads individually. If they were really nasty (clever?), they would embed your credit card number into the watermark as as additional deterent from file sharing. (Nah, they aren't that evil...)
At least this might cut down on the number of retards that keep claiming that "downloading copyrighted files is illegal" (So downloading a Redhat ISO is illegal then?)
It is too late for Google to be "free" - they are already beholden to the masters of greed... They are not waiting out of goodwill - they are waiting until the pig is ready to be slaughtered.
I cannot argue with your observations at face value. They are essentially correct. And yet I feel the need to counter your dark outlook. Isn't it funny that these greedy butchers decided to make their fortunes by giving us a really useful, superior, and inoffensive alternative to the other search engines? Maybe "enlightened greed" isn't as bad as it may seem at first glance:-)
On the first month of home sales, Red Hat should offer fresh boxed copies of Linux (yes, with the usual support) to each new resident. Just drop off the promotional crate with the sales agent; it's just like some laundry detergent, barbecue briquette or furniture coupons that other subdivisions offer their new home-owning residents.
How about Linux missionaries riding their bicycles through the neighorhoods?
(The doorbell rings, two young men dressed in simple black and white clothes waiting.)
homeowner: Yes? missionary: Hello, sir. Have you ever tried Linux? homeowner: Isn't that a laundry detergent? missionary: Only in Germany, sir. Would you be interested to know that you don't have to buy Windows every two years? homeowner: I think you're an encyclopedia salesman! And I like Windows. missionary: Why not give Linux a try? Here, I'll install it for you. (pushes door open and runs for computer room) homeowner: Hey, get out of here! I'll call the police! (2 hours later...) homeowner: (robot voice) I like Linux. I hate Windows. RMS is a god. I must tell my friends. missionary: Very good sir! See you at the next LUG meeting, then!
How long do you think will it take for us to have 53 states in the USA ?
No, actually this could be an insightful question. But maybe not for the "obvious" reasons.
Living in Nevada, I am thoroughly disgusted with having Las Vegas in the same state. It has absolutely nothing in common with the rest of the state. Even Reno, large as it is, is not really that much different than the rest of us. Of course, money and people are the prime movers in politics, and Las Vegas has the muscle to pull Nevada in all kinds of ways. If it were my vote, I would split Nevada into two states, with the cutoff point just below Beaty (unless Beaty actually wanted to be in the same state as Las Vegas...)
A friend of mine lives in New York and he reports the same situation there. New York is primarily a rural state, with New York City calling the shots. I guess Rochester and Buffalo have some "city influence", but they apparently are more in tune with the state than New York City, which is so different that it really should be in a different state. And why shouldn't it be separate? Who knows, maybe the 'City residents would even agree that they may be better off on their own.
How about California? Would the residents be interested in drawing a line between the gridlocked overpopulated zones (with the big-city "attitude") and the rest of the state?
I believe that democracy only works when the people share common goals and outlook on life. When people have differences that cannot be reconciled, then democracy tends to allow those in the majority to overpower the others if they wish. Dividing the land into areas of relative "harmony" may help to reduce this problem.
Yes, nagware & time-bombware are two of the things that helped to ruin shareware, but, the biggest thing that ruined shareware, is the stupid crippleware, you download some application that you need, and then try to use over half of the features and you get "Can't use this feature because this is shareware, To use this feature, you must register it" even after they claim that shareware is "try before you buy".
Agreed. On one occasion, I was trying out "Cool Edit", an audio editing program from Syntrillium. Their crippled trial version was a pain in the ass, and I had to dig up a crack code to actually use it properly. Then I registered it a few days later. Syntrillium got their $50 from me, but on the other hand I could have just said "to hell with it!" and bought some other program.
Can't wait so spend a whole 9 hours watching for the full DVD release of LOTR!
I make that more like 19.5 (9 hours for the theatrical release, then 10.5 for the extended edition....)
It was nice of him to mention that there will be an "extended" (in other words, not cut as severely) version of Return of the King.
Quote: "...it'll be, four years all in all, over fours years, until we've done the final extended DVD on the Return of the King, which will be about this time next year..."
So remember to wait for the extended DVD to come out, and no whining that they are "forcing" us to buy both versions!
Slashdot Mirror
Not that that the product is bad, but few of them really tell anything more than what I can read on the product homepage.
Check out the user forums at www.prismiq.ORG (and click on "forums" on the left side.) There are a lot of PRISMIQ users active on the forums, and you are bound to see a lot of opinions. And you can always post your own questions and have a good chance someone will answer.
For the brave experimentors, there is also some information on controlling the PRISMIQ player from another host and a rather rough (or should I say "early"?) version of the server software that runs on i386 Linux (as opposed to the official Win32 server software).
Isn't it a bit insecure for it to scan the entire hard disk drive of an old Windows machine for media files?
:-)
The PRISMIQ software asks you which directory you want to scan and what file extensions to look for.
How secure is the communication if one decides to use it in its wireless incarnation?
Someone who could sniff your wireless traffic could probably snarf a copy of the audio and video streams. So if you're paranoid, don't stream your steamy home movies over wireless
If you are interested in seeing a lot of real users discussing the PRISMIQ box, go to www.prismiq.ORG and click on "forums".
The only problem is that it only has 1MB of ram and the cartridges are extraordinarily expensive ($150 for a 13 year old 1MB ram cartridge, wtf?)
:-)
Is this $45 module what you are looking for? Here is a good deal on toner cartriges.
I just got a used Laserjet 4 for a song myself, and I am very happy with "old iron"
Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50?
I would not. (Are you calling for some kind of Slashdot roll call here?)
I will not install WinXP on any of my computers. For now, I use an old copy of NT4 for those (thankfully few) occasions where I have to do Win32 development. I hope that it will do the job for a while to come, but if I am faced with some really bad incompatibility, my "last resort" is to buy a copy of Win2000, hopefully at a closeout price. But I hope things don't come to that. Getting back to the question of WinXP, my answer is "hell no!"
Right, because Swedish implies 'sweden,' whereas the Swiss are from Switzerland. ...Where they make the watches...
(If you're not a Python fan, never mind.)
I remember when I would talk to people about the World Wide Web and they would say something like, "oh, you mean Netscape? I've got that on my computer!"
Heh. I used to say (at least to myself), "WWW, that's WAIS, right? Yuck, I hate WAIS. Gopher is so much easier and useful..." Then years later, it was "I can use graphics to get info on the Internet with Mosaic? Cool! It will be a hassle to set up SLIP, though..."
I hate to say it but microsoft are in an extremely strong position to crush Google.
I don't agree. People who are happy with Google probably won't switch to MSN just because there is a new desktop icon. I don't see how these people will be affected much.
I can see how MS can influence new users, but how many new users are there compared with the established user base? I think that the market has matured, and while there will always be new users, I don't think they will be the critical factor they were several years ago.
>> ** You could do it, but there would be something missing. **
:-)
Nothing would be missing.
A zen moderator would mark this down as redundant
Laugh, it is a Zen joke.
I laugh, but somehow I am also not laughing.
I sure hope that one of the part distributors' factories doesn't suddenly explode out on some tiny unheard of little island in Asia or anything.
[ referring to the great memory price spike back in the mid-late 90's ]
I am pretty sure that the Sumitomo Chemical company fire was a complete lie. It's been a while (almost 10 years now?), but I seem to recal claims that this company produced half of the industry's integrated circuit epoxy, and that was the excuse for the dramatic increase in memory prices. This is the same epoxy ("plastic") that was used for all kinds of IC's, and I remember that the pricing on our 74LSxxx chips just about doubled, from maybe 15 cents to 25-30 cents each, due to the sudden price increase on the epoxy. Ouch!
Hmmm. That's interesting. The memory chips didn't use much more epoxy than our plain logic IC's, so you would expect the price to go up, what, maybe 25 to 50 cents each? So why did the memory prices nearly double instead of jumping a couple dollars per module? Hmmm.
I don't think this hard drive issue is large enough to suggest collusion, though. A few thousand drives really don't add up to much in the big picture, and in this case, there are warrantee costs as well. Interesting idea, though.
Were the quotes in context? Not to pick on your words specifically... :-)
.. libel. ... recall ... that ... Stallman ... knew that. ... embarassing ... someone ... is entirely legal. ... German law is ... SCO's ... arm here
Under US law, truth is
Although I
No,
Obviously my hack-up job is a ridiculous extreme, just to show how important context is.
First, a brokerage house cannot "borrow" shares from an account holder without that account holder's explicit permission.
Okay. I seem to remember something in my brokerage contract about allowing them to use my shares this way, but maybe this is an unusual thing, or maybe I read it wrong.
Third, stockbrokers are supposed to screen customers before they allow them to engage in riskier trading practices.
Yep, I have heard over and over from the experts that short selling can be an extremely risky business, no question about that.
Thanks for the info!
Suppose some of us believe SCO is lying. What's involved in "shorting" their stock?
SEC rules probably make this more complicated, but I think this is a pretty good simplification. Shorting stock is basically selling stock you don't have, with the intention of buying it back later (at a lower price). So you borrow stock from someone else and sell the stock. So how do you borrow stock? (Stockbrokers, please correct this as necessary...) When you do a "short", your stockbroker borrows shares from one of his other customers that has that stock. That stockholder probably does not even notice that his stock has been borrowed, and if the occasion comes up that the stock is needed, then your stockbroker will have to buy the stock immediately so that the stock "lender" is covered. This is one of the dangers of selling short, since a volatile stock may need to be re-bought any time the actual stock owner wants to do something with it, which may be RIGHT NOW. Or it might be some time that is really invonvenient for you, since the price is not where you want it to be. Tough luck. If you sell short, and the price goes up, you could be liable for many, many times your investment. Your stockbroker will probably hold the cash proceeds from your sale as insurance against this sort of thing. Compre this with simple investing, where you buy a stock and the worst case scenario is losing all of your investment. But if you sell short, it can get much worse if things go badly for you.
In fact, one of the best cheats for an FPS is "wallhacking". You install a modified graphics driver that negates the Z value of drawn objects.
That way, distant things appear in front of nearby ones, instead of the reverse. So you can prepare to fire at an enemy before he's even in view.
Here is a possible partial solution: have the server issue multiple randomly moving false images behind the "opaque" area. Normal people would never see them, but the cheaters would have to deal with many fake targes, making the illicit information less useful. Going a little farther, the server might even be able to move a fake image into the cheater's view (but somehow still invisible to normal players) and ban the cheater when he tries to shoot at it.
Could droping in its source tree the new version ffmpeg in lieu of the one that comes with it make Mplayer support native Sorenson 3 too?
Yep, if your code uses the libavcodec call av_register_all(), then when you use av_find_stream_info(), it will "just work". I tried yesterday's libavcodec out of CVS on the Quicktime Animatrix movie, and the video quality was pretty good. Pity about not having the QDesign audio codec, though...
The "what the fuck" clip has already even been remixed.
:-)
:-)
Heh, I was just about to ask that
Now here is a question for all the armchair lawyers. Since Madonna apparently recorded (and uploaded) this "song" for the express purpose of being shared on P2P, has she legally given blanket permission to the public to copy this file? Through her acts, has she surrendered her mechanical rights to the public? If so, then downloading and sharing this particular song would then NOT be a copyright violation, right? And this would make an interesting case where those "pirates" could at least make the (feeble) claim that they thought they were downloading Madonna's "what the fuck" song...
I saw a teenage girl leafing through a 3-ring binder full of CD-R's with band/album names drawn on the CD-R with a black marker.
And that means what exactly? Could it be that she is smart enough to leave her originals at home where they are safe? That's what I do. If my car CD-R's get damaged by sun or careless handling, I just burn a new one from my original. I'm sure a lot of people do this for exactly the same reason.
(Please forgive me for this cut and paste...)
Old Lady #1: When my ex-husband passed away, the insurance company said his policy didn't cover him.
Old Lady #2: They didn't have enough money for the funeral.
Old Lady #3: It's so hard nowadays, with all the gangs and rap music..
Old Lady #1: What about the robots?
Old Lady #4: Oh, they're everywhere!
Old Lady #1: I don't even know why the scientists make them.
Old Lady #2: Darren and I have a policy with Old Glory Insurance, in case we're attacked by robots.
Old Lady #1: An insurance policy with a robot plan? Certainly, I'm too old.
Old Lady #2: Old Glory covers anyone over the age of 50 against robot attack, regardless of current health.
[ cut to Sam Waterston, Compensated Endorser ]
Sam Waterson: I'm Sam Waterston, of the popular TV series "Law & Order". As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. [ SUPER: Limitied Benefits First Two Years ] You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time. [ show pie chart reading "Cause of Death in Persons Over 50 Years of Age": Heart Disease, 42% - Robots, 58% ] And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of grime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice. [ SUPER: "WARNING: Persons denying the existence of Robots may be Robots themselves. ] Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
One can ask for dob, but I don't see how you can validate it. How do you prove that the dob is not false.
:-)
You can ask three questions (that adults can answer), just like at the beginning of Leisure Suite Larry
You can download a RedHat iso legally because RadHat says you can.
Of course. Duh. That was my point, that there are too many people thinking that downloading ANY copyrighted file is necessarily illegal. By their reasoning, it is illegal for me to transfer MY OWN documents and other works, since they are also copyrighted. Never mind that I am the copyright holder. Get my drift?
[What I don't understand] Is how they're going to sort out whom has a legal copy of a song, and whom has an illegal copy of a song....
Maybe they will watermark the downloads individually. If they were really nasty (clever?), they would embed your credit card number into the watermark as as additional deterent from file sharing. (Nah, they aren't that evil...)
At least this might cut down on the number of retards that keep claiming that "downloading copyrighted files is illegal" (So downloading a Redhat ISO is illegal then?)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Any sufficiently large group of people is indistinguishable from idiots.
(Or more simply: "Masses are asses".)
It is too late for Google to be "free" - they are already beholden to the masters of greed... They are not waiting out of goodwill - they are waiting until the pig is ready to be slaughtered.
:-)
I cannot argue with your observations at face value. They are essentially correct. And yet I feel the need to counter your dark outlook. Isn't it funny that these greedy butchers decided to make their fortunes by giving us a really useful, superior, and inoffensive alternative to the other search engines? Maybe "enlightened greed" isn't as bad as it may seem at first glance
On the first month of home sales, Red Hat should offer fresh boxed copies of Linux (yes, with the usual support) to each new resident. Just drop off the promotional crate with the sales agent; it's just like some laundry detergent, barbecue briquette or furniture coupons that other subdivisions offer their new home-owning residents.
How about Linux missionaries riding their bicycles through the neighorhoods?
(The doorbell rings, two young men dressed in simple black and white clothes waiting.)
homeowner: Yes?
missionary: Hello, sir. Have you ever tried Linux?
homeowner: Isn't that a laundry detergent?
missionary: Only in Germany, sir. Would you be interested to know that you don't have to buy Windows every two years?
homeowner: I think you're an encyclopedia salesman! And I like Windows.
missionary: Why not give Linux a try? Here, I'll install it for you. (pushes door open and runs for computer room)
homeowner: Hey, get out of here! I'll call the police!
(2 hours later...)
homeowner: (robot voice) I like Linux. I hate Windows. RMS is a god. I must tell my friends.
missionary: Very good sir! See you at the next LUG meeting, then!
QUESTION OF THE DAY
How long do you think will it take for us to have 53 states in the USA ?
No, actually this could be an insightful question. But maybe not for the "obvious" reasons.
Living in Nevada, I am thoroughly disgusted with having Las Vegas in the same state. It has absolutely nothing in common with the rest of the state. Even Reno, large as it is, is not really that much different than the rest of us. Of course, money and people are the prime movers in politics, and Las Vegas has the muscle to pull Nevada in all kinds of ways. If it were my vote, I would split Nevada into two states, with the cutoff point just below Beaty (unless Beaty actually wanted to be in the same state as Las Vegas...)
A friend of mine lives in New York and he reports the same situation there. New York is primarily a rural state, with New York City calling the shots. I guess Rochester and Buffalo have some "city influence", but they apparently are more in tune with the state than New York City, which is so different that it really should be in a different state. And why shouldn't it be separate? Who knows, maybe the 'City residents would even agree that they may be better off on their own.
How about California? Would the residents be interested in drawing a line between the gridlocked overpopulated zones (with the big-city "attitude") and the rest of the state?
I believe that democracy only works when the people share common goals and outlook on life. When people have differences that cannot be reconciled, then democracy tends to allow those in the majority to overpower the others if they wish. Dividing the land into areas of relative "harmony" may help to reduce this problem.
Yes, nagware & time-bombware are two of the things that helped to ruin shareware, but, the biggest thing that ruined shareware, is the stupid crippleware, you download some application that you need, and then try to use over half of the features and you get "Can't use this feature because this is shareware, To use this feature, you must register it" even after they claim that shareware is "try before you buy".
Agreed. On one occasion, I was trying out "Cool Edit", an audio editing program from Syntrillium. Their crippled trial version was a pain in the ass, and I had to dig up a crack code to actually use it properly. Then I registered it a few days later. Syntrillium got their $50 from me, but on the other hand I could have just said "to hell with it!" and bought some other program.
Can't wait so spend a whole 9 hours watching for the full DVD release of LOTR!
I make that more like 19.5 (9 hours for the theatrical release, then 10.5 for the extended edition....)
It was nice of him to mention that there will be an "extended" (in other words, not cut as severely) version of Return of the King.
Quote:
"...it'll be, four years all in all, over fours years, until we've done the final extended DVD on the Return of the King, which will be about this time next year..."
So remember to wait for the extended DVD to come out, and no whining that they are "forcing" us to buy both versions!